UK Economy: What the hell is going on?

(I wrote this on 3 Oct - nearly a month ago. Apart from a few edits it’s substantially the same as written.)

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The more one studies macro economics - the way our financial institutes and government work - the more one becomes depressed.

On the surface, credentialed bankers and politicians, project a veneer of competence; that they know what is going on and that by pushing certain levers, dialling up or down certain controls, they can smooth our economic landscape.

My revelation - probably long overdue - over the last few years is that actually we have incompetents in charge at best, bad actors at worst.

Like the contemporary study of history, economics seems to take perverse delight in ignoring the received verities of the past and acting like everything is new. That there is only now. Now will be different from thousands of years of human history.

So, we - the general public, the uneducated masses - knew instinctively that printing money was bad. Printing money is a childish response that clearly provides a short term relief at the expense of long term stability. We used to look at the cautionary tales of the Weimar republic, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina, and be thankful we lived in Western democracies where such idiocy couldn’t happen here.

It happened here…

To focus in on the UK. The closing of the economy - needlessly, foolishly - in March 2020, prompted the Bank of England to print £450B of money. Money that was given to government via monetarisation of the government debt (gilts). “How much do you want?” asked the Bank of England. And they printed it and used these funds to finance the governments COVID policy. Money was flying around the stagnant economy not backed by productivity or activity.

So we’ve got inflation. This isn’t a surprise. I’ve been signalling this eventuality for the last couple of years and I’m not that bright. I’m not credentialed. I don’t tend to talk in bogus imperatives. The future is always unpredictable but, based on this writer’s experience and judgement, the fact that inflation was coming down the track seemed obvious.

I’m not a Johnny come lately. I’ve written publicly that inflation was on its way due to crazy policy ideas of the Government / central bank nexus both here in the UK and elsewhere. I went public with my fears. Privately, I re-mortagaged six months early in January of this year because I knew rates would soon go up. So I’m personally very smug about that and glad that I did. But not everyone studies macro economics like I do. The general public look to our governments and financial institutions to look after their interests.

They didn’t.

Proximately, the Conservative government did two things and forgot two other things.

What it did: One, it underwrote the energy costs for both consumers and businesses by introducing an average price cap. As energy is very expensive (due to many factors, some, all, due to actual government policy on fossil fuel withdrawal and elective sanctions on Russia), this policy is very expensive (£100B a year? More? Slightly less). The second decision the government made was to lower taxes or cancel recent tax rises.

I’m generally in favour of lower taxes. I spend my money better than any government. Corporation tax is paid for by everyone and the higher it is, the less companies wish to remain or relocate to the UK. So the cancellation of the corporate tax rise from 19p to 25p was a welcome, and sane move. Lowering income tax. Yes, sure, why not. Cancellation of the National Insurance Tax rise was also welcome. Give me more money to spend in what I deem essential (home, heating , kids, and yes, that dreadful word, savings).

The government also abolished the 45% tax rate for those on over £150K a year and did away with the EU inspired cap on bankers’ bonuses. These two I have a hard time defending. The less tax, the better, always but this is a moment of national crisis with energy costs going up and the cost of living getting out of control. There is an argument of trickle down and the Laffer curve (where lowering taxes brings in more revenue) but this was the wrong time to test this out. The government would have been better to increase tax thresholds and do away with the pernicious fiscal drag we’ve been suffering for years.

But onto the two things missing. Firstly, if the government is spending more via energy support but also simultaneously lowering the tax burden, where does the money come from? It was bloody unforgivable and amateur hour for the government not to address expenditure and financing in the mini Budget. Shocking in fact. Interest rates and bond prices were rising already - worldwide. The Bank of England had finally got around to unwinding their bloated QE inspired balance sheet by embarking on Quantitate Tightening (ie, selling government bonds back onto the market). And then the government announced a major leap in expenditure and tax cuts. These commitments would require MORE borrowing at exactly the wrong time.

The second thing the government forgot was not to get the finance world on its side. Finance works off certainty and the British government seemed to relish in surprise. Pulling in the opposite direction to the Bank of England was a foolish move. Not to engage the Office of Budget Responsibility was equally stupid. Also, the markets were surprised and reacted accordingly. Sell the UK! Inflation and the general rise in interest rates are a worldwide phenomenon. The Uk Government’s stupidity meant they became the poster child for a wider movement and got blamed for all the sins of the financial world.

And onto the final piece. It seems that the rise in the yields of gilts uncovered some murky creatures at the bottom of the swap; pension companies. To improve income flow our pension companies were borrowing money in order to buy more gilts. So not just investing their funds but using those funds to borrow money to make further investments. Shades of 2008 all over again. The fall in UK government bonds left the pension funds exposed and on the verge (it’s alleged) of defaulting on their obligations.

So what did the BoE do? It pivoted and moved from a position of selling government bonds to buying them again. Using printed money. Up to £65B more of QE. Yes, in a time of high inflation, the BoE used its firepower to blast itself in the foot. They blinked and chose (maybe rightly, maybe not) to prop up the nefarious pension companies and abandoned their fight against inflation.

To summarise. Too much QE. Stupid COVID policies. Dreadful energy policy. Out of control government spend with no plan to curtail it. Too much government borrowing. Dodgy financial practices of the pension companies unsupervised by a BoE asleep at the wheel. Resumption of QE leading to more inflation down the track. And finally - maybe the worse sin of all; weakness, U-turns, uncertainty at the top.

And who suffers from this shambolic mess? The public who put trust in short termist politicians (of all stripes, Labour have NOTHING to shout about - they would have spent more during COVID in particular and anyway, because that’s what they do). The public trusted our financial institutions who have, again, let us down. The culpability of our betters leads to recession. Lost jobs. Blighted lives.

I used to think money was amoral. I don’t anymore. It can be immoral.

Inflation - Roman Style

On his deathbed in York, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) gathered his two sons and co-heirs around him to give them some advice about running the vast empire when he was gone:

 "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, scorn all others"

A bit harsh but Severus had been a successful Roman soldier/emperor – leading the imperial armies to defeat multiple foes both internally and externally whilst expanding the Empire in Africa, Persia and Scotland (1). He’d enlarged the army during his reign and given them a substantial pay rise. But where did the money come from to pay for this?

Answer: He debased the currency by reducing the silver content in the Roman coinage – the denarii – from 78.5% to 54%. This enabled him to cheaply expand the money supply to meet his priorities (pay the troops). In the years that followed his death, the Roman Empire was, predictably, racked with inflation.

Let’s pause here and ask a question…

Is there anything instructive to be learnt now - in 2022 - from the example set by Septimius back in 211? Something that perhaps addresses the issue of governments thoughtlessly expanding the money supply to meet some perceived emergency need?

My contention is, whether you wear a toga or a smartly tailored suit, the lessons of economics apply equally and always. The same rules apply. There is nothing new under the sun. And yet in our arrogance and ignorance, we forget. “Things are different now,” we bleat pathetically as the waves - commanded to cease - roll remorselessly past our gilded thrones. (2)

To meet increased expenditure all governments - ancient or modern - have the same list of choices to finance that expenditure. The options are as follows:

• Don’t do it

• Cut expenditure elsewhere

• Raise taxes

• Borrow the money

• Debase the currency

The order I put these five options is - of course - often inverted by politicians. The first three are hard and have real time accountability. The latter two postpone the pain and push it into the future. Guess which options politicians increasingly favour? (3)

Back to the Third Century

Septimius unwittingly set in motion a series of disasters for the next seventy years as short-lived Roman emperors grappled with both inflation but also with invasions, plague, and endless civil wars. Whereas English historian Edward Gibbon might say the mid second century AD was the best time in history to be alive, the third century most certainly was not (4).

The 3rd century story is a depressingly familiar one.

Following Septimius’ death, his two sons didn’t live harmoniously together, quarrelled, and Caracalla killed Geta going on to become one of Rome’s worst emperors. His decision to expand citizenship to all peoples of the empire – sometimes painted as a noble and liberal move – was brought on by his excessive spending. More citizens equalled a larger tax base. (5)

And so, with wearying predictability, emperor followed emperor, crisis follow crisis, rebellions drew troops from frontier defences which, in turn, allowed multiple barbarians invasions through the gaps this created. At one point the empire even split into three. And all whilst inflation wrecked the economy.

The third century’s equivalent of a central bank was the Imperial Mint where the empire’s coins were created. Whereas modern day governments Quantitive Ease billions into existence at the touch of a button, their ancient predecessors debased the currency by adding increased amounts of base metals to the coinage. The consequence of this was the same as QE; lots of inflation caused by a prior expansion of the money supply. Same as now.

So how did the Romans deal with this issue? Badly, to be honest.

Extract from The Edict on Maximum Prices

 Enter Diocletian (though hat tip to Aurelian)

Militarily, the Emperor Aurelian (270-75) put the empire back together with a series of lightening victories from East to West before he was tragically murdered (5). He started the process of dealing with inflation by producing higher value and higher worth coins not affected by debasement. However, it was his eventual successor Diocletian (284-305) who really tried to get to grips with inflation.

His most famous economic policy was the Edict on Maximum Prices of 301 where he laid down the maximum prices for over 1000 goods and services. However, like the Labour government’s Prices and Incomes policies of the 1970’s or the Tory government’s disastrous energy price cap from 2017 onwards, artificially holding down prices never works. As a wiser UK Prime Minster once said “you can’t buck the markets.”

Despite a harsh penalty for transgression (death), the price controls collapsed quickly into a heap of shut shops, food scarcity and rioting. How can businesses or agriculture survive if the input costs are higher than the costs of sale? There was also a strong element of misdirected blame in the Edicts’ preamble that labelled high prices immoral and unpatriotic and that people who sold at high prices were enemies of the Empire.

Obviously, Diocletian confused the causes of inflation with its results. The causes - debasement and a flooding of currency - were not addressed but the consequences - increased prices - were instead blamed. In the modern parlance, Diocletian claimed businesses were ‘gouging’ their customers. Yes, governments distancing themselves from the consequences of their own actions was alive and well back in ancient Rome.

But there was a second policy of Diocletian that is also relevant here; inherited jobs leading to forced labour immobility. The economic activity of the empire had reduced markedly over the dismal third century. If land was depopulated and unworked, not only did the food supplies decline but so did the tax yield. Tie people to the land and make them work in their father’s professions, then yields - both agriculturally and financially - would, in theory, go up. What was the loss of liberty for the individual if the greater good of the empire was served?

Practically speaking, the citizens of the Empire weren’t allowed to move and were compelled to follow in the footsteps of their parents for jobs. Thus if your father worked on the land, so you did too. If he was in the army, you also had to join. Ditto shopkeepers, tanners, blacksmiths, bankers etc. Arguably, this marked the beginnings of serfdom in Europe and the Middle Ages. (6) Michael Rostovtzeff, writing in 1926, put the tolerance of this loss of liberty down to a general weariness with the proceeding years of lawlessness and destruction, years where armies (internal & external) had taken crops forcefully and commerce had dried up as the Empire’s internal networks became dangerous to traverse.

“Force and violence were both the motto and the practice. Law and order were dreams. Besides, by a long evolution... the population of the Roman Empire had lost the habit of self-help and initiative, and had become accustomed to be ruled, and to be directed. It was no wonder then that in such conditions as these the residents of the Roman Empire had no force of resistance left and submitted blindly, though reluctantly, to the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine...”

— Michael Rostovtzeff The Problem of the Origin of Serfdom in the Roman Empire (1926)

So the liberty to move around and pursue one’s own course in life was severely curtailed. Life became smaller and meaner for the general population as Diocletian and his successors grappled with inflation & taxation using regressive and authoritarian means. Interestingly enough, as the population at large became less free, the fourth century emperors (though not Julian) became more remote, their courts more formal and the Emperor more unapproachable. This marked the moment when the empire switched from a Principate form of rule to what became known as The Dominate. The Emperor was no longer first among equals, he became a godlike figure. Naturally, the bureaucracy increased exponentially, as did the army. The wider elite solidified their position. Inflation didn’t affect them too much as they often managed to evade paying taxes. (7) Payment in kind - food for the army, services - was always an option in those inflated times.

So, what are the parallels - or warnings - from then to now, from the economic woes of the later Roman Empire to 2020’s style inflation?

The first point is an obvious one; don’t debase the currency. It doesn’t end well. Secondly, efforts to manipulate prices have a bad habit of failing and lead to supply issues. Thirdly, be aware of those who threaten to trade your liberty in order to meet some perceived emergency. Travel restrictions, a creeping control over freedoms and appeals to the collective over the individual are all potential signposts on the road to authoritarianism.

The Roman Crisis of the Third Century is traditionally dated 235-285. The Empire in the West lasted until 476. In the East 1453. But the Empire - of both East and West - was radically different following the crisis. It was still the Roman Empire but the compact between citizen and state had changed completely. Inflation hasten this change.

 References

1) After his death, all of these gains were later lost.

2) This of course references King Canute - proving to his courtiers in the 11th century that nature will not bend to the will of kings. "Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws." One might also add the eternal laws of economics. 

3) There is a sixth option which is plunder. To be fair, this was a more acceptable option back in Roman times. An equivalent today might be a special ‘one off’ tax on corporations (oil companies / pension funds / banks). Basically a fiscal raid.

4) Decline and Fall - Part One. I’m currently reading this epic tome.

4) More citizens also meant - in theory - more people to join the army, engage in civic activities sand share the responsibilities of the Empire. But taxes too. However, one of the perversities of universal citizenship was a decline in army recruitment. Previously citizenship was the reward for twenty years service in the auxiliaries. That inducement was now gone.

5) Aurelian’s achievements were legendary; all the more so due to the brief time period he achieved them. The Goths were repelled, Zenobia and the Palmyrian Empire were defeated and the East reabsorbed back into the Empire and the breakaway Gallic Empire was similarly demolished and reabsorbed. He also took the time to commission - yes you guessed it - the Aurelian walls in Rome.

6) These policies were reinforced and built on by Diocletian’s eventual successor Constantine.

7) Diocletian also reorganised the administration of the empire into more numerous but smaller districts. He split the control of taxes and administration from army command for the local governors. One consequence of this was that large local landowners were able to more easily evade taxes by bullying or ignoring these less important adminstrators.

The Third Century BC in Five Roman Battles

In which Tim continues his Roman history via five battles per century. Read about previously explored centuries and their battles here.

Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Cannae, Fabius Maximus, war elephants, the crashing together of galleys in the Med, drowned chickens; the third century was a pivotal century in the development of Rome.

At the start of the century (299BC - to be clear!) Rome was a small, but growing, Italian power. By the end of the century it was a major Mediterranean player with an overseas empire and poised to get much larger. The common theory is that Rome never sought to be an empire, it just fought one defensive war after another, each success leading to a new enemy further and further from the actual city of Rome. Maybe that theory is true, maybe not (later date: Caesar & Pompey rather argue against it) but the 3rd century BC does demonstrate how each entanglement could lead to the next.

We all know about Hannibal and his crossing of the Alps with elephants. It’s one of those basic touch points from history - a bit mythical, a bit hazy, but we all sort of know the story. The 2nd Punic War was an epic conflict, a life and death struggle that could have caused the collapse of Rome. From this period (218 to 202) we’ll take two epic battles - Cannae 216 and Zama 202.

But the wars of Hannibal are but part of the tale of the third century BC. The Battle of Telemon 225 was a significant battle that ended one question only to open another. Plagued by the troublesome Celts on their northern border, Telemon (and it’s follow up victories), removed the immediate menace of the Celts. But it also made the Celts resentful and ripe for an alliance with a certain Carthaginian general as he passed through their territory seven years later. From the killing grounds of Telemon begat the massacres of Cannae and Lake Trasimene.

Skipping over the 1st Punic War, we go back a bit further and meet another historically well remembered figure - King Pyrrus of Epirus. From this earlier part of the century, we’ll take a look at The Battle of Asculum 279 where all those pyrrhic victories started to catch up with Pyrrhus.

And starting off the century, we have Rome clearing the way to Italian dominance with The Battle of Sentinum 295 which was the decisive battle in the Third Samnite War.

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A quick word on the Roman armies of this period. This was pre-Marian reforms and so the army was made up from levies of eligible citizens who put down their ploughs for the campaign season and went off to fight for the Roman state. Each year two consuls were elected and each consul had a consular army of roughly 20,000 men made up of two Roman legions and two allied legions. The legions themselves were made up of three classes of soldiers, divided by age and experience - the hastati, principes and, the veteran triarii. Light troops the verites and the cavalry made up the rest of the army.

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The Battle of Sentinum 295

Simon de Vos - Death of Decius Mus. The Roman counsel pushes too far and is killed at The Battle of Sentinum

The Samnites were Italian rivals - a large confederation of tribes in middle Italy. As Rome grew, they tended to butt against their neighbours more and more. Three wars were fought agaionst the Samnites and Sentinum was the pivotal battle of the third and final war. Interestingly enough, although conquered, resentment continued between the two tribes which came to a head in the Social Wars two hundred years later and - following the battle of The Colline Gate - Sulla massacred 8000 Samnite prisoners as the Senate - next door but hearing the cries of the dead and dying - voted through his dictatorial powers.

Rome always prided itself that it only fought defensive wars but often acted as a provocateur - goading other states to declare war. Alarmingly, in the 290’s, they managed to provoke the Samnites into joining with three other tribes - the Etruscans, Umbrians and Senone Gauls - to take on the growing arrogance of their upstart neighbour. Consuls and proconsuls were dispatched to face this threat and two, Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius, squared up to a large army of Samnites and Gauls at Sentinum in 295.

The battle is remembered best for the sacrifice of one of the consuls - Publius Decius - seeking to rally his troops as their lines were broken by the Gauls following a failed cavalry charge. His sacrifice worked - or at least the reinforcements Quintus Fabius sent stiffened the resolve of the wavering troops - and the battle turned in Rome’s favour. Quintus outflanked the Samnites with his cavalry and they were routed leaving just the Senone who were now surrounded and destroyed.

The Samnite coalition broke up following this loss, leaving just the Samnites themselves to face the victorious Romans who prosecuted the war for a further five years before Samnite capitulation. The dominance of Italy pushed further down the peninsular.

The Battle of Asculum 279

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

And so King Pyrrhus of Epirus gave us the phrase ‘Pyrrhic Victory’ after his ‘victory’ against the Romans and allies at The Battle of Asculum 279BC. Pyrrhus is an interesting character from ancient history. He was king of Epirus, the border Greek state next to Macedonia and opposite the Italian peninsular. In the south of Italy at this time, there were many Greek cities. As we have seen, Roman power was extending down the peninsular and it was only a matter of time before the Romans and Greeks clashed.

This happened in 282BC. The cause is disputed. A Roman fleet was attacked by one such Greek city, Tarentum. Maybe. Or provoked into attacking. But it had the same effect; war between Rome and her allies and the Greek cities and their allies. One such ally came from Epirus back on the Greek mainland. The king of Epirus, Pyrrhus, crossed the narrow sea with an army organised around the phalanx, supported by war elephants and the dreams of creating an Italian empire.

Pyrrhus was a talented general - he beat the coalition of Roman led Italians at The Battle of Heraclea (280BC). He followed this up by marching on Rome itself but failed to take the city and so returned south for the winter. The two sides met again at Asculum the next year with around 40,000 troops each. Crucially, Pyrrhus’ elephants were to play a major part in the subsequent Greek victory (though the Greek coalition had now been joined by many Italians including the ever present Samnites).

The armies lined up and locked into an infantry melee whilst on the wings the elephants and cavalry fought it out. The Roman infantry was having the better of the day in the middle and all sides watched as some Daunians - Roman allies - sneaked up from behind and sacked the Greek camp. However, at this moment the elephants broke free of their blockers on either flank and started to roll up the Roman infantry from left and right.

The Roman army retreated from the field losing nearly twice as many troops as the Greeks. The Romans though could make up these losses whereas Pyrrhus and the Greeks could not. Therefore, Asculum became the archetypal Pyrrhic victory. Rome’s advance down the Italian peninsular continued.

Pyrrhus himself went off adventuring and losing in Sicily against the Carthaginians, losing to the Romans back in Italy and was finally went back to Greece itself where he was killed in some street fighting in the Peloponnese by a tile thrown on his head by a woman from her roof.

First Punic War and the Chickens

Claudius Pulcher orders the chickens over the side.

We shall skip the First Punic War (264-241) where Rome took on the might of the African Carthaginian Empire. Not that there weren’t battles a plenty with lots of noteworthy anecdotes but are limited to just five battles. The two powers fought for twenty years with battles centred around Sicily and - new for the Romans - the sea. Large sea battles were fought in the Med and Rome quickly got good at this form of warfare.

One anecdote about Publius Claudius Pulcher and the chickens needs to be told. Romans were a suspicious lot and always looking for signs of blessings from the divinities. One ritual involved examining the behaviour of the sacred chickens before a battle. Depending on how they ate the seeds laid out for them, the Romans could predict good fortune or not. Before the important naval battle of Drepana, Pulcher’s chickens refused to eat - a very bad omen. So he threw them overboard and into the sea: ‘Since they do not want to eat, let them drink!’ he apparently said - wit being important even back in ancient Rome. Obviously he then went onto catastrophically loose the oncoming battle with most of the Roman fleet annihilated. Lesson: Don’t mess with the chickens!

Telemon 225 BC

Rome was sacked in 390 BC by an army of Gauls. Subsequent generations of Romans never forgot this humiliation and so harboured a long held resentment and fear of the Celtic tribes to the north. As Rome expanded over the next one hundred and fifty years with various tribal wars and alliances, the Gauls began to fear they would be next on the hit list, especially after Rome started sending settlers into nearby lands. Deciding that attack was the best form of defence, a large confederation of Gauls from both Cisalpine Italy and France got together and started heading towards Rome in search of plunder.

But this was not the Rome of 390. Having emerged stronger and more disciplined followed the first Punic War, Rome and her allies (who also feared the Gallic invasion) fielded three large armies. One army took the fight to the Gauls’ homelands whilst the other two - under consuls for the year Gaius Regulus and Lucius Papus created, in effect, a pincer movement with the marauding Gauls trapped in between. The site of the battle was Telemon (modern Telemone) about 70 miles from Rome.

The Romans and allies outnumbered the Gauls (something like 100,000 to 70,000) and were better organised and disciplined. Some of the Gauls - like the Gaesatae - fought naked which - with arrows and spears and sling shot flying around - didn’t help much in the ensuing battle. As is often the case in ancient battles, there were in fact, two engagements, an infantry crush and a separate cavalry battle nearby. At Telemon, the Romans won the cavalry battle and so returned to the infantry battle to tip the scales for their side.

The Gauls stood and fought but 40,000 - surrounded - were massacred and 10,000 captured. The consul Regulus died in the battle but his colleague Papus didn’t and led his victorious troops into the Gaulish territories to extract revenge, plunder and lands. Further victories followed in the next couple of years and more Roman settlers were given lands previously occupied by the Gauls.

So, when Hannibal was looking for allies soon after to support his invasion of Italy, guess which bunch of dispossessed and angry tribes he found favour with?

Cannae 216, Zama 202 & The Second Punic War

“Such was the result of the battle between Hannibal and the Romans at Cannae, which was begun after the second hour of the day and ended within two hours of night-fall, and which is still famous among the Romans as a disaster, for in these few hours 50,000 of their soldiers were slain and a great many taken prisoners.” Appian - The Foreign Wars

Games of Thrones recreated Cannae as The Battle of The Bastards. Hannibal out thought and out fought two consular armies and eight legions and massacred them in this battle down in the south of the Italian peninsular. The way to Rome lay open but Hannibal inexplicably missed his opportunity being more concerned with ransoming captives than following up on his stunning victory (though it is true, Carthage perversely ignored Hannibal’s requests for more troops and money to win the war).

Hannibal had invaded Italy two years earlier by crossing the Alps with a Carthaginian army made up of many nations, many tribes. Early victories in 218 and 217 made the Romans wary of tackling Hannibal so, at Cannae, they gathered a huge army led by the two consuls to put an end to him once and for all. What happened next was that Hannibal used the sheer weight of Roman numbers against them by enveloping their army with his own troops providing no way out of the slaughter for the penned in legionaries. The Roman army was systematically annihilated with perhaps 50,000 deaths and around 20,000 taken prisoner.

Rome lost its Italian allies in the South and the majority of its fighting forces. The City mourned for 30 days, human sacrifices were reinstated to appease the gods but, ultimately, more armies were raised and Hannibal was pinned down in the bottom of Italy for the next ten years. He’d won the battle but lost the war. In fact, a young Roman survivor from Cannae, Scipio Africanus, would come back to avenge the losses on this day.

Young Scipio - bearer of a famous name - was also personally invested in the fight against the Carthaginians. Some might say that Punic War 2 became a grudge match between the Scipios and the Barcas. As the Romans fought Hannibal in Italy, a second front was being busily engaged in Spain. Early in the conflict Scipio’s father and uncle were both killed in the Iberian conflict. This was personal for Scipio and he begged the Senate to allow him to take command of the depleted and demoralised Roman forces in Spain. His confidence (arrogance even) impressed them and - with no other candidates - gave the young man charge of the army.

Scipio turned the war around, eventually driving the Carthaginians out of Spain. He now took the fight to the Africans and invaded their homeland. Hannibal, still in Italy, was recalled and the stage was set for the final showdown of the Second Punic War.

Battle of Zama 202 BC

It is rumoured that Hannibal and Scipio met in person in the land between their two huge armies before the Battle Zama. (Interestedly enough, they also met many years later at a banquet). If they did then it was an historic meeting; the two famous generals whose personal qualities and leadership summarised the Second Punic War.

At Zama, Hannibal had the larger army, Scipio had the larger cavalry forces. Hannibal used elephants which proved ineffective and even counter productive. Whilst the infantry slogged it out over many hours, pretty evenly matched, the cavalry fought at the wings with the Romans (and their Numidian allies) proving the stronger. So it was that the Roman cavalry returned at a crucial point and attacked the Carthaginians from the rear. The Carthaginian army was destroyed though Hannibal escaped. The Second Punic War was over.

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So the Third Century ended with the Romans triumphant in the Western Mediterranean. Her existential enemy for much of the century - Carthage - had been humiliated and forced to pay huge tributes as well as other harsh treaty terms. The next century would see the final defeat and destruction of Carthage.

However, more than the defeat of Carthage, the Romans had established themselves as the preeminent power on the Italian peninsular taking out the Samnites and Celts and many others. From now on, whilst there were the occasional challenges, there was only one real power in Italy.

But more than this. The third century had shown that Rome was resilient. The disaster of Cannae - so very nearly a knockout blow - had been dealt with, more armies raised and the war won. With the west secured, Rome would now increasingly look East to that other great power, Macedonia and the Greek city states. Her star was in the ascendent. At home though, things started to fall apart for the republic. That though, is in the next episode.

If you enjoyed reading about the battle of the 3rd century BC, why not try some other centuries in my Five Battles series?

Inflation: Useless Politicians and Bankers

“And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.”

— Leviticus 26:30

Who knew?

Print £440B of new money and you get, subsequently, inflation.

And yet we're all supposed to act like we're surprised. "Wow! Where did that come from?"

Exactly a year ago I compared inflation to Voldemort - the evil that dare not be spoken about. Something that had been vanquished back when Reagan and Thatcher were in office and we were all into Adam and the Ants and driving Mini Metros.

But with current inflation rates of 7% in the UK and 8.5% in the US, here we are again. Again. Learning economic truths anew. One almost wants to get Biblical on the ass of those in power who wilfully, stupidly, created this mess. The standards of public life - I’m afraid have declined. Or perhaps they were never that high. But this goof seems akin to a blindfolded man throwing darts at a dartboard framed by balloons and getting shocked by the the resulting bangs.

"Inflation is cause by prior expansion of the money supply." This dictum was drummed into us during mid 80's economics classes.

What about another old favourite from the dusty book of forgotten economic laws? "Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods."

(There is another contributory cast of characters in this 70's revival; the knock-on effects of hysterical Government COVID measures which shut the economy down for nearly two years, the concomitant increase in the prices of commodities, oil price rises (COP26 & ESG), sanctions against Russia and the disruption in the world economy caused by the war with Ukraine. These latter two however just exacerbated an existing trend. Any politician who tells you otherwise is lying.)

"Why did no one see this coming?" the Queen famously asked professors at the London School of Economics in 2008 after the credit crunch - so obvious retrospectively - was completely missed by the world's financial authorities. Perverse incentive structures, complicated instruments and misdirected regulations would be the answer. And venality.

This time though, what were they thinking - printing money and then being surprised when this debasement did its destructive thing on the currency?

Inflation is a tax we all pay as I have pointed out previously. Currently this tax is - officially - 7% in the UK. Real rates of inflation - ie, what you and me actually pay, run to double digits. This is before - of course - any tax hikes our governing classes are belated throwing at their whipped populations. The answer to the errors of too much government is never, ‘more government’.

So, to return to the Queen's question, why did no one see this inflation coming? Some did (me! me!) but the dominant riff from central bankers, until recently, is that the return to inflation was transitory. How’s that working out for ya? That rhetorical construction seems wilfully, and conveniently, blind. My contempt for those in power grows.

Printing money is a very dry subject made all the more so by its modern nomenclature - Quantitative Easing. The sums involved are too high for most of us to imagine. The monetary authorities all have impressive credentials behind their names, and occupy the high places of financial respectability. If they say that Quantitive Easing is really okay, and we’re not going to get screwed, who are we - the poor population - to disagree?

Inflation and cost of living are becoming the next grand conversation and perhaps already are - if we can absorb more than one meta-narrative at a time. There’s a cynical edge to the media I realise more and more as I get older. The MSM push one meta narrative at a time and everything is seen through this distorted - and temporary - lens. Brexit. Trump. Covid. Ukraine. Everything is about this one issue. Until it’s not. Meanwhile, central banks roll the printing presses and none of us wonder how the hell anything is paid for.

Interests rates must rise to curb inflation. Similarly treasury bond yields must, and are, rising. The alternative - more QE - beyond the craziness of the ECB - must surely out of the question this time. Even in the thickest skulls. You can't fight a fire by dousing it with £1.62 a litre petrol. Weimar Germany, 70’s Britain or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe are not to be aspirational models of good stewardship.

And if someone - whether politician or central banker - suggests in the future that printing money is a good thing we'll know, perhaps - and again - that inflating a currency is a quick fix that carries long term, and destructive, consequences.

Won't we?

However, the cycle time it takes to forget stupidity in our society is diminishing. So, at the present rate of forgetfulness, I’d give it five years before some highly remunerated moron will suggest, pompously - like they know what they’re saying - that increasing liquidity in the economy by QE to stimulate investment is the way to go.

And they’ll be wrong but we’ll do it anyway.

Unkept Good Fridays

Unkept Good Fridays - Thomas Hardy

〰️

Unkept Good Fridays - Thomas Hardy 〰️

There are many more Good Fridays
Than this, if we but knew
The names, and could relate them,
Of men whom rulers slew
For their goodwill, and date them
As runs the twelvemonth through.

These nameless Christs' Good Fridays,
Whose virtues wrought their end,
Bore days of bonds and burning,
With no man to their friend,
Of mockeries, and spurning;
Yet they are all unpenned.

I hadn’t read this poem by Thomas Hardy until today. Written the year before he died in 1928, it discusses the unsung fates of ‘nameless Christs’ who likewise suffered throughout history but are unremembered, whose stories remain unpenned.

In one way, its rationalism is entirely correct; we are all God’s children and each of us are worthy of celebration and equality before history. We all navigate the same path, face the same doubts and share the same ultimate fate.

But the poem is not especially concerned with universal equality; in my reading it is a poem of courage. Like Christ, certain people have displayed this foundational quality; the courage to stand up and speak your truth. The consequences for doing so - like Christ - can be appalling. There is no end, or change, to human nature and it can be, as well as kind and compassionate, also cruel and uncaring. To stand against received opinion, in any age, is a dangerous pastime.

Christ died for our sins. He was an individual but, like many biblical stories, I think the truth is more instructive than literal. He was abandoned, put on trial, humiliated, tortured and killed but rose again from the dead to point the way of redemption. It is both personal but universal.

The correct path (one hesitates to write righteous) isn’t easy. We all know that and struggle daily to be better versions of ourselves. This takes courage. Courage takes many forms but the courage to seek out the better parts of human nature and avoid the easy, destructive path, is a strength all us ‘Christs of unwrit names’ must battle each day. There is no redemption without struggle and that struggle is personal, unremitting and, often as not, forgotten by history but, perhaps, perhaps, remembered in eternity.

And that is my Easter message through poetry and scripture.

The full Hardy poem can be read here.

Meat Loaf, Tony Mills, Shy, Brian Greenhoff. Rochdale Memories.

Some Rambling Thoughts on the Death of Meatloaf, Tony Mills of Shy and Brian Greenhoff of Manchester Utd

Late 1981 - Driving in the car with my parents and sister listening to Noel Edmonds on Radio 1. Edmonds played Dead Ringer For Love. This was the first time I’d heard it as the single had just been released to the world. Wow! A real swinging rock tune - the drama, the back and forth between him and Cher, the doo-wop coda. Remember; this was the time of synthesisers and New Romantics and so an unabashed rock ‘n’ roll wall of sound of guitars and brass - just blew us all away. It so was good, Noel Edmonds played it again which was practically unheard of on Radio 1.

Mid 80’s - Sixth form. Two LPs dominated the music we played in breaks and lunchtimes - Queen Greatest Hits (there was no volume 1 or 2 in those days, only the original LP up to, but not including, Under Pressure) and Bat Out of Hell. We knew all the words of both albums through ceaseless repetition.

Bat Out of Hell bears repeated plays. Occasionally I remember it and play the familiar tracks for a couple of days and fondly reminisce. Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, You Took the Words Right Out of my Mouth. The title track, of course. I don’t need to tell you how good the LP is. Play it.

Feb 1987 - I saw Meat Loaf at the Brighton Centre as part of his 20/20 World Tour. Great concert, lots of familiar songs, high camp on stage. He was big, he was sweating, his band kicked ass. Meat Loaf was as much an actor as a singer - he always threw himself into performances and Brighton was no different.

He was supported at the Brighton gig by British big haired metallers Shy. Not bad songs but kind of ignored whilst waiting for the main act to come on.

Back at home in Rochdale, I tended bar in the Norden Chimney restaurant bar (called The Highwayman). Not many people would come in - just me, my mates, other members of staff, a karaoke singer at the weekend for entertainment and, bizarrely, ex Man Utd and England footballer Brian Greenhoff. Nights of lager and Limes. Silks Cuts. I played the Yardbirds or REO Speedwagon on the stereo. And into this scene one day walked an exotic Brummie - Tony Mills - lead singer of Shy. He’d moved in with his girlfriend and her parents two doors down to my parents and was looking for a local.

How can I describe Tony? Platinum spiked big hair as was common with rockers in the 80’s. Tight jeans, embroided jacket. Tall, but his hair made him seem bigger. It was as if an ambassador from Planet Rock had just walked in. “Pint of Lowenbrow, Tim” he’d say and have a quiet drink, sometimes with his girlfriend, sometimes not. I recognised him immediately and would prompt him for stories about the rock world and Meat Loaf in particular. Apparently Loaf used to keep an oxygen mask off stage in case he took a turn for the worse out on stage. Tony also said he’d be invited up on the stage to sing Johnny B Goode in the rock n roll medley Meat Loaf finished his set with. Problem was, Tony didn’t know the words!

Tony was in between tours and resting up (in Rochdale of all places). The album they were promoting when supporting Meat Loaf - Excess all Areas (featuring Break Down the Walls and, my favourite, Young Heart) was probably the peak of Shy’s fame. It was a good time.

Into this cosy scene let me introduce Andy, the karaoke ‘singer’ who would, on Friday and Saturday nights, be perched on a bar stool the opposite end of the bar to Greenhoff and entertain the punters with his renditions of Lionel Richie or Diana Ross. He could hold a tune but not much more. He wore a double breasted flecked suit that was, as per the time, somewhat shiny. A few drinks to the worse he’d bemoan his fate: “Rick Astley; talentless fucker! I taught him all he fucking knows. Which isn’t much!” Apparently they were contemporaries on the Northern working men’s circuit. One had a huge hit and the other drank huge Bicardi’s and Cokes from the other side of my bar.

Some good natured banter used to fly around after a few drinks between Andy and Tony. Andy, mike in hand, would challenge the heavy rocker - who apparently was a fucking ‘singer’ - to a sing off. Tony would always demur and stick quietly to his Lowenbrow. He didn’t need to show off.

Not one night though…

I don’t know what it was but Andy’s barbs finally got through to Tony and it was decided that they’d do a karaoke challenge to Lionel Richie’s ballad ‘Hello’ which - in terms of Shy’s output - was pretty incongruous if you come to think about it. I always had a sense of humour! Andy started it off:

“I’ve been alone with you in my mind,” he began “And in my dreams I’ve kissed your lips a thousand times.” He sang the next line and, self satisfied, passed the mike to Tony confident he’d raised the bar too high for this girlie man to compete.

“HELLO, IS IT ME YOU”RE LOOKING FOR?” belted out Tony in full concert voice taking the song and the room to a new level. With just those few words, we were in a presence of rock n roll royalty. I knew it. The room knew it. Greenhoff knew it. Andy knew it. A different class. As the backing track continued, Andy got up off his stool and went and sat at a table among the punters. Rick Astley this wasn’t. He had the humility to realise the difference between an amateur and professional. This being Rochdale, this being the 1980s and this being my story, they made up later and duetted together on some MOR classic.

I’ve seen class up close only a few times but two of them were in Rochdale. Lisa Stansfield in my school musical. And Tony Mills, blowing all away in the late 80’s.

Happy Days.

R.I.P Meat Loaf

R.I.P. Brian Greenhoff

And, sadly, too young, R.I.P. Tony Mills - slayer of mediocre singers, drinker of Lowenbrow and unlikely Lionel Richie interpreter.

A circular Brighton walk - Station, Kemptown, Seafront

“Disenchantment achieved, I buy a packet of cigarettes and go to the next pub up the hill. I used to drink here ... It wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but I picture my youth in sepia, with horse drawn carts straining to get up the road as men in strange bowler hats, standing stiffly on corners, scowl back at me.”

— In Between Days - Tim Robson

“What’s with all the reservations on the the tables?” I ask the young barmaid in an empty Kemptown pub.

“Pub quiz tonight. Really popular.”

“So you’re still doing them, then?”

“Yeah, for over a year now.”

“Well, actually thirty,” I say cryptically proving myself both wise and stupid.

---

Never go back. Never turn around. Lot’s wife forgot that and see what happened to her (pillar of salt, you ignoramuses). Sequels are inferior to the originals, we all know that. Weekend at Bernies 2 maybe. And returning back to a place? Forget it!

And yet I found myself walking around the backstreets of Brighton the other day. I wrote a short story some years ago about a disillusioned man in the midst of a divorce returning to Brighton, revisiting old haunts. And so, I set out to recreate a recreation. A copy of a copy.

Yeah, makes no sense to me either. Still, I get to write about a walk around some of my favourite parts of Brighton with some added pithy ‘then v now’ comments and ‘it’s all gone downhill’ editorialising. As it happens, it’s taken me so long to write this article, I feel like I should write another where I follow in my summer 21 footsteps and compare the brightness of mask-free August with the gloom of COVID hysteria December. Those brief July to November days were different times.

---

Starting Point: Brighton Station (and ending point. It’s all a circle, man)

Let it never be said TR doesn’t do arty photos. See how these two trains converge into the distance? That’s composition, my friends.

Aug 2021: Have you noticed it’s mainly the Millennials that mask up these days? I suppose virtue signalling is ingrained in their souls and so ostentatiously wearing a mask is another opportunity to show how good they are. Question: have charities cottoned onto this fact yet? Started producing their own branded face nappies for the beard and tats generation? Just a thought.

Anyway, out of the station, you need to loop straight down, underneath, and go down one of Brighton’s infamous hills (there are many): Trafalgar Street. Like much of the walk, this street has that curious changed / unchanged vibe from thirty years ago. Back then, it was full of small musty shops selling records and 2nd hand clothes. Now, it bristles with a few new office blocks at the top end and more vegan / plant based cafes and restaurants than even the most enlightened beardy could shake a stick at. Soya milk lattes are most definitely on the menu. Probably obligatory.

Down we go. The Great Eastern pub near the bottom is worth a stop. Like much of Brighton it’s a bit poncified these days but - outside at least - it looks the same as it did when my solo singer/guitarist career crashed to a halt in the early 90’s. And thence to the Steine, central Brighton’s main thoroughfare. Cross over this multi lane highway, St Peter’s church - currently enrobed and refurbishing - is to your left and aim for the Norfolk pub on the other side (scene of one of my 90’s band Shambolic frequent public embarrassments) and climb the hill straight in front of you. Turn right before the tower blocks and we’re walking past 1930’s slum clearing flats. In the distance, and getting closer, are American Express’ new(ish) offices.

Into Kemptown

Ah, Kemptown… My stomping ground for, well, although a definite period of my life - remembered in detail years later - it was, in fact, only a short period of time. Two years? Three addresses? These days whole decades pass without a mark or memory. Back then, each day seemed monumental. Maybe they were.

Cross Edward Street (RIP Amex House), and go down George Street where a brace of royal named pubs flank the entrance onto Kemptown’s main thoroughfare, St James’ Street. We’re going to be following this road leftwards into deepest, darkest Kemptown. Kemptown, named after Thomas Kemp, has historically always been the centre of Brighton’s gay community. Although there are gay pubs the area is very mixed and vibrant and just very ‘Brighton’ - that liberal, carefree vibe you imagine this town to have.

The Saint James (where’s the ‘Tavern’ gone from its name?). Turn left when you see this vista.

Pubs? The St James’ Tavern was always good. I used to hold court here every Friday lunch with my team of reprobates over a couple of pints and a £5 Penang curry back in the early 2000’s. I see it does Lebanese cuisine now.

So we continue, past old haunts, catching glimpses of yesteryear ghosts, and into The Hand in Hand. It was once the home of the Kemptown Brewery and served their various real ale type concoctions, for example, SID - Staggering in the Dark. Might still be a brew pub. They used to sell boiled eggs on the bar which you could scoff with the aid of handily placed salt and pepper pots. The eggs have gone. The decor is still the same - eclectic, old pictures, postcards, random objects. Ties. In my mind this pub always plays Out of Time by REM and I have hair and pretty girlfriends… Drink up Tim, move on, move on.

On a pub theme: There was a pub around here called the Stag. It’s knocked down now. I made the mistake of going in there once with my then girlfriend. Like some B western movie, the music stopped as we entered and all the regulars stared at us. The barman may have made a comment about my drink selection (possibly lager and lime). “Do you want a cherry with that?” Never went back.

Bristol Rd. Curves.

Continuing along, the pace is quieter, the vibe more village-y. There’s a twist in the road (now called Bristol Road) and then we’re into Kemptown proper. You know, small shops and the launderette where I used to pin up adverts for my band’s gigs. Interesting pubs. It feels a community all of itself. I remember an Irish girl with red hair who’s beauty was matched by her capriciousness. She and I lived together in a shared house for a while a little further down the road… I aspired to be a writer and she a better boyfriend. One of us probably achieved our goals.

And then into the Thomas Kemp pub and conversations with the young barmaid about thirty years ago. “Yes, granddad”. The pub is swankier now with more restaurant tables than previously, less sofas. Pubs just can’t be pubs anymore, can they? I suppose people - not me - drink less these days. Lots of preloading going on. Wandering around today, I feel I’ve preloaded but not on cheap booze.

So, your author crosses and sneaks down a little alleyway and into Bloomsbury Place - a past address. Here also was a small basement studio where one of my bands - Tempting Alice - cut four tracks. Although one was played on BBC Radio Sussex, strangely this didn’t lead to a life of rock ‘n’ roll excess. We walk on and down this quiet road until it opens up onto the seafront.

We’re now pivoting back towards our start point. Cross Marine Parade and walk right along the promenade for about half a mile towards the pier. What can you see as you walk? Well, the sea, obvs! To the left, you’ll notice the high rise ghetto that Brighton Marina has latterly become and, in front of you, the pier and all those tourists who neglected to read this blog and so just headed down to the sea front. You’re so wise. You’re so clever. You are me. Literally.

Steve Ovett - Brighton hero

You keep walking along the promenade until you get to the Sea-life Centre and cross at the ridiculously small but congested mini- roundabout that mediates all the traffic on Brighton seafront. We’re going to traverse through Brighton’s famous Lanes so walk on the side of the Albion Hotel and turn left on East Street. Little shops, a gunsmith (?), that alley in Quadraphenia, guide us along to The Sussex Pub. Used to go there. Don’t now. Through a small alleyway past English’s Fish restaurant (apparently quite good but as not a poisson fan, wouldn’t know, mate). Thence into Brighton Square, start of The Lanes, those collection of alleyways with ex fishermen’s cottages that now sell, what? Crap for tourists. Coffee for tourists. Cornish pasties (for the gulls - don’t feed them). You can probably get your stick of Brighton rock here, though, probably not these days.

Navigate your way through the Lanes by always going up and left and you’ll end up on East Street. A shimmy and a shake and you’re on North Street which feels like it should be the main shopping Street but isn’t. Lots of buildings that look like banks - they once were - are now ersatz Italian restaurants and small batch coffee shops. It’s not my Brighton. At the top of North Street is The Clocktower. Back in the day this used to have a loo underneath. Too many public handjobs, too much to maintain means it, along with all Brighton public toilets, is just a full-bladdered memory.

We turn right at the clocktower and walk down the parade of kebab shops and - yes - coffee shops that is Queen’s Rd and we’re back at the station. Now put on your mask like a good boy and bugger off back to London. Don’t forget your soya milk latte.

As your train is delayed through lack of drivers isolating at home, consider what you’ve seen and what you’ve experienced. You - I - have walked a mile or two in the shoes of the younger me. Never turn back, I said. But, as Disney’s Pochahontus said, you can’t dip your hand in the same river twice. And I think, I’ll leave it to a kids’ cartoon to provide my epitaph to this circle (of life? We doing Disney references now, Tim? I remember when you used to quote the Stoics).

Yeah. Enjoy.

Charlie's Good Tonight

“Charlie’s good tonight,” announced Mick Jagger on Get Yer Ya Yas Out live album documenting the Stones 1969 US tour.

And he was. Every night.

Not a flashy drummer, he kept the time and the groove, followed cues from Keith Richard’s backside and provided the skins work for some of the best rock music ever. The Stones aren’t the place to find elongated drum solos. And quite right too. Charlie was the rock steady heartbeat that propelled the Stones from Crawdaddy residences in Richmond pubs to mega tours around the world. From timid Chuck Berry covers to those classics we all know.

From what I’ve seen, and from what I’ve read, Charlie was a shy and modest man, contented with his wife and his passions. Not a diva at all or a hotel wrecker. To him music was its own reward.

Charlie follows Brian Jones (and Ian Stewart if you want to be a completist) of dead Stones. 80 is not a bad innings though.

So, I’ve selected one of my favourite live cuts to be his requiem. The 69 Hyde Park concert was an out of tune mess. New boy Taylor wasn’t fully up to speed yet and the sound was atrocious. But the version of Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a classic. Listen - and watch - how Watts propels the Stones through the song. He was rarely animated but here, well let’s say he leads the band with an almighty energy. Rock on Charlie.

Charlie Watts. RIP.

More Stones appreciation here

Reversion to the Mean

Inevitably things revert to the mean. Over time, and on average, a variable will tend to regress back to its historical average. The term is often used mathematically, or in the study and prediction of the financial markets. We all know, I think, that stocks for example, tend to revert back to trend. It’s the underlying principle behind investments and, specifically, pensions.

Interesting but, I wonder, does this concept also apply to personalities? Stay with me; being at home and not commuting for a year, I had time to ponder abstract concepts, sift the data and make (wild) conclusions. It’s what I do.

My starting point might be relationships. From what I’ve observed, perhaps participated in, personalities tend to move back towards ‘normal’ behavioural characteristics within a relationship. A person may start in the honeymoon period all sweetness and unselfishness - this is natural; we all want to impress. But gradually, through familiarity and, I don’t know, confidence or boredom, a personality will inevitably revert back to its previous default setting.

I think instinctively every parent knows this. Much as educationalists and social theorists may wish environment to be key - the process of socialisation is a real thing after-all - any parent can observe their child’s character from early on. It doesn’t really change. Of course, children become adults, and as they do so, they become more sophisticated and learn to mask their impulses and imperfections, but ultimately, I think, character is formed at birth.

Yes I’m aware I’m treading leadenly where angels fear to tread and my assertion is the sort that only the very clever - or very stupid - would dare to cast out publicly but, there you go, it’s why I get paid the big bucks. My tens of readers would expect nothing less of me.

What about politics and economics? Do they revert to the mean, following a shock, a disruption? There’s some merit in that assertion - a period of correction following a market distortion for example. Expected and priced in. But what if things don’t revert? Or the reversion is delayed beyond reasonable?

Dictators all die. Evil regimes all fall. Good times are followed by bad and worse by better. Interest rates will rise and debt will be inflated away. Or will it? The problem with waiting for a reversion, a correction, is that whilst you live in that time, inhabit the bubble of expectation, the end point is unclear. No one wants to be the soldier shot five minutes before an armistice, the last investor before a price crash.

So, back to the personal.

People acting out of character, following a new fad, a regime, a diet or religion, often come a cropper. Actions following a divorce, maybe. Wild changes suggest and anticipate wild corrections. We can see the anomalous behaviour in real time and await the inevitable reversion to the mean of their lives.

But what about incrementalism? Slow changes, thought through and planned seem to be a positive way to go. A reversion to the mean implies a stability within that mean but what happens if the variables that calculate the stasis change? I think herein lies the answer, less dream big and fail, more baby steps in the right direction. Constantly and with purpose.

I think people tend to be more Fabius Maximus and less Scipio Africanus though that is a gross generalisation and rather insulting to the former. We need both archetypes but I suspect the broad mass of people are incrementalists, not bold strategists. A little movement in the right direction can shift mood and perspective and recalculate the equilibrium so that when a reversion happens - and it will - we’re no longer where we were but perhaps nearer where we want to be.

I used to end articles like these - ones where I feebly grasp at large concepts and often as not grab the air - with the motto ‘Socrates sleeps easy tonight’. You know, how great thinkers may read the abstract and shake their heads at my pretensions and go back to deliberating high thoughts and complex theorems. True enough. But the simple act of coalescing thoughts and putting them down pushes the needle ever so slightly in the right direction.

Barbarians - Netflix Review

Probably about ten years after the rest of the population, I got Netflix last week. So much to watch, so many cultural references to finally understand. But what to watch first?

The first series to grace that special hour between bottles one and two, was not Breaking Bad or The Crown but Barbarians the new(ish) German six parter detailing the road to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest massacre 9AD where three whole legions were massacred by assorted German tribes under Arminius (see my blog on this battle, and the Roman follow up here).

My overall verdict? About five out of ten. Six maybe.

I thought the Latin for the Romans and German (dubbed English) for the Germans was a good idea. Nice to hear what the Romans actually sounded like. To be fair though, unless they said status quo, vini, vidi, vici or carpe diem, I wouldn’t have a bloody clue what the actors were declaiming. Could have been Tahitian.

The actor playing Arminius - an actor called Laurence Rupp was the major weakness. His idea of showing his character’s conflict at being torn between two cultures was to a) look as though he was going to cry b) imitate a plank of wood. He mainly went for the wooden style. I couldn’t see him rallying a stag party with free booze at the Munich bierfest, let alone coalescing together the internecine hatred of the German tribes to attack the might of Rome.

HIs overlong, intercut and frankly gibberish soliloquy to the severed head of Varus disrupting the climatic battle scene was a particular low point. What should have been the dramatic climax of the series turned into a real life conflict between me fast forwarding and the writer jerking off platitudes.

The armour and period detail looked correct which makes Roman army pedants like myself happy. To be fair, it was hard to get this wrong as, in 9AD, the Roman army looked pretty much exactly as you’d picture them - all lorica segmentata and curved helmets. But it was all so small scale! We’ve been spoilt with the grandeur of movies like Gladiator or even Spartacus as casts of thousands of extras duly trooped back and forth into gigantic battles. Here they were clearly on a budget. Arminius’ auxiliary cavalry command was basically him and six other hairy blokes.

There was the usual Woden, will of the wisp, dress up the shaman in a funny costume, old gods shite that seem to populate these sorts of series (I think it shared some of the same production staff as Amazon’s lamentable Vikings). The main female character, played by Jeanne Goursaud, flipped between naked romps with the two main male leads and wearing a funny sub-Marvel outfit whilst slicing one her eyes out with a stone knife. A ‘wise woman’ apparently.

To summarise: The Romans were bastards. The tribes liked fighting each other. Some of the acting was as wooden as the Teutoburg Forest itself. The period detail looked okay. It was very small scale. Some of the history was off but not annoyingly so. I fell asleep twice and had to spool though the episodes trying to remember where I’d dropped off. Could have been the wine.

Anyway, bring on Germanicus and Tiberius in series two to give these tribes a good kicking in the lesser known, but just as devastating, Roman response to the loss of the eagles at Teutoburg.

Click here, for my review of Sky’s Domina…

For my series on Roman Battles, click here…

Tim's Blog RSS

Domina - TV Series Review

Uncharacteristically for me, I binged watched the first six episodes of Sky Atlantic’s Domina over the course of the last couple of nights.

The main character is Livia, wife of first Roman Emperor Augustus. For students of I, Claudius - the book or series - Livia is well known as the evil manipulating matriarch of the Julio-Claudian imperial family, forever bumping off relatives that stand in her way. Of course, Robert Graves got his dirt from Suetonius in his scurrilous Lives of the 12 Caesars (Published around 100AD).

So she’s a well known literary & TV figure already.

We haven’t had decent Roman historical drama since HBO’s Rome Series 1 and 2, years ago. The BBC did a crap series on the Roman conquest of Britain a while back but that mainly seemed to be the writer and director wanking themselves in a frenzy of self-conscious weirdness. Didn’t watch it.

Domina is a more traditional series - historical characters, rendered historically with a good grasp of the available sources. I’m currently up to about 23BC the year Augustus was very ill and the whole experiment into an imperial system could have ended.

What’s good about the series is that it shows the uncertainty and the potential for missteps as the Roman world transitioned away from the republican form of government. Too many histories tend to gloss over the transitional period of, say, 39-23BC. In retrospect, you might get the impression that Augustus’ 41 year reign was all sweetness with nary a challenge or hiccup along the way. In reality, it was very different to this.

I read Appian’s Civil Wars last year. The transition from Republic through the dictatorship of Caesar, the 2nd Triumphant, Octavian v Anthony, Actium and then the settlements of 27 and 23 BC were not smooth. Augustus could have fallen at anytime; history puts it stamp on the past but the counter factuals could have been just as easy.

So I like this series in that it shows the struggles Augustus faced in this early Imperial era. Nothing was writ in stone. He was a man. Not the god he became. And Livia was right by his side, counselling urging and plotting. She is in many ways a very ahistorical figure, modern perhaps, in that, even at the time, it was acknowledged that she impacted on the great counsels of state. Unusually for this period, Augustus took his wife’s advice.

Like any series that covers a long period of time (the first 6 episodes cover 44-23BC), the casting director faces a choice of what to do about the characters ageing. With Domina, the decision was made to have two separate casts - young actors playing Livia and Augustus, Agrippa etc and then wheeling in the older variants. This is will known and a typical device. It was initially slightly jarring however that not only did Livia change faces between episodes 2 and 3 but she also changed nationality - Kasia Smutniak may be a polygot but the character Livia goes from a posh English accent when young to a weird nondescript European mash up.

I soon got over it.

The series has the bonking and orgies you’d expect as per the HBO Rome formula. The dialogue was replete with fucks and cunts. I suppose people do talk like that but, in places, it was a little overdone and for effect rather than to convey realism (especially in the first couple of episodes). The acting in the main was good, both Livias were convincing - being both attractive (she was meant to be a reputed beauty in her day) and believably strong characters. Young Augustus was perhaps a trifle too crude and boorish. Of course Augustus was arrogant and known for his cunning and playing the long game but the enfant terrible seemed a little trite. The older version of him seems to have got it right.

Best line? Livia to two wedding guests: “I’m younger, prettier and richer than you two. You’re lucky to be invited.”

And now? Well, I face a race to get my Galla Placidia screenplay off the ground. It amazes me that this remarkable woman - 400 years after Livia - who actually held power as regent - has been totally ignored by dramatists. Especially for those looking for strong female characters. Well, tap tap tap.

For further Roman reading, click here. I also reviewed the Netflix series Barbarians about the Teutoburg massacre.

A Circular Walk around the Downs near Burgess Hill

“They still spread their grassy surface to the sun as on that beautiful morning not, historically speaking, so very long ago; but the King and his fifteen thousand men, the horses, the bands of music, the princesses... how entirely they have they all passed and gone! - lying scattered about the world as military and other dust, some at Talvera, Albuera, Salamanca...and Waterloo, some in home churchyards; and a few small handfuls in royal vaults.”

— THOMAS HARDY - THE TRUMPET MAJOR

Thomas Hardy is one of favourite novelists. His bucolic stories, bittersweet, often tragic, tend to be set in the rural parishes of olde Wessex - further to the west than my Sussex home. I’ve been rereading Hardy recently and by necessity, by design, I’ve also been walking the down-lands, woodlands and common lands around Burgess Hill.

Burgess Hill is a pretty nondescript town to be honest. I chose to live here years ago because of two reasons only - one, the houses prices were cheaper than Brighton or Worthing and, secondly, it has two mainline stations with a commute of less than an hour to London. But whilst it doesn’t ring any bells architecturally or culturally, it does sit in a sweet spot sheltering behind the ridges of the South Downs to the south - for example Wolstonbury Hill - and lying in the middle of the Sussex Weald.

So there’s a bucolic charm to found in the surrounding area; mighty oaks, coppiced beech, bluebells, ancient trails. It’s pretty. One of the nicest parts of the country. There’s a superficial certainty about the countryside - the seasons follow in a regular pattern, snowdrops are followed by crocuses, edged out by daffodils, carpet bombed by bluebells, superseded by roses. The common lands here detail brambles, ferns, grazing cows, dieback, desolation, and rebirth all in the correct order.

But to be alive is to be aware of change; sometimes good, often not.

The countryside around me in Sussex is sadly diminishing, year by year, acre by acre, at an increasing pace. New housing estates greedily gobble up those spaces between villages, tearing into the fabric of remembered country walks, disturbing those quiet places where once the busy calls of birds were all you could hear.

And so I frantically carve out new experiences; fashioning walks from footpaths researched or found, splicing together routes known or imagined to meld together that perfect creation, the circular walk. I now have plenty of these to occupy my enforced home captivity. They all tend to be variations on a theme, using and re-using certain pathways only to branch to the left, or through a woodland to the right, a hill in front, a bridge to the side. Constant reputation and adaption means I have options, sometimes taken randomly, often not.

Here is one such walk. It last about an hour or so at a brisk pace, two if you want to do it leisurely. There is no real hardship or rough terrain though the paths do tend to get muddy during the winter and so wellies (not walking boots) are advised at those times… But enough throat clearing, here is a brisk canter through an easy circular walk around the countryside of North Burgess Hill.

START: World’s End Car Park

Park in the recreation ground car park by the playground and head up Valebridge Road, ie away from the park and up the slight incline. After about 5 minutes you meet a small road leading right - Theobalds Road. We’ll be on that private lane for a little while so best to look around a bit. It’s quiet, populated by just the wealthy residents going back and forth and - in the early parts anyway - the ever present dog walkers. (An aside - there’s a lot of dogs around here. It seems fashionable to have more than one; two is a minimum. And are dogs getting smaller?)

Theobalds Road

As you walk up this quiet road, you’ll begin to notice notices pinned to fences and trees. They’re numbered 1 to 8 and detail a history trail. They’re quite informative - apparently Theobald’s Road is an ancient track - perhaps 2000 years old. It’s part of a trail that used to lead between Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath. The notices have a slightly autodidactic tone that hints at something unspoken. And then we have it… One of the notices attacks the ‘new’ houses to the right and the fact that the house-builders destroyed an ancient hedge. Yep, can’t agree more. Stop the bulldozers! Sign me up to a protest.

Of course, wandering further up the lane, where it’s quieter and the homes are older, one can’t help notice that farmers and residents in the older houses have also ‘changed’ the ancient hedges and installed modern fences and barbed wire. Mmm, nothing more bitter than a local dispute about hedges!

Anyway, follow the road for around a mile until, over on the right, you see a stile leading onto a narrow path that skirts a house and leftwards, some fields with horses. The trail leads downhill to another stile and into the woods. You’ll cross a bridge and climb back up to another stile that leads to what us country folk call, ‘a big field’. You’ll see what I mean. A vast area of greenness broken by two incomplete lines of oak trees. Walk around the field or head straight up the hill. There’s a gate at the top directly in front of the stile you’ve just climbed over and follow the track to the left.

You’ll find yourself on a driveway leading to a large house. But stop for a moment. Looking down you have great views over the downs and the distant hills. Worth the odd photo. And then, go through the kissing gate opposite and follow the trail downwards (houses on your left). This leads to a field which you’ll cross diagonally to the left and cross a stile. Follow the farm track at the bottom veering right. This leads - sometimes - to a field of cows. Walk along the right-edge of this field until it leads to the driveway of Ote Hall. This is a big Tudor Manor House that now does weddings. Worth a quick peep!

Head left down the road, passing the farm on your left until you get to Jane’s Road. Cross over and climb the stile directly opposite and head through this field keeping to the left until you reach the stile at the bottom. Turn left and follow the track along the edge of this field until it reaches a makeshift bridge over the stream. Cross this and turn right and, following this path, you’ll end up out of the countryside and on Manor Road. Turn right along Manor Road which very shortly brings you back to World’s End Recreation Ground.

You’ve made it! I hope you enjoyed those 10,00 steps!

As Burgess Hill residents, dog walkers and Nimbies might tell you, there are a thousand variants of this walk. Longer, shorter, less road, more woods, more common land. All true. But this is a logical - and easy - circle and that’s what I tend to look for when I come to a new area with no prior knowledge. For example, my walks centred around the Wey & Arun canal at Loxwood started small after reading about it on the internet. They have grown over the last year so I now incorporate together several bits and pieces of many walks to form an ever changing, ever expanding whole.

I started this piece with a quote from Hardy as he reflected on George III and his army parading on the Wessex Downs as they awaited to repel Napoleon and his vast invasion force. From then to now, Hardy was saying, they are all dead and gone. Use it or lose it people! We’re all in a parade where the flags won’t wave forever.

Come to Burgess Hill (said no one ever). Good walks, two stations. Waitrose.

Is QE the New OPEC: A Return to 70's inflation?

Opinions of decades change over time. I remember back in the 80’s the 1970’s were regarded as, well, a bit shit really. People wore flares, brown suits and spent most of the time on strike or huddled around a candle burning five pound notes to keep warm. The 70’s reputation was one of strife and bad clothes.

Punk, disco, glam, these were antiquated things to be laughed at. I remember Abba being so out of fashion in the 80’s it was an actual crime to own one of their records. Hard to believe that now. But I continued playing them. Yes, I was the person who made Mama Mia possible. Thank you.

The 80’s were shiny and the 70’s were dull. The 80’s were a time of renewal, the 70’s a time of decline. And so went popular opinion.

But as time passes, an inevitable reassessment takes place; distance really does add depth. The 70’s were also the decade when the spirit of the 60’s was democratised into the population as a whole, not just the illuminati. 1976 was a blisteringly hot summer. There are some great films (Dirty Harry, Star Wars, Grease) and some classic music. And the styles themselves, once so derided, seem more in tune with now than the shoulder pads and mullets of the 80’s.

Which is all a long way around to introduce the topic of inflation. Because, one thing that the 70’s really own, really can claim as their ‘thing’, is inflation. And with our government(s) creating money like Robert Mugabe spinning the printing presses of the Weimar Republic, inflation is back on the agenda.

We seem to have forgotten about inflation. Since the early 1980’s when Thatcher’s government set out to conquer it, we’ve not really experienced its effects. This may have bred some complacency - or simple ignorance - amongst our central bankers and politicians. “Inflation?” they might intoned using ill merited superiority, “That’s not going to be a problem. We’ve printed money for more than a decade with no inflation. Theres no inflation around here.”

But, like Voldemort, is it ever really dead? *

Tim flips to the serious bit

What is inflation? Inflation is the rate of price increase in goods and services over a defined period of time. So, if a pen costs £1 in Year 1 and £1.10 in Year 2, the inflation rate (for pens) is 10%. Add in everything else in an economy and you get the aggregate rate. We all know this. But what causes prices to rise?

“Too much money chasing too few goods” - Demand Pull Inflation

If you are a monetarist - Milton Friedman being the most prominent here - inflation is caused by a prior expansion of the money supply. This was a lesson that was drummed into all of us in the 80’s who studied economics (I did). Too much money causes inflation. Why is this? Well, if you you increase the supply of something, the price will fall; the falling price of money being inflation. The obvious landmark event in the 70’s was Nixon coming off the gold standard in 1971 and tearing up Bretton Woods. This de-anchored currencies allowing governments to dabble where angels had previously feared to tread.

Further to this, if there is more demand than the supply of goods, the price of those goods will tend to rise. This is evidenced in the long -form economic seminar we call Jingle All The Way where the lack of supply of the kids’ toy jacks up the price discomforting Arnie’s character.**

True, perhaps. But what about other causes? Some (Binder et al) argue that there were two types of inflation in the 70’s - underlying inflation and price shock inflation. The argument goes that the 70’s was a period of price shocks - oil, of course, but also food and the perverse affects of prices and incomes controls in the Western World. If you hold something back you not only suppress supply but create pent up demand for when those controls are released, creating a surge in inflation. Hello 1974 and, perhaps, rebonjour 2021 as lockdowns are finally lifted.

Yes, 1974 was the big year of inflation. The mother of all inflated years (though inflation peaked in the UK at 24% in 1975). So, the big question on everyone’s lips is; is QE the new OPEC? Or is QE the new decoupling from the gold standard? In other words, are we heading for a short and bracing bout of one time inflation or several years of systemic inflation?

Beyond my pay grade, I’m afraid to say. It’s interesting to note wage pressures. The 70’s were a time of powerful unions, industrial actions and wage increases (which, in turn, led to further inflation). Through Thatcher’s reforms, this seems to have gone away in the UK though the nurses’ recent 12.5% wage increase is perhaps the first salvo in the inflation battle to come. I don’t get the sense of labour shortages (yet).

However, as we all know, although inflation is a bitch to the common, working, person it’s much kinder to those with large debts. The biggest of these debtors is, of course, the government borrowing like crazy at the moment. Talk about a fox being in charge of the hen house!

But what can we do?

How can we adopt some defensive strategies? Well, here’s some I pulled out of my arse:-

• Real assets tend to increase in value as a currency devalues. My numismatic hobby might just turn golden, if you get my drift.***

• Other real assets, land, property tend to do well. When the currency is being flushed down the toilet, possession of tangible stuff is key.

• Is this finally the time for digital currencies?

• if you’re on a variable interest rate mortgage, perhaps this is the moment to consider (or increase) overpayments. Go long in fixing your mortgage payments.

• Savings. Savings. WTF can we do about savings? One would assume that if inflation starts to take off the BoE will need to raise interest rates. It will be interesting to see if this finally triggers a commensurate rise in the savings rates banks offer. It’s been so long since there was a decent rate. Would any potential rise in deposit rates keep pace with inflation however?

• Equities. I’ve not been able to discern much sensible information about stocks and inflation. The twin crashes of the 70’s had different outcomes for the FTSE - 1973/4 a massive crash, 1979/80 a modest increase. There is a theory that value stocks do better in periods of high inflation whereas growth stocks do not. But there’s too much noise to discern any clear pattern. As ever, playing the stock market is a matter of judgement, experience and timing. And luck. But on average, and over time, it tends to increase despite periods of inflation. ****

A parting thought. We’ve never really lived in a time when a government has deliberately crashed an economy and then used massive money printing to foot the inevitable bills. How much supply has been eroded in the last year, to soak up the QE, will soon be put to the test. Inflation is perhaps one outcome. When furlough finishes, unemployment will be another. My discredited Phillips Curve used to suggest there was an inverse relationship between these two evils. I fear we’ll get both again.

And on that sombre note, let’s play Rod and Faces, one of the better memories of the 70’s. It merits a longer entry - which I’ll get around to - but they were sloppy, they were loud, they were drunk but the Faces had swagger and were one of the best live bands ever! Ronnie’s guitar tone. Wow!

NOTES (How pretentious, I am!)

*I know, I know. Harry Potter references now. I’ve slipped. Must up the quotient of better references.

** I’m really going for it now - an Arnie reference no less!

*** Numismatics - collecting coins. UK gold sovereigns are a good - and tax free - way of wealth protection, I’m told. But there again, the guy who told me this was Gordon Brown.

**** The FTSE was 289 in 1970 and 620 in 1980. Go figure.

Whatever happens, happens rightly.

Recently I've been reading my long-neglected copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. For those of you who are not familiar, Marcus Aurelius was the Roman Emperor between AD 161 - 180. He was the last in the series of 'The Five Good Emperors' -  Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pious and himself. This time (96-180) is often considered the height of the Roman Empire, where the borders reached their fullest extent, the exterior walls were built and the citizens within enjoyed relatively long years of peace and good governance. 

Marcus fitted the Platonic ideal of a philosopher-king. Invested with supreme power he was also a thoughtful and mediative man. He wrote Meditations whilst on the campaign trail fighting the Germanic tribes as a stoic guide to life and as a personal diary to himself. Stripped down, his philosophy was that life is essentially inconsequential, but what determines a worthwhile life is acting rationally and for good and not to be emotional about temporary highs or lows for they are as nothing in the broad sweep of history.

The above quotation - Whatever happens, happens rightly* - piqued my interest. It summarises in just four words, a whole philosophy and is thus a very powerful sentence. It appears on the surface to embrace a form of karma; that we are unwitting actors within a cosmic Fate of which we have no control but I think it goes a little deeper than this.

One has to understand where Marcus was coming from in order to do this full justice. I think the following quotation helps clarify a little more:-

Many grains of incense fall on the same altar: one sooner, another later - it makes no difference.**

Like the wisdom of Solomon I'm so fond of in Ecclesiastes, Marcus details the outward futility of man's actions. In this example, incense falling on the altar being a metaphor for successive waves of human generations, Marcus points out the folly of human vanities. The short term seeking of pleasures, accolades, profit, will be all be forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

A gloomy message, yes? And yet no - a realistic message, for Marcus discerns patterns and repetitions in human drama. Let's look at another quote to demonstrate:-

Reflect often how all the life of today is a repetition of the past; observe that it also presages what is to come. Review the many complete dramas and their settings, all so similar, which you have known in your own experience, or from bygone history... The performance is always the same; it is only the actors who change. ***

Anyone who has lived a few years can see the truth in the above and smile in recognition. This is even more emphatic for students of history. In politics, war, economics, human relations, there is, as I quoted previously in different article, 'nothing new under the sun'.

So far so rational. But what about the 'happens rightly' part? Doesn't this suggest some moral agency in what happens in life? Some 'good' pre-determined outcome? I would be equivocal about this. I suspect Marcus is using the word 'rightly' in a mechanicalistic manner, that universal laws of nature and humanity will always reassert themselves - like some cosmic regression towards the mean. For example, a forest may be cleared but, left to itself, it will grow again. 

However, despite this, Marcus also believes in being rational, humane and good. In fact he believes that this is the only point of life; to live a 'good' life. And whilst one can only control oneself, the more good in the world, the better the outcomes and the higher the level of, temporary, human happiness. Nothing is perfect, everything has to re-won, the lessons of history always have to relearnt but, given a reasonable and sympathetic character, then things can be made better. And, that is what is important in life.

My quibble - if I have one - is that whilst I agree with much of Marcus' gloomy observation about each generation having to relearn the lessons of the past, is that I have a stubborn belief in the Enlightenment's idea of progress. Although each generation does have to relearn history and human relations, it does so not from some ground zero each day but 'standing on the shoulders of giants'.

Knowledge, inventions, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of speech, transparency, capitalism, food production, cheap transport, fast communications, the universalisation of knowledge via the internet, better health, drugs, sanitation; these are things that are spreading at the fastest rate ever in human history. We - pace Marcus - living only in the present - tend to ignore these advances but they are there and they are real. ****

So, what are we left with as base material concerns are stealthily obliterated? How can the sentient person avoid spiritual degradation, a creeping ennui? By doing good. Personal kindnesses. Rationality. Reason. Thoughtfulness. Curiosity.

The real battle, as suggested by Marcus Aurelius and other ancients texts, is, and always has been, individual and internal. And this is a fight that has to be won every day.

Firstly, avoid all actions that are haphazard or purposeless; and secondly, let every action aim solely at the common good. *****

Normal service resumed in the next article where I discuss the latest series of The Voice.

Laters

Tim

Tim's Blog RSS

NOTES

* Meditations - Book IV, 10

** Meditations - Book iV, 15

*** Meditations - Book X, 27

**** One of the problems with a 24 hour media and - dare I say it - ignorant journalists with no understanding of history - is that the sensational, the temporary, the critical always wins the battle for attention against the long term, the underlying trend, the comparative. We are, as a world, empirically, more free, richer, healthier, better fed than EVER before. That is not to say that there aren't problems nor that there aren't temporary set-backs but, if you compare the world with 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, let alone 500, there is no comparison that we are better off in so many ways. Whether we are happier or more spiritually fulfilled is a completely separate issue, however.

***** Meditations Book XII, 20

Originally published 2016 

Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D Minor

Nearly twenty years ago I worked in a skyscraper near London’s Victoria Station. I’ve recounted previously how I used to walk over to Harrods via Motcomb Street. Well, apparently, I used to do something else too; I used to ceaselessly hum the melody to Vivaldi’s Winter (Largo) from the Four Seasons.

Now, as luck would have it, I had an Italian colleague sat opposite me. He liked Vivaldi. He told me that the Four Seasons was part of a larger movement, The Contrast Between Harmony and Invention (Opus 8). And thus began my interest in baroque.

Tracking down Vivaldi’s other opus became a hobby. If you haven’t heard La Stravaganza, l’estro armonico or Gloria it’s worth the two seconds of your life it takes to track these down and listen. From Vivaldi I found Teleman, Albinoni, Corelli, Bach (of course), Handel and numerous others.

Baroque music became the only music I listen to at work. It also became the only music I listened to on trains going to and from work. Ah, yes, commuting; how soon we forget! Two hours a day listening to my favourite Vivaldi’s concertii as the rolling hills of Sussex transformed into South London.

Now one of the best things about YouTube (and one of the worst) is that it takes your viewing habits and very quickly recommends other videos of the same ilk. Now this can be worrisome; you can watch a Trump press conference and in a matter of clicks you’re nodding along to Alex Jones ranting about satanic conspiracies. Or you watch Tulsi Gabbard tear Kamala Harris a new one in a Democratic debate and then you’re suddenly marooned watching extreme left propaganda (otherwise known as CNN).

But, to be fair, with music, Youtube comes into its own and I appreciate it recommending music for me. I have found many great songs and artists I otherwise wouldn’t have. Sometimes algorithms work.

Thus, one dreamy afternoon at work, my earphones plugged in to some Vivaldi, I came across - or YouTube recommended for me - Alessandro Marcello’s sublime Oboe Concerto in d Minor.

How can one describe these three movements? The angular musicality of the first, the haunting slow adagio, the playfulness of the third? Something about the key of D minor and the combination of oboes and baroque instruments always succeeds in delivering an impactful punch (see the equally sublime RV 535 from Vivaldi or Albinoni’s stunning Oboe Concerto - also in Dm).

The concerto was clearly popular in the early eighteenth century as Bach reworked it for harpsichord as BMV 974. It’s a good version - dropping to C minor for the occasion - and a good track to add to my piano playlist. However, it lacks some of the formality and evocativeness of the original. Bach’s version sounds like good instrumental music from a French film (nothing wrong with that, of course).

Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in D Minor is one to seek out; but the ultimate proof of a piece of music is to listen for yourself. I hope it is a positive experience for you all.

I love this version and the painting of Piazza Navona, by Caspar Van Wittel 1699, that accompanies it.

Mary Chain, Mascara, Morrissey and Me: SUSSEX UNIversity IN THE 80’s

Natalie. Or Brigitte? My next door neighbour but briefly - East Slope, Sussex University

Natalie lived next door to me. She was years older - at least four. That was an unbridgeable gap in those days. She appeared experienced and sophisticated in a way that I wasn’t then and probably am not now. And she was also French; dark haired, beautiful, sexy. I’d only gone to university and got Brigitte Bardot living next door to me!

And then, mid-term, she moved out. Our juvenile antics must have irked her. Oh - the bottomless pain of separation! The exquisite misery of emptiness! Surrounded by hundreds of eighteen year olds I was alone, so alone.

I played Hatful of Hollow endlessly. Morrissey incongruously spoke to me. ‘Please, please, please let me get what I want’ he sang through my cheap speakers. There was silence from the empty room next door.

East Slope, Sussex University, autumn term 1986.

---

I was driving my daughter around ‘my’ Brighton last weekend. We were stopping off and photographing all my previous addresses throughout Brighton and Hove. Some I stayed at for a matter of weeks, others for several years. Many looked decrepit, a handful were grand, very grand. I had situational memories of all of them. Job. Girlfriend. How cold they were (it was alway cold in Brighton flats).

On the way back to Burgess Hill we stopped off at Sussex University. I’d lived in three campus apartments over two years - East Slope, Kent House and Park Village. Let’s see if I could retrace once familiar steps and show my daughter, well what? Where Natalie left me bereft all those years ago? Mmm, maybe not. But where I lived certainly.

But like most universities since the 80’s, Sussex has got bigger - ‘welcoming’ more and more students in order to meet Tony Blair’s ridiculous 50% target. Add to this to the maniacal drive to recruit loads of fee paying foreign students and you have a university with near four times the number of ‘clients’ it had when I went there.*

So although we drove past many familiar buildings, there was a new feeling about the campus. It seemed very closed in whereas it always seemed spacious when I was there. Tricks of time, perhaps. Sussex was a relatively small university in the 80’s and the student body was split fairly evenly between public school tossers and the brightest and best of the comprehensive system. 4500 students in all - one third living on campus. It felt like a village. A village out in the Downs, ten minutes train ride from Brighton. It sported Sussex red brick and the architect - Basil Spence - had designed the layout so that it nodded vaguely in the direction of a classical Roman forum. (I know this stuff because I used to do campus tours for prospective parents and students in my third year. £3 a pop, I remember.)

Shades at night! TR in his Kent House student room 1988 - alas the call from the Jesus & Mary Chain never came.

There were the bars of course. East Slope bar was notorious because of the cheap drinks, the scrum to get those cheap drinks and the sticky floor caused by said drinks being too difficult for students to navigate the plastic glass of Kronenberg from glass to mouth without spilling. (Pints were 60-70p). Park Village Bar rates a mention as it was the home of the Julie’s Jinx a pint of every spirit going starting from a base of half a cider. These cocktails never lasted long in your stomach.

Sussex has changed since the 80’s. New high rise accommodation blocks bestride and dominate the northern end of campus. All those extra fee paying students have to live somewhere I suppose. Inside, these alien structures are probably very nice with all the mod cons our current flock of students demand. But the village feeling, the uniqueness of the first red brick university, has gone. And so has East Slope, so named because all the student accommodation was in single story flats rising gently up a hill. All gone. And yes, that flat where I met and then mourned the beautiful Natalie, now gone completely.

To be fair the other buildings from then to now, looked tired. Park Village looked in particular on its last legs with rotting woodwork, overgrown green spaces, windswept rubbish piled up in corners. Not how I remembered it at all. But then what I truly remember is the spirit, the ephemeral feeling and not just the concrete. I remember the summer of 87, and every window being open and blasting out the newly released Joshua Tree. I remember late night parties and lying on the grass in the warm June air, talking bollocks about politics and music and gossiping over plastic glasses of cheap red wine. I remember reading Wuthering Heights for the first time out on the fields next to Park Village; fields now covered with blocks of flats and car parks.

It’s the people and the time; the young people interacting, doing stuff, each other, laughing and joking that defines a place, an era. I guess I always knew that.

Park Village party, June 1988. TR lying down in white (with hair!)

So even before further buildings are torn down, as East Slope has been, the transient spirit my cohort possessed has gone. Each successive intake make their own memories, their own version of what a university community means. But that time is heartbreakingly brief and we’re left - if we ever venture to go back - with the mere bones slowly rotting away. The flesh has long gone. The spirit died the very moment we walked out that last day Summer Term ‘88. And maybe that’s correct.

And Natalie? Fuck knows. She shacked up with some professor, moved into a flat behind the station in Brighton and - for all I know - got married, had kids and never thinks about me. But if she does I hope she plays The Smiths.

Tim Robson 17B East Slope 1986.

(I like live versions of songs. This solo version from Morrissey - years later, different lyrics - captures though the wistfulness of time passed. Hence me selecting it. You’re welcome.)

• Fifteen Minutes with You… From Reel Around The Fountain, The Smiths

• Foreign student income. Perhaps that why the British universities whined like bitches when the uneducated population voted for Brexit? Call me old fashioned (puts down pint) but shouldn’t the primary function of UK universities be to educate the children of this land first?

Mick Taylor's Top Studio Tracks

“Ye shall know them by their fruits”

— Matthew 7:16 (KJV)

We all know that in the Mick Taylor Years (1969 / 74) the Rolling Stones were at their live peak. He added a real lead guitar muscle to complement their riff heavy catalogue. They went from being great to being the best. Watching the Stones in this period ranks - with me anyway - alongside watching Elvis 1969-72.  Yeah, two great acts at their peak at the same time. Saw neither. Thank goodness for YouTube.

Apparently Keith Richards once told Mick Taylor he was great live but shit in the studio. There's a ring of truth to this - even if it was overstated. Taylor certainly was less dominant in the Stones albums he played on. Maybe he knew he was being shafted for song writing credits. Maybe Mick and Keef overshadowed MT when it came to controlling who did what and when. They certainly bossed the mixing desk. Playing live they didn't have the same control.

But dig (not too deep) and you have some classic Mick Taylor performances committed to vinyl. 

I've tried to filter out songs where he was just 'one of the band' and purposefully pick songs where it's absolutely all about Mick Taylor. Agree? Disagree? Tell me in the comments.

Mick Taylor appeared on Stones albums between 1969 and 1973*. They are Let It Bleed (just a little) and then Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goat's Head Soup and It's Only Rock n Roll plus the live album Get Yer Ya Ya's Out. 

To me, I'd probably rank them Sticky Fingers, Goat's Head Soup, Exile on Main Street, It's Only Rock n Roll. Which is strange as my favourite MT tracks appear on It's Only Rock n Roll. 

Sway - Sticky Fingers (1971)

Keith was absent and so the two Micks fooled around in the studio together, coming up with this gem. A real guitar-heavy rocker, taken at a stately pace, it's one of those Stone tracks that should be better known but it's cult like obscurity makes me feel good I'm in the know. As does my possession of an original Andy Warhol designed jeans zip cover (framed and on my wall next to 8/9 others of similar vintage). This was, for a while, my fav Stones track. Jagger sings exceptionally on this - as demonstrated by his later, pitiful, attempt on the 2013 tour. MT's guitars are hard, the solos fluid - slide and then full on rock solo as the track ends. One to look up if you don't know it.

Winter - Goats Head Soup (1973)

Winter is one of those epic ballads the Stones seemed to just knock off in their sleep in the mid 70's (Angie, Memory Motel, Fool to Cry, Coming Down Again). Just like Sway, it features no Keith Richards. What separates this from the others is the Mick Taylor guitar solo which is both powerful and incendiary. Taylor had a way of complementing Jagger's vocal lines, adding fillers and runs throughout the song. Like he would do when the Stones played live. Many people rate this his best solo. I enjoy it but, no, it would be bettered the following year.

 Can't you Hear Me Knocking - Sticky Fingers (1971)

It starts with a Keef riff and then, according to MT, when everyone was putting their instruments down at the end of the song, the groove just continued - first Bobby Keyes on sax and then, the Master Mick, the God of guitar (virtuosity be his name) started soloing. One take. Not rehearsed. As live as you can get and this is the result. The Stones should have employed this method on their recordings 69-73; just turn Mick Taylor loose. What you get is a classic and a classic because he turns the songs around and pushes it into new directions. That's one of Taylor's strength - his ability to effortlessly improvise.

All Down the Line - Exile on Main Street (1972)

Rock and rolling Stones kicking it back in the South of France, noses in bags of narcotics, dodging tax and playing some of their best music ever! Exile on Main Street was a groove, a feel, the sound of  - to steal a phrase from Sir Paul - a Band on The Run. Mick Taylor adds some sharp, rocking slide guitar, taking the solo. To see how hard MT worked on this track - watch the video below.

Til the Next Goodbye - It's Only Rock n Roll (1974)

Another acoustic ballad, another slide solo. Beautiful song and for some reason completely overlooked. Why?

Honky Tonk Women - Let it Bleed (1969) / Brown Sugar - Sticky Fingers (1971)

Two songs from 1969 (Though Brown Sugar lay in the vaults over a year). Mick Taylor's introduction to the band. Honky Tonk Women - apparently MT made a small but telling contribution. He rocked up the song from the country ballad (Country Honk) to the rock classic we know now. Brown Sugar, is another group ensemble song where MT adds to mix but doesn't stand out. Recording on the sly in 1969 in Muscles Shoals, it was Mick Taylor's suggestion that they play this unreleased song at Altamont when all was falling on the Stones' heads. Didn't make the film Gimme Shelter but the audio of this first ever version is the Stones against the wall, punching back.

Time Waits for No Man - It's Only Rock n Roll (1974)

The boss. The winner. The best track Mick Taylor and the Stones studio track. So beautiful. So wistful. And that solo at the end! An artist at the top of his game in a band throwing in a good performance. In the late 80's I wrote a shit song called 'It's Raining Again' and the only good thing about it was that I grafted a sausage fingered version of this MT's solo in the middle. The song is perfect in every way - Jagger's lyrics, Keef's spine tingling riff, Wyman, Watts, Nicky Hopkins and Ray Cooper all adding to the mix. And then Mick Taylor solos like a bastard for two / three full minutes of magic. He employs Latin influenced runs up and down the fretboard. Wow! This is what the Stones could have been. This is the Stones, timeless, standing out of time, looking at us and beckoning mere mortals forward. 

I'm done.

To read my other Mick Taylor pieces, click here...

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* Yeah - Waiting on A Friend was reused in the 80's.

SPQR by Mary Beard - Review

SPQR ( Senatus PopulusQue Romanus meaning, for the Senate and People of Rome, the indelible banner stamped below the eagle standards of the Roman legions) is a chunky book that traces Rome from its beginnings as a bandit village in the 750’s BC through to the grant of universal citizenship across the empire by Caracalla in 212 AD. A period of nearly a thousand years. Or, as Mary Beard writes, Rome’s first millennium. As we all know, the Western Roman Empire continued for another 250 years whereas the Eastern Roman Empire - popularly now known as the Byzantium Empire - lasted for a further 1200 years until its eventual fall in 1453.

The problem with any book spanning a thousand years of history is that - no matter how large - it can only give a surface presentation of the narrative as it moves along. There’s no in depth analysis of each event. If you want that, then specialist books are what you need and that’s what I usually prefer. I get frustrated that the author is, necessarily, constrained and so has to arbitrarily choose what to include and what to leave out. That applies here (Marius and the Cimbrian War hardly get a mention for instance). However, I was gifted this book and so once I started, I needed to finish!

The first part of SPQR, covering the foundation and growth of the Republic through to its subsequent transformation under Augustus in the latter part of the 1st century BC, is episodic but essentially follows a linear narrative. The following 200 odd years, detailing the period of the ‘Principate’ emperors, feels much more rushed and thematic. The problem with this latter half of the book is the tendency to indulge in what I call ‘magpie’ historicism - selecting random examples from a wide variety of ages to justify an argument. Part of this is due to the periodic lack of sources handed down to us across the ages. Was Rome’s most thrilling period - the fall of the Republic - so famous because it marked a major turning point or because the surviving source material is so rich?

The central question of any book covering a thousand years is why Rome went from being a tribe of brigands in central Italy to a world power. The usual suspects are present in this book - the Romans’ love of adaption - in army tactics, in building, even in gods. Mary Beard advances that Rome was unique in its ability to absorb its defeated enemies, from Veii, to the Sabines, the Samnites etc, in a loose embrace so all might prosper. The Romans weren’t fussy about local gods or systems of government, they co-opted them. What however was sine qua non was the supply of manpower for wars.

As to the question whether the Romans better in battle or just able to muster more men, Mary Beard believes that - with technology the same, the largest army was predisposed to win. It’s an argument and a plausible if obvious one. There is some truth to this. For example, the Second Punic War where Hannibal, clearly the better general, could win the battles but never the war. Rome kept recruiting armies, harassing the Carthaginians and recapturing towns, in order to continue fighting even when all seemed lost. That was, until they found their own master tactician in Scipio Africanus. Another example may be the most famous if only due to the popular adage that it spawned following the Battle of Asculum. Fighting King Pyrrhus in the 270’s BC, the Romans kept losing battles but extracted unsustainable casualties on Pyrrhus, thus giving rise to the popular phrase “Pyrrhic victory”.

I think my major objection to this type of book is that it clearly comes from an academic. Nothing wrong with that, of course. However, there is hair-splitting and ‘on the one hand, but on the other’ isms that can annoy after a while. Much of the book seems to be negative; finding a popular story or commonly held piece of knowledge and then finding issues with it. It’s a tendency I like least in academics, the pursuit of the obscure in preference to the universal. At best this can advance knowledge and provide balance to a flabby prevailing narrative, at worst, it can be obscurantist and distorting. You can lose the big picture by being needlessly pedantic. In broad based books - like this - the approach can lose the narrative thrust in a welter of qualifications.

Maybe it wasn’t the book for me but then I never expected it to be. I’ve long moved beyond large overviews of the Roman world - however scholarly - and into more niche areas like Julian or Aurelian. So, if someone wants to gift me a Roman history then Josephus’ The Jewish War might be a good place to start.

A couple of factoids-

The word rostrum, for a speaker’s platform, comes from the Latin word for a ship’s ram (rostra). After the naval battle of Antium in 338bc, the victorious commander of the Roman fleet, Gaius Maenius, took the rams from six captured enemy ships and placed them on the platform in the Forum. Hence rostrum.

“They make a wasteland and call it peace,” said Calgacus, ancient British leader, as quoted by Roman historian Tacitus. An interesting quote (wasteland can be interrupted as ‘desert’ or ‘desolation’) which shows as much about Roman freedom of thought to write this down as it does a critique of Roman pacification efforts. Rome usually was magnanimous in victory, the exceptions (like Caesar’s massacre of the Tencteri and Usipetes) providing the exceptions to the rule. They wanted money, taxes, slaves, markets and manpower for the army.

ROME: The First Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim maps the Roman Empire in the first century AD through five battles)

“Varus, give me back my legions!”

So the ageing Emperor Augustus is said to have shouted, driven mad by the loss of three legions at The Battle of The Teutoberg Forest in AD 9. Quinctilus Varus was the Roman commander who led those legions into the dark German forests, never to return. This is the first battle of the first century. Rome’s devastating response following the campaigns of the aptly named Germanicus shall be my next focus as exemplified by The Battle of Idistaviso in AD 16.

The invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 merits a mention. As does the defeat of Boudicca at the Battle of Watling Street in AD 61 where Rome firmly put down her revolt. The Battle of Mons Graupius in AD 83 finally consolidated Britain (minus Caledonia) into the Empire.

The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is an obvious landmark battle. The Jewish revolt was a major uprising and occurred during one of the few periods of outside instability the Roman Empire faced in the first century. Its impact is probably still felt today.

Whilst Titus was dealing with the Jewish revolt, his father Vespasian had marched on Rome to throw his laurel wreath into the ring to become Emperor. The ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ in AD 69 was the first Roman civil war in 100 years. Previously Emperors had just been assassinated, poisoned or committed suicide. This violent transfer of power though was limited to the unfortunate Emperor and his immediate supporters and didn’t lead to a full-scale civil war as had been the norm in the late Republic. Although, Rome soon came back to normalcy - and indeed the Emperors improved - this respite would be only temporary and civil wars would come back in a big way towards the end of the second century.

A note on the army itself: The Roman army of the 1st Century AD looked exactly like the Roman Army in popular imagination. They wore curved helmets protecting the back of their necks, segmented armour, carried long curved rectangular shields, held short thrusting swords and threw devastating volleys of weighted spears. A legion consisted around 5120 men divided into 10 cohorts (the 1st being double sized). There were 28 legions in Augustus’ time, later increased to 30. Auxiliaries assisted the legions (archers, calvary, skirmishers etc) and their number was around the same. Therefore, a reasonable assessment of the size of the Roman Army of this period is 300,000 men under arms.

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The first century began with Augustus in the 28th year of his principate. Unlike much of the previous century, The Roman world was pretty much at peace with itself. The civil wars were over. Augustus stealthily added nations that were protectorates - like Egypt - to the Empire avoiding outright conquering. However, his sons-in-law - Drusus and Tiberius - added Raetia (modern Switzerland). But this Caesar - unlike his famous uncle - was content to be imperator in name if not in deed.

However, one recurring trouble spot in the Empire was the Germanic tribes beyond Gaul. Could Augustus add Germania to the Empire and, if not, where was the defensive line of the empire to be drawn? It was going to be the river Elbe but - following the loss of the legions in the forests - Rome pulled back to the Rhine where it stayed for the next four hundred years.

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest was the shock that caused this retrenchment. Three legions (plus assorted auxiliaries and camp followers) operating beyond the Rhine, were betrayed by a supposed friendly German ally, Arminius, and massacred. Arminius led Varus into the dense forest and then sprang his trap. The army was wiped out and their totemic eagles taken.

At this point in time, Rome had just 28 legions. The loss of three meant a sizeable chunk of the available forces had just disappeared. No wonder Augustus was upset. Revenge came slowly and - as was the wont at these times - through a member of the Imperial family.

Germanicus was nephew to the new Emperor Tiberius and was sent to the Rhine to sort out the mess left after Arminius’ triumph. Fighting many battles and chasing many tribes into many forests, Germanicus skirmished and harassed the Germans time after time over three years until he finally tempted them into an open pitched battle. This was at the Weser River and became the Battle of Idistaviso AD 16. The result was a massacre of the German tribes. Arminius survived only to be beaten again that same year at The Battle of the Angrivarian Wall. (He was later killed by members of his own tribe. He is still celebrated as one of the founders of the German nation. His massive 19th has century statue stands above the Teutoburg Forest to this day.)

Rome had won the conflict but Tiberius, ever cautious, withdrew Germanicus to Rome and the Empire’s frontier was settled back at the Rhine.

Julius Caesar had come across the Channel to Britain a couple of times but he never made a serious invasion attempt - he was too busy conquering Gaul. These incursions provoked a few fights, garnered some tributes and alliances, but Caesar didn’t stick around to conquer Britain. One hundred years later though, in AD 43, the unwarlike Emperor Claudius - another nephew of Tiberius - launched the invasion of Britain.

The conquest was a slow process taking over 40 years. The south of the country was relatively passive, having interacted with the Romans for years. However, the North and West and Wales proved much more difficult. Whilst the Romans were distracted subduing the Welsh tribes in AD 60, the Iceni under Boudicca rebelled back in the conquered south. The rebellion was short, violent with the rebels burning and massacring the Roman towns of St Albans, Colchester and a little town called Londinium.

The governor, Seutonius Paulinus, gathered up a force centred around one and a half legions and met Boudicca and her army somewhere along what became known later as Watling Street. He chose his battlefield well, funnelling the Britons into a narrow front. As had happened many times previously in Roman history, well-trained legions overcame a larger but undisciplined horde. The rebels were massacred - hemmed in by their own carriages - and Boudicca committed suicide not long after.

Twenty of so years later, the Romans had turned their attention to the north of Britain. Up in Scotland, the Caledonian tribes were causing problems. However, the usual rules applied; tracking a tribe into an open pitched battle was difficult and whilst traipsing around the wet and cold of Scotland, the Roman army was prey to ambushes and lightning strikes. Governor Agricola finally lured the Caledonians into battle somewhere in the mountains of Scotland (the precise site is unknown). The Battle of Mons Graupius AD 83 was unique in that the Romans won it using only their highly trained Germans auxiliaries with assistance from the cavalry.

Tacitus, who wrote the account of the battle, famously put words into mouth of the Caledonian leader, Calgacus, “They make a desolation and call it peace.” All Britain was conquered. For now.

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, by David Roberts (1850)

Back a few years, and we have the brutal Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 part of the First Jewish-Roman war. Pompey had added Judea to the empire back in the Republican days. He’d even successfully laid siege to Jerusalem. This time though, the struggle was more bitter as a hardcore sect of rebels within the city - the Zealots - refused to surrender. As Vespasian had left for Rome, his son Titus (later emperor too) led the four legion assault on the city. Starvation, disease and the terrors of war were meted out to the inhabitants of the city, bolstered as they were by hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping the wider war. The end was a massacre:-

“They poured into the street sword in hand, slaughtering indiscriminately all they came across and burning houses with those who had fled there still inside… Since the troops had run out of victims to kill or property to loot, Caesar ordered the army to raze to the ground the whole city and the temple…” Josephus, The Jewish War (Book 6:404 / Book 7:1)

Jerusalem and its population was destroyed. This was quite a consequential siege in history.

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Read more ROME: Five Battles here.

Rome: The 4th Century in Five Battles

(In which Tim discusses the five most important battles within the wider history of the 4th Century Roman Empire)

The fourth century was bookended by two famous ‘Christian’ battles - The Milvian Bridge in 312 and The Frigidus in 394. They mark - apocryphally - both the entry point of Christianity into the Roman Empire and its ultimate victory. Each led to climatic events; The Milvian Bridge led directly to the Nicene Council of 325 which formalised the Christian creed. The Frigidus began the series of events that ended with Alaric’s sack of Rome just sixteen years later.

So we have our beginning and end. What in between? Adrianople, of course. The defeat of Valens and the Eastern Roman Empire’s army at the hands of the Goths in 378 is popularly associated with the eventual downfall of the empire itself. Can’t argue that it’s important.

For me, Julian is the most interesting fourth century Emperor. His metamorphosis from bookish princeling to ass-kickin’ Caesar began in Gaul. The most famous battle in his journey to pacify the province was his victory over the Alamanni in the Battle of Strasbourg 357.

Our fifth battle is The Battle of Mursa 351 where the forces of Constantius II defeated those of the usurper Magnentius in the biggest and bloodiest battle of the century. As an exercise in damaging futility this was the daddy of them all.

*****

The Empire at the beginning of the fourth century was a very different animal to that ruled over by Septimius Severus one hundred years earlier. The crisis of the third century had brought about chaos, short lived emperors, and the temporary division into three mini empires. The gradual restoration of control was brought about by the Illyrian emperors Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Probus and finally Diocletian.

Diocletian instituted the tetrarchy - a system where two senior Augustii and two junior Caesars ruled quadrants of the Empire. It was a neat idea. It didn’t last. Diocletian, who resigned along with his co-Augustus Maximian, lived long enough to see not only his fine cabbages grow in his retirement home in Split, but his system of government fall apart as his successors squabbled amongst themselves to gain and maintain power.

Constantine (The Great), son of one of Diocletian’s successors Constantius I, was chief amongst those squabbling. He was annoyed that he was left out of Diocletian’s succession plans and, on the death of his ailing father in York in 306, declared himself emperor. This led ultimately to the first battle of our series - The Milvian Bridge.

In this battle, Constantine marched into Italy in 312 - then under the rule of one of the many post-Diocletian claimants - Maxentius. With a smaller army, Constantine’s troops feared losing the climatic battle outside Rome the next day. That night Constantine dreamed of a cross in the sky. So the story goes, he had his army paint the Christian symbol on their shields and, with God on their side, they routed Maxentius and his army the next day at The Milvian Bridge.

The Arch of Constantine was completed to mark this famous victory. The fact that it was originally going to be the Arch of Maxentius and repurposed bas reliefs from earlier monuments, is now somewhat forgotten. He who wins writes the history and gets the arches. It still stands today under the shadow of the Colosseum.

The next twelve years were a history of Rome fighting itself as Constantine gradually consolidated his power to become sole emperor in 324 with his defeat of Licinius. Famously, Constantine left three legacies to the Empire when he died - after converting on his deathbed to Christianity - in 337:

• The Council of Nicene which produced a unified - though disputed for many years - Christian doctrine still in use today,

• The founding of Constantinople as the ‘new Rome’ on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium,

• An utterly chaotic carve up of the Empire between his three sons and two nephews which set the scene for nearly twenty years of civil wars.

The intrigues between the three sons of Constantine deserve a blog of all their own. The imaginatively named Constantine, Constans and Constantius battled it out for years until only the latter remained standing as Constantius II. The second of our landmark battles occurs in this period when Constantius - in the East - took on his brother Constans’ murderer, Magnentius at Mursa in 351.

Mursa was a triumph for Constantius but a tragedy for the empire. Crack units of the East and Western Roman armies fought each other in a bloodbath in Pannonia (modern day Croatia). The battle saw the flowering of the late Roman cataphracts - heavily armoured cavalry - as they mowed down Magnentius’ legions. It was a victory but a pyrrhic one.

One of the consequences of Rome turning in on itself was that units were inevitably withdrawn from the Empire’s borders. The tribes living beyond took advantage of this and increasingly began to run amok amongst the frontiers. Constantius proved Diocletian’s theory that the Empire was too big for just one ruler and so appointed first his cousin Gallus, and then his other cousin, Julian, as junior Caesar. Gallus proved himself unfit to rule and so was executed. Julian however, proved himself quite the opposite.

Bookish, sceptical and a lover of philosophy, Julian was an unlikely warrior Caesar. Sent to Gaul to restore order, Julian did just that. And more. Let down by his supporting army (who may have been acting on the orders of Constantius) Julian was left facing a much larger force of Alamanni near Strasbourg in 357. The battle was a complete rout with the Alamanni destroyed by Julian’s infantry and then chased all the way back to the Rhine where many survivors drowned. Over the following years, Julian followed up by a process of forward-defence - raids into enemy territory whilst repairing and reinforcing the border.

Inevitably the two last descendants of Constantine The Great squared off against each other in 361 (see previous blogpost). Luckily for the Empire, Constantius died on the way to confront Julian allowing the latter to become the undisputed ruler of the whole empire. Julian met his ‘spear of destiny’ just two years later fighting the Persians and bringing to an end Constantine’s line and any anti-Christian fight back. Rome was henceforth a Christian empire.

The Empire now fell into the hands of Valentinian who appointed his brother Valens Augustus of the East. This proved a fatal decision as Valens allowed a massive Gothic migration into his lands in 376. The Goths crossed the Danube to escape the growing power of the Huns expanding and terrorising from the east. Stupidity, betrayal and pride (Valens refused to wait for the army of his nephew Gratian - now Emperor of the West) led Valens and the Eastern Roman army to take on the Goths alone at Adrianople (now part of European Turkey) in 378.

Adrianople was a disaster for the Romans. Their army was destroyed by the Goths and the emperor himself allegedly died after been burnt alive in a peasant house while attempting to flee the battlefield. The defeat left the Eastern empire defenceless and leaderless and at the mercy of the Goths who now rampaged at will throughout Thrace and Greece.

Slowly, piece by piece, Roman general and later emperor Theodosius (The Great) put the East back together. He fought defensive actions and eventually made peace with the Goths in 382 allowing them to stay within the empire’s borders. Once inside the Goths became a combustable element, fighting for the Empire when it suited them but, equally likely to go marauding and looting.

Over in the Western half, Valentinian’s younger son Valentinian II - now Emperor - allegedly hanged himself. His all-powerful advisor and military commander Arbogast was more than implicated. Arbogast was a Frank by birth and so ineligible to take the throne himself and so he chose Eugenius, an obscure Roman official to be the new Emperor in the West. Over in the East, Theodosius bided his time. But when Arbogast and Eugenius started to favour the old Roman gods over Christianity, Theodosius reacted. The showdown took place at The Battle of The Frigidus (modern day Slovenia) in 394.

This two day battle was notable for several things.

• Theodosius won the battle becoming the last sole Emperor of East and West. Not for long though as he died in 395.

• The battle marked the final victory of Christianity over paganism. Much is made of the high winds that allegedly blew at Arbogast’s forces on day two of the battle rendering their missiles useless. A divine wind, it was claimed.

• Theodosius’ use of Gothic auxiliaries (foederati) was controversial. He put them in the front line and used them as cheap cannon fodder. It allowed him to win the battle but incensed his surviving allies. One of the Gothic leaders fighting for Theodosius that day was a young noble named Alaric. Sixteen years later, Alaric led the Goths into Italy and sacked Rome for the first time in eight hundred years. It wasn’t the end of the Roman Empire but it marked the beginning of the last stages of the Western half.

The fourth century ends with the young sons of Theodosius - Honorius and Arcadius - in charge of the West and East respectively. Both of them were weak, dominated by advisors and unfit for their times. It was a sad end to such a lively century.

So what have learnt in this brief canter through the years 300-399?

First, and most obvious, the rise and rise of Christianity. A persecuted sect at the start of the century - the worst repression occurred under Diocletian for example - it was the undisputed religion of the Empire by the end.

The Roman military was still powerful throughout much of the century. Although the legions were no longer the primary unit, it still packed a punch. Borrowing from Palmyra and Persia, the military incorporated heavy calvary units alongside smaller vexallations of infantry. When it worked, armies could criss-cross the empire and successfully see off threats. Under strong leaders - Constantine, Julian - the army could be formidable.

The increased use of foederati - allied non Roman troops. By the end of the century, the traditional auxiliary units - trained and led by Romans - had largely been replaced by unincorporated bands of barbarians who fought under their own banners and leaders.

Civil wars were as deadly to the empire as attacks by outside forces. Roman v Roman battles were as common and - pace Mursa - could be much more deadly.

The idea of a single emperor ruling the whole empire was the exception rather than the rule throughout the fourth century. It was a rare period that saw just one ruler.

Read other Rome: In Five Battles here.

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(I attach David Bowie’s Velvet Goldmine. When I was younger, reading about the later Roman Empire, I always associated this song with the heavily armed Cataphracts riding East to West, West to East, protecting the Empire. I misheard a line so it read “I’ll be your faithful prince who will ride for you again and again.” Unfortunately I now know that’s not the lyrics!)