caesar novus

You seem to say punishment in order to make an example is nothing noteworthy for the time. Maybe a sort of hot-blooded knee-jerk variety was the norm, but I find the Roman style of cold blooded (staged) exemplary punishment beyond the pale. I really like Roman civilization as altruistic for the most part, so this selfish side of making potential innocents suffer sticks out as gangster-think. And it can even be counterproductive; think of how some bombings have rallied the victims or think of how many analysts today are saying the gov'ts exemplary punishment of Lehman (folding) greatly magnified todays financial crises. It's true I was going from summaries inferring the cripples were otherwise innocent and only there for the sick needs of a theatrical narrative. If they might in fact be guilty of something, then fine... I guess there were no jails, so offenders had to be sorted into extremes of very light or very harsh punishment. But it seems a stretch to project guilt, with no evidence. BTW, I'm a bit puzzled why some emperors pandered largely to populism, esp via cruelty. It's one thing where my "genius" emperors balance pandering to the army, elites, AND populace to kind of keep the peace, but wasn't it really mainly the army that you had to buy off in order to survive and thrive? For goodness sake, I was being metaphorical. If you require such tidiness to reach any conclusion, then no conclusion can be reached for Rome with it's incomplete evidence. One thing that is certain is archeological remains, and I think Roman architecture, engineering, and art just shout refinement for the most part. But the scraps of surviving narrative contrast so much from what we associate with refinement, that it's reasonable to assume where there is smoke there may be fire. So it's interesting to look at the contrast, and not get at all relativistically jelly spined about it. Romans are interesting precisely because when imposing TODAYs standards they look so good in many ways... and bad in others (with volumes of admittedly shakier evidence for the latter).

OK, let's try revising this idea for a deep pocket forum demographic. A final headcount please... anyone wishing to join a tour of Roman archeo sites normally closed to the public, send a signed blank check to http://www.romasotterranea.it/guided-tours.html and tell them since it was my idea, to let me tag along for free.

If you get the Smithsonian HiDef TV channel, they often repeat documentaries on Maurizio http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smi...ci_detective.do which is a little less up to date, but full of behind the scenes gossip by him. I was especially hooked by his debunking of the "The Adoration of the Magi painting" because "none of the paint we see on the Adoration today was put there by Leonardo" (his quote from Wikipedia). I always thought that painting was vomitous crap and hated the reverence for it. His claims for it's lineage is funny and further reinforced my impression that the mafia did no serious wrong by blowing up part of the Ufizzi. But the BATTLE OF ANGHIARI documentary was even more wild, with him pointing out that it was considered superior to the Mona Lisa by contemporaries. Maurizio's early sensor machinery pointed to an incorrect location for the BATTLE picture, and he claims it was "guerilla" action unknown to him when unauthorized people started tearing open a wall with a famous mural on it in the search for it there. This event ruined his reputation for when he decided he found the real location of BATTLE, he couldn't get permission to open the wall. If I have this story right, it sounds that now he has permission?

I believe I found most of the Roman plays listed in Wikipedia available in http://www.archive.org/details/texts . Someone might enjoy adapting those plots and characters into more modernized scripts and selling them http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/eng/nowwhat2009

Let's see, quantity or quality of depravity? One account of a royal child's execution sticks in my mind due to the sick way they solved a certain legalistic snag about killing youngsters... I can't even type in the particulars. On the other extreme, the naumachia slaughters sound so wildly over the top. Put aside the technicalities of putting it on water, but to have tens of thousands of POW's hack each other to death for a cold blooded show!? Also I hear there may have had to be several "staff" for every prisoner of war, such as to row or guard; that must have been a scary profession done by Romans, like the poor sods who had to hold prisoners still while wild animals tore into them. It would be nice to come up with tidy top ten lists, but I guess it is too numbing of a sick subject for that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvDTN_gLxk...feature=related seems to capture it. If that doesn't work for you there are many other versions if you search for "engineering an empire" without rome, or with rome at the end. It's kind of disappointing for it's overly melodramatic approach. I was always puzzled why such an expensive palace would be destroyed rather than at least partly reused. But I gather from several sources that it was kind of a pointless non functional show palace. I'm thinking maybe like the more recent palace at Caserta near Naples, kind of a clone of Versailles but seeming monotonous and souless with a too obvious goal of just looking expensive and expansive.

I wonder if anyone would want to meet or at least "group think" plans for an excursion to the Rome area during the week when they open all state museums/archeo sites for free? You can stay cheaply such as at http://www.monasterystays.com/index.php and some can fly for just pennies on http://www.whichbudget.com/en/cheapflights.php?to=ROM . Daytrips from Rome sometimes can be made easier or cheaper with knowhow, such as public buses passing near Hadrian's Villa. Challenges where group-think or meeting in person might help: 1) Finding out the dates of "culture week" ahead of time. Usually notice pops up a couple months ahead of time on gov't web pages (in Italian). In the past it has been in March, April, May, or skipped a year. 2) Making travel / accom arrangements at last minute. 3) working out logistics of local excursions on the cheap (such as getting on/off busses apparently in the middle of nowhere with no language skills).

Here goes some impressions of Roman sites in Barcelona's gothic quarter. This maze of streets east of the famous Ramblas tourist epicenter isn't always accurately portrayed on maps or guidebooks, so here are some tips by the naive for the naive. Experts feel free to fill in. 1) http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_directo...ona_city_museum has a fantastic network of walkways suspended over excavations of Roman Barcino. The excavations themselves can be on the mundane side (dyeing vats, wine fermenting tanks), but the quality of walkway logistics and labeling raises the experience to a higher level. Maybe this has a low profile because they forbid photography and you can hardly see a preview anywhere. Where: from the rear of the main cathedral nearby, continue walking a couple blocks away from the curved rear of the church, zigging a bit left when blocked. Costs money, but you get a/c, w.c., seating for it. 2) Big Roman Temple Columns: This is a room just off an L shaped alley behind that same cathedral with quite impressive columns. You are so close to them that they don't photograph well, so again hard to get a preview that does them justice. I believe the text says that they were relocated in the past, but now are somewhere near their original location? I think these are often mislocated on maps, so find an alley going rearward from the rear of the cathedral. There are two that are parallel to the churches centerline; take the one offset to the right which has an L to the right. Opposite the crotch of the L, look for a doorway to the left which should catch your breath pretty quick. Free with seating. 3) Cemetary with Roman tombstones. There is a plaza several blocks northwest of the cathedral that has a sunken area with grass (a rare sight in Gothic Quarter that first catches your eye) and tombstones that are labeled Roman (I have no independant source or verification of it). Maybe the inscriptions are interesting for Latin readers...

Thanks for the Baudy reference. I hadn't heard that before, but just spent a few minutes trying to find his theory on the web. The best I could come up with was the following from an old special on PBS: "He (Gaudy) has learned that in the poor districts of Rome, Christians were circulating vengeful texts predicting that a raging inferno would reduce the city to ashes. "In all of these oracles, the destruction of Rome by fire is prophesied," Baudy explains. "That is the constant theme: Rome must burn. This was the long-desired objective of all the people who felt subjugated by Rome." I think the Baudy theory was more than idle observations, but was fully spelled out in his scholarly book (in German). Many academic assertions about Rome seem to not be supported by just doing a google search... analysis of the ancients seems have a low profile on the internet other than here. Well, some is showing up in the Google books project, but I find their format virtually unreadible (fuzzy light grey font). So again, let's not overlook the cuddly side of Nero! I gather he was loved by a lot of lower classes because his antics basically made fun of upper class pretentions. I hear there were 3 pretenders to pop up that seriously claimed to be Nero and that his death had been misreported - at least one of which gathered support by army and other sympathizers before being proven a fraud. And wasn't it only later in Vespasian times when the upper class fully asserted their demonization of Nero and tore down his palace, whereas the previous 2 weak emperors pandered to the lower classes with praise of Nero and talk about completing the palace?

Detroit pastors packing heat (Christian soldiers?): http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...POu_pwD9B2HVLO0 Is it protection from down and out desperados, or from the cream of society? (Detroit mayor charged with dozen felonies last year): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick#Resignation

I thought a key piece of evidence were stone spheres which could be ball bearings for the rotating roof (or floor?). I got the impression these were found, although didn't notice them in the pictures. P.S. on the burning of Rome in Nero's time, wasn't it during the anniversary of a sacking of Rome by the Gauls... an infamous kind of 9/11 date that a dissenting group might target? At first I connected this with the anniversary where they crucify dogs for not warning of the Gauls sneaking into Rome, but I guess the first was in July and the second was in August.

The other part was only briefly open when it had to be reshut for emergency restoral, projected to last a couple years from now (anyone know more precisely?). http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=Domus+Aurea shows a bit of the old tour. In a couple hours from this post there will be a repeat of "rome: engineering an empire" on history intnl channel which shows a recreation of the palace at about the middle of it's two hour run. P.S. isn't the new Gerhard Baudy theory interesting, which presents circumstantial evidence that an extremest Christian sect really did set Rome ablaze, as Nero claimed? Not as likely as the accident or 3rd party theories, but equally as likely as Nero did it. How about petitioning the Pope to have Nero cannonized as a saint, to balance all these years of persecution

1) ? 2) Claudius Naumachia where 19,000 POWs fight and die. http://www.the-colosseum.net/games/navmachiae.htm 3) ? 4) ? 5) ? 6) ? 7) ? 8) ? 9) Commodus slaying groups of cripples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodus#Commodus_the_gladiator 10) ? Your version? I started by focusing on over the top, gratuitious depravity even by primitive day standards. Just put yourself in the victims place, when they are about to make a show of pouring liquid lead down your throat or something you could never have dreamed of in your experience. It seems a bit less bad to be torched as a Christian if they had already given you a chance to simply show respect for pagan totems (not even to believe in them or disbelieve in your god; just don't jinx the community good luck totem). Or massacre of a city for not surrendering... very bad, but they did have a chance to save themselves and save the Roman legion from risking their lives.

What museum? Do they mean in the original collection of Villa San Michele. Only other museum there I can think of is the church with those weird pictorial tiles, or the little museum in the other town (Capri). And is that depth for real? Way past diving limits, and I question if the cave would be that bright if the reflective (sand/limestone) floor was so darn far down.

Wiki sez it came from Trajan's civic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Ulpia in his forum. Gosh, the Lateran church really has the same feel of this reconstruction http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encycl...n/basilica.html . I hope Mussolini's roadbuilding didn't permanently destroy that Basilica Ulpia, because I like the way it included a liberty apse used to record the names of slaves who had been freed. Hardly findable in google, unless you delve into the online book section. I wonder if there was a place to sign up into volunteering to be a slave too (to escape a worse fate). Nice how Roman slavery wasn't a life or ethnic sentence in some cases - they should get more credit for that, maybe by restoring that apse.

I can hardly believe that the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Funny_Thing...ay_to_the_Forum was actually based on and apparently typical of Roman comedies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_ancient_Rome ! I love it: mockery of authority, championing the underdogs, farce, and screwball. I was afraid they would lean more toward the austere Greek tragedies, but I guess they departed from that heritage. Are there other comic movies or media based on Roman plays? Are there entertaining translations or audio readings of them? I think the Turner Classic Movie channel repeats "a funny thing" (see clip http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=9056 ). It seems to me similar in spirit to their often repeated Astaire comedies, such as http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=74675 , but I would prefer something straight from Rome eternal...

Hmm, I gather my video course professor isn't exactly mainstream. He advocates #3 for Caligula, Nero, Domitian(?) and someone else. He further says this became more the rule rather than the exception. Not so much craziness, but seeking respect less from military experience, but accomplishment in athletic and artistic ways, like games, hunts, theater, music and maybe debauchery.

Two years into the reign of young Caligula, he seemed to go from admirable to crazy (or at least extremely cruel). Was this a result of an illness at the time, or was it's roots in his scary and politically violent childhood? If the good part of his reign works against a victimology excuse, were his actions a seeking out of alternate forms of gravitas for the first emperor without military laurels or typical forms of power? Did he experiment with eastern styles of getting respect or at least fear within a potentially hostile and dangerous political circle, or what?

Just some naive thoughts: I wonder how many folks are attracted vs repelled to the Romans for their gladiator habits. I was pretty much repelled, and would hardly glance at coliseums of Rome or Pompeii. Mussolini could have put his archeology-destroying boulevard right thru the coliseum rather beside it for all I cared. But that impression is changing if I can believe the video course I am following (won't give it any more plugs by name). Apparently it didn't focus primarily on gratuitious gore and death, but was loaded with etiquette (changing with the times). There were countless rules intended to spare lives of respectable or expensive fighters, sometimes built into what ethnic group was allowed to fight with which. Not only did emperors seek favor by sparing lives of popular losers, but listened to petitioners on other business during the spectacle, especially when democracy had otherwise shriveled. The gore was possibly secondary to some constructive social purposes, such as seeing how your (in the audience) station in life is respected by others. Too many details to enumerate, but just thinking the Romans seem less barbaric if you follow certain academic descriptions in depth. To me their architecture/sculpture just shouts civilized refinement. If their history is sometimes stereotyped to be Nazi like, they why didn't their achitecture reflect that (like facist or Stalinist brutal architecture/sculpture)? If the modern trend is so comparatively genteel, why for example are we allowing increasing cruelty in meat processing http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/d...ory_id=14460095 . Bring back the Roman empire!

Is Europe about to fall due to abandoning Christianity, or due to embracing Christian guilt? Is Europe falling? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...0138906916.html found thru http://www.aldaily.com/

The worst thing is to become fundamentalist (one sided) about it. Just because there are abuses in removing objects out of context doesn't mean it should never happen. It would be silly and anti educational to only have museums of local objects. You have to be a priviliged and rich enough to spew jet exhaust all across the world to see anything Egyptian and Aztec at all? Things shouldn't always stay put in the region they originated and among the people who happen to live there. Sometimes objects aren't valued locally (may seem mundane and only practical), and gain significance when transported across the world to a new, universal context. Even if objects are highly valued locally, having some of them spread out can protect them all sucumbing to a regional disaster like war, earthquake, or acid pollution. Some things are valued locally that shouldn't be, like ancient bones that are legally claimed by indian tribes who may not be their descendants at all, and are a great loss to science when "given back". Legality doesn't equate to ethics, and certainly more and more silly laws are being made and retroactively applied. The somewhat flakey host of Naked Archeologist aired a lot of discussions with Israeli archeologists about how amateurs and looters seem to bring valuable finds to light that the leave the stodgy professionals way behind. This with the full knowledge that the pros work in preserving original context is a million times more valuable... outweighed by the ten million times better productivity of the non pros he suggested. Well, that is admittedly fringe, but not all wrong.

I guess I'm thinking of the 4th century bc Greek visitor to Norway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas#Discovery_of_Thule . I haven't replayed the cd's yet, but flipped thru course notes booklet. Lecture 4 is on Vikings & Romans, and you can see in the 2nd paragraph of http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=3910 that the author bases some of his Viking history on "Roman reports". However many of these are about Germany, then he seems to make inferences about Danes, etc. The chapter 4 course notes end with a question that I don't think he answered: "What was the impact of imperial Rome in shaping society in Scandinavia? How decisive was contact with Rome in changing political and military institutions? How important was trade for the prosperity of Scandinavia?" Other Italio-Norse contacts: On the 5th floor of the Venice Naval Museum there is a big map showing routes of several Viking incursions to Italy! It seems so out of the way, maybe they knew of the former Roman empire from earlier contacts? In my own history I have over 600 years documentation of only Norwegian ancestors, but a DNA test suggested a an earlier Sardinian female (that in the mitochondrial dna; the male side being the viking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I1_%28Y-DNA%29 )

Wasn't there a Roman who visited Norway and left one of the only written descriptions of it pre Viking, maybe around 400ad? I forget what his purpose was, but don't think it was very clear anyway. I seem to recall this from a "teaching company" audio course on the Vikings, but it is hard to access the quote buried somewhere on a dozen or so CDs.

I guess I keep projecting some grand Roman cultural evolution that didn't exist. Apparently they had an acretitive (sp?) culture that borrowed here and there and didn't really redefine it and make it their own very much over time except to scale up and tweak the technology forward. Some odds and ends from my video course: Roman temples are not comparable to churches, but sanctuaries are (pantheon is an exception). Sanctuaries are the overall complex that includes the public spaces as well as the little temple that houses the god. Roman gods tend to stay put, vs the Greek gods have dramatic lives thru time and space. Roman temples are different from Greek ones in not having to face east. The whole relationship of man to god is so fundamentally different between the pagan and christian phases, that you wouldn't expect a lot of similarity between a sanctuary and church.