Sextus Roscius

Well, sorry to counter the statement but the same results can be the product of a society that is strickly following its morals, or is more concerned about its affect on world wide population rather than that of national population. It all really depends on ones standing.

I live in North Carolina and I'll have you know that we don't want to merge with South Carolina, but if you're going at it, why don't you make Virginia and West Virgina on state all together, and don't you think its annoying having those tiny annoying states like delaware and Maryland around to mess up the electoral college, not to mention the senatorial vote. Personaly if we merge Viginia and West Virginia, while we're at it we can throw in delaware and Maryland. And let me make the additional suggestion of taking those annoying North Eastern States, e.g. vermont, maine, new hampshire, and stick them together into Vermaineshire, good ideas eh?

Very true Urus, it is no wiser to have organized atheism that it is organized religion, and so we shouldn't have either perhaps, becuase both at the same time can have, literaly, deadly consquences. The better choice would be each person beleives what they want to beleive, worships when they need to, not on a particular sabbath, and that every person's religion is taliored to their own way of life, rather than the worship en masse.

Indeed, the medicine and herbal information would tie in with the idea as well, falling under the medical abilities, technology, etc. Personaly I've always wanted to do some peices on Roman engineering and water works in particular. I've always found that area in particular fasansting. How they could do things not heard of until world war 1, like provide running water to everyone in a city. I've acumulated alot of knowledge about Roman engineering technology from various places. But there really seems to be no good place to discuss it on this website. The general purpose Imperium Romanum always works for most things, but some how it seems to me to be obscure from the general things, as Imperium Romanum is usualy about political issues. So I'm very glad we've changed the Ethics Forum to a wider range of topics, and if needed we can expanded to more specialized forums.

Feel free to help out however you think you can, however the only real affirmation is support of the Admin, which I'm fairly confident will see the usefullness of the suggested Idea.

I'm more so worried about our government making a response without significant provokation by the Iranians. In a few years the Iranians will be ruled by the young adults, though if a civil war happens I think America will step in, and that might make things bad, considering our government would side with the young adult rebels, which would be a furthur provocation to islamic radicals and other groups such as korea, etc. Not to mention the group we would be fighting would undoubtably have control of the nukes, which could end very badly.

Ciceronian philosphy is definatly on track, but not quite exactly, with what I'm like. Strict Republican values. Also, to Cato, the Traditional Republican Values allow you to make your own decisions in a sense, and you at some point need to decide for yourself which is right, which is wrong, and what is more important. The goal of philosophy is give people a guide to life on what they need to do in every situation, but to give a general idea of things that are important and one decides.

Yes, that would add on a significant amount that would allow the forum to function better. Personaly I'm incredibly interested and amazed by all the things they could do two thousand years ago.

my town, or any town in the near area is listed, or the capital of my state for that matter. Thanks for the info Flavius

sorry Ursus, I don't care to proclaim you god-king. How ever personaly I feel that I must be named Emperor of America, and from there I can take over the world. Or maybe I could be allowed comand of Islamic Radical forces and use them for somethign worth while other than meaningless (in my opinion) destruction. Anyways, sorry to be off topic. Just wondering right now though, for world politics, what are anyone's opinions about the Iran Nuclear situation and the whispers of us going to war?

While I'm a hard atheist, I don't think what this man is doing is possible, though Cato's explaination from the plaintiff's persepctive is very accurate and if I remain an Atheist up till that age, I might be driven to do something just as unlikely to win. Though, thats the way the world is, and the Italian government can't risk having this trial. Besides, I find it immpossible for the trial to work, since the "Impartial" jury can in no way be impartial becuase in matters of religion you've got to have some opinion on it. Becuase of a large majority of Italians being Catholic, I'm assuming that the jury will be largely catholic, and I doubt that their opinions on the existance of christ is going to waver becuase of the words of a 80 year old atheist. Just thinking....

I was just wondering, since both the Architeture and the Technology of the ancient world are highly interesting and surprisingly advanced, not to mention there is so much to it. Why don't we have a forum for it. We have one dedicated to religion, military, ethics, and general history, why not fill in the major gap of technology? Ideas, thoughts, etc.

I don't think we should go there cato, thats about as realistic, or possible, as the "Roman Legions vs Aztec Warriors" threads.

I must echo cato's statement. The Republic, dispite its flaws, was an effective means of channeling the oligarchies competitive sense for each family into something that helped SPQR, not just made them richer. Such as how Caesar conquered gaul partialy for his purposes of becoming famous and popular, just as Cicero defended Sextus Rocius. These acts did indeed do the intended, make the doer (Caesar and Cicero in this case) become popular, but it also improved the republic. Caesar added the provinces of Gaul and Cicero saved an innocent man from one of the worst deaths imaginable. Also, until the marian reforms, the armies were controled by the senate, not by a general. That kept people from becoming gathering armies easily and becoming dicatators. This meant that the Republic was in control, and had a good system of checks and balances to keep things in place, even up to the highest office with 2 counsuls. The Republic also managed to have a very high standard of morals and helenistic culture. Houses at that time were plainly designed with blank outsides and little furniture. The only thing decorated laviously were the floors, walls, and ceilings that were fabulously painted with frescoes and mosiacs. The republican virtues also were much like my doctrine of life and so I'm sure thats why I like it so much. Anyways, to sum up, I voted Republic.

Of course, I would always choose republic is given the choice, I follow the example of one of my heros, cicero. But of course in this case, becuase I'm not given the option, I chose Principate

I'm in the same boat as pantagathus, though I'm still happily waiting. All the while.

Favorite Movie--Hard to say, alot of ties for first, can't distinguish the best. Favorite Book--Roman Blood by Steven Saylor, great book

I'm from the states and I found the review almost side-splitting. Absolutely wonderful....

Alas, no fire works for us in the southern state of north Carolina, but a rousing occasion none the less watching at least 4 fireworks occasions, the ball in NYC, and the classic bronze acorn over in Raleigh. Happy new year everyone!

My favorite, is Lucius Sergius Catiline. Declared Enemy of the state by my favorite person from Roman history, Cicero! Cataline was declared a conspirator against the senate but I( and most others) don't think his alledged "conspiracy" was all that Cicero made it out to be. Supposably a nice, well mannered man. He really pleaded to the masses though.

As a young child, I always had a nack for admiring great people, generals, the type of people who one can always depict standing on a balcony looking out over either thousands of cheering people or thousands of soldiers in pericise blocks of troops. Of course, if one trys to find people like that, Rome is top on the list, and so I started trying to learn about the roman army, which was my original area of intrest. Though dispite this, I've had things like that before (trains as a small child) and so I can't exactly pinpoint what did it, but something did. At least Fortuna gave me her blessing in my quest. As for what lead me to this website, I beleive I was actually searching for information about roman military decorations and honors, but thats general info, can't remember percisely what it was. Fortuna once again

MC Hammer is the best, you know why, he Can Not Be Touched Actually, my personal favorite superhero was always batman, becuase he could do all the stuff he did without super powers, just gadjets and coolness. For an opisite reason, I never liked superman becuase he seemed too invincible and awkward (he can't lose except to kryptonite which seemingly every other villian has a endless supply of)

While christianity certianly is a very Humanitarian religion idealisticaly, we can see that the truth is some times far from it, some times the truth is very true. Christ and the disciples, what they did was indeed humanitarian and a great help to the world, as mentioned by Ursus. But if we look at it the other way, the inquisitions of the dark ages are hardly what we like to call "Humanitarian" However, I guess it really all depends on how one defines humanitarianism.

I was just thinking if we should recognize sugnificant events in Roman history and religion, etc, to be put onto the calender, things like, this Emperor was coronated today, today is saturnalia, today is the day blah blah blah. Ideas, opinions, anyone?

Thats the problem, we need to learn, but I'd rather not, becuase my generation will be hit by it, the people still in high school, and middle school, and elementary school. It will come back and crush us, which I don't have a problem with considering I come from a fairly well-to-do uper-middle class family and have a good education and I'm in line for a good education in Law most likely. But not everyone does and the people who aren't as fortunte are going to have it really tough. As for the NYC transit strikes, I understand where they are coming from, but I'm mad at the unions for doing it at such a horrible time, and for breaking the law. They are going to cause many NYC business men to fall into the same status as the people striking for a while, which is in turn going to hurt the econemy. All said, I think the Union has a very effective point, but they are being very mean and adding to the pressure of everything. Though there is no good time for anything these days, they might have at least chosen the lesser of options, or at least not Christmas!