ASCLEPIADES

Salve, Lady N Were the emperors Valerian and Gallienus truly Licinii? Was Egnatius their surname?

Sorry, I just wanted to play (sic): "Think of a god, goddess, hero, nymph, etc. from classical legend and describe him or her in a rhyming couplet. Whoever guesses the riddle correctly, gets to pose the next rhyming riddle". I just didn't pick the originality clause. None of the rhyming couplets posted by me on this thread is from my own; I'm a lover, not a poet. BTW, Ben Johnson's is just the first half; the second is from Catullus.

"QUEEN and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess excellently bright. Come then you lads and lasses, sing In her honour now a hymn. Daughter-goddess of mighty Jove And lovely Queen Latona, who By Delia placed an olive tree"

Salve, V You should actually post this one as a thead in Romana Humanitas.

Salve, Amici For this and related topics, the first question is always the same: What is the author's working definition for the Fall of Rome? More than half the authors I have checked on have extensively argued why it happened without actually explaining what it was (at least for each one of them).

Sorry; what I was asking if if the royal wills were made public before the King's death; only so they would have been able to become an evidence of loyalty to Rome in any meaningful way for the wills' authors, as you suggested. Was that tyhe case? Actually we haven't dealt with this argument yet; simple it is indeed, and so is the obvious question: What prevented the Roman Senate from taking the provincial revenues for itself? (In fact, it seems that was exactly what they did) After all, according to W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities article on Senatus (by HF Pelham): , "...it was the senate which determined what a province should pay, and in what form; which granted exemptions, increased the amount, or altered the mode of collection... ... It was the senate which sanctioned the expenditure, which directed the payments to be made from the treasury--except where these were in a few cases fixed by law,--and which authorised the striking and issue of coins in Rome... ...The organisation, in the first instance, of a new province was usually carried out by a commission of senators in accordance with a decree of the senate, and it was by the senate, as a rule, that any subsequent modifications in its constitution were made, and regulations laid down as to the methods of its administration ".

Irrespectively of Mr Shenkman's hypothesis, Lady N had a concrete and direct question that remains not entirely answered; in fact, it seems there is currently no scholar consensus.

Plinius.

Salve, DD

If the wills were by definition posthumous, what benefit would Attalus, the Ptolemies and the other kings get by then from showing such loyalty? Should we suppose rhe Romans knew the wills' contents in advance? If that was the case, it didn't seem to have helped Apion for getting the Egyptian throne, Why wouldn't these kings be able to change their wills as required? Even if the purported benefit was for their surviving families; what potential benefit could have been enough to compensate the Ptolemies for giving away the wealthiest Hellenistic kingdom? If the royal wills were all the enigma, the most economic explanation would be that the Romans simply faked such documents. But why would the Romans get into such trouble if they were going to reject the donation in the first place? (Admittedly that was far from being always the case; the Senate seemed to have had no problem in making the rich Asia a Roman province at once). It makes sense the idea that a group of Romans may have been the only ones able to opposse another group of Romans at the time. Even so, I stll can't follow the rationale here.

I understand the spoils from the campaigns of Scipio Asiaticus (DLXIV AUC / 190 BC), Pompeius Magnus (DCXCI AUC / 63 BC) and Octavius Caesar (DCCXXIII AUC / 31 BC) were each one of them enough to produce significant deflation and other persistent macroeconomical effects. Anyway, spoils came just once from any conquest. I would be more interested in the long term economic effects; revenues, explotaition and so on. The more subjugated territories, the better?

Why would the powerful and despotic Ptolemies like to release whole wealthy nations to the Roman republic? Why was the Roman republic so reluctant to accept them? And your best guesses are...

Merci pour cette b

Indeed it is, Lady Magistra. Are you Narcissus?

Even if most Roman allies eventually finished as client states, both terms are not synonymous, not even for the Romans. For example, Carthage was a Roman ally during the Pyrrhic Wars; it became a client state only after the end of Punic War II. By consideration, do you mean... ... Archelaus of Judea, freezing at his exile in Gaul? ... Or the executed Antiochus of Commagene? ... Or the deposed Malichus of Nabatea? Please remember who wrote this; Caius Suetonius Tranquillus was the number 1 fan of Divus Augustus' club.

That demotic Greek was the lingua franca .

Throned in splendor, O blessed goddess, Child of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee Slay me not in this distress and anguish, Lady of beauty. All in smiling wreathed thy face immortal, Bade me tell thee the cause of all my suffering, Why now I called thee; What for my maddened heart I most was longing.

No correlation at all. The Praetorian cohorts came at least from the middle Republic. During the Civil Wars their loyalty was never completely assured, so foreign mercenaries were regarded as more reliable. Augustus actually had two units, one of Hispanians (Caligurritani) and other of Germans (Germani Corporis Custodes: Suetonius, Vita Divus Augustus cp.XLIX). Even the general Statilius Taurus (Salvidienus Rufus successor) had his own Germani Corporis Custodes, accorfing to epigraphic evidence. They were a de facto private paramilitary force, aside from the regular army. They acted as infantry in the palace and as cavalry in the field. They seem to have been predominantly Batavians. Caius (aka Caligula) actually gave some "thracian" gladiators the command of the guard (Suetonius, Vita Caius, cp. LV) . As his namesake (CJ Caesar) Caius got overconfident, so Cassius Chaerea and the other conspirators were able to surround him within a covered passage, far from the German guard, which subsequently killed many conspirators and bystanders (ibid. cp LVIII). Aggripina Minor had his own German guard until Nero deprived her for offending him (ibid Vita Nerocp. XXXIV). They abandoned Nero in the face of Galba's uprising (ibid cp. XLVIII). The German cohort was finally disbanded by Galba and send back to their native country withoutany reward, alleging that they may favoured Cn. Dolabella, another imperial pretender (ibid Vita Galba, cp XII).

You wont make a good hagiographer; too much checking sources zeal!

Salve GH Of course we entirely agree; but in your own word, why do you think did Rome conquered the world?

The questions above were posed in a thread dealing with CJ Caesar's Gallic Wars. Actually I don't see why they shouldn't apply to any other Roman war of conquest. Have we asked that to virtually any Roman historian, from Fabius Pictor to Zonaras, it seems the answer would have been almost unanimously straightforward: Rome conquered the world in perpetual self-defense. What would you answer to the same questions?

Just for the record; I don't think Caesar's Gallic Wars were particularly different from most other Roman conquests regarding the topics discussed on both threads.

Salve, DD Rest assured, you're the best in what you do. Gratiam habeo for being productively bored.

Salve, D From the back cover: "Thomas Madden shows us a different Rome that stablished security and prosperity -and trust- within the hearts and minds of millions in the mediterranean world." I can't disagree more with the imperialist justification that the prey is eager to be hunted. Unsurprisingly, the Roman expansion was done by war, with a good doses of genocide when duly required; even the "peaceful" annexations were basically explained by the threat of War. As any other Empire. "Security and prosperity" (at least for some) is the unavoidable consequence of any stable Empire, even the Soviets for some time. Madden is deliberately taking fear for trust; the trust that any empire will annihilate any rebel. This may surprise Madden (actually, I don't think so) but no nation dreams wth being conquered; just ask the Americans or any other regular human (including yourself of course). "No. We aren't Rome." I can't agree more.