caesar novus

Your nickname reminds me of a hushed side comment made by Professor Harl in his audio course about the Vikings (from "teaching company"). He suggested Ceasars epic overkill in Gaul likely caused a domino effect by depopulating Germany of tribes who had been drawn into helping out the Gauls. This vacuum was filled by southern Danish proto-vikings moving south to become present day Germans. He joked about this being a secret because no one dares to say Germany was essentially founded by an Italian, so I guess you won't find any citations. I also heard this was why Augustus had so much trouble fighting the Germans... they had a north-woods almost guerilla tradition that didn't involved centralized towns and forts that the Romans could focus on and besiege. Oh, somewhere else I heard Julius practiced such brutal overkill in order to impress his own side and that it wasn't militarily necessary. Or maybe it was in the euphoria after continually winning when outnumbered 2 to 1? Well, this isn't much help, just some half remembered background...

I think that gave a foundation that both protected them from worst consequences of leadership errors, and promoted even better results from any wise leadership. From the perspective of cutting losses, I think it was unusual how well Romans seemed to have learned from setbacks. Instead of impetuous flipflops (say in strategy or technology), they seemed to keep the framework but evolve refinements along the way. From the winning perspective, it may be symbiosis where good organization lets good leadership rise to the next level in effectiveness by focusing on higher level issues. I remember working with technology proposals from both world class and lesser mortal researchers. What surprised me was the almost childlike simplicity of most of the analysis by the top notch folks; it was only in the final leap into the heart of the matter where there would be a creative and mentally challenging twist. The lower achievers by contrast analyzed everything afresh and got so bogged down in complex reinvention of even the banal aspects that no overall leap seemed likely.

Professors in http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...timization.html argue that Constantine allied himself with one of the sects of Christianity that was most compatible with centralized government, and that he persecuted alternate Christian sects (eg. gnostics?), which I gather had a lasting influence.

Besides simply adopting Christianity, I wonder if a case could be made that the Roman world shaped it's very doctrine. Not in passive ways, like a Christian reaction against Roman ways, or having Roman citizens defect to it... but as a flexing of Roman power to shape Christianity to Roman interests in some degree. One example might be the Apostle Paul http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/paul/paul.htm who was an early persecutor of Christians and seemed to be funded in this by the Romans although maybe had other motivations. His later life as a Christian convert seems to involve removing some Jewish aspects out of Christianity, and some think this was to make it especially convert-friendly and to seem less foreign to the average Roman citizen. That took a long while, but maybe still is effective today in conversion efforts. Another example is Constantine, who kind of chaired committees such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea on Christian doctrine. Sometimes described as a passive role in settling esoteric questions, but I think other accounts suggest the stifling of alternative Christian doctrines that would be harder to manage in the context of his empire, such as more mystic and decentralized ones. Could modern Christianity still include echos of things that were "for the good of the Roman Empire"?

There's been news of various new archeological discoveries, but I assume there will be lag time before the objects or sites are open for public viewing. So what is newly opened in the greater Rome area, or what has been recently renovated, and is there any practical advice on visiting? For example I gather Nero's palace basement is being renovated, but you can visit by appointment?