Aurelian

I love the name Aurelian. Its popularity in France is one of those little things that make me think that, if I were ever to be banished from the UK, France is where I would choose to live. And did you know that the name of Orleans is derived from Aurelian's reconstruction of that city? I didn't until I read it in wikipedia.

Emperor from 270-275. Not much of a reign you might think, but by the standards of the third century that was pretty good going. Compared to the incredible detail we have of events in the late republic we don't know what the hell's going on for a lot of the time in the third century, it's even possible there were emperors we don't know about (if the case of Domitianus II is not unique).

Aurelian's time was taken up with incessant warfare - he reconquered the breakaway provinces of the Gallic empire and the Palmyran empire, earning him the legend: Restitutor Orbis. Restorer of the world. It's actually written Restitutor Bis on the coin, which could also be translated Restorer twice. Perhaps they intended the double meaning. The vendor I bought it from identified it as the coin type RIC 386 Antioch and that certainly matches the reverse design. The portrait there though seems more stylised than any of the other examples I've seen. More modern looking somehow. He looks cool anyway. (He looks a bit like Lee Mavers.)

Queuing for coffee the other day I whiled away the time studying a 50p piece. The reverse bore a decent enough design commemorating something or other. But the portrait, in contrast to Aurelian's troubled visage, was so incredibly bloody boring. As befits our monarch I suppose. Maybe it comes down to the fact that Aurelian wielded real power, dashing about hither and thither vanquishing barbarians. His cuirass - actual armour that almost certainly fended off blows from enemies' swords and arrows etc. I am of course down on autocracy and imperialism, but you've got to concede that Aurelian served the empire, I'm fairly sure he put in a lot more than he got out. Our own dear, drab queen's bland irrelevance on the other hand shines through in her portraits. Why oh why can't we be rid of them?

After his name and this portrait of him the third thing I like about Aurelian is the wall he built around Rome. When I went to Rome my mind was anyway in a state of continuous blown-ness, but the proximity of our hotel to a decent section of the wall made me very happy indeed. The impressiveness of the wall was added to a generation or so later by the emperor Maxentius, another of my favourite emperors.

Word of the day

Speleology - the scientific study of caves, from Greek Spelaion for cave.  Spotted today in an interesting article about Caracalla's Baths in the Guardian.  You'll pardon my ignorance, my Oxford book of Ologies & Isms leaps from spectr(o) to -sperm.  Before today, if challenged to come up with a word for the study of caves, I'd probably have gone for Troglology.

York

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was going camping for a stag weekend. Well, it was dead good and surprisingly civilized - I actually came back feeling healthier then when I'd set off. Probably the best moment was getting up on the first morning and, while everyone else was still snoring in their tents, making myself a cup of tea with my little stove and kettle and drinking it with a cigarette and a couple of chocolate hobnobs.

Anyway this weekend was the wedding. It was great - I enjoy weddings. As always I drank too much and went to bed very late. I had a bit of a hangover but that was largely vanquished by the hotel breakfast. I'm sure it was fear of a killer hangover that led to me booking my return ticket for the afternoon - but I overdid the caution and a five o'clock train left me with quite a few hours to kill. The wedding was in York. I love that name: York, such a weird little word.

My hotel was two hundred yards from the Minster and after a walk by the river to clear my head and a read of the paper I thought I might as well check the place out. I think I'd probably been in before (my parents were avid cathedral spotters in my youth and they're all a bit of a blur). There's a very good statue of Constantine the Great outside the Minster. He's lounging on a throne, menacingly toying with a sword. In Rome the colossal head of Constantine was one of the things that I really wanted to see. Sadly it was being tarted up for the millenium and not on display, I think they were painting the walls or something. I prefer the statue in York but the colossal head is more imperial - I think it's the vacant expression on his face. If I were a hostile mustachioed tribesman the colossal head would have given me the more pause for thought. Seated Yorkshire Constantine looks cruel and formidable but human. Colossal Roman Constantine just looks utterly untouchable.

All cathedrals are worth a visit and it's a strange person who isn't a little awestruck at the proportions of these places and the intricate craftsmanship to be seen everywhere you look. I was creeping about in the crypt when evensong started and it was an unearthly sound and very beautiful. It's strange though - it would never occur to me to listen to a recording of it. It only seems to make sense in a church. It's things like this that make me wonder if I'll ever go to church again. Going through bookcases at my parents' a few years ago I realised, by looking at the inscriptions in prize books, that I'd attended Sunday School for at least four years. I can't remember the point at which I stopping believe in God. I do remember I was about five when I first realised about death and how upset I was. My mum told me not to worry as it would be a long time before I died, to which I thought: "You're missing the point". And she was and no doubt deliberately because of course there is no answer. There are so many beautiful and reassuring things about Christianity but, call me old fashioned, I think you should only go if you believe in it all.

Memento mori

I try not to be materialistic but I love this thing. It's a silver denarius from the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. The design on the reverse (not shown - I couldn't get a decent photo) depicts the personification of Roma standing with a spear and a ceremonial dagger called a parazonium. This particular design dates the coin to between AD125 and 128. Every time I look at and hold this small coin it absolutely blows my mind. The gulf of time that exists between its creation and my possession of it. One day a living breathing Roman dropped it then something like 1800 years later another human being picked it out of the earth.

Whenever I think about Rome I think about the fall of Rome. And then I think about our own civilization. To me it seems inevitable that the West will fall, but only because that's what always happens. At the same time I see our society as so backed up and dug in I can't imagine (barring the total destruction of life on the planet) how it could all be washed away and left as mere fragments for future archaeologists to puzzle over.