Seneca带你游罗马之Fasti Capitolini
这是对稍后发布的相册的简单介绍，fasti上的具体内容请看照片下的说明。
In the Salla della Lupa of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in the Capitoline Museums where the famous she-wolf is on display, the back and side walls are covered with inscriptions. To the unscrutinizing visitor, they are mere names and a hodgepodge of undecipherable Latin letters, but to the informed, they are an important document of Roman history, a record of the Republican summi viri and their achievements. These are fragments of the so-called Fasti Capitolini, which consist of the Fasti consulares and the Fasti triumphales, as well as a summary of the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games). The consular fasti are a chronological list of magistrates of Rome from the foundation of the Republic to 13 CE, a year before Augustus' death. The magistrates include consuls, decemviri (one of the four major colleges of the Roman priesthood) as well as military tribunes with consular power, censors, dictators and magistri equitum, the dictator’s deputy. The triumphal fasti record the names of Roman generals who have received triumphs or ovations (a lesser form of triumph), from Romulus to L. Cornelius Balbus in 19 BCE, after whose triumph no one outside the imperial family was allowed to celebrate it anymore (they would receive the triumphal insignia instead). However, one should bear in mind that the triumphs of the kings, as well as the earliest Republican ones, are largely mythical.
The Secular Games, were not, as the name might suggest, secular in the modern sense. They were performances of theatrical games and sacrifices that marked an end of a saeculum and the beginning of a new one. The saeculum is a span of either 100 (in the Republic) or 110 years (during the Empire, though the antiquarian emperor Claudius held the Games in the 800th year of the legendary founding of Rome).
These fragments were first unearthed in the mid-sixteenth century, and nowadays scholars are in favor of the theory arguing that they were from the Arch of Augustus in the Forum, probably either erected after his triple victories in Dalmatia, Egypt and Actium or the return of Roman standards by Parthia in 19, though an earlier theory that cannot be completely ruled out suggests that they were from the walls of the Regia, where the Pontifex Maximus and his college of pontiffs met. [1]
I spent a good deal of time decoding the inscriptions, trying to fill the lacunae wherever there was one. Although a firm supporter of the Principate, I cannot hide my admiration for our forefathers. Oh the Fabii, the Cornelii, the Appii Claudii, and the Caecilii Metelli! Glorious ancestors of the Quirites, rivals of the gods in virtue! Rich in poverty, fearless in death, thriving in adversity, you bring callused hands from the crooked plough to the sword hilt, and return to humble homes from triumphal cars. I need not look elsewhere for an exemplar, for you have taught me lessons of gravitas, magnanimity, constancy and equanimity.
[1] See in particular Christopher J. Simpson, “The Original Site of the Fasti Capitolini,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 42, H. 1 (1993), pp. 61-81.
In the Salla della Lupa of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in the Capitoline Museums where the famous she-wolf is on display, the back and side walls are covered with inscriptions. To the unscrutinizing visitor, they are mere names and a hodgepodge of undecipherable Latin letters, but to the informed, they are an important document of Roman history, a record of the Republican summi viri and their achievements. These are fragments of the so-called Fasti Capitolini, which consist of the Fasti consulares and the Fasti triumphales, as well as a summary of the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games). The consular fasti are a chronological list of magistrates of Rome from the foundation of the Republic to 13 CE, a year before Augustus' death. The magistrates include consuls, decemviri (one of the four major colleges of the Roman priesthood) as well as military tribunes with consular power, censors, dictators and magistri equitum, the dictator’s deputy. The triumphal fasti record the names of Roman generals who have received triumphs or ovations (a lesser form of triumph), from Romulus to L. Cornelius Balbus in 19 BCE, after whose triumph no one outside the imperial family was allowed to celebrate it anymore (they would receive the triumphal insignia instead). However, one should bear in mind that the triumphs of the kings, as well as the earliest Republican ones, are largely mythical.
The Secular Games, were not, as the name might suggest, secular in the modern sense. They were performances of theatrical games and sacrifices that marked an end of a saeculum and the beginning of a new one. The saeculum is a span of either 100 (in the Republic) or 110 years (during the Empire, though the antiquarian emperor Claudius held the Games in the 800th year of the legendary founding of Rome).
These fragments were first unearthed in the mid-sixteenth century, and nowadays scholars are in favor of the theory arguing that they were from the Arch of Augustus in the Forum, probably either erected after his triple victories in Dalmatia, Egypt and Actium or the return of Roman standards by Parthia in 19, though an earlier theory that cannot be completely ruled out suggests that they were from the walls of the Regia, where the Pontifex Maximus and his college of pontiffs met. [1]
I spent a good deal of time decoding the inscriptions, trying to fill the lacunae wherever there was one. Although a firm supporter of the Principate, I cannot hide my admiration for our forefathers. Oh the Fabii, the Cornelii, the Appii Claudii, and the Caecilii Metelli! Glorious ancestors of the Quirites, rivals of the gods in virtue! Rich in poverty, fearless in death, thriving in adversity, you bring callused hands from the crooked plough to the sword hilt, and return to humble homes from triumphal cars. I need not look elsewhere for an exemplar, for you have taught me lessons of gravitas, magnanimity, constancy and equanimity.
[1] See in particular Christopher J. Simpson, “The Original Site of the Fasti Capitolini,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 42, H. 1 (1993), pp. 61-81.
