ASCLEPIADES

Nope. Dionysus was considered the founder of this city.

Salve, Lady A. Severus Alexander.

Nope. It is not in Asia Minor(truly).

Salve, Amici! Which disease was the following prescription intended for? (By ACC, naturally): "If therefore the strength allows, blood should be let from the arm on the side of the injury; if strength does not allow of this the trouble is, however, to be countered by a clyster that will not irritate, and by a low diet for a long while. Bread is not allowed before the seventh day, but only broth; and locally a cerate is to be applied made of linseed, to which boiled resin is added; or the poultice of Polyarchus, or cloths soaked in wine, rose oil and olive oil; and over that oft undressed wool then two bandages beginning from the middle and loosely bound on. But it is more important to avoid all the things mentioned above, so much so that even breathing should not be hurried. If cough is persistent, a draught of germander or rue or French lavender or of cumin and pepper should be taken. But if more severe pain comes on a plaster of darnel or of barley meal is also to be applied,"

Ephesus? Nope. It is indeed on the Eastern half of the Roman Empire; but this is not Asia Minor.

Salve iterum! Diarrhoea. The prognosis would be valid even nowadays, especially on Third World's countries.

Salve, CD. I would guess they were independent developements by each state. MPC gave us a couple of excellent related commentaries on this thread, based on Aristotle's Politica.

Salve, Amici. The Latin original of this so critical clause (both in Bill Thayer's site and in the Latin Library) is: ", ne Catone quidem abnuente eam largitionem e re publica fieri." It's an affirmation of a negative statement; even if it was true, it simply meant Caius Suetonius Tranquillus had no knowledge that Cato Minor ever expressed himself against bribery, specifically referring to Bibulus' election. Gossip in the purest Suetonian way, if you ask me.

Salve, amici! One can make an interesting case about the possibility that auxiliaries

Salve, Amici! And here it is another street.

Bonum responsum, GM! Here's the whole quotation (AC Celsus, De Medicina, Liber I, Ch. XXX-XXXI: Alvum adstringit labor, sedile, creta figularis corpori inlita, cibus inminutus, et is ipse semel die adsumptus ab eo, qui bis solet; exigua potio neque adhibita, nisi cum cibi quis, quantum adsumpturus est, cepit, post cibum quies. The bowels are confined by exertion, by sitting still, by besmearing the body with potter's clay, by a scanty diet, and that taken once a day in the case of one accustomed to two meals, by drinking little and that only after the consumption of whatever food is to be taken, also by rest after food. Contra solvit aucta ambulatio atque esca potusque, motus, qui post cibum est, subinde potiones cibo inmixtae. Illud quoque scire oportet, quod ventrem vomitus solutum conprimit, compressum solvit; itemque conprimit is vomitus, qui statim post cibum est, solvit is, qui tarde supervenit. On the contrary they are rendered loose: by increasing the length of the walk, more food and drink; by moving about after the meal; by frequently drinking during the meal. This too should be recognized, that a vomit confines the bowels when relaxed, and relaxes them when costive: again, a vomit immediately after the meal confines the bowels, later it relaxes them. Your turn.

I don't think that they had 'elite' troopers in the sense of Seals or Special Forces, but they did have men who were adept at certain military tasks in an informal fashion. Even form the early Republic (Battle of Lake Regillus, circa CCLVIII AUC / 596 BC), Titus Livius mentioned something analogous (Ab Urbe Condita, Libri II, Ch. XX) "When the Dictator Postumius saw that one of his principal officers had fallen, and that the exiles were rushing on furiously in a compact mass whilst his men were shaken and giving ground, he ordered his own cohort - a picked force who formed his bodyguard - to treat any of their own side whom they saw in flight as enemy." This was the embryo for the Praetoria Cohors, a select troop which attended the person of the praetor or general of the Roman army, probably first formed by Scipio Africanus out of the bravest troops, whom he exempted from all other duties except guarding his person, and to whom he gave sixfold pay (Festus, quoted by Smith's Dictionary). Here comes an example quoted by G. Sallustius, (Bellum Catilinae, Ch. LX, sec. V): " When Petreius saw that Catiline was making so p127much stronger a fight than he had expected, he led his praetorian cohort against the enemy's centre, threw them into confusion, and slew those who resisted in various parts of the field; then he attacked the rest on both flanks at once." They were greatly increased during the civil wars; the X legion was the choice from Caesar. Eventually, they evolved into the notorious Imperial Praetorian Guard from Augustus onwards.

A little incentive to keep him healthy I guess! That would have happened at the middle of the II Punic War, during the consulship of M. Valerius Laevinus and the fourth of M. Claudius Marcellus (DXLIV AUC). One of those hard years to the Roman Republic.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope. Answers are better one by one. Lady A is going to blow the whistle! A clue... it's a couple of opposite conditions.

Salve iterum! Restricting ourselves to the legal standpoint, we may look for precedents to Caesar's position. As LC Sulla was never prosecuted, the best analogy might be the second group of Decemvirs, especially the two most notorious, Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius, perpetrators of a temporarily successful coup d'etat at CCCV AUC / 449 BC ( Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, Libri III, Ch. LIII-LVIII ): - a decree was passed for them to resign office; - when they were captured, the Senate instructed its envoys to protect them from the popular rage; - they were both prosecuted with the due process of law, and both had a thorough defence; - they were convicted and condemned to prison time (not to death) - A. Claudius even made a futile attempt to appeal the sentence. Admittedly, both of them suffered suicide on prison, but that is another story.

Salve, BH. Here is an excellent thread about that unit, aka the Fimbriani.

The Tullian or Servian Constitution was from the Late Regal period, and Polybius wrote more than three centuries later, at the Middle Republic. I don't know how long were the provisions of the Servian Constitutiion still observed at the early Republic. Besides, Polybius didn't deny status stratification, and he even gave us some hints (Libri VI, Ch. XIX): "... with the exception of those whose census is under four hundred drachmae, all of whom are employed in naval service."

Salve, amici. Here comes Titus Livius explaining the military provisions of the Servius Tullius' Constitution (Annales, Libri I, Ch. XLII-XLIII): "...posterity might celebrate Servius as the founder of all distinction among the members of the state, and of those orders by which a limitation is established between the degrees of rank and fortune. For he instituted the census, a most salutary measure for an empire destined to become so great, according to which the services of war and peace were to be performed, not by every person, (indiscriminately,) as formerly, but in proportion to the amount of property. Then he formed, according to the census, the classes and centuries, and the arrangement as it now exists, eminently suited either to peace or war. Of those who had an estate of a hundred thousand asses or more, he made eighty centuries, forty of seniors and forty of juniors. All these were called the first class, the seniors were to be in readiness to guard the city, the juniors to carry on war abroad. The arms enjoined them were a helmet, a round shield, greaves, and a coat of mail, all of brass; these were for the defence of their body; their weapons of offence were a spear and a sword. To this class were added two centuries of mechanics, who were to serve without arms; the duty imposed upon them was to carry the military engines. The second class comprehended all whose estate was from seventy-five to a hundred thousand asses, and of these, seniors and juniors, twenty centuries were enrolled. The arms enjoined them were a buckler instead of a shield, and except a coat of mail, all the rest were the same. He appointed the property of the third class to amount to fifty thousand asses; the number of centuries was the same, and formed with the same distinction of age, nor was there any change in their arms, only greaves were taken from them. In the fourth class, the property was twenty-five thousand asses, the same number of centuries was formed: the arms were changed, nothing was given them but a spear and a long javelin. The fifth class was increased, thirty centuries were formed; these carried slings and stones for throwing. Among them were reckoned the horn-blowers, and the trumpeters, distributed into three centuries. This whole class was rated at eleven thousand asses. Property lower than this comprehended all the rest of the citizens, and of them one century was made up which was exempted from serving in war. Having thus divided and armed the infantry, he levied twelve centuries of knights from among the chief men of the state. Likewise out of the three centuries, appointed by Romulus, he formed other six under the same names which they had received at their first institution."

Salve, Amici! Please excuse me for a silly question. Exactly which criteria define an Army as professional? Thanks in advance.

No problem. Briefly, the slave in the chariot at the triumphal procession was there mainly to hold the golden crown;. The phrase supposedly whispered on the ear seems to have been nothing more than a Christian myth (by Tertullianus).

Salve iterum! Hippocratic Medicine worked mainly by balancing the opposites, something like the Ying and Yang stuff: This effect is delivered: "by exertion, by sitting still, by besmearing the body with potter's clay, by a scanty diet, and that taken once a day in the case of one accustomed to two meals, by drinking little and that only after the consumption of whatever food is to be taken, also by rest after food ... a vomit immediately after the meal ". and its opposite: "by increasing the length of the walk, more food and drink; by moving about after the meal; by frequently drinking during the meal... a vomit ... later" Of which pair of opposites was AC Celsus talking about?

Salve iterum! All that said, I must state that we may find the what-if scenarios, analyzed either by Livius, us or anyone else, amusing and entertaining , but hardly useful nor rewarding. They would be little more than typical examples of the "butterfly effect", ie the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in Chaos Theory. Or, in plain English, that small variations of the initial conditions of a system may produce large variations on its long term behaviour. (Being the system dynamical and nonlinear, as it is almost always the case). You know, as in the phrase "the flap of a butterfly

Salve, Amici! For me, the most interesting aspect of this topic is that it was indeed analyzed by no less than Titus Livius in a long atypical commentary on historical fiction inserted in the middle of his Ab Urbe Condita (Liber IX, Chapters XVI to XIX): "It is beyond doubt, that during that age, than which none was ever more productive of virtuous characters, there was no man in whom the Roman affairs found a more effectual support; nay, people even marked him out, in their minds, as a match for Alexander the Great, in case that, having completed the conquest of Asia, he should have turned his arms on Europe. Nothing can be found farther from my intention, since the commencement of this history, than to digress, more than necessity required, from the course of narration; and, by embellishing my work with variety, to seek pleasing resting-places, as it were, for my readers, and relaxation for my own mind: nevertheless, the mention of so great a king and commander, now calls forth to public view those silent reflections, whom Alexander must have fought. Manlius Torquatus, had he met him in the field, might, perhaps, have yielded to Alexander in discharging military duties in battle (for these also render him no less illustrious); and so might Valerius Corvus; men who were distinguished soldiers, before they became commanders. The same, too, might have been the case with the Decii, who, after devoting their persons, rushed upon the enemy; or of Papirius Cursor, though possessed of such powers, both of body and mind. By the counsels of one youth, it is possible the wisdom of a whole senate, not to mention individuals, might have been baffled, [consisting of such members,] that he alone, who declared that "it consisted of kings," conceived a correct idea of a Roman senate. But then the danger was, that with more judgment than any one of those whom I have named he might choose ground for an encampment, provide supplies, guard against stratagems, distinguish the season for fighting, form his line of battle, or strengthen it properly with reserves. He would have owned that he was not dealing with Darius, who drew after him a train of women and eunuchs; saw nothing about him but gold and purple; was encumbered with the trappings of his state, and should be called his prey, rather than his antagonist; whom therefore he vanquished without loss of blood and had no other merit, on the occasion, than that of showing a proper spirit in despising empty show. The aspect of Italy would have appeared to him of a quite different nature from that of India, which he traversed in the guise of a traveller, at the head of a crew of drunkards, if he had seen the forests of Apulia, and the mountains of Lucania, with the vestiges of the disasters of his house, and where his uncle Alexander, king of Epirus, had been lately cut off. We are now speaking of Alexander not yet intoxicated by prosperity, the seductions of which no man was less capable of withstanding. But, if he is to be judged from the tenor of his conduct in the new state of his fortune, and from the new disposition, as I may say, which he put on after his successes, he would have entered Italy more like Darius than Alexander; and would have brought thither an army that had forgotten Macedonia, and were degenerating into the manners of the Persians. It is painful, in speaking of so great a king, to recite his ostentatious change of dress; of requiring that people should address him with adulation, prostrating themselves on the ground, a practice insupportable to the Macedonians, had they even been conquered, much more so when they were victorious; the shocking cruelty of his punishments; his murdering his friends in the midst of feasting and wine; with the folly of his fiction respecting his birth. What must have been the consequence, if his love of wine had daily become more intense? if his fierce and uncontrollable anger? And as I mention not any one circumstance of which there is a doubt among writers, do we consider these as no disparagements to the qualifications of a commander? But then, as is frequently repeated by the silliest of the Greeks, who are fond of exalting the reputation, even of the Parthians, at the expense of the Roman name, the danger was that the Roman people would not have had resolution to bear up against the splendour of Alexander's name, who, however, in my opinion, was not known to them even by common fame; and while, in Athens, a state reduced to weakness by the Macedonian arms, which at the very time saw the ruins of Thebes smoking in its neighbourhood, men had spirit enough to declaim with freedom against him, as is manifest from the copies of their speeches, which have been preserved; [we are to be told] that out of such a number of Roman chiefs, no one would have freely uttered his sentiments. How great soever our idea of this man's greatness may be, still it is the greatness of an individual, constituted by the successes of a little more than ten years; and those who give it pre-eminence on account that the Roman people have been defeated, though not in any entire war, yet in several battles, whereas Alexander was never once unsuccessful in a single fight, do not consider that they are comparing the actions of one man, and that a young man, with the exploits of a nation waging wars now eight hundred years. Can we wonder if, when on the one side more ages are numbered than years on the other, fortune varied more in so long a lapse of time than in the short term of thirteen years? But why not compare the success of one general with that of another? How many Roman commanders might I name who never lost a battle? In the annals of the magistrates, and the records, we may run over whole pages of consuls and dictators, with whose bravery, and successes also, the Roman people never once had reason to be dissatisfied. And what renders them more deserving of admiration than Alexander, or any king, is, that some of these acted in the office of dictator, which lasted only ten, or it might be twenty days, none, in a charge of longer duration than the consulship of a year; their levies obstructed by plebeian tribunes; often late in taking the field; recalled, before the time, on account of elections; amidst the very busiest efforts of the campaign, their year of office expired; sometimes the rashness, sometimes the perverseness of a colleague, proving an impediment or detriment; and finally succeeding to the unfortunate administration of a predecessor, with an army of raw or ill-disciplined men. But, on the other hand, kings, being not only free from every kind of impediment, but masters of circumstances and seasons, control all things in subserviency to their designs, themselves uncontrolled by any. So that Alexander, unconquered, would have encountered unconquered commanders; and would have had stakes of equal consequence pledged on the issue. Nay, the hazard had been greater on his side; because the Macedonians would have had but one Alexander, who was not only liable, but fond of exposing himself to casualties; the Romans would have had many equal to Alexander, both in renown, and in the greatness of their exploits; any one of whom might live or die according to his destiny, without any material consequence to the public. It remains that the forces be compared together, with respect to their numbers, the quality of the men, and the supplies of auxiliaries. Now, in the general surveys of the age, there were rated two hundred and fifty thousand men, so that, on every revolt of the Latin confederates, ten legions were enlisted almost entirely in the city levy. It often happened during those years, that four or five armies were employed at a time, in Etruria, in Umbria, the Gauls too being at war, in Samnium, in Lucania. Then as to all Latium, with the Sabines, and Volscians, the Aequans, and all Campania; half of Umbria, Etruria, and the Picentians, Marsians, Pelignians, Vestinians, and Apulians; to whom may add, the whole coast of the lower sea, possessed by the Greeks, from Thurii to Neapolis and Cumae; and the Samnites from thence as far as Antium and Ostia: all these he would have found either powerful allies to the Romans or deprived of power by their arms. He would have crossed the sea with his veteran Macedonians, amounting to no more than thirty thousand infantry and four thousand horse, these mostly Thessalians. This was the whole of his strength. Had he brought with him Persians and Indians, and those other nations, it would be dragging after him an encumbrance other than a support. Add to this, that the Romans, being at home, would have had recruits at hand: Alexander, waging war in a foreign country, would have found his army worn out with long service, as happened afterwards to Hannibal. As to arms, theirs were a buckler and long spears; those of the Romans, a shield, which covered the body more effectually, and a javelin, a much more forcible weapon than the spear, either in throwing or striking. The soldiers, on both sides, were used to steady combat, and to preserve their ranks. But the Macedonian phalanx was unapt for motion, and composed of similar parts throughout: the Roman line less compact, consisting of several various parts, was easily divided as occasion required, and as easily conjoined. Then what soldier is comparable to the Roman in the throwing up of works? who better calculated to endure fatigue? Alexander, if overcome in one battle, would have been overcome in war. The Roman, whom Claudium, whom Cannae, did not crush, what line of battle could crush? In truth, even should events have been favourable to him at first, he would have often wished for the Persians, the Indians, and the effeminate tribes of Asia, as opponents; and would have acknowledged, that his wars had been waged with women, as we are told was said by Alexander, king of Epirus, after receiving his mortal wound, when comparing the wars waged in Asia by this very youth, with those in which himself had been engaged. Indeed, when I reflect that, in the first Punic war, a contest was maintained by the Romans with the Carthaginians, at sea, for twenty-four years, I can scarcely suppose that the life of Alexander would have been long enough for the finishing of one war [with either of those nations]. And perhaps, as both the Punic state was united to the Roman by ancient treaties, and as similar apprehensions might arm against a common foe those two nations the most potent of the time in arms and in men, he might have been overwhelmed in a Punic and a Roman war at once. The Romans have had experience of the boasted prowess of the Macedonians in arms, not indeed under Alexander as their general, or when their power was at the height, but in the wars against Antiochus, Philip, and Perses; and not only not with any losses, but not even with any danger to themselves. Let not my assertion give offence, nor our civil wars be brought into mention; never were we worsted by an enemy's cavalry, never by their infantry, never in open fight, never on equal ground, much less when the ground was favourable. Our soldiers, heavy laden with arms, may reasonably fear a body of cavalry, or arrows; defiles of difficult passage, and places impassable to convoys. But they have defeated, and will defeat a thousand armies, more formidable than those of Alexander and the Macedonians, provided that the same love of peace and solicitude about domestic harmony, in which we now live, continue permanent."

This famous phrase would be a similar Memento Mori, "Respice post te, hominem memento te" and it is, as far as I know, an Urban Legend propagated by the II Century Christian church leader and writer QSF Tertullianus on his Apologeticum (Ch. XXX, Sec. III-IV): "Negat illum imperatorem qui deum dicit; nisi homo sit, non est imperator. [4] Hominem se esse etiam triumphans in illo sublimissimo curru admonetur; suggeritur enim ei a tergo: "Respice post te! Hominem te memento!" Et utique hoc magis gaudet tanta se gloria coruscare, ut illi admonitio condicionis suae sit necessaria. Minor erat, si tunc deus diceretur, quia non vere diceretur. Maior est qui revocatur, ne se deum existimet. He who calls him a god, deprives him of the title of Emperor. He is not an Emperor unless he be a man. He is admonished of his human nature, even when he is riding in triumphal procession in his lofty chariot; for even then a person placed behind him whispers in his ear, "Look back : remember that thou art a man." And, in fact, the necessity that he should be thus admonished of his condition, adds to the satisfaction which he feels at the splendour which glitters around him. He would be really less, if he were then called a god; because it would be false. He is greater when he is recalled to himself, that he may not esteem himself a god." William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities specifically denies the confirmation of such assertion by any earlier writer