The Acta Diurna

1

• The Acta Diurna
• Ancient Rome's daily newspaper

2

• WHY NEEDED
• -- Huge empire, with control
  centered in Rome
• -- special need in the provinces
• -- strong public interest in news
• -- period of momentous events, especially
  military campaigns

3
Empire 1 (800 B.C.)
4
Empire 2 (146 B.C.)
5
Empire 3 (4 A.D.)
6
Empire 4 (117 A.D.)
7
Roman Empire in 120 A.D.
8

• WHAT MADE THE ACTA POSSIBLE?
• -- high degree of literacy among upper classes
• -- efficient communications network
• -- Roman roads link empire
• -- communication also by sea
• -- regular government postal service

9

• PRECURSORS OF THE ACTA DIURNA
• -- Acta Senatus, the official record of the
  Roman Senate
• -- Annales Maximi, tablets on which official
  events were recorded
• -- newsletters compiled by scribes

10

• ACTA BEGIN PUBLICATION
• Started by Julius Caesar in 59 BC
• originally a record of Senate debates

11
Contents

• The number of births and deaths in the city
• Reports of trials, with the names of those who
  were acquitted and condemned
• Extracts from the Acta Senatus the record of
  debates in the Roman Senate
• Acclamations in honour of the reigning emperor.

12
Contents

• A court circular, containing an account of the
  birth, deaths, festivals, and movements of the
  imperial family.
• Accounts of such public affairs and foreign wars
  as the government thought proper to publish.
• . Curious and interesting occurrences, such as
  prodigies and miracles

13
Contents

• Erection of buildings and their destruction by
  fire
• A list of various games, including gladiatorial
  matches and chariot races
• Marriages among the high-born and accounts of
  their divorces.
• Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions.
  Vesuvius erupted in 79 a.d., burying Pompeii and
  Herculanium.

14

• Plinys letter about the eruption of Vesuvius
• My dear Tacitus,
• You ask me to write you something about the
  death of my uncle so that the account you
  transmit to posterity is as reliable as possible.
  I am grateful to you, for I see that his death
  will be remembered forever if you treat it in
  your Histories.

15

• He was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of
  the fleet on the 24th of August in 79 AD, when
  between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew
  his attention to a cloud of unusual size and
  appearance. The cloud was rising from a mountain
  which I learned was Vesuvius. I can best describe
  its shape by likening it to a pine tree.

16

• It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from
  which spread some "branches." Some of the cloud
  was white, in other parts there were dark patches
  of dirt and ash.
• He ordered a boat made ready and embarked
  himself, a source of aid for people, for that
  delightful shore was a populous one. He hurried
  to a place from which others were fleeing, and
  held his course directly into danger.

17

• Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and
  denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of
  pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned
  and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal
  debris from the mountain blocks the shore.

18

• Meanwhile, broad sheets of flame were lighting up
  many parts of Vesuvius their light and
  brightness were the more vivid for the darkness
  of the night. The buildings were being rocked by
  a series of strong tremors, and appeared to have
  come loose from their foundations and to be
  sliding this way and that.

19

• Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks
  that were coming down. My uncle and his crew tied
  pillows on top of their heads as protection
  against the shower of rock.

20

• It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but
  there the darkness was darker and thicker than
  any night. Then came a smell of sulfur,
  announcing the flames, and the flames themselves.
  My uncle immediately collapsed. As I understand
  it, his breathing was obstructed by the
  dust-laden air, and his innards simply shut down.

21

• Now the day begins, with a still hesitant and
  almost lazy dawn. All around us buildings are
  shaken. We are in the open, but it is only a
  small area and we are afraid, nay certain, that
  there will be a collapse. We decided to leave the
  town finally a dazed crowd follows us,
  preferring our plan to their own (this is what
  passes for wisdom in a panic). Many strange
  things happened to us, and we had much to fear.

22

• The carts that we had ordered brought were moving
  in opposite directions, though the ground was
  perfectly flat, and they wouldn't stay in place
  even with their wheels blocked by stones. In
  addition, it seemed as though the sea was being
  sucked backwards, as if it were being pushed back
  by the shaking of the land. Certainly the
  shoreline moved outwards, and many sea creatures
  were left on dry sand.

23

• You could hear women lamenting, children crying,
  men shouting. Some were calling for parents,
  others for children or spouses they could only
  recognize them by their voices. There were some
  so afraid of death that they prayed for death.
  Many raised their hands to the gods, and even
  more believed that there were no gods any longer
  and that this was one last unending night for the
  world.

24
Pompeii victims
25
The Great Fire of Rome

• The historian Tacitus was born in the year 56 or
  57 A.D. He was in Rome during the great fire.
  During his lifetime he wrote a number of
  histories chronicling the reigns of the early
  emperors. The following eye witness account comes
  from his final work The Annals written around the
  year 116.

26

• "... Now started the most terrible and
  destructive fire which Rome had ever experienced.
  It began in the Circus, where it adjoins the
  Palatine and Caelian hills. Breaking out in shops
  selling inflammable goods, and fanned by the
  wind, the conflagration instantly grew and swept
  the whole length of the Circus.

27

• There were no walled mansions or temples, or any
  other obstructions, which could arrest it. First,
  the fire swept violently over the level spaces.
  Then it climbed the hills - but returned to
  ravage the lower ground again. It outstripped
  every counter-measure. The ancient city's narrow
  winding streets and irregular blocks encouraged
  its progress.

28

• Terrified, shrieking women, helpless old and
  young, people intent on their own safety, people
  unselfishly supporting invalids or waiting for
  them, fugitives and lingerers alike - all
  heightened the confusion. When people looked
  back, menacing flames sprang up before them or
  outflanked them.

29

• When they escaped to a neighboring quarter, the
  fire followed - even districts believed remote
  proved to be involved. Finally, with no idea
  where or what to flee, they crowded on to the
  country roads, or lay in the fields. Some who had
  lost everything - even their food for the day -
  could have escaped, but preferred to die. So did
  others, who had failed to rescue their loved
  ones.

30

• Nobody dared fight the flames. Attempts to do so
  were prevented by menacing gangs. Torches, too,
  were openly thrown in, by men crying that they
  acted under orders. Perhaps they had received
  orders. Or they may just have wanted to plunder
  unhampered.

31

• Nero was at Antium. He returned to the city only
  when the fire was approaching the mansion he had
  built to link the Gardens of Maecenas to the
  Palatine. The flames could not be prevented from
  overwhelming the whole of the Palatine, including
  his palace. Nevertheless, for the relief of the
  homeless, fugitive masses he threw open the Field
  of Mars, including Agrippa's public buildings,
  and even his own Gardens.

32

• Yet these measures, for all their popular
  character, earned no gratitude. For a rumor had
  spread that, while the city was burning, Nero had
  gone on his private stage and, comparing modern
  calamities with ancient, had sung of the
  destruction of Troy.

33

• ACTA COME TO AN END
• -- barbarians invade Rome
• -- last recorded mention dates to about AD 222,
  200 years after they began
• -- beginning of the "Dark Ages"
• -- learning and literacy survive only in
  monasteries
• -- Nothing like Acta appear again for several
  hundred years