ASCLEPIADES

Salve, Amici. That thread mentions some Hemp consumer Scythians described by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. Besides Galen, we can quote a couple of Roman authors on the medical use of hemp: Here comes Caius Plinius Secundus Maior, Naturalis Historia, Liber XX, cp. XCVII: Cannabis in silvis primum nata est, nigrior foliis et asperior. semen eius extinguere genituram virorum dicitur. sucus ex eo vermiculos aurium et quodcumque animal intraverit eicit, sed cum dolore capitis, tantaque vis ei est, ut aquae infusus coagulare eam dicatur; et ideo iumentorum alvo succurrit potus in aqua. radix articulos contractos emollit in aqua cocta, item podagras et similes impetus. ambustis cruda inlinitur, sed saepius mutatur, priusquam arescat. "Hemp originally grew in the forests, where it is found with a blacker and rougher leaf than in the other kinds. Hempseed, it is said, renders men impotent: the juice of this seed will extract worms from the ears, or any insect which may have entered them, though at the cost of producing head-ache. The virtues of hemp, it is said, are so great, that an infusion of it in water will cause it to coagulate: hence it is, that if taken in water, it will arrest looseness in beasts of burden. A decoction of the root in water, relaxes contractions of the joints, and cures gout and similar maladies. It is applied raw to burns, but it must be frequently changed, so as not to let it dry". And here comes Pedanius Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, Liber III, cp. CLXV & CLXVI: "KANNABIS EMEROS Cannabis is a plant of considerable use in this life fortwisting very strong ropes. It bears leaves with a bad scent, similar to the ash; long hollow stalks, and a round seed. Eaten in quantities these quench conception. The herb (juiced while green) is good for earaches. It is also called cannabium, schoenostrophon, or asterion; the Romans call it cannabis. "KANNABIS AGRIA Cannabis sylvestris bears little stems similar to those of althea but darker, sharper and smaller. The leaves are similar to the cultivated but sharper and darker. The reddish flowers are similar to lychnis, with the seed and root similar to althea. The root (boiled and applied) is able to lessen inflammation, dissolve oedema, and disperse hardened matter around the joints. The bark of this is suitable for twining ropes. It is also called hydrastina, the Romans call it terminalis, and some, cannabis".

Salve, F Five nice examples from the first century AD and five more from up to the fifth century at the German reenactment webpage of the Legio VIII Avgvsta (Germania Superior). My only complain would be that the republican period was not included. Danke sch

Salve, NN Gratiam habeo for sharing again with us the pleasure of such amazing views from HOMVNCVLVM, Brigantia, Britannia. As we can see, not everything that happens in the domus should stay in the domus

Actually, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Mestrius Plutarchus, one of the very first tribunes of the plebs (and one of the leaders of the plebeians in their secession to the Sacred Mount too) was a certain Lucius Junius Brutus (CCLX AUC / 494 BC). Elementary Maths tells us this happened just circa 15 years after the accession of the first consul.

Salve, Amici. All that said, what else can I add? Just that I entirely agree with Ursus on this one.

Salve, F Gratiam habeo for such nice premiere. I would consider it a rational selection; both senators' profiles seem complementary to each other. For any reason, I always thought Senator Clinton was an unlikely choice. Well, today is still a good time for wagers.

We* agree; this is a point that has indeed been well attested to throughout history (* "We" = both of us) Needless to say, it was no mere Gibbon's illusion, even if for Cassius Dio and the Historia Augusta the idea of Pax was always relative by nowadays standards; ie, as it was previously noted by Primus Pilus in a related thread, even Antoninus Pius had his own share of not always so tiny conflicts.

Ah, nicely found. I was aware that Niebuhr was among those who support the belief that Lucius Junius Brutus may have been plebeian, but I don't have access to his works in my library. Did you find an online version of Niebuhr? -- Nephele Just an Epitome by Travers Twiss.

Regarding the social status of Lucius Junius Brutus, here comes the Epitome of BG Niebuhr History of Rome, cp. XXXIII, pg. 132-133: "That Brutus belonged to the plebs may be inferred from this. He was considered the fouinder of the nobility of the Junian house, and they, especially the Bruti, were plebeians; they were tribunes of the people down to the end of the republic; whilst not a single Brutus occurs in the Consular Fasti before the Licinian Law, and after this law more than one Junius Brutus appears in them, as the plebeian colleague. Unless the consulate was shared between the two orders, all the liberties of the plebeians were left without a safeguard; and as the Licinian Agrarian law merely revived in fact that of Cassius, which ought to have been in force during the preceding 120 years, and which itself had only given effect to an ordinance of Servius, in the same manner the Licinian law respecting the consulate seems only to have given a tardy effect to a very ancient principle of the constitution. The objection of Brutus being a plebeian rests mostly on his holding of the office of tribune of the Celeres; yet either this might have been conferred upon him arbitrarily by the tyrant for jealousy of the patricians, or it was open to a plebeian".

Salve, Amici

Salve, F Excellent contribution as usual; gratiam habeo. I think this is what E. Goblinus was looking for.

Indeed, you can't. -- Nephele Can you?

Finally, we can get even from the same book an explicit passage acknowledging MJ Brutus descent from LJ Brutus. Here comes Marcus Tullius Cicero, Brutus, cp. LIII: Quis enim putet aut celeritatem ingeni L. Bruto illi nobilitatis vestrae principi defuisse? qui de matre savianda ex oraculo Apollinis tam acute arguteque coniecerit; qui summam prudentiam simulatione stultitiae texerit; qui potentissimum regem clarissumi regis filium expulerit civitatemque perpetuo dominatu liberatam magistratibus annuis legibus iudiciisque devinxerit; qui collegae suo imperium abrogaverit, ut e civitate regalis nominis memoriam tolleret: quod certe effici non potuisset, nisi esset oratione persuasum. "For who can question the address, and the capacity of Brutus, the illustrious founder of your family? That Brutus, who so readily discovered the meaning of the Oracle, which promised the supremacy to him who should first salute his mother? That Brutus, who concealed the most consummate abilities under the appearance of a natural defect of understanding? Who dethroned and banished a powerful monarch, the son of an illustrious sovereign? Who settled the State, which he had rescued from arbitrary power, by the appointment of an annual magistracy, a regular system of laws, and a free and open course of justice? And who abrogated the authority of his colleague, that he might rid the city of the smallest vestige of the regal name? Events, which could never have been produced without exerting the powers of Persuasion!" In this presumably fictional dialogue, after enumerating to MJ Brutus the most notorious Greek orators, MT Cicero proceeds now with the Romans, beginning with his interlocutor's ancestor. Please forgive me, but I can detect no thrust against MJ Brutus here (nor anywhere else within this book).

Sorry, my mystake. I didn't get you were talking about your quotation on Brutus cp. LXII because I didn't find then (nor I do find now) any hint of why M

Do you mean that MT Cicero was thrusting his friend (and Antonius' enemy) in his obviously anti-Antonius Philippica in such a sly way that the Roman senate and mob would get it but the too cultivated MJ Brutus wouldn't? Why would Cicero have done something like that? Is there really such kind of sly thrusts at all? That quote indeed. We agree; in fact, all CJ Caesar's assassins were regularly and collectively styled as the Liberatores.

I think it should be noted that Cicero was a sharp-tongued orator who often took sly jabs at even his friends. Despite Cicero's nod to his friend Marcus Junius Brutus' claim of descent from the consul of 509, within that same work which he dedicated to his friend Brutus he wrote of those who falsified their genealogies in order to connect themselves with nobler ancestors. It has been acknowledged (by M

Salve, Amici. Checking on some "civilisations military competition" concepts (theory?), one can't help but conclude that Russia is at the risk of "atrophy" (if such process is not actually on course) for the lack of military "exercise" in recent years. Afghanistan and Chechenia would have clearly been not enough. So the Georgian-Abkhazian-Ossetian affair might come to be exactly what the doctor ordered... This is an example of why I may find this kind of ideas not only absurd, but also dangerous.

Salve, Amici From the Back Cover: "Personal intrigue, treachery, and the occasional moral virtue vie in ancient Rome-undisputed master of the world, but fatally unable to control its own citizens or army. In the first century B.C., Rome was the undisputed ruler of a vast empire. Yet, at the heart of the Roman republic was a fatal flaw: a dangerous hostility between the aristocracy and the plebeians, and each regarded themselves as the foundation of Rome's military power. Turning from their foreign enemies, Romans would soon be fighting Romans". Hidinger's book seems to be another nice assessment of the relative contributions of war and peace to the flourish and decadence of the Roman republic as a social and political entity.

Salve, Amici. The authors continue: "While Athens and Rome spread their influence through trade and war, Alexandria sought to conquer the mind. ...It was here that humankind first: - Realized that the Earth was not flat - Invented geometry - Built the steam engine - Invented latitude and longitude, drawing the first accurate maps of the world" "... And when the city was destroyed in the seventh century AD, Western civilization regressed a thousand years. ... Here the true foundations of the modern world were laid- not in stone, but in ideas". Now here we have an unequivocal concept of civilization and maybe also of "competition" and even "atrophy". Pollard & Reid made in this book a nice assessment of the relative contributions of War and Peace to the flourish and decadence of a crucial classical culture.

Salve, NN We agree; this is a point that has indeed been well attested to throughout history

Salve, T.

Salve, F I don't agree; as far as I know, PR doesn't want to be a "commonwealth territory" (whatever such nomenclature may mean) but a real state. Georgia has been Russian far more time than PR has been US; the motivations of both of them for becoming independent or not are clearly mainly economic. Just remember that Puerto Rican nationalists O Collazo and G Torresola attempted to assassinate Harry S. Truman (November 1, 1950). And of course, PR acquisition by US in 1898 was hardly voluntary; it was just a cession from the defeated Spain. Regarding Hawaii, there's actually a tiny "pro-independence movement". Of course, American states can't just unilaterally abandon the Union. Just ask Jefferson Davies.

So as son of the king's sister, Brutus' status as plebeian would have depended on his own father's status, no? And that just brings us back to the original problem: were the Junii plebs or not? I'm afraid the available evidence on LJB's father is inconclusive too; Here comes Dionysius of Halycarnassus, Roman Antiquities Liber IV, cp. LXV, sec. I-II: "The father of Brutus was Marcus Junius, a descendant of one of the colonists in the company of Aeneas, and a man who for his merits was ranked among the most illustrious of the Romans; his mother was Tarquinia, a daughter of the first King Tarquinius... Tarquinius, after he had caused Tullius to be slain, put Junius' father also to death secretly". Nevertheless, the same as MT Cicero, Mestrius Plutarchus acknowledged Marcus Junius Brutus (CJ Caesar's killer) descended from LJB in the very beginning of his Vita Brutus (cp. I, sec. I): "Marcus Brutus was a descendant of that Junius Brutus whose bronze statue, with a drawn sword in its hand, was erected by the ancient Romans on the Capitol among those of the kings, in token that he was most resolute in dethroning the Tarquins". Personally, I think this is as far as we can get on this issue.

Salve, U. We entirely agree.

Salve, Amici. What I know on this issue I have tried to explain in previous posts on this same thread, especially the # 17. I think the presence of many commonly acknowledged Plebeian names (Nomina) within the consular lists previous to 367 BC (an anomaly previously noted by some UNRV admins) might be better explained by a sole mechanism (the occasional allowance of some Plebs to the consular magistrature) than by the concurrence of multiple unrelated mechanisms(as a bare minimum, two for each Nomen; one explaining why the Patrician gens disappeared almost unnoticed, and the other explaining the almost immediate appearance of a homonymous and long-lasting Plebeian gens). That's what I mean by the Occam's razor. Additionally: Even the obviously aristocratically biased Titus Livius accepted the presence of some Plebs among magistratures of consular rank previous to the Lex Licinia Sextia, like the Decemvirs and the Consular Tribunes. Diodorus Siculus reported some legal provisions for the social extraction of the consuls long before that law. And what Titus Livius informed us about the same law didn't preclude the potential existence of previous Plebeian consuls. If we indeed adhere too tightly to the absolute absence of Plebeian consuls previous to CCCLVIII AUC / 367 BC (eg, as W. Smith did), we get some extraordinary interpretations; Lady N previously quoted Smith's explanation on the Cassia gens; a Patrician family would have been degraded to a Plebeian status as a way of punishment. That might of course still be the case, but as far as I'm aware, it would be the only instance across all Roman history. I think the well attested cases of plebeian transition done by some patricians for whatever reason (eg, the famous case of Publius Claudius [Clodius] Pulcher after his adoption by P. Fonteius for becoming apt to the Plebeian tribunate) make such explanation even less likely. All that said, I think we should remember what Maty pointed out on this same thread; most Roman history previous to the sack of Rome by the Gauls circa CCCLVII AUC / 397 BC is fundamentally legendary. Roman annalist history began just around Punic War II (late III century BC); by that time, the purported patrician-plebeian conflict was long over. In fact, the always reliable Polybius didn't even mention the Roman social orders in his description of the Roman constitution (or in most of his History, for that matter). The plebeian names in old consular lists are hardly the only anomaly or contradiction that we will find within the account of this period; Titus Livius himself was painfully aware of such fact. Then, I think the real importance of this topic is how much it may contribute to our understanding of the still obscure nature of the Patrician order (and consequently, of the Plebs) during the early republican period, as well as the Roman social conceptions of themselves, as it seems even they found it hard to understand the subtleties of such issues.