Ludovicus

Moonlapse, As a US citizen, I would most appreciate if government in my country were less under control of Exxon, the defense contractors, and other large cooporations. If you want to know who's calling the shots in Washington, you need to know who's buying off the elected representatives of the US Congress.

"You must not be familiar with Silvio Berluscone." Yes, very familiar with Berlusconi. I'm also familiar with how the Italians got rid of him in the April elections and how they soundly defeated his constitutional amendment in June. We still have Bush and the "Oil Boys." It interesting how some people feel free to make racist remarks about Italians and Italian Americans in an anonymous chat room. They seem to think that only in Italy money "pays the piper." Most of the US Congress is in the pay of Washington lobbyists.

What does this question have to do with the subject of this website: The Roman Empire? As a citizen of the US, I find the answer to this question unfortunate. At this moment I am watching a CBS news report on how New Orleans is not ready for a category 3 huricane. I have family in Italy. Until the early 1980's they were definitely worse off than my parents and me in Ohio. This is no longer true. My Italian cousins enjoy a better standard of living and a better democracy than we in the USA do now.

Thanks so much. A very interesting resource, and free, too!

As an amateur genealogist, I've never heard of any documented pedigree that reached back beyond the time of Charlemagne. Perhaps it was the many barbarian invasions and migrations, the decline of the Roman school system, and the general decline in life expectancy and living standards in the West that made record keeping there impossible.

Ginevra, Tante grazie per la tua riposta cosi interessante!

Bottom line: I wouldn't say that any of the modern Romance languages are 'close' to Latin in terms of syntax, because there have been such leaps in terms of word order, nominal and verbal inflection, roles of function words, and clause construction. My specialty is Spanish, not Italian, even tho I grew up with speakers of the Italian dialect Abruzzese. Three and four-year olds in Spanish-speaking countries have little trouble using the subjunctive, at least in the simpler tenses, in sentences such as these, for example: "Mama, quiero que me hagas una avena muy rica. (Mom, I want you to make me some really tasty oatmeal.) "Si estuviera Papa, me habria regalado algo mejor." (If Dad were here, he would have given me a better gift.) Ginevra, do Italian children just as young use the subjunctive (congiuntivo)?

Italy has seen a number of invasions (Germanic) and large immigrations (Albanians, for one.) in the past. I'm not referring to recent arrivals trying to enter the EU via Italy. I don't see how the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula could have perserved their genes without any admixture from other ethnic groups. If you compare Italian vocabulary with those of the other Romance languages (Latin-derived modern languages) there's no doubt that Italian is closest to Latin. However, I venture to say that Spanish will beat Italian when we look at which modern Romance language is closest to Latin in syntax and grammar. Comparing Syntax: Latin: Maria videt canem. Videt canem Maria. Canem Maria videt. Maria canem videt. These all mean the same and are all possible ways to say in Latin, "Maria sees the dog." Spanish: Maria ve al perro. Al perro ve Maria. Ve Maria al perro. Al perro ve Maria. Maria al perro ve. All possible ways of saying "Maria sees the dog." Italian: Maria vide il cane. I believe that this is the only possible way to say "Maria sees the dog" in Italian. The subjunctive mood in Spanish more closely resembles its Latin parent both in spelling and in frequency of use of everyday conversation than Italian.

Perhaps it would be helpful to identify Tenochitlan as the ancient Mexico City.

Here's the "Ritmo Cassinese" from the 12th century, Latium/Campana border area of Italy: Frate meu, de quillu mundu bengo, illoco sejo, et ibi me combengo. Quillu, auditu stu respusu cusci bonu ed amurusu, Dice: "Frate, sedi jusu; non te paira despectusu. Multu fora golejusu ticu fabellare ad usu. Hodie mai plu non andare. C'a ttebe boljo multu addemarandare; serbire, se mme digni commandare. Bolzer' audire nubelle de sse toe dulci fabelle... Acccording to Pei "fora" comes from Latin "fureram." "Bolzer," from Late Latin "volseram" for Classical Latin "volueram." "Golejusu" from "gulosu." "Boljo" from "volo" From my own experience with my grandparents' Abruzzese dialect I can see that "cusci" is the Standard Italian "cosi`" This "Ritmo" can be found with many other Late Latin and early Italian texts in the appendix of "The Italian Language" by Mario Pei, 1941. Anyone care to translate the entire piece?

You're missing a possible response in your poll: I am religious and I don't think the "end of days" is coming.

Language is changing constantly. The last Roman Senate may have published its businesss in classical Latin (as far as I know, nothing of the last sessions has been preserved) but what those senators were speaking would have been an entirely different animal. A lot of evidence points to the loss of the case system (the noun and adjective declensions) in spoken Latin by the year 500. The Placito Capuano are written records of oral testimonies. Keep in mind that the Church and the various Italian monarchies were still publishing documents that were in Latin, tho not classical.

According to Mario Pei in his "The Italian Language", "The earliest text which is unmistakably Italian is the "Placito Capuano" of Monte Cassino (960 AD)" Here is Pei's excerpt from that text, a sentence regarding property rights of a certain monastery: "Sao ko kelle terre per kelle fini que ki contene trenta anni le possette parte Santi Benedicti." Translation of the above sentence in the same author's book "The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages." "I know that those lands within those boundaries which here contains (which are described herein) the Party (Monastery) of Sant Benedict owned them for thirty years.") See also for a detailed history of Italian: http://pagina1.altervista.org/historyaitalian3.htm

An interesting point about the dialects also. Does anyone know about the different dialects and where they come from? The only dialect I know at all is Milanese and that has French overtones The historic Italian dialects come from Latin. At this website you can see a few of the dialects and how they derive from Latin. http://www.abruzzomoliseheritagesociety.org/defina1.htm

My expertise in this area is lacking, but a great source is: Haiman, John, and Paola Beninc

The infant mortality rate (estimated) for Cuba in 2006 is 6.22 per 1,000 live births. For the USA, the rate (estimated) for the same year is 6.43. For the link: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...r/2091rank.html

From the World CIA Fact Book: Cuba definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 97% male: 97.2% female: 96.9% (2003 est.) This is the link: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...ields/2103.html

"... so how did Italian and the modern race arise?" Italy's population can not be fit into the category of any one race. The concept of race is not scientific. Do you mean the modern Italian culture? Even with that, there are many microcultures in Italy according to region and social class.

Before making that comparison it would have been well to check around. Here's how The US stands in regard to infant mortality, not a pretty picture. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...r/2091rank.html About 40 million of US citizens here have no health insurance. For too many years there's been too much Empire building and too little attention paid to the Empire's citizens.

It seems to me that Christianity's appeal also lies in its tenets on justice. Even the Emperor had to answer for his deeds. He would be judged after death just as would the lowliest slave. Early Christianity planted the seeds for what would blossom later as the concept of universal human rights. I know that Greek philosophy and Jewish religion offered these ideas as well. Christians weren't the only ones. Perhaps the best appeal of Christianity to the masses was the image of Christ crucified. What a subversive and earth shaking idea! A lowly non-Roman criminal, member of the working class, from a conquered Middle East province was their God. For more about the appeal and gifts of Christianity in Roman times I suggest: The Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus, by Thomas Cahill He's the author is the famous Hinges of History series: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/bio.html

But did the Roman Empire really "fall" ? Isn't this an outdated way of looking at the Roman world? It certainly carried on in the East for a long time. Granted that living standards in the West declined rapidly beginning at least by the 6th century.

"Ancient human footprints found in Australia About 20,000 years ago, humans trekked along the margins of a shallow lake in Australia, leaving behind records of their passage in the soft, wet sand." http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14063446/

//merged repeat topics "Irish bog yields 1,000-year-old treasure FRAGMENTS of an ancient manuscript, possibly more than 1,000 years old, have been uncovered in a bog in Ireland. The discovery of the psalter in the south Midlands area has already been hailed by experts as the greatest find from a European bog." Here's the link: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/internatio...m?id=1084002006

I didn't compare him, the topic starter did that. Ofcourse Bush is not a good politician, he can't even talk properly, but he's surrounded by hawks, and he's a straightforward thinking guy. I'm the topic starter. My intention was not to judge Bush's abilities as a politician nor to probe his mental capabilities. As a life long reader in Roman history and a former Latin major in college it seems to me that Bush's propaganda machine (all presidents and leaders use them) is very similiar to Augustus's. Both men ended a long tradition of political rights. In Bush's case, he's putting the US Constitution through the paper shredder. E.g. internal spying, abrogating Congressional powers for himself, and attacking long held citizen entitlements such as Social Security. All these radical departures from US traditional democratic values he covers over with appeals intended to make him appear as the upholder of traditional values: the family, freedom of religion, and private enterprise. Augustus ended the Republic and with that the power of Roman institutions such as the Senate. His propaganda depicted him as the defender of the Roman famly, ancestral religion, and public morals. His new political order, in fact, spelled the end Republican values, a more democratic set of principles. Perhaps a difference should be noted here: While Augustus's reign ushered in relative peace throughout the Empire, Bush's reign has propelled the world in the oppositie direction.

In "Rome in Late Antiquity" Betrand Lancon states that the last head of the Roman Senate is recorded in the year 584." Wikipedia states that after the fall of the Goths the building was abandoned only to be remade in the Church of St. Hadrian (San Adriano), 7th century.