Clues To Two Possible Medieval Treasure Hordes In Iceland

According to the anonymous author of Egil’s Saga, there are at least two large treasure hoards buried on the west coast of Iceland. By now, the treasures, if they ever existed, have probably long been found—the treasures were supposedly buried in the 10th century, and Egil’s Saga released the general location of the buried wealth by the 13th century. Yet, no one has ever claimed to have found these two hidden hoards, so prospective treasure hunters can still hold a small, reserved glimmer of hope.

As the story goes, a man named Skallagrim fled from Norway shortly after King Harald Finehair completed his rise to power around 885, in the Battle of Havsfjord. Skallagrim, along with other family members and enemies of Harald, sailed to Iceland and settled on the shores around the Borgarfjord (modern Borgarfjörður), giving birth to multiple farming communities. In Iceland, Skallagrim farmed and made a name for himself as a smith of bog-iron, and he grew wealthy off of his industry.

While Skallagrim was content with making money through honest labor in Iceland, his sons, Thorolf and Egil, had other ideas. They both decided to sail away from their father’s settlement to become mercenaries and Viking raiders. They arrived in Norway and were able to keep a tense coexistence with the aging King Harald, and his future heir, Eirik Bloodaxe. Just like their father, the brothers soon ran afoul of the Norwegian monarchs and quickly decided to leave to find opportunities in Britain. Egil’s Saga claimed that the brothers found employment under King Athelstan (r.924-939), the first Anglo-Saxon king to effectively rule all of England. While commanding a Scandinavian mercenary band for King Athelstan, Thorolf was killed in what the saga called the Battle of Wen Heath—this is often associated with Athelstan's victory over a coalition of Scots, Britons and Vikings in the 937 Battle of Brunanburh, yet the identification of Wen Heath is still debated. Nevertheless, following the aftermath of the battle, King Athelstan paid Egil Skallagrimsson lavishly for Thorolf’s sacrifice. He was given a large arm-ring of gold, as well as two chests bursting with silver, which he was instructed to share with his father, Skallagrim. Yet, Egil had no intention of sharing.

So, after a long period of raiding and selling his sword for hire, Egil Skallagrimsson returned to Iceland as a rich man. Unfortunately, instead of the wealthy father and the wealthy son getting along together in the community, Egil and Skallagrim seemed to covet each other’s wealth. The paranoia between the two was so severe that when Egil left for a three-night feast, the elderly Skallagrim gathered all of his wealth (supposedly in a large chest and an iron cauldron) and left in the middle of the night to hide his life’s savings in the nearby Krumskelda Marsh. After exerting himself to such an extent on that cold, Icelandic night, they say that Skallagrim’s stiff corpse was found the next morning, still sitting upright and fully outfitted in mud-stained clothes at the edge of his bed.

Egil inherited Skallagrim’s lands, as well as whatever wealth was left unburied. He eventually left Iceland and returned to his old habits of raiding and selling his services to the rulers of Britain and Scandinavia. Yet, he returned home, with even more wealth, to become a respected leader of his late father’s community around the Borgarsfjord in Iceland.

The saga claimed that at the end of the 10th century, after old Egil had become frail and blind, he followed his father’s example and decided to hide his treasure. He supposedly led two slaves, who carried his several chests of treasure, to an unknown location somewhere east of his farm. After the loot was buried, the elderly Egil summoned enough strength to murder the slaves and hide their bodies where they would never be found. Egil was said to have openly admitted to killing the slaves and hiding his treasure, but he never gave any hints as to where he stashed his hoard of wealth. That very autumn, before anyone could pry any information from him, Egil Skallagrimsson fell ill and died.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (16th Century map of Iceland produced by Abraham Ortelius  (1527–1598), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Egil's Saga (recorded c. 13th century possibly by Snorri Sturluson), translated by Bernard Scudder. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004 edition. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Athelstan  

The Grisly Decorations On The Gemonian Stairs In Rome

Around the reign of Augustus (r. 31 BCE – 14 CE), a stairway was constructed that led from the edge of the Roman Forum and ascended up the Capitoline Hill. This piece of infrastructure was known as the Gemonian Stairs or Steps (Scalae Gemoniae in Latin), and quickly gained a reputation as an infamous landmark in ancient Rome.

After the stairway was constructed, it did not take long for the location to become a frequent host to grotesque displays. Unfortunately, around the beginning of the 1st century, the Roman authorities began an unsightly tradition of using the stairway as a location to leave the exposed bodies of executed criminals. Although the steps were a depository for the disgraced dead, it was also a frequent venue for executions, in general.

The first mention of the Gemonian Stairs being used as a monument to capital punishment comes from commentary on the reign of Rome’s second emperor, Tiberius (r. 14-37). During his period of rule, it was a familiar sight to see corpses strewn along the steps. Tacitus (c. 56-117) wrote that, by the year 20, the Gemonian Stairs had become thoroughly associated with execution. During that year, when Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso was tried for the murder of Tiberius’ adopted son, Germanicus, the Roman people chose the steps as their location for a peaceful riot where they called for Piso’s execution. The Roman masses were also said to have flocked to cheer at the Gemonian Stairs more than a decade later when, in the year 31, Tiberius chose the infamous stairway as the venue for the execution of his treasonous chief administrator, Lucius Aelius Sejanus.

With the Gemonian Stairs serving such grim purposes, it is unsurprising that the path was sometimes referred to as the Stairs of Mourning. The exact location of the stairway is unknown, but many scholars believe it may have roughly lined up with the modern Via di San Pietro in Carcere, Rome.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Cropped section of a painting of The Pomekin Stairs in Odessa, published by the Detroit Publishing Company in 1905. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996. 
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Scalae_Gemoniae.html 
• http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/627786 
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/20204211?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucius-Aelius-Sejanus 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nero-Roman-emperor  

The Ancient Chinese Visionary Of Legalism, Lord Shang, Used A Simple Pole To Display His Idea Of Meritocracy

Gongsun Yang, the man who would later become Lord Shang, left the Kingdom of Wei around 361 BCE to join the court of Duke Xiao of Qin (r. 361-338 BCE). After impressing the duke and his ministers, Gongsun Yang was hired by the state of Qin to streamline the country’s laws for stability, efficiency and strength.

The new minister, however, was worried that the people of Qin would not understand his government philosophy. Although the rulers of ancient China were already heavily authoritarian, Lord Shang’s ideas were even more extreme. He wanted to restructure society and rewrite the laws, and he proposed that rank and power should be doled out by merit, instead of lineage. To make sure the laws were followed, he wanted to impose shared criminal responsibility, incentivizing the people to report on their neighbor’s unlawful activity. Failure to report a crime could often lead to execution. Yet, Lord Shang was not hypocritical with his laws—he also held the nobility to the same standard; to him, no one was above the law.

Lord Shang, in particular, was supposedly worried about the Qin population being confused about the idea of meritocracy, where rank and power depended on how much or how little benefit a person could provide to the government. Lord Shang thought he needed to demonstrate to the average population that everyone, not only the nobility, could be rewarded under his government philosophy. Therefore, Lord Shang mysteriously erected a pole by the southern gate of the market in the Qin capital city. He announced that the person who could move the pole from the market’s south gate to its north gate would receive a prize of 10 pieces of gold. The crowd in the market was baffled by the proposed task and feared that the whole scheme was somehow a malicious trap. Sensing their fear and caution, Lord Shang raised his proposed prize to 50 gold pieces. Finally, a single unnamed man took up the pole and successfully planted it by the north gate. Once the task was complete, Lord Shang gave the man his promised 50 gold pieces, demonstrating to the crowd that, under his system, initiative and effort would be well rewarded.

According to the father of Chinese history, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), the laws of Lord Shang were put into place shortly after the demonstration with the pole was completed. His laws were said to have made the government deadly efficient. All households supposedly received what was needed to survive, and banditry, feuding and public disorder were stamped out through harsh punishment. Yet, it was a bittersweet success. The commoners were fearfully resentful of Lord Shang’s law code, and the nobles were furious that they were held just as accountable to the laws as the peasants. Therefore, after Duke Xiao died in 338 BCE, the next regime that took power in the state of Qin easily hunted down Lord Shang and executed him before the end of the year.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (figure painted by Katsushika Hokusai (Japan, 1760-1849) in front of "Along the River During the Chinese Qingming Festival," section painted by Zhang Zeduan  (1085–1145), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.  

The Greedy Downfall Of The Roman Poet, Clutorius Priscus

During the reigns of Augustus (r. 31 BCE -14 CE) and Emperor Tiberius (r. 14-37), there lived a poet by the name of Clutorius Priscus. He belonged to the class of Roman knights (equites), which placed him one step below the lofty senators in social status. There is no way of knowing when Clutorius began writing poetry, but he had managed to make a name for himself as a poet by the time of Tiberius. His reputation became so great that Emperor Tiberius decided to give Clutorius patronage to support a poem that the poet was crafting about the death of Germanicus (the emperor’s adopted son), who was widely believed to have been fatally poisoned in the year 19 by order of the then Roman governor of Syria, Cnaeus Culpernius Piso. According to the Roman historian and statesman, Tacitus (c. 56-117), the poem was immediately popular, and was still well known even during the historian’s own life.

Unfortunately, the success of the poem made Clutorius careless. When, around the year 21, Emperor Tiberius’ other son, Drusus, fell deathly ill, Clutorius Priscus saw it as an opportunity to gain more wealth and recognition. Secretly, without obtaining any support or permission from the emperor, Clutorius began writing another mournful poem about the death of an imperial prince—this time, however, the subject of the piece happened to still be alive. He was apparently very proud of his work. On a certain day, the poet allegedly began to brag to a group of noble women about the countless money he would be raking in if only Drusus would die.

Unfortunately for Clutorius, there had been an informant among the women with whom he had shared his secret. The Senate soon held a trial, accusing Clutorius Priscus of treason. During that trial, all of the women who had heard Clutorius speak of his latest poem came forward to give statements, with only one (a certain Vitellia) denying the charge. In the end, the Senate was convinced of the poet’s guilt, but they remained divided on what punishment fit the crime. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus argued for a more lenient sentencing. To him, exile, outlawry and seizure of property were enough punishment for the foolish poet. The then consul-elect, Deciumus Haterius Agrippa, however, argued that traitors deserved no less than death. The vast majority of the senators, unfortunately, sided with the latter point of view.

Drusus eventually recovered his illness, but Clutorius would never recover from the poem. Around the year 22, the Roman Senate had Clutorius Priscus executed as punishment for his ethically questionable poem. After the deed was done, the previously neutral Emperor Tiberius now chastised the Senate for condemning the poet to death, and praised the more merciful argument of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Ironically, Clutorius Priscus may have had the last laugh—Drusus did, indeed, meet an early end. Drusus died in the year 23, after supposedly being poisoned by his wife, Livilla, on the urging of Emperor Tiberious’ treacherous chief advisor, Sejanus.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture attribution: ("Sappho and Alcaeus," a poet playing to a crowd, painted by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996. 
• http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/2791945 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Germanicus 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Drusus-Julius-Caesar 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tiberius  

King Alfred Of Wessex Was Not Widely Recognized As “Great” For Over 600 Years Until The 16th Century

The recognition of King Alfred (r. 871-899) of Wessex as one of the greatest kings of British history is a generally recent phenomenon. Make no mistake, despite the absence of “the Great,” Alfred was still seen by his immediate peers and successors as a skilled ruler, a powerful war leader and a wise administrator of his realm. After all, he was a very successful king. In 871, King Alfred found himself in possession of a kingdom on the verge of collapse. His lands were threatened by roving bands of Vikings who traveled from one British kingdom to another, killing or extorting protection money from the battered monarchs. Although his reign began shakily, Alfred eventually pushed multiple waves of Vikings out of his domain and achieved recognition as the leading king of the surviving Anglo-Saxon states that were threatened by the Vikings. By the end of his reign, Alfred had put in place an efficient system of defense against the still-present Viking threat and initiated an educational renaissance in his lands. Yet, in the centuries following his death, despite his contributions to the survival of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England, Alfred was only considered as one good and effective king among a line of other exceptional kings—not yet a “great” king.

Alfred’s postmortem fame suffered from the successes of his family, both preceding his reign and following his death. Alfred’s grandfather, King Egbert (or Ecgbert, r. 802-839), was one of the top contenders that siphoned away Alfred’s fame. King Egbert was the one who originally put the Kingdom of Wessex on the path to greatness by making his kingdom the most influential power in the region of England, with most of his neighboring kingdoms either deferring to his will or being outright controlled by Wessex.

King Alfred, following the reigns of his father and brothers, succeeded in keeping Egbert’s hegemony over England intact, but he did not annihilate the Viking presence in Britain. Instead, Alfred ruled southern England and brought parts of Wales over to his side, while the Vikings were restricted to the Danelaw, a region carved out by the Scandinavians in the north and mid-east of England. Alfred’s fame was further chipped away by the successful reigns of his own son and grandson. Alfred’s grandson, King Æthelstan (r. 925-939), especially stole Alfred’s limelight by defeating the Norse-Celtic alliance and achieving the status of being the first king to bring all of England under his control. In short, Alfred’s greatness was often overlooked by medieval observers simply because the Kingdom of Wessex was in a golden age of competent kings during the 9th and early 10th centuries.

Nevertheless, King Alfred the Great eventually received his due. The earliest references to Alfred as “the Great” (that are known to this author) have been dated to the 15th century. Before this, Alfred had been treated with respect, often described as wise, magnanimous, or as a king of all the English/Anglo-Saxons. Unfortunately for Alfred, even when he was awarded the title of “the Great” in the late Middle Ages, it still was not in commonplace usage. Actually, Sir John Spelman is credited with popularizing the name, “Alfred the Great,” as a result of his work, Life of Alfred the Great, which was published postmortem in Latin (in 1678) and later in English, in 1709.

Interestingly, the very first biography written about King Alfred may have also played a role in the king’s late rise to greatness. A welsh monk, bishop and courtier of King Alfred, who went by the name of Asser, wrote the first known biography about an Anglo-Saxon king, which happened to be King Alfred. He is believed to have begun writing the piece around 893, eventually producing what is now known as Asser’s Life of King Alfred. As biographies go, it was not the best—with the utmost respect to Asser, the book was left unfinished, unedited, and critics would not be too imprecise to accuse the text of being poorly written. Asser, himself, likely knew the biography was not up to par, for it seems likely that he abandoned the project. Fifteen or sixteen unproductive years passed from the beginning of the biography in 893 to the death of Asser in 908 or 909. There is no evidence that Asser attempted to have his unfinished manuscript published on a large scale within England, not to mention dissemination of the work to other countries.

Ironically, either to Asser’s delight or horror, Asser’s Life of King Alfred is now considered to be one of the most important and valuable texts about King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxon world in England. Although all of the few known original medieval copies of the text have been lost (the last burned in 1731), modern presses have kept the work alive, preserving great insight into the extraordinary life and character of King Alfred the Great.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Portrait of Alfred the Great by Samuel Woodforde (1763-1817), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources translated, introduced and denoted by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-king-of-Wessex 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Athelstan 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Anglo-Saxon-king 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Egbert  

The Horribly Unsuccessful Political Career Of Parthian King Vonones I

Vonones was a Parthian prince who, although he managed to seize two thrones during his life, was unfortunately always outmaneuvered by his enemies. His father was the Parthian king, Phraates IV (r. 38-2 BCE), who after making peace with Augustus (r. 31 BCE – 14 CE), sent the Roman dictator several of his sons (including Vonones) as hostages, in a display of peace and respect. Therefore, Prince Vonones grew up with a thorough dose of Greco-Roman culture that would stay with him for the rest of his life. From the luxury of Rome, Vonones could only listen as reports came in of his father being murdered, followed by the short reign of Phraates V, and then the even shorter reign (mere months) of Orodes III. After the death of Orodes III, the Parthians were in need of a new monarch, and luckily enough, they had several members of the Parthian royal line living in the Roman Empire. Therefore, a party of diplomats from Parthia soon arrived in Rome to petition the emperor to allow Vonones to return home and become king of the Parthians. The Romans, thrilled at the thought of having a pro-Roman king leading the Parthians, sent Vonones home to be crowned.

The exact date of King Vonones’ reign remains in debate. Almost all scholars agree that he was politically active in the first two decades of the 1st century CE, with 8/9-11/12 (give or take a few years) being the usual dates given for his time of rule in Parthia. He seemed to have been a well-educated man, who brought his Greek and Roman teachings with him to Parthia. For instance, he minted coins in which his name was stamped in Greek. The new king’s noticeable Romanization, however, quickly became a problem among his subjects. The Roman statesman and historian, Tacitus (c. 56-117), claimed that Vonones I was uninterested in the local Parthian culture and tradition. Unlike his countrymen, the king did not care for horses. Similarly, while he enjoyed being carried around in a litter, he supposedly detested the Parthian-styled banquets that were expected of him. Also, instead of filling his court with local Parthians, he was said to have imported Greeks and Romans to serve as his government advisors. As these differences between ruler and subjects continued to persist, both sides began to look at the other as something entirely alien.

In the end, the Parthians rallied behind a rival king named Artabanus III (r. 11/12-38) and Vonones I was forced to flee from his kingdom. With remarkable timing, he then found shelter in Armenia, which miraculously happened to be a kingdom without a king. Curiously, Vonones was able to quickly place himself upon the Armenian throne. Yet, the Parthians did not like that Vonones had found a new kingdom, especially one that neighbored their own empire. The refugee king in Armenia also threatened the uneasy relationship between the Roman and Parthian Empires, for which the Kingdom of Armenia served as a buffer state. Eventually, around the year 15 or 16, the Roman governor of Syria became so concerned about the situation that he had Vonones seized and placed him under luxurious house arrest in the Roman Empire.

According to Tacitus, Vonones remained under house arrest in the Roman province of Syria until the year 18, when Emperor Tiberius’ adopted son, Germanicus, had the twice dethroned monarch moved to the town of Pompeiopolis, a settlement on the coast of Cilicia. This was apparently done as a diplomatic gesture to Parthia after King Artabanus III had accused Vonones of leading intrigues from his luxurious prison in Syria. Unfortunately, the new location in Pompeiopolis must not have been up to Vonones’ standards, for he attempted to escape in the year 19. He was reportedly attempting to flee to relatives in the lands of the Scythians when Roman troops caught up. Sadly, Vonones apparently had outlived his usefulness, for he was killed during or shortly after being apprehended.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Coin of Vonones I of Parthia with Greek inscriptions from the mint at Ecbatana. The reverse shows Nike with a palm, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, translated by Michael Grant. New York: Penguin Classics, 1996. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vonones-I 
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/42668016?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 
• http://www.parthia.com/vonones1.htm 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phraates-IV 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phraates-V 
• http://www.parthia.com/orodes3.htm