Nephele

When I go to Amish country, I'm too infatuated with their horses to notice personal hygiene. I always thought that was the coolest thing about being Amish. You know, riding around in a horse and buggy. Amish Paradise "At 4:30 in the morning I'm milking cows. Jebadiah feeds the chickens and Jacob plows. Fool... But if I finish all of my chores and you finish thine, then tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699." -- Nephele

I can't get the RealPlayer to download. But I believe you're right, GO, that Flavia has a lovely voice. -- Nephele

When it comes to refraining from pestering people, I think Jews and the Amish have a lot in common. -- Nephele

Beautiful creations, LW! I haven't tried my hand at making jewelry, but I do like to buy cheap cloth bags, and then dress them up by sewing on beaded fringe. Here's a yoga bag I picked up at a street fair, and then bought the beads at a place on 6th Avenue in Manhattan: I just noticed that I need to trim off that stray thread on the right! Anyway, I bet you would love some of our bead shops on 6th Ave. -- Nephele

Since I'd already brought up some of Hadrian's legislative reforms earlier in this thread, I thought I'd research further. In an article that appeared in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register (June, 1926), P.E. Corbett, Professor of Roman Law at McGill University wrote: "Spartianus informs us, in the eighteenth chapter of his Vita Hadriani, that Hadrian brought in [to the imperial council] 'praecipue' Juventius Celsus, Salvius Julianus and Neratius Priscus. It was the beginning of the greatest age of Roman jurisprudence and most of the constitutiones were almost certainly the result of consultation among such jurisconsults as these." Reforms in the treatment of slaves (in addition to those I mentioned earlier in this thread) are cited by P.E. Corbett in his article. Corbett cites other reforms as well, besides those just dealing with slaves, but I'll stick to the slavery issue here since I initially brought it up. One such reform was actually a restoration to the old rule that a child born of a union between a free woman and an enslaved man, would have the status of being free. This rule had changed over time prior to Hadrian, so that such a child born of a slave would also be the slave of his father's master, and the free mother would have no choice but to turn over her child to the master. Corbett states: "This was a derogation from the so-called jus gentium, which provided that the child should, in the absence of lawful marriage, follow the condition of the mother. Hadrian restored the old rule." Another reform of Hadrian's in favor of manumitted slaves was to correct the abuse of heirs who chose not to follow the wishes of their benefactor's will in granting freedom to his slaves. Hadrian's law compelled such heirs to honor the manumission of slaves from the inherited estates. And, one more reform, as related by Spartianus, was that Hadrian forbade the killing of slaves except after judicial condemnation. I agree, and imagine that Hadrian's reforms in the treatment of slaves didn't help to make him popular with the slave-owning population of Rome. But the practicality (if not also the morality) of these reforms is apparent when one realizes that many a slave ultimately became a freedman of Rome and, as such, a loyal subject of the Emperor. -- Nephele

Another English "translation" (with fond memories of Pavarotti): Pavarotti Loved Elephants -- Nephele

Shhhh! *looks around* -- Nephele

Uh... From which "discharge" was this pill retrieved? Fore or aft? Not that it would make that much of a difference to me, when collecting my inherited goodies from whatever ancient, purgative-obsessed geezer had passed away in the family tree. I think I'd expeditiously "discharge" the metal pill myself -- through an auction house. -- Nephele

For the love of Lakshmi, control yourself, G.O.! *Nephele covers her eyes...* *...and then dances a little Kuchipudi...* Wheee! -- Nephele

"Your pundit got amour!" Gawds, I really love Bollywood productions, and I've got a collection of Bollywood DVDs. (I think I even recognize this one.) I play these DVDs in the privacy of my home and dance along with the beat. Can't help myself, I'm a Bollywood freak. Whoever did this hilarious "translation" is a genius. -- Nephele

Didn't they have to be able to make out a will and sign for their pay and equipment? I don't know whether Roman legionaries had to make out their wills and sign for their pay and equipment -- have you read this somewhere, GO? If this is so, then one needn't necessarily be more than functionally literate for any of this. One could dictate one's will to a scribe. And "signing" could have been accomplished with the use of a signet ring. But, barring the signet ring, Roman soldiers did carry a form of identification sort of like our present-day dog-tags. See this UNRV thread. So perhaps all the soldier need do was to exhibit his signaculum when collecting pay and necessary equipment? -- Nephele

As for those soldiers in the Roman legions who were not Roman-born, I would imagine that they would already be familiar with Latin in their native lands. Wherever Rome had conquered, one could bet that Latin would be evident everywhere -- from public notices of laws, warrants, and civil proceedings to milestones erected along the roads. If it was important to know what was written on these (and, of course, it was) then I imagine a sort of functional literacy would have been acquired by the general populace, if not through formal education then at least through experience. In much the same way that many people today have acquired a functional computer literacy through experience, despite the fact their generation was not taught computer literacy in the classroom. -- Nephele

What happy news! I remember when our own Bronx Zoo had a panda on loan from China, and I went to see it. What name did you vote for, Viggen? You know, if has to do with names, I have to ask! -- Nephele

Hadrian also gets my vote for being an emperor who was better than most. I don't believe that we can judge Hadrian too harshly for his predilection for young boys, as modern-day morality on that score differs significantly from the morality of the past. Additionally, the suggested misogyny of Hadrian towards his wife (as Caldrail brought up) in that Hadrian may have only married her for appearances and possible children, is yet another modern-day judgement. Marriage in the past -- particularly marriage among the ruling classes -- was a political and economic, as well as social convention. The feelings of the woman had very little to do with it. But Hadrian's morality appears to have recognized the plight of slaves -- at least to a degree that might be compared today to the concerns of animal welfare advocates. And he seems to have been in step with his own times, as well, in this. During his rule, Hadrian issued a decree limiting the use of torture of slave witnesses as a last resort in legal proceedings. Also, in cases where a slave might have murdered his master and, in the past, every slave of the household would be put to torture, Hadrian ordained that only those slaves who were actually at the scene of the crime could be thus punished -- not the entire household of slaves. Hadrian also (as related by Ulpian) banished a Roman matron by the name of Umbricia for grossly abusing her slave girls. Hadrian obviously didn't free the slaves -- slavery was an established institution deemed necessary by the ancients and not viewed with the same repugnance as in modern times. But Hadrian did recognize abuses in the unnecessary mistreatment of slaves, and used his power to rectify some of the worst of these abuses. -- Nephele

Yikes! And... Wheeeeee! I don't know whether to envy your experience, or be grateful we don't get more noticeable earthquakes here in New York. In fact, I do remember experiencing a very surprising earthquake on Long Island some years ago. It manifested itself not by one feeling a sensation of rockin' an' rollin' under one's feet, but instead with the roof of the building I was in rattling like crazy in a sweep from one end to the other. I was at work and I remember at the time all of us running outside to see if, somehow, kids had gotten up on the roof of the building and had been running across it. It wasn't until the next day when we read in the news that what we had experienced was a minor earthquake, that we realized what had been going on! But it must be a little scary for you out there in San Francisco and its environs, when this sort of thing happens, as you guys get the Real Deal in earthquakes. I'm sure you probably take a lot of it in your stride, being used to it and all. But there's got to be that thought somewhere in the back of your brain that, maybe, this is going to be the Big One. I saw on the news that a lot of California coastline communities are now doing tsunami drills, as well. Do you have that -- tsunami awareness -- in San Francisco? -- Nephele

Yep, Octavius was a nomen gentilicium -- the major giveaway being the "-ius" ending, indicative of the majority of nomina gentilicia. Although, it should be noted that "Octavius" was derived from "Octavus", which was originally a nickname and infrequently a praenomen denoting numerical position of birth in a family. Perhaps Longshotgene was confusing Octavus with Octavius? By the same token, the nomen gentilicium "Quintius" or "Quinctius" was derived from the praenomen "Quintus", and "Sextius" (the name of a plebeian gens) from the praenomen "Sextus". I think what you mean to say here, Augusta, is that there were very few praenomina in common use. There were actually quite a few praenomina available to the Romans, although very infrequently used, as I brought up in an earlier discussion here. And, while it's true that Roman women for the most part had no praenomina at all, I'm sure you'll recall that often numerical names (distinguishing daughters within the same family by their order of birth), such as Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, etc., served as sort of feminine "praenomina" -- while not always placed in the forefront of the woman's name, as were men's praenomina, but perhaps "praenomina" in the same way that their masculine counterparts of Quintus, Sextus, and Decimus originally indicated birth order of sons. Although, in later years, the original meanings of Quintus, Sextus, and Decimus were disregarded, and sons could be given any of those praenomina regardless of their actual birth order (see Livia's second-born son, Decimus Claudius Drusus, for an example of how the "tenth" meaning of "Decimus" had become meaningless). -- Nephele

Yes, you're right -- it appears that the Claudii were the only ones to have used "Nero" as a cognomen. But "Nero", besides being a Claudian cognomen of Sabine origin, was originally a Sabine praenomen. As such, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum includes several instances of Sabine and Umbrian families (e.g. Capidas) using "Nero" as a praenomen. Interestingly, Suetonius reports in his Life of Claudius that Claudius' father, Drusus (son of Livia and brother to the emperor Tiberius), "at first had the forename Decimus and later that of Nero". Which indicates that the cognomen Nero had either been revived as a praenomen in later times, or it was still somewhat in use all along as a very rare praenomen. Perhaps the early Claudii retained "Nero" as a cognomen in order to maintain some link to their Sabine ancestry, as they were (according to Friedrich M

There were a good many more than just two branches to the Claudii. Smith's lists the patrician branches as being: Caecus, Caudex, Centho, Crassus, Nero, Pulcher, Regillensis, and Sabinus. The plebeian Claudii were: Asellus, Canina, Centumalus, Cicero, Flamen, and Marcellus. In addition to those Claudian branches mentioned in Smith's, there was: Glaber, Glicia, Hortator, Lepidus, Russus, Ugo, and Unimanus, all of whom are recorded (Broughton's) as having held magisterial positions at one time or another. The reason why there were so many branches to the Claudii may have much to do with the fact that the Claudii were one of the earliest recognized families of ancient Rome. There are numerous branches to other old gentes, such as the Aemilii and the Cornelii. As families grew over time, different branches would desire to distinguish themselves from each other. The same cognomen might be used by two different gentes (e.g. Claudius Lepidus and Aemilius Lepidus), so G.O. is right that it was the gens rather than the cognomen alone that might indicate familial relationship -- the cognomen being basically an individual's distinguishing nickname that became hereditary. But in the case of gentes with specific, attached cognomina, those members (sharing both the same nomen gentilicium and cognomen) would have a closer relationship to each other than those who were merely members of the same gens. -- Nephele

Suetonius, in his Life of Tiberius, gives us the origin of the Claudian use of "Nero": -- Nephele

Welcome, Caeser92! (and, belated welcomes to the G-Man! ) -- Nephele

Well, I checked numerous reference tomes today, from Brewer's to Bartlett's and then some. I think it's a safe bet that the phrase in question originated with George Wythe -- and MPC did some pretty nifty reference work of his own last night in providing that background information on the 18th century Virginia State classicist to whom that Latin motto seems to be rightfully credited. Faustus, that's a perceptive connection you brought up, between Booth's use of that Latin phrase, his father's name, and the possibility that either (or both) father and son might have played the role of Brutus on the stage. While Shakespeare didn't originate that Latin phrase for any of his plays, it's not exactly a stretch to imagine either J.B. Booth Senior or J.W. Booth, having already been familiar with the phrase via Virginia's State motto, perhaps impetuously ad-libbing that phrase while hamming up that scene on the stage in which Brutus delivers his final blow to Caesar. J.W. Booth certainly appears (from all accounts) to have impetuously ad-libbed that phrase when he delivered his final blow to Lincoln. (Actors... sheesh!) -- Nephele

I've gotten into the habit of viewing the "UNRV News" link as the Home Page link, but I agree that most people are conditioned to move their mouse over the topmost logo on a page in expectation of finding a home page link there. Sounds like a good idea. I like the prominently displayed picture-link of the UNRV Roman Empire map on the front page. I don't remember seeing that there before, if it was. Also, the search box is great. Again, don't remember if that was there before, or at least as obvious. And the month-by-month compendium to the left is neat-o. -- Nephele

A search of Bartleby.com, which references Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (perhaps the leading source for the origin of popular phrases) turns up only three references for this phrase: http://bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinato...semper+tyrannis The oldest reference appears to be the phrase's use as the state motto for the state of Virginia, most likely referring to the American colonies' sentiment towards Britain at the time of the American Revolution ("Thus Always to Tyrants"). John Wilkes Booth may have gotten the phrase from that source -- or the belief that the phrase was originally uttered by Brutus may have been circulating around at the time and he got it from there. Perhaps someone else here might know of an actual earlier recorded use of the phrase, as I've yet to find one. When I'm at work tomorrow, I'll check my library's copy of Brewer's, in case for some reason Bartleby.com failed to reference an entry. -- Nephele

I thought it was a popular fable that Brutus had uttered those words. The phrase is attributed to John Wilkes Booth, when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Booth apparently was also of the belief that Brutus had said this, and thus was imitating him. -- Nephele

Then, hopefully, that's probably the worst that you'll ever get. When I was a child, I had no problem at all with bee stings. (Really, "yellow jackets" here in New York, which are a species of wasp, but everyone calls them "bees" because they look like bees.) It was only after reaching adulthood that they became deadly for me. I inherited this from my mom. I'm curious -- did you inherit your seafood allergy, as well? -- Nephele