Caius Maxentius

I've always thought of Aurelius as a good emperor who came to power at a challenging time. The long wars and plague which were not his fault put his administration and leadership to the test, and he didn't do badly, but as Caldrail suggests, he didn't do great either. I wonder if Pius or Hadrian would have done much better given the same circumstances.

Maybe Valens, whose dealings with the Goths left much to be desired?

These are interesting questions. Trajan was presumably from a long line of patricians, and the upper class in the Roman world was pretty culturally homogenous, was it not? I don't know if there would actually have been much Celt-Iberian cultural upbringing here: that would have been the culture of the peasant class.

Re: Franks using Gallic legions after the fall -- I remember reading something briefly about this, with the Roman military tradition carrying on in certain places even though the Western empire was gone. What evidence do they have of this?

Just curious when the term "legio" or legion fell out of use. Were Roman soldiers still members of legions in the time of Aetius (when it seemed the foederati had become really important in the West); in the time of Justinian; in the time of Heraclius? I assume that by the time the Eastern Empire had re-organized into the military themes, that legion was no longer the term, but I could be wrong.

For a slightly different approach, why not say that the Byzantine Empire begins in 1557, when it was first given that name by the German Hieronymous Wolf. We seem to be searching for the genesis of the "Byzantine" in the Empire's internal history, but maybe the name is more important for what it tells us about the West and its needs, perceptions, and biases.

It seems logical that Byzantium would have fared better if the Persian war hadn't so recently happened. At the same time, I'm not sure if the Empire's weakness was all military in all cases. The amount of social/religious alienation that had happened as a result of the Chalcedonian/Monophysite conflict, especially in places like Egypt and Syria, probably made the local population more amenable to regime change. I'm sure people in these provinces had had their fill of violent religious interference from Constantinople. I'm also not entirely sure about how much better the military situation would have been without the Persian war. I remember reading that Heraclius had to give the army a major overhaul to meet the Persian threat; it doesn't sound like it was in great shape at his accession. If the Arab blitzkrieg had started then, would he have been in a much better position?

I wonder to what degree Roman military vitality, or the desirability of military service, simply boils down to the republic/early empire's "offensive" posture, vs. the later empire's "defensive" posture. Up until the empire stopped expanding, fighting successful wars of expansion led to great booty and wealth that the soldiers shared in to some degree. It was about profit. The later defensive wars were just about fending off invasions. I know there were some spoils in successful defensive wars, but not in nearly the same degree. I imagine that conquering a Hellenistic kingdom in the East during the late Republic brought in way more spoils than repelling the Allemani in the fourth century. Perhaps the citizenry were softened by years of prosperity and other social factors, but perhaps military service also became a "why bother?" proposition, if all you got for it was your regular salary, and an unpleasant, dangerous lifestyle. Was the risk simply not worth what it was in previous generations?

How about Gallienus? The crisis of the third century seemed to reach a fracturous climax during his reign. Valentinian III seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Honorius, I'd include him, too.

Aquilea sounds like it was a nice place. Very Roman, but not so hot in the summer? Then I'd go camping on my holidays in the Agri Decumates, just to live dangerously!

Didn't Diocletian attempt to fix prices, and make many occupations hereditary? I don't know if that made it "Soviet Rome," but it sounds like he saw intervention in the economy and social order as a necessary move.

Thanks. I was asking partly because I read somewhere (I`ll have to look it up) that late emperors did not like the idea of citizen militias being formed, fearing they`d lead to breakaway states, violent taxation revolts, or something like the Bagaudae. I wasn`t sure if the this was related to Valentinian`s reluctant revoking of the ban.

What made an emperor successful? A vigorous campaign of propaganda (including long-lasting stone monuments covered in inscriptions), employing a talented and favourably-biased historian to chronicle your great reign, and dying of old age without ever being successfully usurped! (Tongue firmly in cheek, of course )

I'd love to hear something on this too. I've poked around the web, but I've never found any speculation on who is who in these mosaics, apart from the obvious. I was partly sparked to investigate this because of Guy Gavriel Kay's "Sailing to Sarantium" series, which fills in the blanks about who is in the mosaic, but I assume it's all made up.

I'm confused: was there a ban on bearing arms in the city of Rome, or a ban on Roman citizens bearing arms, no matter where they were?

I'm interested in what people here know/think about the debate over the origins of the inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland. I've been doing some research on this debate, and there are some quite surprising strands of thought on this, going back a very long way. I've read that the Greeks and Romans (Tacitus and Strabo, specifically) thought that the Irish and maybe Picts were related to Scythians. But, of course, the Gaelic speakers of Scotland and Ireland have a strong tradition of thinking of themselves as Celts, related to the Welsh and Gauls. Does anyone know how this connection with Scythians got made? One curious thing is that an early Irish text, the Lebor Gabala Eirinn (Book of Invasions, 11th century AD), makes this connection too, naming a Scythian warrior (Goidel Glas) and his Egyptian wife (Scota) as early colonizers of the island, and founders of the Gaelic culture. I

Despite his reputation for brutality (including fratricide), Caracalla's reign was marked by generous building projects in various places that he visited, and his extension of Roman citizenship to all free citizens of the empire might be considered progressive for its time. As an add-on to this question, are there any emperors who are remembered well for the good things they did, while having a nasty side that gets mostly overlooked?

How close was Latin to the languages of the neighbouring tribes (Etruscans, Samnites, etc.)?

I agree with Ursus -- is there more to Mennen's study than what was reported here? The fact that the equestrian class dominated military and imperial commands after the Severans is commonly discussed. The short, successive reigns of the three Gordians was the senatorial class's last attempt to reassert control over succession in the imperial office, and showed how far removed from military control they had become. I'd be more interested in why this situation came into being when it did, and moreover, why it didn't happen sooner.

I'm curious as to why the oval-style scutum changed to a more rectangular model in the early empire. But even moreso, why was the scutum design abandoned for the circular shield design seen in the fourth century? The circular shield looks less protective and harder to use in testudo formation, but maybe there's a good reason why the late army moved over to this design?

Just wondering if anyone can make recommendations about which is the better of each of these pairs: Trajan: Optimus Princeps (Julian Bennett) vs. Trajan: Lion of Rome (C.R.H. Wildfeuer, in novel form). Aurelian and the Third Century (Alaric Watson) vs. Restorer of the World: The Emperor Aurelian (John H. White). Thanks!

On Star Trek: The Next Generation, during one of the big Borg episodes, Captain Picard broodingly muses something along the lines of, "I wonder if Honorius, as the Goths approached the walls of the city, really understood that Rome was about to fall."

The comments above from Ward-Perkins mostly square with the two most recent books by Peter Heather and Adrian Goldsworthy, which explain how the Goths at this time were hapless at seige warfare. It wasn't just Constantinople, but other fortified towns in the Balkans that the Goths couldn't take. My understanding, from what Heather and Goldsworthy wrote, was that the Goths mainly preyed on rural targets like villas, where they could get supplies and booty more easily than from fortified cities. After they'd sacked the rural regions south of the Danube, of course they would follow the path of least resistance and head West. I agree that Adrianople did not deal a decisive blow to the Roman Empire militarily, but it was the starting point of an unprecedented situation, wasn't it? There had never before been a group that had moved inside the empire, living under its own leaders, that was never brought to heel under the Roman yoke nor driven back across the frontiers. Yes, they allied with Rome from time to time, but they retained their sense of identity and independence enough to end up with their own kingdom in the end. It's still hard not see Adrianople as a historical moment of great symbolic significance.

I found it very intresting, speaking of the Cloaca Maxima, that especially as you walk around the Forum, you can see sewer covers set around the ground as if they were put in Yesterday. They all (at least the ones I saw) had SPQR inlayed in them. I did not though think of bending down and really studying them at all. They are very much, from what I saw, a lot like todays sewer covers that you find, except square in shape. Does anyone know what metal these were made out of? From what I remember when visiting Rome, those ARE modern manhole covers. Apparently, Mussolini (re?)started the practice of putting the SPQR insignia on the covers in the city of Rome.

Looking at my own alias on this site -- Caius -- I always assumed it would be pronounced "Kye-uss." But maybe it evolved into something else? Did Caius (and Gaius) die out as names, or do they have modern Romance equivalents?