sylla

Polybius presumably took the anacyclosis concept from Aristotle's Politics; however, we should remember his Book 6 was not research but propaganda, because his conclusion was perfectly known in advance; the Roman constitution was the best of the best. In short, the common folk of Roman society had rather few institutional say, because even if by ignoring (for the sake of the argument) the obvious physical limitations and the real possibility of both positive and negative incentives (Ambitus) we admit that in principle any Roman citizen could vote, only a selected aristocracy (in fact, a fully developed plutocracy) could have been voted for virtually any magistracy. The selection of such aristocracy was mainly hereditary (just check out the proportion of "new men" at any time); it was a plutocracy, because in modern terms and for any practical purpose, any citizen had to be filthy rich to participate in Roman Republican politics on his own, especially during the last two centuries. In fact, the ruling elite should never ever work for their living, with the obvious exception of Politics (Rhetorics included) and War. Plainly stated, regular guys like you and me, who ought to work for their daily living (let say a carpenter or a blacksmith) were simply out of the game (unless they joined the army and became heroes, of course). "Plebeian" is certainly not synonymous of "poor". The definition of the former condition was negative, ie. any Roman citizen that was not a "Patrician". The latter definition was quite complex and it is not entirely understood to this very day, mainly because all the Patrician recruitment and even most of the "struggle of the orders" happened during legendary or semi-legendary periods; its clear that multiple and variable criteria were used across time.

Caius Porcius Cato was an ally of Clodius (the infamous Patrician tribune of the plebs) in his street gang war against Milo; Cato served as plebeian tribune himself in 56 BC, and in his political activities he was usually associated with his colleague Nonius Sufenas. They began as opponents of Pompey, but then changed sides and during their tribunate they delayed the comitia to promote the election of Pompey and Crassus as consuls. The following year they were both accused of procedural violations, but they were eventually acquitted. This Cato

Actually, what Polybius explicity stated in his panegyric on the Roman Constitution was that it was not democratic.. nor monarchic, nor oligarchic, but a peculiar fourth way with the best of each world; however, as the aristocratic Achaean that he was, Polybius betrayed himself some lines below, stating that the aristocratic Roman constitution was a significant factor over the more democratic Carthaginians:"Consequently the multitude at Carthage had already acquired the chief voice in deliberations; while at Rome the senate still retained this; and hence, as in one case the masses deliberated and in the other the most eminent men, the Roman decisions on public affairs were superior, so that although they met with complete disaster, they were finally by the wisdom of their counsels victorious over the Carthaginians in the war".

Let me guess... Caius Proletarius and his other poor citizen peers were lucky enough to be comfortably waiting in their farms while the altruistic rich soldiers were risking their necks for them... pretty unlikely, isn't it? Especially because we have good evidence that, when things got hot enough, even slaves were recruited. Maybe we should try this one... like in any other city-state, military service was an absolute duty for all citizens. As any soldier had to pay for his own equipment, poor soldiers ought to get the money from moneylenders, the same as in so many ancient and modern societies. So these poor citizens became clients of their noble patrons (Patricians or rich Plebeians alike), usually for generations. The main difference from the Republican and Imperial systems was the number of patrons; multiple in the Republic, just one for the Empire.

It's clear that the agrarian problem was never solved by the more-or-less democratic institutions of the Republic.The solution came with the Empire: land was granted for veterans, the only "poor citizens" that the state had really to deal with. "Golden Ages" are retrospective idealizations from times of crisis, and they can be found in virtually every civilization and nation. We esentially agree, as long as you are using "mercenary" in a most metaphorical way.The critical question here is why was the professionalization of the army required at all; ie, why were the traditional citizen levies not up to the task any more. Was it really the terrible performance of the Legions against the Germans the main (or only) cause of the so-called Marian reforms? It is frequently forgotten here that the "poor people" were also the soldiers; the military service was their true and only political power, either under the Republic or the Empire, as it was so vividly illustrated by the story of the plebeian withdrawal to the Sacred Mount.

Maybe; but the Romans themselves argued something quite different: "Oh!" you say, "You mean Byzantium! That's not the Roman Empire! That's some horrible medieval thing!" That certainly would have been news to Constantine, or to Zeno, or to Justinian (527-565), or even to Basil II in the 11th century (963-1025). "Byzantium," although the name of the original Greek city where Constantinople was founded, and often used for the City (as by Procopius), was not a word that was ever used to refer to the Empire, or to anything about it, by its rulers, its inhabitants, or even its enemies. The emperor was always of the "Romans," Rh

I believe you may have that the wrong way around -- that would have been a Claudius/Clodius adopted into the family of the Cornelii Lentuli. -- Nephele Nephele is right; Fulvia is talking about Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, a distinguished orator, an active legislator as consul in 72 BC and a severe censor since 70 BC, repeatedly quoted by Cicero and Gellius. He was a Claudius adopted by a Lentulus, possibly by the consul of 97 BC. Analogous to Claudius/Clodius, Clodianus should probably be considered just a textual variant of Claudianus.

Indeed; that's my whole point, we agree.

TG didn't die for being an idealist, but for miscalculating the odds against him. It's hard to blame him; the law was on his side and centuries of precedents backed his personal security.TG may in fact have been an idealist, but his actions can be equally explained as opportunistic maneuvers to get popular support for his personal ambition, as their enemies unsurprisingly stated. In fact, she can't do that; please check it out. Plainly, the United Kingdom is a democracy and their Kings are ruled by laws. In Britain and in any other place of the word, now and ever, a law has to be decreed previous to be enforced. The British Common Law means law created and refined by judges, rather than through executive action or legislative statutes (like in the Civil Law systems). "Custom" is not law by itself, in Britain or anywhere else; custom may be used as a precedent for a law. Who was supposed to define what was going "against the spirit of politics"? Let say Publius Satyreius or Lucius Rufus, TG's assasins? If the Roman legislation had any distinctive trait, it was undoubtedly the protection of even the lesser citizen against the arbitrary exercise of power (ie, not backed by a juridical decision) from even the highest magistrates; just remember the Lex Portia. If 133 BC was the point of no return in the way to the Civil Wars, as most if not all Roman historians believed, people like Satyreius, Rufus and their cronies were to be blamed and certainly not their victim. I think MS is talking about HH Scullard's A History of the Roman World, 753 to 146 BC; the author explained in the Introduction section:"During the period covered by this volume their success was unbounded, but before the end a change is perceptible. Foreign influences begin to mine the moral qualities and the ancestral discipline of the Roman people, lust of power at times superseded desire for law and order, foreign conquest appeared to many as a source of profit, the institutions of a city-state were strained to a breaking-point in an attempt to govern a far-flung Empire, the revolutionary era ushered by the Gracchi was approaching and the fabric of the Republic began to torter". Nope.First, very few historic events have been strictly "inevitable" ever; I can't see a priori any reason why the Senatorial elite couldn't have been more adaptable and satisfactorily dealt with the new problems, eg. an effective agrarian reform. If the ruling noble families weren't up to the task, that's another story. Additionally, as he himself stated (read above) and the same as most Roman historians, Ingsoc and I, Scullard also considered the Gracchi as the definitory moment that "ushered... the revolutionary era". Scullard might have had multiple didactic reasons for the selection of 146 BC, only 13 years before TG's death; presumably one of them was that such lapse would let him analyze the immediate factors that contributed to the Gracchi event in his following volume.

Nice one, aurelia. I do not find this at all surprising. This may be a duplicated THREAD. In any case, this report is a bit inaccurate; - the Codex Sinaiticus is not the oldest "Bible" but the oldest Christian Bible extant in full, - "whole" as long as it contains most of the Jewish Bible ("Old Testament") plus the whole canon of the New testament as currently defined by most Christian affiliations; - actually, a little more than "whole" because it contains also two former Christian best-sellers from the IV century currently considered as apocryphal by most affiliations, the Epistle of Barnabbas and the Shepherd of Hermas (plus some OT apocryphals too). The Codex mismatching is hardly surprising nowadays, because it has been extensively studied since the XIX century; this document is one of the cornerstones of modern textual criticism. The news are that it is coming online.

The main problem here is moral relativity, even if unintended; the fallacy that the moral quality of past actions might set up our own standards. The great effort developed here to show some evidence on the mental health of Mr. Hussein cannot modify one inch any potential ethical implication of the ongoing destruction of the archaeological heritage in Babylon. Otherwise, that line of argumentation may carry us to a never-ending slippery slope, especially within a historical website.; just think that there

You could say the same thing about any defeated politician in anytime. "Ideals" and "politician" in the same phrase is an oxymoron, at least regarding the Roman Republic. Under such logic, any innovation would be against "custom", and any government would be entitled to punish it even more than "simply" breaking the law like, let say, killing a magistrate... sorry but I simply can't see any reason to believe the Roman Republic was all that fascist. British and Roman legal systems are certainly dissimilar, but in any system the rules have to be defined in advance; you can't simply determine in hindsight that any action was illegal after all... unless we are talking about an Orwell's Animal Farm. "Custom" or "Mos Maiorum" is a source for the law, not the law itself. Before being enforced, any law must have been decreed; simple as that. We can tell; the underprivileged dissatisfaction with the traditional oligarchic rule of the Republican Noble families was the main explanation on why a populist autocratic regime could be introduced by the so-called "First Triumvirate".

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. In any case, I don't think we have to believe TG's intentions were different from any of his nobile pairs: money and power. Legal statements are categorical; it is or it isn't. If TG's election was "officially legal", it was Legal; period. The best evidence is that TG was not prosecuted for his actions; he was simply murdered. He was not acting against the "Roman state"; as an active part of that state, what he shut down was his opposition, entirely by legal methods. That's the way any more or less democratic state is supposed to run. From Sallust onwards, virtually all relevant Roman historians agreed with your final statement: if 133 BC was so crucial a year, it was fundamentally because a magistratus was murdered as a result of political disagreement. TG was the victim, not the assassin. It is perfectly clear that his opponents were not particularly worried for the welfare of the Republic. As the ancient Romans had a poor comprehension of sociological issues, it is understandable that they can attribute the fate of the World to the caprice of a fistful of characters. We know better than that; the political instability of the late II century BC was largely due to complex social conflicts that were for real, with or without the Gracchi. As far as we can tell, had the senate been able to satisfactorily dealt with the agrarian problem, Caesar and Augustus would in all likelihood never have a chance to get the autocratic power.

When I check out ancient sources, one of my goals is always the potential application of the ancient knowledge (being it Greek, Jewish, Roman or even Amazon) to nowadays life. The

The lions (all male) in the bottom pic are hunting bulls; it seems to have been a quite common motif in Attic vases and not necessarily related to the main theme, especially because there have never been lions in Scythia (but well, geographic rules were not always operative in mythology). I think all that is perfectly compatible with your ingenuous interpretation. As far as I have been able to check it out, the Amazons' depictions in Attic vases were consistently quite obviously feminine (and gorgeous), even when dressed on the Scythian way.

Why not both? Virtually all social revolutionaries can be described as demagogues (admittedly, the converse statement is not always true) depending mostly on your side of the debate. From the Gracchi brothers, it seems Caius was seen more as a demagogue than Tiberius, probably due to the legendary rhetoric skills of the former. In general terms, Latin historians considered the Gracchi in a more negative way and the Greek more positively; as Plutarch and Appian are our main sources, modern analysis tend to favor them. In any case, Plutarch's comparison of the Gracchi with Agis & Cleomenes seems to me to have been a fairly balanced assessment.

S/he does indeed - though it's six pixels in size, so hard to tell. We need a bigger pic - and preferably another one that shows the other side of the vase, which may be where the main event is taking place. Zoomable pics of Boston 1979.614 are available via Google Images; from left to right, the horseman 1 has a long beard, 2 & 4 a middle and 3 a short one; the four are undisputedly male. There are no bows or arrows in this scene, just two javelins for each one of them. They are all dressed in the Scythian male way. Both amazons and Scythians were frequent motifs of Attic vases, especially the former; both may be even found in the same scene. From what I have been able to check out on, the feminine nature (and dress) of the Amazons were almost always quite clearly depicted.

I have no problem with Sex, Drugs & History; my problem is with fiction and manipulated evidence deliberately presented as science and History just for profit. Mr. Allegro was a well-known scholar that in his moment made some nice contributions to the archaeological research, especially regarding the Qumran Library. Later, he made good money from some funny theories. His books seem to have been a significant step against religious censure. All that said, we need no more pseudoscience to confuse the already complex field of biblical archaeology and exegesis; and please remember that comes from the agnostic guy. The role of self-induced hallucinations in the religious experience is a valid area of research; the forgery of evidence (eg, linguistic) is not a valid resource; period. The myriad bogus theories of this kind just share their well-deserved bad name with the true research on this field.

To get back to Professor Madden, who was cited in the original post: Usus autem sum, ne in aliquo fallam carissimam mihi familiaritatem tuam, praecipue libris ex bibliotheca Ulpia, aetate mea thermis Diocletianis, et item ex domo Tiberiana, usus etiam [ex] regestis scribarum porticus porphyreticae, actis etiam senatus ac populi. 2 et quoniam me ad colligenda talis viri gesta ephemeris Turduli Gallicani plurimum invit, viri honestissimi ac sincerissimi, beneficium amici senis tacere non debui. 3 Cn. Pompeium, tribus fulgentem triumphis belli piratici, belli Sertoriani, belli Mithridatici multarumque rerum gestarum maiestate sublimem, quis tandem nosset, nisi eum Marcus Tullius et Titus Livius in litteras rettulissent? 4 Publ<i>um Scipionem Afric<an>um, immo Scipiones omnes, seu Lucios seu Nasicas, nonne tenebrae possiderent ac tegerent, nisi commendatores eorum historici nobiles atque ignobiles extitissent? 5 longum est omnia persequi, quae ad exemplum huiusce modi etiam nobis tacentibus usurpanda sunt. 6 illud tantum contestatum volo me et rem scripsisse, quam, si quis voluerit, honestius eloquio celsiore demonstret, et mihi quidem id animi fuit, 6 <ut> non Sallustios, Livios, Tacito<s>, Trogos atque omnes disertissimos imitarer viros in vita principum et temporibus disserendis, sed Marium Maximum, Suetonium Tranquillum, Fabium Marcellinum, Gargilium Martialem, Iulium Capitolinum, Aelium Lampridium ceterosque, qui haec et talia non tam diserte quam vere memoriae tradiderunt. 8 sum enim unus ex curiosis, quod infi[ni]t<i>as ire non possum, ince<n>dentibus vobis, qui, cum multa sciatis, scire multo plura cupitis. 9 et ne diutius ea, quae ad meum consilium pertinent, loquar, magnum et praeclarum principem et qualem historia nostra non novit, arripiam.

It's not easy to distinguish indispensable from extravagant expenditures, as boast also had its place in politics and diplomacy. In any case, for the sake of brevity, the converse list (ie. the "less extravagant") would probably be more useful; my first guesses would be Augustus, Tiberius, Vespasian, Marcus Aurelius, Pertinax and Julian.

The finantial definition for Extravagant (Merriam-Webster): "exceeding the limits of reason or necessity; lacking in moderation, balance, and restraint; spending much more than necessary". Naturally, all governments spend; the problem is the efficiency of the expenditure. From where I am, the Augustan administration was one the most efficient (ie, the less "extravagant"), if not simply the most, in all the long history of Ancient Rome.

Nice spotting; this baby is the piece 1979.614 from the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston, an Antimenes' Hydria of 46 cm. height with the following official description: "Main scene on body: Four barbarian horsemen ride to the right on three black horses and one white. The horsemen wear pointed caps, long sleeves, and patterned trousers and are probably Scythians. Below main panel: frieze of animals below, with central group of two lions attacking an animal. Scene on shoulder: departure scene with warrior mounting chariot while five other figures look on".

Congratulations to UNRV member Flavia Gemina!!! From Mary Beard's article at Viggen's link (SIC): " The other highlight of the conference came at dinner after the Seaford lecture. It was the presentation of the Classical Association prize (for enhancing the public understanding of Classics) to Caroline Lawrence, author of the brilliant series of Roman Mysteries for kids (Famous Five go to Pompeii, as she jokingly and far too self-deprecatingly put it)". A nice pic is also there.

Arguably, the whole list is a gross inaccuracy from a pretty inaccurate site.Not only is "extravagancy" an entirely subjective judgment value, but it is also not even approximately defined here; ie. is it the mere waste of money, the bizarre conduct, a mixtures of both or something else? By using the first criterion, Napoleon I would have been my obvious first choice. Besides, it is not clear what "Emperor" means here (Bokassa???). After all, Herr Hitler might have been aptly called an

Put in that way, if the body in King Tut's sarcophagus were Paul, that would be a real miracle .