ASCLEPIADES

Nowadays, denying a significant human contribution to the current climate change is like denying Evolution. We're talking here about extremely hard facts; their existence and impact are not dependent on our mere convictions. When a tree falls in the forest, it does make noise, no matter who hears it. Main argument that has been required so far for even the most recalcitrant politicians has been... time. Simply stated, we would deny it basically because we don't like to face it; more or less like not going to the dentist.

They couldn't have stepped down voluntarily because no-one else did? A sole case among hundreds suggests a unique explanation. There are some reasons that explain why the other emperors didn

In fact, it would be valid to question if Diocletianus and Galerius were actually right on the Christians becoming a major menace to the Roman institutions and way of life. The Great Diocletianic Persecution of 303 ended in 306 by a Galerius decree on religious tolerance, basically ratified by Constantine and Licinus' Edict of Milan (313); even so, from 316 to 321 Constantine's army actually persecuted the Donatist Christians ("heretics") in Africa, as a "Christian" ruler; from 321 he issued restrictive laws against the Jews. Becoming sole ruler after Licinius' demise (324), Constantine openly sponsored the first Ecumenical Council at Nicea (325) transforming "his" Christian church in an accessory executive branch within the Imperial government and banning the non-Nicean Christians (heretics), even burning Arrius' books. After 329, in Eusebius' words "he razed to their foundations those of them which had been the chief objects of superstitious reverence", ordering the destruction of the Hellenic temples at Dydima, Mt. Athos, Aigeai, and Baalbek, among others. He also ceased many privileges of non-Christian religions. And after his death (337) the real persecution of the pagan cults began under his sons, especially Constantius II. By the end of the century, non-Christian religions were plainly forbidden. And after his death (337) the real persecution of the pagan cults began under his sons, especially Constantius II. By the end of the century, non-Christian religions were plainly forbidden.

Here comes Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio in Lucium Catilinam Tertia, habita ad poplulum, cp. I: Rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros atque hoc domicilium clarissumi imperii, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum inmortalium summo erga vos amore, laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis. You see this day, O Romans, the republic, and all your lives, your goods, your fortunes, your wives and children, this home of most illustrious empire, thus most fortunate and beautiful city, by the great love of the immortal gods for you, by my labours and counsels and dangers, snatched from fire and sword, and almost from the very jaws of fate, and preserved and restored to you.

Regarding the opening question: The idea of presenting early Christianity as a conspiracy is hardly new, has a well established market and can become a fantastic business. Even so, it's an extraordinary claim; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I don't understand why the Gospels should be considered as "metaphor" of any historical facts. Despite Atwill's claims, metaphorical similarities have no statistical significance; as the similarity criteria are entirely subjective, there's no limit in their number. Your P value simply tends to infinity. Checking on the Caesar's death accounts by Appian, Plutarch and Suetonius on one side and those of Jesus' death by the Gospels on the other, it's extremely hard for me to find any similarities, being them open or metaphorical. On the other hand, I would think the Imperial Cult as a whole may have had a definitive influence over early Christian ideas, for example regarding the Trinitarian doctrine; ie, all along the Principate, any Emperor was divus fili, "the son of god" (his deified father); even if the living Emperor himself was still not a God, he would be predictably deified... after his death.

S "Kyoto is, in many ways, unrealistic. Many countries cannot meet their Kyoto targets. The targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science". GW Bush; June 11, 2001 was there any unreasonablness in the President's words? Salve, F. You're right, my word selection was poor. My bad, I here offer an apology for that. Where I said "acrimonious", what I meant was just a "strong", "fierce" and "unreasonable" opposition against the idea. The "unreasonableness" in that quotation from the Bush administration lies in the fact of considering themselves entitled to rate the scientific status of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their conclusions (... "not based upon science"). Even if for political or economic reasons any of us considers the IPCC conclusions as "bad science" (???), "bad science" was still "science" last time I checked. Actions speak louder than words, and by their own subsequent more reasonable actions, the Bush administration has basically validated the IPCC conclusions, being them comfortable or not with that fact.

"Kyoto is, in many ways, unrealistic. Many countries cannot meet their Kyoto targets. The targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science". GW Bush; June 11, 2001

I think a Google search on "Mark Antony speech after death of Caesar" is far more likely to turn up the well known speech from Shakespeare's play -- which is only Shakespeare's speculation on what Marc Antony may have actually said. I believe we only have historians' second-hand accounts and piecings-together of what the speech might actually have been like. Here's a link to a webpage belonging to Fordham University, which provides Appian's account of Marc Antony's famous funeral oration and what took place (and also showing how it differed from Shakespeare's version): http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/app...uliusdeath.html -- Nephele Salve, Amici. I agree that the quoted Appian Bellum Civili, Liber II, cp. CXLIII-CXLVIII is the best and most detailed account on M. Antonius' eulogy. Mestrius Plutarchus basically confirmed Appian's account, especially on his Life of Brutus (cp. XX, sec. III-IV). "For, in the first place, when it was found that the will of Caesar gave to every Roman seventy-five drachmas, and left to the people his gardens beyond the Tiber, where now stands a temple of Fortune, an astonishing kindliness and yearning for Caesar seized the citizens; and in the second place, after Caesar's body had been brought to the forum, Antony pronounced the customary eulogy, and when he saw that the multitude were moved by his words, changed his tone to one of compassion, and taking the robe of Caesar, all bloody as it was, unfolded it to view, pointing out the many places in which it had been pierced and Caesar wounded". On the other hand, Caius Suetonius T. told us (Vitae Divus Julius, cp. LXXXIV, sec. II): Laudationis loco consul Antonius per praeconem pronuntiavit senatus consultum, quo omnia simul ei divina atque humana decreverat, item ius iurandum, quo se cuncti pro salute unius astrinxerant; quibus perpauca a se verba addidit. "Instead of a eulogy the consul Antonius caused a herald to recite the decree of the Senate in which it had voted Caesar all divine and human honours at once, and likewise the oath with which they had all pledged themselves to watch over his personal safety; to which he added a very few words of his own".

The monopolization of power as an objective, especially via the measures espoused by the Catilinarians, should not (in my opinion) really be discounted as a lesser form of harm than what we may label as destruction. One can never know for sure what the ramifications of either possibility might be. In any case, I don't think there's any question that the affair was exaggerated to some degree, but Catiline did show a certain tenacity in continuing his pursuit of political status despite several successive electoral defeats. It seems that the clash between Catiline and the "State" is one of those almost inevitable moments of history. Even had he legally won the consulship at some point, what seems to have been a lust for demagoguery may not have been abated anyway. The two most likely sponsors of Catiline & Co., the previous consul and censor Marcus Licinius Crassus (denounced by the conspirator L. Tarquinus) and the elected praetor Caius Julius Caesar (accused by Catullus and Piso) eventually reached both the (illegal) supreme power over Rome under the First triumvirate just four years after the Catiline

Salve, Lady O. Blaming Caius (Caligula) was just R. Graves' fiction. PC Tacitus, C Suetonius T and Cassius Dio all openly suggested Tiberius and Livia poisoned Germanicus. Many scholars find this quite unlikely, as Tiberius always widely supported his nephew and adopted son. It seems more like another unsourced accusation on the second emperor from the senatorial historians. Needless to say, the purported signs of poisoning over Germanicus' corpse quoted by both Suetonius and Cassius Dio are just nonsense by modern scientific standards.

As long as Diocletian was the emperor, it actually quite a success. Now yes, when he stepped down, everything quickly flew to hell. But while that specific arrangement did not work in the long term, it did establish the precedent of having mulitple legitimate emperors ruling in different parts of the empire as a way to cover all of the borders. While there of course continued to be civil wars for the next millenium, much of the chaos and bureacratic uncertainty over the nature of the principate was settled. And the idea of dividing the empire into two separately administered halves helped to ultimately save the eastern empire. Diocletian's legitimizing of the concept of multiple emperors ruling in different regions and his recognition that one man alone could not effectively run the empire was in the end very beneficial for the empire. Primary sources of the late III / early IV centuries weren't quite informative on the tetrachic system; as we're really not sure on what exactly it was, even less what it was intended for, it's difficult to define to what extent it actually failed. Late III century Crisis was largely due to the Empire

Salve, PP. We agree. Roman inflation came from long ago, and the Crisis of the late III century has just magnified it. Given their current economic knowledge, it would have been quite unlikely for anyone to be able to predict the outcome from the price control. The eventual emergence of Constantine's solidus as the new hard currency for the next centuries must be seen as a late consequence of Diocletianus

Various pedigrees for Constantine show him to be descended from the Flavians. However, such descent is questionable and requiring confirmation. Salve, Lady N. You can say so; the pedigree chart on that link is questionable not so much for being unsourced as for being fictitious; at least C. Suetonius T. said nothing on Vespasianus' purported mate "Arricidia Tertulle" or daughter "Julia Sabine"; not to talk about the obvious dating inconsistencies within the same chart; eg, both the "daughter" and "grandson" of Vespasianus (who died in 79 AD and not in 81 as stated) would have been born in 160 AD (!). Here comes W. Smith Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (SIC): "CONSTANTIUS I. FLAVIUS VALERIUS, surnamed CHLORUS, "the Pale," Roman emperor, a. d. 305-306, the father of Constantine the Great, was the son of one Eutropius, of a noble Dardanian family..."

Do you mean by defending PC Sulla and LC Bestia? As usual, I would think MT Cicero has both political and economic incentives for doing it so. Don't get me wrong; I think there's no question the conspiracy was for real, not just for all the collected evidence, but especially for the ulterior rebellion of Catiline and his partisans that actually rose at Etruria. Judging by their numbers, it was no surprise they would have welcomed any support from the Allobroges. I just think MT Cicero exaggerated the actual risk; the conspirators' aim was presumably not Rome's destruction, but gaining the control of the Republican government for themselves.

Salve, DC. Nice Video; gratiam habeo for that link.

I recently watched a documentary about Hadrian's Wall presented by the Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver. In one section of the programme he discussed the Auxilliaries on the wall with another prominent archaeologist who found the writing tablets at Vindolanda. He discussed the matter of sandals and the other expert said something along the lines of "Don't be daft, the soldiers here wore socks and boots. They were far too clever than to walk around with sandals in this country." (Not the exact words mind you). Salve, DC HERE'S an extract

Salve, Amici. I have to agree with both FVC and GPM on this one; MT Cicero was always trying to impress his audience (he was quite successful) and he even used the old trick of the arsonism menace. He presented himself as the true saviour of the Roman city, people and state from global annihilation by a mixed Gaul-traitors attack. That was quite unlikely, to say the least. The known core of the Conspiracy, as you can check here, were a dozen Senators, all from noble families (four were patricians), including three previous consuls and a tribune of the Plebs elected for the next year. Their most probable sponsors were the future triumvirs ML Crassus and CJ Caesar. They were clearly no radicals; what they almost surely wanted was a bigger share of the Republican government. Indiscriminate destruction and terrorism were presumably of no use for them. The selective suppression of their political opponents (eg, MT Cicero and MP Cato) was their most obvious immediate goal. The Allobroges' connection was probably overstated by Cicero, as an easy way to get useful confessions; not being Roman citizens, torture use was not prevented for them.

Salve, Amici. The 150 posts over the last 14 months on this thread have been a quite fascinating monitor of the status of UNRV Forum's collective logical status. Being a historical website, our commonest ground of discussion is not strictly scientific; History is no subject of experimental methodology. Ancient sources and even archaeological evidence are inherently open to subjective interpretation. Now, meteorology, climatology and related disciplines are an entirely different story; all of them are mainly based on hard facts, even if their interpretation can be extremely complex. Currently, the existence of an ongoing, progressive and highly significant human influence on the global climate change (predominantly but not exclusively on the warming side) can be considered a scientific debate no more. The evidence is so unquestionably and overwhelmingly conclusive that it has been widely acknowledged by even the most acrimonious opponents of this concept on an international level (eg, the Bush administration), a fact that by itself eloquently speaks against any meaningful disagreement among the relevant scientific community (the so frequently used appeal-to-authority fallacy). So when you find debate (ie, denial) on this issue, its nature is fundamentally political and economical: dealing with global warming is uncomfortable for many of us, mainly because of the inversion of money and work in both a personal and a national level required for its control (eg, more taxes or more expensive fuel). Then, this thread can be seen as a control test for our reasoning and argumentation performance as a group; how do we deal with hard facts?

Salve, Amici. 1 to 5: Asclepiades.

Salve, T. Actually, modern German has lost many inflections; from en.wikipedia: "Although German is usually cited as an outstanding example of a highly inflected language, the degree of inflection is considerably less than in Old German, or in other old Indo-European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, or Sanskrit. The three genders have collapsed in the plural, which now behaves, grammatically, somewhat as a fourth gender. With four cases and three genders plus plural there are 16 distinct possible combinations of case and gender/number, but presently there are only six forms of the definite article used for the 16 possibilities. Inflection for case on the noun itself is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns in the genitive and sometimes in the dative. Both of these cases are losing way to substitutes in informal speech. The dative ending is considered somewhat old-fashioned in many contexts and often dropped, but it is still used in sayings and in formal speech or in written language. Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative and accusative in the singular. Feminines are not declined in the singular. The plural does have an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: -s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e. By the mid 11th century the many different vowels found in unstressed syllables had all been reduced to 'e'. Since these vowels were part of the grammatical endings in the nouns and verbs, their loss led to radical simplification of the inflectional grammar of German".

Salve, EG. I must agree. You have just made an excellent review of his administration's deeds; for the huge extent and impact of the Reforms under his reign, Diocletianus was second only to Augustus. They modelled the future of the Empire to such degree, that some historians count Diocletianus as a "Byzantine" (?) emperor. In fact, when Dionysius Exiguus introduced the Anno Domini at the VI century, he was trying to displace the still ongoing Diocletian Era; BTW, that didn't happened until the VIII century. The same as the first emperor, the magnitude of these reforms precludes their attribution to any individuality, but to a whole party and administration. Besides the Tetrarchs themselves and their families, it's not easy to discern who these men were; clearly not the typical bunch of officials that frequently ruled the Empire across the late III century. Some of these reforms began under Aurelianus and even Claudius II; their definite conclusion came under Constantinus, himself an offspring of the Tetrarchy.

The court ceremonies and protocol Diocletian introduced were inspired by Rome's Persian rivals, and in that sense was certainly un-Roman. That's certainly possible to some extent, but the Persian rulers were never deified at all (they were Mazdaists). Even if Diocletianus presented him as a living God, he wasn't the first one; the title Deus et Dominus natus ("God and born ruler") first appeared in Aurelianus' coins (ruled 270-275).

I am not promoting this, but I am interested to know if anyone has read this, or has any thoughts about the premise itself. Just as with the idea that Jesus was Caesar, this is very interesting material to say the least. LJV Salve, LJV. From the Caesar's Messiah Weblog and Q&A, it''s clear Mr Atwill makes many extraordinary claims, that would require extraordinary evidence. Now, let's ckeck this pearl(SIC) (highlighting is mine): "Q It seems to me that the Christian doctrines espoused, endorsed or championed by Constantine in the 4th century plagiarized Mithraism heavily. Did Titus Flavius, in his fervor to invent the Christian religion purposefully direct Josephus to incorporate Mithraic elements into his satires? (A) Constantine was a Flavian - his full name was Flavius Constantine - who promoted his family's cult into the state religion of Rome. He was not interested in the form of the religion as much as its effect -- crowd control -- and that would make it unlikely that he would have deliberately attached attributes of other religions to it". Just for the record: the emperor Flavius Constantinus wasn't a Flavian (just check it out). IMHO, this kind of answer implies either gross ignorance, a blatant distortion of the facts or both.

Salve, Amici. All that said, just check ANY dictionary: a country is a political entity; a nation is a cultural entity. On both counts, the Roman Empire around Constantinople, undisputedly up to 1204, and presumably even up to 1453, was the same political and cultural entity than that of Augustus. They spoke mainly Greek and they were widely Hellenized, the same way as the same (and other) territories and populations did and were under and long before the arrival of the Roman Empire; there was no change besides the inevitable evolution of any country. Latin was never the language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, not even of Sicily. Needless to say, language by itself is not the criterion that defines a country; present-day India has hundreds of Languages (SIL Ethnologue lists 415), and English is currently a primary and/or official language in more than fifty countries or territories (CIA Factbook), in addition of being an important secondary language in almost any other country. There's no discontinuity on the long Imperial succession line from Octavius aka Augustus to at least Alexius V Ducas; no one of the "Byzantine" promoters has even remotely contend such simple but undeniable fact.

Neither Romans nor Greeks were ever "races". The Roman "race" was basically made up with freedmen from virtually everywhere from the very beginning. In fact, the Romans pretended some of their Kings (ie, Numa) and most notorious Gentes to have come from Hellenic ancestors. That's a good one; the misogyny of Leo III, a mere Bishop, gave him the right to transfer the national identity of the Roman Empire to his favourite barbarian's mixture of countries. It's just hilarious. Of course, being that the case, the all-mighty bishop of Rome would have been able to "restore" the Imperial dignity (the one he supposedly managed) to the undoubtedly male Nikephoros less than two years later.