ASCLEPIADES

Salve, Amici Really? Wow! I had no idea it looked like that, honestly. I'm used to seeing the kind of block letters used in stone etc. I really had no idea the Romans had "round" letters like we do. Have you checked out the 'Vindolanda Tablets'? The writing on these wafer thin scraps of wood is much the same as the example given, and a comparison between this kind of cursive handwriting and the carved capitals on inscriptions is probably much the same as a comparison of contemporary handwriting to the headline pages of The Times or the International Herald Tribune. Here is a link to the Vindolanda Tablets: http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/ Also check out MPC's link on this thread, post 13: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8903 You are right LW, these cursive texts do at first appear similar to Greek. However, the similarity is illusary - I have been told by people of the Muslim faith that at first glance our handwriting appears to resemble Arabic. But only at first glance! This is a reading help from the Vindolandia CSAD site (NN's first link); if you check it closely, you may verify the letters are not that different from the Pompeian grafitti.

Salve, NN Bjorn Lomborg is an environmentalist whose sceptical views on man made global warming run rather similar to yours - in fact, I have at times assumed you were influenced by some of his ideas on some of your previous posts on this subject! Almost but not quite... If you check the lecture on my posted link, you will see Mr Lomborg actually accepts GW (hardly surprising). His goal is other; based on some figures, he considers that even being real, GW control shouldn't be among our global priorities. That's why I'm interested in your opinion.

Here comes another graphically evident consequence of Global Warming. "Sea level measurements from 23 long tide gauge records in geologically stable environments show a rise of around 20 centimeters (8 inches) per century, or 2 mm/year (Bruce C. Douglas (1997). "Global Sea Rise: A Redetermination". Surveys in Geophysics 18: 279-292). From 3,000 years ago to the start of the 19th century sea level was almost constant, rising at 0.1 to 0.2 mm/yr.[1] Since 1900 the level has risen at 1 to 2 mm/yr; since 1993 satellite altimetry from TOPEX/Poseidon indicates a rate of rise of 3.1

BTW, check out in this RELATED THREAD an Imperial historian's analysis made on Cn. Pompeius Magnus' deeds some four centuries later.

Regarding military deeds, the measure your own victories is done by the strength of your enemies.

More delays for the Armageddon: From the Scientific American blog (Sept 20, 2008): LHC helium leak will shut collider down for two months "More glitches for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC): The same day operators announced that a 30-ton transformer that cools part of the particle smasher had broken within hours of the LHC's launch last week, a mishap yesterday resulted in "a large helium leak" into the collider's tunnel. According to a press statement, "the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure"." READ MORE

Here comes the amazing account by Mestrius Plutarchus (hardly an anti-caesarean source) on Cn. Pompeius' first battles at Axinum and Arsis as a technically illegal legatus (*) against some of the most notorius Marian commanders at DCLXXI AUC / 83 BC (Life of Pompey, cp. VI-VII) while CJ Caesar (two years younger) was resting quietly at home: "After this, Pompey, who was only twenty-three years old, and who had not been appointed general by anybody whomsoever, conferred the command upon himself, and setting up a tribunal in the market-place of Auximum, a large city,a issued an edict ordering the chief men there, two brothers named Ventidius, who were acting against him in Carbo's interest, to leave the city. Then he proceeded to levy soldiers, and after appointing centurions and commanders for them all in due form, made a circuit of the other cities, doing the same thing. All the partisans of Carbo withdrew and gave place to him, and the rest gladly offered their services to him, so that in a short time he had mustered three complete legions, and provided them with food, baggage-waggons, carriages, and other needful equipment. Then he led his forces towards Sulla, not in haste, nor even with a desire to escape observation, but tarrying on the march as he harried the enemy, and endeavouring to detach from Carbo's interest all that part of Italy through which he passed. "There came up against him, accordingly, three hostile generals at once, Carinas, Cloelius, and Brutus, not all in front of him, nor from any one direction, but encompassing him round with three armies, in order to annihilate him. Pompey, however, was not alarmed, but collected all his forces into one body and hastened to attack one of the hostile armies, that of Brutus, putting his cavalry, among whom he himself rode, in the van. And when from the enemy's side also the Celtic horsemen rode out against him, he promptly closed with the foremost and sturdiest of them, smote him with his spear, and brought him down. Then the rest turned and fled and threw their infantry also into confusion, so that there was a general route. After this the opposing generals fell out with one another and retired, as each best could, and the cities came over to Pompey's side, arguing that fear had scattered his enemies. Next, Scipio the consul came up against him, but before the lines of battle were within reach of each other's javelins, Scipio's soldiers saluted Pompey's and came over to their side, and Scipio took to flight. Finally, when Carbo himself sent many troops of cavalry against him by the river Arsis, he met their onset vigorously, routed them, and in his pursuit forced them all upon difficult ground impracticable for horse; there, seeing no hope of escape, they surrendered themselves to him, with their armour and horses". Cn. Papirius Carbo was the Marian second-in-command, a current pretor, has served as Consul two times (including the previous year, and he would serve again the next one); and most important, he had previously fought against LC Sulla himself without having been defeated. L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus was one the serving consuls. Was it really so surprising that he became such a huge popular hero and the favourite of LC Sulla? (*) He would eventually be retrospectively recognized as such (and saluted as imperator too) by LC Sulla after this deeds

Salve, P C. Trebonius was an equite indeed, but SS Galba was a proud patrician (incidentally, his great-grandson would be the emperor Galba). As well as the other Liberatores, their motives were presumably mixed; some bona fide idealistic nationalism (after all, CJ Caesar was the subjugator of the Roman Republic) with a good doses of personal ambition. After the Ides of March DCCX AUC / 44 BC, Trebonius became proconsul of Asia, while Galba was now the legate of the Martian Legion under Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, the proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul. Roman politics were always a dirty business, particularly during the Civil Wars of the I century BC.

From WiredScience (one of Viggen's favourites): Yucatan Jungles Are Feral Maya Gardens By Alexis Madrigal - October 11, 2007 The jungles of the Yucat

Thanks to a quick link in an ongoing thread by Lady N on the 2008 Presidential Candidate Responses to Scientists and Engineers for America: John McCain "We know that greenhouse gas emissions, by retaining heat within the atmosphere, threaten disastrous changes in the climate. The same fossil-fuels that power our economic engine also produced greenhouse gases that retain heat and thus threaten to alter the global climate. No challenge of energy is to be taken lightly, and least of all, the need to avoid the consequences of global warming. The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and simple commonsense demand that we act to meet the challenge, and act quickly". Barack Obama "There can no longer be any doubt that human activities are influencing the global climate and we must react quickly and effectively. First, the U.S. must get off the sidelines and take long-overdue action here at home to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions. We must also take a leadership role in designing technologies that allow us to enjoy a growing, prosperous economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050". It seems the worldwide Global-Warming-faking conspiracy is truly all-encompassing.

Salve, Amici In his Labienus biography Tyrell seem to agree with this notion that Labienus was from Picenum however from Caesar word (he use to refer to those as approch Labienus as "Inimici" which would indicate they were of the Senatorial faction and not the Pompenian faction) that Labienus abandon Caesar as a result of republicanism, he also note that their seem to have bad blood between Labienus and Caesar. It seems Tyrrell's work (gratiam habeo, PC!) is still the only biography on this intriguing character openly available online. For most of the Time that T. Labienus was under CJ Caesar, the latter and C Pompeius Magnus were close allies (ie, the so-called "first triumvirate"); in fact, Caesar thanked more than once Pompeius' help in his Comentarii de Bello Gallico: then, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if Labienus had at the time a close personal relationship with both generals. As far as I know, T. Labienus was the only one among Caesar's current legates that change sides when the Civil war broke; of his former legates, at least Quintus Tullius Cicero (Marcus' brother) was on the Republican side (he was then serving in Sardinia). Anyhow, regarding at least two other caesarean legates in Gaul (C. Trebonius and S. Sulpicius Galba), even if they remained in CJ Caesar's side during the Civil War, were eventually among the Liberatores conspirators when the dictator was killed (Trebonius was the one who diverted M. Antonius from the crime scene).

Salve, LSG My apologies for that. I always thought it was evident that if we came here it was because we were looking for MORE debate, not the other way.

Salve, M. Actually, my own feeling is that such "Pompey's ability" is fundamentally pro-Caesar propaganda; then as now, you don't win wars without fighting battles. In fact, C. Pompeius Magnus got more territory, people and money for Rome than CJ Caesar (or any other Roman general of their time, for that matter). Regarding Pharsalus, incredibly as it may sound, we lack any account from the Republican side; we can just rely on the systematically unreliable and biased account from CJ Caesar himself.

Salve, L Lovely and neat. I'm pretty sure the stuff from Vindolanda was all untidy (the letters asking for underpants and so forth), but I could be wrong. I guess the answer to the question is "the same as todays" - some folk were neat, others less so (and I know what camp I'm in!). Then as now, political propaganda has to be clear and easy to understand

Salve, LW Are those letters Latin? Or Greek? It looks Greek to me but I could be mistaken. The translation given is Latin. Just straight Flavian Latin.

Salve, Amici Scratchy and spidery - the Roman style, anyway. But I'll bet that comes from scribbling away on wax notebooks...does nothing for your handwriting style! Russ Check on an electoral Pompeian Grafitti in THIS THREAD (POST # 105)

BTW, I would like to know your opinion about this lecture (February 2005) by BJORN LOMBORG from the Copenhagen Consensus on setting priorities to the greatest global problems (warming, poverty, diseases and so on). (Basically, Mr. Lomborg rates quite low GW on his own score).

Salve, LSG

Salve, LSG. Please don't get me wrong. The idea is not to point that it has been all said regarding any topic; that is simply not possible. The idea is to profit from what has been previously considered and debated here at UNRV and to not let such contributions into oblivion. That would be like forgetting our own history; isn't History what this is all about?

Salve, F Both the Little Ice Age and the ongoing anthropogenic Global Warming are well established facts. The images from my previous post (#216) are real pictures from almost the same spot. Check the dates; the change can't be explained by the Little Ice Age. Now, if we admit that your XVII century engraving is accurate and from the same spot as your XX century pic (and if the dates are right) such change can be perfectly explained by the modern anthropogenic Global Warming. On the other hand, most of the pairs of oics posted in the LINK from my last post can't be explained at all by the LIA; for that, we require the modern anthropogenic Global Warming. For example, Mount Hood at Oregon: 1984 2002 But of course, you must be aware from long ago of the overwhelming evidence that substantiates (or "seem to prove", if you like) GW. Nowadays, denying its existence would be at more or less the same scientific level as Creationism. Then, I suppose thousands of pics wouldn't change your mind either; we may always find an alternative explanation if we really want to ignore the weight of the available evidence (as we may do regarding evolution too). But as I said, it didn't hurt.

Salve, Amici. If the more than 200 previous posts on this thread have proven something, is that politics, stinginess and /or indolence can make some people absolutely blind to even the most indisputable evidence. Anyhow, posting a little more couldn't hurt anyone (emphasis is mine): 1875 image, photographer unknown, is courtesy H. Slupetzky, from the University of Salzburg archives. Gary Braasch photo made Aug 14, 2004. "The Pasterze, Austria's longest glacier, was about 2 kilometers longer in the 19th C. but is now completely out of sight from this overlook on the Grossglockner High Road. The Margaritzen-Strausee, a dammed artificial lake, now is in the place where the glacier terminus was in 1875. Measurements of the Pasterze began in 1889 and it has been pulling back the entire time, in approximate step with regional temperatures that have been increasing. The glacier is now about eight Km long and loses about 15 meters per year. However in 2003 the Pasterze decreased 30 meters in length and 6.5 meters in thickness". CHECK ON MANY MORE EXAMPLES (NOTE: in an alternate reality with no GW, we must admit this would be a remarkable coincidence).

Fortunata's previous owner

BTW, here comes A PREVIOUS THREAD on almost the same issue... ...an even OLDER THREAD on C. Pompeius Magnus, ... and finally THIS ONE.