ASCLEPIADES

1. Yes, in the same way an Olympic competition "create" winners. 2. Natural Selection selects because the competition is always deadly. If the bearers of the "advantageous" trait did not become the sole population it means one or both of the following: a. Competition has not ended. b. That trait was not so "advantageous" after all (traits advantage depends largely on the environment). 5. Human Mortality from any disease can be measured in a matter of a few years. Differential mortality from genetic traits has been widely documented and is one of the fundamental bases of modern preventive medicine (ie, genetic counselling).

Salve, K There's a good and easy review on biological Evolution's current concepts HERE. True, of course; so? You're thinking in something like Marxist Class struggle. Natural Selection means that it's the environment which favours ("selects") one biological variation ("the fittest") survival over many other ("the unfittest"). Overall survival will depend on the sum the net effects of each specific trait. In your example, it would depend on if lactose tolerance is beneficial or detrimental for actual survival (nowadays, it's trivial). It's quite uncommon that the selecting environment includes actual physical annihilation from other members of the species (ie, cannibalism among some predators). Now that's absolutely anti-Darwinian; his theory is called "Natural Selection", not "Natural Creation". It's the accumulation of diverse genetic traits by sex and mutation which is constantly making any related individuals progressively more and more different; given enough time (Megayears), such individual will become different species as they become unable to produce fertile offspring by interbreeding. That's how all of us living beings come from a common ancestor. Right, there are currently no races in biological terms within Homo sapiens. What we commonly call "human races" are socio-cultural constructs in the best case, plain bigotry in the worst. The main differentiating trait, Skin colour (ie, epidermal melanocyte density) it's a quite transitory adaptation in biological terms (tens of kiloyears at most). Now you got yourself into Darwinian theories. If you don

Salve, K As far as I know, most anti-Nazi resistance was based on communist groups, even in western Europe and Germany itself. They were obviously sponsored by the Soviet Unions, which of course for a long time required more help than they could give. For "impressive", I would guess firstly we're talking about Yugoslavian Marshall Tito (aka Josip Broz); he was certainly alone for the first two years of his struggle, but after the Italian collapse (June 1943) he received more Anglo-American material help than any other resistance group.

Salve, C Good idea; here comes Descent of Man, cp. 4 (1871): "With mankind, selfishness, experience, and imitation, probably add, as Mr. Bain has shown, to the power of sympathy; for we are led by the hope of receiving good in return to perform acts of sympathetic kindness to others; and sympathy is much strengthened by habit. In however complex a manner this feeling may have originated, as it is one of high importance to all those animals which aid and defend one another, it will have been increased through natural selection; for those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring. ."

Salve, F & K. Congratulations: you made quite a nice team work. Only problem would be the time required for the downloading, as I'm not immortal.

NYT Harris' article has been quoted several times.

Both sources agree.

And now, the far more famous account by Mestrius Plutarchus.

Salve, Amici.

Salve, Amici. On Arduumresgestasscriber's long forgotten original question that began this thread, my own conclusion is: 1.- I totally agree with Tom Holland that Citizens would have been a far better title for his book and that they were indeed the protagonists of the fall of the Republic. 2.- However, I find that attributing the Republic's fall to a loosely defined Roman citizenship's corruption is a too general and commonplace statement that contributes nothing to determine the causes and mechanisms of such crucial event. 3.- The notion that its vicious corruption may have justified the Republic's displacement by military autocrats seems to me like nowadays' remnants from Caesarean and Augustean propaganda. All that said, and given that we are getting so off topic with the fascinating issue of the Cilician pirates, I think it merits its own thread.

Salve, U It must be a bear affinity thing: Ursula meets Ursus.

Au contraire, there are many examples. Probably the best known are the multiple mutations that give partial immunity against malaria, specially Plasmodium falciparum (the deadly one); that includes variants of Hemoglobin ( the famous S and also E, C and D, plus many diminished production traits called Thalassemias), an enzyme (Glucose-6 phosphate dehydrogenase) and a red blood group (Duffy). The prevalence of these traits increase exponentially among populations coming from historically endemic areas (including a good share of the classical Roman world), sometimes even 40% or more of the general population. If the members of any species don't reproduce, it's relevant because that species doesn't remain the same; it gets extinct.

Salve, Amici

That might happen (and happens) in animal populations too. As MPC said, Natural selection is not unidirectional; you may be the "fittest" against one threat and quite vulnerable to others. And BTW, if any population dies childless, it was clearly not the fittest by any biological interpretation of that word. I would simply say natural selection influences human History, but it's not the only influence.

Salve, M et gratiam habeo for such interesting link. Regrettably, a considerable fraction of Mesoamerican archaeology has been plagued by a peculiar cultural bias. Briefly, many old-world scholars tend to downgrade their findings' datation, because New World's civilization can't precede those from the Old World. Conversely, American Continents' scholars tend to upgrade their estimations.

Maybe if you can be a little more specific. In the early principate, there were few, excepting the civil war of AD 69. It would seem that imperial oppression following the chaos of the later Republic at least held it's provincial governors somewhat in check for a time, at least militarily. There are plenty of cases of charges and trials against men in authority by the princeps throughout the early empire, but whether these had merit or were cases of imperial paranoia are of course difficult to determine. However, a major difference under the principate, and one of it's advantages, was the professionalizing and centralizing of provincial government. Governors and bureaucrats were no longer rotated on an annual basis with complete autonomy and with a massive transition in personal staff with each one of these changes. Of course, Augustus' reforms including the establishment of direct provincial taxation and the elimination of independent tax farming certainly helped with the reduction in large scale financial corruption. We completely agree.

Salve, K. You're right, of course. But we must remember Charles Darwin himself was largely inspired by Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) for his own theories. It can be argued Malthus was a "pre-Darwinian social darwinist". Both authors had a huge impact on countless social studies and scholars, some of them as influential as Nietzsche, Marx, Lenin ... and Hitler. I think it's undeniable natural selection, however you interpret it, is a capital factor on human social evolution; it just can't be other way. But most authors tend to grossly distort the facts for their own agendas. In ancient Rome's terms, a good example can be made from Polybius of Megalopolis and Dionysius of Halicarnassus; both romanized Greeks presented Roman Republic as what we might nowadays call the acme of political evolution and natural selection of their known world. The way they saw it, the Roman constitution had not any defect like those they found on Athenian democracy, Spartan oligarchy or Macedonian autocracy; Roman constitution had exclusively gotten the virtues of them all.

Salve, S. You're surely not mad. From where I am, Charles Darwin actually helped to clarify our beliefs about the past.

Maybe if you can be a little more specific.

Salve, F. Nice bricks. The datation (for the first one) was relatively easy, as it's the same period Legio XIIII stayed at Carnuntum (from the end of Traianus' Dacian Wars to the collapse of the Danube border). The second brick's inscription can be dated with a little more precision, because the title Dux was introduced at some point during the late III century after the reign of Galienus (260-268). Probably Legio XIIII most famous deed was the successful proclamation of its commander Lucius Septimus Severus as Emperor (193).

Salve, D From an old but useful source: Samuel Ball Platner , A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, (1929): "The next level, which is in general 11.80 to 11.90 metres above sea, has been... assigned to Sulla by Dr. Van Deman (JRS 1922, 1‑31), who enumerates a number of pavements which belong to it: (1) those of Monte Verde tufa, near the shrine of Venus Cloacina and at the lacus Curtius, and the remains of a similar pavement near the concrete base in front of the temple of Julius Caesar...The central area of the Sullan forum was enclosed on three sides by streets paved with polygonal blocks of selce, which took the place of the early cappellaccio slabs; and some remains of the pavement of the clivus Capitolinus above that of 174 B.C., at 14.50 metres above sea-level, belong to this period also. So also does the viaduct (which Boni calls the rostra Vetera, but cf. Rostra, and Clivus Capitolinus), the top of which is at the same level. Of buildings assignable to the period of Sulla we know of little except the curia and the rostra, both of which were restored by him; while the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Tabularium were finished by Catulus. " Please keep searching more recent sources.