ASCLEPIADES

Generally speaking, strategy is always the priority at war, not morality. BTW, there were many other Dictatorships besides the Soviets on the Allies' side, like Metaxas in Greece or Chiang-Kai-Shek in China. Not to mention all the non-democratic colonial empires of Britain, France, Belgium and Holland, and even the American Philippines. On the other hand, Finland was a German ally on WWI too. Again, we must differentiate between the two Soviet-Finnish wars: -By the first one (the "winter war" 1939-40) Finland was not allied with Germany, (there was a de facto German-Soviet quasi-alliance). France and Britain gave Finland some help, US was neutral. Needless to say, no one of them helped the USSR. -The second one (1941-1944) was just a fraction of the huge German attack against the Soviets (Operation Barbarossa). As the goals of such operation included the conquest of the USSR and the eventual defeat of Britain, the Finnish attack was hardly "harmless". If the western Allies fired barely a shot against the Finns, that was fundamentally for obvious geographical reasons. Anyway, the German raids against the Anglo-American convoys that reached Murmansk had some Finnish assistance. Just for the record; Finland finished WWII actively (even if maybe reluctantly) fighting against the Germans. Now, about your classical question, Rome itself is of course the best example of a quite nasty ally. Virtually all known Roman allies were eventually conquered by Rome, even its most loyal clients. Rome was perpetually conquering the known world in "self-defence"; and when it stopped, it was mainly for logistical reasons or unsurmountable obstacles.

Don't you get it? Has it not sunk in yet? I sincerely hope it's crystal clear by now that my answer is definitively no. (But of course, a quick check on your actual sources or evidence may completely change that). I think human warfare is not a expression of the Darwinian "survival of the fittest". I think personal human instincts are not the main mechanisms that explain human warfare. I don't think constant warfare per se is required for the health of any civilization or country. I don't think that the combat experience is required for the personal development of any man (or woman). I don't think patriotism is synonymous of belligerence. I don't think the dire consequences of war might be justifiable by any other reason than as the ultimate survival resource. And I'm positively sure war is mot required for any other quoted beneficial effect. War doesn't create science; it's just an obvious stimulus for those scientific investigations with military applications (and it is, conversely, a deterrent for the other). In plain words, you would just require more time under peace conditions for getting most of the quoted advances. Anyway, I can't really expect anyone to seriously justify the killing of more or less 72,000,000 people plus additional human injury and material destruction for the indisputable scientific advance of WWII; in fact, I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea that nowadays knowledge on hepatitis histopathology was largely based on in vivo studies in Nazi concentration camps by Mengele wannabes. That was certainly not the opinion of the Edinger Institute in Post-War Germany: they removed from continued scientific use the extraordinary neuropathological collection of Dr. Julius Hallervorden and Dr. Hugo Spatz (both of them were outstanding investigators and notorious convicted Nazi war criminals) for ethical concerns regarding its origins.

Rome did not grow on peaceful development. It grew on competitive and aggressive policies. I think Ursus explained the issue far better than I would be able to. You said something different earlier. I don't think so; but if you make the specific quotation, we will be able to check if you actually convinced me.

No - it doesn't. You make no allowance whatsoever for patriotic sentiment - and please don't insult my intelligence by trying to tell me that my grandfather, who signed up underage like a great many others for his chance to do his bit for king and country, was a rogue or criminal. The smallpox parallel is nonsense. I can't speak for your grandfather; as far as I'm aware, most soldiers fight because there's no other choice (ie, their homeland survival is at risk) and not for the mere pleasure of killing. If you can't unsderstand the smallpox parallel... then what else did you previously personally agree with me?

Thats only your personal view of it. talk to young men - you'll find their only too keen to earn their spurs on the front line- despite the screamingly obvious consequences of war. Thank you for assuming you're younger than me; the screamingly obvious consequences of war seem to be not so obvious to you. I wonder if you really personally know some disabled veterans and civilian casualties from both sides of a conflict. I do, and many quite young people too. But I don't think that's required for understanding the screamingly obvious consequences of war. Personal risk is not the only screamingly obvious consequence of war; the utter destruction and suffering of innocent people entirely like us and our beloved ones is another, even if it is not depicted in romantic epic sagas. So please excuse me if I'm not especially impressed by the keen disposition of combatants of any age.

If you may quote your actual sources on animal and human psychology beyond the evening news and your everyday life experience, I would gladly try my best to check them, as they are clearly completely different from any text on those issues I'm aware of. Additionally, some of those sources may explain the connection between the sadism/ bullying behaviour and the origin of war, because I simply can't find it.

Salve, Amici. I got a return e-mail from Tim Spalding tonight, and he said that he's looking into it. I don't know if that means that he wasn't previously aware that the site was down, but at least it looks like he's giving the matter his attention. -- Nephele I think we ought to thank the admins their efforts on this issue.

Salve, MPC. That's an excellent question. In fact, most of the Roman gentes that claimed their descent from any of the Roman kings were actually plebeian. The main point here is not if such legendary claims may have been true or not; the point is that at least some Roman citizens from the late Republican period found it plausible. Actually we do know; and certainly their relationship didn't imply LJ Brutus was a Patrician. Here comes Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita Liber I, cp. LVI: comes iis additus L. Iunius Brutus, Tarquinia, sorore regis, natus, iuvenis longe alius ingenii quam cuius simulationem induerat . "They had as a travelling companion L. Junius Brutus, the son of the king's sister, Tarquinia, a young man of a very different character from that which he had assumed".

Given the nature of most of our topics here at UNRV, virtually all the "evidence" we speak of relates to our interpretation of what has been recorded. BTW, the quoted classicists that may have the edge here are two, because all the contributors of the XIX century W. Smith Dictionary were obviously not allowed to contradict themselves in such a fundamental point as the opening of the consular magistrature for the plebeians; then, Broughton is the only additional authority quoted. I'm well aware we may quote hundreds of scholars here on both sides; eg, A. Bernardi, K. Von Fritz and A. Alf

And the number of quoted classicists doesn't necessarily mean that I am wrong in my choice either as such fact doesn't change the logical process; Occam's razor is not limited to "casual assumptions" and the evidence is there. BTW, Diodorus Siculus reported a law analogous to the Lex Licinia Sextia as early as CCCV AUC / 449 BC (The Library of History, Liber XII, cp. XXV, sec. I-II): "Since a great spirit of contention now threatened the state, the most respectable citizens, foreseeing the greatness of the danger, acted as ambassadors between both parties to reach an agreement and begged them with great earnestness to cease from the civil discord and not plunge their fatherland into such serious distress. In the end all were won over and a mutual agreement was reached as follows: that ten tribunes should be elected who should wield the highest authority among the magistrates of the state and should act as guardians of the freedom of the citizens; and that of the annual consuls one should be chosen from the patricians and one, without exception, should be taken from the plebeians, the people having the power to choose even both consuls from the plebeians".

Salve, Lady N. I can't take credit for this explanation; it has been repeatedly quoted. As William Smith was a true believer on an stringent Lex Licinia Sextia, he adopted multiple explanations for the presence of obvious plebeian names in the consular Fasti previous to CCCLXXXVII AUC / 367 BC, at least one explanation for each family and almost all different, for both the disappearance of the hypothetical patrician gens and the subsequent appearence of a homonym well attested and lon lasting plebeian gens; ie, for the Junia gens, the Cassia gens, the Antonia gens, the Genucia gens, the Sempronia gens and so on. As we have excellent resources on ancient Roman Law at UNRV, we can easily check on the legal background (emphasis is mine): From the Roman Law Index: "Lex Licinia Sextia (367 BC) - by the tribunes C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius, set an upper limit of 500 iugera (300 acres) as the amount of public land which one person might occupy (limiting the power of the Patricii). Additionally, this law may have provided for one consul being a Plebeian, but the evidence is conflicting. Consuls with names of Plebeian origin had served before, and the Lex Genucia which has similar verbiage was passed only 25 years later". ...and from the Legal and Institutional Chronology of the Roman Republic we get that the main primary source on the Lex Licinia Sextia is Titus Livius Ab Urbe Condita Liber VI, cp. XXXV: creatique tribuni C. Licinius et L. Sextius promulgauere leges omnes aduersus opes patriciorum et pro commodis plebis: unam de aere alieno, ut deducto eo de capite quod usuris pernumeratum esset id quod superesset triennio aequis portionibus persolueretur; alteram de modo agrorum, ne quis plus quingenta iugera agri possideret; tertiam, ne tribunorum militum comitia fierent consulumque utique alter ex plebe crearetur; cuncta ingentia et quae sine certamine maximo obtineri non possent. "For the time being, C. Licinius and L. Sextius decided to become tribunes of the plebs; once in this office they could clear for themselves the way to all the other distinctions. All the measures which they brought forward after they were elected were directed against the power and influence of the patricians and calculated to promote the interests of the plebs. One dealt with the debts, and provided that the amount paid in interest should be deducted from the principal and the balance repaid in three equal yearly instalments. The second restricted the occupation of land and prohibited any one from holding more than five hundred jugera. The third provided that there should be no more consular tribunes elected, and that one consul should be elected from each order. They were all questions of immense importance, which could not be settled without a tremendous struggle". Even if we accept Livius being entirely reliable on this one, I can't find such statement incompatible with the previous existence of some plebeian consuls, especially as Livius seems to accept the plebeian presence at equivalent magistratures (decemvires and consular tribunes); it's clear Patricians were used to Plebeian government long before 367 BC. I tend to prefer parsimonious solutions: one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything (Occam's razor). That's why I find far more plausible this sole explanation than the myriad required by traditional (ie, W. Smith) interpretation.

As far as I'm aware, it's Marcus J Brutus and his fellow tyrannicides who were regularly called the Liberators (Liberatores), not Lucius J. Brutus the Republic's founder. I agree, we're talking about mythology here. LJ Brutus story itself has plenty of contradictions and chronological impossibilities. It's like discussing if Venus was the daughter of Jupiter (Homer) or Ouranos (Hesiod). Romans' perceptions are then as important as facts. He was indeed, but by his mother (Tarquin's sister). Here comes Mestrius Plutarchus, Vita Brutus, cp. I, sec. I, VI & VII: "Marcus Brutus was a descendant of that Junius Brutus whose bronze statue, with a drawn sword in its hand, was erected by the ancient ... ...but as to the lineage of Brutus by his father's side, those who display great hatred and malevolence towards him because of the murder of Caesar deny that it goes back to that Brutus who expelled the Tarquins, since no offspring was left to him when he had slain his sons. The ancestor of Brutus, they say, was a plebeian, son of a steward by the name of Brutus, and had only recently risen to office. Poseidonius the philosopher, however, says that the two sons of Brutus who were of age perished according to the story, but that a third son was left, an infant, from whom the family descended. 8 He says, moreover, that there were certainly industrious men of this house in his own day, some of whom called attention to their likeness in form and features to the statue of Brutus". Anyway, it's clear the Junia gens was among the oldest Roman plebeian families, because one of the first Tribunes of the Plebs was indeed a Lucius Junius Brutus in CCLX AUC / 494 BC, just 15 years after the beginning of the Republican period (contemporary homonyms or the same person?). MT Cicero also perceived the plebeian Junia gens as descendents from the first consul (Philippica I, cp. XIII) Fuerit ille Brutus, qui et ipse dominatu regio rem publicam liberavit et ad similem virtutem et simile factum stirpem "Even had he been that great Lucius Brutus who himself also delivered the republic from kingly power, and who has produced posterity nearly five hundred years after himself of similar virtue, and equal to similar achievements" The Junia gens was not an isolated case. There are many traditionally Plebeian names that appeared in the consular Fasti previous to the Lex Licinia Sextia (CCCLXXXVII AUC / 367 BC) that would require for their explanation the too convenient existence of many tiny Patrician gentes which became quickly extinct only for being almost immediately replaced by homonym (and long-lasting) plebeian gentes. The Cassia gens is another good example. I'm not sure if all that nice explanation would survive the Occam's razor. The obvious alternative explanation would be that there were at least some plebeian Consuls previous to the Lex Licinia Sextia, hardly surprising as there were indeed some plebeian (or more ephemeral Patrician gentes???) Decemvirs and Consular Tribunes.

First asseveration applies to modern warfare too. The second definitively applies to the ancient; no society has ever dreamed of reaching the enlistment level of the medieval Mongols. Not every human is a sadist; you would be surprised. In any case, international conflicts have always been much more than mere sadism, even from the Mongols or the III Reich. We finally get to a classical quotation. Oh, and all that was simply political opportunism from L. Scribonius Libo and MP Cato Major, analogous to the consternation of MP Cato Minor for the Germanic tribes raided by Caesar on the other side of the Rhine. Six years after being acquitted, Servius Sulpicius Galba served as Consul. I'm absolutely sure you're no Nazi; when I quoted the III Reich victory over France as an example of the "survival of the fittest", I never thought you share such opinion. Even from the Neolithic, international politics have been based in much more than just personal instincts. Only closing my eyes and remaining within romantic epic sagas would I be able to show any enthusiasm for war per se, as modern free press and technological media make us painfully easy to constantly gaze out of our windows and check on the screamingly obvious consequences of war.

Salve, L One important difference may be that Iraq was never part of the US and they don't even share borders, while Georgia has been Russian for almost two hundred years, up to less than two decades ago.

Salve, Amici. Maybe we should shift some of this argument to the Gallipoli thread. Raiding actions (stealing for living instead of working) will always be sustainable, at least as long as you're in the winning side. If you want to begin a war, you will always find morality relative. War doesn't require a society acting as a whole; you can just kill the opposition. Examples are myriad. The un-industrialized total warfare comes at least from the Assyrians; their far less effective killing methods simply meant it took them longer to utterly annihilate their enemies. I think we don't need to quote the overwhelming evidence of such fact on the Roman side. Its easy to forget the sound argumentation of Dr LH Keeley in his War before Civilization (recently quoted on a related thread) and many other scholars. Keeley's argumentation is entirely based on quite hard archaeological and social evidence; we require at least equally hard facts to contest it. There's simply no real animal parallel for human warfare, not even among the ant colonies, much less in herds

Salve, Amici. Britain declared war on behalf of the dominions too. Australia and the others had no say in the matter, they were at war automatically when Britain signed the declaration. Australia would have had to sign a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers to get out of the war, which would have been awkward to say the least. Of course, I entirely agree with Maladict. As far as I'm aware, the quite especial case of the

Salve, Amici. From the International Herald Tribune (August 10, 2008): "For U.S., bigger issues require Russian help By Helene Cooper WASHINGTON: The image of President George W. Bush smiling and chatting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia from the stands of the Beijing Olympics, even as Russian aircraft were shelling Georgia, outlines the reality of America's Russia policy. While the United States considers Georgia its strongest ally in the bloc of former Soviet countries, Washington needs Russia too much on big issues like Iran to risk it all to defend Georgia. And State Department officials made it clear Saturday that there was no chance the United States would intervene militarily". READ MORE I can't agree more with Ms. Cooper on this one (and the Bush administration too, BTW).

Salve, Amici. Actually, the most interesting fact is Hildinger ignoring that, according to Marius' own statement, his patronus family were not the Metellii, but the Herenii; Here comes Mestrius Plutarchus, Vita Marius cp. V, sec. IV-V: "But Caius Herennius also was brought in as a witness against Marius, and pleaded that it was contrary to established usage for patrons (the Roman term for our representatives at law) to bear witness against clients, and that the law relieved them of this necessity; and not only the parents of Marius but Marius himself had originally been clients of the house of the Herennii. The jurors accepted this plea in avoidance of testimony, but Marius himself contradicted Herennius, declaring that as soon as he had been elected to his magistracy he had ceased to be a client; which was not altogether true. For it is not every magistracy that frees its occupants (as well as their posterity) from their relations to a patron, but only that to which the law assigns the curule chair".

Salve, U. We agree. Personally, I considered the idea of constant warfare as a pre-requisite for a healthy civilization (?) not only as objectively untenable, but as extremely dangerous as well; a potential excuse for any kind of warhawks, to say the least. Current evidence on the human costs at all levels of any military conflict simply confirms us that war must always be regarded as the last, last, last resource.

Felicem Natalem Dies,S.

Or maybe just one city would have been enough, as there were only 3 days between both nukes; who knows? Anyway, I didn't write the recipe; I just quoted it. Any guess on the relative contribution of any factor is just speculative from any of us. Actually, I would rather like to rely on your biology sources, if you may quote them.

Salve, Amici Wasteland. It just was not worth it. Anyway most emperors had a anti-conquering mindset by the empire with a few rare exceptions like Trajan. An emperor generally didn't have anything to prove like Roman Republican statesmen did, and was more interested in maintaining the status quo. Spending money and allocating troops to dubious annexations of empty lands full of myth and barbarians endangered that status quo. Claudius certainly didn't think so regarding Brittania; neither did Augustus regarding Nubia, where he actually pushed further south. Judging by his Res Gestae Divi Augusti, he had a lot to prove, dubious annexations included (cp. XXVI): Meo iuss

[quote name='Julia C