The Augusta

Happy Birthday to you, Gaius - have a good one, mate! :beer: :beer: I hope you celebrate like a good Yorkshireman - and we want an essay on your hangover by tomorrow, noon!

Watch it, else Minerva will ask Father Jove to hurl lightning bolts at your head! And mess with Hecate at your peril!

Off the top of my head, Augustus, I don't know of much. We had a Roman road at the top of the town, and in the next town of Stalybridge, there is an area called Castlefield on which there was a Roman fort. I'll try to do a bit of research before I meet up with you and let you know what I can. And welcome back, Pertinax. As I have rudely posted over your question to Augustus - here it is repeated!

Having been brought up with an English literature and literary criticism background as well as an historical one, I really enjoyed this, Wot! It was a well-argued essay, but there was only one thing that concerned me a little. Although you have limited yourself to the study of Tacitus for this particular topic, your opening sets out the theory of the didactic nature of the Roman historiographers' work as a whole, and I would have welcomed a couple more examples of this - perhaps Livy, Velleius, even Suetonius, and the influence on this type of history that was set by Thucydides. But this is only a tiny point - I just think it would have really underlined your case and would have served as a springboard for us to examine Tacitus even more critically. How did his viewpoint differ to others? Is there further evidence from other non-literary sources to support the use of literary devices in Livy or Suetonius et al? I loved the viewpoint of Tacitus using his 'barbarians' as a literary device from which to comment on all that was good or bad in the Rome of his day and the higher morals of the past. It was a very persuasive piece and was well-written and well-constructed. I'd love to discuss this further with you and the rest of the community. A great read, Wot!

I honestly believe that it could be the simple contrast of a competitive Republic versus a Principate in which advancement was only gained by the goodwill of the Princeps. As distasteful as that may seem to us now, we have to remember that the wars of Marius/Sulla and Octavian/Antony had been seen as factional rivalries, and once there was one man in control, promising an end to all the strife, the exhausted populace fell for it. (What is really interesting is why?) Whatever Republican facade Augustus may have hid behind, he was very firmly in control of the state. It is what I have always believed, Cato - but I would certainly welcome other views and arguments. It was anathema to Cicero to conceive of one supreme ruler - it went against everything he believed in. Augustus had been brought up with Julius as a 'role model', so the idea was not so alien to him. But you are right - a discussion on how the populace saw the merits of peace and a halt to imperial expansion would be fascinating. Indeed - and if we bring in Ovid, we have political ramifications too. (I feel a thread coming on...) Is this confined to poetry, by the way? It would be interesting if it turned out that historians were more taken in by Augustus' propaganda than the propagandists themselves. So much for the idea that Virgil was the Leni Riefenstahl of his age. Not at all - I firmly believe that the historians also used literary devices, and were just as much at the mercy of propaganda as others. (It's something I want to comment on in WotWotius' essay thread)

Indeed - and if we bring in Ovid, we have political ramifications too. (I feel a thread coming on...)

This was excellent, Publius - and as I told you, the title grabbed me from the start - clever use of phrasing there in your subtitle, highlighting the ambiguous role played by the Tribunes in the history of the Republic. You brought out fully how the post could be abused by the unscrupulous, while also arguing for its beneficent role too. I want to return to this later after a re-read, as I think all of us have a great interest in the history of the Tribunate. Great stuff!

Put that on my gravestone, Nephele! I too enjoyed this Decimus. It's a fascinating topic, and I did not realise that cremations only really came in around the time of Sulla. What a vivid picture you paint of all these different funerary traditions. Personally - and this is certainly not a criticism - I would have liked to have read even more on this, and whilst you did compare the pagan to the Christian Roman attitudes to death, I thought it might have been quite interesting to bring in the Greek attitudes too, and how these perhaps influenced Roman thinking. I especially liked the contrast you brought out between the classes too. A very enjoyable and informative read!

A brilliant essay, Aurelius. I have no deep knowledge of the military side of things, so I won't even try to comment on the content - I shall leave that to others who have the expertise. However, I must comment on the beautifully structured argument and your wide areas of research. This really is fantastic work, Aurelius. Well done!

Agreed - a very informative post. I also found this essay quite fascinating, and I really learned something from it. I have to admit that I had not gone into too much detail about collegia in the past, and was labouring under the total misapprehension that they were always religious. So, thank you Skarr, for producing a vivid snapshot on the social history - and it has certainly kindled my own interest and made me want to learn more.

That's a damned good point! It certainly is a good point - and I see a case for both arguments here. Whilst a poet of Virgil's standing may well have considered an unfinished epic worthless (one needs to empathise with the poetic mind here), he was also in no way one of Augustus' 'yes-men'. Nor was Horace, for that matter. There are examples in the works of both poets where one can see a distinct lack of enthusiasm, or actual 'distaste' for 'towing the party line'. Whilst we cannot examine it in depth here, it may be a worthwhile topic for another thread.

Of course there is another answer. We girls have no life at all

Actium, anyone? Did they do it justice? Or was it a Pharsalus job?

Thanks for the kind words - and now I can relax and enjoy reading everyone's essays. I must thank UNRV for giving me the opportunity to revisit my old academic love. It is at least 15 years since I wrote an essay, and the whole process was a joy in itself, regardless of outcome. Well done to Aurelius and PNS, and everyone who entered. And a special, public thanks to Gaius Octavius for his donation to the prize fund.

LW - you can always check if your hard drive has died by hitting the key for set-up while the OS is loading. On my PC this is 'F2' but it may be different on yours. This will take you to the setup. Working through the menus you should find a line of text/'pute speak that says something about your hard drive - usually its make etc. If that line is blank or it says something like 'hard drive not found' or 'None' then your hard drive has gone.

Everyone wants to point to Julius, or Sulla or whoever, but if we take it from the point where the Republic could no longer be restored in any shape or form, I would have to give the title to Augustus.

Thank you, Neil and Ursus, for excellent posts which address the very point I was trying to make in my own ham-fisted way. Terrorism was traditionally 'the weapon of the weak', and some of the posts in this thread went off at a tangent to include armed forces attacking civilians. To go back to the beginning of the thread - which did actually have something to do with Rome - some of us disputed the internet article because you could hardly class Rome as 'weak'. However, the definition of terrorism has subtly shifted in recent years to include any sort of organised violence against civilians. I would still want to make the point, however, that an army's actions are not usually carried out in secret and without warning. Such actions follow a declaration of war or some other state of accepted hostility exists between both parties. This does not mean that we can condone such actions - its just a question of how we all define 'terrorism' I suppose. Another traditional view is that groups of terrorists do not act with the backing of their governments, whereas an army does. Would it not be more correct to term the vicious actions of armies targeting civilians as a 'war crime' rather than an act of 'terrorism'? Or isn't there a difference? Are we just in the world of semantics here?

Thanks, Gaius - that's amazing. It shows how the spread of the citizenship throughout the empire was crucial in producing the rulership. Come to think of it, this is worth a topic of its own.

If its any help, Augustus, Wikipedia says: After the Norman Conquest the area became part of two Norman estates and in the 12th century the presiding family took the name De Dokenfeld. An interesting point to note is that 'Dokenfeld' in Old Norse translates as 'field of ravens'. Full link here How true it is I don't know, but the Wikipedia entry does accord with what we learned in primary school about 'Dokenfield'. We were told it was a name given to us by the Vikings. I can also vouch for most of what the article says (it is one of Wiki's 'uncited'), especially about the ...erm...famous folks: Kathy Staff (Nora Batty from 'Last of the Summer Wine') is certainly a Duky girl - her real name is Minnie Higginbottom! The cricketer Norman Oldfield worked with my Mum during the war.

Sorry to be off topic for a mo, but I just have to stand up and cheer your avatar, Ingsoc! Now back on: These lists are fascinating. Are there any statiticians among us who could work out the proportion/percentage of the emperors who were actually born in Rome?

This goes to prove that the moniker 'Maladict' has deep, esoteric, and dare I say, arcane mean ing! Hehe - and here was I thinking it was his own clever little pun on a certain pope's name

Augusta i am going to have to strongly disagree with you. Cowardly is members of the British Parachute Regiment firing into a crowd of unarmed and peaceful protesters and murdering 14 of them, including people who were shot in the back trying to run away. Cowardly is the british army putting nail bombs into the pockets of a dead boy to try to prove that a crowd seeking civil rights was armed. Cowardly is the british government who whitewashed and exonerated the actions of their army during the protest. But after all its only the Irish who were murdered, why blame the british army for actions that they have been doing for centuries in Ireland!!! Septimus - I do not need to be lectured on the troubles in Northern Ireland, and I have deliberately not stated my own feelings on who has the better cause. You might have noticed that I deliberately separated the Provos from Sinn Fein - but we are not here to discuss Irish politics - we were discussing terrorism, of which the Provisional IRA is undoubtedly guilty. I am of Irish descent myself, so I do not see the murder of the Irish as a thing of no consequence! And for what its worth, the actions of the army in Northern Ireland was deplorable, but - I repeat - the argument was about terrorism. Are you trying to say that the bombs in Manchester, Warrington, Guildford, etc. were not? It's the sad old maxim: two wrongs do not make a right - and going all the way back to Oliver Cromwell still does not justify either the IRA's actions nor the actions of the British army in protecting the minority. But please, let us not get into this. My post was to help illustrate the case MPC made about armies versus civilian covert action. You have only quoted two lines of it. And the cowardly action of the British Parachute Regiment, in no way makes the actions of the IRA terrorists brave. Pax now - or we'll be sent to Tartarus.

Ah, now I get you, Maladict. Sorry if I misinterpreted you. This reminds me that on one of my visits to Rome, I was chatting to a guy who said the Forum was a dangerous place at night because it was full of dogs! Now, at the time I thought he meant real guard dogs, employed by the government to guard the place, but he may well have been referring to these strays.

Well said, Ingsoc - and welcome to the Forum, by the way.

If I might inject a touch of parochialism here. As someone who has lived for decades (thankfully no more) with the IRA on our doorstep, we Brits on the mainland have suffered quite a bit from these crazy idealists and their cowardly methods. While the political question of Sinn Fein is not the issue here, but the Provos are, I am reminded of the words of wisdom of my own mother, who knew nothing of politics but had lived through World War 2. She was incensed to hear the IRA in their black balaclavas and masks issuing statements that they were at war. (Jihad anybody?) 'If they're at war,' she said, 'why don't they take off those bloody masks and let themselves be seen like a proper army, instead of blowing up women and children.' To me her words made perfect sense. Terrorism, as I define it, is 1) carried out from some ideological basis, and 2) done in a secret, underhand and cowardly way whereby the victims of it have no knowledge of an attack. In a declared war everybody knows a state of hostility exists, therefore I cannot agree with those who have said that armies carry out terrorism. We might not agree with war personally, but that isn't the question here. I might not agree with the war in Iraq, but once it was declared, the Iraqi government knew what to expect.