M. Porcius Cato

Was life for the poor in Rome better or worse than life in the barracks? If it really were better to be among the urban poor than among the legions, that's really a sad commentary on Rome's priorities.

Like Furius, I also considered the Hellenistic warrior-monarch model, and I like the idea of Romans taking Camillus (or Cincinnatus) as their preferred model, but (also like Furius) I think this is a bit of a strectch. Maybe the worship of Dinoysus caused something bad? Again, I'm stretching to find something.

Cato the Censor was a notorious opponent of Hellenic influences on Roman culture. Yet, as far as I can tell, the importation of Greek ideas was wholly beneficial--far from being weakened by Greek influences, Rome was made more prosperous and more self-aware. Can anyone point to a single Greek influence that hurt Rome?

Maybe this is a quibble, but technically you could have universal citizenship AND universal military service. In any case, your historical point is well taken: Rome gave the major reward for military service to anyone for free. That's a bad policy, isn't it? OK, this suggests a qualification to my original claim: citizenship could have been expanded indefinitely IF military service could be incentived by other means.

No constitution has such a safeguard. The only thing keeping any constitution working is the dedication of men to uphold it.

I'm rapidly growing weary of discussing this topic, but I want to add one final point. Due to the fragmentary evidence available, reconstructing the ancient world is difficult. However, this reconstruction is vastly easier once you know what to do with the evidence you do have, and for that you can turn (and ought to turn) to modern sciences, such as economics. On the issue of technological growth, for example, we have hundreds of years of data on the causes and consequences of technology. Using this knowledge to constrain your hypotheses about the ancient world would make a lot of sense, as it would prevent you from putting forward some of the contradictory, hare-brained ideas that have been expressed in this thread. Alternatively, you could keep making it up as you go along--but I'm finished refuting arbitrary hypotheses with no basis in more general knowledge about the growth of technology.

Caesar had him removed (stupidly) for filibustering, he was not being relevant to the point, merely trying to talk the bill out. This, contrary to your assertion, was when Caesar first presented the bill before the senate. I don't have my books with me, but are you sure that this wasn't Caesar's first bill of the new year? By my reading of events, there was effectively an all-out Stop Pompey movement. Again, having just survived the reign of Sulla--for whom Pompey was the "teenage butcher"--there was probably a fair amount of (understandable) paranoia that Pompey would turn out to follow in his mentor's footsteps.

They wanted to be roman - in order to enjoy roman life - and that was the primary reason why anyone wanted to a citizen back then. Uh-huh... and why would it be that all the benefits of Roman life would suddenly disappear once citizenship was universal?

The two meetings were very different in nature. One was an emergency meeting of the Senate conducted by Senate rules. The other was a meeting in the forum conducted by a different set of rules. On the first occassion, Cato had the opportunity to speak; on the second occasion, he did not. NEVERTHELESS, Cato did speak out against the land bill, though, as his very first act of the new consular year--and he was arrested for it. Unfortunately, we don't know what he had to say. I think that at some point everyone in politics over-reaches, whether Cato or Caesar or whomever. It's simply impossible to please everyone. Given this fact, some conflict between one of the triumvirs and the rest of the Senate had to occur on one matter or another. Consequently, even if Pompey's troops had been settled on the first day of Caesar's consulship, the triumvirs could always find some pretext to rail against the senate and moan about how their dignitas was being offended by all the onerous rules, etc etc etc. So, basically, No--the triumvirate was not a direct consequence of the failure to settle Pompey's troops. And, more importantly, the fact that Pompey's troops WERE settled and the triumvirate did not immediately dissolve proves the point--the triumvirate was the product of three men who had monarchical ambitions and believed themselves above the law. (Heck, smooth Caesar thought he was descended from Venus herself!)

At various points during its history, Rome was as competitive, calm, and 'receptive' as was most of western Europe from the Enlightenment onward. Take a look at the various inventions of the 18th-20th centuries. Many of the earliest inventions during this period (maybe most) were developed by non-aristocrats and by men of no considerable wealth at all during periods of revolution and even civil war. Your list of necessities for invention are anything but necessary.

The wealthy classes simply had no reason to adopt machines wholescale because life was too easy....It seems the natural progression of ideas and concepts requires a receptive, calm, and competitive society to succeed. The romans never quite attained that, and the decline took away their chance to become a truly industrialised culture. Huh? Life was too easy but not receptive, calm, and competitive enough? This explanation makes no sense at all.

No, but he was the senior magistrate opposing the law. Further, many of these same points were made about earlier land settlements.

He was more than pushing it in my opinion--there's a whole thread I started on Caesar's illegal war. The land was already being rented, so the state would lose money. Except, again, all the future rents. Unless the census conducts an auction, there is no way for it to determine the fair market value of the land. Most likely, the census would reach a sweetheart deal with Pompey, and who knows where that could lead? Again, there is no reason to think that veterans and the urban poor would make any more productive use of the land than the current tenants; therefore, the state would be sacrificing a very large portion of its revenues to a sweetheart deal with Pompey's vets. Actually, that idiot Bibulus was charged with the task, and he botched the job, but that doesn't mean the bill was a good one. And it certainly wasn't worth the triumvirate!

Perhaps there is none. Maybe, like Christopher Hitchens in this Slate piece on Judas, you misunderstood something you read in Graham Greene?

resistance to what though? Unauthorized campaigns of plunder (like Caesar's Gallic adventures or Crassus' Parthian campaign), use of hand-picked legates to administer provincial rule (as Pompey did), and misappropriation of public funds for personal political gain (such as the seizing of the ager publica for veterans). The latter was especially critical--the lion's share of state revenues came from the rents charged on the ager publica--unless these lands were auctioned off to the highest bidder, it's hard to see how the loss of the lands could be recouped in another form of taxation.

These prices tell us almost nothing without knowing the price of free labor. As it is, even if the worth of a slave was 5 solidi, this cost has to be divided over the working life of a slave. Given that most technological advances have not been at the hands of aristocrats during any era, how can the lack of desire by Roman aristocrats explain the fact that the growth rate in the Imperial period was less than that experienced from the era of the Enlightenment to the modern age?

Casual observation! What else could be done? If one sees more people in rags one day than the day before, that's pretty good evidence. It's practical! I don't think that anyone, then, had a university statistical analysis of the matters. Tenancy does not equate to ownership. As has been stated elsewhere, 95% of the population were poor. And that point is not up for grabs. Two points. First, casual observation *might* establish that poverty increased (if rags really do indicate poverty and the increase in rag-wearing increases by a large amount). However, it isn't possible to know from this observation alone whether increases in latifundian were reponisble for the increase in poverty. A number of other factors might explain the increase in poverty. For example, the number of latifundia may have been constant, but poverty increased because (1) the weather had been very bad for a number of seasons, (2) the amount of time farmers spent on campaign increased, (3) soldiers returning home in large numbers led to a "baby boom" and thus an instantaneous and widespread hit to the resources of family farmers, and (4) the availability of seed grain had been depleted to feed the army.

The Romans had pretty accurate tools for surveying. The grommet and that thingamabob they used for measuring distances would have allowed them to accurately lay out a grid. From there, it's possible to estimate the rest (essentially using the logic underlying the calculation of the area of an irregular curve--which had been known since Archimedes). PS Shouldn't this fall in the Humanities folder?

The prosecution of Murena was vintage Cato--an idealistic constitutionalism that sat astride the border of pure genius and pure folly--as well as vintage Cicero--an authentic sense of right and wrong combined with amoral pragmatism that never failed to be shocking for its self-satisfied venality. Of course you're right that the immediate beneficiary of the prosecution might have been Catiline (who probably wouldn't have assumed the consulship in the event of Murena's prosecution, but this is a minor quibble). However, at this point, it wasn't at all clear what the nature of the Catilinean threat really was. On the other hand, Murena was guilty as sin--Cicero didn't even attempt to dispute this point. Cicero's defense employed two appeals to distraction. The first argument was that the crime was small and that young Cato's Stoicism, while commendable, was too idealistic. Poking fun at the Stoic disputanda that it was as bad to wrongly kill a rooster as to slay one's own father, the consul Cicero blithely ignored the evidence against Murena and offered Cato the avuncular advice that he should recall the Stoic virtues of prudentia and temperentia as much as iustitia and fortitudo. The second argument was a darker distraction--that Catiline was in field and that the republic required two consuls for the battle ahead. Although Cato suspected the danger posed by Catiline was being exaggerated, the jury sided with Cicero, and Murena was acquitted. were this so then he seems to have made some poor long term judgements, not least as I've said, driving Crassus, caesar and Pompey into collusion. I would say that it was the ambition of the individual triumvirs that brought them into collusion, not Cato's resistance to them. If their individual projects had not been resisted by Cato when they were, it is almost certain that some sort of resistance would have been necessary later. Cato didn't have much to gain from the Sullan order, and he was always active in overturning it (this was an early point of cooperation between Cato and Caesar). Also, the opening of the ranks to the landless needn't have been overturned to reverse the monarchical trends that Marius initiated. Even Sulla kept this one of Marius' laws intact. My guess is that nearly everyone recognized the value in a larger, more inclusive, and better equipped military force. What needed to be restored from Marius' brief royal rule was the principle of collegiality and term limits.

Plutarch has a list of questions about Rome that is a gold-mine of practices that are unusual by today's standards. As just one--husbands did not give gifts to their wives. That's really hard to imagine.

Exactly--and the right to appeal the decisions of magistrates.

Caesar spoke before Cato and argued that anyone who wanted a trial for the accused (who had already confessed) were enemies of the state. So, no--Cato didn't then defy Caesar and argue for a trial by jury. And, yes, I concur that the execution was hasty by Roman law. Ideally, the accused should have been kept in the carcer until Catiline and his supporters were defeated. Trial while Catiline was in the field would have been out of the question because the physical mechanism of trial (in the forum, before the people) would have provided an opportunity for allies of Catiline to use force to prevent justice. At this time, Cato WAS a tribune of the plebs, so he had to be present to veto the bill. And Cato used no violence (unless you're counting the fact that he ripped up the bill after vetoing it). I don't agree. After Sulla, Rome faced a fundamental constitutional dilemma--with so many laws broken and monarchical precedents set, should the state restore the constitution that existed before Marius or should it continue to allow military figures to concentrate all political power to themselves? Cato led a movement to restore the pre-Marian, anti-monarchical constitution; opportunists from all factions preferred a chance to attain supreme power for themselves, as Marius and Sulla before them. At the same time, there were certainly reforms needed, particularly in strengthening central control over the provinces, in state finance, and in election laws. In these areas, Cato was NOT a mere traditionalist, but a real reformer, sometimes cooperating with 'populares' and continuously opposing the remnants of the Sullan oligarchy. It was this early career that earned him his reputation as a strict constitutionalist, and why someone as late as Plutarch would place Cato's life in parallel with Aristides the Just.

I take it then you were unable to find that mysterious evidence of a feud between Cato and Caesar pre-Catiline? It wasn't Cato who argued against there being a trial, but Caesar! Re-read their speeches. Cato's argument is only about what the penalty should be, which is what his role as quaestor was. I'm assuming this comes from the same reliable source that puts the source of the conflict between Cato and Caesar pre-Catiline! I'd like to see your source on Cato's "violence" against Nepos. What a joke--it was Nepos who had his armed thugs preventing the intervention of a tribune of the plebs. Fillibuster is a non-violent and purely constitutional practice that continues to this day. Given that standing for consul in absentia is unconstitional, I really wonder what your point is. There is no evidence that Cato had anything to do with this bribery except disdain from prosecuting all of the candidates during this election (which at this point was no longer in Cato's job description). Given that he was defeated by the use of force, nothing. And is that what your criticism of Cato comes down to??? That he was opposed to "land reform"?? Heck, the evidence doesn't even support that much--he opposed the settlement of Pompey's troops, not any and all land reform measures. Well, we'll never know since the debate on the topic was broken up by armed thugs. A compromise might have been reached. An alternative bill might have been proposed. Pompey's cronies might have convinced the voters to approve the ratification or to convince the tribunes that the bill wasn't just another political pay-off. We'll never know which of these might have come to pass had the law been followed because thugs like Pompey and Caesar weren't interested in rational persuasion but blind and stupid force. Re-read my post.

But matters much for what? For your standing in the courts (e.g., whether you were entitled to a trial), citizenship was extremely important: it was a matter of possible life or instant death.

Now that you've had a chance to try out different approaches for getting kids interested in Rome, what worked best?