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PLAUTIANUS' ZEBRAS: A ROMAN EXPEDITION TO EAST AFRICA IN THE EARLY THIRD CENTURY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2019

C.T. Mallan
C.T. Mallan*
Affiliation:
University of WesternAustralia
*
christopher.mallan@uwa.edu.au
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Extract

The kleptocratic supremacy of the praetorian prefect C. Fulvius Plautianus (PIR2 F 554) was felt throughout the city of Rome, the Empire and (according to one author) even beyond the imperial frontiers. Indeed, for the senatorial historian Dio Cassius, there was no more picturesque demonstration of Plautianus' acquisitiveness than his seizure of strange striped horse-like creatures from ‘islands in the Erythraean Sea’. The passage, as preserved in the text of Xiphilinus' Epitome, reads as follows (Dio Cass. 76[75].14.3):

καὶ τέλος ἵππους Ἡλίῳ <ἱεροὺς> τιγροειδεῖς ἐκ τῶν ἐν τῇ Ἐρυθρᾷ θαλάσσῃ νήσων, πέμψας ἑκατοντάρχους, ἐξέκλεψεν·

In the end he even stole tiger-like horses <sacred> to Helios from the islands in the Erythraean Sea, having sent some centurions to carry out the task.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , May 2019 , pp. 461 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Caillan Davenport, Kimberley Czajkowski, Helen Tanner, the anonymous reviewer and Bruce Gibson (in his capacity as editor of CQ) for their comments on this article.

References

1 The addition of ἱεροὺς is the conjecture of Reiske. The meaning is clear enough without it, and Boissevain omits it: Boissevain, U.P., Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiarum Romanarum quae supersunt (Berlin, 1898–1931), 3.352Google Scholar.

2 Thompson, D.W., ‘The Greek for a zebra’, CR (1943), 103–4Google Scholar. Thompson's identification is based on the plausible assumption that Dio's zebra is the same as that which appears in Photius' Epitome of Philostorgius (3.11).

3 As noted by Toynbee, J.M., Animals in Roman Life and Art (London, 1973), 167Google Scholar. Cf. Keller, O., Die antike Tierwelt (Leipzig, 1911), 1.274Google Scholar; Kitchell, K., Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z (London, 2014), 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are two known late antique (fifth–sixth century) representations of zebras: one in a martyr's shrine from Seleucia in Pieria, the other from a synagogue in Gaza: Toynbee (this note), 286–7; Ovadiah, A., ‘Excavations in the area of the ancient synagogue at Gaza (preliminary report)’, IEJ 19 (1969), 193–8Google Scholar, at 195; Metzger, B.M., ‘Antioch-on-the-Orontes’, The Biblical Archaeologist 11 (1948), 69–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 84–5. It is noteworthy that these are roughly contemporaneous with Philostorgius.

4 Pace LSJ 9 s.v. ἱππότιγρις ‘a large kind of tiger’.

5 Dio Cass. 78(77).6.2 (Xiphilinus). Dio's coeval, the poet [Oppian] (Cyn. 3.183–90) describes a beast which Thompson (n. 2), 103 takes to be a zebra. I am not convinced that [Oppian]’s creature is a zebra. The description of a beast with a single black dorsal stripe with white stripes on either side (Cyn. 3.186–7: ταινίη δὲ μέλαινα μέσην ῥάχιν ἀμφιβέβηκε | χιονέῃς ἑκάτερθη περιοσχομένη στεφάνῃσι) seems more consistent with the Equus hemionus, or the ‘Wild Ass’, which is just what [Oppian] calls it (ὄναγρος).

6 I cannot agree with the suggestion of Birley, A.R., Septimius Severus: The African Emperor (London, 1999), 137Google Scholar that the islands in question were in the Persian Gulf.

7 The historical range of zebras is uncertain. Evidence suggests that Equus grevyi tends to be found in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. Equus burchelli (or the common zebra) is found further to the south, in south-west Ethiopia, Kenya and northern Tanzania: Bauer, I.E., Morrow, J. and Yalden, D.W., ‘The historic ranges of three equid species in north-east Africa: a quantitative comparison of environmental tolerances’, Journal of Biogeography 21 (1994), 169–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Diod. Sic. 2.56.1–2.60.3, especially 2.59.7. For Iambulus and the ‘Islands of the Sun’, see Ferguson, J., Utopias of the Classical World (London, 1975), 124–9Google Scholar.

9 The question of the date of composition has been controversial, but for the purposes of this paper it is unimportant. However, a first-century date seems preferable. Note the studies of Müller, C., Geographi Graeci Minores (Paris, 1855), 1.xcvi–xcviiGoogle Scholar; Casson, L., The Periplus Maris Erythraei: Text with Translation, Introduction, and Commentary (Princeton, 1989), 6–7Google Scholar; R. Darley, ‘Indo-Byzantine exchange 4th to 7th centuries: a global history’ (Diss., University of Birmingham, 2013), 125–55.

10 Casson (n. 9), 139–40. For a map of this coast, see Bagnall, R.S. and Talbert, R.J.A., Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton, 2000), 4Google Scholar.

11 PME 15; Ptol. Geog. 4.8.2, 7.2.1. For identification, see Müller (n. 9), 1.270; Desanges, J., ‘Les relations de l'Empire romain avec l'Afrique nilotique et érythréenne, d'Auguste à Probus’, ANRW 2.10.1 (1988), 3–43Google Scholar, at 25–6; Casson (n. 9), 140–1.

12 Casson (n. 9), 141–2. PME 17 makes it clear that there was trade with this region, especially in ivory, rhinoceros horn, tortoise shell and nautilus shell. For the last of these, note Casson, L., ‘Periplus Maris Erythraei: three notes on the text’, CQ 30 (1980), 495–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 496–7.

13 PME 15.

14 The coins were first published by Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P., ‘Some recent archaeological work on the Tanganyika coast’, Man 58 (1958), 106–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 110–11. For discussion, see Freeman-Grenville, G.S.P., The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika (Oxford, 1962), 22–3Google Scholar, 184, 189–90; Chittick, N., ‘Six early coins from new Tanga’, Azania 1 (1966), 156–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 157; Horton, M.C., ‘Early maritime trade and the settlement of eastern Africa’, in Reade, J. (ed.), The Indian Ocean in Antiquity (London, 1996), 439–59Google Scholar, at 447.

15 PME 15.

16 For the formation of the canon of Jana sutras by the mid fifth century a.d., see Law, B.C., Some Jaina Canonical Sutras (Bombay, 1949), 1Google Scholar.

17 Chandra, M., Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India (Delhi, 1977), 166Google Scholar. For a summary of the stories in the Jñātādharmakathā, see Law (n. 16), 38–42.

18 Chandra (n. 17), 166.

19 Examples of the display of exotic animals are legion, but, to cite one example, we may note the displaying and killing of exotic African animals under Commodus, including hippopotami, elephants, rhinoceroses and a giraffe (Dio Cass. 73[72].10.3 [Xiph.]).

20 AE 2005.1640 = AE 2007.1659.

21 AE 2005.1638–9 = AE 2010.1761. For discussion of the Farasan inscriptions, see Villeneuve, F., ‘Une inscription latine sur l'archipel Frarsân, Arabie Séoudite, sud de la mer Rouge’, CRAI 148 (2004), 419–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Speidel, M.A., ‘Außerhalb des Reiches? Zu neuen lateinischen Inschriften aus Saudi-Arabien und zur Ausdehnung der römischen Herrschaft am Roten Meer’, ZPE 163 (2007), 296–306Google Scholar, at 297–301; Nappo, D., ‘Roman policy on the Red Sea in the second century c.e.’, in de Romanis, F. (ed.), Across the Ocean: Nine Essays on Indo-Mediterranean Trade (Leiden, 2010), 55–72Google Scholar, at 65–8; Speidel, M.A., ‘Wars, trade, and treaties: new, revised, and neglected sources for the political, diplomatic, and military aspects of Imperial Rome's relations with the Red Sea Basin and India, from Augustus to Diocletian’, in Matthew, K.S. (ed.), Imperial Rome, Indian Ocean Regions and Muziris: New Perspectives on Maritime Trade (London, 2016), 83–128Google Scholar, at 89–94.

22 AE 2005.1638–9 = AE 2010.1761, lines 6–7: Auito praef(ecto) Ferresani portus (?) | et Pont(i) Hercul(is) fec(erunt) et d[ed(icauerunt)].

23 Saturninus (PIR 2 A 403): Dio Cass. 76(75).14.2. The fall of Saturninus is not preserved in Xiphilinus but in the Excerpta. However, the correspondences between Xiphilinus and the lengthy passage quoted in the Excerpta suggest that they belong to the same part of Dio's narrative.

24 Dio Cass. 76(75).13.1 [Xiphilinus]; Desanges (n. 11), 30.

25 Plin. HN 6.181; Sen. QNat. 6.8.3–5; Sherk, R., ‘Roman geographical exploration and military maps’, ANRW 2.1 (1974), 534–62Google Scholar, at 540–1.

26 That Severus authorized a similar fact-finding mission prior to his campaigns in Britain has been argued on the basis of an inscribed dedication slab in Risingham (RIB 1.1235 = CIL 7.1002) attesting the presence of a unit of scouts (exploratores): Austin, N.J.E. and Rankov, N.B., Exploratio: Military and Political Intelligence in the Roman World from the Second Punic War to the Battle of Adrianople (London and New York, 1995), 194Google Scholar. We may note for comparison the strategic importance of the East Coast of Africa and the Red Sea in later conflicts between Rome and the Persians, such as those of the sixth century. Cf. Shahîd, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century (Washington, 2009), 2.2.52–8Google Scholar.