Primus Pilus

As Kosmo suggests, discussion of real possibilities is acceptable. The hypothetical China vs. Rome threads were tedious at best and drew a certain nationalistic bias that was completely unprovable anyway.

Cruel and inhumane? Perhaps, but this is just one example of a nation preserving their pre-eminence over a once mighty foe. Despite Rome's dominance after the 2nd Punic War, the potential reemergence of Carthage was still a real fear. I'd rather be forced to move than be sold into slavery or simply butchered.

A fascinating project... I am interested especially in the breakdown of magistracies with imperium per family vs. those without. While in theory, those families with the most number of overall magistracies should have a proportionally higher number of magistracies with imperium, I'm more interested in the families with less overall magistracies. Is the trend that those families would only have a one or two extraordinary individuals who rose to the top (thereby having 3 or 4 magistracies between 2 people), or rather several individuals who were only elected as quaestors, for instance.

Roman - Robert Harris Non-Roman - George R.R. Martin

Have you any figures about the patrician numbers across the Republican History? As the candidates for the Senate were only males 32 years and over, and the number of patricii gentis were always around twenty, I would have supposed that there were not so many of them, especially during their monopoly of the Senate (before CCCXXXIII AUC / 421 BC). You're quite right... thousands is likely a stretch, but the point here was to show that Patricians had the same the process to follow regarding admission to the senate. There have been plenty of studies regarding the composition of the early populus, the number of patrician families, etc. but I have not seen a study regarding a census of patrician individuals. I would certainly like to.

LOL, sad but true. What seems nice about Gods and Heroes is that it appears to be solo player friendly. Being able to log in, hack and slash for a little while and leave at your own convenience. Not being reliant upon other players to have fun would alleviate the time crunch concerns for me.

And just to be clear, the same concepts were true of patricians. For the most part there were only 300 - 600 senators at any given time but there were thousands of patricians.

A MMORPG (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) set in ancient Rome with mythological flavor. Even if its not necessarily historical, there may be some who this game will appeal to. Personally, I like MMO's but they are horribly time consuming and hardly productive, but they can be fun if you don't get caught up in the "grind". From the publisher... Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising (G&H) is a unique massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that plunges players into an epic struggle between the Olympian gods and the Telchines, a most nefarious and ancient enemy. After choosing from six historically accurate character classes, including the Soldiers, Gladiators, and Mystics that populated the early Roman Republic, players must align themselves with one of the mighty Olympian gods, such as Jupiter, Mars, or Minerva. Featuring the most fast-paced, visceral combat experience ever created for an MMORPG, G&H gives players the chance to square off against Rome

I'm not sure I'm following the reasoning here. Caesar was surely confident and I'd concur that he was not a fool, though the argument could be made that his blatant disregard of the law made him foolish. Regardless, that's not my point, I'll concur for arguments sake. I'm not sure how Sulla, Octavian or even Lepidus can be seen as being careful. I've never had the impression that Sulla retired because he didn't want to be perceived as a monarch (the antithesis to Caesar's lack of care), but rather simply that he was content with his accomplishments. Sulla's elimination of enemies may be perceived as a form of being careful, but these actions were more in line with accomplishing his agenda than attempting to secure his own safety (imo). I suppose it is difficult to separate the two. Octavian was an enormous risk taker. His entire career is one perilous adventure after another (through the elimination of all rivals of course.) Lepidus too was hardly careful, especially in his attempted coup of Octavian in Sicily. The defeat cowed him, to be certain, but he was never in quite the same comparable position as Caesar either. I'll readily concede that Octavian was far more careful in how he accepted his titles and honors, and it's clear that he was conscious of public perception, but the circumstances were different. He was aware of what happened to Caesar and wished to avoid it. Careful, or simply showing sound judgment? Perhaps both, but without Caesar's assassination any number of alternative behaviors (and obvious outcome) would've been possible. True enough, but 'deserve' has less to do with ethics than the anti-Caesarians have argued in this thread and more to do with legality. Treason dictated punishment by death in Roman law, whether any of us agree on whether or not it was deserved, though I understand the philosophical muse regarding "to the victor goes the spoils." Regardless, you gave me an opportunity to quote Clint Eastwood (Will Munney) in "Unforgiven" that I simply couldn't pass up... "Deserve's got nothin to do with it".

[mod interjection] not sure if I quite got the right place, but I split off the class discussion into a new thread...

I tend to agree here. The evidence for the title in the principate and beyond is overwhelming. However, I do find it notable that it is only Sulla, and then Caesar who use the title on coinage at all. While many had the right to use it officially as part of the triumphal procedures, I don't believe that any Republican moneyer ever issued a coin with the IMP legend in relation to anyone else. [edit] I take that back, Brutus used it as well... notably on the famous EID MAR coin. My apologies as this has little to do with Frankq's original questions, but I had to satisfy my own curiosity.

I find no reason to disbelieve that the secessions happened, but they may have been reported (by sources such as Livy) and/or understood by us far too literally. While there's no reason to disbelieve that a segment of the population did abandon the city, this could have been a more symbolic gesture of organized resistance. What I mean to suggest is that a particular vocal and authoritative segment of the plebeian population may have physically moved in order to illustrate their position, but its quite possible that the bulk of the population just stayed in their homes. The secessions were quite akin to labor strikes in which the Plebs stopped participating in daily operations of the city, refused military service, etc. Of course, it's quite impossible for me to prove this theory, especially in the face of Livy's evidence. There were 3 secessions in all. 494 BC - Ended with the introduction of the Tribunis Plebis magistracy 449 BC - Reconfirmed the rights and authority of the tribunii as well as the right to appeal in capital trials. 287 BC - Settled plebeian debt and established plebeian legislation as binding on everyone (plebiscitum) Livy 2.32 first secession Livy 3.52 the second secession Unfortunately, we are left with fragments for the third secession, Dio.Cass 8.37 and Zonarius, Livy's Periochae 11, a sentence of Pliny, etc. so I won't bother quoting the text. It wasn't used later in the Republic because the plebeians held most of the authority and no longer needed to be a unified body against the supreme authority of patricians. The struggle of the citizen class orders was gradually supplanted by the fight between the economic classes. While labor strikes, mob intimidation/street thuggery, etc. were all a part of this fight, the issue here was that not everyone agreed and the "people" weren't always unified. That of course is a rather simplistic take, but we have discussed the later politics of the Republic quite often around here, so the focus on the struggle of the orders is a welcome subject.

That would depend on the individual and his position in the client system, and the era we are talking about. In the earliest Republic, a pleb was not going to be consul regardless of his financial standing. By the Lex Licinia Sextia of 367 BC and the Lex Genucia of 342 BC, it was established that at least 1 consul every year would be a pleb. Who got elected was dependent somewhat upon familial lineage and client status as well as personal merit. A new man such as Abe Lincoln who started from virtual poverty would've had tremendous difficulty, but it was possible. Bill Clinton's chances would've been better, assuming we can believe some of the connections to earlier American leaders through the name Blythe, but he still would've had difficulty based on the lineage of his adoptive father.

Disregarding the earlier military aspect and the distinction between equites with the public horse and those without, equestrian from the mid Republic on was primarily a property class. Both plebs and patricians could be equites.

Was this through patronage or merit? How would a dirt farmer get the education to fill these posts? Not all plebs were dirt farmers. They occupied the entire gambit of the occupational spectra. The discussion of merit vs. patronage is interesting. In the earliest days, the plebs tried every possible initiative in order to gain political positions of authority or influence. Often these political concessions in the "struggle of the orders" can be viewed as patronage, but the earliest elected Plebs were still men of station regardless how the patricians may have felt about their ability to lead. Through the speech of tribune C. Canuleius (regarding the Lex Canuleia of 445 BC) Livy's representation of the Plebeian struggle to prove their merit to the Patricians is an enlightening read. Livy 4.3-.5 (but starting at 4.1 for a better context would be recommended)

Nope, those are search engine bots crawling the forum for new pages to index.

Our IM conversations have been intriguing, and I'm looking forward to your full review. In fact, as confessed, such matters are a historical weakness (as is the "Byzantine" era) and I may just pick up a copy for my own improvement. (provided the overall review merits it.)

I think it's fairly commonplace for most people to be stuck in the era of their most care-free memories (typically the late teens to early twenties). Personally, I was so disappointed by new music from my mid 20's until just a few years ago, I virtually gave up on most of it. It was our very own Moonlapse who thankfully introduced me to some music that had been outside my normal radar and I've been greedily hooked on finding more new stuff to devour ever since. Sometimes one just needs to be exposed to something other than the mainstream radio fare in order to get re-energized. Mind you, my listening tastes were never truly mainstream anyway (I'm pretty much a metal-head disguised as a professional), but one might be surprised what they will like if they give it a chance. There is something out there for everyone, but it can sometimes be hard to find if it ain't 'POP'.

Not sure. I've seen a couple of shows about this site in England where they found the remains of a Roman fort and this day they keep unearthing more and more artifacts (even letters). I want to say it's on private property and the family that owns the land established their own little museum. Ring any bells? Ahh, probably Vindolanda then.

Some of the "richest" places to explore today are those that were formerly part of the Eastern Bloc nations. Only in recent years have many of these sites begun to receive extensive scientific attention and the historical yield could be tremendous. Unfortunately, many sites have been subject to looters and vandals as the archaeological community struggles to keep up, but only time will tell how many great finds are remaining to be unearthed. Are you thinking of Chesters/Cilurnum?

There certainly is coinage issued by Caesar with the title IMP or IMPER in the obverse legend to indicate officialism. Whether this is proof that the title was used in other official capacities is difficult to discern. The legend IMP appears as early as 47 BC http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s1401.html The first coins with Caesar's portrait (which was of course a shocking display of regal behavior) and the inclusion of the titles IMPER or IMP on the obverse legend appear just before his assassination in Jan/Feb of 44 BC http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s1408.html http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s1419.html

Who'd have thunk that all that wine would be killing me

[mod interjection] Discussion of the Bible as a historical source split and moved to Academia

Whipper-snapper. You clearly don't drink enough! I'm 24!

You're going to hell. Feel Better? Anyway, I'm fascinated by the similarity in this "god wishes to remain hidden" reasoning to that of alien visitors, abductions and anal probing. If these aliens are so much more advanced than us that they can engage in interstellar travel, randomly intercept hapless trailer park residents and study humanity via the rectum, why would they be concerned if we were to discover that they were actually there. If we got a bit unruly about all of this, they could just zap us with ray guns and such. Or maybe they have a Star Trek like "Prime Directive"? Oops, this was about religion, my bad... carry on.