Primus Pilus

For just a brief moment I was overly excited to think that this find was in Cartagena, Colombia.

Today I've uploaded a comprehensive list of Roman laws and constitutional policy that details the legal history of the Republic from its founding to its fall. Organized by era and in chronological order, over 200 entries provide the year, type of policy (rogatio, lex, decretum, etc.) and a detailed summary of it's purpose. Each entry is fully attributed to ancient source material. This is something that I've put more energy into than I care to admit, but I am very pleased with the results. I'm quite certain that there is nothing else like it on the web. I'd like to thank Nephele for helping hash out a few problematic entries via the use of Broughton's "Magistrates of the Roman Republic" and offer a very special thanks to MPC for his numerous suggestions, additions and edits throughout the process. It may be published, but I can make edits or additions at any time. Should anything strike you as missing, confusing or inaccurate, please do let me know. Legal and Institutional Chronology of the Roman Republic Also threw together this Roman Law Glossary for those who may be less familiar with the terminology. Again, changes are easy, so feel free to make suggestions if you are so inclined.

Sorry for missing this SF... The quadrigatus was the Roman equivalent of the Greek didrachm. It weighed roughly 6.8 grams (6 scruples). It was replaced by the Victoriatus which weighed 3.4 grams (3 scruples) and was based on the value of the drachm. The Victoriatus was originally worth 3/4 of a denarius (and later was valued at half a denarius when it was re-introduced as the quinarius c. 101 BC). Since the Victoriatus was worth 3/4 of a denarius and was half the size and weight of the Quadrigatus, the quadrigatus would have been worth 1.5 denarii. At 1.5 denarii, the quadrigatus would've been worth roughly: 6 sestercii 7.5 dupondii 15 asses 1/16 of an Aureus (based on Augustan values since it hadn't been issued yet)

Slightly cheaper at Amazon

Cicero doesn't claim any blood connection. Cic. de LegAgr II.14'35 and really only mentions him in passing. In the same work (as well as many others) he clearly claims to be a novus homo. (I fortuitously stumbled across this text while looking for the reference to Decula.) (de LegAgr. II.3) We can be fairly certain that if Cicero had consular heritage in his direct family, we would've known about it, and in fact his political drive for importance and acceptance may have been altered. If only the nomen mattered Cicero could've claimed lineage to Servius Tullius (the 6th King) and M. Tullius Longus (cos c.500 BC).

I wouldn't worry too much. The notion of Gaul as a primitive civilization has been long discredited. Considering that the story relates the Roman invasion of Gaul to 52 BC, and that a discovery of such magnitude (if it were a new discovery) would focus on rewriting some albeit popular illustrated books, one should probably just ignore it. It's fairly common knowledge that Gallic architecture included permanent stone structures of various scale. While Celtic Britain was fairly isolated in terms of architecture and art prior to the Roman invasions, Gaul had long been exposed to Greeks, Phoenicians (Carthaginians), Etruscans, Romans, etc. In any case, Gaul was not nearly so primitive, it just lacked some of the large scale societal and organizational sophistication of its southern neighbors.

I think we're making far more out of this than is necessary. Sometimes the reality of human behavior is simpler than analyzing the law and related precedents. The logical scenario is that Caesar's men followed him because they had already done so for the better part of a decade. In their minds, he was their provider and protector (regardless of whatever the truth may be on who would ultimately be responsible for their well-being), and he seemingly had at least the 13th (the only legion with him on the Rubicon) convinced that both he and the tribunis plebis (Antonius) had been terribly violated. Regardless of the sacramentum, it's all part of a soldier's training and natural behavior to follow orders as collective body even if individuals aren't quite in agreement with the ideology of his officers. In this case in particular, I believe Caesar had the majority of his men convinced that only by securing his political authority could the legionaries be provided with an advantageous retirement. For the soldiers, even those who were individually in consternation over the legality and the ramifications of invading Italy, the majority likely felt they had a vested interest in and were reliant upon Caesar's success. And as Ascepliades rightly points out, the Marian reforms did create a professional soldier that was not necessarily tied to various landholdings, farms or other financial interests of note in Rome. It would certainly be a boon to historical study if veteran accounts of both the Gallic and civil wars had survived. Imagine the insight such stories could provide... alas.

Bio's of Crassus are in the "scarce" category. Check this post and a couple of following replies for more info.

First find some examples of common soldiers being charged or convicted of high treason. Also see if there examples of common soldiery being proscribed. I know you will say that absence of evidence is not evidence, but the lack of such evidence is clearly an indication that these men weren't targeted. Treason and proscription was aimed at those capable of leading an insurrection, ie officers, whereas proscription was aimed at men of wealth and/or political influence. There is plenty of evidence of mutiny in the historical record and how various commanders dealt with it. If this was worthy of being reported by the sources, why not mention when soldiers were proscribed or charged in a criminal conspiracy trial?

Just a reminder that there is left than a week left to submit an entry.

The text you quoted is mine, not MPC's just for purposes of clarity... I know this keeps getting rehashed, but I think it is quite important to understand the difference between the effects of the Marian reforms (allowing extreme loyalty to a general) and the main cause of civil war (personal ambition). While the Marian reforms may have done just what I indicated in the quoted text above (essentially making the loyalty of the head count to rogue generals a problem for the Republic, though I am also remiss in that text by not pointing out that such loyalty had occurred prior to the reforms and that it was still personal ambition of imperators that manipulated that loyalty for personal gain), it does not mean that the generals did not have choices to make regarding the use of that loyalty and their duty to the state. The reforms themselves did not make civil war inevitable, but rather the changing culture of ambitious generals just prior to and just after Sulla and Marius. The Marian reform was both a necessity at the moment, due to issues with available manpower following multiple defeats to the Cimbri and Teutons and the recent war with Jugurtha, while it was also a great boon for Marian ambition. Like Scipio Africanus in an earlier era, or Crassus and Lucullus after the Marian reforms, any of the imperator generals could've retired their armies and returned to normal political life or retired from service entirely. That they chose not to was not because of the reforms and the loyalty of their armies but because of personal ambition.

What are you talking about? How did their choices increase after the Marian reforms? If anything, their choices decreased. Initially, there was no sacramentum. Then, the sacramentum was restricted to the vow not to abandon formation in battle. Finally, after Marius, the sacramentum was expanded to obey one's legates. Indeed, the Marian reforms did nothing other than reform the legionary structure. As a side effect it may have given the perception to the legionary that he was dependent upon his legate for his well being and retirement therefore increasing loyalty, but this dependency was not necessarily true either. The Republic still did much to pay, equip and retire military veterans. Regardless, men still had choices. Before the Marian reforms, Scipio Africanus could have called upon his veterans to help him against political enemies, but he did not. There are countless examples, one simply needs to pick a victorious (imperator) to see the choices they had. There was a different culture regarding the fulfillment of personal ambition among generals and magistrates prior to the Marian/Sullan civil war, but the Marian reforms did not force any of the notorious generals to behave the way they did.

While that is an interesting theory to be sure, Mr. Weisman has completely failed to recognize that if all the humans suddenly disappeared, mutant cyborgs would rise to take our place, with completely unpredictable results.

I recall that the relative value of adding Britain to the empire was discussed around here somewhere, and I concur that expansion there was ultimately less advantageous than eastern expansion, but I'm not convinced that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was inherently too costly to allow for campaigns in the east. There was certainly no great financial boon in terms of gold, but we know there was at least enough alternative resources (sale of slaves, etc.) to finance Caesar's political agenda and the launching of his civil war. Clearly Rome would've been better served if that wealth had been used in other ways, but the conquest itself was not necessarily an economic mistake. Considering the generally stable political and social environment in Gaul dating from 50 BC through to the fall of the west, and adding it's value as a grain producer, it would seem that at worst Gaul was at least self-sufficient. We can obviously see that the conquest of Gaul didn't stop Crassus, Antonius, Nero (via Corbulo), Trajan, M. Aurelius (with L. Verus), Severus, etc. from invading Parthia or Parthian interests (Armenia). So the question left to answer is, had Rome not needed to fortify the Rhenus on a permanent basis for 5 centuries, would there have been more resources available to complete the eastern conquests or would said forces have just occupied fortifications along the Alps and the Rhodanus anyway? Of course, if we factor in the ultimately futile campaigns of Drusus, Tiberius and Germanicus against the Germanics (campaigns that never would've taken place without the conquest of Gaul) we have a clear example of how resources could've been better used elsewhere.

What happened to the Greeks when Rome was starting to grow Cato? Forgive me for answering on behalf of Cato, but in the simplest terms, they were either conquered forcibly and/or absorbed into the citizenship as Rome pressed it's dominance of the Italian peninsula.

In order to organize and clarify this list of links, posted additions will be incorporated into the existing posts. Discussion of any such links (inclusion, exclusion, edits, etc.) within this thread will be split at the conclusion of said discussion, in order to keep the thread clean and on topic. Thank you to everyone who submitted various links, and my apologies for removing posts. I hope the new categorization will be useful. Cheers! [EDIT] Thanks for the additions: Theiliad, P. Nonius Severus, Ludovicus, M. Porcius Cato, Nephele, Divi Filius, Flavia Gemina, Klingan, Ingsoc, P. Clodius, Melvadius, ASC, Legulieus (and to anyone else I may have missed).

Miscellaneous source material on Greek, Byzantine, Eastern, Post-Roman Europe, etc. Cuneiform Tablets Gregory of Tours History of the Franks Herodotus Histories, book 7 Homer: The Iliad, The Odyssey Vindolanda Tablets Online searchable database of inscriptions and tablets

Link Databases containing various ancient source materials: The Ancient History Sourcebook Extensive list of sources organized by subject and author. Latin Library Many primary texts (in Latin of course). Lacus Curtius many texts in both Latin and English. Internet Classics Archive @ MIT 441 total Greco-Roman works. Perseus Digital Library enormous database, but slow to load. An improved Beta Version 4.0 is still being developed. Direct link to Greco-Roman texts. Corpus Sciptorum Latinorum @ Forum Romanum A large searchable and alphabetized list with both English and Latin texts and secondary sources. Gutenberg.org An extensive list of downloadable books, including many non ancient texts. Poetry in Translation Large database of poetry including a large collection of Greek and Latin poets. Society for Ancient Languages smaller selection of Latin texts. Fectio.org Related to Vortigern Studies which concentrates on the later imperial period, particularly in Britannia. Cultural Language Heritage Technology Mirror site of selected Perseus texts, expect similar loading delays. Perseus Berlin Mirror Occasional better performance than the main perseus site.

Rome at it's greatest extant is a bit misleading. There's no question that Trajan's campaigns in the east were successful against the Parthian army, but the real issue was the inability to secure their rear after these massive conquests. The newly acquired territory was Roman in theory, but the inhabitants disagreed. Massive revolts were still taking place (especially among the Jews) and Mesopotamia was never fully incorporated into the empire. Within a few years of the expansion, Hadrian abandoned it as untenable. Rome may have been able to continue the expansion at times (as evidenced by the reign of Septimius Severus), but internal strife invariably forced cessation of such plans. Whether it was revolts of the people, or the breakdown of imperial succession (and resulting civil war), Rome was forced to stop expansion by the inability to maintain peace within it's own borders.

I liked Zazzle because it offered better products, including black tshirts (at the time Cafe Press didn't). Considering how little we've sold though, we are hardly an authority, but I did want to let you know at least that I haven't had any problems with our actual accounts.

Both, we just never used the cafe press account.

We've set up an account for UNRV.com. We haven't really sold anything, but I haven't noticed any problems with the account setup, maintenance, etc.

Ahh, so it was just your own big mouth the whole time Seriously, that's good little idiosyncrasy of the forum structure to be aware of... thanks for letting us know.

Conquer more lands... no. Fully incorporate that which they already maintained... yes. Rome certainly would've been stronger without civil war, but such strength would not necessarily led to external conquest. (Though understanding the nature of man, we can presume it certainly would've been attempted)

Here's the key... was Caligula "crazy" or "mad" as depicted by Tacitus and Suetonius? Perhaps, but perhaps not. The more important question is did he do the things that they reported. Aside from such things as collecting sea shells on the shores of the English Channel (which may be a dramatization for effect) and making his horse a senator (which may be a metaphor for suggesting that his horse would've made a better senator than the lot he had around him), it's clear that the emperor murdered, proscribed and confiscated the properties of prominent individuals in order to finance his extravagance. Since sexual deviance is rampant throughout the sources (including Caligula's contemporary Philo of Alexandria) along with suggestions of his own divinity, we can be reasonably comfortable that these reports are minimally based on fact, regardless of whether or not he may be classified as sane or insane.