WHY?

Historical investigation is the rigorous and independent minded investigation of our past that is not glued to traditions, beliefs, and faith claims. The ability to be open-minded and let the evidence reveal what it will is of paramount importance, no matter how uncomfortable the results may be. Sometimes that means going against preconceptions and the consensus.

Why did Sir Ronald Syme, the great historian and classicist, make the above statement in his highly controversial book The Roman Revolution, a book that went completely against the consensus views of Roman history at the time? He made the statement because the evidence showed it to be the case, that the Roman Empire was ruled by an oligarchy, that is, the empire was ruled by elite ruling families closely connected by blood and marriage.

But how did Syme reach his conclusion? He reached it by studying the political careers of the Roman elite, and the method he used is called 'prosopography'. This is method is not easy, but for understanding political history of that time it is essential and prosopography confronts two problems.

The first problem is the reason or reasons for political action, that is, uncovering the deeper interests that lie beneath political rhetoric. By uncovering these deeper interests, the social and economic connections of political groups can be analysed and exposed, and those calling the shots can be made known; modern politics is no different.

The second problem prosopography allows us to understand is social mobility and structure. Put simply, it allows a researcher to analyse the role in society of specific (most often elite) individuals and groups and the ambition of families to obtain positions of power. In essence, through prosopography an historian can understand the motives behind political action and expose the social reality of a situation.

The above is what Syme did to uncover the oligarchy behind Emperor Augustus' government.

 

Why Does This Matter?   

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If ancient Rome was indeed controlled by an oligarchy, and that oligarchy controlled all publishing, that changes the context of the historical narrative as is currently understood.

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The evidence presented on this site points to ancient Rome being run by an oligarchy, with very little hope of truthful information being presented forthrightly in anything that was written as it all came from an oligarchy who shared hidden motives. There were no specific rules regarding who could publish complex written works within the Roman Empire, both historical and religious. However, realistically the only people that had the means to 'publish' the histories and letters studied by modern historians, for example, the work of Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius etc., at the time were those of the elite class. That limits who could have written any literature for "public" use, including the early Christian scripture.

 

When the New Testament literature was being produced - apart from the fact that at that point, and it can be argued before and after, the emperor had the power to approve or disallow the production and publishing of any complex material - the composition of those writings, and general historical writings, would have required adequate storage of source materials - vell /papyrus, inks and supplies, as well as adequate storage for completed works.

Secretaries/scribes would also have been needed for any dictation and duplication. Any building in which this work took place would need to be well protected from the weather and provide adequate light and heat. There would also need to be a means of distribution.

Evidence to support the above statement regarding the emperor's control over publishing can be read in the following: Appian’s Cival Wars regarding Laena and Cicero; Tacitus’s Annals regarding Cremutius Cordus; Juvenal’s First Satire; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 53.19; bookshops were raided on occasion with undesirable books being destroyed.

 

Official book burning is recorded under Emperor Augustus and historians were considered to be particularly dangerous. We read of ‘Hermogenes of Tarsus’ being executed (Suet. Lives, 10.) Execution was enforced for libel and government officials selected and controlled what books appeared in libraries.  More can be read in the paper ‘Book Burning as Conflict Management in The Roman Empire’, Ancient Society, Vol. 43. 115-149.

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The above means the only people capable of producing the New Testament texts and histories of that time were those in control of the entire Mediterranean.

Although the study of history today is an official science, the methods used in mainstream academia have only marginally improved since Roman times. The ancient authors wrote comments portraying how they were supposedly studying the work of other ancient historians.

The information on this site, and in my book, presents evidence from primary, and respected, secondary sources, showing that the elite authors carefully crafted their histories and religious texts to include very important information that could not be understood from a superficial reading.

The primary texts present complex literary elements, including:

Isopsephy 

The practice of adding up the number values of the letters in a word to form a single number, i.e. 666 or 616

Gematria: assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher.

The use of multiple names to refer to one individual. An example is as follows: 

The distinguished Roman senator of the first century, Gaius Calpurnius Piso (known for the Pisonian Conspiracy against Emperor Nero), and his wife Arria the Younger are referred to by multiple names, including - Titia Flavia Sabina, who had married Gaius Calpurnius Piso (35-65 C.E.) of the house of Calpurnii, who was also recorded as Caesenni Paeti - Ref: An inscription presents the name ‘Paetus’, in regards to the marriage of Flavia Sabina (Arria the Younger), as a name used by the Pisone family - Flaviae T(iti) [f(iliae)]/Sabinae/Caesenni Paeti (uxori) Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 14, 02830; although the name on the inscription looks to have been connected to the wrong Piso family member. Also see - Syme, Sir Ronald. 1969: Domitius Corbulo, Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 60, 27-39; Pliny., Ep. 3.16.7.

 

Titia Flavia Sabina is also recorded as Arria the Younger, wife of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus (Gaius Calpurnius Piso) - Ref: Tacitus, Annals, 16.22, 34; Juvenal, 5.36; Satria Galla (Titia Flavia Sabina/Arria the Younger), is recorded as the wife of Calpurnius Piso - Ref: Tacitus, Annals, 15.59; Caecinia Arria is another name recorded for Titia Flavia Sabina/Arria the Younger - Ref: Tacitus, Annals, 16.34, note 69. And Livia Cornelia Orestilla - Ref: Dio Cassius, Roman History, 59.8.7; Kajava, Mika. 1984: The Name of Cornelia Orestina/Orestilla, Arctos, Vol. 18. She is recorded as the second wife of Emperor Caligula (12 - 41 C.E.) in 36 or 37 C.E., previously married to Gaius Calpurnius Piso. - Ref: Suetonius, Caligula, 25.1

 

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Vowel exchanging in names to create new names for one individual: 

A simple example to demonstrate this is in regards to the daughter of Gaius Calpurnius Piso and Arria the Younger, mentioned above. In history, their daughter is recorded as 'Fannia'. Her name would have been Flavia Arria, the feminine form of the name Flavius and Arria combined. The 'F' in 'Flavia' was used as an initial and left in front of her Arria name and the 'r's in her name were exchanged for 'n's, which created the name 'Fannia' (F.Annia).​ - Ref: information regarding a 'C. Fannius', a barrister who wrote the biographies of Nero's victims, is given in the 'Prosopographia Imperii Romani' (Edmund Groag in Prosopographia Imperii Romani, No. 2, F116). In there it reads:

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"C. Fannius (v, 5). Barrister who wrote biographies of Nero's victims.

Supposed a relative of Fannia, the daughter of the Patavine (P. [Publius] Clodius) Thrasea Paetus by his marriage with Arria, the daughter of A. [Aulus] Caecina Paetus (suff. 37) [T. Flavius Sabinus I]."

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The late Sir Ronald Syme, regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome, who researched this information, stated in his paper 'People in Pliny':​ "Why she should be called 'Fannia', no clue." Logically, a Roman daughter would take the name of her mother, which in this case would be Arria.

 

In his publication, Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta, Syme gave ten ways to decipher fictitious names. Contained in a chapter called 'Bogus Names', he stated:

IX. Perverted names. "One example is clear. Using Suetonius, the author changed 'Mummia' to 'Memmia'. That is a mere trifle in the devices of the HA...One trick is to modify the shape of familiar names..." - Ref: Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta. Clarendon Press. page 8.)

Very often, a historian will be frustrated by the fact that vital information about an important individual or event was not provided by an ancient author. This becomes even more puzzling because the ancient author chose to write about certain important individuals or events in the first place.

 

One very important reason appears to be the case with genealogical information. By leaving out important details, or providing them in a non-forthright way, the ancient Roman authors made it appear that certain individuals were not of 'royal blood', but still managed to become the emperor of Rome. An example of this being the case is in regard to Emperor Vespasian, who is presented in the ancient histories available to us as a military man who had "risen" to become Emperor, but that looks to be false.

 

We can argue that presenting Emperor Vespasian as a commoner would logically have given ordinary soldiers the hope that they too could perhaps one day, possibly, become emperor. The reality, however, was that Vespasian was already a royal, as this genealogy shows. Other genealogies that will be added to this website will show that all the Roman emperors and historians were related to each other and were members of the elite/aristocracy.

The information you will find on this site is not based on ideology, wishful thinking, or emotion. It is based not only on relevant scholarship and any consensus of experts in the field but also on the reading of primary texts, most easily accessed via the Loeb Classical Library. Using empirical evidence to draw conclusions and taking a scientific and well-reasoned approach towards this work is essential at all times. Another statement by the late Sir Ronald Syme is as follows:

 

'The written record has little more to disclose than the families of Seneca and Agricola or the pedigree of the Antonine emperors. One has recourse to inscriptions and the study of nomenclature' - Syme, Sir Ronald. 1979: Roman Papers, Vol. 2, Page 52