ASCLEPIADES

Salve, amici. I find this issue intriguing, but before we continue discussing it, maybe we should ask our legates if this topic doesn't fit better at the Momotheism subforum.

Salve, amici. Interesting indeed, but also very obscure. Regrettably, all the reports that I found on the news have exactly the same story. Here is a related thread about the possible (albeit doubtful) Roman presence in Denmark.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.

Salve, GM The "lust for power" explanation seems reasonable to me. MPC has just quoted Appian opinion: "Marius, for his part, thought that this would be an easy and lucrative war ". And Plutarchus told us, with a bit of irony (Marius, Cp. XXXIV, Sec. V): "And the justification for this which Marius offered was thought to be altogether silly; he said, namely, that he wished to take part personally in the campaign in order to give his son a military training." "

Now, you only have to quote a couple of examples:... of young men doing the same "rite of passage" to become senators before being 20 years old... of his family connections, surely extraordinary ... and especially of those better politics that were eventually defeated by him (by mere luck, for sure). He was not guaranteed of victory; you got that right. He got patronage and made others work for him when they thought the opposite was happening; and we are talking here of men like Cicero and Anthony to begin with. There's where you find the calm master politician. He seemed hesitant... a couple of times during an almost six decades long political career. And he was the ultimate winner besides his utterly lack of military abilities. You really think that was just luck? Are you serious? He wasn't always a benign ruler, only when it fitted his purpose (ie, most of the time). My depiction of Octavius is as "rosey" as Machiavelli's Prince. And we haven't started talking about his legate yet.

Neither do I, that's why I don't talk about "private armies". We had recently a quite extensive argument concerning soldiers' motivations. Briefly, the military oath (Sacramentum) gave the commandant absolute personal authority over his soldiers, including capital punishment. Previous to the Marian Reforms, that authority had the chronological limitation imposed by the annual levies, but after 107 BC (DCXLVII AUC) it was effective for the whole active life of each soldier. Even so, personal voluntary loyalty to the general (their perceived provider and protector) was probably the main explanation for following rebel commanders.

Salve Ingsoc, and thanks for bringing that possibility up. What year was that and which Agrippa are we talking about? The apparitions of Halley's should've been 56/57 bc, 19 ad, 94/95 ad but I only get those dates by going back in 75.625 year increments, which don't fit Asclepiades list very closely. It always seems to me that a lot is made of Comets (Coma/hair/hairy?) but could something else be described with the same word? A burst of meteor storms or something else associated with a comet? The passing of Comets are relatively unremarkable events, as they change slowly in the sky from day to day. The circumstances often seem exagerated to me, but then a very close passing comet could be completely different from what we are accustomed to seeing. Some debris breaking loose from the main body of the comet, for instance when inbound, could get into the way of earth when outbound. A comet which is not much more than a a dirty snowball could possibly create some unusual affects, but are those the kinds of effects that could cause fires (which were attributed to crows dropping burning meat) I don't personally think so, but it might be imprudent to rule anything out for the sake of argument. Some unusual combinations of meteoritical events are possible, but a public ignorant of the possible, often sees the impossible. This is the Chinese description: "11 (12 BC): The Chinese text Han shu, which was written around AD 100, reports this "sparkling star" was first detected in the morning sky on -11 August 26. The comet was then in "Tung-Ching", which is a group of stars in the constellation Gemini, and was "treading on Wu-Chu-Hou", which is another group of stars in Gemini. The date and location indicate a morning observation, and a likely precise date of August 25.8 (Universal Time). Following discovery the comet attained its maximum solar elongation of 83

I think it's Titus.

Quite probable indeed, altough as Cassius Dio told, the comet was actually seen after Agrippa's death, which is consistent with the known Chronology. Here's a list of the apparitions of Halley's Comet: 1P/−239 K1 (25 May 240 BC) 1P/−163 U1 (12 November 164 BC) 1P/−86 Q1 (6 August 87 BC) 1P/−11 Q1 (10 October 12 BC) 1P/66 B1 (25 January 66 AD) 1P/141 F1 (22 March 141) 1P/218 H1 (17 May 218) 1P/295 J1 (20 April 295) 1P/374 E1 (16 February 374) 1P/451 L1 (28 June 451) 1P/530 Q1 (27 September 530) 1P/607 H1 (15 March 607) 1P/684 R1 (2 October 684) 1P/760 K1 (20 May 760) 1P/837 F1 (28 February 837) 1P/912 J1 (18 July 912) 1P/989 N1 (5 September 989) 1P/1066 G1 (20 March 1066) 1P/1145 G1 (18 April 1145) 1P/1222 R1 (28 September 1222) 1P/1301 R1 (25 October 1301) 1P/1378 S1 (10 November 1378) 1P/1456 K1 (9 June 1456) 1P/1531 P1 (26 August 1531) 1P/1607 S1 (27 October 1607) 1P/1682 Q1 (15 September 1682) 1P/1758 Y1, 1758 I (25 December 1758) [2] 1P/1835 P1, 1835 III (16 November 1835) 1P/1909 R1, 1910 II, 1909c (20 April 1910) 1P/1982 U1, 1986 III, 1982i (9 February 1986) Next perihelion predicted 28 July 2061 Agrippa died on March, 12 BC (DCCXLII AUC).

I think you'll find that this is already included in Nephele's Guide. C'mon Asclepiades, open your eyes!!! You're totally right.

Hercules?

It might have been a miscalculation. Marius tried the eternal consulship and failed; then the things went wrong with Saturninus. And at DCLXVIII AUC / 86 BC, he effectively dominated the state when the armed force which could have prevented him again went to the east. Entering the aristocratic elite was simply not enough for him. Here comes Appian, Bellum Civili, Liber I, Cp. LXV-LXXV: "So Pompeius came and encamped before the Colline gate. Cinna advanced against him and encamped near him. When Gaius Marius heard of all this he sailed to Etruria with his fellow-exiles and about 500 slaves who had joined their masters from Rome... he collected 6000 Etruscans and reached Cinna ... Marius captured and plundered Ostia, while Cinna sent a force and captured Ariminum ... Appius Claudius, a military tribune,... admitted him into the city, opening a gate for him at about daybreak. Then Marius admitted Cinna... He fell upon their garrisons unexpectedly and captured Antium, Aricia, Lanuvium, and others... The Senate was alarmed... changed its mind and sent envoys to Cinna to treat for peace... Accordingly Cinna and Marius entered the city and everybody received them with fear. Straightway they began to plunder without hindrance all the goods of those who were supposed to be of the opposite party... Censorinus cut off his head (Octavius') and carried it to Cinna... the first head of a consul that was so exposed... Gaius Julius and Lucius Julius, Atilius Serranus, Publius Lentulus, Gaius Nemetorius, and Marcus Baebius were arrested in the street and killed. .. Quintus Ancharius... when he approached and saluted Marius, the latter, who was just beginning the sacrifice, ordered the guards to kill him in the Capitol forthwith; and his head, with that of the orator Antonius, and those of others who had been consuls and praetors, was exposed in the forum... The following year Cinna was chosen consul for the second time, and Marius for the seventh; so that, notwithstanding his banishment and the price on his head, the augury of the seven eaglets proved true for him. But he died in the first month of his consulship"

Here's a little more from the same source: "HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip. HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown 'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide, Wherein he blundered and how much he lied. Salder Bupp"

There are a number of threads that also deals with such questions. For example, in this related thread, my question was Why did the Republic never came back? I don't think we got then to a conclusion. My position would still be more or less the same; the critical point for the demise of the Republic would be the introduction of the so called "Marian" reforms at the end of the II Century BC (justified or not), mainly because they made the Legions permanent institutions, leaving then the viable option for their commanders to use them at will; therefore, it would have been only a matter of time until a sufficiently ambitious and capable commander tried a coup d'etat. In fact, I think the Roman Republic was just dead after LC Sulla's victory, and I don't think we have the full answer as to why the Republic was eventually restored, beyond the obvious premature disappearance of the Dictator.

From The Journal of the American Oriental Society, thr review of A PHOENICIAN-PUNIC GRAMMAR, by CR Krahmalkov Publication Date: 01-JUL-04 Author: Schmitz, Philip C. Article Excerpt A PHOENICIAN-PUNIC GRAMMAR Introduction THE PHOENICIAN LANGUAGE (1-15). Krahmalkov sets out cultural and geographic terminology first: the indigenous name of Phoenicia was PT /put/; the name of the Phoenicians and their language was /ponnim/ (note the interpretation of Ps. 45:12b-14a). A discussion of Plautus' Poenulus establishes this usage (3-5). Linguistic diversity characterized "Greater Phoenician" (6) as a language in all periods and regions (6). The essay then sketches the southern coastal dialects (7-8), the northern coastal dialects (Arvad, Byblos) (8-9), and western Phoenician (10-15). ALPHABET, ORTHOGRAPHY, AND PHONOLOGY (16-37). According to the author, the consonantal system for writing Phoenician derives from literary Ugaritic, but Phoenician scribes infrequently employed waw and yod as vowel letters in spelling foreign names and writing certain inflectional morphemes (e.g., pleonastic spelling of the pronoun 'NKY 'aniki "I"; plene spelling of the first-person singular possessive suffix -i "my"). The tendency to employ vowel letters increases with time in Punic and Neo-Punic. In Phoenician, 'alep is infrequently used to represent final vowels in transcribing hypocoristic personal names and foreign personal and geographic names. Krahmalkov delineates orthographic distinctives of Cypriote inscriptions and the increasing divergence of Punic and Neo-Punic spelling practice. Before surveying phonology, Krahmalkov acknowledges the sporadic and incomplete character of the evidence, cautioning that his own description is "perforce fragmented, incomplete and always problematic" (20). These limitations arise in part because the author makes more extensive use of examples from transliterated Punic and Neo-Punic texts than any previous grammar of the language. According to Krahmalkov's analysis, the Proto-West-Semitic sibilant series [theta], s, s merged in Phoenician as simple /s/, represented orthographically as S (25-26). Transcriptions such as 'S = /'is/ may confuse readers who fail to apprehend this point. Regarding vowels, note the single example of the so-called "furtive" a-vowel before a laryngeal (32). The discussion of word stress and vowel reduction (33-37) advances beyond previous treatments, bringing system to the apparently disparate spellings of Phoenician words in Greek and Latin letters. Among the truly brilliant analyses are Punic ierasan /ye[r'.sup.a]san/ < /yer'isan/ (*YR'SN in Phoenician letters) "may he shake," and Neo-Punic iryla /yir'ila/ (*YR'L) with the same meaning (34; cf. PPD 446 s.v. R-'-S and 445 s.v. R-'-L). Further discussion of phonotactics, for example regarding the orthography of the consonant 'alep, would have enhanced an already fine phonological analysis. (6) INDEPENDENT PERSONAL PRONOUNS (38-49). Chapter 3 begins the format that continues through the rest of the book: section A of the chapter or topic presents morphology (followed by comments), and section B takes up syntax and usage (see the rationale, xiv). The vocalization of the first-person singular independent pronoun /'aniki/ is explained from the Latin-letter spellings anec(h) and anic (39-40). (7) The intensive personal pronoun BT or BNT "I myself" is now fully described (47-48). (8) The anaphoric pronoun ("that, the aforementioned") is analyzed with respect to syntactic context (determination of the antecedent noun or of the pronoun, 48), and the emphatic anaphoric pronoun (BT- or BNT-"the/that very, the/that same"; to be distinguished from the intensive personal pronoun is a newly recognized form. (9) Note that the second-person feminine plural independent pronoun remains unattested (39, 41). (10) SUFFIXAL PRONOUNS (50-74). One of Krahmalkov's lasting contributions to the study of Phoenician and Punic grammar is his description of the morphology and distribution of suffixal pronouns. (11) Krahmalkov worked out the phonological shape of these morphemes in several important studies, updated and supplemented in this grammar. The second-person feminine plural suffixal pronoun remains unattested. Krahmalkov has supplied three attestations of the third-person feminine plural suffixal pronoun (55, 59). The synchronic dimension of this grammar's approach can be seen in its care to document orthography as well as morphology: e.g., QL' and QL' are listed as variants of the third-person masculine singular suffix in Form A (51), although only a spelling variation is involved. The discussion of syntax (72-74) distinguishes five categories of object pronouns (note the interpretation of KAI 89.2). DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS AND THE DEFINITE ARTICLE (75-92). The grammar recognizes a Z-series (masc. Z, 'Z, Z', esde, esse; fem. Z, 'Z), an S-series (S, si, sy), an S-series with excrescent -t (ST, sith, syth), the neuter hoc (a Latin loan?), and the plural ('L, 'L', ily, illi). The syntactic discussion (77-82) distinguishes pronominal and adjectival uses of the demonstrative, further distinguishing deictic and locative uses. Determination is a free variant, producing the phrases QRT Z, HQRT Z, QRT HZ, and HQRT HZ. Byblian employed two sets of demonstrative pronouns, labeled A and B (82-85). The section on the definite article makes significant steps forward in defining the morphology and phonological realization of determination in Phoenician and Punic. RELATIVE AND DETERMINATIVE PRONOUNS (93-107). The first part of the chapter (93-103) concerns the relative pronoun. The author mentions but does not describe the old relative pronoun zu, written Z, found in archaic inscriptions from Byblos (KAI 1-7). From the ninth century onward, the relative pronoun 'is replaced the older form in all dialects of Phoenician and Punic (94). (12) The phonetic shape can be determined from "the plene spelling 'YS and Roman and Greek letter spellings es, is, ys, vs." (13) A Hebrew example is cited in Num. 1:4. Krahmalkov stresses that the form s- is a determinative pronoun, not a relative (94). (14) Late in the Neo-Punic phase, a form mu replaced 'is, or combined with it in the relative phrase mu 'is (this form is the key to a stunning interpretation of Poen. 939). A possible example of Phoenician M = mu in a votive inscription on a bronze carinated bowl (15) is problematic, as the author notes (the text as transcribed ignores the numeral 2 in the original). Discussion of the syntax of the relative pronoun is organized in eleven sections. The first category involves a relative pronoun intro-ducting non-verbal clauses (a) with or B. without an independent personal pronoun (95-96). In the second category, the relative pronoun introduces verbal relative clauses employing (a) participles or B. finite verbs (96-97). The third category involves relative clauses with a resumptive pronoun, subdivided into (a) clauses including a pronoun that resumes the indirect object and B. clauses without such a pronoun. (The last example under category b [99] appears to be misplaced; see my... NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.

LC Sulla was arguably at least as rich as Caesar, if niot even more. Do you remember what happened with his heir?. Maybe not. That would be because Sulla Jr. was no Octavius; money was not enough. To begin with, he was only about ten years old at the death of the Dictator; but even so... Here comes W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, pp. 943-944: " Faustus and his sister were left under the guardianship of L. Lucullus. The enemies of Sulla's constitution constantly threatened Faustus with a prosecution to compel him to restore the public money which his father had received or taken out of the treasury ... In B. c. 60 he exhibited the gladiatorial games which his father in his last will had enjoined upon him, and at the same time he treated the people in the most sumptuous man

Salve, PP. Your right reference of Cassius Dio would be 45.3.2. And he continues: - 45.5-6: "Antony himself pretended to be doing his best to have it passed, but through some tribunes he kept securing its postponement, in order that the young man, not being as yet Caesar's son according to law, might not meddle with the property and might be weaker in all other ways. Caesar (Octavius) was vexed at this, but as he was unable to speak his mind freely, he bore it until he had won over the multitude, by whom he understood his father had been raised to honour". The mere fact that he got his inheritance at all was evidence of his exceptional abilities. He sent immediately to Asia for the money and means of Caesar (before they were still legally recognized as his possessions) because he has none at that very moment. Previous to Caesar's death, he was simply another Roman student in Greece. - 45.5.1: "In this way he who was formerly called Octavius, but already by this time Caesar, and subsequently Augustus, took a hand in public affairs; and he managed and dealt with them more vigorously than any man in his prime, more prudently than any graybeard." That would be the prime definition of being a master politician. He succeeded in the purest Darwinian way. The last time I checked, tyranny was still politics. I think indeed that Octavius would have been recognized as a master politician in any other era; but that is mere speculation.

Was the athenian navy of the Delian League professional?

On ad IX ides Maius, DCCX AUV (May 7, 44 bc), Octavius adressed the Roman people at the Forum for the first time. He was 18 years old, virtually unknown, and had no soldiers, money nor any political or military experience. Less than eight months later, on ad XI Ianuarius, DCCXI AUC (January 3, 43 bc), and despite the powerful opposition of Antonius and other rivals, he was made a member of the Senate and appointed with propraetor's Imperium to command an army together with the Consuls. Inspired oratory was part of the explanation, arguably more from Cicero than from himself. But above all, he was a master politician from the very first moment.

Salve, K. French: Sylla; Italian: Silla; Spanish: Sila or even Sula. The book is a direct Elizabethan English translation of Plinius' work, clearly requiring some additional proofreading.

Salve, Lady N et amici. I'm not sure if the English translator Dr. Philemon Holland (1552 - 1637) might have been considered modern by W. Smith (XIX Century). This link goes to a Greek version of Plutarchus Σύλλας, which is the Greek term that you get with the transliteration of "Sulla". Now, if you transliterate Σύλλας back to Latin, let say from Plutarchus or Appian, you may get Sylla, because its second letter is the uppercase (standard) version of the Hellenic Upsilon. All that said, the argumentation of W. Smith is unimpeachable.

Just for accuracy, check your sources. The Gospels were written in Greek, not Aramaic (there is some controversy about the possible existence of a primordial Aramaic Matthew, but most scholars accept the Greek primacy for this Gospel too). All the eastern half of the Empire was Greek-speaking, and so it continued. The Vulgate was from the early V Century.

Salve, K. Most Hellenic states were no democracies; that was especially true for Magna Graecia and Sicily. The Greek winners in Campania (Cumae, 474 BC) over etruscans were the tyrants Aristodemus (local) and Hiero I of Syracuse; at least the latter was really a King by another name. He was also the winner of Himera against the Carthaginians six years before, allied with the tyrant Theron of Agrigentum. In fact, this Aristodemus was the first recorded Greek ruler by T. Livius in Ab Urbe Condita (Liber II, Cp. XXI): "This year (circa CCLVIII AUC / 496 BC) is memorable for the news of Tarquin's death. His death took place at Cuma, whither he had retired, to seek the protection of the tyrant Aristodemus after the power of the Latins was broken."

L Carbo? Ahem. Gratiam habeo, MPC. It's hilarious, I didn't check the names of the consuls (obviously) . The only translation I was able to find online was that of DR. PHILEMON HOLLAND,ED. 1601. It's almost a shame to edit a text more than four hundred years old, but a mistake is a mistake.

Salve! I think the issue of the agrarian laws during Caesar's consulship was thoroughly discussed on this thread.