guidoLaMoto

Probabilities are still the major factor involved in finding artifacts- from the effect of any object's durability to survive the years to the numbers of any particular object that existed....Future archeologists will find more Chevies than Ferraris and more Ferraris than Tiffany chandeliers....Biological specimens present particular problems. To become fossilized, the object must be buried rapidly to be separated from oxygen-- but the chances of eventually finding one still depends on the original population numbers- common species are found more often than uncommon ones.

...which means for us to find them so frequently, they must have been amazingly careless with their possessions. Surely only a small fraction of those items would survive to be found thousands of yrs later.....Maybe they lost so much because they hadn't yet invented the pocket for their togas? We often blame the dryer for losing all those socks....Have we considered that maybe it was really the washer's fault? I'm currently trying to invent a plastic detector so archeologists of the distant future will have a chance to find our lost artifacts.

Amazing what the computer can do. Apparently the programmer assumed that BVDs hadn't been invented yet in the 4th century BC. Impressively realistic art work compared to murals at Pompeii even 400 yrs later.

You're right that the particular bugs involved in the fermentation process influence the final product. We must deduce, therefore, that the feet of certain Italian & French contadine are contaminated with the best dirt. The civilized Romans diluted ther wine with water and ridiculed the provincials who didn't. Pliny wrote that a dilution of 2:3, IIRC, is optimum. Hollywood would have us believe the wild orgies were commonplace, but Romans actually looked down upon drunkedness, and to this day alcoholism is faily rare in Italy as opposed to France. The traditional wisdom is that drinking fermented beverages helped reduce water borne illness, but that's probably not true. Even highly concentrated alcohol requires a prolonged exposure time to kill bacteria....I think they drank wine simply because water was relatively hard to get at in the arid Mediterranean areas.

Further confirmation that everyone drank wine. To this day, it's not unusual for Italian mothers to give their young kids diluted wine..... Both Livy and Dion--of Halic-- claim that one possible reason why Brennus and the Gauls moved south to capture Rome in 390BC was because they had been introduced to wine by Etruscan merchants and they wanted to gain good wine growing land. Dion-- wrote that before that, they only drank a foul tasting concoction made from rotting grain....Maybe de gustibus non disputandum est, but I gotta agree-- beer is foul.

Was Caesar driven by altruism or ambition & greed?....and don't forget that he was suspiciously supportive of Cataline in the Senate deliberations in 63.

https://www.digitalaugustanrome.org/records/porticus-forum-holitorium. You may also find this site useful for details of the layout of Rome and it's structures, with details often annotated by quotes & descriptions from the ancients themselves.

Studying Latin in school-- the myths and legends of the early history. It fascinated me that we were reading the very words written by men who walked the earth more than 2000 yrs ago. Speaking of church, my cigar chomping, truck driver uncle who quit school after the eighth grade was quite irate when Vatican II did away with the Latin Mass-- "That's crazy. We should be hearing the words the way The Lord really said them.' (??)

Keeping in mind that a conservative is one who wants to save/preserve the constitution/traditional ways, while a liberal is one who feels free to stretch or change the constitution/traditional ways, Caesar was a liberal-- having stretched the traditional limits of authority as proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul by invading Translpine Gaul, he wanted to again stretch things to run for consul again in absentia (a) so he could avoid Senatorial prosecution if he returned to Rome with office expired and (b) not return until re-elected to consular office and thus be immune from prosecution (sound familiar to more recent American history?)...and again, he did accept a 10 yrs dictatorship- way more liberal than tradition.....None of that is in keeping with conservatism and trying to return to the Republican constitution.

Maybe not quite what you're looking for about the triumph, but almost.

https://www.deforestareahistory.org/blog/do-you-remember-playing-with-jarts Plumbata? We called them Jarts until the Goode Two-Shoes took 'en away from us.

Yes, thanks.....Amazing what the computer can do to help us visualize historical situations Note how narrow the streets were. Hollywood treatments of ancient Rome make me smile- particularly Liz Taylor's parade float 30 ft wide. It would have knocked down rows of columbs & statues on both sides of the Via Sacra. https://depts.washington.edu/hrome/Authors/daw84/TheManifestGloryofRomeTheRomanTriumph/247/pub_zbpage_view.html The final leg of Caesar's route (the one that turns left/south to exit the forum) would have almost been the triumphal route "in reverse." How ironic.

"Well, I didn't know that."--Dick Martin Isn't that really analogous to tourist attractions now like Williamsburg re-enacting colonial life or lumberjack demonstration shows here in WI? ...and speaking of WI, The Dells (billing itself as " Water Park Capital of the World" has its Mt Olympus theme park with a Trojan Horse and Coliseum - https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g60403-i22013339-Wisconsin_Dells_Wisconsin.html

I left out Octavian because they probably couldn't have anticipated that a 19 y/o kid would have garnered much credibility and be a threat. What leads you to believe Caesar didn't want a permanent dictatorship? He accepted one of 10 yrs, -- 20x longer than the "constitutional" limit. Already in his 50s and in poor health, that was essentially a lifetime appointment.....He had ostentatiously rejected a crown earlier....but a Roman dictator actually had more unchecked power than the trational kings. The kings were supposed to get Senate approval of edicts while the dictator's authority was unrestricted.

Their mistake was being too timid. They should have had a bolder plot to take out Antonius and Lepidus also, and they didn't have the financial resources to buy back the plebs. Too bad they didn't have Daniel Burnham to counsel them- "Make no small plans."

These genetic studies must always be taken with a grain of salt...They are obviously not random samples including large numbers of test subjects gathered over the whole geographical area, but usually small numbers from just one or two burial sites, sites probably being family/clan burial sites for obviously closely related individuals....It's just absurd to claim that 99% of a population was wiped out when you only deal with a sample of a few dozen individuals out of a population with numbers in the thousands. It would more honest to claim that "of our small sample, 99% were of new genotype and 1% were of the old." Throughout history, it's been more common for a vanquished population to be taken in as slaves and genetically melded into the population of the conquerors.... ...and Caesar is quite right-- only Adam & Eve had no one else to push out of the way as they expanded their hunting grounds

A little more searching reveals:....Polybius called it "gladius Hispaniensis" but Livy used the term "gladius hispanus," consistent with Suetonius' passage. ....Either way, to translate "custodias cum gladiis hispanorum" as Spanish guards with swords rather than guards with Spanish swords is a misrepresentation of the original thought.....The real confusion comes from the word "adspicientium"- an adjective in the plural genitive case, therefore modifying hispanorum, when it should be in the plural ablative if it is to modify "gladiis."....A scribe's error perpetuated thru the ages??

https://popular-archaeology.com/article/publishing-ancient-roman-style/. -- an informative piece on the Roman piblishing industry.

Tyrennika- lost book by Claudius written in Greek on the Etruscan history, culture and language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrrhenika. If found, it would go a long way to clear up many questions & mysteries about the Etruscans from whom the Romans borrowed a great deal.

The Latin in that paragraph is a little ambiguous-- note that Hispania = Spain, Hispani = Spaniards and Hispaniensis = Spanish.... As we said recently in another thread, we today commonly refer to the short, double edged sword usually used by Roman legIonaires as a gladius, but that's really just the general name for sword (cf- gladiator= swordsman). The particular sword of the legIonaires is correctly called gladius Hispaniensis = Spanish sword..... In that quote, Suetonius uses the terms custodias cum gladiis hispanorum....adspiciendium = with swords of the exposing Spaniards.....???......That's usually translated as "Spanish guards with swords exposed"....but if I were asked to translate that English into Latin, it would be "custodias Hispanienses cum gladiis adspectis." In that paragraph, Suetonius is speculating on Caesar's state of mind, that maybe he had become tired of living and his efforts were no longer worth it. "Sunt qui putent..." = There are those who may think.... I don't know what other historians wrote. Livy's actual comments are lost. I'm trying to find Dionysius of Halocanarssus' reference, but I don't do Greek, so would have to rely on translations, which can be questionable as seen above. Edit-- silly me....D of H only covered The Founding thru the Punic Wars.

Sounds kinda like "She loves you, yea yea yea" Not all ancient writing needs be deep philosophical exercises in thought to give insight into the culture. Many of those clay tablets are merely accountants' spread sheets, but even those give us knowledge of their commerce & business practices. Lists of kings tell us history. Some are students texts & work sheets. Some are are deeper works of literature. Let's hope future archeologists find more than just a dribble glass, Whoopee Cushion, an episode of World's Dummest Criminals and a Kamala Harris speech to judge our civilization by.

Good point....For comparison-- over two million cuneiform clay tablets from Mesopotamia have been found, but only ~2% of them have been translated so far, but look how much that has contributed to our knowledge of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, etc civilizations.

Suetonius addresses the plot and assassination in paragraphs 80 thru 83....then states in paragraph 86 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0061%3Alife%3Djul.%3Achapter%3D86%3Asection%3D1 that Caesar had dismissed his Spanish bodyguards ("custodias Hispanorum cum gladiis"-- guards with swords of the Spanish) No reference to timing of the dismissal....Are these equivalent to the official lictors? We have only the summary of Livy's treatment of the subject (Book 116) which is quite brief. In the days of The Republic, each consul was assigned 12 lictors who only carried the fasces without the axe blade when within the bounds of the Pomerium..... A Dictator was assigned all 24 lictors and they each maintained the bundled rods with axehead at all times.

That's one of the planet's most seismically active areas. Ground levels regularly rise or fall up to a foot a year. Modern Pozzouli -- Ancient Puteoli https://watchers.news/2025/02/18/over-550-earthquakes-recorded-at-campi-flegrei-caldera-prompting-school-closures-in-pozzuoli-italy Nearby Baiae was developed as a resort starting about 100 BC and became a favorite, decadent vacation spot for the imperial court. It began sinking in the 4th century AD....I think they found a graphitus there that reads "Quod Baiae accidit Baiae manet"

Good article . Thanks......I had to laugh reading that first known description of lead poisoning and declaring that it must be from the pipes. Apparently it has been a long established tradition in nutrition pseudoscience that correlation is equivalent to cause and effect. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/wine.html Romans generally drank wine diluted with water, and looked down upon provincials & foreigners who drank undiluted wine (merum). The boiled down wine (sapa) was a more expensive drink.