Reviews
062
The Roman Baths of Hammat Gader: Final Report
Yizhar Hirschfeld, ed.
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1997) 504 pp., $90
In a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, three rabbis debate the achievements of the Roman Empire. One of the rabbis praises Roman architecture—the empire’s great markets, bridges and baths. The second rabbi stays silent, but the third raises an objection: “All that they have instituted they have instituted for their own needs. They have instituted market places to place harlots in them; baths, for their own pleasure; bridges, to collect toll.”
This harsh assessment of Roman bathing is not at all corroborated by other Jewish textual evidence, which suggests that Jews frequently visited Roman-style baths. (No doubt this behavior, together with that brand of debauchery bathhouses were famous for, raised all kinds of religious quandaries requiring consideration in the pages of the Talmud, Tosefta and Mishnah.) The baths of ancient Palestine are found in similar contexts to those of baths found all over the Roman Empire—in cities, towns, villages and hamlets; in fortresses and forts; in way stations, sanctuaries and remote outposts; and in rustic villas and urban houses. Such widespread dissemination attests to the popularity of the bathing habit. It is also clear that access to bathing establishments was not limited to the Romans. For example, children’s teeth and women’s accouterments found at baths attached to military installations in Wales show that these facilities were accessible to all, not just Roman soldiers.
Although many Roman bath complexes have been identified in Israel, none has yet received as thorough a treatment as this lavish volume gives to the spa-baths at Hammat Gader. About four miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee, the baths at Hammat Gader arose from five natural springs. The complex stood on the main road connecting Tiberias with Gadara and attracted droves of visitors seeking relief from the sweltering Middle Eastern heat. Many sought relief from a variety of ailments in the baths’ curative waters. Hammat Gader, then, was more than just a run-of-the-mill Roman bathhouse; it was a kind of ancient health spa. By the fourth century C.E., the neo-Platonist author Eunapius ranked it second only to the Italian luxury resort of Baiae in terms of its fame, splendor and curative efficacy.
The text gives a comprehensive description of the ruins unearthed over four years of excavation, from 1979 to 1982. Hirschfeld provides discussions of how the baths were built and supplied with water, a room-by-room analysis of the standing architectural remains, and drawings of the reconstructed halls and interior spaces.
The artifacts found at the site are impressive. The large number of Greek and Arabic inscriptions receive superbly detailed treatments (each entry contains a photograph, drawing, translation and commentary, along with the surviving and reconstructed texts). Roman and Muslim coins, oil lamps, pottery, glass, marble decoration and statuary are also presented in detail. Placed within the wider context of medicinal hot springs in the Greco-Roman world, Hammat Gader emerges as a cultural center, as well as a house of leisure and healing.
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The atmosphere at the baths must have been festive and spirited. Gaming pieces have been found, probably used in conjunction with game boards carved into the pavement of two of the main rooms. Nearly 5,000 Roman, Byzantine and Arab coins were found, mostly in the complex’s pools—perhaps the ancient analogue of throwing coins into a well to make a wish.
The 72 Greek inscriptions, carved mostly on the flagstones of one of the entrance halls by professional masons, were commissioned by bathers grateful for the waters’ healing powers. (One ancient writer claimed that Hammat Gader was a place crowded with people hawking their goods and services; engravers were evidently among them.) Largely formulaic, the inscriptions immortalize a variety of people, some humble (such as entertainers and stonemasons), some august (such as imperial officials and local magnates). Most celebrated of all, however, is the empress Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II (408–450 C.E.), who visited Hammat Gader in the middle of the fifth century and commissioned an inscription in verse praising the remedial effects of the waters and the beauty of the complex.
The many dedicatory inscriptions tell us that visitors to the complex included Syrians, Pamphilians, Romans, Armenians and even Romanized Goths. Pagans also enjoyed these baths, as did Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims—suggesting the staggering ethnic diversity of a region once controlled by the Romans. Arabic graffiti and other Muslim finds bring the history of the site into the eighth century, bridging the gap between Roman-Byzantine bathing habits and their modern descendant in the Islamic hammam.
The volume, of course, is not flawless. Frustratingly, there is no general index, making it difficult to use the book as it was intended—as a reference work. Interpretative discrepancies also occur, which may confuse some readers. For instance, the oft-confused term thermae (meaning, basically, “bath”) is used, apparently, to denote exclusively thermal baths in some cases but non-thermal baths in others. Hirschfeld claims that one of the major rooms in the complex (Area D) contained “the large tepid pool” mentioned in the Eudocia inscription, yet later he refers to this room as a cold room (frigidarium). Similarly, small ivory finds are identified at one point as gaming pieces but elsewhere as buttons.
These quibbles aside, Hirschfeld’s book is an excellent model of how archaeological publication should be carried out. It couples a comprehensive description of the site with copious illustration—580 photographs, color plates, drawings, plans and tables. All of the finds are fully assessed, and the findspots are recorded in detail. Hirschfeld and his 12 collaborators integrate the inscriptional and other written evidence with the archaeological material, providing the reader with not only a historical overview of this important site, but an appreciation of its wider significance in the history and culture of the region.
The Odes of Horace
David Ferry
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997) 344 pp., $35
Long before he arrived in Hollywood and provided Dead Poets’ Society with its carpe diem message, Horace’s reputation was firmly established. Since his own time, Horace has enjoyed a central place in the canon of Latin writers, prompting endless translators throughout the millennia to render his poetry into something other than Latin.
Born in 65 B.C.E. in southeastern Italy, Quintus Horatius Flaccus was the son of a prosperous former slave. He completed his education in Athens, where he was enlisted to fight on the side of Brutus at the Battle of Philippi, following the assassination of Julius Caesar. Despite choosing the losing side in the civil war, Horace took a civil service position upon his return to 064Italy. As with his contemporary Virgil, Horace’s skill as an artist attracted the patronage of Maecenas, the emperor Augustus’s one-man National Endowment for the Humanities. The support of Maecenas, to whom the first of the Odes is addressed, allowed Horace to devote his talent to writing poems.
And that talent was immense. Extremely prolific right up until his death in 8 B.C.E., Horace wrote four books of odes, two books of satires, a series of epodes (lyric poems), numerous epistles, the so-called Ars Poetica (a work of literary criticism, following in the tradition of Aristotle) and the Carmen Saeculare (a choral lyric for 54 voices). He took great strides in adapting the suppleness of Greek meters to Latin poetry, though his themes and language are distinctly Roman. Having lived through a period of great political ferment, Horace composed poems that seem to reflect a kind of peaceful resolution to the turmoil of the late Republic and the civil wars—a resolution brought about by the reign of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus.
So one might well be eager to read an English translation of Horace’s poetry. But is David Ferry’s the one to read? The answer to that question may depend on what one expects from a translation and how well one knows Latin.
In Festivals of the Jewish Year, Theodore H. Gaster cites the Talmudic argument that whoever “translates a verse literally is a liar,” reminding us that translation is a fine and complex art. Recently, there has been a proliferation of impressive translations of important Greek and Latin authors: Stanley Lombardo’s Iliad, Robert Fagles’s Odyssey, Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid. The fact that we tend to refer to these poems by the translators’ names reminds us that we cannot read the “real” Homer or Ovid or Horace in English. (Of course, even if we read them in the original language we must still rely on redacted versions of what the authors themselves composed.)
David Ferry tells us that he hopes his translation will be “remarkably close” to what Horace wrote. Still, a strict literalness of translation is not what we should expect, or what we get, from Ferry, who is a poet but not a philologist. For precise translations of Horace, perhaps at the expense of good poetry, one should consult the Loeb Classical Library. As in the Loeb books, Ferry opposes each page of English with the Latin text, allowing even readers with only a smattering of Latin to see how closely he approaches the original. But Ferry is not aiming for as literal a translation as possible: He is writing good poetry, which he hopes comes as close as possible to grasping the spirit of Horace.
Ferry had already earned acclaim for a powerful and persuasive translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh when he turned to Horace. In the introduction to his translation of the Odes, he reveals a sensitive understanding of the life and work of Horace, who is surely not an easy poet to translate. Horace’s tone changes abruptly from stanza to stanza—Ferry calls him a “dazzling shifter, almost, sometimes, a shape-shifter.” Nor is the poet’s viewpoint always easy to discern, partly because of the subtlety of his expression and apparent air of detachment. Horace’s famous irony and wit, moreover, do not carry well out of Latin into other languages.
These translations, nonetheless, are good poems, and in many instances Ferry comes close to reproducing Horace’s original. Like Horace, Ferry plays successfully with diverse metrical forms. And Ferry’s choice and placement of words (which in the original Latin, an inflected language, is an integral part of the poetry) is often astute; sometimes he is able to approximate remarkably closely Horace’s own arrangements of words. On the other hand, there are moments when Ferry seems to miss the point of the Latin—when his choices produce a poem that departs too far, for my taste, from Horace himself.
A look at a couple of poems will demonstrate some of the strengths and weaknesses of Ferry’s translations. One pleasure in reading Horace’s Odes is that the poet returns again and again to similar themes, each time treated differently. Early on, in 1.4, we are introduced to one of these recurring themes: mutability of the seasons and of human experience. This ode moves from the promise of spring to the 065inevitability of death. Ferry’s translation effectively presents the slow breaking up of winter and the sense of restless anticipation, as both people and animals ache to get about the chores and pleasures of spring. He even adds to Horace, by rendering “dum gravis Cyclopum / Vulcanus ardens visit officinas” (“While burning Vulcan attends to the mighty workshop of the Cyclopes”) as “Somewhere far in the depth of a cloudless sky / Vulcan is getting ready the storms of the coming summer.” This is not strictly what the Latin says. Ferry has supplied on his own the “cloudless sky” and “storms of coming summer,” but these are useful additions for the modern reader who may not know (unlike Horace’s contemporaries) about Vulcan’s association with the Cyclopes in supplying Jupiter with lightning bolts.
More troubling is Ferry’s translation of the lines that shift the poem’s tone from springtime preparations to the reality of death. Horace wrote: “Pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas / regumque turris.” Ferry translates these lines as: “Revenant white-faced Death is walking not knowing whether / He’s going to knock at a rich man’s door or a poor man’s.” It would be difficult to reproduce in English the musical effect of the beating on doors, which Horace suggests through alliteration: “pulsat pede pauperum tabernas.” But by describing Death as “walking” (pede), Ferry seems to miss the point that Romans rapped at doors with their feet rather than with their knuckles. More seriously, Horace is not saying that Death doesn’t know where he’s going to knock; rather, Death is indiscriminate and impartial, as likely to appear at the door of the poor as of the rich and powerful. Wealth and position are not prophylactics against death. Another translation, by Stanley Lombardo, renders these lines as “Pallid Death with foot impartial beats at paupers’ hovels / and towers of kings” (in Latin Elegiac Poetry, eds. Raynor and Batstone [New York: Garland, 1995]). This is what Horace says and nearly how he says it, with the alliteration.
In his translation of the famous Soracte ode (1.9), Ferry for some reason eliminates the entire final stanza—an unfortunate choice. (This is not the only instance in which Ferry so alters a poem’s ending that he seriously compromises Horace’s original.) The poem moves from a lovely description of Mount Soracte laboring under a heavy snowfall to a reminder that things change and that it does not pay to spend too much time thinking about what the future will bring. We are advised to gather our rosebuds while we may; the young should pursue the occupations of the young, which include playing games and making love. But the wonderful final stanza is completely missing, with an unseen girl laughing over a stolen love token:
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nunc et latentis proditur intimo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
pignusque dereptum lacertis
aut digito male pertinaci.
Without this stanza, we cannot enjoy fully the very Horatian movement of the poem from cold Mount Soracte to the intimate, lively pleasures of youth. In Lombardo’s version, we are given the final stanza in full:
a girl’s welcome laughter betrays
her
hiding in a corner, a bracelet
snatched
from an arm, or a ring
from a poorly resisting finger.
Ferry’s Horace has real strengths and is well worth reading, even if at times there is more Ferry than Horace. Students of Latin, however, will not be able to use these poems as translation aids—though, as I think about it, that may be one of the book’s virtues. In any case, Ferry’s renderings are almost invariably beautiful poems in their own right. If you don’t know Latin, you won’t know what you’re missing. Unfortunately, in several instances you will be missing a great deal.
Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology
Edited by James P. Delgado
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) 496 pp., $55
In 1900, a sponge diver named Elias Stadiatis plunged into the waters of the Mediterranean near the island of Antikythera, halfway between Crete and the Greek mainland. He quickly resurfaced, frightened by what he had seen on the seafloor—arms reaching out to him and what appeared to be the outlines of bodies. Stadiatis had discovered the remains of an ancient shipwreck laden with works of art looted from the Greek world millennia earlier.
The ship’s cargo consisted of marble and bronze statues, glass bowls and an amazingly sophisticated astrolabe, as well as ordinary items belonging to the crew. The vessel appears to have contained spoils collected by the Roman general and politician Sulla during his eastern campaigns. The ship and its booty foundered off Antikythera on its way back to Rome sometime around 80 B.C.E.
Although other objets d’art had been dragged from the seafloor before, this discovery fired the imagination of the contemporary world. The Mediterranean’s potential as a rich archive of archaeological data suddenly seemed clear. A new watery window to the ancient past had opened, and the sometimes haphazard practice of marine salvage had taken an important evolutionary step toward the science of underwater archaeology as we know it today.
Astounding technological advances now allow us to plumb depths previously unreachable by any marine archaeologist. Just last year, Robert D. Ballard, using the NR-1 (a U.S. Navy nuclear research submarine), found a graveyard of ancient shipwrecks littering the ocean floor 70 miles off the west coast of Sicily. His discoveries provide a glimpse of underwater archaeology’s future.
Given maritime archaeology’s rapid growth, it was time for someone to chronicle the discipline’s major achievements. James P. Delgado, executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Canada, took on the challenge by editing the massive Encyclopedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology (EUMA). With the help of more than 180 contributors, Delgado has compiled the first comprehensive survey of all matters relating to the discovery and recovery of our sunken cultural heritage. In over 450 entries and hundreds of black-and-white and color illustrations, Delgado and associates strive to cover the evolution of research methods, the techniques of fieldwork, the accomplishments of underwater explorers and the agencies and laws associated with underwater archaeology—a sweeping “archaeological study of maritime culture through sites such as shipwrecks, buried ships, and harbours.” The result is a pioneering reference tool of enormous importance, indispensable for those interested in the discovery of the past beneath the sea.
No matter how prodigious an accomplishment, EUMA has its share of flaws. Predictably, the book is not as comprehensive as it was intended to be. Many of its contributors are experts in the underwater archaeology of North America, giving the book a geographical tilt that at times neglects fieldwork elsewhere. The Mediterranean, a region that has proven so rich for underwater excavators, receives less attention than it deserves. There is no entry on amphoras, for example, an almost fatal omission considering how important these artifacts are to Mediterranean maritime archaeology. The volume’s country surveys are a good idea, but why are there none for Cyprus and Turkey? Some Mediterranean harbors are covered, but why were such important underwater sites as Phaselis, Paphos, Populonia and Amathus (to name only a few) ignored?
A number of entries appear to have been written some time ago and permitted to age on the editor’s desk. Not many people today accept a 1520 B.C.E. date for the destruction 067of the Greek island of Thera (modern Santorini)—current scholarship dates the volcanic explosion that destroyed the island to about 1638 B.C.E. A date for the Uluburun shipwreck, off the southern coast of Turkey, is now available (about 1306 B.C.E.), though the editors don’t include it. And there is more to say about the underwater excavations at Caesarea Maritima than what appears in its entry. Amazingly, some of this missing information can be found in other parts of the book. Additional data on King Herod’s port city can be found under entries for “Israel” and “Foraminifera” (a microscopic protozoa found in marine environments). But how many readers would know to look up “Foraminifera” in order to get the latest information about Caesarea Maritima?
Since EUMA treads softly around the issue of salvage for profit versus science, I believe an opportunity was lost to inform the public more fully and forcefully about the pernicious effects of looting our common marine cultural heritage for personal gain. Should not something have been said about the exploitation of the Titanic site and the issues such commercialization raises for the archaeological community?
Particularly useful is Delgado’s inclusion of entries describing the agencies involved with underwater and maritime archaeology. Along with the National Geographic Society and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, one finds a short discussion of NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency. The many fans of Dirk Pitt, the rugged, green-eyed, handsome hero created by adventure novelist Clive Cussler, will be happy to know that NUMA, which is often featured in Cussler’s novels, really does exist. Cussler helped found the agency in 1978. Perhaps Dirk really works there now.
But the editorial decision not to include any biographical sketches of the individuals who have shaped underwater and maritime archaeology in this century was most unfortunate. Had the choice been mine, I would have added entries on the pioneers of the fields. Perhaps in the next edition.
Aside from carping on the margins, I think Delgado and his staff accomplished much of what they set out to do. EUMA now takes its place as the standard reference book for the field. But this encyclopedia is really a work in progress, as exciting and important discoveries are being made every day. How will the editor meet the challenge of incorporating vast amounts of new information? Perhaps there is an electronic future for this work, a web site or yearbook to provide updates between editions. Nonetheless, this volume is a solid cornerstone on which to build.
The Roman Baths of Hammat Gader: Final Report
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