The Augusta

Elagabalus - or whatever version of his name you go for! Heliogabalus etc......

Spot On, Asc! Well done. Your turn.

Hehe - hold yer horses, JR! I'm here. Now this one should be very easy:

Well, the only thing I have noticed is that I've been able to be logged in on two different PCs today - work and home. That doesn't usually happen. If I log in at work, I am never automatically logged in at home and vice-versa. (I tend not to log out at home) This isn't a problem though. In fact, on one of my other Forums I am always logged in on however many machines until I physically log out.

Hehe - I am going to watch, just for the fun of it, although I won't expect too much accuracy. My daughter showed me the feature in the Radio Times this week (at 18 years old she is already in love with the male lead!) and I took one look at Anne Boleyn and said 'What is that frock she's got on!' My daughter shook her head and said, 'She's off - by now!' But I'm not going to carp. I'm going to watch this as a good old entertaining romp. (And my daughter is right - Henry is rather easy on the female eye! )

Guys - as I'm having a bit of difficulty finding a really good pic from a city that hasn't been used before in the game - I'm happy to waive my turn here. Please don't let me hold up the game for the rest of you.

Actually if I remember correct, both Brutus and Cassius receive imperium maius in 43 BC. Indeed - the maius imperium was bestowed before Augustus - the difference with Augustus' award of the power though was that he did not have to lay down such an imperium when governing in Rome, which - if my memory serves me right - Republic magistrates were obliged to do. This was what was unprecedented about the award of it to Augustus - although, if such a power was indeed bestowed upon anyone prior to Augustus, I am sure our Asclepiades will root it out for us in the sources But Kosmo made an excellent point above. Perhaps the whole argument of 'Emperor' is a fallacious one in any case, given that the Romans would not have thought of it in the way we do today.

This screams Tyre at me, G-Man. Alex certainly laid siege to Tyre.

What then was the constitutional position of the Dictator in the provinces? I asked in my post above, whether or not Caesar was ever granted a maius imperium proconsulare. Was this the case? Was he ever granted the tribunician potestas? These two were the cornerstones of Augustus' autocracy, doled out to him as they were for five and ten year periods at a time. So, I know that the powers of a Dictator (at least in Republican times) gave him autonomy in Rome and absolute power for six months - but what was such a man's position with regards to senatorial provinces? Do we have any records? Or do we take it as read that the Dictatorship naturally brought with it an over-riding power in the senatorial provinces? This one could run and run, however - for I think it hinges on what we in the 21st century understand by the term 'Emperor'. I suppose there's no easy answer. I can agree with Caldrail that Caesar forged for himself an unprecedented position, in that he assumed the Dictatorship in perpetuum, but this still, for me, does not equate with the position of an 'Emperor' as generations have seen it. After all, for centuries the division by scholars between Republic and Empire has fallen in either 31BC or 27BC - or sometimes 23BC. It could, of course, be a totally false or convenient division, but I guess we'll never all agree about it.

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.

I would have guessed at Haemochromatosis, like Asclepiades. So - at the other end of the scale, then, is it anaemia?

That's a bust of the lovely Antinous. (At least I'm 80% sure of it!)

Felicitations to you, G-Man, from your ever-loving 'The'.

Perhaps, DC - who knows? If it is to be a saga of The Tudors then surely it should run from Henry VII through to Elizabeth. 'Rome' was a limitless title, as it were. Had the resources been available it could have gone on and on until the fall. I'm certainly going to give The Tudors a go. It is one of my favourite periods of English history (I fell in love with it when I was 8!) - so I hope they've done us proud. Hopefully, those of us who watch it can contribute lively discussion to a 'Tudors' thread.

Salve. amici! It was a deliberate misconception by the Augustean propaganda to made him the divine royal founder of the Imperial tradition, as he was the first officially deified Roman leader and the key to Augustus' and later emperor's cult. Octavius use it as a cognomen after his adoption, and after the demise of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, later emperors add it ot their names to legitimate their claims. After all, Caesar was the eponymous beginner of C Suetonius' De vita XII Caesarum. The cognomen eventually became an Imperial title, and during the Tetrarchy it even got a curricular status as the junior imperial position subordinated to the Augustus. The name and its alternative spellings in several languages (Kaiser, Tsar, Czar) became identified with Monarchy and Autocracy. In fact, Constantinople was referred to by East and South Slavic languages (including Russian) as Tsarigrad or Carigrad. I think the answer is far simpler than this. 'Emperor' is the term that we have come to use in modern parlance (say the last 200 years or so) for the ruler of an empire. Caesar was Dictator but was he ever truly seen, in Roman eyes, as the autonomous ruler of all the territories of the Roman Empire? Did his imperium extend over all those territories? If there is evidence that it did, I will gladly stand to be corrected here, gents. Therefore, 'Emperor' as we know it today, would fit with Augustus as the first holder of that position. MPC may be able to clarify this in terms of how far a Dictator's imperium did extend legally. (Was it definitely a maius imperium proconsulare, as in the case of Augustus?) But as Asclepiades mentions above, it only later became a sort of title within the imperial nomenclature. Augustus' official 'title' or 'position' was Princeps. Emperor in Caesar's day - and indeed in Augustus' own, was a military title awarded to a victorious general. We have had a recent thread about the official use of the title on coinage etc., and I still maintain that Augustus was the first to use it regularly (see the Fasti, for example). But whichever way we look at it, either using the title as an official part of the Princeps' nomenclature, or in its more modern conception of an autonomous ruler governing vast territories as overlord, Augustus was most definitely the first Roman emperor. I am not sure about Asclepiades' argument regarding a 'deliberate misconception by Augustan propaganda to make him the divine royal founder of the Imperial tradition'. After 31BC his position was unprecedented, after all. No propaganda was necessary as far as this was concerned. His constitutional position was very different from Caesar's. Caesar was not awarded powers of office without holding such offices.

If someone needs a hand doing the db part I could do it, from a tech perspective that is.... Not to blow my own trumpet, I'm pretty OK with designing databases in Access, PC and Pompeius - so I'd be happy to help in this project. Like MPC says, I think it would be highly informative, and we could draw some interesting and, hopefully, useful conclusions from such a database.

Merely a nova I'm afraid. The star coughs and throws off waste material from the surface, resulting in a bright flare. Such things are rare enough, but supernova (The complete destruction of a star) is incredibly rare - I did read of one expert who reckoned there's been three during the life of our galaxy. In any case, an observable supernova had better be a long way off because the explosion has dire consequences for nearby star systems. So, are you saying that the Crab Nebula and such others are only the results of novae and not supernovae? I have to confess I haven't read any up-to-date stuff on astronomy for a while, so this interests me, Caldrail. From my reading years ago I always thought the main nebulae in our galaxy and others were the results of supernovae. Has research proved otherwise now? And I had heard that Betelgeuze (?sp) in Orion was going to be the next big supernova. Have you any up-to-date info on this? It's an unstable red giant, but will it be a mere nova when it goes, or a big blast?

I'm a fan of such things as Trivial Pursuit, Articulate and Balderdash. There was also a brief flourishing in the UK of a Sherlock Holmes board game that was quite fun - more involved than Cluedo. But when I was a kid I remember a really super game: The Battle of the Little Bighorn (based on the original battle), which was a great strategic piece, and if you played well enough you could not only save Custer but have him win! I suppose such a game would not be allowed today as it wasn't politically correct at all, but I remember whiling away many happy hours with my eldest sister - who was a whizz!

Oh, good God no! I wasn't meaning this as a literary critique - just a personal comment on the subject matter, which I fully understand must be brought up-to-date to capture a modern audience, especially in an action story. I really did like the main characters though. I think the point I was trying to make was that I want to engage with the historical setting in a novel - perhaps even more than the story. If I tell you that I'm a huge Renault fan, that should give you some idea of where I'm coming from. It's just different tastes. I'm not the greatest fan of battles and armies in any case, so I'm probably not the best judge of novels concerning the Roman Army. But may I wish you a warm welcome here, Mr. Scarrow. Talking of 'last books read', I am now plodding my way through Sarum once again, by Edward Rutherfurd. First time round (on its publication) I abandoned the book about half way, but I'm sticking with it this time. It's a strange work, and although it has gone down as a masterpiece, I do find huge chunks of it rather dry, and the vast landscape that the author has set out for himself means that his characters are never given full development in many sections. Still, it gives a broad overview of English history, parochial though the setting of Salisbury is, and the research that must have gone into it is staggering.

Shame on you Eh. While I admire Tolkien's ability to construct artificial languages, I find his novels tiresome. And I'm fairly understating my disdain for Hobbits when I say they are "irritating". -- Nephele Thank goodness someone else finds Tolkien tiresome to read. Although I enjoyed the films, I can remember settling down with Lord of the Rings about 30 years ago, and I haven't finished it to this day! It was silly really, as I got to about the last couple of chapters, but by this time I had lost the will to live.

Perhaps we should just have it deified? Oh I hate to nit pick - especially with you G-Man and Nephele - but I must tell you that yesterday was the God's 2069th birthday, not his 2070th! You see, he would have been 63 in 1AD, therefore you have to add 62 to 2007, or 63 to 2006! Just ignore me - it's been one of those weeks. Now, as you were....

Gods - as an avid reader, I would be here all day if I listed all my favourites. So, let's stick to historical fiction. Without a doubt it remains Mary Renault - after twenty-odd years! She will never be surpassed, and my only regret is that she did not write about the Roman world. This woman is THE historical novelist; the only writer who takes us fully into the world we are reading about. There are some who have come close in recent years, but no-one has yet surpassed her.

Not really, Gaius - don't give in so easily. To any native English speaker, all the sentences with varying syntax posted by Asclepiades make sense. That is because it is our language. The sense is clear because we view them with generations of usage. What interests me more - and maybe Doc can come in here - is the fact of English losing its inflectiions - if any existed in the first place! I do not know how inflected a language old Nprse was, but German, certainly, to this day retains its inflections (at least in four cases). French, however, does not - and we all know that the Normans had a huge part to play both culturally and linguistically. French, Italian, Spanish et. al are not inflected today. What I would want to ask the Doc is - was old French (i.e. that which the Normans spoke) inflected? If not, was their grammatical influence on the English language perhaps more important than we admit?

Just go ahead without me on this one, guys, as I have no source book to formulate teasers. I don;t mind helping out with the guesses though.

Well done, G-Man - it is indeed, old Maecenas himself. Your turn.