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Our lives are documented exhaustively. State archives, social media profiles, digital traces. Future historians will be able to reconstruct some biographies almost down to the minute. In contrast, in the classical world, literacy rates were low, states were weak, and record-keeping was chaotic. The lives of most ordinary people passed almost without any written record. And the few recordings that were made have mostly disappeared. . The earliest written sources are the epistles of Saint Paul, written generations after the crucifixion; No contemporary records survive, but we would n't expect them for a wandering saint on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.
Pontius Pilate, who was governor of Judea for ten years, is mentioned in only fragmentary inscription. Thanks to the vagaries of preservation, we know a lot about some Greeks and Romans who are not mentioned at all in literary sources. Papyri found at Oxyrhynchus in Aegita, for example, describe the wanderings of the weaver Tryphon, whose ex-wife robbed his home, harassed his family, and apparently attacked him in the street. Documents discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea record the court cases of Babata, a widow embroiled in a dispute over her second husband's estate. The Vindolanda Letters, located on Hadrian's Wall, recreate the life of the cohort commander Flavius
Cerialis and his wife Sulpicia Lepidina. Archaeologists even found Lepidina's stylish leather slippers and moss hat, preserved thanks to the moist soil. Funerary inscriptions are sometimes impressively detailed. In Enoanda, in what is now southern Turkey, a wealthy woman named Licinia Flavilla carved 12 generations of her lineage on the walls of her tomb. Ophramoas, another magnate from Asia Minor, had his mausoleum covered with dozens of transcribed letters documenting his gifts to neighboring cities. In general, however, we know most about those who figure prominently in existing literary
sources. Some of them, such as the physician Galen, the orator Aristides, and the senator and sophist Herodes Atticus, were themselves authors and included autobiographical information in their works. However, we are generally best informed about generals and emperors. Even at the highest political level, there are many gaps. Literary sources about the reign of Trajan, during which the Roman Empire reached its peak, are surprisingly scarce. Alexander the Great is known mainly through texts written centuries after his reign. The best- documented period in ancient history is the collapse of the Roman Republic.
, wrote commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars that have survived to this day and have been described in detail by Suetonius, Plutarch, and other well-informed ancient authors. But the most comprehensive source of information about the last years of the Republic is Cicero. In addition to the 58 surviving speeches, which were usually delivered in court and then edited for publication, Cicero produced a number of works on rhetoric, politics, and philosophy. They illuminate every aspect of the great orator's public image, his intellectual leanings, political positions, and cultural preferences. Cicero also wrote thousands of letters, of which about 900 have survived to this day.
Most of them were informal documents intended for the recipient's eyes only. They use slang, mention inside jokes, and demonstrate overall effect is reminiscent of Samuel Pepys' diary- an authentic portrait of a man and his era. We will continue after a short message from the sponsor of this video. As a creator, I want people to know about Toldinstone, my videos, books, and tours. But my personal information doesn't concern anyone, at least that's how it should be. Every year, online criminals buy and sell more and more personal data. That's why Incogni is so useful. Incogni uses an automated process to search for and remove your personal data from all corners of the internet. For even greater security, Incogni also offers an individual deletion feature, allowing a
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Expressed in the language of philosophical instruction, they are at once less personal and more frank than Cicero's letters. Although they contain little information about Marcus's own life or duties as emperor, we see him as he evidently saw himself -nothing more, nothing less, than a man. The only emperor we know more about than Mark is Julian the Apostate. Julian's literary output ranged from eulogies to polemics and included such original works as "The Hater of the Beard," a satire on the people of Antioch, and a satirical review of Roman history. Julian is best known for writing about religion, criticizing Christian theology in his work Against the Galileans and praising traditional gods in two long hymns.
Combined with dozens of surviving letters, these works give us an understanding of the emperor's thoughts and actions almost on par with Cicero. Some of Julian's contemporaries are The orator Libanius was admired by the Byzantines as a stylist, so they preserved almost all of his vast literary output. 64 speeches, including one describing his life and work, a collection of rhetorical exercises, and at least 1,544 letters. The Church Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries were also extremely prolific. And because their works were considered guides to salvation, they had a high level of preservation. The most productive of all, and perhaps the most well-known figure of antiquity to us, was Saint Augustine.
Towards the end of his life, Saint Augustine compiled a list of the works he had written. It included 252 books, of which about 95% have survived to this day. Combined with his 400 sermons and 300 letters, Augustine's works total almost 5.5 million words. Cicero, by comparison, wrote about 1 million. The entire corpus of classical Latin literature is about 9 million words. Most of St. Augustine's works were intended to explain Christian theology, usually in the context of doctrinal disputes or for the instruction of his parishioners. But he also wrote Confessions-the most psychologically profound autobiography of the premodern era. Here, more than anywhere else in ancient literature, we have the story not only of life but also of the mind, or, as
Augustine would say, of the soul. Bring the history of your soul to life by joining me on a historical group tour. Next spring I will visit Tunis, where we will see the ruins of Carthage, Douga, and many other ancient wonders. Learn more at the link in the description. In June 2027, I'm traveling to Romania to explore some of the most impressive and rarely visited ruins of the Roman world, including the remains of the longest ancient bridge and the tunnels of a perfectly preserved 2,000-year-old mine. Dacian Aqueducts, War Pigeons, and Mystery Cults is now available in hardcover and paperback For additional content, including my ongoing analysis of HBO's hit series Rome, visit Toldstone's Patreon. Finally, don't forget about my
other channels: Toldstone Footnotes and Ancient Greece to the Past. Thank you for watching.
