ASCLEPIADES

Someone should have told that to Scipio in Zama or Paulus in Pydna.

Thank you for correcting me about this Critolaus; my mistake. It's true that it's not easy to discern our original train of thought. We were talking about the annihilation by a Roman consul of a Hellenic metropolis second only to Athens and of thousands of its inhabitants.

Salve. "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures More on the Education according to Plutarch (in French) and more on the Education in Ancient Rome (also in French). I hope these links may be useful.

Touch

I'm not sure I understand the point, or what it has to do with the motivations of Caesar's soldiers? Before the so called "Marian" reforms, Roman soldiers were common citizens under their general's authority (Caesar or whoever) only for some months; after the MR, that authority was extended over many years during all their professional life and even beyond it. I think you understood the point long before me. I think the time limit of the levy of each consulship was specifically designed to prevent the development of personal armies, indispensable to any coup d'etat. The MR made that possible. Period. Roman generals before MR, virtuous or not, simply hadn't that choice. The NRA argument; weapons don't kill. I think that is a matter of perspective and hardly an absolute. That was probably because Sulla died too soon. The MR were some of the actions of these predecessors (Marius and Sulla) ; both certainly did their best to take advantage from these reforms, even beyond the law. I'm certainly not trying to excuse any action of Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Octavius, Anthony or any other later individual.

Salve! This image (from Cockfield observatory at Suffolk, UK) is the progenitor body of the Perseid meteor showers during its last perihelion (November 1992), the highly regular Comet 109P Swift-Tuttle, a Near-Earth Object with extremely low impact risk for this milennia, which earlier passage was retrospectively identified at 69 BC (during the consulship of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus and Quintus Hortensius. and around the birthdate of Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the Hollywood one).

Do you remember? QUOTE(M. Porcius Cato @ Nov 12 2006, 10:29 AM) The Romans don't talk about slave behaviour? What on earth are you reading these days, caldrail? Pick up some Plautus! No one who reads Plautus can continue to think the Romans regarded slaves as mere cattle. ASCLEPIADES Jul 17 2007, 06:00 PM Nope, not Plautus. For that, you may read Columella ... which represents the vast majority of the slave population, surely in Italy and probably in most of the Roman World. ... as in any Gulag or Konzentrationslager; I'm not especially impressed by Schindler's game. ... the minority case. But, if Plautus is what you want: "Pseudolus, Act. I, Sc. 2. [ballio, a captious slave owner, is giving orders to his servants.] Ballio: Get out, come, out with you, you rascals; kept at a loss, and bought at a loss. Not one of you dreams minding your business, or being a bit of use to me, unless I carry on thus! [He strikes his whip around on all of them.] Never did I see men more like asses than you! Why, your ribs are hardened with the stripes. If one flogs you, he hurts himself the most: [Aside.] Regular whipping posts are they all, and all they do is to pilfer, purloin, prig, plunder, drink, eat, and abscond! Oh! they look decent enough; but they're cheats in their conduct. [Addressing the slaves again.] Now, unless you're all attention, unless you get that sloth and drowsiness out of your breasts and eyes, I'll have your sides so thoroughly marked with thongs that you'll outvie those Campanian coverlets in color, or a regular Alexandrian tapestry, purple-broidered all over with beasts. Yesterday I gave each of you his special job, but you're so worthless, neglectful, stubborn, that I must remind you with a good basting. So you think, I guess, you'll get the better of this whip and of me---by your stout hides! Zounds! But your hides won't prove harder than my good cowhide. [He flourishes it.] Look at this, please! Give heed to this! [He flogs one slave] Well ? Does it hurt ? . . . Now stand all of you here, you race born to be thrashed! Turn your ears this way! Give heed to what I say. You, fellow! that's got the pitcher, fetch the water. Take care the kettle's full instanter. You who's got the ax, look after chopping the wood. Slave: But this ax's edge is blunted. Ballio: Well; be it so! And so are you blunted with stripes, but is that any reason why you shouldn't work for me? I order that you clean up the house. You know your business; hurry indoors. [Exit first slave]. Now you [to another slave] smooth the couches. Clean the plate and put in proper order. Take care that when I'm back from the Forum I find things done---all swept, sprinkled, scoured, smoothed, cleaned and set in order. Today's my birthday. You should all set to and celebrate it. Take care---do you hear---to lay the salted bacon, the brawn, the collared neck, and the udder in water. I want to entertain some fine gentlemen in real style, to give the idea that I'm rich. Get indoors, and get these things ready, so there's no delay when the cook comes. I'm going to market to buy what fish is to be had. Boy, you go ahead [to a special valet], I've got to take care that no one cuts off my purse." Humour has always had a sadistic touch. Rich men had always take care of their pets. What about Vedius Pollio's lampreys? How many of nowadays aquaria could presume to give their pets cup-bearers or any other kind of slave as diner? (Cassius Dio, Book LIV, Ch. 23) ... manumission was done by Cato the Elder and any other Roman Patronus for business, not for their great heart. Freedmen were the basis of the clientela (and then, of power). Even with his "slave-friendly" attitude, Plutarch (Vita Cato, Ch24) found distasteful this petty sexual domestic scandal, the same as Cato's family. Besides ... "Well then," said Cato, "I have found a suitable son-in‑law for you, unless indeed his age should be displeasing; in other ways no fault can be found with him, but he is a very old man." I don't think neither Salonius nor Salonia had much to say about this obvious abuse. At least in theory, Cato the Younger and related family could have had significant legal restrictions for their antecedents. Cato, Columella, Varro... It's clear to me that these people were not sadistic killers like Himmler or Streicher, applying extermination by exhaustion; they were successful scholars and entrepeneurs that wrote some nice best-sellers for the myriad people that pretended to follow their examples. They were telling their readers the best way to economical success in farming business during Roman times. The quid is not that some owners could have taken good care of their slaves; the quid is that they didn't have to. You are right, Roman slavery was very complex... But ultimately, slaves were always Res, things, and in real life their owners could do with them as and whatever they pleased, being their imagination literally their only limit. That is under the legal status of today's pets in most countries and far beyond the most detrimental working conditions in today's world.

Gratiam habeo, PP. Wow... There's not such thing like a boring year with you. X-cellent link. We can never stop learning here.

Salve. I surely agree. Why? Define "hero". I suppose certainly not for being a plebeian or for his "oscure origins". If so, Stalin qualifies. His father and uncle were tribunes and pretor (the former), his brother was his legate and was described as aristocratic. I don't consider those origins particularly obscure; and definitively not poor, BTW. A philosopher and a strategos; what exactly made them qualify as wackos? Their opposition to some Roman desires? 'Nuff said. We are talking about the destruction of the second biggest Greek metropolis, older than Rome, great cultural centre for centuries and the death and enslavement of thousands (probably tens of thousands) of hellenic citizens. I am really curious what alterative conflagration you have in mind. Are we talking of a general of the Roman Republic, or of Hannibal? Some people have called Caesar a killer for less than that. Certainly Polybius did the former. Excuse me, I simply can't follow the argument. You could also praise Caesar for destroying or slaving only one or two million Gauls and not all of them. But ... Being a bad administrator is no index of honesty. More bad administration plus a little humiliation for the Greeks.

Salve. Let's take a little more documentary evidence to hinge from;here comes the third big Roman farming Manual's author (besides Columella and Cato himself): This is Varro

Salve, DN! I guess it was Tiberius.

Salve, guys & Ladies! This outstanding material comes from the article"Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean World" by Pekka Masonen (University of Tampere), published in "Ethnic encounter and culture change", Sabour and Vik

Creating a condition that may have aided the ambitions of unscrupulous men is not the same as being guilty of the murder itself. While Marius (along with men such as Sulla and Cinna) may have contributed various precedents that men like Pompey, Crassus and Caesar were able manipulate to their own advantage, it was the latter who actually did the deed. If we should believe in Plutarch (Vita Marius, Ch. 29 to 31) and Appian (Civil Wars, Book 1, Ch. 30 to 32), Marius, Saturninus and their allies were ambitious and unscrupulous enough to manipulate to their own advantage the precedents and conditions they had contributed for, at least during Marius' sixth consecutive consulship (100 BC); if they actually didn't do the deed, it would be mainly because of internal conflict, lack of popular support and a strong opposition from their enemies.

The best. Check it out in UNRV.

Salve. A guide from a year ago:

Salve! The strategy behind Little Boy at Hiroshima may be disputable; the strategy behind Fat Man at Nagasaki three days later (VIII Ides Sextilis MCMXLV, at 11:01 local time) was simply an enigma. In fact, Nagasaki was the secondary target; Kokura was saved only by bad weather (ironically, the weather at Nagasaki was even worse). For commander CW Sweeney, it was a relative failure, because using a bigger weapon (21 kilotons of Fat Man vs. 13 of Little Boy) he got lesser victims than his chief Paul Tibbets at Hiroshima by any account. Were the Japs still not tenderized enough? (Apparently, there were other A-bombs waiting their turn). Was Nagasaki position (a western port of Kyu-shu island) particularly valuable for the defense against the projected invasion (Operation Olympic)? If so, why was it a secondary target? Was it done to impress the Russians? (If so, it apparently worked the wrong way). Was it dropped for not wasting contributor's money?

Clash of the Titans. "In 48 BC the stage was set for the final clash of the two titans of the Roman world. The odds were heavily on Pompey

Salve! Check this reference: Slave Education in the Roman Empire S. L. Mohler ( Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 71, 1940, pp. 262-280 ) Abstract The large number of educated slaves in Roman society received their training in ways varying from self-education to instruction in formally organized schools within the larger households, which were called paedagogia. The boys enrolled in these schools served as ornamental "pages," but that work was only on a part time basis. The imperial school ad Caput Africae employed twenty-four paedagogi at one time. Pupils were proud of their attendance, called each other "brothers" and boasted of their "graduation." The positions held by these youths in after life included the highest procuratorships open to freedmen.

Salve, JP. So we are getting technological now, isn't it? Nice aircraft. It has been a long journey since the Zulu warrior. What's next, a spacecraft? X-cellent work, as usual.

Salve, S! Here is one of Bill Thayer's pages. non est, quod gratias agas.

One might suppose Vipsania may not share such bad opinion.

Salve, U & Lady A! Maybe the name of this re-edition should be "Hefaistion". Or even better, maybe a well placed re-edition could transform this film into an acceptable 15 minute documentary.

And Happy Saint Laurence's Tears!

...all of you havent overlooked those mysteries?

Salve! I have to confess that what MPC and PP have been chatting about as commonplace knowledge have changed all my vision of the History of the Late Roman Republic. Now, it's clear for me that: These oaths were perfectly operative to maintain the required balance of military discipline and Senate authority when the Republican Legions were only temporarily assembled. Therefore, Civil Wars were not only foreseeable but also unavoidable consequences of the Marian Reforms of 107 BC. Check this out. Besides, the definitive gaining of absolute power by the ultimate winner (Sulla, Caesar, Octavius or whoever you want), i.e. the Empire, was also foreseeable and unavoidable. If we accept all of this, then the real "killer" of the Roman Republic would have been C. Marius.