A more reliable and accessible source of foreknowledge was derived from ethnographers. Their motivation for writing may not have been to serve a political need for cultural intelligence, but the information included in their writing was suitable for building cultural dossiers. Ethnography was an
established form of geographical and cultural writing in the Greek world from at least the sixth century.57
The publication and dissemination of the ethnographers’
55 Polyb. 4.39.11.
56 Poen. 112, 890, 1034. There are suggestions that both Ennius (Ann 474Sk; 274V) and
Cato (Ori. Frag. 84P) expressed disdain at Punic perfidy. See Prandi 1979; Dubuisson 1983; contra Gruen 2011.
57 Momigliano 1975: 74. Tierney identifies ethnographic features in Homer, and asserts
the likelihood of earlier ethnographies. Tierney 1959: 189. There is little surviving evidence for them. There are hints of ethnographic details in early records of foreign places, like those of an unnamed Massilian ethnographer recorded in Aveinus' Ora
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works, either intentionally or as a matter of chance, created concepts of Greek selves and others. The Greek, and later Roman desire for this knowledge explains the tendency of non-Greek ethnographers from an early date to write their texts Greek and for Greeks and Romans to have foreign texts translated.58
Evidence suggests that while the Romans appreciated foreknowledge in this form, it was not a dedicated Roman intellectual pursuit. They inherited the practice of recording knowledge about foreigners and pre-existing information after they began to engage more closely with the Greek world in the fourth century.59
They had little need to investigate areas that were already perceived as well-known, largely through Greek literature. They exploited knowledge they inherited; later Roman officials sponsored and supported further investigations and intellectual production by others.60
They entrusted such investigations mostly to Greeks.61
Maritima, or Scylax and Pseudo-Scylax, but they are not true ethnography. Hecataeus’ true value for the development of ethnographic writing is difficult to determine since his work survives only in fragments. See for instance FGrH 1 F 154; 284; 287; 323a. The first true surviving ethnographies are in Herodotus. His descriptions of Egyptians and Scythians include a demarcation of territory, the topography and geography of the land, a detailed commentary on the people and a selection of oddities and wonders: 2.2-182; 4.1-82. As international interaction increased, ethnographies came to include details of the political structures and social phenomena of particular areas. Ethnographic information arose from conversations and encounters. See Woolf 2011: 18-9.
58 Xanthus the Lydian wrote in Greek about Lydian customs, as did the Egyptian
Manetho, perhaps in response to Herodotus, and the Babylonian Berossus and the Roman Fabius Pictor both wrote in Greek. Momigliano 1975: 91-113. Translation of non-ethnographic documents was also common, which further attests to the
interconnectivity of the Mediterranean world. Pliny the Elder records that the senate ordered a translation of the 30 books on agriculture by the Carthaginian Mago into Latin: HN. 18.22. Sallust claims to have used Carthaginian books for his digression on North Africa: Sall. Iug. 17.
59 Momigliano 1975: 14-5.
60 This section relates to formal ethnography as a subject, rather than titbits of cultural
information that were included in the works of Roman military officials such as Cato and Julius Caesar.
61 The Romans’ reliance on Greek originals is explicitly stated by Strabo at 3.4.19.
Sherk claims that Roman commanders attempted to emulate Alexander the Great in bringing intellectuals (geographers, historians, etc.) on campaign; on this, see below. They thus displayed an appreciation for and engaged in foreknowledge intelligence gathering. See Sherk 1974.
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The Roman contribution to cultural and geographical intelligence was primarily a consequence of their military campaigns.62
Knowledge had a practical use; ignorance and necessity rather than curiosity forced the gathering of cultural and geographical information.63
Each military expedition added to the body of knowledge about inhabitants and regions. The oldest surviving Roman
ethnographic excerpts are found in the fragments of Cato’s Origines. Cato dealt with founding legends, physical geography, climatic factors, flora and fauna, agriculture and local produce, social customs and political, military, and legal institutions of various Italiote peoples, and advised an investigation on the Celts.64
His information was sourced through autopsy, and his purpose was apparently pragmatic.65
Much later, Roman campaigns in the north and west opened up areas that were hitherto relatively unknown.66
Cornelius Balbus mounted an expedition into the Sahara in 19, but his is one of the few Roman expeditions into relatively unexplored lands. These discoveries were
disseminated to the public. Balbus’ mission made the names of at least 30 previously unknown tribes available to the people.67
Geographical information was connected to political power and control through its commemoration in military triumphs and the naming traditions of returning conquerors.68
As with the campaigns of Alexander the Great, Roman military conquest potentially
62 Cadiou 2006: 136.
63 Dueck and Brodersen 2012: 15.
64 For the surviving fragments of Cato’s writings along with a commentary and
introduction, see Cornell 2013a: 191-218; Cornell 2013b: 134-243; Cornell 2013c: 63-159.
65 There is a suggestion his work was intended to prove that Italians were the equals
of Greeks. Cornell 2013a: 210-1.There is too little surviving evidence to conclusively argue Cato’s intention. The pragmatic aspect of his work may have been in its advice on how to deal politically with the Italiote peoples.
66 Dueck and Brodersen 2012: 17-20. This is not to say that Roman armies in these
circumstances blundered into areas in ignorance of what they might find, but that their intelligence was gathered by an in situ military force rather than collated from known information. Syme suggests that Roman defeats in such areas were not due to geographic ignorance, but to a combination of other factors. Syme 1988.
67 Plin. HN. 5.37. Reports were not necessarily of new towns, but also introduced new
information that could be capitalised on in the future. Pliny the Younger includes an account of the water supply around the town of Sinope, and announces that he has ordered further investigations and surveys into the area: 10.40.
68 See for instance the list of geographical territories announced at Pompey’s triumph:
Plut. Pom. 45. Various names were granted to conquerors or their sons – Africanus, Ponticus, Macedonicus, Asiaticus etc. Dueck and Brodersen 2012.
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opened up new lands for autopsy, allowing information to be updated and corrected.69
In most sources, there is little direct evidence for the pathways through which this intelligence was transferred from commanders to the senate. Such facts did not interest historians. It is well known that commanders sent dispatches to the senate from the field.70
Even if dispatches were lost or
neglected, commanders had to account for their actions upon their return, and were likely to have made note of interesting features.71
Extant fragments from military commanders do include ethnographic details.72
While Roman sources may not have contributed to stores of information strictly for knowledge’s sake, their actions and practicality did increase the pool of intelligence available for future use, through either their own reports or the reports of those who accompanied them.73
The fragments of Cato include various anecdotes concerning behaviour and social structure. He records that the river Ebro was filled with fish,74
and that on the eastern side of the river there were iron and silver mines, and great amounts of salt, but one had to beware of the wind, which could blow so strongly that it knocked down a loaded cart.75
Considering Cato returned to Rome in 194 with vast quantities of metal, it is likely such anecdotes were based on autopsy. 76
The same is true of the ethnographic details recorded
69 Prior to Alexander’s campaigns the Greeks had knowledge of Egypt, Persia,
Babylon, and India, but it was vague and outdated. Momigliano 1975: 77, 83.
70 Sherk 1974: 536. See for example the supposed receipt of dispatches from Camillus:
Livy 5.20.2; 5.22.1, from Publius and Gneaus Scipio in Spain: Livy 23.48.4, and from Titus Quinctius Flamininus in Macedonia: Livy 33.24.3. Cadiou 2006 provides a list of dispatches, legates, and reports from officials in Spain.
71 Austin and Rankov perhaps over-cynically claim the main purpose of published
dispatches was to cast the leading figure in an attractive light rather than to inform. The motive behind publication is unknown, but considering the competitive nature of the republican aristocracy, it is not an outlandish suggestion. On the other hand, published or unpublished dispatches would provide ethnographic and geographic material that would affect senatorial impressions of places and peoples mentioned in them. Austin and Rankov 1995: 89.
72 Sherk suggests that military dispatches contained only bare facts. Livy records
dispatches sparingly and with little cultural or geographical information. Sherk 1974: 537-40.
73 Sherk 1974: 543. 74 F. 110P.
75 F. 93P; cf. Gell. 2.22.28-9. 76 Livy 34.46.2. Cadiou 2006: 137.
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in Julius Caesar’s accounts of Gaul and the Vindolanda tablets.77
Caesar claims that in cavalry battles Germans dismount and fight on foot, and avoid the use of the saddles; they are somewhat tempestuous and engage with other cavalry forces regardless of their size or equipment.78
A Vindolanda tablet reads as an intelligence report. It highlights how the Britons fought, to better prepare Roman forces when they encountered them. It condescendingly claims that British cavalry do not use swords, and that the ‘Brittunculi’ do not mount horses to throw javelins.79
Legates and lieutenants played an active role in informing their commanders and the senate of basic data that they came across in relatively unexplored land. So Sextus Digitius, who happened to return to Rome from the Macedonian war in 169 to perform a sacrifice, informed the senate of a Roman defeat at the Illyrian city of Uscana the previous year due to his commander’s lack of advance scouting. But he also told the senators of the population, situation, and fortifications of this distant and hitherto unknown stronghold.80
Ethnographic and geographic information such as this is far more useful than strategic information, which quickly becomes obsolete. More general comments such as those enumerated here allow dossiers to be constructed about such things as the military courage and battle tactics of other peoples,81
and the
77 Strabo claims Tiberius’ campaigns in central Europe discovered the source of the
Danube: Strab. 7.1.5; Corbulo, Nero’s great general, sent diagrams of the Caucasus to Rome: Plin. HN. 5.83; and Aelius Gallus returned from Arabia with the information that nomads live on milk and hunting, and that others extracted sesame oil, and a kind of wine from palm-trees: Plin. HN. 6.160. For more examples see Nicolet 1988: 97-101.
78 …equestribus proeliis saepe ex equis desiliunt ac pedibus proeliantur, equos eodem remanere
vestigio adsuefecerunt, ad quos se celeriter, cum usus est, recipient: neque eorum moribus turpius quicquam aut inertius habetur quam ephippiis uti. Itaque ad quemvis numerum ephippiatorum equitum quamvis pauci adire audent: Caes. BGall. 4.2. See also 1.48.4-7, on the special light-armed troops who accompany the German cavalry, and at times of flight or advance, hold onto the horses’ manes.
79 Bauman 1990 tablet 164.
80 Livy 43.10-11.1. Note the vagueness of Livy’s introduction of the town. It was
generally thought to be part of the borderlands of Perseus’ kingdom: haud procul inde Uscana oppidum finium plerumque Persei erat: 43.10.1. Messengers from Uscana
repeatedly came in secret to talk with Appius Claudius. They offered to betray the city, and encouraged Claudius with promises of booty. Livy claims that Claudius’ greed forced him to dispense with the normal procedure; he neither detained any of those who approached him, nor did he require hostages as a guarantee against treachery, nor did he send someone to reconnoitre the city, nor did he obtain any oaths of good faith.
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disadvantages and advantages of their fighting techniques. Theoretically, every exposure to another state’s forces in battle built upon pre-existing knowledge, meaning only the first group of soldiers, such as those Sextus Digitius reported on, blundered in with little or no foreknowledge to guide them. The next time the Romans attacked Uscana, they had learned from their previous lack of knowledge and took the town.82
But as will be discussed in the following section, the access to foreknowledge is not synonymous with its use.
Authors and ethnographers, perhaps in emulation of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, at times accompanied expeditions. Most examples are late, and an argument can certainly be made that the primary intention of their presence was not so much to increase foreknowledge as to glorify the campaigns’ commanders. In the mid-republic, Ennius travelled with Fulvius Nobilior on his victorious campaign against the Aetolian League;83
later Theophanes travelled with Pompey, documenting the great man’s anabasis in the East;84
Dellius accompanied Marcus Antonius in the same areas a generation later.85
Woolf cautions against believing that the intellectual campaign documentarian was a frequent accompaniment to Roman military campaigns.86
He claims the motivation behind these scholarly endeavours derived from aristocratic competition, and the idea of Roman maiestas. Regardless of the intention, however, glorified accounts of journeys into distant lands had an important role in increasing the cultural and geographical foreknowledge base. Further, while some explorers may not have accompanied campaigns themselves, they did take advantage of Roman conquests after the fact. Poseidonius, the younger
Eratosthenes, Varro, the Younger Callisthenes, and Artemidorus may have all travelled deep into the Celtic lands at the behest of, or at least with the assistance of, Roman officials, and investigated ethnographic and geographical information that those confined to the coasts may never have discovered.87
82 The capture is not recorded in the highly fragmentary Book 43 of Livy, but the
Romans are in possession of Uscana at Livy 43.18.5-11 when Perseus attacks and retakes it.
83 Cic. Tusc. Dis. 1.3. 84 Strab.11.5.1. 85 Strab. 11.13.3. 86 Woolf 2011: 59.
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Military officials’ ability to add to potential foreknowledge was limited, most of it related purely to their own campaigns, but some contained
information that could be of use for future endeavours. There is evidence to suggest that Roman authorities commissioned the advance collection of foreknowledge when they determined a need; they were, as always, not interested in gaining this knowledge for knowledge’s sake. The most explicit example of this is when Augustus ordered the ethnographer Dionysius of Charax to conduct an investigation of the East so that his grandson Gaius would have the most accurate information available in advance of his expeditions against the Parthians and Arabians.88
It is possible that Juba II of Mauretania produced something similar.89
These missions were not covert, but neither are many intelligence missions. Nor were they conducted under the guise of
diplomacy. They were pre-emptive collations of open-source information about people and territory. Most of our evidence for such investigations indicates they took place in the aftermath of conflict. Scipio Aemilianus famously supplied Polybius with ships to explore the coast of Africa. He returned after making a voyage west of the Atlas Mountains and reported on forestland and numerous African animals.90
He is known to have travelled over the Alps into Gaul and Spain.91
He claims to have taken the opportunity provided by the opening up of the world through Roman wars to correct and enhance earlier information.92
His histories contain various ethnographic details designed to be useful for future endeavours, many of which he learnt through personal experience. Most of this material was contained in the now fragmentary Book 34. That Roman
campaigns opened up opportunities for exploration and information gathering is certainly supported by Strabo and Pliny, who both state that nothing can be known about certain areas because the Romans had never been there. Strabo talks of unknown Germanic tribes beyond the river Elbe,93
whereas Pliny the Elder implies that knowledge is limited to Roman dominions or those touched
88 Hoc in loco genitum esse Dionysium terrarum orbis situs recentissimum auctorem, quem ad
commentanda omnia in orientem praemiserit divus Augustus ituro in Armenium ad Parthicas Arabicasque res maiore filio…: Plin. HN. 6.141.
89 Juba FGrH. 275. 90 Plin. HN. 5.9-10. 91 Polyb. 3.48.12. 92 Polyb. 3.59.7. 93 Strab. 7.2.4.
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by Roman arms.94
This becomes increasingly true in the era in which both Strabo and Pliny write. The known world had already been conquered. Everything else was mysterious, and dangerous to explore.
Information about the world was available and constantly evolving.95
Despite attempts at secrecy, and successes for a time, information about the wider Mediterranean was eventually disseminated. The pathways for this dissemination are hardly well attested. But Carthaginian explorers, likewise Phoenicians and Egyptians, were available for Herodotus to access. Alexander the Great and his successors improved knowledge about the East. Information was likely traded as any other commodity, and hidden information could be gained through conquest.96
Pre-existing knowledge was shared through networks; Roman sources had access to these traditions.97
Each journey or military
expedition into an area added to the knowledge base and updated and improved understanding. Ideas and conceptions about people and places filtered into the everyday consciousness; early Roman comic texts demonstrate a shared
understanding of cultural stereotypes thus generated through the use of such phrases as suo ritu, more eorum, more gallicum, and suo more.98
These same texts also show that Ultima Thule was synonymous with the far north, saying someone was from Kelsos implied they were imbeciles from the back of beyond, and so on. Personal experience of a place is not necessary to create ideas about it.99
The improved understanding of other peoples was not
necessarily sound, but based on Roman viewpoints of them. Their accuracy is
94 For instance, Pliny mentions that the knowledge of the circumference of Britain has
increased through the presence of the Roman army: HN. 4.102. The source of the Nile is unknown because Roman wars, which have opened up other lands, have never progressed so far: HN. 5.51.
95 For more on the cumulative evolution of the known world see Nicolet 1988.
96 Hanno’s journey was better known. And his account was translated from Punic into
Greek, possibly from a commemorative inscription at an early date during the fifth century. Blomqvist and Hanno 1979. For later references to the journey see Plin. HN. 2.67; Mela 3.90; Arr. Indika 43.
97 Later adventurers achieved recognition, if not acceptance, throughout the
Mediterranean. A number of sources including Dicaearchus, Timaeus, Eratosthenes, Artemidorus, and Polybius knew Pytheas. The majority of these references survive through Strabo. See for instance 1.4.2-5; 2.4.1-2; 3.2.11; 4.2.1. Also Plin. HN. 4.95.
98 Garcia Riaza 2015.
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not important. Roman administrators and commanders conceived the world and others in it with these, potentially erroneous, viewpoints and made foreign policy decisions partly based upon them.