Hail, Caesar!

What could be more natural than having Julius Caesar drop in to your Ancient Rome class the day your teacher can't make it. And he was thoughtful enough to bring along his last wife Calpurnia so they could both pose for pictures for us and explain their time period better than anyone else.

Julius Caesar & wife

During the break and after class, the class members surrounded Julius and Calpernia, asking numerous questions about life in ancient Rome. It was the most we had heard from the instructor's wife. She held her own very well.

Q & A session with Julius Casesar

Along with the elaborate toga, sandals, shirt & skirt, Dr. Warner (aka Julius Caesar) brought a replica of a Roman broadsword a student had made for him. Made of forged and hammered iron, it weighed somewhere between 6 and 10 pounds according to Lois Warner who compared it to a hammer she used in her craft.

Julius with sword in hand.

The good professor explained that the Roman sword was used almost exclusively like a bayonet. When a Roman soldier got close enough to his opponent he placed the tip of the sword in the approximate location of the navel and proceeded to shove it in and up, puncturing several internal organs including the heart. Then he would proceed to walk over the body of the dead opponent, pulling the blade out as he walked. The sword even feels much like a bayonet with no give in the blade at all.

Close-up of sword

The sword is so heavy that it would be very unwieldy in what we picture as a sword fight. But the Romans formed shoulder to shoulder columns five soldiers deep so that when the front soldiers tired or were killed, the next row of soldiers took their place. What the enemy would see would be an unstoppable machine of swords and shields.

Caesar on the phone alerting security.

Campus security being what it is, Caesar had to call in and report that he had a lethal weapon with him on campus that had previously been registered with Campus Security. It seems a little out of place to see Caesar with glasses using a cell phone. But then he always was a quick learner.

Another thing the professor told us today was that swords were prohibited in the Roman Senate and surrounding public areas so Julius Caesar was not killed with one of those broad swords. But many, if not most, of the people carried around wax tablets with which to take notes or reminders to themselves - a sort of Roman Palm Pilot. To scratch the images in the wax tablets one used a stylus (again like a Palm Pilot) about the size of a pencil. So when Julius Caesar was stabbed by his "friends" (including Brutus) he was being stabbed by dozens of pencils. How ignoble is that!