M. Porcius Cato

Actually, many of the people on my list did have empty pockets, and they were no better for it either. Frankly, I'd rather elect someone who can succeed on his own financially. A fellow who can't even manage a used car dealership has no business handling a budget and organization the size of the executive branch. The current occupant of the White House failed in one business venture after another, and his string of failures should have been a red flag to his poor judgment rather than a recommendation.

In the provinces, yes. Best I recall, taxes on Romans were abolished around the time of the Punic Wars and were only re-instated during the Imperial period.

An exception that I would mention is the corruption of police when it comes to illegal drugs. They are incredibly valuable due to prohibition. I have a family member that witnessed this type of corruption first-hand as a policeman, so I tend to believe the commentary on the subject. Yes, the drug prohibition laws are a major source of corruption. Among other things, the laws that allow the police to confiscate property and keep it for themselves is a huge invitation to corruption, on top of the corruption that has to hapen when the government attempts to ban any popular commodity. As just one example, I briefly lived in a county in the southern US which was "dry" (meaning no alchohol above a certain proof could be sold). The consequence was that the bootlegger enjoyed enormous popularity for fulfilling an unmet need, and elected law enforcement (like the county sheriff) refused to pursue the bootlegger in spite of his selling to minors and selling other contraband. Indeed, the bootlegger was so brazen that he had his location in the middle of the small town that was the county seat, and the location was so well-known that you could use the location as a landmark when giving directions. What finally put this gray character out of business? Legalization. And who opposed it? The churches. As much as I love the US system, the drug laws reflect one of the worst aspects of American culture--a puritanism that ignores rationality and even the lofty right to pursue happiness.

The number of poor men who have not only run successfully for high office but also attained the presidency is very great indeed. In the last century alone, we have had presidents and secretaries of state of humble to middle income origins, inlcuding Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, and Harry Truman. Colin Powell, our secretary of state, was the son of sharecroppers and the grandson of slaves. If to an outside observer it seems that the US is closed to the ambitious poor, the outside observer is as woefully underinformed of US history as is the typical American uninformed of non-US history. As for corruption, there are international bodies and consortia of scholars that study this topic, and they are nearly unanimous in their agreement that corruption of civil servants in the US is remarkably rare. If I attempted to bribe a traffic cop in Manhattan or Minneapolis, all hell would break lose; if I tried to avoid it in Moscow or Mexico City, it would be very difficult.

Really, do you know anything about the founding of the American republic or the political thought of the American founders or where they came up with the ideas of divided government or drew their philosophical inspiration? Have you ever bothered to pick up the Tusculan Disputations or any of Cicero's letters or any of his writings on political philosophy? In early American history, Cicero was more widely read and more influential than any other political thinker, including perhaps John Locke. Jefferson was a tremendous admirer of Cicero, modelling his life on Cicero's, and he considered the jewels of his immense library to be the 40 volumes of Cicero that he later donated to the Library of Congress. James Madison cites "Tully" with more reverence than Jesus. According to John Adams, "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined." Cicero was not only required reading at Harvard and every university in early America, being able to recite Cicero in Latin was a minimum requirement for entry. To say that Cicero's ideals have no bearing on modern republics is a statement of ignorance so vast... well, respect for this forum prevents me from saying anything more to you on this topc. Your chronic and willful indifference to historical facts make conversation with you pointless.

Look around trex. The ideal of the republic has smashed autocracies all over the world, and those ideals have yielded a superpower the likes of which no monarch has ever hoped to attain. In the end, Cicero's ideals were victorious on a scale even he could not imagine.

I don't how much you know about tax-farming. The basic idea was that taxing rights were put up for auction, with the highest bidder winning the right to tax a province and Rome getting the proceeds of the auction. For the tax-farmer, the key was to bid no higher than he could recoup, but no lower than they other tax-farmers at the auction. The winners of the auction to tax Asia, however, bid too high (probably to the delight of the tax-farmers they beat at auction), and they found they couldn't recoup their investment. This is normally just an ordinary business risk, but the tax farmers decided they could get their buddy Crassus to re-work the deal and get some of their money back from the treasury. It was a crooked deal, and Cato opposed it. The rest is history.

The makers of Caesar IV posted a demo recently. It's pretty good. Much like Caesar III, but vastly enhanced graphics and the right mix of old and new features. It's supposed to be released in late September, just in time to prevent students from studying properly for their mid-terms.

Yes, they were an experiment in faction--though not in the sense you meant, I think. It's been a while since I read the first two books, but I vividly recall the rest. I couldn't put them down (forcifully enough).

Perhaps you mean the debt he acquired to get elected Pontifex Maximus? Otherwise, there was nothing creative in his debt legislation, which originated with Valerius Flaccus.

This is a good question (and a very Roman one). I'll think about this some more, but just looking at the period 78-49, there were 178 praetors, and just 10 families provided about 1/3 of them. Those families were the Valerii (3), Aemilii (4), Aurelii (4), Calpurnii (4), Licinii (4), Sulpicii (4), Manlii (5), Claudii (6), Metelli (6), and Cornelii (9). If you follow these families back to the founding of the Republic, you'll find that they produced some of the most eminent men of the Republic.

J. F. C. Fuller, often called the Clausewitz of the 20th century, had a very different opinion of Caesar. Neither was this incompetence good leadership nor was it even an isolated incident. Caesar was continually faced with attempting to extricate himself from his own disasters. At Ilerda, his army was almost lost to starvation. At Dyrrachium, it was eating grass. At Alexandria, he was continually appealing to neighbors for food, and most of his campaign in Africa was little more than a foraging mission, and nearly a fatal one at that. I grant that Caesar was a good fighting general, but leadership is much more than what happens on the day of battle.

Again, I just don't see it. It's like a t-shirt, campaign button, or bumper sticker. It's just advertising. No one's vote is going to be purchased by such a lousy piece of pottery, and compared to the pottery that we have from the period, this really is just a cheap freebie.

Substituting Cyprus for Crete still doesn't help the veracity of your claims. Cato did not take extort from Cyprus to add to his personal fortune, at least not according to our ancient sources, who make the very opposite claim--that Cato's administration of Cyprus was exemplary for its fiducial probity. Frankly, it's just as arbitrary to contradict the ancient sources on the matter of Cato's conduct in Cyprus as to contradict them on whether Cato was even in Cyprus. Really, if you want to ignore the ancient historians to make your case against Cato, use some imagination: "Cato was plotting to restore Carthage! He raped the Vestal Virgins! OMG, Cato ate populare babies for breakfast!" At least that would be an ambitious fabrication rather than this petty "Cato is Tom Delay" nonsense. I suppose so. Depends though, on how many of those he handed out. There have been magistrates who manipulated the grain dole, condemed by the jury for election year bribery... That's a stretch. Look, there was a popular saying in Rome at the time, "I wouldn't believe it even if Cato said it." We're talking about a guy who had a reputation for honesty that was positively Lincolnesque (as in Honest Abe Lincoln). Maybe no one's that perfect, and sure Cato would have been even more holy had he prosecuted his long-suffering relative Bibulus for bribery and gone to prison or exile instead of Cyprus (which were his only alternatives), but if you want to make the case that Cato wasn't perfect, you're going to need to come up with something better than cheap bribery. No one who bribes enough people to win an election can simultaneously earn a popular reputation for honesty that is attested to even by one's enemies. It just doesn't make any sense.

From Plutarch's "Life of Cato the Younger": You don't recall correctly. This simply never happened. Nor was Cato ever governor of Crete. You're confabulating two completely different incidents--one regarding Brutus and Antony and another concerning Cato's annexation of Cyprus. I think this is the third time you've made this mistake, and you're probably thinking that you read this in Everitt's book on Cicero, but it's not there either. Cato was never governor of Crete, and he never "leeched" a dime off the Cretans. On the contrary, when serving in Cyprus, his books were the model of good bookkeeping. Do you need me to quote the ancient sources on this? Also, the propaganda cups that were handed out are no more bribery than the buttons and bumper stickers handed out by modern politicians. To confuse a souvenir with a bribe is just silly.

In my opinion, the greatness of a leader shouldn't be measured by the amount of land conquered. By that standard, Neil Armstrong was the greatest leader because he captured the entire moon! Obviously, this is absurd. Rather than the amount of land captured, the greatness of leader has to be measured by his innovations, his adversaries, and his legacy. By these measures, the greatest leaders of the ancient world would be people like Perikles, Alexander, Camillus, Scipio, Marius, and Augustus. I'll reiterate for the millionth time that Caesar is completely overrated. His military innovations were scant to nil. Except for arming his light forces to repel cavalry in one or two battles, he introduced nothing as innovative as Alexander, Scipio, or Marius. Heck, he couldn't even manage a supply line (which is why his commentaries on all his wars are mostly how he dealt with the fact that he couldn't even feed his army)! Further, his adversaries in Gaul were backward, iron age farmers and not even close to as advanced as Persia, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, nor as fierce was the Teutons. His legacy was also purely destructive--he destroyed the republic, but he hadn't done anything to prepare for transition or a more useful arrangement. Even his seemingly innovative notions, like restricting the size of the slave labor market, had already been done before (the Licinian plan). Caesar shouldn't have wept when he was 33 and realized he hadn't completed as much as Alexander; he should have wept in 43 when, master of the whole Roman world, he still hadn't completed as much as Alexander.

T. Manlius Torquatus was the father.

Almost certainly. They heated their homes with fires, and the soot was likely to blacken the marble. While it probably wasn't as bad as London in the nineteenth century or Pittsburgh in most of the twentieth century, the stone probably got pretty grimy. Both! It's the work of make-up in the case of the actors, and with time all Romans actually aged as well. Imagine! Seriously though, look at the portraits of the Roman republic. This one from the Met looks like a Milwaukee banker. The style is called verism, and it celebrates age and dignity instead of the youth and athleticism celebrated by the Greeks (like the Kritios boy) A few minor things. For example, Cato was younger than Caesar by quite a bit, and Cicero was quite a bit older than both of them. Cleopatra probably wasn't a complete dope-addled harlot. Atia is almost entirely a fictional creation. Octavian most likely never slept with his sister. Vercingetorix was probably strangled in private rather than in public. Contrary to the title of one episode, Titus Pullo didn't really bring down the republic. Of course, there's a lot that isn't mentioned too. For example, Brutus was Cato's son-in-law and nephew; Servilia was Cato's half-sister. Caesar spent about half his time on campaign struggling to disentangle himself from crises he brought on himself (like runnning off without any food). On the other hand, there is an enormous amount of attention to detail that you'd probably never pick up. For example, in the episode where Pompey and the senate leave Rome to assemble the republican resistance, Cato persistently inquires after the status of the treasury. Why? Because Cato's reform of the treasury as quaestor was one of the foundations of his reputation for honesty and probity, and he looked after the books of Rome (and later of Cyprus) his whole life. Things like that let you know that even when the series take liberties, they're doing so in full knowledge that they're filling in blanks. Vorenus and Pullo were actual figures with an interesting rivalry described in Caesar's commentaries on his illegal war in Gaul. Vorenus' escalation to the senate during Caesar's dictatorship isn't so fanciful to be impossible, though I do find the rescue from the gladiator pits to be a bit fanciful. More likely, Pullo would simply have survived the pits, as the mortality rate was 'only' about 10% daily. Ancient Rome was more crime-infested than Detroit, but it wasn't anarchy. Murder was illegal, which is why Pullo made an attempt to conceal his crimes. After the Sopranos, you're shocked by this??? Shields were also useful weapons, but I'll bet no mere scutum could cut through (BOBES) like butter. I'm partial to this period in Roman history, but I'd bet the era of the Punic Wars would have been dramatic too. Also, the early (mostly legendary) history of the Republic was very exciting and dramatic. The first consul, Brutus, expelled the kings and then had to execute his own spoiled-brat sons when they attempted to restore the king. The little monsters complained that in the republic, "the law had no ears", meaning it was indifferent to their rank and birth when meting justice. Glorious stuff! Sure. How many illegitimate kids are walking around today with no historian recording their father's deeds? Of course! Heck, one poet (Ovid) wrote a whole poem of advice on how to score with women (the Art of Love), and they could make themselves complete asses over women (if you think Vorenus and Pullo had it bad, wait until you read how Catullus felt about his girlfriend Lesbia, who made Paris Hilton look like a Vestal virgin). Also, if you read the plays from this period (like Plautus), it's clear that the Romans were as often earthy, bawdy, vulgar, and crass as they were dignified, philosophical, puritanical, and proud. The Romans were a practical people. The Greeks invented tragedy, comedy, history, democracy, and philosophy (all in one century too!), but it took the Romans to build a decent sewer system, heated swimming pools, central heating, concrete that could set under water (useful for bridges), good roads, well-managed businesses and armies, and how to chill wine (use snow). Look at their poems. They worry about body odor, spend their time in baths, and wear perfume; all the while also worrying about how manly they were. For all their concern about their dignitas, they produced farces and satires that were as silly as Looney Tunes (in fact Plautus is almost Vaudeville). For all their prudishness, they plastered the place with pornography (literally: pornographic images are plastered on walls in Pompeii). As much as someone like Vorenus could worship authority, they also had an anti-authoritarian streak that was unprecedented--it was actually a Roman law to kill anyone who even tried to become a king. And for all their love of money, luxury, and comfort, they never seemed to tire of praising the poor, simple, farmers of the past. Could any conceivable conversation manage to escape a culture so dynamic and full of contradictions as Rome? I don't think so. Everything about Rome was epic. Even their falling-down apartment buildings were taller than they ought to have been. OK--now you have to keep watching Rome and read more of this forum.

Actually, the poor probably had more to worry about--they could afford to lose less; they were surrounded by more criminals; and they had less influence with the justice system. So if you couldn't afford a Hortensius or Cicero, getting a dog was probably a good idea.

BTW, if you want to listen to Fuller's book on your iPod, you can also download it from the iTunes Music Store, though you'll have to download iTunes if you don't already have it. You're a PC? don't worry, you can still run iTunes.

Fun! Sign me up! Though I already have:

From a house in Pompeii, we have this warning to "beware of dog" (CAVE CANEM). Note the collar pictured here. A similar image can be obtained from the national museum in Naples (here).

As PP mentioned above. And this command occurred earlier than Spartacus, not between Spartacus and Carrhae, which is the time period in question. So, no--Crassus commanded nothing between Spartacus and Cannae, except his army of tax-farmers.

I'm partial to Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier, and Tyrant by J.F.C. Fuller. I'll write a full review later, but here's a nice excerpt so you can sample the style of the book:

Does anyone have a source telling us exactly where it was? "Overlooking the forum" is pretty vague. When standing in the Forum today, there are a number of good candidates for Tarpeian Rock (although honestly it didn't look like any of them would have led to a decisively lethal fall).