caldrail

I'm searching for a reference to a Roman gentleman, probably during the early principate, who committed suicide after spending all his money on dinner parties to impress his friends. I know it exists - I've seen it - but so far I can't locate the source. Could anyone help?

It's no good. After several evenings of cheap ready meals and the leftovers of my fridge, I felt there was no choice but to succumb to temptation. So I took the oportunity to blow some of my savings on a takeaway meal to stave off dietary diseases and boredom. At the local fired chicken store, one I frequent now and then when I have money to spend, I selected my favourite peri-peri meal. It'll blow my head off but for the english, this culinary torture is a masochistic pleasure, and for me, a welome relief. As a patient and indullgent father proceeded to order the deaths of several more hapless chickens, his daughter and a friend were turning the fast food establishment into an impromptu dance floor. I wonder if they're students at the performing arts school up the road? Not quite the colleges we get in England for that purpose (there's one in Swindon too), and far away from the psuedo-professional arts education parents throw thousands of dollars at every year to try and get their kids into a child-actor role in their summer break, but the result is the same. These two kids clearly believed utterly they were going places. "When we're famous..." One started, listing her favourite and desirable lifestyle accesories to achieve before her career implodes in a haze of drugs and divorces, the other simply giggling at the prospect. At this point I have to be honest. I have after all some experience of the performing arts, even professionally for a few years, and at a glance I noticed something. Despite these two girls confidence, their movements were less than elegant, their voices unpleasant to listen to at giggling volume, and whilst I'm sure their fathers think the world of their little angels, they aren't going to grow up to be lookers. It's a tough world. Especially when you want to be famous. Was I like that at their age? Dreaming of fame and fortune? Yep. I was. The difference is that I had parents who refused point blank to tolerate my adventures in music and so I did them anyway, pushing at the inertia of world ignorance with every ounce of my feeble efforts. These two young ladies are going to learn sooner or later that fame costs. And this is where you start... Well, you know what I mean.... I shook my head at the foolish ambition before me then hurriedly explained to the fast food assistant that I did want my meal with fries. Lacking Balance The sun has come out this morning. That's pretty much the good news today as I wade through the formalities of keeping the authorities notified of changes in my circumstances and benefits claims. My first gripe is my sense of balance. I'm reaching the age when falling over is no longer funny, and tends to get a bit painful. Caught in one of those 'banana skin' moments with wet leaves this morning... Woah!.. No, I've recovered, no I haven't... Uo-oh, this is embrarrasing....AAARGH! Thud. Ouch... I discover I've thumped my hand on the ground leaving very uncomfortable bruises and skin abrasions.What is happening to my life? Forty Things To Do Last week I saw one of those news items on my email service, the sort where someone lists all the things you should before you're forty. Most of them are faintly ridiculous, impossible, or self contradictory, written by some moron who thinks that visiting Paris is romantic, or jumping from an aeroplane an achievement, or that eating at a michelin rated resteraunt says something about you. One of the things to do was having children , which the commentator corectly pointed made the others more or less unachievable. But there's something more important here. It's the idea that we can claim a measure of esteem from our peers if we conform to their ideas of achievement. It's nothing more than keeping up with the Joneses. Do you really want to measure your life to a list of social requirements made by someone else? Or would you prefer to strive for something you decide is worthwhile? I suppose you could argue that wanting to be a rock star as I did in my younger days was nothing more than attempting to conform to some ideal. Perhaps. It didn't feel that way for me - that was far more of a personal struggle to free myself of family restraint and become my own man, forge my own future, and not have the fixed plan laid out before me that my mother and father clearly were striving to foist upon my shoulders. My mother always manipulating me, my father always making arrangements behind my back. I was so angry in those days - no wonder I became a rock drummer. Die, audience. Feel the power of my percussive wrath. Well I had my few moments of fame. Not so fortunate, as it turned out, but life throws those banana skins at us. Performer of the Week I came home a couple of days ago and ionce I'd thrown off footwear, jackets, shopping, and had the chance to sit and catch some breath, there was some weird music coming from somewhere. Sort of like Gary Numan's Tubeway Army when they're feeling sad and lonely. It was my downstairs neighbour, whose attempts to be deep and meaningful in the medium of song was seriously mournful. I turned the television on, raised the volume, but she didn't get the hint, the music was still audible. So there was nothing for it but to raise my morale and lift the mood with a blast of death metal. Ahhhh....... So peaceful.....

There's a space mission planned to land on the Moon and deposit time capsules from the public. Get on board. (the mission I mean, not the capsule... Sorry... Erm...)

The provincial headquarters was at Eboracum, or modern York.

No it isn't. Not even close. The idea of kingship is nothing more than intellectual laziness. People who say that Augustus and his inheritors were kings are merely looking at the superficial, the record of influence and decision making, without looking into circumstance. Context is everything. The Romans did not institute a monarch after the Republic was fomed at any time, either formally or informally. Commodus was nominated by the ROmans as the 'First Caesar born to the Purple' and even he wasn't called a king. Nor was he.

Augustus was not a monarch. He might appear to be one, but as Tom Holland points out, his role in modern terms was more like a mafia godfather. I prefer to call Augustus an autocrat. A very influential man, a very aggressive politician in many ways, a very nervous politician in others, and yes, he did try to create an imperial dynasty - but that dynasty was intended to be 'chief advisors', not kings. Nor were ruling powers assigned to Augustus in the same way that Julius Caesar had attracted. He was given temporary powers - boasting of thirteen consulships (which means he was a co-ruler of the Roman empire officially for a total of thirteen years - and of course was given the role of Imperator (which many confuse with the word 'emperor' - the two have different meanings - Imperator means he was the military commander of the Roman empire and indeed he went to great lengths to assure personal loyalty from the legions) As I pointed out to you before, the Republic hadn't gone anywhere. It had changed it's political structure and power sharing (not for the better as some would say), but any idea that Augustus was a king is complete rubbish.

Clearly Sebastianus thought otherwise. Others in his day did too - Vegetius describes how men ought to be motivated and includes both methods - suggesting that harsh discipline alone is not the answer, and we know he was referring to former practises because he states he looked for these precedents in the histories available to him. Valentinian was quite happy about Vegetius' findings. Having read the first book, Vegetius then thanks his Caesar and writes two more.

Not afraid, butr aware of the risks. It's a mistake to see Hadrians Wall as marking the northern boundary of 'safe' territory. The north of England was a wild and wolly place in Roman times, much in the same way as the wild west was to the Americans of the 19th century. Local commands were given to troops manning the security zone. Overall commands came out of the legionary forts to the south, where the reposne armies were stationed, and where the local governor had a connection with. Orders via the Channel? Not realistic. Too slow and too vulnerable to weather. The surviving ditch is weathered down from it's more formidable origin. The Romans sometimes added all sorts of defensive extras if they wanted more strength. Pointy sticks and pits for intsnace. But the point is that the ditch increased the security of the position. It made for something to cover behind, and reduced the enemies capability of attacking directly. Not an infallible defense at all, but it helped. No legion was ever considered a navy whatever their designation or position. The Roman navy was an independent force with it's own command structure and what appears to be a very intricate breakdown of authority and skills. On the western coast the naval forces were liimited to coastal patrol and anti-piracy operations, using rather more modest vessels than the Punic Wars had seen in the Mediterranean.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to fly, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. By these arguments having prevailed upon the emperor, he obtained his desire. He selected, not such as had been trained to cowardice and accustomed to flight, but strong and active men who had lately been taken into the army, and who appeared to him, who was able to judge of men, to be capable of any service. He immediately made trial of each of them, and obviated their defects by continual exercise; bestowing commendations and rewards on all who were obedient, but appearing severe and inexorable to those who neglected their duty. Nea Historia (Zosimus)

Well obviously I can't comment because I haven't seen the video, though in fairness, the accuracy of computer reconstructions is sometimes suspect - I once saw one of a naval battle at a colosseum around nine times the size of the actual building. However - the Romans did not build stout stone defences from the very start. Such constructions require stable occupation for some time, for practical reasons, and you find that Roman legionary forts develop into stone castles. The Limes for intstabnce were usually little more than a palisade. Much of Hadrians Wall, and certainly the great extent of the later Antonine Wall, were constructed from wood and earth embankments initially (and I recall reading somewhere than a section of Hadrians Wall remained earthen). At the Antonine Wall, I notice the Romans compensated for the lack of stone defenses - which were never built on that wall - by the addition of pits, spikes, and ankle traps. There is every reason to believe that the Romans were well aware of the dangers of pushing into lower Caledonia - the wall was abandoned when Antoninus died.

Strictly speaking the Roman navy in the Punic Wars wasn't that brilliant, but they compensated by using gangplanks called the corvus to utilise their land troops in boarding actions. I'm not an expert on ancient naval wrfare by any means butI am aware that the Romans were never great sailors - the poor performance of the late empire navy probably has a lot of causes. Firslty they weren't using anything like the old galleys, mostly smaller ships of single banks of oars which werer better suited to patrolling than battle - which would have been the main preoccupation for them. Then again, the state of play in late empire armies was pretty bad most of the time. Vegetius tells us that the legions had lost their strength and substance. Zosimus in retrospect was absolutely scathing about their behaviour. It follows the naval forces were of comparable quality.

Tiberius would have have felt himself protected by slaves (and some of them were described as throwing unwanted visiotors off the cliff) or any praetorians posted there. having removed himself from the centre of politics and allowed the Roman world to partially admiister itself, I doubt he had many worries, especially after Sejanus had been uncovered and dealt with. If suetonius is to be believed, Tiberius increasingly became a dirty old man, and thus more concerned with sexual fantasies than real world issues.

Military organisations serve a number of potential functions. Security, politics, social order, employment, etc. The emphasis varies between countries and their agendas/commitments, and even with time, as strategies and policies in the global climate might in one decade require investment, or reductions in another. Whether an armed force has integrity, honour, respect, and such is another matter and often such things are in the eye of the beholder. A soldier might feel wanted and useful within the service and hated by his un-militaristic civilian peers. The reverse could be true. To try and find a strict definition when dealing with opinion and experience in large numbers is never really going to work. You can talk in generral terms I guess - I often do - but there will always be those who see things differently, either because their observations, experiences, or education differ, or simply because they just want to see things from a different perspective. People are like that.

Drawn out? You mean like the plot vacanct modern Doctor Who which assaults the emotional state of the viewer for an hour just because someone wants to say "See you later?". But I do see your point about US series in general. They do occaisionally have screen writing issues (Next Generation did - the whole thing was nearly scrapped early on and emergency writers were brought in) but then writing for television is a very mutable process. Anyone submitting a script has to accept that the end result might not be anything like their conception. Very often an american sci-fi series, especially these days now that sci-fi is marketable, is that someone will sell an idea to a producer and the series only gets written once the market returns enough interest. They're often single idea themes that get gradually stretched further and further, often seen as proving grounds for up-and-coming actors rather than saleable stars, re-worked to conform to american media sales concepts, and unlike Dr Who, which has a strong writer basis, american series can easily lose steam because they were never fully planned out in terms of series plotlines and because they rely primarily on a self contained story format for each episode. You can always tell when someone is getting bored - cue the flashback episode.

No. You might want to check out out Casale Morgantina just in case -it's associated with earlier emerors but you never know. There are other significant Roman remains in that area too.

I'm turning into a couch potato, and it's all the fault of Star Trek. Now that the original series and Next Generation are back on the screen, I spend my afternoons and evenings staring dull eyed at the antics of sex crazed Starfleet officers hell bent on being nice people. I need help. Worse still I've started watching that awful Ultimate Force series, the one starring Ross Kemp as a Seriously Argumentative Soldier. The strange thing is, although I've never gone out of my way to watch the program before, every episode seems to be the one I saw the first time around. I need more help. {i]Red Dwarf[/i], Farscape, Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, and finally at last the original Doctor Who series has started showing on sundays. Great to see all the old doctors back on television again, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker.... Okay. I surrender. You can stop helping me now. I've begun to realise that all this science fiction is distracting me from the reality of my difficult financial situation, rather like the cold war players of the space race fifty years ago. All I need to do now to achieve victory and assume my place in society as a successful jobseeker is walk on the moon. I mean, all I need is a television studio, right? Cometary Landing In case you haven't heard, scientists have landed a small space vehicle on a comet way out there in the dim depths of our solar system. At last the Dinosaurs get revenge. You are going to blow it up, aren't you? Childhood Lost With Professor Brian Cox holding a season ticket on science related programs on television, it's pretty well inescapable that I will at some point encounter his master class physics and intellectual whimsy. Hasn't anybody else noticed he smiles whistfully every time he tells us that the Earth is doomed and the Universe will enter a an eternal deep freeze? But there he was, holding a copy of Spacecraft 2000-2100AD, a book with pages of science fiction paintings of exotic futuristic craft and bogus histories surrounding them. He told us how he especially liked the pages about the Martian Queen, a fast luxury liner that plied the spacelanes. Yes. I remember that too. I was also a convert to the Book Of Speculative Starships, the very same volume. So like him I was thrilled by the shape of things to come, only he gets to be a television celebrity and I get to argue with claims advisors. I had the same start as him. Where did it all go wrong? Maybe I was too positive. So, having learned Proferssors Cox's lesson - Hey - We're all doomed, especially me. Blaming Something Else This is one of those 'a friend of a friend' stories you sometimes hear, but worth repeating. There's this guy who goes out clubbing one saturday night and as chance would have it, gets off with a young lady, so it's back to her place for coffeee and whatever else he hoped to persuade her into cooperating with. Once there she went off to slip into something more comfortable, which was a problem because he wasn't comnfortable at all. Desperate for a pooh, and not wanting to spoil his chances of a fun night in (and maybe more), he opted to exploit a cat litter tray.She won't notice, right? Wrong. She spotted it immediately, and from that point forward she was never able to understand how her six week old kitten had left a pooh bigger than it was. Conclusion of the Week It dawned on me last night. Was the reason I had been savaged at the Job Centre for no apparent reason and forced to close my benefit claim because David Cameron wants good statistics about uneplyment to present to the public when he goes to polls in the near future? If Cameron wants to pound his fist at media briefings and ponse around the world stage as if he's someone important, I'd rather he did that at his own expense, not mine. That's one lost vote Cameron. How many more do you want?

How can you describe me as hopelessly lost when your own information is based on interpreting the Roman world with modern sensibilities? There's a lot of history written on that basis Yes. Augustus changed a few things. So did lots of other Roman personalities with sufficient authority before and afterward. I have no idea. But I'm not concerned in the slightest. The Romans saw things differently from you, and that is perhaps something you desperatel;y need to address before you claim any academic authority on a subject involving them. Julius was a very vain character, I don't know of anyone who would dispute that. It's also true he wanted sole control of the Roman world - no question. He always had such ambition lurking within him. He invested heavily in it - firstly by borrowing an obscene amount of money to fund his career, then looting Gaul to pay them off with interest and a personal fortune. However, the nature of Caesars political reign is a little different. Caesar wanted control. The Senate gave him a dictatorship for three years to sort out Romes problems after the turmoil his rise to power had aggravated (he wasn't the sole cause of it). That was increased to ten years, then to a lifetime appointment. That means XCaesar was given full execustive power over the Roman world until he was dead. That was unprecedented in Roman thinking, and effectively against the prime tenets of the Republic, in that power should be shared, power should be temporary,, and power should be by consent. He had become a king in all but name, and although he kept the Senate sweet by conferring with them and making a big show of refusing the crown publicly, Caesar had become an absiolute ruler - and died for it shortly after. There was no political change that took away the Republic. The Senate were still the official government, voting was unchanged for the public, and life went on. In other words, Caesar did not institute constituional change that removed the Republic. Augustus officially handed power back to the Senate and People of Rome. Had he not done so, his life would shortly end too. So he sought an alternative to maintaining control being the bossy boots that he was (his wife confirmed he was a control freak). It came quite naturally to him - rule by influence. Whilst Augustus was not technically Rome's overlord in the way that Caesar had grabbed with both hands, he maintained influence with the authorities of Rome - quiye aggressively as it happens - and made special efforts to 'own' the legions, to engage their loyalties in a personality cult, to pay off generals with ovations and triumphs, to please the public with games (he boasted of this), and impress his political peers with civic works, famously claiming he'd found Rome in brick and left it in marble. No Caesar thast followed after had any job descritption to conform to. It was a matter of influence, however powerful, keeping the public, legions, and Senate sweet. Failure to do so was often a terminal mistake, and as easy as a Caesar might come by the role, it was way easier to oust him once he started to lose influence, because there was never any constitutional place for Emperors of Rome. Sometimes the Senate awarded honours, such things as Consulshiops or the military role of Imperator, parcels of official power that underlined their influential status. Without grasping the above, you're in no position to lecture me.

That wasn't to support the Wall as such - it was to support the 'forward operating bases', the forts built north of the Wall and garrisoned to patrol the territory the opposite side of the wall than you might expect. This was standard Roman policy. The fact that land was outside accepted Roman territory meant nothing if any risk was perceived. What could be better than a Wall that isn't attacked in the first place?

Syracuse.

Sure are. Got my swords sharp and pointy, my backpack full of cornflakes, I've blown a trumpet a few times, and a free doughnut for the first man through the wall. Bit short of an army however. Slightly disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. Onwards!

Then why did Augustus boast of thirteen consulships in his reign? Why did certain Caesars insist the Senate give them the role? It was far from a joke, the Romans would have seen it as very meaningful. It is true that two annual headman posts were overshadowed by the new role of Caesar, but notice that both roles were not incompatible. To see the Casars as absolute rulers is incorrect - their job had no job description, no official demarcation of responsibility or power, and it was the Senate who underwrote how much status and influence a Caesar had - which was why the post of Consul was offered occaisionally. It was to honour the Caesar and allow him official ruling powers, if for a short while. That's right. Official ruling powers. No Caesar ever had the right to be an absolute ruler, however many of them assumed that part, and this is often forgotten because seeing a Caesar as king is easier than actually figuring out what the mess the Romans called politics was all about. The problem is that most people are confusing this official ruling rights and power with influence, be it political or having lots of soldiers waiting outside. Augustus officially gave back power to the Senate and People of Rome. He retained his influence, which did not escape the Senate in the early days of his reign. Claudius was only accepted as Caesar because the Praetorians would not surrender their favoured role, forcing the Senate to acknowledge him as a senior political figure. The Senate hadn't gone anywhere - they were carrying on business as usual and with the assassination of Caligula, only too happy to do so. Nero thought the Senate was holding him back - and in a way, he was right. Whereas Caligula had poured scorn on the Senate, Nero used it as a cash cow, and was declared an enemy of the state for his trouble. As popular as Nero was with the masses, if the Senate said a man had to go, sooner or later he was dead. Remember that Antoninus Pius was so well liked because he let the Senate continue their business with minimum intrusion, and I notice as his first act 'in power' to persuade the Senate to honour Hadrian with divine status after his death. Then again, even Caligula asked permission of the Senate to hold games.

It is in fact very unusual for a wall of any length to be defensive. Walls are, by design, impediments to travel and generally set there for that purpose. The same motives apply today. Barbed wire entanglments stretching for miles have very little defensive value - they don't protect defenders from enemy action - but they do impeded a crossing point. Strategic Roman walls of the stronger kind, such as the two Trajanic Wals in Africa, Hadrians Wall in Scotland, and the late empire Trajanusic Wall in eastern europe, are still of dubious defensive value. Impediments to travel certainly, especially Hadrians Wall which sits on an escarpment, but the walls are not built to be defended, and if you look closely, the parapet is often barely wide enough for a soldier to wander back and forth along it in the cold small hours of the morning. Not entirely suitable for defending then, however sturdy or tall. I'm not surer what you mean about moving forts from the Stanegate. Legionary forts did not change position - they remained south of the security zone. The Romans understood that linear defenses disperse troops too much, and preferred to concentrate reactive forcesd leaving auxillaries to patrol and warn of incursions.

You mean Consul? No, it wasn't, but the significance was devalued by application to a post holder with a higher level of status, and bear in mind that consulships were in apirs, so Caesars offered the role as an honour by the Senate may well have a partner in their politics - though it is fair to mention that Caesars often suggested who that other Consul might be (Caligula gave the role to his relation, Claudius - one wonders why...), and that since the office of what was effectively an annual co-prime minister was now an homnour more than an post with clear cut responisbilities, its relevance to politics was lessened. As far as that goes I agree, but at the same time, the office was still a mark of status - it wasn't given to anyone and are suggesting that a Caesar was offered a joke role by the Senate as an honour? You mean Governor? That was an important addition to your CV and a very good earner if you played your cards right. It may well also give opportunites to add military success to your record, though clearly that had less to do with security than exploiting a situation for personal gain, or as often happened, to avoid imperial censure for lack of moral fibre. It was as good as the technology and infrastructure of the day would allow. However, the speed of contact was still limited to a man on a horse at best, and given the size of the Empire, this delay in communication allowed the ambitious to easily forment conspiracies or rebellions. The Romans were very keen to post cautious commanders to legionary command - they needed loyal people running their wayward military even if they weren't especially good at their jobs, and tolerated the typical legionary commander who basically got the job to stay out of harms way. As good as communications were, internal politics was still devisive, factional, and strife always a possibility.

Bearing in mind that the limes, basically interpreted as the 'limit' of Roman control, was not the actual territorial border as such (there was rarely any definable border without a convenient coast or river), but instead where the Romans decided to enforce it, and the actual line might change place from time to time. However the function was more or less the same. It wasn't a defense, but rather an impediment to control who got across the border and where.

Onsanander is broadly right. The provinces were controlled by proxy, a provincial governor sent by Rome to represent their authority, and even then not directly because the Romans liked to exploit native politics to add to their own, putting pressure on their leaders to adopt latin lifestyles - which they generally did and got well rewarded for doing so. Governors didn't normally interfere in day to day affairs. remaining aloof as the last word of Roman policy.