Novosedoff

See attached

Something to think about (see the attached screenshot) 🙂

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa2DW4aXVaw 🙂

Well, I ain't a tamed tiger to jump the hoop, and I ain't in pursuit of extra popularity on this god forgotten forum with a few nerds to check in, including myself 😅 In legal studies there are such concepts as abstract right and abstract losses. Apparently, having the right to do something doesn't imply that someone has used the right yet. Noone said that veto is enough to rule, one's got to have some bollocks to demonstrate occasionally when peeing on someone's brand new shoes to mark the territory. The point is that the elections at the time of the Roman empire are more than the vanity fair, it is "business as usual"

The corruption was absolutely widespread. It is still pretty much there. People had to dip into their pockets to spend the very last money they had in order to sponsor the public games, which was the shortest way to seek popularity and win the elections. What did they do it for? For charity? Your interpretation, caldrail, of Augustus deeds and his tribunician power changes very little to nothing, because effectively Augustus had the power to veto any decree he didn't like, including the power to veto the vetos issued by other tribunes. Augustus was tyrant and merciless murderer who made his first fortune from proscriptions by eliminating his enemies. "The best possible Roman government" is something fictional that would be very natural to attribute to himself, given the fact that no opposition remained to challenge that.

The key words are "cursus honorum" because this is what determined the career paths in the Roman public politics. Although initially the magistrate posts were only available to the patricians, by the beginning of the current era the plebs could replace them almost at any position. It was all turned upside down when in 23BC Augustus, who was a patrician (thanks to Caesar's efforts), became the perpetual tribune with the authority to overrule any decision taken by other tribunes (initially in the republican era the tribunes would be always elected only among the plebs, although the story of Gracchus brought some wind of changes to that). In fact, by AD 12 the title of tribune had become so unpopular among the candidates of the senatorial rank, that Augustus had to introduce a new change and made the position available to the candidates of the equestrian rank too. Voting wasn't cancelled, candidates would still have to compete. Some positions assumed a lot of responsibility over budgets distributed by Senate's decrees. For instance, it is estimated that each legion required over 600,000 denarii per annum just for wages. Plundering at war times was rather lucrative business too. The most successful politicians and statesmen are always the ones who can benefit their private pockets from their jobs in public offices. This is what drove Julius Caesar to start his public career too when he was deeply in debt. Lets say you work as a quaestor. Your job duties assume the power to audit public spending. Lets say I am your good mate from childhood. I offer you a deal. My spending on some public construction works will be 40% higher than normal, but since I know that you'll be checking it, I offer you to split the benefits from overestimating my budgets.You'll get your kickback from me. Does this example convince you to run for elections at the quaestor's office? 🙂 https://youtu.be/TVtvBoELA-g

Hi, Plutarch mentioned that Caesar was deeply in debt by 65 BC when he became an aedile (the beginning of his political career) and owed 1,300 talents. It's curious that talent is the mass measurement equal to 5,300 denarii, while 1 denarius equalled 4 sesterces. This means that Caesar owed 27.5 mln sesterces. For comparison, Cicero purchased his luxury house on the Palatine hill for 3.5 mln sesterces. This means Caesar owed the amount of debt equal to the cost of nearly 8 such houses. So the question I have to ask here is who lent that much to the yet unknown politician and why? Thanks

So I think the test must be over now, following this very important conclusion 🙂

How many Jewish rebels were there to lay the groundwork for the later literary work of what is now known as the Bible? 🙂

Well, I was hopeful not to turn this thread into a discussion 🙂 But ok, since we've only got very few people here anyway. You are quite right about the special political role of the Roman Senate, which eventually went far beyond from what it was originally meant to be. We shouldn't forget that Caesar increased the number of senators from 600 to over 1000. This means that the number of Caesar's personal supporters among the senators reached the level, allowing him to be hailed whoever he wanted. Given Caesar's popularity in the army, senators could only add to that by proclaiming him the hereditary in addition to what the army had already called him. In fact, this also helps to explain the ease with which Augustus later climbed the political stairway of his career, and the support which he found among the legions. The question about the hereditary nature of Caesar's titile is somewhat yet debateable. Below I attach 5 screenshots from different sources that seem to support the view (took me 5 minutes of googling). PS Oops. One screenshot is in Russian, it's taken from the book by very reputable Ukrainian historian Sergeyev "The political institutes of the ancient Romans"

Well, seemingly Wikipedia doesn't know about it yet, I have here at least 2 different sources claiming that the title of imperator had in fact become hereditary (this may also explain other events that ensued afterwards). One source wrote about it in English (with a couple of references to the original Latin sources), the other source is in Russian, and I am ready to attach both pages as proof that nothing has been made up by me. However before I do this, it's better to give the answers to the other questions, this is what students do at normal tests these days when they are stuck at a particular question 🙂

Hi all, Hopefully you're gonna like it 🙂 1) Who held both the title of dictator for life time and hereditary "imperator"? A. Sulla B. Caesar C. Augustus 2) Under which Roman commander did Rome have the maximum number of legions? A. Caesar B. Augustus C. Tiberius 3) The Roman forum didn't host A. Bidding auctions for public work and tax collection contracts B. Wedding ceremonies C. Funerals 4) By common rule who could become a censor in the Roman Republic period (there were a few exceptions though)? A. A senator B. A former tribune C. A former consul 5) For the Roman Republic period match the below titles with their corresponding powers A. Tribune A. Convoke a senate's meeting and preside at it B. Consul B. Veto senate's decrees C. Censor C. Decide on who qualifies to become a next senator 6) In today's world the military expenses would account on average for up to 10% of the total public spending in any country. What was their share in the early Roman empire? A. About 10% B. About 50% C. About 95% 7) Cicero is known to have purchased his luxury house on the Palatine hill in Rome for 3.5 mln sesterce. How much is it compared to the annual income of an ordinary Roman soldier? A. About 20 years of service B. About 150 years of service C. About 4000 years of service 8 ) How much would it cost for a slave owner to grant freedom to his slave in the Roman empire? А. Free of charge B. 5-10% of slave's cost C. 25-35% of slave's cost 9) Which title(s) Augustus didn't hold? A. Pontifex maximus for life time B. Tribune for life time C. Censor for life time 10) Which title(s) Caesar didn't hold? A. Pontifex maximus for life time B. Tribune for life time C. Censor for life time

Casual bystander's watching...

A couple of Soviet retro-tracks 🙂

fair enough. post is removed

Here is a music track from a popular Russian movie of the late 80s. This is the story of 4 Russian high-school children who paid a visit to their class teacher and turned her apartment upside down for a reason, which led to her suicide when she realized that the value gap was too deep for her to handle 🙂

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In theory, yes. Nonetheless, none of us lives in the perfect world. This is a dissipative system, as physicists say 🙂

Well, lets say a barrister used to study with a judge at the same law school as student, so they both know each other like for ages. Barrister charges per a few hours of work what the judge makes in a month. Do you find it unlikely that sometimes they would socialize at the same pub and discuss anything besides football or weather? 🙂 In fact, when I lived in the UK many years ago I had a private chat with a former British solicitor (I wasn't her client) who complained that the only party to win a suit would be almost always the party who paid more money..

Yeah, I read about that incident too 🙂 I think it was mentioned in a book by Sergeyev, an Ukrainian historian from Kharkiv, who seems to have a profile page on academia.edu. When emperor Constantine restored the institute of 2 Roman consuls, many young wealthy people would spend fortunes to run the public games in order to please the people and emperor himself, and so to gain the chance to become a consul. The institute of consuls survived till AD 536-541 in both Western and Eastern parts of the empire. Absolutely. It may seem strange that Egypt somehow managed to remain almost intact by Caesar's troops. Marcus Antonius , who lost the civil war, didn't pillage Egypt either. It was Augustus who squeezed out of Egypt almost everything he could, so some would even say that the proscriptions that let Augustus make his first fortune were nothing compared to what was eventually taken from Egypt. There've been an interesting interview recorded by Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon. He interviewed the former Russian senator and oligarch Sergei Pugachev about 4 months ago. Pugachev was somehow responsible for the transition of power from Boris Yeltsin to Putin. In the interview Pugachev briefly mentions the fact that it cost him 3 mln USD to become a Russian senator. It's a pity you can't watch it in English but I copy a link below just in case. The interview lasts 5 hours, so the only effective way to watch it really is to rewind. Otherwise it uncovers an extremely interesting perspective on how the modern political system works, in fact, not only in Russia, but in Britain as well. Pugachev used to reside in Britain after fleeing Russia. I ain't saying that what Pugachev told in the interview is all true, but according to him, as Kremlin started the legal persecution of his assets in Britain, he would realize that British juries were so unbearibly corrupt in some rather sophisticated ways, he would eventually end up escaping from Britain to France under the umbrella of French "specialists". He's now become a French naturalized citizen btw. So the world still spins as it used to 2 millennia ago, nothing has changed much, so everybody IS at it 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UttgyZCppyA

Hi, Attached is a page from Philip Matyszak's "24 Hours in Ancient Rome. A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There" (2017). I highlighted a sentence that I found rather curious: "A Roman senator ain't supposed to engage in grubby matters of commerce ". The other interesting aspect of senator's life during the imperial times is having a patron. So in order to avoid accusations of corruption and solve the problem they would cook up a deal between all 3 involved parties. This chimes with recent discussion about the corruption in the ancient Rome: I wouldn't say that the book is abundant in analysis, but it still gives some interesting details, stretching as far as Roman baths (btw, recently I read that there had been 170 thermae in Rome alone at the time of Augustus). Does anybody know of any other historic evidence of the corruption that would involve Roman senators?

Is that Peter Ustinov, if I ain't mistaken? Alexander himself is often depicted with a fluffy fleece on his head, while any former wrestler would know that it's more convenient to grab onto the head than the beard (that's why many professional wrestlers shave their heads, just google for photos to see). Should Alexander be that concerned about the safety of his soldiers, he would have ordered his soldiers to shave their heads as well 🙂