Alascanus

My apologies if this isn't in the correct sub-forum. I wanted to get the views of other lovers of classical history on a comparative view of citizenship in the Roman Republic, and citizenship in modern republics or parliamentary democracies. As many of you may have read in the news lately, the United States killed a rather noisome instigator of terror, and an accessory to murder by the name of Anwar Al-Awlaki. The thing about him is that he's no loyal son of the republic, he is indeed a citizen. Whether the comparison is superficial or not, I immediately thought of the illegal execution of Sextus Pompey in 35BCE. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I and many others have been kind of waiting for this eventuality in the war on terror: when active terrorists are killed by their governments without trial. A quick google search shows some comparisons between Sextus Pompey and Awlaki before he was even killed recently. Now, circumstances are never the same, especially between Rome and the modern world. Like I said, the comparison is superficial. There is no ceteris paribus here, without a wild leap into the kind of what-if counterfactual history many of you might not find very appetizing. However, what endlessly fascinates me, as I'm sure it does many of you, is the analysis of the constitutional transformation from the Oligarchic Republic of the 2nd Century BCE into the early Principate. Was the illegal execution of Sextus Pompey an unremarkable crime against the Republic because it was in a sea of other, great crimes committed since the time of the Gracchi? Or did it directly contribute to a certain laesa maiestas that built up around the sovereignty of Rome being invested solely in the judgment of the Caesars? That is to say, did Romans wake up one day and find themselves capable of being offed by Octavian, without any legal ramifications - and was Sextus Pompey the definitive precedent? Was any Caesar after Augustus suddenly in hot water for whacking an enemy?

Taste is definitely subjective - I explain in my 'defense' page that even if someone were in total agreement, say with my comparison of Rome and Spartacus, that their experience invariably differs. I just felt like leaning into Spartacus because it tries to be so many things, and comes short. Spartacus tries to be 300, mostly, and I certainly don't feel the screenwriter there did us a disservice by not rendering Plutarch's aphorisms into Greek-esque grammar, and stuck to the strength of the narrative by making it a panegyric comic book movie. To each their own, of course.

Hello everyone, long time lurker, first time posting. As much as I'm content to see arts and entertainment re-awaken interest in the classics and Roman history, evaluated as a television show, I just cannot dig Spartacus. I've made a little essay about it on my site, comparing it to HBO/BBC's Rome. http://condemnedmovies.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/a-tale-of-two-series-rome-and-spartacus/