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 FROM THE EDITOR

The death of a 96-year-old person should not feel shocking.

Nine decades on this planet is a long life indeed, but when that person has
been on the British throne for 70 years, it can feel unsettling. Perhaps it was
not so much the passing of Elizabeth II itself, but more her absence that
created such an unfamiliar feeling. She was a stable presence through the
20th and 21st centuries as rapid changes washed over the world. The ways in
which people consume media, travel, and communicate with each other now
bear little resemblance to when she took the throne in 1952. Through it all,
there she was, keeping calm and carrying on.

I wonder if there was a similar feeling when 67-year-old Catherine the

Great died in 1796. She had ruled Russia for more than three decades, but
rather than a steadying influence, she was a disrupter. After seizing the
throne for herself, she spent her reign constantly pushing Russia to grow
bigger, to govern better, to think more rationally while embracing the arts
and sciences. Rather than the calm in the storm, Catherine II was the storm,
an agent of change that pushed Russia into a different era. After her death,
Russia and much of the world must have seemed a quieter place.

Amy Briggs, Executive Editor

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 1

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 VOL. 9 NO. 1

SIREN SONG
Odysseus is bound to his ship’s mast as
a measure against temptation by the
sirens. The episode from Homer’s Odyssey
was painted in 1891 by J.W. Waterhouse.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Features Departments

20 The Lost Canal of Xerxes 6 NEWS

Historians doubted the claim that King Xerxes of Persia hacked a canal 2,600-year-old reliefs from the
through a Greek peninsula, but new evidence suggests it was indeed time of King Sennacherib have
built, as part of the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 b.c. come to light in Nineveh, Iraq’s first major
archaeological discovery since the 1800s.

34 Wanderings of Odysseus 10 PROFILES

The ancient king Odysseus may have existed in myth only, but his ten- Pauline Bonaparte lived for
year journey in Homer’s epic The Odyssey offers a window into the very parties and pleasure. But when
real world of Mycenaean Greece in the Bronze Age. her brother Napoleon’s fortunes turned, she
stayed loyal to him until his death in exile.

48 Celebrations of Passover 14 DAILY LIFE

When tango was born in Buenos
Handed down from generation to generation, the sacred rituals
commemorating the Israelites’ escape from Egypt have evolved for
Aires’s slums, it was scorned as
vulgar. Today its European-African flavors
millennia along with the upheavals and events of Jewish history. are revered as Argentina’s national dance.

18 WORK OF ART
60 The Real Messalina The marble sarcophagus of
Roman writers portrayed the wife of Emperor Claudius as Hercules depicts the hero’s labors.
a sex-addicted villain, obscuring the shrewdness of a Carved around a.d. 150, it’s a
woman who needed to be ruthless to survive. masterpiece of Roman funerary art.

92 DISCOVERIES
74 Catherine’s Great Visions Roman-era shipwrecks
Even as she expanded the Russian Empire, Catherine found near a Pisa railroad
the Great pressed on at home, with sweeping in 1998 posed a riddle: How did
reforms in women’s education and mass vaccination so many boats, over the course
programs among the highlights of her 34-year reign. of seven centuries, come to be
wrecked at this one spot?
MESSALINA AND CLAUDIUS SOW ABUNDANCE ACROSS THE ROMAN EMPIRE
FROM A CHARIOT. CAMEO, CIRCA A.D. 45, NATIONAL LIBRARY, PARIS
 EXECUTIVE EDITOR AMY E. BRIGGS

Deputy Editor JULIUS PURCELL

Editorial Consultants JOSEP MARIA CASALS (Managing Editor, Historia magazine)
IÑAKI DE LA FUENTE (Art Director, Historia magazine)
VICTOR LLORET BLACKBURN (Editorial consultant and contributor)
Design Editor VERÓNICA MARCARIAN BALDERIAN
Photography Editor MERITXELL CASANOVAS

Contributors
CAROLINE BRAUN, MARC BRIAN DUCKETT, EMILY FLORY, AMY KOLCZAK, CINDY LEITNER,
BRADEN PHILLIPS, SEAN PHILPOTTS, SARAH PRESANT-COLLINS, JENNIFER VILAGA, ROSEMARY WARDLEY
JOSSE/LEEMAGE/GETTY

PUBLISHER JOHN MACKETHAN

Advertising ROB BYRNES

Consumer Marketing and Planning LAUREN BOYER, ANDREW DIAMOND, SUZANNE MACKAY, KATHERINE M.
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Production Services JAMES ANDERSON, JENN HOFF, KRISTIN SEMENIUK

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for corrections and clarifications, visit natgeo.com/corrections.
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EVP & GENERAL MANAGER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MEDIA DAVID E. MILLER

SENIOR MANAGEMENT
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 TÜRKIYE ASSYRIAN ARTWORKS
(TURKEY)

S YRI A
Nineveh

IRAN
Ancient Reliefs Found at
Site ISIS Tried to Destroy
IRAQ
Baghdad

S AU D I
A RA BI A The relics, which likely depict an Assyrian king’s military campaigns,
are the first major discovery of their kind in Iraq since the 1800s.

NINEVEH was one of
Mesopotamia’s oldest
cities. It was estab-
lished on the east bank
of the Tigris River in
what is now Mosul,
Iraq’s second largest
city. Nineveh was the
capital of the neo-
Assyrian empire before
it was sacked in 612 b.c.
NG MAPS
A
team of Iraqi
and American
archaeologists,
digging in the ru-
ins of an ancient palatial gate
razed by ISIS (Islamic State),
has discovered stunning art-
works last seen some 2,600
years ago.
The seven carved gypsum
panels are believed to have
originated in the Southwest
Palace at Nineveh, near mod-
ern Mosul in northern Iraq,
and date to the time of the
Assyrian king Sennacherib,
who reigned between 705
and 681 b.c. “It’s something
none of us expected,” says
Ali al Jabouri, a former dean
of the University of Mosul’s
College of Archaeology and
a member of the excavation
team.
Similar reliefs, unearthed
from Sennacherib’s palace
in the mid-19th century and
now on display at the British
Museum in London, depict the
ruler’s campaign against King
Hezekiah in 701 b.c. While
those relics are untouch-
able, Al Jabouri says that the

6 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 NEWS

CAREFUL EXCAVATION REVEALS

SEVENTH-CENTURY B.C ASSYRIAN RELIEFS.
THIS PANEL HAD BEEN REPURPOSED FOR
NEW CONSTRUCTION IN NINEVEH, AND
ANY VISIBLE DECORATION WAS ERASED.
ZAID AL-OBEIDI/AFP/GETTY

moment he first laid a hand on

the newly discovered reliefs
was profound.
“When you discover such
things and you’re able to touch
them with your hand, this is
something very, very excit-
ing,” he told National Geo-
graphic on a call from Mosul.

Revolutionary Art
Sennacherib is among the
most famous leaders of the
neo-Assyrian empire, which
spanned what is now mod-
ern Iraq, the Caucasus, and
Egypt. His military campaign
of 701 b.c., recorded in the
panels at the British Muse-
um and elsewhere, appear in
biblical accounts.
The king’s reign is also con- ERASURE (ABOVE LEFT): When slabs were repurposed for construction, visible portions of
sidered a pivotal moment in the reliefs, like this military encampment, were chiseled away while the rest remained intact.
OUTSIDERS (TOP RIGHT): This figure’s short hair (typical of ancient Iranian depictions)
art history, when Sennach- identify him as a foreigner. Assyrians usually sported curly shoulder-length hair.
erib’s artists threw away HOT SHOTS (BOTTOM RIGHT): A battle scene depicts uniformed Assyrian archers. The
traditional restrictions and conical pattern in the background indicates they are in a hilly or mountainous region.
embraced a sweeping new IMAGES: MICHAEL DANTI

approach. The Assyrian rul-

er commissioned large-scale
artworks depicting his mili-
tary campaigns in continuous
narratives that filled every bit
of space and paid careful, de-
tailed attention to landscapes
and people across his empire
and beyond.
The newly discovered
panels, one of which bears an
inscription by Sennacherib,
feature Assyrian soldiers
and military camps, as well
as deportees and prisoners
of war. For ancient artworks
that survived both the sack
of Nineveh by Babylonians
and Medes, in 612 b.c., and
destruction wrought by the
21st-century ISIS, the pre-
served reliefs appear as if they
had been just carved.
“They’re better than the
ones in the British Muse-
um,” says Michael Danti, a
professor of archaeology at
the University of Pennsyl-
vania and the director of the
joint Iraqi-American proj-
ect. “They r­ eally show the
high-relief carving, the de-
tail of Sennacherib’s
sculptures, which
were revolutionary at
the time.”
Surprising Find
The unlikely discovery
took place at a site of recent
destruction. During a cam-
paign of terror across north-
ern Iraq and Syria between
2014 and 2017, ISIS targeted
Nineveh. At its height,
around 700 b.c., the capital
of the neo-Assyrian empire
was the largest city in the
world. Its citadel, which con-
tained palaces built by both
Sennacherib and his
FINE DETAIL. A SMALL
BOVINE FIGURE APPEARS IN
A DEPICTION OF A MILITARY
ENCAMPMENT (ABOVE LEFT).
MICHAEL DANTI
grandson Ashurbanipal, was
surrounded by a wall more
than seven miles long and
punctuated by 18 gates.
The Mashki Gate, known
as the Gate of the Watering
Places and situated next to
the Tigris River, was restored
in the 1970s as a monument
to the ancient heritage of
Mosul’s residents. It was de-
stroyed by ISIS in April 2016.
Part of a joint project be-
tween the University of
Pennsylvania’s Iraq Her-
itage Stabilization
Program and the
Nineveh Inspec-
torate of Iraq’s
State Board of

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 7

AN IRAQI-U.S. TEAM WORKS AT THE
MASHKI GATE SITE IN NINEVEH ON THE
SURPRISING FIND. BELOW FLOOR LEVEL,
THE SEEMINGLY BLANK STONE PANELS
REVEALED LUSHLY DETAILED SCENES.
GETTY IMAGES

Antiquities and Heritage,

and funded in part by the Al-
iph Foundation, the team of
archaeologists began exca-
vating the ruins of the Mash-
ki Gate ahead of a planned re-
construction in April of last
year. They soon encountered
a sealed doorway, apparent-
ly untouched during the ’70s
restoration. Beyond the door
was a hallway that no one had
entered for 2,634 years—
when the Mashki Gate and the
entire palace compound were
destroyed during the sack of
Nineveh.
As the archaeologists dug
into the destruction layer,
THE MASHKI GATE, whose Persian name translates to Gate of the Watering Places, may
they found the skeletal hu-
have been used to lead livestock to the nearby Tigris River, which lies a mile to the west.
The photograph above shows the gate following its reconstruction in 1977, before its de- man remains of victims. They
struction by ISIS bulldozers in 2016. Neither ISIS nor the sackers of Nineveh in 612 b.c. was explored deeper along a wall
aware of the Sennacherib-era reliefs buried below the ground. GETTY IMAGES fashioned from chiseled stone
panels, and something more

8 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 NEWS

A WOULD-BE
CONQUERER’S FATE
THE ASSYRIAN KING Sennacherib moved
his capital to Nineveh, which he expanded
and beautified. Despite Assyria’s formida-
ble military power, revolts arose in various
parts of the empire, including Judah, which
was ruled by King Hezekiah. The conflict
with Sennacherib is chronicled in several
books of the Old Testament. In 701 b.c., in
response to a revolt in Judah, Sennacherib
besieged Jerusalem, only sparing the city
after Hezekiah paid a large ransom. The
Bible recounts how God then sent an angel
to strike down the Assyrians in their camp,
causing Sennacherib to abandon the siege.
The Book of Kings recounts the monarch’s
unhappy end, foretold by the Prophet Isaiah:
“Now it came to pass, as he was worship-
ing in the temple of Nisroch … that his sons
Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him
down with the sword … Then Esarhaddon
his son reigned in his place.” (2 Kings 19:37)
ROYAL DEATH. SENNACHERIB MEETS HIS VIOLENT END.
CASSELL’S FAMILY BIBLE (1870) BRIDGEMAN

intriguing emerged. Beneath the mud-brick walls of the Researchers have yet to represent a later campaign of
the floor level, seven seem- gate, with any visible deco- confirm the specific events Sennacherib’s in the Zagros
ingly blank panels revealed ration above the floor level and military campaigns that Mountains.
riotous scenes of carved deco- chiseled off. are depicted in these panels “I found [the discovery]
ration: powerful Assyrian sol- and are continuing to dig in really very heartening be-
diers and archers and moun- Staying in Iraq the area. Fragments of chis- cause we had lost so much
tainous landscapes lush with This is the first significant eled decoration found in the during the ISIS attack,” says
detailed vegetation. discovery of known Sen- hall will provide archaeolo- Bahrani, who points to oth-
The researchers suspect nacherib-era reliefs since the gists with important infor- er discoveries made beneath
that the panels were repur- British Assyriologist Austen mation to reconstruct the Nabi Yunus, Mosul’s ancient
posed from Sennacherib’s pal- Henry Layard excavated the scenes; the panels them- shrine that had been de-
ace as construction material, Southwest Palace in the mid- selves also detail how Assyr- stroyed by the militant group
possibly during a renovation 19th century. The majority of ians recycled and repurposed in 2014. “It did provide some
of Mashki Gate by Sinsharish- his finds were sent to Euro- building materials across comfort that these things can
kun, the great-grandson of the pean museums. These pan- their sprawling empire. never be destroyed, because
king. The 5-by-6.5-foot pan- els, however, will be the first Zainab Bahrani, a profes- they’ll always reemerge in
els were set sideways against to remain in Iraq. sor of ancient Near East- some sense.”
ern art and archaeology at “The land is just full of an-
Columbia University, not- tiquities,” she adds. “It’s full
Beyond the door was a hallway that ed that a figure in one pan- of ancient sites. And there is
el has a distinctive, non- no way that you can erase all
no one had entered for 2,634 years— Assyrian hairstyle and beard that history.”
until the Mashki Gate was destroyed. worn by inhabitants of Iran at
the time, suggesting it may ­­—Kristin Romey

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 9

PROFILES
Pauline, the Bonaparte
Who Conquered Hearts
Pauline, Napoleon’s beautiful younger sister, was belittled as a party girl who lived for
fashion and romance. But she proved to be bold, courageous, and loyal.
Life of
Adventure
1797
At age 17, Pauline
Bonaparte marries General
Charles Leclerc. A year
later, Pauline’s only child
will be born.
1802
Pauline joins her husband
in the Caribbean. Leclerc
will die of yellow fever,
and Pauline will return to
Europe with her son.
1803
Pauline marries Camillo
Borghese and moves to
Rome. After the death of
her son, she abandons
Borghese and married life.
1808
Sculptor Antonio
Canova’s statue of a
partially nude Pauline
as the goddess Venus is
complete.
1821
After Napoleon’s
banishment to St. Helena,
Pauline tries to visit him,
but he dies before she
can gain permission.
SHINING HILT. CAMILLO BORGHESE’S SWORD
ORONOZ/ALBUM
10 MARCH/APRIL 2023
P
auline Bonaparte, younger
sister to Napoleon, was her
brother’s favorite of their sev-
en siblings. She was the only
one who took no part in his
political power plays. While her siblings
were placed on thrones all over Europe,
Pauline was quoted as saying: “I do not
care for crowns. If I had wished for one,
I should have had it; but I left that taste
to my relations.”
Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on Octo-
ber 20, 1780, she was the sixth of the
eight children of lawyer Charles-Marie
Bonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramoli-
no. Pauline opted for a life of amorous
adventure rather than reshaping the
political map of Europe. She used her
beauty and boldness to conquer a long
train of lovers and, despite scandals,
won the admiration­of the European
beau monde as an icon of style.
“Few women have savored more the
pleasure of being beautiful,” the French
general Louis Stanislas de Girardin
wrote of her. For Napoleon himself,
she was “the best living creature”
and “the only one who never asks
for anything.” Though often friv-
olous and feckless, Pauline had
a loyal and courageous side too.
She was the only one of his sib-
lings to visit Napoleon (and to
“Pauline … was then in the full brilliance
of her beauty … Few women have savored
more the pleasure of being beautiful.”
—Louis Stanislas de Girardin
help him financially) when he was ex-
iled to the island of Elba in 1814 after
his failed military campaign in Rus-
sia. During his second banishment, to
St.Helena, after his defeat at Waterloo,
Pauline even requested to spend time
with him on the remote island in the
southern Atlantic.
Family Fortunes
Despite the death of her father when she
was five, Pauline grew up in the bosom
of a comfortable family until her early
teens. Then, in 1793, times got harder:
Her brother Lucien became embroiled
in a political controversy, forcing the
family to flee Corsica for the French
mainland. Once in Marseille, they lived
in straitened circumstances. That same
year, Napoleon first made his name mil-
itarily, starting an ascent that would
vastly improve his family’s fortunes.
Pauline never had the formal educa-
tion that women of high social stand-
ing were expected to have to secure a
wealthy husband. At age 15, her beau-
ty was enough to catch the eye of her
brother’s military comrades. After a
dalliance or two, she fell for the veteran
French revolutionary Stanislas Fréron.
Entangled with another mistress (and
26 years Pauline’s senior), he was re-
jected by her mother. No end of suitors

appeared. Napoleon told one aspirant,
“You have nothing. She has nothing.
What does that total? Nothing.” In the
end, her brother persuaded her to con-
sider Charles Leclerc. They married in
1797, and a year later the couple’s only
son, Dermide, was born.
Wife, Widow, Princess
In 1801, to quell an ongoing revolution in
Saint-Domingue (in what is Haiti today)
and protect France’s sugar income from
its colony, Napoleon (now first consul)
sent Pauline’s husband to the Caribbean
to lead 23,000 French soldiers. Pauline
and her son followed in 1802. Leclerc
achieved initial victories against the
rebels, led by Toussaint L’ouverture.
Leclerc’s successes were short-lived.
Renewed fighting coincided with an
outbreak of yellow fever that began to
decimate the French troops. Amid de-
clining morale, Pauline provided social
diversion, with herself at the center, by
hosting balls and fetes. She also turned
the family’s mansion into a field hospi-
tal. Leclerc urged his wife to return to
France, but she refused. Leclerc wrote
BONAPARTE
BEAUTY SECRETS
PAULINE BONAPARTE was famous
for her looks and spent much
time and effort trying to pre-
serve and enhance them. She
was a fashion trendsetter who
loved gems, favoring jeweled
headdresses and ornamenta-
tion on her gowns. She was also
notorious for wearing sheer
dresses that left nothing to the
imagination. A famous part of
her daily beauty regimen was
bathing in milk to soften and
whiten her skin. One anecdote
has her visiting a home without
a shower. Unabashed, Pauline
asked for a hole to be cut in the
ceiling above and requested a
servant pour the milk down on
her in the bath.
PAULINE BONAPARTE POSES NEXT TO A BUST OF
HER BROTHER, NAPOLEON. PORTRAIT BY ROBERT
LEFÈVRE, PALACE OF VERSAILLES.
CHRISTOPHE FOUIN/RMN-GRAND PALAIS
to Napoleon that she chose to follow
her husband’s fortunes for “good or ill.”
In November 1802, Leclerc died from
yellow fever, and Pauline and her son
returned to France.
While genuinely grieving her hus-
band’s death, Pauline soon took up
romantic liaisons. Her love life would
always generate gossip, but it was fre-
quently seized on and exaggerated by
Napoleon’s royalist enemies. “Pauline
was often singled out by Bourbon sym-
pathizers as a nymphomaniac who cared
not whether her partner or partners
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 11
PROFILES

VILLA PAOLINA
Pauline Bonaparte’s residence in
Rome became home to the Embassy
of France to the Holy See.
RAFFAELLO BENCINI/ALINARI/AGE FOTOSTOCK

were men or women, or, when in Haiti must be beyond reproach. His sister’s Initially, Pauline approved of the
with Leclerc, whether they were his image was bound closely to his, and 28-year-old prince’s Mediterranean
officers or Haitians who opposed the so, once again, he sought out a new good looks, not to mention the title of
French Army,” says Flora Fraser, author husband for Pauline: The very rich, princess, a generous annuity, property,
of Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire. well-connected Prince Camillo Bor- and the use of the celebrated Borghese
“The object was always to damage, by ghese, whose presence in the family jewels. But Pauline soon grew disillu-
extension, her brother’s reputation.” would help Napoleon reinforce ties with sioned, and the marriage deteriorated.
Napoleon had his sights set on impe- French-occupied Italy. They married Among other gibes, she took to calling
rial power and knew that his reputation in June 1803. him “His Serene Idiot.”
Pauline’s health had begun to trou-
ble her. In 1804, Prince Borghese took
Pauline to the baths of Pisa to recover,
KING OF THE TIARA but he didn’t allow her to bring along
her son. While she was away, the six-
FOUNDER of the French jewelry house Chaumet in 1780, year-old contracted a fever and died.
Marie-Étienne Nitot was Napoleon’s official jeweler. Pauline blamed the prince. Their
This 1811 épis de blés, or ears of wheat, tiara be­ ill-suited match now ruptured,
longed to Pauline. Made of gold and silver and she persuaded Napoleon to
set with diamonds, it sold at auction in 2021 allow her to return to Paris,
for over $850,000. rather than to Rome with
FIT FOR A PRINCESS. TIARA BELONGING TO PAULINE BONAPARTE Prince Borghese. Despising
REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF CHRISTIE’S her husband, she once again
took refuge in love affairs.

12 MARCH/APRIL 2023

Immortal Beauty
Shortly after their marriage, Borghese
had commissioned Antonio Canova,
the greatest neoclassical sculptor of the
time, to portray his new wife. The art-
ist wanted a mythological theme, sug-
gesting Diana, the Roman virgin god-
dess of hunting.
Pauline laughed at such an incongru-
ous idea, opting for Venus, the Roman
goddess of love. Titled “Venus Victrix”
(“Venus Victorious”), the resulting
masterpiece has endured as Pauline’s
greatest claim to fame. By having her-
self depicted as Venus, Pauline’s innate
vanity could not be more evident. But,
as Fraser notes, it also showed her “dis-
regard for convention, and even an en-
joyment in breaking with convention.”
Pauline’s decision to pose nude was
notorious at the time for a woman of
her station, but the sculpture’s technical
virtuosity won widespread admiration
when it was completed in 1808. Seen at
night by torchlight, as Canova recom-
mended, the figure’s smoothly polished
marble seemed like real flesh. Today
Pauline’s form continues to amaze vis-
itors to the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Napoleon seemed to ignore most
of Pauline’s unconventional behavior.
This choice contrasts with the man
who, when named emperor of France
in 1804, emphasized “good morals” and
restricted the rights women had gained
during the French Revolution. For Na-
poleon, empire was one thing and family
another—and no one exemplified that
contrast more than his sister.
Loyal to the Last
Pauline’s health problems worsened from her husband, Pauline returned to
over the years. She experienced chron- live with him in Palazzo Borghese. It was
ic abdominal pain and traveled from there that she died three months later.
spa to spa in search of relief or a cure.
She often insisted on being carried in
VICTORIOUS VENUS
Pauline Bonaparte posed for
sculptor Antonio Canova, who
portrayed her as the Roman
goddess. Galleria Borghese, Rome.
SCALA, FLORENCE
a litter to avoid walking. Her demands
became increasingly capricious. She
bid her attendants to act as footstools
or to lay down their cloaks on the
ground so she could rest.
When Napoleon was forced into
exile on St. Helena in 1815, Pauline re-
turned to Rome, where she lobbied the
British authorities to set her brother
free. Five years later, as reports came
of Napoleon’s decline, she repeatedly
asked for permission to join him and
“be there when he breathes his last.” He
died in 1821 while she was still awaiting
a response.
Her own health was gradually bro-
ken by what is believed to be stomach
cancer. In 1825, 20 years after separating
­
—María Pilar Queralt del Hierro
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 13
Before the Ballrooms,
Tango Ruled the Streets
In the slums of Buenos Aires, African and European traditions blended into a sensual new dance.
Once notorious and shocking, the tango is now an Argentine national treasure.

A
t the turn of the 20th centu-
ry, the well-heeled porteños
of Buenos Aires, out for an
evening in the seedy port
neighborhoods along the Río de la Pla-
ta, started noticing a dance they had
never seen before.
A couple—with their bodies pressed
up closely against one another from
cheek to rib cage, and the leader’s arm
around their partner’s waist—would
launch into intricate steps, sinuous yet
sharp, with dramatic turns followed by
a sudden suggestive pause, which set up
another similar series of steps.
News spread about the dance, which
people were calling the tango. Accom-
panied by the melancholy sound of the
accordion-like bandoneón, it expressed
sadness, passion, and, most shockingly
to some, sensuality. To high-society
Argentines, accustomed to the polite
formality of the waltz, this departure
from propriety was made all the more
offensive by its low-class origins. The
prominent Argentine intellectual and
writer Leopoldo Lugones described the
dance as a “reptile from the brothel.”
First Tango in Paris
What the Argentine bourgeoisie dis-
dained, however, was being enthusias-
tically embraced by fashionable society
on the other side of the world in Paris.
The smoldering, sensual dance ap-
peared in the cabarets of Montmartre,
and from 1911 to 1914, the French capi-
tal was gripped by tango mania. Paris
was the first capital of the tango, its

14 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 DA I LY L I F E

DANCING COUPLES perform the tango on

picture postcards from 1910.
BOTH PHOTOS: AKG / ALBUM

springboard to international popular-

ity. The first tango records were made
there, and the first schools were opened.
In his book The Memory of the Mod-
ern, historian Matt K. Matsuda de-
scribes its appeal as “a grasping for
energies of revival in a degenerating
old world.” There was also the at-
traction of otherness and the exotic.
A French regulation required foreign
tango musicians to perform in national
costumes, which in the case of Argen-
tina were gaucho outfits that thrilled
the audiences. At first, surveying the
French fascination with what was be-
ing called “their” dance, the Argentine
elite dug in their heels. “To accept it
COLOR AND VERVE
[the tango] as ours, because it was so
TANGO emerged in various ports along the shores of the Río de la
labeled in Paris, would be to fall into the
most despicable servility,” the news-
Plata, including the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo. In Buenos
Aires, one of the districts most closely associated with the dance
paper La Nación declared in 1913. But
is the traditionally poor barrio of La Boca. There, the famously
four years later, in the dance academies
vibrant street, Caminito (above), was immortalized in the 1926
and bordellos of Buenos Aires, young
song of the same name by tango composer Juan de Dios Filiberto,
upper-class men were learning the tan- and sung by Carlos Gardel.
go as the dance began to spread to the BERNARDO GALMARINI / ALAMY

whole country.

It Takes Many to Tango

The origins of tango date back to the end
of the 19th century, when Argentina’s Europe, such as the polka and the
booming agriculture-led economy be- mazurka. These rhythms and sounds
came a magnet to some seven million blended with the milonga, an Afro­-
immigrants between 1870 and 1930. Argentine form of popular dance relat-
Many of these immigrants came from ed to candombe, a local fusion of various
Spain and Italy, but also from central and African traditions.
eastern Europe. Historian Simon Collier, in his book
On the banks of the Río de la Plata, Tango, refers to the first eyewitness de-
not only in Buenos Aires but also in scription of the dance in 1877, when the
Montevideo, Uruguay, the Cuban- African Argentines were seen doing an
influenced habanera dances of Spain improvisation of the candombe they
met with the Viennese waltz, the Anda- called the tango, in which couples
lusian tango (an early tango-flamenco danced apart. As Collier tells it, groups
mix), and folk dances from central of poor compadritos, the street-tough
The German-made
bandoneón gives the
tango its iconic sound.
BANDONEÓN FROM BERLIN, MADE IN 1914
AKG/ALBUM
hipsters of Buenos Aires, visited African-
Argentine dance venues, brought the
dance back to their ramshackle barrios,
and incorporated it into the milonga. It
was in these settings that the first steps
of a dance for intertwined couples began
to develop. It combined the cuts and
breaks of African dances, particularly
candombe, with dances imported from
Europe.
The compadritos, comprising immi-
grants and unemployed native-born
gauchos, or ranch workers, struggled to
find work amid social dislocation. The
majority of immigrants were men,
which meant competition for female
companionship was fierce. The tango
was born amid that confusion and hard-
ship and expressed a frustrated search
for love, a longing for the past, and the
loss of pride and honor. Poet Enrique
Santos Discépolo defined tango as a“sad
thought that is danced.”

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 15

DA I LY L I F E

“EL TANGO,” an early 20th-century illustration by Georges Barbier, depicts the dance when tango mania conquered Paris.
BRIDGEMAN/ACI

Musicians initially played a tango As tango began to take root more 1917 “Mi Noche Triste,” the first re-
on a guitar, violin, and flute, along with broadly in Argentina, lyrics became a corded vocal tango. Gardel may have
a piano, when available. At the begin- fundamental part of the songs. The been French or Uruguayan (his origins
ning of the 20th century, the flute was themes of these early works ranged are much debated). Wherever his
replaced by the bandoneón, which from light and humorous to dark and birthplace, he moved to Buenos Aires
German immigrants had brought to violent. Other subjects included the as a child and grew up in a tenement
Argentina around 1835. This instru- city of Buenos Aires and tango itself. with his poor, single mother. He began
ment would give the dance its signa- Historians often attribute the start by performing the Creole repertoire,
ture sound. of the tango song to Carlos Gardel’s that of the native-born descendants
of Spanish colonizers, be-
fore turning to tango.
With his trademark emo-
CUTTING AND BREAKING tional intensity, he popu-
larized and internation-
alized the genre.
THE TYPICAL MOVEMENTS seen in dancing the tango are By the 1920s, the tango
cuts (cortes) and breaks (quebradas). They are perform­ed could be heard on the ra-
by breaking the couple’s axis, as the dancer being led dio, on record albums,
bends over the body of the leader in a sudden turn. The and in films. Along with
moves grew out of endless improvisation in the run- Gardel, most of the pop-
down river port districts of Buenos Aires. ular singers were men,
TWO MEN REHEARSE A TANGO IN A PHOTO FROM THE EARLY 1900S. such as Agustín Magaldi
BIBLIOTECA NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA
and Ignacio Corsini.
Women singers became

16 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 THE KING
OF TANGO
NICKNAMED “the Wizard,” “the
Creole Thrush,” or simply “the
King of Tango,” Carlos Gardel is
a true Argentine musical icon.
He did much to transform the
tango into a form of popular
song and became a symbol of
tango itself. With his concerts,
tours, and Spanish-language
films, he was a hero to those
who shared his humble origins
and saw his success as a vali-
dation of their culture. In 1935,
at the height of his career and
on the verge of Hollywood star-
dom, he was killed in a plane
crash in Colombia at the age of
45, devastating millions of fans.
Even now, fresh flowers appear
on his tomb every day.

CARLOS GARDEL PLAYS THE GUITAR DRESSED IN

TRADITIONAL GAUCHO GARB.
AKG/ALBUM

quite famous too. Vocalists such as
Azucena Maizani and Libertad La-
marque went on to become movie
stars in the 1930s and 1940s with the
advent of talkies.
From 1925 onward, the orchestras
of Julio de Caro, Roberto Firpo, and
Osvaldo Fresedo filled ballrooms in
Buenos Aires and other cities in Ar-
gentina, as well as Montevideo, her-
alding the golden age of the tango in
the region, which continued until the
mid-1950s. As a dance, the tango of
the ballrooms reflected its Parisian
influence. Shaped by European high
society, the dance mellowed as it was
more widely accepted, like the waltz or
polka, losing its edge of compadrito
aggressiveness.
Coming to America
It was this Europeanized version of
the tango that arrived in the United
States. Performers Vernon and Irene
Castle introduced the dance to New
York audiences in the 1913 Broadway
musical The Sunshine Girl. It didn’t
take long to catch on: “All New York
Now Madly Whirling in the Tango,”
read the New York Times headline on
January 1, 1914. Other pivotal figures
in the American tango story are Hol-
lywood heartthrob Rudolph Valentino,
ballroom dancing teacher and entre-
preneur Arthur Murray, and bandleader
Xavier Cugat.
Although tango’s popularity declined
in the U.S. with the arrival of rock-and-
roll in the 1950s, in Argentina it took a
further blow in 1955 with the military
overthrow of President Juan Perón. The
new regime banned large public gather-
ings, which included dances. It was“the
beginning of the end of tango’s golden
age,” according to Morgan Luker, music
professor at Reed College and author of
The Tango Machine: Musical Culture in
the Age of Expediency.
After the golden age, tango music
continued to evolve into a form known
as tango nuevo, a fusion of traditional
tango with Western art, music, and
jazz, led most famously by bandoneón
player Astor Piazzolla.
Since the turn of the 21st century,
tango music has been thriving in Ar-
gentina, and some artists describe the
present moment as a new golden age,
Luker says. “The dance especially is
very vibrant today,” he adds, not only
in Argentina, but also in North Amer-
ica, Europe, and Asia.“There are at least
weekly if not nightly tango dances in
many … cities in the United States to-
day.” In 2009, in recognition of the
dance as an art form from the Río de la
Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay
that is fundamental to its identity,
UNESCO declared the tango an Intan-
gible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
—Braden Phillips

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 17

WORK OF ART
M A N Y C U LT U R E S , M A N Y I N F L U E N C E S
The Sarcophagus
of Hercules
Decorated with mythological reliefs, the Velletri Sarcophagus is
a masterpiece of Roman funerary art. Fusing Asian and Greek
styles, it reflects a shift in Roman attitudes about the afterlife
while still honoring classical legends.
T
he magnificent sarcophagus
of Hercules, on display at the
Oreste Nardini Civic Archae-
ological Museum in Velletri,
near Rome, was discovered near the
town in 1955. Standing more than five
feet tall and measuring over eight feet
long, the monumental work is made all
the more imposing by the quality and
detail of its decoration. Remarkably
preserved, it stands out as a unique
masterpiece of Roman funerary art.
The sarcophagus was carved around
a.d. 150 from a block of marble quarried
on the Greek island of Paros. For cen-
turies, Parian stone was highly prized
by classical sculptors and used in other
masterpieces, including the “Winged
a b
Victory of Samothrace” from the sec-
ond century b.c.
The sarcophagus’s gabled top is rem-
iniscent of temple design. The scenes
are organized by architectural elements,
a technique used by artists from Asia
Minor. Its sides tell two distinct sto-
ries and feature 184 figures illustrating
mythological episodes. At the base,
Atlas-like figures hold the weight of the
C
tiers and separate the different scenes, D
while female caryatids support the level E
above. The 12 Labors of Hercules are the
predominant theme of the sarcophagus.
Three of the four sides show the feats,
including Hercules’ descent into and
return from the underworld.
The occupant of the sarcophagus is
depicted on one gable end (left), about
to enter the underworld. The sarcoph-
agus was made during the time when
Romans were transitioning from cre-
mation to burial as their preferred fu-
nereal practice. The work expresses the
deceased’s hope that his life, like Her-
cules’, will continue beyond the grave.
­—­Lucía Avial-Chicharro
LABORS OF HERCULES
An image of the deceased appears in the central panel
on one end of the Velletri sarcophagus, surrounded by
Hercules vignettes: The demigod wrestles with A the
Nemean lion and fights B the many-headed hydra. On the
other end (at right) Hercules’ final three labors are shown:
C killing the giant Geryon; D capturing Cerberus; and
E stealing the golden apples of Hesperides.
MAIN SARCOPHAGUS: LEONARDO DE CESARIS/MUSEI CIVICI VELLETRI
GABLE END: ALBUM
 JOURNEYS TO THE UNDERWORLD
In the central band, 1 Protesilaus and
Alcestis return from the dead to be reunited
with their respective beloveds, 2 Laodamia
and Admetus. 3 Jupiter and 4 Neptune
flank the rulers of the underworld:
5 Pluto and Proserpine.

1 3 4 2
5

8 9
6 7

ABDUCTION OF PROSERPINE
The tomb’s lower band shows Pluto stealing
Proserpine from 6 her mother, the goddess
Ceres. 7 A scene of maidens picking flowers
appears before 8 Proserpine is forced into
Pluto’s chariot. At the gate of the underworld
waits 9 a female figure to welcome the pair.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 19

 TRIUMPH OF ENGINEERING

CANAL OF
XERXES
An ancient account of Persian King Xerxes carving
a canal through a Greek peninsula was thought
to be a tall tale, but new studies suggest the
engineering marvel did exist.

ANTONIO PENADÉS
PERSIAN WONDERS
A drainage channel encircles
the Gate of All Nations, built
in the mid-fifth century b.c.
by King Xerxes in Persepolis,
the ceremonial capital of
the Persian Empire. The site
is near the modern city of
Shiraz in southern Iran.
KONRAD ZELAZOWSKI/ALAMY/ACI

LAND AND SEA
This view from Mount
Athos overlooks the
site of what was once
the Xerxes Canal.
It was constructed
across the narrowest
part of the Mount
Athos Peninsula,
connected to the
mainland some 28
miles north.
NATALINO RUSSO/FOTOTECA 9X12
PERSIA
VERSUS
ATHENS
22 MARCH/APRIL 2023
H
istorians had long believed the
Xerxes Canal was a myth, but they
never stopped searching for it. For
millennia the only evidence of this
engineering feat was found primar-
ily in one written source, leading many schol-
ars to scoff at the existence of a canal built so
that the mighty navy of Persia could pass through
it in 480 b.c.
Recent archaeological finds on the Mount
Athos Peninsula in modern-day Greece sug-
gest the engineering marvel did indeed exist.
Its creation is a vivid reminder of ancient Per-
sia’s wealth, strength, and inventiveness, which
492 b.c.
Hundreds of Persian ships are
wrecked and 20,000 men killed
in a storm off the Mount Athos
Peninsula. The fleet is part of
Darius I’s mission to punish
Athenians for supporting an
Ionian rebellion.
Athens and other city-states faced when this
mighty foe invaded their lands. The engineering
prowess that built the grand city of Persepolis
could also be utilized in the fight for control of
the Mediterranean.
Peril at Sea
The story of the canal takes place during the
Greco-Persian wars of the fifth century b.c.
Many battles, such as those at Marathon and
Salamis, have become famous underdog tales in
which the Greeks challenge a much more pow-
erful Persian foe—and win. The Canal of Xer­xes
reveals the power of their adversaries.
490 b.c.
The Persians are defeated by the
Athenians and their Plataean
allies at Marathon. Distracted
by problems elsewhere in his
sprawling empire, Darius I
suspends his campaign against
Greece. He dies in 486 b.c.
The origins of the wars can be found at the dawn light and fast Persian warships were vulnerable FATHER AND SON
of the fifth century b.c., when the Ionian in adverse conditions. Sitting high in the water, A silver siglos
Greeks, who lived along the western coast of they quickly became unstable in strong winds. coin from the late
sixth century b.c.
modern-day Turkey, revolted against their Per- The tempest dashed some 300 Persian ships (opposite) depicts
sian overlords. In 494 b.c., Persian ruler Dari- against the cliffs of the peninsula and killed as an armed Darius the
us the Great crushed the Ionian-Greek rebels many as 20,000 sailors. Great. Darius was
at the Battle of Lade and then destroyed the Two years later, in 490 b.c., Darius was hu- succeeded in 486 b.c
Ionian city of Miletus. Having brought the Io- miliated by Athens on the shore at Marathon and by his son Xerxes,
represented (below)
nians to heel, Darius sought revenge against retreated with his forces back to Asia. Distracted on a Daric coin from
their allies—the Athenians. by a revolt in Egypt during his last years, Darius the fifth century b.c.
From this point on, Darius’fortunes changed died without fulfilling his dream of ruling the DARIUS: ALAMY
XERXES: ACI
abruptly: In 492 b.c., as a large part of the Persian Greek world. His son and successor, Xerxes, be-
fleet rounded the peninsula of Mount Athos, gan meticulous preparations to subdue Greece
a fierce storm blasted in from the north. The once and for all.

483 b.c. 480 b.c.

Xerxes, Darius’s successor, King Xerxes invades Greece.
prepares for a new campaign His foot soldiers and cavalry
against the Athenians. Work cross into Europe via two
begins on cutting a canal great pontoons spanning the
through the Mount Athos Hellespont (Dardanelles Strait),
Peninsula, where his father’s while his navy uses the newly
fleet wrecked in 492. constructed canal.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 23

IMPERIAL MOTIVATIONS

A MAN, A PLAN,
A CANAL

T
he storm off Mount Athos
Peninsula that devastat-
ed the fleet of Xerxes’ fa-
ther, Darius I, in 492 b.c.,
appeared to influence Xerxes’
decision to create a canal. Never-
theless, the colossal financial and
logistical burden of excavating a
canal might not have been justified
simply to avoid passing around the
same cape. The peninsula could be
rounded by sea in only a few days.
With the benefit of the experience
and cooperation of locals who
knew how to read the weather, it
would have been possible to avoid
meeting another major storm. So
why did Xerxes opt to build the
canal? A superstitious fear of the
sea may have played a part. Then,
of course, there was the element
of propaganda. Such an audacious
feat of engineering would surely
have sent a powerful message to
the Greeks: the Persian invasion
was unstoppable and surrender
was the only option. Herodotus
offers his own plausible theories
as to the king’s motivations: “As
far as I can judge by conjecture,
Xerxes gave the command for this
digging out of pride, wishing to
display his power and leave a me-
morial; with no trouble they could
have drawn their ships across the
peninsula, yet he ordered them to
dig a canal from sea to sea.” The
canal therefore carried an element
of grandstanding. Xerxes, like oth-
er Persian sovereigns, bore the title
“King of Kings.” Like many who had
come before him, he seems to have
shared the compulsion to leave his
mark on the world.

FATHER OF HISTORY In spring 480 b.c., Xerxes launched a massive
Herodotus (below in amphibious attack on Greece, a campaign that
a third-century a.d. opened with spectacular displays of military
Roman marble bust, a
copy of an earlier Greek
engineering. Xerxes’ first major logistical task
work) kept the memory in the new invasion was to ferry his vast army
of Xerxes Canal across the Dardanelles Strait (also known as the
alive in his Histories. Hellespont) that separates Asia from Europe.
Naples National A pontoon bridge, constructed of boats tied
Archaeological
Museum together, was strung out across the turbulent
AKG/ALBUM stretch of water, nearly a mile wide.
Having reached the European side, Xerxes’
armies marched overland along the northern
Aegean coast, through the region known histor-
ically as Thrace. The Persian navy, meanwhile,
followed the coast until meeting the barrier of
the Mount Athos Peninsula, just south of the
modern-day Greek city of Thessaloniki.
The Mount Athos Peninsula is the eastern-
most of three fingerlike promontories that
stretch out from the Chalkidiki Peninsula in
what is now mainland Greece. At its tip rises
the 6,670-foot Mount Athos, regarded as a holy
mountain in Orthodox Christianity and today
home to a monastic community.
As in the time of Darius and Xerxes, the seas
around the mountainous headland of the pen-
insula can often be hazardous. Motivated by the
catastrophic storm that devastated his father’s
navy more than a decade before, Xerxes planned
a way to avoid the treacherous waters. On arrival,
the Persian navy found an even greater engi-
neering project than the pontoon bridge that
had enabled them to cross the Dardanelles: As
part of his long preparations for the renewed
invasion of Greece, gangs of laborers had hacked
out a canal, over one mile long, from one side of
the peninsula to the other. Through this chan-
nel, Persia’s navy would eventually pass in its
relentless advance westward.
Under the Lash
Virtually all the documentary evidence for the
canal of Xerxes is found in book seven of Herod­
otus’ Histories. Writing approximately 50
years after the canal was built, the Greek his-
torian records that“all sorts of men in the army
were compelled by whippings to dig a canal” in
operations that lasted three years. The canal
was sited at “Athos, a great and famous moun-
tain, running out into the sea and inhabited by
men. At the mountain’s landward end, it is in
the form of a peninsula, and there is an isthmus
about twelve stadia wide; here is a place of level
ground or little hills, from the sea by Acanthus
to the sea opposite Torone.”
The length of a stadium by Herodotus’ cal-
culations has long been debated, but many
historians concur that 12 stadia is consistent
with the 1.25 miles that make up the width of
the peninsula at the site where the canal was
believed to have been dug.
Such a project required massive labor, and
Persia had access to it. According to Herodo-
tus, it wasn’t just their own men, “compelled
by whipping,” who took part in the excavation
but people across the locality. As this part of
Thrace was under Persian control, every man of
military age was obliged to join the expedition
against Greece, and some were pressed into
digging the canal. Herodotus noted that in order
to provide food for the workers, a market was
set up nearby (close to the modern town of Néa
Roda) and “much ground grain frequently came ACROSS THE WATER
to them from Asia.”When Xerxes’army arrived, Persia’s King Xerxes
the regular contingents set up camps, while (seated, above) stares
over the Dardanelles
the monarch and his escort, including his elite Strait (then known as
corps, known as the Ten Thousand Immortals, Hellespont) prior to
stayed in more comfortable accommodations. launching his invasion.
After Xerxes arrived in Acanthus, the Persian 19th-century painting,
nobleman Artachaies, who had codirected the Jean-Adrien Guignet.
Musée Rolin, Autun,
canal excavation, died. Artachaies was related to France
the king and belonged to the Achaemenid clan. BRIDGEMAN/ACI
Clearly an imposing figure, he was described by
Herodotus as “the tallest man in Persia … and
his voice was the loudest on earth.”
Xerxes ordered a magnificent funeral in his
honor, and the army erected his burial mound
right next to the canal he had built. Herodotus
described how the army poured out libations
for Artachaies while the Acanthians “sacrifice
to him, calling upon his name.” If this burial
mound exists, it has not yet been discovered,
but its presence would be key evidence in con-
firming the canal’s site.
The canal’s southern end is thought to have
opened onto a small pebble beach overlooking
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 25
 N SEA
G EA
AE
STORMY WEATHER
In Book Six of his Histories, Herodotus recalls how Persian king
Darius I’s fleet was wrecked in 492 b.c., when it tried to round the
Mount Athos Mount Athos Peninsula. A storm destroyed hundreds of ships and
6,670 ft more than 20,000 men were killed. “Since the coasts of Athos
abound in wild beasts, some men were carried off by beasts and so
perished; others were dashed against the rocks; those who could
not swim perished because of that, and still others by the cold.”

Cape Kastanias

M
o
u
n
t
Cape Chalkias At
ho
s
Pe
Ba
y nin
íou sul a
ped
Vato
Cape Áyioi Theódhoroi

THE PERSIAN
SHORTCUT
faint traces of the xerxes canal are still discernible today
in the farmland on the narrowest part of the Mount Athos Cape Arápis
Peninsula. The canal once ran between the modern-day towns
of Néa Roda and Trypiti. Research carried out between 1991
and 2001 revealed that at its widest point, at the surface, the
canal spanned almost one hundred feet, tapering to about
50 feet at its base. The canal bed would have been around 10
feet below sea level, deep enough for the triremes but not for
heavy cargo ships. The Xerxes Canal is remarkable but not
unique in the ancient world. Darius I, Xerxes’ father, had re-
excavated an ancient pharaonic canal in Egypt that linked the
Red Sea with the Nile Delta. That canal had a maximum width
of almost 150 feet at the surface and was over 16 feet deep.
MAP: NG MAPS
ILUSTRATION: SANTI PÉREZ

Scale varies in this perspective. Sailing distance around the Athos Peninsula from
Néa Róda to Trypiti is 75 miles. Xerxes Canal was 1.25 miles long.
 Kassán
dra P
enin
sula

Si
th
on
ías Kassándras Gulf
Pen
insu
la
Vourvourou

Níkiti

Ágios Nikólaos
Agiou Orous Gulf

Ammoulianí I.

XERXES
CANAL
Trypiti
Néa Róda

Ierissós

Ier
iss
oú DIRECTION
G OF VIEW
ul
f

Aegea n
GREECE Sea

Athens
PELOPONNESUS
Isthmus
of Corinth
Io ni a n
Sea
Me dite rrane an
Sea

Cape Elefthera
CONSTRUCTION TACTICS

PHOENICIAN
FLAIR

H
erodotus recorded in
his Histories the Persian
methods for assigning
work when building the
canal between 483 and 480 b.c.
Groups of people drew lots for
excavating sections; often these
teams were comprised of peoples
who had been subsumed into the
Persian Empire. Laborers from
Phoenicia, the skilled maritime
culture from what is now Lebanon,
stood out for their engineering
prowess. Workers in other groups
attempted to dig straight down,
causing, as Herodotus wrote, “the
steep sides of the canal to cave in,
doubling their labor; since they
made the span the same breadth
at its mouth and at the bottom,
this was bound to happen.” The
Phoenicians, however, knew they
had to dig the channel much wider
than necessary at the top, “and so
showed the same skill in this as in
all else they do; taking in hand the
portion that fell to them, they dug
by making the topmost span of the
canal as wide again as the canal
was to be, and narrowed it as they
worked lower, until at the bottom
their work was of the same span as
that of the others.” The investiga-
tion carried out by archaeologists
between 1991 and 2001 confirmed
that some sections indeed had been
dug on the slant while others were
vertical in nature. Structural differ-
ences across sections of the chan-
nel corroborate Herodotus’ descrip-
tion of various groups apparently
following their own techniques,
offering insights into the multicultural
aspects of the construction work.

FRENCH the inner bay, near a village called Trypiti. Here
INVESTIGATION the terrain is uneven, which would have com-
In 1809, the French plicated the excavation work. While the workers
diplomat and traveler
Count Choiseul- dug through layers of relatively soft sediment in
Gouffier explored other sections of the canal, at this southern end
the northern Aegean the ground is harder to penetrate. It is difficult to
and argued for the imagine how the workers managed to dig down
existence of the as much as 80 feet to reach sea level at this point
Xerxes Canal.
ALAMY/ACI of the channel where it lies between two hills.
When Demetrius of Scepsis, a Greek scholar
writing in the second centuryb.c., examined this
section, he judged it impossible for the Persians
to channel through the rocky terrain.
Herodotus recounts how the digging work
was assigned to different working groups who
worked solidly for three years. As the Persians
were able to count on almost unlimited labor
from across the region and beyond, the project
could go ahead with only rudimentary tech-
niques. Herodotus wrote: “When the channel
had been dug to some depth, some men stood
at the bottom of it and dug, others took the dirt
as it was dug out and delivered it to yet others
that stood higher on stages, and they again to
others as they received it, until they came to
those that were highest; these carried it out and
threw it away.” Some of the excavated rock was
used to build breakwaters at either end of the
channel, to prevent waves from eroding it and
to stop the channel from silting up.
Some time later, Xerxes departed and led his
ground troops west toward the city of Terme
(present-day Thessaloniki). He ordered his
admirals to advance Persia’s ships through the
canal and then direct them to Terme, to re-
join Xerxes and the ground forces there, which
means it is unlikely Xerxes witnessed the fleet
sailing through the engineering marvel that
bears his name.
Legend or Landmark
Since few detailed descriptions of Xerxes
Canal (except those from Herodotus) have
survived to the modern age, the idea prevailed
that his claim was an exaggeration or an out-
right invention. The mystery of the canal’s
existence lingered for millennia. In the 19th
century, interest blossomed in ascertaining
whether traces of Xerxes’ canal could be found.
Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste de Choiseul-
Gouffier (1752-1817) was a French count who
served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Passionate about ancient Greek history, he
traveled the Aegean Sea aboard a frigate and
in 1809 published the second volume of his
chronicle Picturesque Journey through Greece,
in which he argues that a canal had once exist-
ed, cutting straight through the Mount Athos
Peninsula. He even drew up a plan showing the
measurements and sections in accordance with
Herodotus’ account. The romantic tone of his
travelogue, however, and the absence of any
rigorous scientific method led to his claims
being dismissed.
In 1847, the Royal Geographical Society of
London published topographical studies carried
out by the sailor and geologist Thomas Spratt.
These scientific findings did seem to corrobo-
rate the existence of the canal as described by
Herodotus. What had seemed a typically tall
tale was now gaining plausibility, but it would
not be until the end of the 20th century that
actual proof of the canal would begin to come ON THE
to light. OTHER SIDE
From 1991 to 2001, a multidisciplinary team In 480 b.c., Persian
sailors exiting the
of British and Greek geophysicists, topogra- canal on the peninsula
phers, and archaeologists worked extensively would have gazed
on the site. It was a major collaboration involv- upon Mount Athos
ing the National Observatory of Athens, the (above) from this
British School of Athens, and universities in perspective, before
their boats resumed
Leeds and Glasgow in the U.K. and Patras and the westward journey.
Thessaloniki in Greece. Benedikt Isserlin, from JAN WLODARCZYK/FOTOTECA 9X12
the University of Leeds, and later Richard Jones,
from the University of Glasgow, directed the
decade-long project.
On the Isthmus of Corinth, the spit of land
that links the Peloponnese Peninsula to the
mainland, researchers have uncovered evi-
dence of boats supported on wooden cylin-
ders or wheeled platforms, which would have
been dragged by slaves or animals along a stone
causeway from one coast to the other. Isserlin
wanted to first check whether such a causeway
existed on the Mount Athos Peninsula and con-
sider whether it could explain how Xerxes’fleet
had made the crossing. When no evidence of
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 29
BRIDGING THE GAP

CROSSING THE
HELLESPONT

P
ersian engineering prow­
ess is evident in the forti­
fications at Babylon and
Ecbatana as well as in the
bridges across major rivers. The
pontoon bridges crossed by Xer­
xes’ army over the Dardanelles
Strait in 480 b.c. were the fruit of
the empire’s long experience in in­
frastructure projects. Herodotus
recounts how almost 700 ships
were lined up in parallel rows to
span the strait, which is slightly
more than one mile across. The
boats—triremes from the Persian
fleet and civilian craft from nearby
towns—were tied to each other
with ropes made of flax, papyrus,
and Phoenician linen, pulled taut by
windlasses positioned on the shore.
After the boats spanned the strait,
wooden walkways were laid across
their decks, lined with a thick layer
of packed earth to prevent slippage.
Finally, palisades were erected
along the sides of each pontoon
to prevent the horses from being
frightened by the sight of the sea.
The bridge was as much a state­
ment of Persian power as any piece
of military infrastructure. The strait
represented a profound regional
symbol to the Greeks. According to
Greek mythology, it is here that the
twin siblings, Phrixus and Helle, are
saved from their murderous step­
mother by a magical golden ram
that ferries them across the strait
(in some versions of the tale, the
ram swims while in others it flies).
Helle, however, falls off the ram’s
back and drowns, which is why the
strait in antiquity was known as the
Hellespont—Sea of Helle.

FATAL CROSSING such a causeway came to light, the team went
Phrixus tries to save ahead with geophysical tests to see if they could
his twin sister, Helle locate a canal.
(below), from drowning
in the Dardanelles
Exciting initial results showed there had in-
Strait, also known as deed been some kind of ancient excavation in
the Hellespont in her the middle of the peninsula, about 50 feet above
honor. These waters sea level and some 65 feet deep. Taking into
were bridged by account that the sea level of the Mediterranean
Persian pontoons in
480 b.c. Painting, first has risen more than three feet in the last 2,500
century a.d., Pompeii. years, the team calculated that the depth of the
BRIDGEMAN seawater in the channel would then have been
about 10 feet. They drilled nine
boreholes, which allowed them
to analyze the layers of the sub-
soil. In the upper section (about
30 feet down), they found several
ancient layers of silt. Then came a
vital clue below that: a dense bed
of reddish solidified sand extend-
ing for just over a mile. Here were
the canal’s foundations—a wide,
solid base.
For a decade, researchers on the
site used methods typical of oil
and mining prospecting, including seismic
tests and refraction and reflection techniques.
With heavy hammers they struck metal pieces
embedded in the ground. They then used geo-
phones to record the strength and direction
of the impulses generated. They calculated
the depth of subsoil layers by measuring the
time for the volumetric waves to pass through
them. They then linked subterranean points
that showed similar acoustic transmission.
They also performed electrical discharge and
georadar (GPR) tests to get a clearer picture of
how the canal was structured.
Radiocabon dating of the organic elements
and high-resolution satellite images were de-
finitive. Using their findings, the researchers
created a three-dimensional digital representa-
tion of the canal. The Greek-British joint project
proved not only that some kind of channel had
existed there but also settled the contentious
issue of whether it could have run all the way
from one coast to the other.
At first, the team had shared the doubts of
generations of skeptics who believed a channel
could not have been cut across the rocky south-
ern part of the peninsula. But the discovery
of the channel bed, the measurements made
through seismic waves, and the stratigraphic
analysis of the subsoil told a different story.
The team also confirmed the channel had been
constructed with sloping sides and measure-
ments aligned with those of Herodotus’s de-
scription: “from sea to sea, wide enough to float
two triremes rowed abreast.” Since the bottom
of the channel turned out to be as wide as 50
feet, with the outward sloping walls the nav-
igable space at the surface indeed would have
reached the width necessary for two triremes
to row abreast.
Having proved the canal’s existence, re-
searchers still ponder the question of why
the Xerxes Canal disappeared, both in its
physical from and—apart from Herodotus’s
account—from Greek memory. No marine
remains, such as shells, have shown up in the
sediments on the canal bed, suggesting that
the channel was filled with seawater for only
a short period of time.
The size of the canal was not amendable HISTORY LOGGED
to larger trading vessels, so it appears it was Phoenician sailors
used only for smaller military ships. There create the walkway
for the Persian
is, however, a plausible theory as to why this
pontoon across the
infrastructure disappeared relatively quickly: Hellespont (above)
In 479 b.c., the Persian forces were defeated at in a 1915 illustration
the Battle of Plataea, and the inhabitants of the from the popular book
Mount Athos Peninsula were freed from the Hutchinson’s History
of the Nations.
Persian yoke. It follows that they might allow an KEN WELSH/BRIDGEMAN/ACI
enemy-built canal to silt up naturally, or even
fill it in themselves, thereby obliterating the
landmark that symbolized their oppression.
CLASSICAL HISTORIAN ANTONIO PENADÉS HAS WRITTEN WIDELY ON
CLASSICAL AND ANCIENT GREECE, INCLUDING BOOKS ON SPARTA AND MOUNT ATHOS.
Learn more
Persians: The Age of Great Kings
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. Basic Books, 2022.
The Histories
Herodotus Editor, John M. Marincola. Penguin Classics, 2003.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 31
SOLDIERS AND BEASTS
The Apadana (Audience Hall)
at Persepolis was begun in the
sixth century b.c. by Darius the
Great and later completed by his
son, Xerxes. Reliefs on the frieze
covering the eastern stairs depict
eight soldiers flanked by figures
of a bull being mauled by a lion.
PRISMA BY DUKAS PRESSEAGENTUR GMBH/ALAMY
ODYSSEUS
RETURN OF THE KING
 POWER OF WORDS
With their irresistible
song, the sirens tempt
Odysseus. Oil painting,
1891, J.W. Waterhouse,
National Gallery of Victoria,
Melbourne. Below: A circa
1300 b.c. tablet inscribed
in Linear B script was found
at the Mycenaean Palace
in Pylos. Archaeological
Museum, Chora, Greece
PAINTING: BRIDGEMAN/ACI
TABLET: SCALA, FLORENCE

Odysseus, the wandering hero of

Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, was
a mythological character, but the real
Bronze Age kingdom where he longs
to return can be glimpsed amid the
fantasy and myth.
JUAN PIQUERO

TROJAN HORSE
Odysseus devised the
clever way to sneak
the Greek army inside
the walls of Troy:
by hiding it inside a
giant wooden horse,
an episode depicted
(above) on a vase
from Mykonos. 7th
century b.c.
WHITE IMAGES/SCALA, FLORENCE
F
rom Anansi, the spider of West African
folklore, to Loki, the shape-shifter of
Norse mythology, tricksters are some
of the most entertaining characters
in stories all over the world. Neither
the strongest, the fleetest, nor the best look-
ing, the tricksters triumph through their brains,
not their brawn. One of the world’s oldest and
best known is Odysseus, whose quick thinking
gets him out of one predicament after another
in The Odyssey, a circa eighth-century b.c. epic
attributed to the Greek poet Homer.
Odysseus first appears in another work at-
tributed to Homer, The Iliad, which tells the
story of a feud between Achilles and Agamem-
non during the 10-year war between the Greeks
and Trojans. The king of Ithaca, Odysseus fights
LIFE IN THE 1550-1500 b.c.
Mycenaean artists create the
BRONZE gold Mask of Agamemnon,
which will be discovered
AGE by archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann in a.d. 1876.
for the Greeks. The Odyssey recounts his return
home to his kingdom, wife Penelope, and son
Telemachus. The voyage should have taken
days, but instead it stretches across a decade
because Odysseus has drawn the ire of Po-
seidon, god of the sea. Time after time, the
enraged god thwarts Odysseus’ progress, yet
the wily Odysseus manages to survive to try
again to reach home.
Although it was written down centuries later,
The Odyssey is set in Mycenaean Greece during
the middle of the Bronze Age, between 1600 and
1200 b.c. Historians believe that The Odyssey
incorporates earlier oral traditions from that
period while reflecting the cultural norms of
Homer’s era. There are still some insights to
be gleaned about life during the Mycenaean
period or just after through Odysseus’ travels,
making it not only a thrilling trickster tale but
also an important historical snapshot.
Wandering and Waiting
The Odyssey begins years after the fall of Troy. On
the island of Ithaca, Penelope and Telemachus
hope for Odysseus’ return. The patient Penelope
is besieged by suitors, who presume Odysseus is
dead and are hoping to marry her and rule Ithaca.
Penelope has promised that she will choose a
new husband when she has finished weaving
a funeral shroud for Odysseus’ father, Laertes.
To buy time, at night she has been secretly
unraveling the work she had done that day,
all the while holding out hope for Odysseus’
return. Telemachus, encouraged by the god-
dess Athena, has begun searching for his fa-
ther, much to the displeasure of the suitors.
Meanwhile, Odysseus has spent seven
years waylaid on a nymph’s island. The im-
mortal Calypso is in love with him and will
not let him go, but Odysseus continues to
long for home. The gods intercede and com-
mand her to release him. He sets out on a raft and
reaches the island of the Phaeacians, to whom he
1450 b.c.
The Mycenaeans invade
the island of Crete and
adopt writing and artistic
techniques from the
Minoan civilization there.
 RAGE OF THE GODS
With characteristic
cunning, Odysseus
intoxicates and
blinds the Cyclops
Polyphemus, son of
the sea god Poseidon.
Fresco by Pellegrino
Tibaldi, 1550-1551,
Palazzo Poggi
Museum, Bologna
GHIGO ROLI/ALBUM

1200-1190 b.c. ca 1100 b.c. ca Eighth century b.c. Sixth century b.c.
The Hittites and The late Bronze Age Homer’s epic poems, The The Odyssey has become
Mycenaeans clash, and collapse brings Mycenaean Iliad and The Odyssey, are one of ancient Greece’s
their battles are believed dominance to an end and written down, most likely canonical texts, regularly
to inspire tales of the disrupts many cultures based on older tales passed performed at festivals and
Trojan War. around the Mediterranean. on through oral tradition. studied in schools.
 MAP
AREA

HOMEWARD
BOUND
Paliki
Penin
sula

O
DYSSEUS was the king of Ithaca,
IONIAN SEA
but scholars have been arguing
for centuries about where his king-
dom really was. Trying to pin down
the geographic locations mentioned in the
Homeric epics became popular in the early
K E F A L O N I A 20th century, after archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann uncovered the remains of Troy in
what is now Turkey. Researchers then began
ait
Str the tricky task of trying to trace Odysseus’
ca
I tha 10-year voyage. There is a modern Greek
A island called Ithaca, but the place referred
H A C to by Homer is thought by some research-
I T ers to correspond to the Paliki Peninsula on
Kefalonia. Finds that date to the Mycenaean
era suggest that a kingdom did once exist
there. At that time, the peninsula would have
been a small island separated from the rest
N
of Kefalonia by a strait that was later filled
by several earthquakes, a fact that first-
century b.c. geographer Strabo reported.
SPACEPHOTOS/AGE FOTOSTOCK

COMMANDER’S FACE reveals his true identity and tells the story of his
Heinrich Schliemann 10-year voyage since the end of the Trojan War.
excavated Mycenae in The audience is enthralled by Odysseus, whose
the 19th century and
found a gold funerary troubles begin when his men are trapped by the
mask (below), now Cyclops Polyphemus. Odysseus craftily gets the
associated with monster drunk and blinds him when he passes
Agamemnon. Circa out. Odysseus taunts the enraged Polyphemus
1500 b.c., National
and tells him his name. The Cyclops then prays
Archaeological
Museum, Athens to his father, the god Poseidon, to curse the king
FINE ART/SCALA, FLORENCE and force him to wander for 10 years.
Odysseus escapes numerous perils, like the
cannibalistic Laestrygonians and the sorceress
Circe, who turns his men into swine. He takes
a trip to the underworld, withstands
the deadly sirens’ song, and navigates
the treacherous waters between the
monsters Scylla and Charybdis.
Along the way, his fleet wrecks, and
his men are lost.
Moved by his story, the Phaeacians
deliver Odysseus to Ithaca, where he:
The goddess Athena disguises Odysseus as
an old beggar so he can enter the palace unde-
tected. The ruse fools almost everyone, except
for Odysseus’ loyal dog, Argos, who has been
waiting for his master’s return:
Twenty years
had passed since Argos saw Odysseus,
and now he saw him for the final time—
then suddenly, black death took hold of him.
The king reveals himself to his son, and the
two hatch a plan for revenge. Odysseus will em-
ploy another trick and ask Penelope to offer her
hand in marriage to the man who can string
Odysseus’ bow and shoot an arrow through 12
ax heads. After winning the contest, Odysseus
throws off his disguise and rains arrows on the
suitors until he has killed them all. Penelope
reunites with her husband, and peace is restored
to Ithaca.

after so long a wait and so much pain, Myth and History

was filled with happiness at last. In joy Historians have found no hard evidence of an
he kissed the fertile earth of his own country, ancient Greek king named Odysseus. While
then lifted high his arms and prayed… the man may not have existed, scholars believe

38 MARCH/APRIL 2023
HOME SWEET HOME
The Greek island of
Kefalonia and its Paliki
Peninsula are believed by
some experts to be the
likely site of The Odyssey’s
kingdom of Ithaca.
ALAMY/CORDON PRESS
ENCHANTED ISLE
Inspired by the story of Circe’s
enchantments of Odysseus’ men,
Edward Burne-Jones’s 19th-century
work depicts the sorceress,
accompanied by fierce panthers,
preparing a potion as Odysseus
and his crew arrive on her shores.
Private collection
ALBUM/BRIDGEMAN
THESE SHAFT GRAVES (KNOWN
AS CIRCLE A) AT MYCENAE IN THE
PELOPONNESE, GREECE, WERE
CONSTRUCTED IN THE 16TH CENTURY B.C.
THE ELITE WERE BURIED IN THIS TYPE OF
TOMB IN THE EARLY MYCENAEAN PERIOD.
REINHARD SCHMID/FOTOTECA 9X12
THE KING’S MAN the Mycenaean kingdom of Ithaca certainly did.
Odysseus relies on Its precise location is unknown, but many think
the faithful swineherd Odysseus’ Ithaca was located on the Ionian is­
Eumaeus (below) to
defeat the villainous land of Kefalonia on Paliki Peninsula, which was
suitors. Drawing a small island in the Bronze Age.
by John Flaxman, The Homeric writer’s choice of words of­
featured in Stories fers glimpses into Mycenaean civilization and
From Homer by Rev.
Alfred J. Church, 1878.
its influence on later culture. For example, two
BRIDGEMAN/ACI different words for king are used: Odysseus is
described variously as the anax and the basile-
us of Ithaca. The word “anax” is typical of the
Mycenaean period, while “basileus” dates to a
later period.
The wealth of the Mycenaean kings was pri­
marily based on the large-scale farming of pigs,
goats, sheep, and cows. Both the Mycenaean
texts and The Odyssey speak of the king owning
large numbers of livestock. The central role of
animal husbandry is highlighted through three
characters in The Odyssey: Eumaeus (a swine­
herd), Melanthius (a goatherd), and Philoetius
(a cowherd). When Odysseus is reunited with
his father, Laertes, at the end of his journey,
the old man is tending his vines, perhaps
suggesting that he has a temenos
(terrain set aside for a deity or
42 MARCH/APRIL 2023
king) similar to the one mentioned in connec­
tion with the king in texts from Pylos.
Another feature of The Odyssey that echoes the
historical Mycenaean sources is the presence of
servants, many of whom are enslaved. The nurse
Eurycleia, who cared for Odysseus when he was a
child, plays a key role. When the disguised Odys­
seus arrives at the palace, she bathes him in ac­
cordance with the rules of Greek hospitality. She
notices a distinctive scar that reveals Odysseus’
true identity but keeps the king’s secret. Oth­
er domestic slaves are mentioned, such as the
women whom Telemachus punishes by death
for having had sexual relations with the suitors.
There are major differences between the
king’s oikos, or residence, as described in The
Odyssey and what is known about the how Myce­
naean palaces were run. For example, Mycenaean
palaces seem to have functioned as production
hubs with artisans and slaves creating pottery,
glassware, and metalwork from raw materials
brought to the palace. For their work, they were
paid in land and food rations. These kinds of
workers are missing from the The Odyssey.
As described by Homer, the Mycenaean peo­
ple were organized into kingdoms. Odysseus was
SIGNS AND SCARS
Eurycleia, Odysseus’ old
nurse, sees through his
disguise and recognizes
a childhood scar as
she washes his feet.
Oil painting, Gustave
Boulanger, 19th century,
National School of Fine
Arts, Paris
BEAUX-ARTS DE PARIS/RMN-GRAND PALAIS

SLINGS
AND ARROWS
Odysseus, king of
Ithaca (below), draws
his bow against the
suitors who have
occupied his palace.
Drawing by André
Bonamy, 1914.
WHITE IMAGES/SCALA, FLORENCE
HOMER A MARBLE LIKENESS
OF THE POET WAS CARVED
IN ROME IN THE SECOND
CENTURY A.D. AFTER A
GREEK ORIGINAL FROM THE
SECOND CENTURY B.C. LOUVRE
MUSEUM, PARIS
WHITE IMAGES/SCALA FLORENCE
the son of Laertes and inherited the kingdom
when he reached maturity. The description of
the palace complex in Ithaca is corroborated
by other Mycenaean texts. Kings did rule from
their palaces. These impressive complexes
serve not only as a residence for the royal fam-
ily, guests, and servants, but also as an admin-
istrative center where income from the king’s
lands and herds is traded or paid.
How Mycenaean kingdoms were governed
and how they related to each other is not clear
from history. Besides Homeric epics, other tales
of the Trojan War describe a confederation
of kingdoms that banded together against a
common enemy. The origin of this alliance
is traced back to Odysseus and the many
suitors for the most beautiful women in
the world. Powerful Mycenaean kings pre­
sent themselves as suitors for Helen, and her
father, King Tyndareus, fears that they will
turn against Sparta if he does not choose them.
Clever Odysseus, after turning his attentions
to Helen’s cousin Penelope, offers Tyndareus a
solution if he promises Penelope to him (which
he does). Odysseus tells the Spartan king that
before betrothing Helen he must make all the
SEARCHING
FOR HOMER
H
OMER’S EPICS have been intriguing
and entertaining audiences all over
the world for centuries. From film
to television, from page to stage,
The Iliad and The Odyssey are well known
for their riveting drama, fascinating char-
acters, and timeless subjects and themes.
These familiar stories have been studied
and taught for centuries, but little is known
about their author, the poet Homer. His birth
date ranges between the 12th and eighth
centuries b.c. Scholars are not sure exactly
where he was born; leading candidate loca-
tions include the coast of Anatolia (what is
now Turkey), Ionia, Thrace, and the island
of Chios. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey are
attributed to him, but he did not originate
these stories. Many scholars believe that
Homer may have been the first to write
them down, an action which granted him
fame that has endured for millennia.
suitors pledge an oath to come to Helen and her
husband’s aid if she were ever abducted. They all
agree, and in doing so, form the alliance that will
fight against Troy when Paris, one of its princes,
steals Helen from her husband, Menelaus. Oth-
er contemporary historical sources point to the
existence of a Mycenaean confederation, which
is referred to collectively as the kingdom of Ah-
hiyawa in circa 1400-1220 b.c. Hittite texts and
Tanaja in 15th-century b.c. Egyptian sources.
The Odyssey has endured for centuries be-
cause it is a rollicking tale full of common hu-
man experiences, like the longing for home
and family, coupled with fantastic monsters
and villains. Its longevity has helped preserve
it, not only as a good yarn, but also as a win-
dow into Mycenaean Greece and its kings of
long ago.
HISTORIAN JUAN PIQUERO IS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS
AT UNED UNIVERSITY, MADRID, SPAIN.
Learn more
The Odyssey
By Homer. Translated by Emily Wilson.
W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.
PENELOPE’S PLAN
Penelope, Odysseus’ wife,
delays the suitors’ attentions
by pretending to weave a
shroud, visible on a loom, for
her father-in-law. Oil painting,
1900, Victor John Robertson
PETER NAHUM AT THE LEICESTER GALLERIES, LONDON/BRIDGEMAN/ACI
46 MARCH/APRIL 2023
ROYAL PALACE
ODYSSEUS’ HOME was located in ancient Ithaca, but the actual archae-
ological site has yet to be identified. That does not mean visualizing
Odysseus’ palace is impossible. French architect Jean-Claude Golvin
specializes in ancient heritage reconstructions and has imagined Odys-
seus’ royal residence as something between a Mycenaean palace and a
rural homestead. The entrance is through a colonnaded porch, and the
main building is organized around a colonnaded courtyard. The great
banquet hall would be supported by sturdy columns. A bathroom with
basins, like the one found among the remains of the Mycenaean palace
of Pylos, may have been near the entrance, as the bathing of guests
was part of Greek hospitality. While disguised as a beggar, Odysseus is
bathed after he enters the palace. On the upper floor stand the bedrooms
and the store­room. Large warehouses and workshops uncovered by
archaeologists excavating Mycenaean palaces are notably absent from
The Odyssey, and so they do not appear here.
ACUARELA DE JEAN-CLAUDE GOLVIN. MUSÉE DÉPARTEMENTAL ARLES ANTIQUE © JEAN-CLAUDE GOLVIN / ÉDITIONS ERRANCE

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 47

RITES AND RITUALS
A 15th-century German Haggadah depicts
the events in Exodus that Passover
commemorates, including a lamb sacrifice
and baking matzo. Opposite: Prayers
recited during a seder are inscribed on
a 19th-century glass Passover goblet.
ILLUSTRATION: LEBRECHT/ALBUM
PASSOVER GOBLET: THE JEWISH MUSEUM/ART RESOURCE/SCALA, FLORENCE
PASSOVER
FEAST OF FR EED O M
Recalling the Israelites’ escape from enslavement, Passover
has deep roots in Jewish history. Against a backdrop of
exile and loss, Passover evolved into the richly symbolic
feast celebrated every spring by Jews all over the world.
 THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
A lamb, unleavened bread, and wine comprise a
15th-century Passover meal in a panel of the “Last
Supper Triptych,” 1464-1467, by Flemish painter
Dieric Bouts, Saint Peter’s Church, Leuven.
SCALA, FLORENCE

and smear its blood on the doorposts and lin-

tels of their homes. Then God instructs them:

They shall eat the lamb that same night; they

shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleav-
ened bread and bitter herbs … This is how you
shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on
your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you
shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the
Lord. For I will pass through the land of Egypt
that night, and I will strike down every first-
born in the land of Egypt … The blood shall
be a sign for you on the houses where you live:
when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and
no plague shall destroy you when I strike the
land of Egypt (Exodus 12:8-13).

E
Hebrews shall repeat this ritual in thanksgiv-
ing to God for generations to come, Moses tells
ANGEL very spring, Jews the world over gather them and explains the guidelines for doing so.
OF DEATH to mark Passover, Judaism’s ancient They will celebrate “from the evening of the
Exodus tells how God celebration of divine deliverance. As fourteenth day until the evening of the twen-
sends an angel to
kill all the Egyptians’ told in the Book of Exodus, Moses ty-first day”of Nisan, the first month in the He-
firstborn sons—from seeks freedom for enslaved Hebrews brew calendar, which usually falls in late March
princes to paupers— in Egypt, but Pharaoh refuses to let them go. and early April.
to punish Pharaoh Unleashing his wrath, God sets 10 plagues up-
for not freeing the
Israelites. 19th-
on Egypt, each one worse than the next. The A Storied Meal
century engraving, final one is most terrible of all: God will kill the Passover continues to be celebrated as a great
Gustave Doré firstborn son of each family in Egypt. spring festival of Judaism. In many parts of the
TARKER/BRIDGEMAN/ACI
The Israelites will be spared if they follow world it lasts for seven days, while in Israel it
God’s instructions. They must slaughter a lamb, is celebrated for eight. It is a joyous time when
“without blemish, a year-old male” families gather for a seder, a meal rich with

13th century b.c. Seventh century b.c.

HISTORY According to tradition, Deuteronomy establishes

OF
Moses delivers the the celebration of
Israelites from enslavement Passover as a pilgrimage
EXILES in Egypt, which will be
commemorated by the
festival to Jerusalem,
centering its rituals at
feast of Passover. Solomon’s Temple.

THE TABLETS OF THE LAW WERE REVEALED BY MOSES AFTER LEADING ISRAELITES OUT OF EGYPT.
17TH-CENTURY PAINTING, MUSEUM CATHARIJNECONVENT, UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS
AKG/ALBUM
 587 b.c.
Neo-Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar II conquers
Jerusalem and exiles the
Jews to Babylon. They will
return when Persia defeats his
empire about 50 years later.
a.d. 70 Second century a.d.
The Romans destroy the Compiled from the Torah,
Temple of Jerusalem. the Mishnah, and other
Without its central place sources, the Passover
of worship, Passover seder is formalized into a
must evolve to new text called the Haggadah,
conditions of exile. which means “the telling.”
 ancient rituals, to remember their ances-
tors’ deliverance. The feast holds meaning
for Christians too: All four Gospel writ-
ers recount how the crucifixion of Jesus of
Nazareth takes place on, or around, the
celebration of Passover in Jerusalem.
Much of the core symbolism of Pass-
over, enacted year after year, can be
found in the seder. Modern Passover
celebrations follow the rules set out
in Exodus, but the ritual has absorbed
many changes over the centuries, reflect-
ing the upheavals and impacts of history.
FAST FOOD Tradition holds that Moses lived in the 13th
Modern matzo (bread century b.c., the period in which pharaohs such
without yeast) is as Ramses II ruled ancient Egypt. Some biblical
prepared for use historians believe that the rituals outlined by
during the Passover Moses predate this time, going back to the dawn
period. Exodus
recounts how the of Jewish history. Slaughtering spring lambs and
Israelites prepared eating unleavened bread may have once been
this as they rushed separate spring festivals that were later incor-
to flee Egypt because porated into the story of the exodus. Biblical
it cooks faster than scholars broadly agree that the oldest material
bread that has to rise.
ALAMY/ACI in the Book of Exodus is from about the ninth
century b.c., and that it took its current form
in the fifth century b.c.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites are deliv-
ered out of slavery and will eventually settle in
Canaan, the so-called Promised Land. The city
of Jerusalem will become their capital, ruled
by kings David and Solomon, who built a grand
temple there. The Israelites’ memory of their
time in Egypt is never far away, as the celebra-
tion of Passover continues over the centuries.
In 587 b.c., the Neo-Babylonian king Nebu-
In a Foreign Land chadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem, destroyed
Another exile, occurring some eight centuries the Temple, and made Judah a province of his
after the time of Moses, would further shape empire. Swaths of the population of Judah were
Judaism and Passover. At this time, the Prom- forcibly deported to Babylon. Many scholars
ised Land had split into two kingdoms: Israel use this deportation to mark the creation of
in the north and Judah in the south. Geopolit- the Jewish diaspora, large communities of Jews
ically, Judah—centered on its hilltop capital, living outside Jerusalem.
Jerusalem—was sandwiched between two Several biblical books including Jeremiah,
great regional powers: Egypt and the Neo- Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra document the events
Babylonian empire. of the exile. Perhaps the most famous passage
is the beautiful Psalm 137, which laments: “By
the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we
Modern Passover celebrations follow the remembered Zion ... How can we sing the Lord’s
song while in a foreign land?”
rules set out in Exodus; even so, the ritual During their captivity in Babylon, the Jew-
has evolved over the centuries. ish exiles reflected deeply on what had befallen

52 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 A HIGH HOLY DAY
Worshippers fill Solomon’s Porch in
Herod’s Temple during a first-century
celebration of Passover. The painting is
by 21st-century biblical illustrator and
artist Balage Balogh.
BALAGE BALOGH/RMN-GRAND PALAIS

them: on their suffering and their covenant with JUDAISM’S CALENDAR

God. Scholars and scribes continued to write,
forming the foundation of several books of the
JEWISH FESTIVALS are celebrated according to the Jewish calendar,
Old Testament as well as solidifying the To-
which is based on the lunar cycle but periodically adjusted to
rah (the five first books of the Old Testament:
keep pace with the solar cycle. Year one of this calendar begins
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and
on the first day of creation, according to the Hebrew Bible, which
Deuteronomy). These books corresponds to the year 3761 b.c. in the Gregorian calendar.
certainly have roots that The Jewish calendar year begins around the autumnal equi-
predate the Babylonian nox and then has 12 lunar months, each lasting about 30
period, but many bib- days: Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan
lical historians concur (the spring month in which Passover occurs), Iyar, Sivan,
that a dynamic pro- Tammuz, Av, and Elul. These 12 months add up to a year of
cess of scholarship and 353, 354, or 355 days. To adjust this to the solar calendar,
every few years a second 30-day month of Adar is added
JEWISH RITUAL CALENDAR and the year is referred to as “pregnant.” In October 2023,
FROM THE RHINE VALLEY,
1320, CLUNY MUSEUM, PARIS the Hebrew year 5784 will begin­—a pregnant year with
RMN-GRAND PALAIS two months of Adar.
LET MY PEOPLE GO
After leading his people to
safety by parting the waters
of the Red Sea, Moses
watches as the pursuing
Egyptians are engulfed and
destroyed in a 1530 painting
attributed to Lucas Cranach
the Elder. Pinakothek,
Munich, Germany
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY
 1 Sanctuary
Measuring 172 feet long by 34 feet
wide, the impressive structure featured
a gleaming facade decorated with gold
and white marble.
national renewal inspired by the
period in Babylon brought togeth- 2 Court of the Priests
Only priests and Levites were allowed
er the composition of the books access here. On a great altar, the blood
of Moses, as they are known now. of sacrificed animals was poured out
Nearly 50 years later, in 540 b.c., and their fat burned.
Babylon and the Neo-Babylonian
regime fell to the Persian conqueror
Western Wall, the only part
Cyrus the Great, who allowed the ex- of the Second Temple still
iled Jews to return to Judah. In the Book visible today
of Isaiah 44:28, the prophet has God say of
CURRENCY Cyrus: “He is My shepherd, And he shall per-
EXCHANGE form all My pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, You
After arriving in shall be built and to the temple, Your foundation
Jerusalem, foreign shall be laid.” Given the experience of Babylo-
coins had to be
nian exile, it is not surprising that an ancient
exchanged for
shekels, which were story about captivity—in which God intervenes
accepted in the to smite the enemy, while “passing over” and
Temple. A silver saving his chosen people—proved to be the
shekel (above) was foundational narrative of the Jewish faith.
minted in Jerusalem
in the first century a.d.
QUINTLOX/ALBUM Home or Temple?
Following the return from the Babylonian exile,
Passover could once again be celebrated in Je-
rusalem. This moment is chronicled in the bib-
lical Book of Ezra, which recounts how the Jews THE SECOND TEMPLE

returned from Babylon, renewed in their faith,
to rebuild their temple:
On the fourteenth day of the first month the
returned exiles kept the passover. For both the
priests and the Levites had purified them-
selves … So they killed the passover lamb for
all the returned exiles, for their fellow-priests,
and for themselves. It was eaten by the people
of Israel who had returned from exile, and al-
so by all who had joined them and separated
themselves from the pollutions of the nations
of the land to worship the Lord, the God of
Israel. With joy they celebrated the festival
of unleavened bread for seven days; for the
Lord had made them joyful (Ezra 6:19-22).
The Bible offers radically different accounts
of the setting in which the Passover ritual
was to take place. In Exodus, the instructions
The Book of Deuteronomy lists Passover
among the three pilgrimage festivals that
must be celebrated in Jerusalem.
In 22 b.c., Herod the Great began a major
expansion of the Jerusalem Temple
(known as the Second Temple), which
had been built in 516 b.c. The Babylonians
destroyed the First Temple (attributed to
King Solomon) in 586 b.c.
FERNANDO BAPTISTA/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION
are clearly given to households. In the Book
of Deuteronomy, however, Passover is listed
among the three pilgrimage festivals, along
with the Feast of Weeks (early summer) and
the Feast of Tabernacles (fall) that must be cel-
ebrated in Jerusalem: “You must not sacrifice
the Passover in any town the Lord your God
gives you except in the place he will choose as
a dwelling for his Name.”
Significant differences in the setting of the
sacrifice—as well as whether the sacrificial
meat should be roasted or boiled—have been
the cause of much debate among religious
scholars. The differences suggest that the Pass-
over ritual underwent considerable evolution
over the long time period in which the Torah
was composed and compiled.

56 MARCH/APRIL 2023

Solomon’s Porch
1
2
3
5
Historians detected a general trend. Before
the Babylonian exile, the ardor with which
Passover was observed waxed and waned.
It was zealously observed in the seventh
century b.c. by King Josiah. Revered for up-
holding orthodoxy, and closely associated with
the law as set out in Deuteronomy, Josiah had
celebrated Passover in the Temple. Follow-
ing the trauma of the exile, and the return to
Jerusalem, a trend emerged to recentralize the
ritual in the Temple.
Every spring in the post-exile period,
the newly rededicated Temple in Jerusalem
hummed with preparations for the festival.
Families would enter the Temple compound
and offer their sacrificial animal. The Hallel,
based on the Psalms, would have been sung
Tower of Antonia, Roman fortress
4
3 Court of the Israelites
A narrow space beyond Nicanor’s
gate was where the Paschal lamb
was sacrificed. Only Jewish men
Royal Stoa (portico) could enter this space.
4 Court of Women
This area was the only place in
the Temple where Jewish women
were allowed entry.
5 Court of the Gentiles
Pilgrims could buy animals for
sacrifice and exchange foreign
currency in this large outer
courtyard.
THE PUZZLE OF PASSOVER
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE GOSPELS OF Matthew, Mark, and Luke suggest that Jesus’ Last
Supper was a Passover seder the night before his crucifixion. By
contrast, the Book of John states that Jesus dined before the feast
of the Passover: After eating with his disciples, Jesus is arrested
and brought before Pontius Pilate the next morning; the Jews
do not want to defile themselves by entering Pilate’s residence,
because this would prevent them from celebrating the Passover
meal that evening. Boston University biblical scholar Jonathan
Klawans explains the discrepancy by interpreting the Last Supper
as a normal, non-Passover meal in which the Jewish blessing of
bread and wine was a standard ritual. Other scholars prefer to
focus less on the precise timing and more on the confirmation
in all four Gospels that Jesus dies around the time of Passover, a
feast that powerfully symbolizes sacrifice and redemption.
 in celebration. The sacrificial
animals would be killed by
the priests, returned to the
family, and then cooked and
perhaps eaten somewhere in
the temple precincts.
By the time of Jesus of Naz-
areth, early in the first century
a.d., Jerusalem was a bustling
pilgrimage center. The Gospel of
John records: “Now the Passover of
the Jews was near, and many went up
from the country to Jerusalem before the Pass-
SYMBOLIC FOODS over to purify themselves.” (John 11: 55). The
Various symbolic sheer number of people pouring into Jerusalem
foods are needed for meant that by Jesus’time, the Temple, while still
the seder and are central to the festival, was no longer an exclusive
presented on a special setting for the Passover ceremony. The Paschal
seder plate called a
keara. These include a lamb would have been eaten in private homes
hard-boiled egg, bitter across the city.
herbs, and a roasted
bone, symbolic of the Beyond the Temple
lamb sacrificed by the
Israelites on the night
For the full celebration of Passover, Hebrews
of the exodus. abstain from leavened bread (made with yeast),
BRIDGEMAN/ACI a time called the Feast of the Unleavened Bread,
or Chag Hamatzot. Matzo is also at the heart of
the seder, as is a roasted lamb, both calling back
to the instructions laid out in Exodus.
Many modern Passover rituals were devel-
oped in the post-Babylon period. Surviving at
first by oral tradition, they were written down
in the Mishnah in the first and second centu-
ries a.d. The Mishnah has a section devot-
ed to different dishes served during a seder
and what they symbolize. Matzo and roasted
lamb remain at the heart of the meal. Four cups
of wine must also be served. A paste of fruit,
wine, and nuts, called haroseth, is part of the
seder and symbolizes the mortar the enslaved
people used to build Pharaoh’s monuments and
cities. Bitter herbs, the maror, recall tears and
pain caused by exile and enslavement.
The Mishnah also explains the roles for fam-
ily members in the meal. Children participate
by asking the Ma Nishtana, or Four Questions.
When the adults answer, they tell the Exodus
story. The call-and-response nature of the
meal becomes a vehicle to reiterate the story
of Israel in Egypt, beginning with enslavement
and ending with triumph.
58 MARCH/APRIL 2023
In a.d. 70, more than 500 years after it had
been destroyed by the Neo-Babylonians, ca-
tastrophe befell the Jewish Temple a second
time. Following a revolt against Roman rule,
the forces of the future emperor Titus be-
sieged Jerusalem before entering the city and
destroying nearly all of the Temple, except
the Western Wall. Initially, the practice of
Passover was thrown into confusion by the
great loss of the Temple. It fell to the highest
religious authority of the time, Rabbi Gama-
liel of Yavne, to reinterpret the Passover sed-
er so it could still be celebrated without the
central sacred structure.
Dispersion and exile once again became wo-
ven into the Jewish national story, and Pass-
over adapted accordingly. Although many of
the traditions recorded in the Mishnah had
long predated the dark year of a.d. 70, some
were developed after this event. Some were
introduced through tradition rather than on
the basis of religious authority. One exam-
ple of this is the addition of the roasted egg,
dipped in salted water to symbolize both the
tears of the enslaved Israelites and the de-
struction of the Temple by the Romans.
As the Jewish world adapted to life with-
out a central temple, the Passover seder was
formalized into the text called the Haggadah.
Meaning “the telling,” and compiled from the
Torah, Mishnah, and other sources, the Hag-
gadah emerged toward the end of the second
century and forms the basis of the Passover
meal as it is celebrated by Jews across the
world today. Although the ceremony reflects
the slow adaptation of Jews to living in a world
with no central place of worship, the longing
for such a place is reflected in the words that
are traditionally said at the end of the seder:
l’shana haba’ah b’Yerushalayim—next year in
Jerusalem.
ADAPTED FROM AN ARTICLE BY JAVIER ALONZO LÓPEZ WITH ADDITIONAL
TEXTS BY JULIUS PURCELL. LÓPEZ SPECIALIZES IN WRITING ON JUDAISM AND
EARLY CHRISTIANITY. JULIUS PURCELL IS DEPUTY EDITOR OF HISTORY.
Learn more
The Passover Haggadah: A Biography
Vanessa L. Ochs, Princeton University Press, 2020
LAMENTATION AND HOPE
Jews pray at Jerusalem’s Western
Wall, the only remaining part of
the Second Temple, expanded by
Herod the Great and destroyed by
the Romans in a.d. 70. Following
its destruction, Temple-oriented
festivals such as Passover evolved
into their current form.
REINHARD SCHMID/FOTOECA 9X12
SEX SYMBOL
Artworks, such as the Eugene
Brunet 1884 sculpture below, often
emphasize Messalina’s notoriety as
a sensuous woman with an unbridled
sexual appetite. Museum of Fine Arts,
Rennes, France
JEAN-MANUEL SALINGUE/RMN-GRAND PALAIS
 messalina
sex, politics, and power
The teenage bride of Emperor Claudius, Messalina
knew how to play politics in imperial Rome. But after her
death, Messalina’s shrewd moves were overshadowed
by Roman writers who focused on her sexual escapades.

EMMA SOUTHON
MESSALINA IMAGINED BY THE 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH SYMBOLIST
PAINTER GUSTAVE MOREAU. GUSTAVE MOREAU MUSEUM, PARIS
PHILIPPE FUZEAU/RMN-GRAND PALAIS

O
ne of the greatest villains of the
Roman Empire is the empress
Messalina. The third wife of
the emperor Claudius, she is
remembered today as the most
promiscuous woman in Rome, the nympho-
maniac empress. The Messalina in the modern
imagination is a pinnacle of uncontrolled, vi-
olent, irrational, and impulsive behavior. Her
sexual appetite is unrivaled, and her motivations
quite wicked. When Mikhail Bulgakov was fill-
ing Satan’s ball in The Master and Margarita, he
included Messalina as a guest. When Charlotte
Bronte needed to describe the mad wife in the
attic in Jane Eyre, Bronte likened her to a German
vampire as well as Messalina. Of all the scandal-
ous women who violated Roman gender roles,
Messalina has come down through history as
the most scandalous of all.

Noble Beginnings
Valeria Messalina was at most 18 in a.d. 38 when
she married her only husband, Tiberius Clau-
dius Nero Germanicus. Claudius on the other
hand was a 47-year-old, twice-divorced, father
of two. The pair were first cousins once removed,
both descended from the Divine Augustus’s sis-
ter Octavia.
The marriage was a great honor for Claudi-
us, as his previous wives had been of moderate
prestige compared to Messalina. His marriage to
a descendant of Octavia coincided with his be-
lated entry into public life and was a sign that the
new emperor—his nephew Caligula—approved

62 MARCH/APRIL 2023
IMPERIAL
POLITICS
AND PLOTS
circa a.d. 20
Valeria Messalina is born
in Rome, daughter of
Marcus Valerius Messalla
Barbatus and Domitia
Lepida.

38
Teenage Messalina marries
her 47-year-old cousin
Claudius, uncle of Emperor
Caligula. Their first child is a
girl, Claudia Octavia.

41
After Caligula’s death,
Claudius becomes
emperor and Messalina
empress. She gives birth
to their son, Britannicus.

43
Appius Junius Silanus,
Messalina’s stepfather, is
executed for treason; some
say also for rejecting her
advances.

47
Senator Valerius
Asiaticus becomes a
victim of Messalina’s
plotting because she
desired his gardens.

48
Messalina is executed
after publicly marrying
her lover, Senator Gaius
Silius, and perhaps
planning a coup with him.

CLAUDIUS AND MESSALINA

A cameo (left), made around
a.d. 45, shows the imperial
couple on a chariot sowing
abundance across the empire.
National Library of France, Paris
ERICH LESSING/ALBUM
 THE JULIO-CLAUDIAN DYNASTY

G A I U S O C TAV I U S AT I A

M A RC A N TO N Y O C TAV I A AU G U S T U S LIVIA TIBERIUS

(r. 27 B . C .- A . D . 14) C L AU D I U S
N E RO

AHENOBARBUS A N TO N I A
THE ELDER TIBERIUS
A N TO N I A DRUSUS ( r 14 - 3 7 )
MINOR
B A R B AT U S DOMITIA

M E S SA L I N A C L AU D I U S GERMANICUS
(r 41-54)

CALIGULA
O C TAV I A B R I TA N N I C U S (r 37-41)

MESSALINA WITH HER

SON, BRITANNICUS. ROMAN
STATUE CIRCA A.D. 50.
LOUVRE MUSEUM, PARIS
RMN-GRAND PALAIS

IMPORTANCE OF of him and was tying him closely to the line of

succession.
BEING JULIA For Messalina, however, the marriage was
likely less thrilling. Her new husband had spent
THE JULIA FAMILY (Julii) was held in high regard by the his entire life until this point as a family em-
Roman people, who looked to the family as successors barrassment. He had visible disabilities that
of Julius Caesar (Emperor Augustus was Julius Caesar’s allegedly prompted his mother to refer to him
great-nephew and adopted son). Lineage was a key as a monster, his great-uncle Augustus to for-
factor in the match between Claudius and Messalina. The bid him from sitting with the rest of the family
30-year age gap and general incompatibility between
in public, and his uncle Tiberius to banish him
them were overlooked in favor of their heritage. The pair’s
from any public office. Imperial Rome was an
marriage formed one of the “purest” connections to
unfriendly place for disabled people, and no one
the Julio-Claudian dynasty, in that it descended directly
knew that better than Claudius. He had seen
from Octavia, sister of Augustus. Tiberius, Caligula, and
Claudius all descended from Livia, Augustus’s third wife, his siblings receive glorious honors and advan-
and were thereby linked also to the Claudian line. tageous marriages. Claudius had no prestige
and brought little but his bloodline to enhance
Messalina’s own. It is hard to imagine that she
looked forward to marriage to a man 30 years
her senior whose achievements she could not
even brag about.
The pair had two children in quick succes-
sion, and Claudius unexpectedly—and con-
troversially—became emperor. After Caligula
was assassinated in a.d.41, Claudius took refuge
in the army camps and haggled for two days to
convince the Senate to accept him as emperor.
Messalina’s husband, with no experience
and little promise, had surpassed everyone’s
expectations when he took power. Still in her
early 20s and prepared for a life of aristocratic
leisure, Messalina had become an empress. Just
weeks after her husband ascended to the Ro-
man throne, she made history by being the first
woman to give birth to a Roman emperor’s son.
Observing the Empress POWER TRANSFER
Most information on Messalina’s relation- Dutch artist
ship with Claudius comes from the first and Lawrence Alma-
Tadema recreates
second-century a.d. historians Tacitus and a moment when
Suetonius, each writing decades after her death Claudius is found
during a time critical of Rome’s early emperors. behind a curtain and
Suetonius writes of the pair in The Twelve Caesars, proclaimed emperor
but his descriptions are short and matter-of-fact. after the death of
Caligula. Walters Art
Tacitus has much more to say on the subject. Museum, Baltimore
Messalina’s first years as Claudius’s wife and BRIDGEMAN/ACI
empress were not included in these works, so it
is unclear if her notoriety was present from the
start of her husband’s rule. Roman men tend-
ed to perceive women as being constitutionally
corrupt, unlike men, who became corrupted. Ro-
man law viewed women as perpetual minors and
distrusted them to control their own property.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 65
 IN THE LAP
OF A LOVER
Messalina’s appetites were
popular subjects for 19th-
century artists. In this 1886
painting, Spanish artist
Joaquín Sorolla depicts her
draped before a gladiator.
BBVA Collection Spain.
ALAMY/ACI

ANNALS OF TACITUS PAGE FROM A 16TH-CENTURY ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT,

AUSTRIAN NATIONAL LIBRARY, VIENNA
DEA/ALBUM

It is possible that opinions of Messalina

changed over time, but when Tacitus’s narrative
picks up around a.d. 47, six years into Claudius’s
reign, the historian thinks Messalina’s a mon-
ster. Tacitus’s first mention of the empress de-
scribes her manipulating her husband to punish
two of her personal enemies: Valerius Asiaticus
and Poppaea Sabina. Asiaticus owned the lovely
Gardens of Lucullus, which Messalina coveted.
She spread rumors of an extramarital affair be-
tween Asiaticus and Poppaea (who had taken a
lover Messalina desired for herself). Claudius
had the pair arrested and Asiaticus killed. Pop-
paea was imprisoned, and Tacitus reports she
died by suicide after repeated harassment from
Messalina’s agents.
In Tacitus’s telling, Messalina frequently
uses the judicial system and the functions of the
state for her own selfish ends. Through them,
she obtains revenge on those who cross her,
reject her sexual advances, or spark her envy.
She exiles relatives and executes rivals. She lies
about omens and circulates rumors to scare her
husband into doing her bidding. She makes the
personal political.

Marriage and Betrayal

Messalina’s actions ultimately brought her
down. Roman historians reported her undoing
and subsequent murder with glee and snicker-
ing delight. Tacitus is again the chief source of
information on Messalina’s final scandal. Other
authors retold Messalina’s story, including the

66 MARCH/APRIL 2023

CONSPIRATORS Roman poet Juvenal who wrote a scathing con­
Some historians demnation of her in his Satires, composed in the
believe Messalina late first or early second century a.d. Writing
and Gaius Silius
a century later, Roman historian Cassius Dio
aimed to overthrow
Claudius and continued the tradition of rendering Messalina
take power for as a villain, calling her“the most abandoned and
themselves. lustful of women.”
1888 engraving, The episode begins in a.d. 48, when Messa­
Les Imperatrices
Romaine. lina starts a love affair with Senator Gaius Sil­
WHITE IMAGES/SCALA, FLORENCE ius. Silius’s complicity varies across sources;
in Juvenal and Dio he is a passive victim of her
dominance, while in Tacitus he is an enthusi­
astic participant. Messalina lavishes him with
decadent gifts, from family heirlooms to houses.
Their affair proceeds until it becomes public
knowledge. Silius divorces his wife, but Messali­
na cannot free herself from her emperor husband.
68 MARCH/APRIL 2023
The adulterers then do something so unex­
pected—so open and shocking—that even the
ancient sources can barely believe it. The couple
hold their own wedding while Claudius is out of
town in Ostia. Messalina dons the yellow veil of
a bride and proceeds publicly through the streets
to Silius’s home, where they exchange vows.
They then throw a raucous party that includes,
according to Tacitus, Messalina wantonly letting
her hair down.
The actual events and meaning of that day are
still debated by modern historians. Was this a
real wedding or a performance? Was it an at­
tempted coup rather than a brazen affront? Some
characterize the day as an attempt to overthrow
Claudius, motivated entirely by political am­
bition to rule. The truth will never be known
because neither conspirator survived the night.
Rumors of their wedding party, whether real
or staged, reach Claudius in Ostia very quickly.
To break the news, his administrators send his
two favorite mistresses to tell him that his wife
has publicly divorced him by marrying another
man. Claudius, in Tacitus’s telling, panics, be­
lieving that Messalina and Silius are attempting
to overthrow him. Claudius has them immedi­
ately arrested. Guards escort Messalina to the
Gardens of Lucullus, and Silius is brought before
Claudius at the army camps. Silius and his allies
are executed on the spot for treason, and then
Silius’s name vanishes from history.
Claudius procrastinates over Messalina’s fate.
She is his wife of a decade, the mother of his chil­
dren, and a woman he loves by all accounts. He
softens and decides to give her a hearing the next
day. Claudius’s supporters fear that Messalina
will escape punishment, so they take matters
into their own hands. They falsely tell Roman
centurions and a tribune to go to the gardens and
execute Messalina on the orders of the emperor.
Messalina is in the gardens with her mother.
Tacitus reports that even when she is trapped,
Messalina does not give up. She tries to find a
way out of the situation, but to no avail. When
the soldiers arrive, they give her the option to
kill herself, but she is unable to do it. Tacitus
sneers that she was so lacking in virtue that she
couldn’t even take her own life. One of the tri­
bunes runs her through and ends her life.
Tacitus reported that Claudius is unmoved at
the news of his wife’s death: “[H]e called for a
PLEASURE PALACE
Classical authors claimed that
Messalina hosted wild orgies in
the imperial palace on Palatine
Hill, allegedly inviting her lovers
there when her husband, the
emperor Claudius, was away. The
Palatine Hill is shown here, as
viewed from the Roman Forum.
CORBIN ADLER/ALAMY/ACI

ERASING THE PAST
ROMANS WHO LIVED exemplary lives could be pronounced gods after
death, but villains faced the postmortem punishment of damnatio me-
moriae, of having one’s name erased from history. If the government
declared it, one’s name would be struck from public and private records,
property seized, and portraits defaced. Caligula and Nero were two
early emperors who were damned. Roman women could also be con-
demned; most were sentenced along with their husbands. Only a few,
such as Messalina and Julia the Elder (daughter of Augustus Caesar),
received their own condemnation outright. The practice continued into
later eras. In the early 200s, Emperor Caracalla condemned his brother
Geta after murdering him. Portraits of Geta, even as a boy (above),
were defaced, and it became a crime to say his name.
THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION/ALAMY
cup and went through the routine of the banquet.
Even in the days that followed, he betrayed no
symptoms of hatred or of joy, of anger or of sad-
ness, or, in fine, of any human emotion.”The Ro-
man government decrees a damnatio memoriae
against Messalina, striking her name from public
and private places and destroying her statues.
But this official erasure did not cause Messalina
to fade from memory. Rather, her sexual appe-
tites and bigamous wedding gave rise to rumors,
jokes, and gossip that would overtake her every
other action in the historical imagination, in-
cluding her political machinations.
Rumors and Innuendo
These jokes and whispers started early. Pliny
the Elder, who was a young army officer serving
70 MARCH/APRIL 2023
in Germany during Claudius’s early rule, wrote
an encyclopedia of natural phenomena, in which
he included musings on mammalian sexuality.
Humans, he notes, are the only animals who
don’t have breeding seasons and who are never
sated when it comes to sex. As an illustration,
he tells the reader about Empress Messalina,
who engaged in a competition with a sex worker
to see who could take the most lovers. After 25
“embraces,” Messalina won.
A generation later, the anecdote grew even
more outrageous when it was related by noted
misanthrope Juvenal in his Satires. Messalina
appears in the section on why he hates women.
Calling her the“Imperial Whore,”Juvenal claims
that every night Messalina disguised herself in
a blonde wig—a hair color associated with bar-
barians—and worked at a low-class brothel,
where she would have sex until the sun came
up. She would be sent away “exhausted but not
yet satisfied.”
By a.d. 220, when Cassius Dio was writing
his Roman History, Messalina’s imagined brothel
has moved into the imperial palace, where she
invites men to buy sex from her and from other
aristocratic women, some of whom are forced by
Messalina into sex work. Dio also related a tale
concerning a dancer, Mnester, who finds himself
the focus of Messalina’s unwelcome advances.
He rejects her repeatedly until Messalina com-
plains to her husband that Mnester will not obey
her, pretending that he is merely insubordinate.
Claudius, none the wiser, orders Mnester to do
whatever his wife commands, and thus Mnester
must submit. This scene seems ripped directly
from Greek and Roman comedy: The cuckolded
husband and the unfaithful, sexually rapacious
wife are stock characters. The story shows that
Messalina’s real fall was so dramatic that any-
thing could be said about her and be believed.
These kinds of stories delegitimize Messalina
and reveal how Roman (and modern) misogyny
works. In the sources that purport to be telling
history—Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio—Messa-
lina is promiscuous but also clever, calculating,
and cruel. She schemes with allies both within
her household and the Senate to concoct plans
and accumulate power. She uses the law courts
and alliances to torment her enemies, and she
runs a citywide network of spies and inform-
ers. She gathers information and deploys it to
control her husband and thus control an empire. Messalina’s true scandals were that she over- MESSALINA’S END
All these things are undoubtedly nefarious, but stepped the defined boundaries of an empress’s Messalina clutches
they demonstrate a certain respect for Messalina appropriate place and engaged too openly in the a dagger but fails
to take her own
as a complete person. cruel politics of the Roman imperial system, cul-
life, as Claudius’s
The popular imagination has not dwelled on minating in a very strange but very public coup ally curses her
these aspects. Writers from Pliny and Juvenal to attempt. To remember her as merely the “Im- mother and a
Bronte and Chuck Palahniuk employ Messalina perial Whore” and “most promiscuous woman guard prepares to
only to highlight her lascivious nature. She is not in Rome”does her a disservice. Messalina was a kill the empress.
Oil painting by
a political operator but merely a wanton woman much more complicated, and interesting, scan- Victor François Eloi
operating in the shadows of the bedroom. Sex dal than that. Biennoury, 1850,
scandals remove her from the masculine, public Grenoble Museum
sphere of power and politics and place her back CLASSICAL HISTORIAN DR. EMMA SOUTHON IS AUTHOR OF AGRIPPINA: THE
DAGLI ORTI / AURIMAGES

where women belong: in the domestic, private
sphere of wife and mother. Her sharper edges
soften when she is diminished into the simplest
category of female villain: a woman who enjoys
sex a lot.
MOST EXTRAORDINARY WOMAN OF THE ROMAN WORLD, AND A FATAL THING
HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM. SHE HOSTS THE HISTORY IS SEXY PODCAST.
Learn more
The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars
Annelise Freisenbruch, Vintage Books, 2011.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 71

LEADING TO DEATH
Messalina perished in the
Gardens of Lucullus, which were
located close to the top of Rome’s
18th-century Spanish Steps and
the Trinità dei Monti Church.
MINEMERO/ISTOCK
 HOLDING COURT
Catherine II of Russia makes
a grand entrance before
her courtiers in a colorful
lithograph by Alexandre
Nikolayevich Benois, 1909.
State Open-Air Museum
Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg,
Russia.
ALBUM/FINE ART IMAGES

74 MARCH/APRIL 2023
 CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA

BECOMING
‘THE GREAT’
The upstart foreigner may have stolen Russia’s throne, but once
in charge, there was no stopping her enlightened reforms, her
expanding empire, and her ceaseless pursuit of love and legacy.
EVE CONANT
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 75
 frugal self. Their mismatched marriage was an
unhappy one, and a daughter was unlikely to
raise the family fortunes. Years later, in what
would become some 700 pages of lively, frank,
and self-justifying memoirs and letters, the
Russian empress would write of her entry into
the world: “I was not very joyfully welcomed.”
Her excellent education had one purpose:
to marry well. It included lessons in every-
thing from proper curtsying to philosophy and
French, the lingua franca of Europe’s elite. She
challenged her teachers, especially on matters
of faith over logic. When her Lutheran tutor
threatened the cane, it taught her only that
brains were more persuasive than brawn. “I am
convinced in my inmost soul that Herr Wagner
was a blockhead,” she wrote. “All my life I have
had this inclination to yield only to gentleness
and reason—and to resist all pressure.”
Although anxious over this “devil of pride”
in her daughter, Johanna nonetheless brought
Sophie on her travels to northern German
courts. It was part of an early campaign to ar-
range a marriage for the girl, who, while plain

I
UPWARDLY n 1729 a baby girl was born to fading Prus-
NOBLE sian nobility in the bleak garrison town of
The future Catherine Stettin, Germany (Szczecin, Poland, today).
the Great, Sophie, Her childhood was lacking in parental love
moved to the ducal
but rich in education–and social striving.
castle (above) in
Szczecin, Poland, At 14, she was summoned to Russia to change
when her father, Prince her name, religion, and language to marry a fu-
Christian Augustus of ture tsar. In the end, however, it was Russia that
Anhalt-Zerbst, became would be transformed by her.
governor.
DEA/W. BUSS/GETTY IMAGES
Sophie Friederike Auguste was raised on the
fringes of power in the Prussian empire. Her
mother, Johanna, was a master at exploiting so-
cial and family connections, while her father,
Prince Christian Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst,
had a name more impressive than his quiet,
in appearance, had an abundance of charm. On
one court visit in 1739, at age 10, Sophie met
her recently orphaned second cousin, Karl
Peter Ulrich—the only surviving grandson of
Tsar Peter I, better known as Peter the Great.
Attuned to the whisperings of court gos-
sip, Sophie overheard that the child duke was
hotheaded and, though just 11, “inclined to
drink.” Young Peter was physically abused by
his primary tutor and often left hungry as pun-
ishment. He found solace in toy soldiers and
playing the violin, poorly. No one seemed to
take his education seriously. His “most con-
scientious teacher,” she would poignantly re-
call of her future husband’s troubled early life,
“was the ballet master Landé, who taught him
to dance.”

RULERS
OF 1725 1727 1740
RUSSIA
Russian tsar Peter I Peter II, a grandson Empress Anna, niece
(“the Great”) dies at of Peter the Great, of Peter the Great, dies
age 52 without naming becomes tsar. The after her 10-year rule.
FAMILY DISHES. A GILDED SOUP
a successor. His wife young monarch’s reign Her two-month-old
BOWL BEARS THE ARMS OF becomes empress of is cut short by his grandnephew is named
CATHERINE II’S PARENTS. Russia, Catherine I. death at age 14. the next tsar, Ivan VI.
ACI/BRIDGEMAN

76 MARCH/APRIL 2023
FAMILY PORTRAIT?
German artist Anna Rosina
Lisiewska composed a formal
portrait in 1756 of the Russian
royal family: future tsar Peter III,
Catherine II, and a young Paul
(whom some scholars identify
as a page). National Museum,
Stockholm, Sweden.
SEPIA TIMES/GETTY

1741 1745 1762

A swift coup deposes Elizabeth’s nephew, After Elizabeth’s
the young Ivan VI the future Peter III death, Peter III reigns
and installs Elizabeth, marries a German for six months but is
daughter of Peter the princess. She takes the overthrown. His wife
Great, as empress. She name Catherine and takes the throne and
will reign for 20 years. will bear a son in 1754. rules as Catherine II.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 77


FOLLOWING IN HER FOOTSTEPS
THE FIRST TIME the lively daughter of Peter the Great was begged to seize
the throne, she rolled over and went back to sleep. The future Empress
Elizabeth preferred a carefree life, having lost her betrothed (the future
Catherine the Great’s uncle) to smallpox. But by 1741, at 32 and with ru-
mors swirling she’d be sent to a convent, the childless Romanov staged
a midnight coup, imprisoned the infant tsar Ivan VI, and began a reign
marked less by affairs of state than by opulence, court intrigues, and late
hours. Coups tended to happen at night, so perhaps it was wise to stay up.
EMPRESS ELIZABETH. OIL ON CANVAS, 1754 GEORG CASPAR VON PRENNER. TRETYAKOV GALLERY, MOSCOW.
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY
A few years later, it would be this ill-prepared
and abused boy whom the childless Russian
empress Elizabeth, searching for a legitimate
Romanov heir, would pluck away from Prussia.
Thanks to family ties with Johanna, Empress
Elizabeth would next turn her matchmaking eyes
to his former court playmate, the socially astute
and well-educated Sophie. Perhaps it seemed a
good match.
The pairing was doomed.
Building a Family
Summoned to Russia, the 14-year-old bride-to-
be treated the young duke as her “master” and
worked to please the empress. Sophie took the
Russian name Catherine (Ekaterina), converted
EMBLEM OF HONOR. CATHERINE II PRESENTED HER MAIDS OF
HONOR WITH A SPARKLING GIFT: HER DIAMOND MONOGRAM.
1775-1780. STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG.
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY
78 MARCH/APRIL 2023
from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, and
spent long nights pacing barefoot on cold floors
memorizing Russian words. Her efforts resulted
not only in pneumonia but also in a glowing
reputation as a devotee of her new homeland.
Her image was further boosted when, gravely
ill, she waved off a Lutheran priest in favor of an
Orthodox one.
Her relationship with the childlike Peter
evolved, but it was mostly for the worse. Of their
unromantic wedding night in 1745, she wrote:
“… he went to sleep and this went on for nine
years.” To pass the time, she played blindman’s
buff, whist, and faro with her ladies-in-waiting.
She became an accomplished equestrian, us-
ing her long skirts to disguise when she was
not riding sidesaddle. Peter played with his toy
soldiers or would “scrape” on his violin, which,
she wrote,“tortured my eardrums from morning
to night.” The unhappy couple did everything
but secure the Romanov lineage with an heir.
Empress Elizabeth was getting frustrated.
Soon enough, Catherine was advised by her
chief lady-in-waiting that in times of “major
consequence” there were exceptions to the
rules of fidelity, and she could“choose between
S.S. and L.N.” without intervention. Both were
gentlemen-in-waiting to Peter; Lev Naryshkin
was passed over for Sergei Saltykov, a rakish
26-year-old, and in 1754 a son was finally pro-
duced. Who—exactly—his father was remains
a question. The empress named the baby Paul
and immediately separated him from Catherine,
as she did a daughter born three years later. Both
were unlikely progeny of Peter, who, accord-
ing to Catherine, once said aloud, “God knows
where my wife gets her pregnancies.”
Isolated from her children, constantly warned
of her financial “debts” to the empress, and ap-
pearing to lose her position in court, Catherine
filled her days—then years—with reading. Phi-
losophers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and
Tacitus, she wrote,“produced a revolution in my
thinking.” She asked to leave Russia, a request
the empress rejected. So she stayed, determined
to “hold her head high,” and from then on let
others, when in her presence, guess “on which
foot to dance.”
In 1762 the empress died of a stroke, and Peter
gained the throne. His true loyalty to Prussia
became painfully clear, from reversing Russia’s
hard-won military gains against the Prussian
empire to forcing Russian officers into ill-fitting
COLORFUL CHAPEL
Catherine II, an early proponent
of inoculation, was one of the
first Russians to be vaccinated
against smallpox. In 1768 a
ceremony in the Catherine Palace
chapel (shown here in a circa
1850 watercolor) celebrated the
procedure’s success.
ALBUM/AKG-IMAGES

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 79


EQUAL EDUCATION
WOMEN COULD BE MORE than wives, in Catherine’s view. They could be
useful members of society—if well-educated and well-mannered. Two
years into her reign she created the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens,
which would teach 200 noble girls everything from morals to fine arts and
geometry. Students enrolled at age six and were not allowed trips home
from St. Petersburg during their 12 years of schooling, though Catherine
visited often. In the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin took over
the school’s ornate building as his headquarters.
SMOLNY INSTITUTE. A STATUE OF VLADIMIR LENIN STANDS OUTSIDE THE SITE OF THE FORMER GIRLS’ SCHOOL.
LEONID ANDRONOV/ALAMY
Prussian blue uniforms. The new tsar began to
talk of marrying another woman, questioned
Paul’s lineage, and publicly rebuked Catherine,
calling her dura, or fool, at a state banquet before
briefly, drunkenly ordering her arrest.
Catherine had to think, and fast: It was “a
question of perishing with him, or by him, or
else of saving myself, my children, and perhaps
the state from the disaster” that was Peter III.
“The last choice seemed to me the surest.” That
choice, removing him from power, was one
that already had growing support.
At 5 a.m. on June 28 the tsarina was
rushed with the aid of a few dozen offi-
cers and supporters to St. Petersburg’s As-
sumption Cathedral and declared Empress
CATHERINE’S CROWN. ENCRUSTED WITH SOME 5,000
DIAMONDS AND A 398-CARAT RED SPINEL, DEFINED IMPERIAL
POWER FOR 155 YEARS—UNTIL TSARIST RULE ENDED IN 1917.
ALBUM/FINE ART IMAGES
80 MARCH/APRIL 2023
Catherine II. Crowds surged. More military
gathered, offering her parts of their uniforms—
proud Russian green, not Peter’s Prussian
blue—to wear on horseback at the head of what
became a force of 14,000 marching toward the
estate where Peter III was relaxing. He gave up
without a fight. Eight days later, imprisoned
on an estate, Ropsha, outside St.Petersburg, he
was dead.
Strangled and possibly poisoned (some ac-
counts say those who kissed him in his open
casket left with swollen lips from a lingering
toxin), the official cause of Peter III’s death was
ignominious: “a severe attack of hemorrhoidal
colic.” His murder would never be directly linked
to Catherine, but his diagnosis became a snide
euphemism for assassination.
Enlightened Despot
Neither Romanov nor Russian, Catherine
suddenly had supreme power over 20 million
people. Her 34-year reign, the longest of any
female leader of Russia, would be guided by
her desire to finish what Peter the Great had
started: modernization, Westernization, and
expansion into the largest empire on Earth.
Little was overlooked on Catherine’s imperial
to-do list. Waking as early as five each morning,
she moved quickly to appease Russia’s nobility
and reassure Europe with messages of peace and
tolerance. Guided by Enlightenment principles,
she wanted to be a despot, but a benevolent one,
enlightened by reason over dogma, tyranny, or
revenge. Those who helped her seize power were
lavishly rewarded, former opponents pardoned.
“You only did your duty,” she assured one who
had urged Peter III to rise against her.
She asked for open dialogue. “I am very fond
of the truth,” she wrote to one official. “Argue
with me without any danger if it leads to good
results in affairs.” When she found members
of her own Senate uneducated about their vast
nation, she furnished them with an atlas. Her
social, health, and educational reforms included
the creation of the country’s first orphanage. She
argued for the scientific but terrifying advance-
ment of inoculation and become one of the first
in Russia to be immunized against smallpox.
Catherine expanded schools across the empire
and set up Russia’s first public educational in-
stitution for women, the Smolny Institute for
Noble Maidens, fully aware that it was on the
nobility that her fragile hold on power depended.
CORONATION COUTURE
Catherine’s coronation
portrait shows her in all her
imperial splendor. Topped by a
sparkling diamond crown, she
displays the royal regalia and
is draped with the blue sash of
St. Andrew, the highest honor
of the Russian Empire.
JOSSE/LEEMAGE/GETTY
82 MARCH/APRIL 2023
PALACE SQUARE
Rising high above St.
Petersburg, the Alexander
Column stands before the
Winter Palace, the former
residence of Russian royals,
and the State Hermitage
Museum, founded by
Catherine the Great in 1764.
LINGXIAO XIE/GETTY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 83

 with the French satirist Voltaire and other En-
lightenment philosophers. When the penniless
Denis Diderot put his library up for sale, she
bought it—but ordered that it stay with him.
Letters of ideas and mutual flattery that flowed
between her and Europe’s most progressive
thinkers were shared far and wide, advancing her
publicity campaign at home and abroad.“Would
one ever have suspected 50 years ago that one day
the Scythians [Russians] would so nobly recom-
pense in Paris the virtue, science, and philosophy
that are treated so shamefully among us?” Vol-
taire’s question must have pleased her.

Reforms in Russia
In 1765 Catherine embarked on her most am-
bitious project yet, one that would take her up
to three hours each day and two years to write.
Her Nakaz, or Instruction, was designed to be
a guidebook for the reorganization of Russia’s
entire legal and administrative system,
CATHERINE THE CREATIVE based heavily on the French philosopher
Montesquieu’s 1748 Spirit of the Laws. It sup-
SHE CALLED IT SCRIBBLING, but the scale and intimacy of Catherine’s ported humanitarian ideas of a free citizenry
writings bring her into focus like few other rulers. Ever keen to argue her beholden to a clear set of laws, and it disavowed
positions—and have the last word—she wrote letters and multiple ver- capital punishment and torture. It also attempt-
sions of her memoirs as part of a canon ranging from legal arguments and
ed to raise the ever troubling question of serf-
Russian history to children’s books, satirical plays, and comedic operas.
dom in Russia. Serfs, who were bonded to the
BOLSHOI THEATER (ABOVE LEFT). FOUNDED BY CATHERINE II IN 1776 TO PROMOTE THE ARTS IN RUSSIA land and treated as possessions to be bought
ALBUM/FINE ART IMAGES and sold, made up half the empire’s population.
Serfdom was an institution Catherine con-
sidered“intolerable,”though she herself awarded
serfs to her supporters. It was a system so en-
She became a self-admitted“glutton”for art, trenched that a noble’s wealth was measured
collecting across Europe. To house it all, she in the number of “souls” owned, not in land. In
chose a wing off the Winter Palace that would exchange for serfs, nobles had to serve the state,
grow into the world’s largest museum, after the typically through military service.
Louvre. Visitors would be met by a plaque de- Once completed, her Nakaz was bogged down
tailing humorous rules of etiquette. “All ranks by her own bureaucracy and heavily edited by
shall be left outside the doors, similarly hats, and her counselors. Only a fraction of her original
particularly swords.”And: “Speak with modera- work was published—gone were sections al-
tion and not too loudly, so that others present lowing serfs to buy their freedom and limiting
have not an earache or headache.” their servitude to six years. What was released
It was a haven for the intellectual was nonetheless progressive enough that it was
informality she loved, and she translated across Europe—and banned in France.
named it her Hermitage. Her effort also resulted in the first ever meet-
In 1763, her second year on the ing of a representative national assembly from
throne, she began what would be- all parts of her empire. The delegates were to
come a lifelong correspondence freely discuss their region’s needs, but they also
chose to debate a proper title for Catherine in
INSTRUCTION MANUAL. CATHERINE THE GREAT BASED
MUCH OF HER SYSTEM OF LAW, THE NAKAZ, ON THE gratitude for gathering them. According to his-
WORKS OF THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER MONTESQUIEU. torian Robert Massie, the most popular titles
REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE LILLIAN GOLDMAN
LAW LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY were “the Great” and “All-Wise Mother of the
INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS
Catherine (seated) had an
enduring passion for knowledge
and met with the world’s greatest
minds, including Russian
polymath, astronomer, and
writer Mikhail Lomonosov (at
left). 1884 painting, Ivan Kuzmich
Fyodorov. Private collection
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 85

 FINLAND

St. Petersburg
R U SS I A
S ea
Ba l t i c

Szczecin Moscow
(Stettin)
GERMANY
BELARUS
EUROPE POLAND

AUST.

HUNGARY UKRAINE N. AMERICA

ROMANIA
A S I A
RO

EU
CRIMEA
PE
ASIA
Bl a c k S
ea Full extent of the

Ca
Russian Empire, 1796
GREECE

spi
an
TÜRKIYE

Se a
(TURKEY)
M
ed
it
er
ra
ne
an
Se Extents at the time of
a
Catherine the Great’s death in 1796
Russian Empire Ottoman Empire
Kingdom of Prussia
AFRICA Present-day boundaries shown in gray

RUSSIAN Fatherland.”Catherine refused them all. But“the
EMPIRE Great” did receive the most votes.
Catherine II greatly The debate also helped legitimize her rule,
expanded the land which had already seen threats. In 1764 disgrun-
under Russian tled military officers tried to free a remaining
control (above)
Romanov with a claim to the throne—24-year-
before her death
in 1796. old Ivan VI, imprisoned since birth by Empress
NG MAPS. SOURCE: WARD AND OTHERS, THE Elizabeth. He was preemptively killed by his
CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY ATLAS, 1912
guards. Claiming to be the tsar Peter III him-
self and somehow still alive, a Cossack named
Yemel­yan Pugachev led a massive peasant up-
rising against Catherine that lasted two years. It
was finally crushed in 1775.
Although she started her reign sending couri-
ers to Europe with messages of peace, Catherine
increasingly responded with force when she saw
either a threat or an opportunity in the shift-
ing geopolitical alliances around her. She would
go on to annex Crimea from the Ottomans,
partition Poland with the Prussians, and expand
her empire by 200,000 square miles. She also
knew when to avoid conflict, declining a formal
request from King George III to send 20,000
Russian troops and 1,000 Cossack cavalry sol-
diers to quell a revolutionary war that appeared
to be breaking out in Britain’s American colonies.
Her military campaigns were often spear-
headed by a“favorite”—the official designation
of the men who would be her lovers, collabora-
tors, and intellectual confidants. One, Grigory
Grigoryevich Orlov, had made it possible for her
to seize the throne; another she would later ap-
point as the conveniently pliable king of Poland.
The most powerful of all, and possibly married
to her in secret, was Grigory Potemkin. He would
reshape her empire’s southern reaches and build
up a Black Sea naval fleet—helping her fulfill yet
another goal of Peter the Great’s.

CLASSIC CAMEO. CATHERINE II AS MINERVA, ROMAN Epitaph for an Empress

GODDESS OF WISDOM AND WAR. 18TH CENTURY, GRAND
DUCHESS MARIA FEODOROVNA, PRIVATE COLLECTION.
In 1789, after Catherine had been on the throne
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY nearly 30 years, the violence of the French

86 MARCH/APRIL 2023
EMPRESS’S FAVORITE
One of Catherine’s lovers
and closest advisers, Count
Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov
helped overthrow Peter III and
put her on the throne. In 1762,
she allegedly bore him a son
in secret. Oil on canvas, 1766,
Vigelius Eriksen. Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
ALBUM/PRISMA

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 87


UNPOPULAR PAUL I
ISOLATED AT BIRTH from his mother by the controlling empress Elizabeth,
Paul never mended the bond broken between mother and son. Catherine
was wary of his ambition to rule. Paul was jealous of her power and the at-
tention she lavished on her lovers. After Catherine’s death Paul reestablished
male primogeniture and reversed many of her policies, including the 1785
Charter of Nobility that had just freed nobles from taxes and military ser-
vice. In 1801, five years into his reign, the unpopular tsar was assassinated.
PAUL I OF RUSSIA. OIL ON CANVAS, UNIDENTIFIED ARTIST, CA 1790. STATE HISTORY MUSEUM, MOSCOW
HERITAGE IMAGES/GETTY
Revolution marked a drastic turning point in
her love affair with the Enlightenment. Fearing
revolution herself, she began to censor liberal
writings, including a study on the suffering of
the serfs—and even the works of her longtime
friend Voltaire.
Catherine had already learned that some of
her ideals were easier to imagine than to ex-
ecute. She explained as much to the philoso-
pher Diderot, who visited her in Russia in 1773.
“In your plans for reform, you are forgetting
the difference between our two positions: you
work only on paper which accepts anything,
is smooth and flexible and offers no obstacles
either to your imagination or your pen, while
I, poor empress, work on human skin, which is
far more sensitive and touchy.”
ICE-CREAM COOLER. PART OF THE “CAMEO” SÈVRES
DINNER SERVICE THAT WAS A GIFT FROM CATHERINE II TO
GRIGORY POTEMKIN. 1778. HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG.
PHOTO 12/GETTY
In her final years, as she ruled her empire, she
found comfort playing on the floor with her
grandchildren—mothering them in ways she
was not allowed with her own children—and
taking walks with her greyhounds. On November
5, 1796, according to the historian Massie, “she
rose at six, drank black coffee, and sat down to
write.” A few hours later she was found uncon-
scious, most likely having suffered a stroke. On
November 6 it was announced that the empress
was dead, and His Majesty Paul would take the
throne.
It was only after her death that she would be
called “the Great.” In her lifetime she had always
opposed it, as she explained in a 1788 letter to
the German-born diplomat Baron von Grimm.
“I beg you to no longer call me, nor to any longer
give me the sobriquet of Catherine the Great, be-
cause primo, I do not like any sobriquet, secondo,
my name is Catherine II, and tertio, I do not want
anyone to say of me as of Louis XV, that one finds
him badly named.”Fond of listing items in threes,
she nonetheless added a fourth and final point
for laughs:“My height is neither great nor small.”
Her memoirs—which revealed the inner
workings of court, Peter III’s failures, and the
possibility that Paul was illegitimate and per-
haps not a Romanov—immediately became a
state secret, suppressed for a century then buried
again after 1917, when the Bolsheviks set up their
headquarters in her Smolny Institute for Noble
Maidens and later killed the last of the tsars.
But in life, ever in control of her empire and
her pen and partly in jest, she even wrote her
own epitaph: “Here lies Catherine II, born in
Stettin in 1729. She arrived in Russia in 1744 to
marry PeterIII. At 14, she had three desires—to
be loved by her husband, Empress Elizabeth, and
her people. She omitted nothing to achieve this.”
She achieved so much more. In her style, one
might argue: Primo, she was a woman ahead
of her time, so she shaped her era to accom-
modate herself. Secondo, she chose her battles
wisely. Tertio, her lasting reforms, in the end,
may have been her greatest coup of all.
EVE CONANT IS A STAFF WRITER AND EDITOR FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC AND
HAS WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, DISCOVER, AND ARCHAEOLOGY.
Learn more
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
Robert K. Massie, Random House, 2011
The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
Mark Cruse and Hilde Hoogenboom, trans., Random House, 2006
REFLECTIONS IN THE NEVA
Built in the early 1700s, Saints
Peter and Paul Cathedral
stands along the Neva River
in St. Petersburg. Inside are
the resting places of most
of Russia’s imperial leaders,
including Peter the Great and
Catherine the Great.
VLADISLAV ZOLOTOV/GETTY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 89

PETER THE GREAT RULED RUSSIA FROM 1682 UNTIL HIS DEATH IN
1725. PORTRAIT, CIRCA 1700
STOCK MONTAGE/GETTY

CARRYING OUT
PETER THE GREAT’S
IMPERIAL VISION
CATHERINE THE GREAT was an admirer of Russia’s
most influential leader: Peter I. Better known as
Peter the Great, he is credited with transform-
ing and modernizing 18th-century Russia; he in-
creased industrialization, strengthened the mili-
tary, and encouraged relationships with Western
Europe. When Catherine became empress in
1762, she was keen to prove her loyalty to Russia
and its heritage. One way she demonstrated her
fidelity was through works of art that connected
her to Peter I. A 1791 painting (right) commis-
sioned by Catherine at the end of the Russo-Turk-
ish Wars shows her placing hard-won trophies
from the Battle of Chesma before a metaphori-
cal tomb of Peter the Great (his actual tomb is
in Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral). Catherine is
humble before her predecessor and entreats his
blessing for her expansion of the Russian Empire.
LEADER’S LEGACY. CATHERINE II PLACES TROPHIES BEFORE PETER I’S
TOMB. OIL ON CANVAS, 1791, ANDREAS CASPAR HÜNE. STATE HERMITAGE
MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG.
ALBUM/AKG

90 MARCH/APRIL 2023
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 91
DISCOVERIES

The Riddle
of the Roman
Shipwrecks at Pisa
In 1998, the first of many ancient ships was unearthed far from Pisa’s
rivers and coastline. Archaeologists wanted to know how they got there.

W
ork was under
way near the
San Rossore
railway sta-
tion on the outskirts of Pisa
in 1998, when bulldozers
sliced into something wood-
en. Arriving on the scene,
archaeologist Stefano Bruni
saw that the builders had
struck the hull of an ancient
ship. During the next year,
eight more vessels were un-
covered at the site, turning it
into an archaeological gold
mine.
For the following 18 years,
a team directed by Bruni
explored the site and discov-
ered the remains of more
shipwrecks, over 30 in all.
There were countless artifacts
—ceramics, glass, metal,
wood, ropes, fishing tools—
and human skeletons. But of
even more interest were the
ages of the wrecks; the old-
est ones date to the second
Pisa
century b.c. while the most
recent are from the seventh
century a.d. This location
was an important maritime
center for centuries, but the
site puzzled archaeologists.
The dozens of wrecks were
found some distance from
the city’s rivers, the Arno
and the Serchio, and several
miles from where the rivers
meet the sea.
Pisa as a Port
Pisa is world famous today
for its 12th-century leaning
tower, but its role as a major
port is not as familiar. Histo-
rians are well acquainted
with Pisa’s role as a maritime
trade center. Its location at
the mouth of the Arno made
it an important port and
shipbuilding center for the
Romans and for pre-Roman
settlements in Italy. In the
third century b.c., Pisa be-
came an important base for
the Roman fleet during the
THE ALKEDO, a Roman
Punic wars against Carthage. military surveillance
Under Roman rule, it was craft, sank in the early
known as Portus Pisanus. first century a.d. It is
The harbor’s significance only now on display in the
Museum of the Ancient
grew under Emperor Augus-
Ships of Pisa.
tus. Long after Roman rule MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SHIPS, PISA
ended, Pisa retained impor-
tance as a sea-trading city,
one of the four great mari-
time republics of 11-century
Italy. As the city evolved, sand and
The leaning tower and the soil washed downstream by
mystery of the buried ships the local rivers was deposited
are linked by the region’s ge- at their mouths as layers of
ology. Ancient Pisa was silt. As they built up over
founded on an alluvial plain: time, these layers upon layers

4th century b.c. ca 180 b.c. 1st century a.d.

The Alkedo (Seagull),
PORT Pre-Roman harbor
structures at what
After Pisa becomes
a Roman colony, its a Roman military
OF PISA will later be the harbor develops into surveillance craft,
Pisa shipyard are an important strategic sinks in the Pisa
built. port for Rome. canal during a flood.

BRONZE SESTERTIUS (FRONT AND BACK) FROM THE REIGN OF HADRIAN (SECOND CENTURY A.D.) FOUND IN A PISA WRECK.
GIOVANNI ALBANI LATTANZI

led to a centuries-long reces-
sion of the coastline, leaving
Pisa farther from the sea. This
soft, sandy ground is the prin-
cipal cause of the tilt of Pisa’s
famous tower.
6th century a.d.
The buildup of silt
makes the canal
impassable and
will soon lead to its
disappearance.
TRAPPED TOGETHER
UNDER A SHIP that sank in the first century a.d.,
archaeologists found the remains of a man and a
dog. Their presence is a strong indication of how
suddenly a flood could overwhelm a ship. Discov-
Sands and Floods eries like these, in which victims are found in the
As Bruni’s team continued position where they died, explain why the Pisa
to investigate the ancient site is sometimes called the “Pompeii of the sea.”
wrecks, it gradually began to MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SHIPS, PISA
piece together how so
many came to be clustered in
one place. Analysis of the
sediments suggested that the
San Rossore site once lay
along an ancient canal con-
nected to a branch of the Ser-
chio River in the north. Ships
could travel from the river
and down the canal to where
they could unload their cargo
in relatively calm waters.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 93
DISCOVERIES

THE TEAM carefully

excavates the remains
of broken amphorae
found in one of the first
Roman-era shipwrecks
discovered at the Pisa
site in 1998.
GIOVANNI ALBANI LATTANZI

The Arno River experi- of sandy sediments were cargo of food from Naples about 45 feet long and some
enced major flooding many dumped onto the plain. The sank in the canal, and the 15 feet wide, with a capacity
times between the second floodwaters sank unlucky skeletons of an sailor and a for a cargo of almost 42 tons.
century b.c. and the seventh vessels that were moored in dog were found preserved in Various indications suggest
century a.d., the period that the canal. The sand eventu- the wreckage. The oldest that it was a vessel intended
corresponds with the finds. ally silted up the canal until wreck found to date sank for coastal navigation.
Pasquino Pallecchi, a geolo- it disappeared from history. during a flood in the first About 300 Greco-Italic
gist involved with the exca- The absence of oxygen in dec ades of the second cen- amphorae were found around
vation, believes that during the accumulated sediments tury b.c. This wreck is not the wreckage, representing
these floods, vast quantities helped preserve artifacts fully preserved, but enough approximately half the vol-
from the ships, especially or- remains to determine its ume of the cargo. It’s not cer-
ganic material. A first- size. Team members esti- tain what the amphorae con-
century a.d ship bearing a mate it would have measured tained, but pork shoulders
were recovered along with
the pottery fragments, lead-
Almost all the finds belong to ing some to posit that the
amphorae-laden cargo ships, mostly boat was transporting meat
stored in brine. Given that
vessels that plied inland waterways. many objects belonging to
the crew, such as perfume
A SMALL AMPHORA FOUND INSIDE A SECOND-CENTURY A.D. SHIPWRECK AT PISA burners and vessels for
MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SHIPS, PISA
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 DISCOVERIES

Hooks, Dice,
and Coins
Excavations at the San Rossore site have
made it possible to recover a large number of
personal effects and valuables that the crew 3.
of the ships carried with them, such as those
pictured here.
PHOTOS: MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SHIPS, PISA

2.
4.

5.
1.

1. Pot decorated with 2. Fishing hooks 3. Coins, perhaps 4. Gaming dice made 5. Perfectly preserved
engravings, Sixth to and sinkers. Date a sailor’s pay. First of animal bone. First vegetable-fiber rope.
seventh centuries a.d. unknown. century a.d. century a.d. First century a.d.

preserving food, are of Iberi-
an origin, it’s believed that
the ship had set sail from
there.
Well Preserved
Many finds in the former ca-
nal belong to cargo ships and
vessels used on inland water-
ways, but the presence of car-
penters’ tools, such as mal-
lets, chisels, nails, and rivets,
indicate that shipyards once
stood along this portion of
the waterway. There, boats
Mallets, chisels, nails, and rivets
indicate that there were shipyards
along this portion of the waterway.
could be serviced and re-
paired before heading out.
Many other wrecks were
once river boats. Among
these, the discovery of a lin-
tre is particularly interesting.
These shallow-water craft
had rounded hulls and lacked
keels, making them unstable.
Their shape and means of
propulsion were similar to a
gondola.
So far, only one wreck un-
covered at the site seemed
designated for military
functions. On the first bench
of this vessel someone once
etched, in Greek letters, the
Latin word Alkedo, meaning
“seagull.” Archaeologists
think this may have been the
name of the ship. Possibly
intended for river surveil-
lance tasks, it sank late in
t h e re i g n o f A u g u stu s ,
around a.d. 14. At more than
2,000 years old, the boat
remains remarkably well
preserved.
The most recent ship-
wreck is a large barge used
for transporting sand, which
sank between a.d. 580 and
640. No vessels have been
found of a later date than
this one. The silt that likely
made the ancient canal im-
passable also had embalming
qualities that preserved the
vessels, which is why the
site is sometimes called
“Pompeii of the sea.”
Today, the ships that have
been extracted from the
ground are displayed—along
with their cargoes and other
artifacts—in the Museum of
Ancient Ships, Pisa, which is
located in one of the city’s
16th-century warehouses.
To date, more than 30 ships
have been found, but archae-
ologists believe many more
lie waiting to be discovered
in the sandy soils of Pisa.
—Antonio Ratti

96 MARCH/APRIL 2023
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to treat yourself.
Watch Specifications:
• Complications: stopwatch, alarm, a.m./p.m. settings,
and day, date and month
• Precision movement chronograph
• Stainless steel caseback and crown
• Water-resistant to 3 ATM
Men’s Due Volta Watch $399 $59* + S&P Save $320
*Special price only for customers using the offer code.
Join more than 1 million smart
people who own stauer watches 1-800-333-2045
Your Insider Offer Code: DVW171-02

Stauer, 14101 Southcross Drive W., Ste 155, Dept. DVW171-02, Burnsville, MN 55337 www.stauer.com

Stauer® | AFFORD THE EXTRAORDINARY

®
 Made To Be Admired
OUR STERLING SILVER LAPIS CUFF BRACELET
CELEBRATES THE BEAUTY OF NATURE

$
199
Compare at $289

With pretty dragonflies and lapis cabochons in sterling silver with

18kt yellow gold accents, our Bali-style cuff bracelet intrigues
with intricate details and adds a unique touch to your look, too!

Available in 7" $199 and 8" $219

Shown larger for detail.

ORDER TODAY!
To receive this special price and free shipping use offer code: TWIST126
1.800.556.7376 or visit ross-simons.com/twist
Item #903027