sylla

Excellent question. I have found no evidence yet. Personally, I don't think so. Education seems to have never been contemplated as a public responsibility in the Classical Antiquity. My impression is that the Romans would probably have considered literacy as one of the personal qualities that each soldier ought to cultivate if they really hope to ascend someday; a Darwinian approach, if you like. My guess is that illiterate soldiers (especially auxilia) would have had no other chance but to rely on literate comrades to try to improve their abilities.

...Or simply declare elements of the last two posts and continue merrily with the discussion on legionary literacy. Well, everything began in topic; how important was (or wasn't) literacy for the Roman soldiers. I hope my position is clear by now; even if indirect, the available evidence strongly suggests that a minimum of literacy was required for the regular performance of legionaries (and auxilia); it didn't seem to have been a luxury for them.

Salve mi FV.

Couldn't agree more. The publication of the Rise and Fall was a pivotal historical event in itself; the European Enlightenment that eventually shaped all our world couldn't have been understood without it, as Gibbon's influence can be detected in one way or another in virtually any social thinker after him. Gibbon is still alive, well and walking among us; many of his own constructs, from the "five good emperors" to the "Byzantine empire", have evolved into solid cultural archetypes still in regular use, even if under uncritical acceptance most often than not. The colossal work of Gibbon is one of those sources that many of us try to quote without actually reviewing it at length. Then, any study that deepens into Gibbon's method, conclusions, message and influence, like this essay, must be welcomed.

That's a good point. Literacy increases the average functional level of any society (western, eastern, south, north or center) to levels unaccessible for their ancestors. That's why a minimum educational level is required from us for any or almost any job. Intentionally or not, you're definitively belittling the importance of modern, Roman and any other world education and education systems, essentially by ignoring most of the available evidence, even from our daily life. Social mammals have complex conduct and activities that are at least partially acquired (ie, teach and learned); for humans, that means virtually anything from sphincter control onwards; just check on feral children. Teaching, in or out of schools, has always been a necessary evil. Some gifted autodidacts like Franklin or Edison may excel over the average education; that's exactly what made them such extraordinary individuals. Experience has consistently shown that learning, both at home and at school, are not alternative but complementary to each other. If required, home learning might reach high educational levels; this is clearly the exception that confirms the rule. Literacy is not an inherited skill like oral language; humans have been here for millions of years, and writing for just some millennia at most. The alphabet is presumably the most important human invention even; with just a few signs thousands of words, millions of phrases and countless concepts can be recorded. Using alphabetic signs for counting is not literacy by any measure. Mastering these skills at a basic (

Argumentum ad ignorantiam Argumentum ex silentio

Try Gaius Marius: A Political Biography, by Richard J. Evans (1994). Besides being a classic on this topic, the author had a lot to say about this eulogy. This inscription (ILS 59) was in the Forum of Augustus (inaugurated by 4 BC), presumably included among a group of eulogia of illustrious Romans; there was a copy in Arpinum, Marius' natal city (CIL X.5782) and probably another in Ravenna, where it might have been consulted by Plutarch. By the XIX century the inscription was lost; what Primus Pilus posted is Mommsen's reconstruction, based on recovered fragments and Renaissance transcriptions. Probably its most interesting fact is that this is the only available source on Marius than explicitly mentions his quaestorship (usually dated to 121 BC); there has been some debate on the accuracy of this reference.

We agree. Anything else is speculation, and any speculation is as solid as their sources (or the lack of them). "Reasonable" is an entirely subjective value judgment. The potential value of negative evidence depends on its probabilistic (statistical) assessment; ie, how likely is it that the lack of the expected evidence is because it was never there (a true negative) and not just due to chance or alternative mechanisms, like the physical loss of the relevant sources (a false negative). For example, the possibility of an additional hypothetical wife of Julius Caesar is rather low, given the amount of available prosopographical information from the late Roman Republic; ie, the sources are silent (a true negative). This is not possible with Valerianus, because here the sources are not silent; they are essentially absent (making a false negative far more likely). For example, we don

You do have a point, argumentum ex silentio is a problematic argument, however I think we need to see the big picture of evidences in his time: in the time Valerianus was operating there is no trace of the old republican families - so it's make it's extremely unlikely that he was descended of such family unless we had a pretty good evidence to that. And if there were any trace of any one of such families, how would we indentify them? As stated here, the argument is circular; P. Licinius Valerius can't be from the original Licinia gens just because he lived too late; then, his name is no trace of the old republican families; then, such families didn't survive. (Just for the sake of clarity, what we have here is an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam, not of argumentum ex silentio; the latter means that you can't infer you're right simply because your oppponent didn't answer).

Not much more to add besides what I've already posted. Valerian's atypical (for the III century) noble family background is attested not only by the unreliable Historia Augusta ("Trebellius Pollio") but also by Aurelius Victor (presumably the best source for this period) and even by the hostile Zosymus. In fact, I'm not aware of any relevant source that contends this fact. I don't think any reliable genealogy can be designed for Valerian beyond his own father. Being the contemporary naming practices so irregular, the presence (or absence) of Valerian's cognomina is hardly useful for our purpose. I think there's no way to know if there were any connections of the Valerian dynasty with the Republican plebeian noble Licinia Gens, even less its nature. The poor condition of the available records for the III century makes the absence of such evidence essentially meaningless.

My apologies; there's a point where we must simply agree that we have the right to disagree. The disagreement so far has been not about Valerianus' genealogy per se, but the logical methodology involved. My only point: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

No, I don't; but then, we need to check on more military funerary inscriptions. This epitaph is CIL III, 11213: The Latin original : T(itus) Calidius / P(ublii filius) Cam(ilia tribu) Sever(us)/ eq(ues) item optio/ decur(io) coh(ortis) I Alpin(orum) / item (centurio) leg(ionis) XV Apoll(inaris) / annnor(um) LVIII stip(endorium) XXXIIII / h(ic) s(itus) e(est) / Q(uintus) Calidius fratri / posuit The English restoration: "Titus Calidius Severus, son of Publius, of the Camilia (voting) Tribe , an eques (then) optio and decurion of the Cohors 1 Alpinorum, and then centurion of the Legion XV Apollinaris, Aged 58 years, served 34 years died. He lies here. Quintus Calidius his brother put this up". This inscription came from the late I or early II century; its terminus ante quem is 117 AD, when XV Apollinaris was deployed to Syria. The terminus post quem might be circa 80 AD, as it is then when the Cohors 1 Alpinorum (Equitata) is first attested in Pannonia. Calidius' secret was that he served two times; first as a peregrinum in an auxiliary unit, presumably for the 25 years required for acquiring Roman citizenship; and then the remaining nine years as a regular centurion for XV Apollinaris. He was most likely from a local Pannonian family. In principle, it seems perfectly feasible that other Roman auxilia upgraded to legionaries might have served for even longer periods, because: -Calidius first recruitment was relatively late (24 years old). -At least some of them may have survived beyond their sixth decade.

From the List of Logical Fallacies, this is the entry for Argumentum ex Silentio. However, it's easy to see that such fallacy doesn't apply here; this thread has an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam. Click on it.

As a last remark, just check this thread; I never made any agument. You made the argument that Valerian can't be a true Licinius, but you didn't bring any source. You actually try to base your argument in the absence of sources!!! (ie, as no source proves it, it's impossible) You know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I just pointed the faulty logic, and indeed it is; but that's also not my business.

At least, by pointing you a faulty assumption that would bias your prosographical analysis. BTW, it seems the less than 0.0001% was just an alternative way of expressing full impossibility (0% chance). And that's one impossibility that you can't sustain. Any family anywhere has the potential of leaving descendants; you may consider unlikely that Valerian came from bona fide Licinii, and you may be right; but from the content of this thread or the primary sources on this Emperor you simply can't reach such conclusion. Is that impossible in your logic? Really? I'm absolutely sure that my ascendants, your ascendants and Valerian ascendants were all alive by the time of Hammurabi, and there's a priori no reason why this king couldn't have been one of them (in fact, his polygamy would have made it particularly feasible). After all, about 1 in every 200 men in the World comes from a genetic lineage related to Gengis Khan. And of course, all known life came from a common ancestor that lived in the Paleoarchean, some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

By the mid second century BCE there were only two Licinian branches, the Luculli and the Crassi . The last Luculli was lucius Licinius Lucullus who died in 42 BCE . The last biological Crassi was Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives cos. 30 BCE, he adopted a son and named him M. L. C. D. (cos. 14 BCE) . The son of the last one was M.L.C. Frugi (cos. 27 CE), he had a son with the same name - executed by Nero . This Frugi (II) had two sons (cos. 87 and cos. suff. 88) . They are the last true Licinnii, by adoption . The chanse that Valerianus was their descendant is no more than 0.0001 % . Take for example Marcus Licinius Sura cos. 93/97, 102 and 107 . He was a contemporary of the last two and did not had any familial connections with them . He was a descendant of some Hispanic who got his Roman citizenship sometime in the first century CE . You're quoting last ATTESTED descendants. Even if your sources are reliable, I don't think you can be absolutely sure that there were not UNATTESTED descendants from these or even other branches. In any case, I don't understand your Maths or how did you get the 0.0001%.

That depends on your definition criteria; if you consider ANY Republican nobile nomen from this period as freedmen or clients' offspring, your argument is circular. Both Aurelius Victor and Zosimus.

That's an interesting comparison because, contrary to the isolated panegyric accounts for any of the three quoted Roman battles, we have plenty of information available on Waterloo from almost any angle. In fact, we can attest the Rashomon play; it's no surprise that the battle analysis is defined essentially by the nationality of the analyst. Both the British and the Germans attributed their victory to their respective commander, while the French (and the Emperor himself) attributed their defeat to the mistakes of one of their own (Ney). There are of course countless factors that contribute to any battle's outcome; an endless discussion on the case of Waterloo is clearly out of the scope of this thread. However, the outcome of Waterloo was hardly unexpected after a quick arithmetic assesment: some 118,000 veteran allies crushed some 72,000 young conscripts from the demographically depleted France. Even if Waterloo was less than two centuries ago, there is always some debate regarding casualties; even so, the average figures are far more reliable (and credible) than the typical balance from either Zama or Pharsalus; a good estimation would be some 32,000 French (44%) and 22,000 allies (19%).

That's a gross underestimation of the immense ongoing effort developed at almost any level for the education of the peoples all over the world. Even if it might seem as natural as breathing to us, social alphabetization has never been spontaneous, and it has been considered a regular public issue just for the last two centuries at most. As virtually any state previous to the European Enlightenment, the ancient Rome never had anything remotely similar to an alphabetization policy for its civil population. Even if we lack any kind of statistics, there is some useful indirect information available; we have abundant evidence on the administrative and military literacy, and also of a relatively high educational level for the elite and even some urban popular sectors; but that is orders of magnitude away from the status of any modern developed country. Just think that the vast majority of peasants were most likely unable to read, not to mention most slaves and most women from any social level.

One example among many: the document RMR 9 from the Legio III Cyrenaica (Egypt) from about 90

At some point, the Roman Army included more than four hundred thousand legionaries and auxilia. The required documentation was immense, not only because of the magnitude of financial and administrative issues, but also because the status of each soldier was recorded in an archive; each one was identified by name, filiation, tribe, origin and date of enlist. As pointed out by Phang, records going back 16 years in the Praetorian Guard, 20 to 25 years in the legions and auxilia, and 28 in the fleet were a minimum necessity. Even if only a tiny fraction of these documents have survived, they are quite enlightening. Most of these records were probably used by relatively few professional clerks (like financial accounts, recruitment, personnel management, mission reports). However, there were many documents that clearly implied their lecture and filling by regular soldiers, like the giving and confirmation of orders, daily tasks, general duty and guard duty rosters, daily and pridiana (yearly) reports and so on. Literacy was hardly considered a luxury for the regular Roman soldiers, even the auxilia.

I can't swear to the population decline figures not having folowed it up so far but depending upon the context it may simply have been referring to a part of the highlands severely affected by bad weather. However the inuit story has been around for years and seems to be based on established facts - even if the full story is unlikely to ever be discovered. The British Association for American Studies has an item on

Or expected the literate to read them to everyone else. You may be right of course, but taking into account the literacy of the entire population, I find it unlikely that the vast majority of civil war era soldiers were literate. [EDIT] Granted, of course, that the literacy level of the Roman world citizenry is disputed in this conversation. I find it hard to believe Scipio, Anthony, Brutus or anyone else would have let their enemies' pamphlets be read aloud among their ranks while waiting for an imminent battle. Besides, if the pamphlet editors ought to rely on scanty potentially hostile readers to transmit their message, such expensive measure might have been useless or even counterproductive. On the other hand, both Appian and Dio wrote in the late principate, so it may be reasonably inferred that the literacy levels of the Roman soldiers of their time was enough to allow individual political propaganda.

Thanks to both Viggen and GPM

- Previous to Thapsus, Caesar "made friendly overtures to the latter's (Scipio's) soldiers, and distributed among them pamphlets, in which he promised... the Roman that he would grant him pardon and the same prizes that he had offered to his followers. In this way he gained over a goodly number" (Dio 43,5). - When facing Anthony at Brundisium, "the men whom Octavian had sent to tamper with the soldiers distributed the greatest possible number of handbills throughout the camp, reflecting on Antony's stinginess and cruelty, recalling the memory of the elder Caesar and urging them to share the service of the younger and his liberal gifts"... Even more, "Antony tried to find these emissaries by means of rewards to informers and threats against those who abetted them, but as he caught no one he became angry, believing that the soldiers concealed them" (Appian, BC 3, 44). - Previous to Philippi (II), Anthony and Octavius "managed in some way to cast pamphlets into his camp (Brutus'), urging his soldiers either to embrace their cause (and they made them certain promises) or to come to blows if they had the least particle of strength" (Dio 47,48). All these references seem to imply that by the late Civil Wars period most of the regular Roman legionaries were expected to be literate.