M. Porcius Cato

A number of commentaries on Livy are useful for your purpose--you can read both what the Romans believed about their own ancient history as well as what modern history, archaeology and linguistics has to offer. Oglivie's A Commentary on Livy is a classic. Also, The Ancient City was simply seminal.

Livius.org was a great source for information on the ancient mediterranean, but its domain name seems to have expired. Anyone know whether it will be renewed?

With their huge passenger cargos and enormous volume of super-combustible fuel, modern aircraft are terrorists' favorite target. If only air taxis could be made economical, we could deprive the terrorists of a real weapon of mass destruction and make our air travel much more pleasant to boot. Anyone know if there's an end in sight to the air buses of today?

You're misunderstanding the events entirely. The question isn't whether Caesar was behind a plot to kill Pompey. The plot to kill Pompey didn't really exist; Vettius made it up to get Pompey's opponents in trouble; the question is who asked Vettius to tell these lies.

I did a search in JSTOR, and both of the papers I found on the topic come to the same conclusion: It was Caesar, or one of his lackeys, who suborned Vettius' perjury. The first paper, "Vettius ille, ille noster index," written by William C. McDermott and published in the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (v. 80, 1949, pp. 351-367), indicates that most historians view Caesar as the instigator of Vettius' contio. Here's the abstract from the paper: The second paper, "The 'Vettius Affair' Once More," written by Walter Allen and also published in TAPA (v. 81, 1950, 153-163, agrees that Caesar hired Vettius, and it clarifies the role of Cicero in the affair. Again, the abstract: Now you're right that Pompey had recently become Caesar's son-in-law (in May 59), which would have preceded the Vettius affair (15-16 or 16-17 July 59) by about two months. But there is nothing about this that would cast suspicion away from Caesar. The Vettius accusations--which promised to launch a witch-hunt against the opponents of the triumvirs--would have been a great service to Pompey, which is why Plutarch (contra Cicero and Suetonius) even placed the blame on the Pompeians. Thus, the very 'tightness' you propose would more strongly support the accusations against Caesar rather than undermine them. Furthermore, consider Caesar's place in 59. He's about to run off to Gaul, and he doesn't want Rome to turn against him while he's gone. This is, as I'm sure you know, why he was so eager to get Clodius in power before he left: to have someone to remove his opponents while he was gone and couldn't do the job himself. Thus, hiring Vettius would have simply been the first salvo in Caesar's broader attack on the competition. BTW, I'm somewhat surprised by how little known this event is. It isn't mentioned in Rubicon, for example, which is a pretty good narration of events leading up to Caesar's putsch. Nor is there any mention of the witch hunt in Everitt's Cicero nor the grand old Annals of Caesar by E. G. Sihler. The normally comprehensive Christian Meier devotes a paragraph to the topic (p. 221), claiming that Caesar both commissioned Vettius to spin the tale of the plot and had Vettius murdered in the carcer. Gruen's masterful The Last Generation of the Roman Republic devotes three paragraphs to the affair (95-96), but he offers no opinion of his own on the meaning or cause of the affair, presumably because it doesn't fit his pet-thesis about the first triumvirate (essentially that the triumvirate wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as the second one, and that everything was really business-as-usual in Rome). By the way, here's the full list of ancient sources on the Vettius affair so you can make up your own mind: Cic., Att 2.24, Flac 96, Sest 132, Vatin 24-26; Suet., Iul. 17, 20.5; Plut., Luc 42; App., BCiv 2.2.12; Cass Dio, 37.41.2-4; 38.9; Schol. Bob. Sest. 132; Vatin. 24.

Actually, of all the candidates listed, the only one with no clear motivation was Vettius himself. Caesar would have benefitted from the 'discovery' of the conspiracy by cementing the rift between Pompey and his former friends. Ditto Vatinius (whom Cicero suspected after changing his mind that Caesar had been responsible). Clodius too would have benefitted by obtaining a favor from Caesar, and that Caesar was involved somehow seems indicated by the sudden reversal regarding Brutus. Further, Pompey and the Pompeians may have been drumming for the sympathy vote, which is exactly the card that Bibulus had so successfully played against them. Thus, to my mind, motivation isn't the key to the mystery, which leaves only means and opportunity. It seems likely that whoever put Vettius up to making the charges was behind his murder. So the question is who would have had access to him while he was safely imprisoned in the carcer? EDIT: OK, I guess Vettius' motivation could have been to be a 'big player,' as Virgil suggests. Still, that just underscores how little diagnostic value motivation has in cracking this (admittedly uncrackable) case.

After a year of stiffening resistance to the triumvirate--starting with Cato and the consul Bibulus and then spreading to the younger generation (Cic., Ad Att, 2.8.1), the equites (2.19.3), the municipia (2.13.2, 2.21.1), even to the former officers, friends, and family of Pompey (Metellus Celer, Metellus Nepos, Lentulus Niger, Lentulus Crus, Servilius Isauricus, the Scribonii Curiones, the Sullae, the Memmii, L. Gellius Publicola, L. Valerius Flaccus, and M. Petreius)--the municipalities and leading magistrates of the Roman republic united in common purpose for perhaps the first time since the conspiracy of Catiline. Against this backdrop, in the midsummer of 59. L. Vettius (who had implicated Caesar in the Catilinarian conspiracy of 62) made a jaw-dropping announcement: there was a conspiracy of nobiles to kill Pompey Magnus. Among those named in the plot were Bibulus, Aemilius Paullus, Curio the elder, Curio the younger, two Lentuli, and M. Brutus (yes, that M. Brutus). The story of course held no water whatever. Paullus, for example, was not even in Italy. With his confused story discredited, L. Vettius was hauled away to the carcer, where he spent his time until rescued by Caesar and P. Vatinius. Under questioning by them, Vettius' story abruptly changed: young Brutus, the son of Caesar's mistress, suddenly found the accusation against him dropped, but his name was immediately replaced by still more opponents of Pompey: Lucullus, Domitius Ahenobarbus, C. Fannius, C. Piso, M. Laterensis, and even dark hints were dropped about Cicero. The insinuations were never believed, no charges were brought against the accused, and Vettius was soon found dead in prison. Now comes the question--why would Vettius concoct such a story? Was it at the instigation of Caesar, who perhaps had hoped to frighten Pompey and thereby detach him from his few remaining friends in the senate, or some friend of Caesar, such as Vatinius? Was it at the instigation of Pompey or Pompeian partisans, hoping to rid themselves of their enemies (Plut. Luc. 42.7-8)? Or was Vettius acting alone? Or--was the plot real and an unfinished prelude to the Ides of March?

I'm really not surprised. Most school systems that are not designed to create dullards usually achieve this kind of result. In 1880, the literacy rate for 15 year olds in the U.S. exceeded 95% with no national compulsory schooling. Moonlapse is quite right. Just to put these numbers in context, nearly universal literacy had also been acheived in Great Britain BEFORE the institution of public schools in 1870. When the first generation of children affected by the 1870 law were registered in the 1891 British census, 93.6% of adults could read and write, just a tad higher than those registered in the 1881 census (86.5%), which was just a tad higher than the 1871 census (80.6%) and the 1861 census before that (75.4%). Indeed the percentage increase in literacy from the 1881 to 1891 census (i.e., after public schools) was lower than any previous decade since the 1841-1851 period. Most striking of all, between 1891 and 1946, a period that saw the elimination of the small fees (10s.) that were required for attendance (in 1918), the percentage of literate adults in England and Wales had only climbed from 93.6% to 95%. The bottom line is that you don't need a communist dictatorship to achieve extremely high levels of literacy; in fact, you don't even need free (let alone compulsory) education. Frankly, I'm astonished that anyone would even raise education as a justification for all the blood spilt by Castro. Perhaps we should also pat him on the back for the high rates of looking both ways when crossing the street and not running with scissors? Again, this cynicism is simply unfounded. Look at Thucydides for PLENTY of examples of the decidedly poorly-heeled running things. My favorite example (not from Thucydideds I think) was the simpleton who voted to exile Aristides the Just because he was sick of hearing people always talking about Aristides "the Just"! Are you kidding? How about one-party rule? Or executions without trial--or with a mock trial--for political offenses? Perhaps the grand scale theft of private property? Perhaps it's the censorship? Or maybe the inability to leave one's hell-hole of a country? Maybe it's the prosecution of innocents merely for TALKING with a foreigner? Yes, I do wonder how communism in Cuba (and everywhere) gets accused of being the antipode of a republic (or "democracy" if you don't care about an important though somewhat old-fashioned distinction).

Thank you, thank you, thank you Virgil! Even as I was replying to this romantic notion of the benign dictatorship, I was thinking "Where the heck is Virgil when I need him?"

Yes, as Tacitus would say, the empire rolled smoothly and efficiently over the men of conscience, ability, and decency. Since such men are always in the minority, the general public might be revolted by such behavior, but it seldom leads them to revolt if they're otherwise pacified by bread and circuses (as Wot Wotius correctly observes). The question, however, is whether the cumulative effect of these political murders is inexoribly the breakdown of all law and order (which the public is unlikely to tolerate) or whether this breakdown happens so slowly that the public finds it tolerable enough that they seek only reform but not revolution.

Thank you, I'm still recovering from the heebie-jeebies engendered by my defense of the principate, but I'm recuperating with a strong dose of Polybius. (I'll bet Pertinax didn't know about that ancient remedy!)

This is NOT a "true historical standpoint"; it is your opinion. Since I spend almost all of my time on this forum disputing this very thesis, perhaps you'd care to list the cultural acheivements of the dictatorships? As far as I can tell, almost all of the lasting cultural innovations of the Greco-Roman world were developed by the free people of the ancient world--those living under the republics of Rome, Carthage, and the democracy of Athens. In contrast, the backward monarchies like Egypt and the communistic states like Sparta--while rising higher than the disorganized tribal societies that preceded them--sponged off the cultural innovations of the free societies with whom they competed, but they never surpassed them in their innovations. Bloody hell! If this were true, then the political prisons would be empty, the execution chambers dusty, and the borders open. If the great majority of people really loved life in Cuba, then why not permit free emigration as every civilized society does? The answer is obvious--communism in Cuba has been the same failure it is everywhere, and given the chance, many many Cubans would gladly change places with any disgruntled American who wished to do so. In my view, nothing about human nature has changed in the past 3000 years--innovation still requires the freedom to produce and profit from one's innovations, and because these innovations are a threat to every dictator, they have always done what they could to slice the head off of any with even the potential to question their power.

No disagreement here. Given that the people lost their say in government, political unrest was unavoidable under the principate, so one or more of these measures were necessary. However, if the courts had ceased to operate effectively, commerce would have been annihilated and crime would have been so rampant that no number of Praetorians (let alone bread and circuses) would have been sufficient to keep control. That's why I said the essay was missing the most important variable in keeping control of things during the principate. I never said 'social injustice'--just plain justice. At best, the "social" in "social justice" is superfluous; at worst, the term is a euphemism for injustice to the few for the gain of the many.

If you look at Rome during this time span (27 BC - 117 AD) you will probably find very few examples--with the exception of Trajan, and to a lesser extent Augustus--of justice within her governance. You'll probably find no harsher critic of the principate than me, but even I find this charge absurd. Put down the Suetonius and pick up Ulpian and the other Roman jurists, and you'll find that for the majority of Romans, the Imperial government was functioning to deliver ordinary justice on an extraordinary scale. Roman law prevented a million petty tyrants from seizing the property of their neighbors with impunity, prevented thousands of petty magistrates from meting out punishments without trial, and thereby secured the countless commercial transactions that took place between parties that lived hundreds of miles away from one another. The fruits of these ordinary acts of justice--the manufacture and delivery of unprecedented material comforts-- surely did more to secure the contentment of the people than mere bread, murder, and circuses. BTW, the distribution of free corn during the Imperial period was established by the legislation of Clodius in 58 not 55 BCE.

Well the most general positive point is that the rule of law still operated under the republic and the good emperors (for the most part), and the rule of law alone does much to allow people a peaceful means for redressing wrongs and would thus prevent massive civil unrest. The evidence for the point would be that the institution of civil rights for the people (such as the establishment of the tribunate) ended one of the most important eras of civil unrest (the so-called 'secession of the plebs') and granting similar rights to non-Roman Italians also put an end to a civil war (the so-called Social War). BTW, Wot Wotius' response regarding Vespasian largely convinces me that the use of the secret police could (and did) serve to supplement the use of bread and circuses as a means for pacifying the people since their political rights had been effectively abolished.

If Vespasian almost never provided any public entertainment and the urban mob still did not revolt, the games really weren't doing the job they were intended to do, were they? Also, is there any evidence that Vespasian made up for the lack of games through an extraordinary use of the secret police? I don't know of any, do you? It seems to me that the poverty of the urban mob was no threat to security as such, but an injustice to them was like a firebrand. Hence, good emperors had much less need for the use of bread, murder, and circuses. To my mind, this essay misses one of the most significant sources of crowd control in ancient Rome--the justice of the government itself.

Nice review Clodius. Why the claim that Dodge is not a partisan of Caesar though? If calling Caesar "the greatest man in antiquity" (p. 767) and "the greatest man of action who ever lived" (p. 691) isn't partisan, is anything? That said, Dodge doesn't pull his punches when he finally sees fit, and you might have been referring to his more clear-eyed views. My favorite observation of his (and to my mind this utterly puts the lie to the Caesar legend): "If the months be counted, it will be seen that more than half of Caesar's campaigns were consumed in extricating himself from the results of his own mistakes" (p. 692). On this point, JFC Fuller ('the Clausewitz of the 20th century') aptly observed, "To have to spend half of a long war in extricating oneself from difficulties created by the enemy may or may not be good generalship; but to have to do so because they are due to one's own mistakes is incontestably bad generalship, even when the extrications are brilliant."

I agree, but I'd not make Cannae the agent of the change, only the proof that change was needed. The change was made by Romans operating within the republican system, not by the defeat itself. The 'true character' of the Romans was displayed, first, by the Senate that never betrayed their fides to the republic; second, by innovative military figures, such as Scipio, who knew how to marry overall strategy to mere tactics; and third, by the people of Rome, who did not punish their conquered commanders with exile or death. What a contrast to the Athenians--who exiled and punished their commanders for losing (no matter the circumstances nor their prospects for future victories), or to the future Romans of the Imperial regime--who bribed barbarians into retreating from Roman lands, or hid behind walls, or merely wept for their lost eagles, or turned the external threat into an opportunity for treasonous advancement, or (worst of all) executed successful generals out of fear that they would march on Rome. Yes, Cannae was a necessary school for Rome; but it was only the Romans of the republic that had the brains to learn from such a lesson.

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Doesn't this sound like Roman propaganda to you? What is the likelihood that any of the Romans were around to hear this conversation? I grant that it's not impossible, but it does seem very highly unlikely.

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OK this clears things up quite a bit, but I'm still left wondering whether there have been quantitative studies on the amount of Roman linguistic influence versus Norman linguistic influence. Are there as many Latin-derived words in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton as there are French-derived words in English?

I wonder if there isn't any good linguistic evidence that might speak to how thoroughly the Romans and Normans bothered to deal with the Brits. I seem to recall that most of the Latin influences on English date to the Norman conquest rather than the Roman one. If this is right, doesn't it suggest that the Normans treated the Brits as more equal than the Romans did? I mean, if the Romans were busier civilizing Britain than the Normans, why wasn't English latinized more during the Roman occupation?

Maybe it's me or maybe it's Cicero, but I just can't stop having second thoughts about the guy. Having just finished trashing him, let me mention one area where I think Cicero deserves unabashed praise: His policy toward non-Romans. On this matter, I think, Cicero rendered an innovative and far-reaching service to the republic. As I've said many times, the long-term success of Rome depended on its security amidst its possessions. To this end, it was critical that Romans respected the basic human rights of its allied citizens and provincials lest a valuable Roman trading partner become an enemy. Nowhere was this better illustrated than by the effect that the mistreated and ill-used Goths had on Rome, and centuries earlier it appeared that there were many potential Goths in the making, whether in Carthage (which had been ravaged out of pure spite), in Italy (which had erupted in rebellion when Rome failed to take Yes for an answer), in Syracusa (where Verres had gone so far as to crucify even the Romans living there), or in Gaul (where Caesar the Merciful butchered or enslaved--by his own reckoning--two million men, women, and children). Against these short-sighted policies, however, there was a movement for expanding the protections and representation of non-Romans. Beginning with the Gracchi and Drusus, who were martyred for their efforts on behalf of non-Romans, the attitudes of Romans toward non-Romans evolved slowly, but these efforts (as far as I can tell) came to a standstill immediately after the civil rights of Italians had been granted to end the Allied War. Between the Allied War and the prosecution of Verres, virtually no one championed the cause of non-Romans (though Sulla did have some leanings in this direction thanks to the influence of the Drusi and Cato Salonii). It was during this period of acquiescence that the cause of non-Roman rights was re-ignited by Cicero's enormously influential (and popular) prosecution of Verres, which seems to have finally united the Roman political elite behind a more cosmopolitan and sane foreign policy. After the prosecution of Verres, everyone from Cato (whose one surviving letter concerns the importance of treating the provinces with the universal humanity enshrined in Stoicism) to Caesar (who despite his mistreatment of Long-haired Gauls nevertheless extended the franchise to at least his Gallic clients) was on-board the Cicero train. After the prosecution, non-Romans in Italy played an increasingly important role in Roman politics. Furthermore, looking outside Italy, Cicero's exemplary governorship of Cilicia finally showed Cicero (at least on one matter) putting his ideas into action: his service in Cilicia was so beneficial to the republic that he was voted the thanks of a Senate that had abondoned him countless times. Cicero's legacy on Rome's policy toward foreigners also proved to outlast his own life. Augustus' behavior toward non-Romans was purely Ciceronian (at least when he was finished butchering the republicans in Perguia anyway), and in some ways, the Pax Romana can be seen as the ultimate culmination of Cicero's cosmopolitan (and Stoic) vision for Rome. For all this, I think, Cicero really was a great statesman and not overrated. (But I'll probably remember some more complaints against him in an hour or so. )

Today it's called rhetoric, but the term today has no honor. If you look at ancient writings on rhetoric, however, the field was far more honorable, and illogic was NOT universally admired. Look especially at Aristotle's Rhetoric. In the ancient context, what Cicero was practicing was not just rhetoric, but sophistry. And he should have been ashamed to employ it on behalf of a blood-stained Sullan. OK, but the question is whether a consul of Rome should behave like a schiester on behalf of a Sullan. I say No--it's completely beneath the dignitas of the office; Cicero knew better; but he was willing (as usual) to compromise himself to cozy up to the powers that were.