phil25

And yet Cato, without the USSR's sacrifices in 1941-45, Europe might still now be under Nazi domination. Evil, even worse than Hitler, Stalin and his regime may have been, but both the UK and USA were prepared to work with him to overcome what was perceived as something even worse. Churchill spoke of supping with the devil, but sup he, and FDR, did. The extent of the Rusian contribution to the final vistory, and the extent of their losses, dwarf those of the western powers. But I agree, communism was an awful trick played on the ordinary man, by unscrupulous, immoral and self-serving leaders. I do not mourn its passing. But on 11/11 it is worth pauing, I think (though I apologise for being off topic) to remember one shining valuable thing they did. Phil

In brief, I don't have much time at the moment, the republic achieved and established almost everything that Rome achieved and established - ALL the principles on which the empire was founded. But a government founded on what was satisfactory and practical for a City, was not suitable for an empire. It foundered, and the authority of a single mind was found essential to maintain (so far as that was possible) what had been achieved by the republic. But I am increasingly attracted to the idea that Rome's fall began with Actium. Almost nothing new was accomplished after that event, apart from stability, which was essential, but related to the status quo, not to anything incremental. Simplistic, I know, but a conclusion I find inescapable logically. But that doesn't mean I believe the republic could have survived, or should have been restored. Such thoughts are nonsense IMHO. It was a dead duck, but with it died all that was progressive and energetic in Rome. (Please don't hold me to any of that, but it is a rough road-map to my thrust of mind nowadays.) Phil

Do you know, GO, I didn't understand a single word of your post!!

Sauron - and before him Morgoth. Currently the Bush administration in the USA - but that's just a passing thing!! Phil

One of the implications of having freedom of expression is that people will use it in ways one does not agree with. But most of these youngsters will grow out of these views - I think you'll find that many of the staunchest upholders of society in many countries were "radical"/madcap when they were young. They let of steam, then come to realise that maybe the old folks weren't so daft after all!! In the mid-1930s there was a famous debate in the Oxford Union which voted that the students involved would not die for King and Country. It was many of those same students who fought (and in some cases died) in the Battle of Britain only a few years later. Wow, i just read what i wrote and I seem to be arguing moderation!! I think I better go and lie down. Phil

Warmest best wishes for many happy returns of the day, Pertinax. Have a good one. Phil

Noted, PP - I will desist. Phil

Martial has some interesting things to say about lanistae which puts the Roman attitude to the games and gladiators in its right perspective. The public might love the spectacle, the heroism, the way men died, but they knew the degradation involved and did not hold those who delivered the goods in high esteem. A lanista was the lowest of the low - though he might make a great deal of money - his hands were red with blood. It was as though "trade" (which like the Victorians, the Romans thought was beneath the aristocracy) was coupled with grave-robbing in the most loathsome and nefarious of professions. Phil

Each to his own, Caesar. But there are scholars on this site - modest ones - but one's whose depth of knowledge and understanding of the period sometimes makes my spine tingle. Quoting scholars is useful if done intelligently, but as the Good Book says, even the devil can quote scripture. Just because it's written in a book doesn't make it correct or true. Citing a single quote says no more than that you have read that quotation. It is how you cite references and marshall your arguments, and what you bring to the analysis that distinguishes the good from the indifferent. All MHO, of course, but if you read posts by Andrew Dalby, The Augusta, Primus Pilus, MP Cato, Ursus, to name but a few of the many, you'll see what I mean. I by no means agree with all of them all the time (or ever) but I sit up and take notice of their views and learn from their style and erudition. they - and i say again, many others here - are class acts. We are in high calibre company on this site, Caesar, and sometimes I think it's good to recognise that, even if the individuals will not say it for themselves. Phil

We shall remember them. And I DO include those who fought on all sides in both World Wars. Norman davies new book on the 1939-45 European War (which I am reading currently) is a salutary reminder that comparative morality can require selective thinking. Many of those who fought in the Wehrmacht or the red Army probably did so because they were compelled to, or because (on the basis of their perspective) they thought THEY were doing the right thing. So in the silence tomorrow and on Sunday, I will be thinking of and paying my respects to ALL those who fought (including many civilians, and women and even the animals who had no choice and suffered so much. I find it a humbling time, as I am not sure I would have had the courage to face what my predecessors did. God bless them all. Phil

Can "consumption" come on so quickly as a result of a wound? Such was the loss of men through early death in Augustus' bloodline, one wonders whether there was a genetic weakness of some sort. If so, then it, not Livia, did the work in preparing the way for her son - who had none of that genetic strain in him. But of blood-relatives of Octavian/Augustus: Marcellus (son of Augustus' sister Octavia so perhaps similarly tainted), Gaius, Lucius, Germanicus all died young - or at least prematurely and often relatively suddenly. We know the possible impact of porphoria in the descendents of Mary, Queen of Scots (including James I&VI and George III) is only now being recognised and assessed; so too the strain of haemophilia running through the female descendents of Queen Victoria, and affecting, among others, the last Tsarevitch with potential consequences of shattering importance. If such a genetic influence was present in the early principiate, it might explain a lot. (Pace Mr Graves!!) Phil

Again, Augusta, you have more of the detail than I, in regard to Posthumus banishment. I had not focused on, even if I was previously aware at all, of the two stages of Posthumus' removal from Rome. Human nature would, of course, indicate that a lad banished for misdemeanours could become resentful, and given his political position, prey to those who needed a figurehead or a name to give presteige to a plot. Thus an indiscretion could have become an act of treason as day follws night. All this - I mean the possible political intrigues of the two Julias and young Agrippa - probably arose (if they did) from Augustus' longevity. While he lived they were denied power - even influence - by the princeps' very existence, and the personality of Livia who would brook no female rivals. I do not mean, in saying that, to imply I think she murdered or plotted - but as her efforts under Tiberius revealed, she relished her influence and personal position. If either Julia were also involved in adultery - and maybe there was no smoke without at least a moderate fire - boredom may have been the cause. the lovers then use their closeness to the princeps' daughter to exert influence, even pressure. As Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa's children, the two Julia's may also have seen an intra-familial coup as a real and practical possibility if, assuming Syme is right, their natural father had achieved a level of recognition within the regime by just such a mild application of force... I leave it there - and hope this digression from the original question is OK with Paul. Phil

I bow to your knowledge, of course, Andrew. nothing more to add. Phil

Suetonius had tastes similar to the National Enquirer or "The Sun" - he loved and collected scandal. I'm afraid I don't take Suetonius, undiluted, as a source for anything any more, unless I see corroboration elsewhere. Nero may have been a bad man, but I think (as with Gaius "Caligula") many of the claims should be taken with a pinch of salt, as exaggerations or as capable of alternative explanation. the romans used sexual denigration as a political tool (see what Antonius and Octavian said about each other). It was not to be taken too seriously. Phil

Ramses, you wrote: the Romans and Greeks viewed the Egyptians far differently from Northern Europe . i don't disagree for a moment, but you are now trying to change the nature of the debate. The question under discussion is specifically the comparison of gaul and Egypt in the time of Augustus. Phil

You are quite right, Augusta, and your knowledge of the genealogical detail is both VERY impressive and far better than mine. I stand corrected. But it still begs the question - indeed, IMHO makes it more germane - whatever Posthumus had done must have been very worrying, to cause augustus not at least to seek an heir of Posthumus. This could have been done in exile. Was Posthumus thus too physically dangerous to let a woman near him? Or needed to be kept totally incommunicado to avoid him betraying a secret, subborning others into his plans? The whole thing is a puzzle. But Octavian's old ruthlessness sure came out in Augustus' treatment of both Julia's and Agrippa Posthumus. It overbore any dreams of increasing the likelihood of heirs of his blood. Phil

Andrew, I agree re Egyptian influences on Greek thinking. But by the ptolemaic period native Egyptians were almost entirely excluded from public life - Alexandria was a Hellenistic city. My point is that, in the period under discussion, to cite "Egyptian" technology" in any sense (save reference to the physical country) is misleading. I am seeking to elicit from Ramses some sense of what he is getting at. Phil

Andrew, you may hbe right. But it can be argued that in times when freedom of speech is not guaranteed, writers resort to history to say what they really want to say about their own times. Thomas More's Richard III, written by a man who spoke to those who knew the king, and a scholar, is full of simple factual mistakes. It has been asserted that More did this to indicate he was actually writing about something else - the tyranny of Henry VII the first Tudor, something that he could not do directly. Now I don't fully accept that - I think More was just careless - butI think the argument might well apply to Tacitus, who had no love for Domitian. I do not, however, assert that Tacitus was wrong - I merely wish (for the reasons I gave) to question conventional assumptions about Nero. labelling him as the "anti-Christ" as is still popularly done, IMHO, gets in the way of assessing him as an historical figure. But you should know me by now Andrew - I question anything and everything, not to be bloody minded, but to try to deepen my understanding. What I have concluded is that there were certain archetypes that appear to have been used by ancient writers when considering emperors - the similarity of accounts the deaths of Diomitian and Commodus are striking. Phil

MPC - my experience of Pompeiian houses is that living in them must have been a much more "collective" experience than (certainly in the UK) most people experience today. I have talked of toilets and their positioning, often next to the kitchen, in private homes to allow for flushing. The number of private houses that had their own baths would have been small, and could have related to convenience - not having to walk to the public baths, queue, jostle etc - rather than a desire for privacy. Cubicula (bedrooms) in private houses seem to have relied upon curtains to close the door off, rather than wooden, or lockable wooden doors. In some houses they open off corridors, and may not have suffered from the need for others to walk through them to access rooms beyond (as much as say in medieval times) but by our standards lacking absolute privacy. Yet the Romans knew of doors and locks but did not use them in that way. But my thrust is not absolute - I do not say that the Romans could not conceive of privacy or desire it - but comparative. IMHO, if we went back in time we would be VERY surprised at the difference in expectations. Phil

It still seems to me, Ramses, that you are failing to discriminate between ancient Egyptian (ie Pharaonic) and Ptolemaic times/technology, and are just lumping the lot into one basket because of location. Ptolemaic technology was largely Greek-based so far as I am aware. So is it justifiable to call it Egyptian without distorting the comparison under discussion? If you believe so, then would you allow that "Gallic" technology could encompass what the Romans had introduced in Cisalpine Gaul and The Province? I would not as it would distort the image. So I ask again, what is the genuinely EGYPTIAN technology of the period under debate? Examples please. Phil

You mean the retiarius. He was usually pitted against the secutor. Other categories of fighter, included: the murmillo the Thraex - or Thracian - who fought with a curved sword (the sica) and the hoplomachus. Phil I may come back to this when I have time, but it is a complex subject and I don't have time right now.

Posthumus must have been exiled for some reason - and some version of the "he was too uncontrollable to be left free" seems plausible. Perhaps he did resent being excluded from the succession - and all the early offices and titles (Princes of Youth etc) that his brothers were given. That could have driven him into the arms of the "opiosition" - after all his mother, Jjulia the elder, and sister Juilia the younger were both exiled. While the causes of their banishment and imprisonment have been alleged to be adultery, it has also been argued that, especially the mother, was involved in some sort of coup/plot to force Augustus to step down. the participation of Marcus Antonius' son, Iullus, is circumstantial evidence of something of the kind, IMHO. Who disposed of Posthumus at the time of Augustus' death is anyone's guess really - I tend to discount Livia, but Tiberius or Augustus himself are both possibilities. In the context of this thread, if Augustus was responsible for giving the order, then it undermines the importance of heredity in the succession, at least if the heir concerned was either unstable, or less capable than an adopted heir. Secondly. Augustus had a surviving male descendent who - if not suitable might have been married off and had children - this was never done with Posthumus apparently. So while heredity was clearly of importance to Augustus, it seems (to me at least) that it was not of over-riding importance. At the end of the day Tiberius (an unsympathetic, adopted son) was preferable to Agrippa (a blood relation but without talent). Phil

Various sexually-based episodes were apparently arranged for the arena, but the Colosseum was not built in Nero's day. The incidents to which I refer probably took place later - any book on "Gladiators" will tell you what they are, but they were sadistic, and don't warrant detailed discussion on a forum such as this IMHO. Can I also suggest that "pervert" is hardly a helpful word to use in the thread title either. Again just my opinion, but I does seem to pre-judge the issue. As Nero appears to have been bi-sexual, the word could also be taken to be somewhat discriminatory, which i am sure you do not intend to be. Nero was complex, but whether he personally had much of a hand in dreaming up the tortures used in the arena is another question. He seems to me to have had artistic rather than sadistic tendencies. The entertainments provided for the public are also a large issue - there are reports even of theatrical performances that involved actual death. I sometimes think that a (rather inadequate but not irrelevant) parallel might be the modern taste for gory horror films that seem todo good business and cinemas and on dvd among certain types of people. The distasteful, as far as I can see, get grosser with each new film. Fans just want more, and more invention. So, I suspect it was with the games. Nero is specifically said to have persecuted Christians and used their flaming bodies on poles/crosses to light the circus. Peronally I doubt this, as there were unlikely to have been enough Christian converts in Rome in 64ish to provide the right numbers. We might be looking at a mis-dated Domitianic persecution here, or just a later invention. But torture and pain, where convicted criminals were concerned, had a different rationale until the C19th. In an era without even a minimally effective pain reliever - no anasthetics, nothing to relieve the pain of child birth or death from various painful diseases, the average human LIVED with almost continual pain. Only by inflicting MORE on those outside society, or those who broke the rules, could the lawful and just feel that they were in some sense "better" off than those condemned. A strange argument, but one that applied. Phil

At which period are we speaking. Ptolemaic Egypt could produce the Pharos, but what else - and was not the basis of that technology Greek, not Egyptian? The pyramids, Sphinx etc were in the past, they were amazing maybe, but hardly current technology, which is surely the subject of our discussion? In naval construction, the Egyptians apparently produced quinqueremes of large size around the time of Actium, but they proved unwieldy - hardly a good advert. So what are we talking about here, Ramses? What do you have in mind? Phil

There are several examples of New Kingdom chariots in the Cairo Museum - including those from Tutankhamun's tomb - none are scythed!! I am unaware of any reliefs or paintings from Egypt of such vehicles. Phil