THE DYNASTY OF THE ‘GRAND REGENT’ RULERS IN ELAM

To posterity the history of Persia at the time when the First Dynasty of Babylon held sway in Mesopotamia seems to narrow itself down to the history of Elam, and indeed almost down to the history of Susiana, the Elamite plain which bordered on Mesopotamia. Whatever took place in the mountainous parts of the country at this time remains shrouded in impenetrable obscurity. From the whole of Persia not a single archaeological monument has come down to us for this period, not even from Susiana. From only one Elamite ruler during the Early Babylonian period has a record in the Elamite language survived. Apart from this our sources from the country itself (leaving aside certain indications in Elamite inscriptions of the later, ‘classical’ period of the thirteenth to the twelfth centuries) consist of 837 clay tablets, written in Akkadian and in many cases damaged. Of these, somewhat more than half are legal documents, the remainder commercial texts; nearly all come from Susa, only a few from Mālamīr (possibly the ancient Khukhnur).

In view of this state of affairs with regard to the sources, the main task of the next section in this chapter must be to trace a picture of the legal system in ancient Elam. However, the records in question also provide important information about its political history, in so far as the Elamites often took oath by invoking the reigning princes.

THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE

In attempting a history of the Mycenaean age we are still largely confined to the history of material culture, to the generalized story of the establishment of settlements, to their destructions and rebuildings, which are often dated only in terms of the successive styles of pottery used by the inhabitants. From the ruins of houses and palaces we can reconstruct their appearance when stone, brick, and timber were new; we can in patches see what fresco pictures brightened their walls. Fragments of carved ivory give hints of the adornment of wooden furniture long since burned or rotted into ashes and dust; some weapons, tools and vessels of metal survive, though most when outworn would have gone for scrap to the melting pot, unless laid underground with the dead; and though tombs may be robbed, we do sometimes, if rarely, find in them vessels or ornaments of gold or the more corruptible silver. We have, moreover, in various materials, these peoples’ own picture of themselves and their activities; we can, from their precious objects, their houses and fortifications and their monumental tombs, assess at least in degree their wealth and power, their pride and their fears, in this world and the next; we can trace from objects of commerce—or from such of them as are less perishable—how far they travelled and traded, what other cities of men they knew; to the extent that history is the account of ‘what it was like to be there then’, we can write their history.

THE LAST YEARS OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY

When, in 1798 B.C., King Makherure Ammenemes IV ascended the throne of Egypt his father and grandfather before him had ruled the land for the greater part of a century. It is inevitable that he himself should have been well advanced in age at the time of his accession and it is hardly surprising that his reign, including a period of co-regency with his father, did not exceed ten years. In spite of its brevity, an understandable absence of brilliant achievement, and a slight falling off in the quality of the works of art produced, the reign shows little evidence of a serious decline in Egyptian prosperity and prestige. The monuments of Ammenemes IV are fairly numerous and frequently of excellent workmanship. They include a small, but handsome, temple at Medīnet Ma‘ādi in the Faiyūm which he and his father together dedicated to the harvest-goddess Renenutet. At Semna in the northern Sudan the height of the Nile was recorded in the king's fifth regnal year, and at Sinai working parties of Years 4, 6, 8, and 9 have left testimonials of continued activity in the turquoise mines.

Syria evidently acknowledged Egypt's ascendancy as of old. Beirut has yielded a gold pectoral and a small diorite sphinx of Ammenemes IV and in the tomb of Prince Ypshomuibi of Byblos were found a gold-mounted obsidian casket and a fine grey stone vase with his cartouches.

THE OLD HITTITE KINGDOM (CONTINUED)

In this chapter we take up again the history of the Hittite Kingdom from the moment when an usurper first assumed the throne by violent means. Owing to the recovery in recent years of a well-preserved contemporary text we have been able to follow the events of at least part of the reign of Khattushilish I in considerable detail. The figure of this ancient ruler dominates the period of the Old Kingdom, down to the accession of Telepinush, principally on account of this much fuller documentation. For his successors we are dependent almost entirely on the Edict of Telepinush, described above; but following the murder of Murshilish I, even this precious document becomes mutilated, and though no less than seven paragraphs were devoted to the reign of his successor, Khantilish I, as compared with only three to Khattushilish, little consecutive sense can be made from them. Khantilish had been a cup-bearer and was married to a sister of Murshilish named Kharapshilish. It is likely, therefore, that Khantilish was a man of about the same age as his predecessor. The narrative of Telepinush is concerned to stress the impious and monstrous nature of the act of blood committed by Khantilish and his son-in-law, Zidantash, rather than to present the history of his reign in an objective manner. It even omits to mention that he became king, but this fact can hardly be doubted, since his wife is referred to as the queen.

THE NATURE OF THE MIDDLE CYPRIOT PERIOD

The transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age in Cyprus is a most difficult process to define, for the later period evolves from the earlier without cultural break or natural disaster to provide a landmark. Although very few settlement sites have been investigated, it seems clear from the evidence of cemeteries which were used both in E.C. and M.C. that the transition in material culture was gradual. Probably the least unsatisfactory way of drawing the distinction between the two periods is by recognizing the decorated pottery known as White Painted II ware as diagnostic of M.C. I. Other material aspects of M.C. I are almost indistinguishable from those of E.C. III.

The Middle Cypriot period has been divided into three phases, I, II and III. M.C. I appears to have lasted from c. 1850 b.c. until c. 1800, while M.C. II covers the period c. 1800–1700; estimates for the duration of M.C. III vary between c. 1700–1600 and c. 1700–1550 b.c. The opening date is fairly closely tied to Minoan chronology in view of the imported Early Minoan III (Middle Minoan la) bridge-spouted jar from a tomb at Lapithos identified as transitional E.C. III A–B, and the Middle Minoan II Kamares cup from a late M.C. I tomb at Karmi. The date of the end of the M.C. period is determined by the contexts in Palestine and Egypt in which the earliest L.C. objects have been found; in Egypt, these are no earlier than the 17th Dynasty, and a date in the middle of the sixteenth century b.c. for the end of the M.C. period seems desirable.

INTRODUCTION

Transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age in Aegean lands came about gradually at some places but suddenly and with violence at others. There can be no doubt that new people came into the land. The process of change, which is reflected by archaeological evidence from many parts of the region, cannot have been simple. Rather, as was generally the case when migrations took place, the newcomers arrived in groups of various sizes, probably over an appreciable period of time. The people whom they found in possession also varied in the size and prosperity of their communities, some ready to resist while others deemed it necessary or prudent to make terms with the foreigners. Unquestionably the immigrants in the present instance were strong and the pressure of the movement was unrelenting.

The culture which they brought and the period in which it flourished on the Greek mainland are called Middle Helladic (M.H.). In the islands of the central Aegean the corresponding term is Middle Cycladic (M.C.). Roughly parallel and contemporary was the age of the first great palaces in Crete, known by Sir Arthur Evans's designation as Middle Minoan (M.M.). The limits of this period cannot be determined precisely, but it is known to have spanned the early centuries of the second millennium B.C., the time of the 12th Dynasty and of the Hyksos in Egypt, and in Mesopotamia the Isin–Larsa period and the 1st Dynasty of Babylon.

THE second volume of this History begins with events which occurred at a time when the Amorite dynasties in Western Asia were vying with each other for supremacy, making and breaking alliances but nevertheless maintaining the great Sumero-Akkadian culture which they had inherited from the conquered populations. It was the era of the Western Semites and, in particular, of the most outstanding of the Semitic dynasties, that of Hammurabi, the 'lawgiver'. The Semites were, however, not destined to remain in control for long. Foreigners from the north-east, the Kassites, soon took possession of Babylonia and held it under their sway for five centuries, thereby establishing the longest dynastic succession in the history of the land. Meanwhile, in Anatolia, the rise of the Hittites marked the beginning of the first Indo-European empire which was eventually to deal a death blow to Amorite rule in Babylon.

Disturbances in Western Asia soon began to affect life in the Nile Valley. Asiatic elements moved southwards until they occupied most of the Delta and penetrated into Middle and Upper Egypt, asserting their authority as they went. Manetho called these Asiatic settlers the Hyksos, and he claimed that they achieved their domination 'without a battle'. While there is nothing in contemporary evidence to suggest that they established their position by any other way than by a process of gradual infiltration, they were certainly helped by the possession of superior weapons, notably the horse-drawn chariot, and by Egypt's political and military weakness at the time.

The starting point for the second regular sequence – the clerical posts – is the grade of adiutor. ‘Adiutor’ is basically a generic term meaning ‘assistant’, and is used for a wide variety of posts in the civil and military administration. It is always further defined, sometimes by a noun in the genitive (e.g. tabulariorum, praefecti, principis, procuratoris, etc.), sometimes by the name of an administrative or domestic office (e.g. a rationibus, a cognitionibus, ab admissione, a vinis, a lagona, etc.). The problem is to sort these out according to rank in the administrative hierarchy. But before we can make any progress we must examine critically the seniority and regular status of the adiutores procuratoris because of their disturbing effect on the status of the rest.

The examples are as follows:

1. (1) VI 8470 = d 1535; cf. 143 = d 3896 a: Carpus Aug. lib. Pallantianus, adiutor Claudi Athenodori praef(ecti) annonae. (Nero.)

2. (2) III 431 = 7116 = 13674 = d 1449 (Ephesus): Hermes Aug. lib., adiut(or) eius (sc. [Valerii Eudaemonis]…proc. heredit(atium) et proc. pro[vin]ciae Asiae, proc. Syriae). (Pflaum, CP No. 110, pp. 264–71; late Hadrian.)

3. (3) CIG 11 1813b = LBW 11 1076 = d 8849 (Nicopolis, Epirus): Μνησὴρ Σεβαστοῦ ἀπελ[εύθε]ρος, βοηθὸς αὐτοῦ (sc. A. Ofellii Maioris Macedonis, proc. prov. Epiri, proc. prov. Ponti et Bithyniae, a voluptatibus). (Pflaum, CP No. 112, pp. 272–4; Hadrian.)

4. […]

In Roman society of all periods the nuclear family constituted the basic social unit whether in freeborn, freed or slave society, whether the members were citizen or non-citizen. We are not here concerned with familia in the sense of household or that slave–freedman unit under the control of the paterfamilias. It is evident that in the exercise of his potestas the dominus had originally a complete authority over his own slave household that could have profound effects on the intimate family life of his own slaves and freedmen. He could break up these units by selling children to other masters, forbid marriages with slaves of other masters, and in general act out his absolute legal powers to the point of inflicting the death penalty. But there came increasing legal restraints on arbitrary conduct by masters, and also an increasing obligation on the part of the master, in his own economic self-interest, to conform to the domestic law of his own familia. This meant the recognition of his slave's right to his peculium or savings, with the primary purpose of buying his manumission, and no doubt the recognition of the existence of family ties as well among his slave family units, including their marriages and children. The fact that so many slaves themselves were owners of slaves would help to give a humanitarian balance to the way the system worked. These aspects as they concern the Familia Caesaris have been discussed in the Introduction.

The next question to consider is the age at marriage of the slaves and freedmen of the Familia, and whether this occurred in general before or after manumission. It is important also to compare, if possible, the age of female slaves at marriage with that of male slaves and to estimate, if the evidence permits, the average differential in age between slave-born husband and wife.

In the strict sense of iustum matrimonium between partners with conubium, which alone was recognised as legally valid in Roman law with all the legal consequences (e.g. law of succession) that were involved therein, it is not possible to speak of slave marriage at all, but only of contubernium or concubinage. This applied when one or both parties were of slave status. But the terminology of legal marriage (e.g. ‘uxor’, ‘maritus’, ‘coniunx’, etc.) is so constantly used of contubernium in the inscriptions and even in the legal texts themselves that it is convenient to speak normally of slave marriage and to use such terms as ‘contubernium’ and ‘matrimonium’ only when the distinction is relevant to the argument.

The direct evidence for age at marriage in the Familia Caesaris is small and is derived from inscriptions mentioning both the age at death of one of the partners and the number of years of married life they enjoyed. The difference between the two figures represents the age at marriage.

Two kinds of dated inscriptions are important for the Familia Caesaris: (a) those that can be dated to within a particular year; (b) those that can be dated to within a particular reign. The value of both kinds is that they provide fixed points of reference for the use of particular formulae in nomenclature. They help to establish the chronological range of usages which in suitable circumstances, either individually or in combination, can then become secondary dating criteria. This applies to the nomen gentilicium, status indication, agnomina, occupational titles and abbreviations.

(a) Precise dating of the inscriptions to within a particular year is comparatively rare for the Familia Caesaris. The commonest form is by the names of consuls, less frequently by the tribunician year of the emperor. But these inscriptions are usually official or quasi-official, including fasti of various kinds, municipal honours, records of collegia especially burial colleges, quarry-marks, brick-stamps and even a military diploma. There are also administrative and private records, including a group of papyrus documents from Egypt in the reign of Augustus. In a few cases the emperor's regnal year in Egypt provides a date. Less than half of these dated inscriptions are private dedications, of which many are those of the form ‘pro salute imp(p).’ in vogue after 161. These do not often contain details of family interest. The other key group, the sepulcrales, is the smallest – only seventeen are precisely dated for both freedmen and slaves.

COGNOMINA

From the middle of the first century ad the cognomen had replaced the praenomen as the personal name for both freedmen and freeborn. This was true even in the equestrian and senatorial classes, as the nomenclature of Vespasian's family illustrates. This change occurred much earlier with the freedmen, who retained their slave name as their personal name or cognomen.

The social significance of cognomina, particularly those of Greek derivation, as has been mentioned above, is a matter of controversy. The high proportion of Greek-derived cognomina in the sepulchral inscriptions of Rome and elsewhere in the empire, together with the inter-generational change in the relative proportions of Greek and Latin cognomina, has led to the conclusion that a Greek cognomen is likely to indicate slave origin or freedman descent within two or three generations. The general weaknesses of this conclusion have been discussed above. But the high proportion of Greek personal names in the Familia Caesaris does nothing to disprove it.

Besides the controversy over whether some cognomina can be specified as servile in origin, there is the corresponding question whether some cognomina can be considered to have a distinctively freeborn or even upper-class connotation – the so-called ‘cognomina ingenua’ and ‘cognomina equestria’. The Familia Caesaris might be thought to have an illustrative role here, especially with those rare freedman members who were elevated to equestrian status. The test case is the cognomen ‘Marcianus’ taken by the freedman Icelus on his gaining equestrian rank under Galba.

In the foregoing discussion on dating certain assumptions have been made about the membership of the Familia Caesaris which must now be examined. How can we identify Imperial freedmen and slaves and what limits are to be set to the range of persons included in this study? This is of basic importance, not least because of the frequently made assumption that many persons, especially in the eastern provinces, who possess Imperial nomina are by that fact alone Imperial freedmen, particularly if their place of residence or their occupation can be in any way connected with the emperor or the emperor's property. In some cases this is undoubtedly true, but in most cases we cannot be sure. They may be enfranchised provincials or not even Roman citizens at all. If in Rome all persons with an Imperial nomen and a Greekderived cognomen were Imperial freedmen, there would scarcely be standing room for anyone else in the Flavian amphitheatre. Some more positive means of identification is required. This is provided by what may conveniently be called the ‘status indication’.

In Roman nomenclature generally status is commonly indicated for ingenui by filiation – the word ‘f(ilius)’ or ‘f(ilia)’ preceded by the father's praenomen which is usually abbreviated. This filiation is included in the full nomenclature after the nomen and before the tribal indication and cognomen, e.g. M. Tullius M. f. Cicero. This filiation indicates his freeborn status.

What were the posts which gave access to the promotion scale, and how were they recruited? In the first place one can rule out the sub-clerical workers – the non-clerical, non-financial, non-professional; for example, the pedisequi, custodes, nomenclatores, tabellarii, and most of the often-quoted specialists who served on the purely domestic staff of the Palace. A gap, or occupational discontinuity, opened between the sub-clerical and the clerical staff of the administration and it was rare indeed for anyone to jump it.

The age figures suggest this. Typical are those for the pedisequi (attendants), a dozen of whom died at ages evenly spread from 20 to 70. They are all slaves, and the high proportion – more than half – who were aged over 40 indicates an occupation unskilled and unremunerative, without prospects but perhaps not excessively strenuous, and congenial to the unambitious. One exception to the rule is instructive. A certain Eutychus, as a slave, was pedisequus a vinis – sub-clerical. He is found later as T. Aelius Aug. lib. Eutychus, still in the same department, as adiutor a vinis. That is to say, after some years as attendant in the department of the Imperial wine supply, in his thirties probably, and after manumission, he rose to the bottom rung on the clerical ladder, a grade usually occupied at the beginning of their careers while still slaves by those fortunate enough to be professional civil servants all their lives from their initial appointment in their late teens.