M. Porcius Cato

If I were starting a novel set in ancient Rome, I'd find Attalus.org to be positively invaluable. The year-by-year pointers to primary sources beats any narrative history you can find.

I've watched the first season a few times (as a result of inflicting it on friends), but the second season only twice. One of these days I should work on an episode guide to the series. It's a great way to introduce the late republic and to savor the feeling of the Roman world.

I read a review of this book, and it looks fascinating. One tidbit that whet my appetite--an image of future Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney shining his junior-sized jack-boots--came from a review in the Globe and Mail. It's not possible to access the site, but the author gives a preview at his own page HERE: The postwar anti-comics movement, an astonishing outburst of media-induced hysteria, originated in the United States but had repercussions in many lands, including England, Mexico, Taiwan, the Philippines and Canada. In 1949, E. Davie Fulton, an up-and-coming Tory MP from British Columbia, got Parliament to pass a private member

If you're looking to improve your Roman-style cursive, let me just link again to this handy web page.

Not not inscribed--graffiti seems always to be written in that red ochre-colored hand. The opening credits to HBO Rome provides a nice example, but I could get you something more concrete if you'd like.

Ironic that Nietzsche's immortal observation in The Anti-Christ ("Christianity was the vampire of the imperium Romanum: overnight it undid the tremendous deed of the Romans

Nicely done, NN! After the fuller pots and sponge sticks are added, don't forget the graffiti! Catullus 57 seems apt for the latrinae: Pulcre conuenit improbis cinaedis, Mamurrae pathicoque Caesarique. nec mirum: maculae pares utrisque, urbana altera et illa Formiana, impressae resident nec eluentur

The math is of no help because it doesn't tell us whether it even makes sense to subtract the date of the second LJB from the first. If Maty is right and the patrician Junii died out with his sons, then the swift appearance of another LJB merely suggests that there was a plebeian branch of the Junii. (Not that I buy this argument: why violate Occam's razor and assume two branches to the Junii?)

Very nice find, Asclepiades. Hadn't considered Niebuhr's points previously, but they do seem to rest on the assumption that the Bruti who were tribunes of the plebs were in fact kinsmen of LJB. I don't think that's a far-fetched assumption, but it's the assumption that gives his case its force.

Just to drop more uncertainty and doubt into an area where we're already struggling to find firm ground: the whole date of Brutus' expulsion of the Tarquins (510 BCE) is pretty fishy as it is, notoriously occurring (by an amazing coincidence) in the same year that the tyrant Hippias was expelled from Athens. The birth of democracy in Athens co-occurring with the birth of the republic in Rome is possible, but it's also an awfully neat coincidence. Something important probably did occur around that time--the foundation of the Capitoline temple--but it's a bit difficult for me to believe the new government managed to pull off the building of this temple at the same time the Tarquins were supposedly gathering to strike back at the fledgling republic.

So as son of the king's sister, Brutus' status as plebeian would have depended on his own father's status, no? And that just brings us back to the original problem: were the Junii plebs or not?

Let's see if I can summarize the historical argument for the patrician status of L Junius Brutus. First, he was a relative of the Tarquin kings, and thus must have been patrician. Second, the Licinian law that opened up the consulship to plebs was not passed until 367, thereby implying that all previous consuls--including Brutus--were patricians. Am I missing anything else? I guess I'm left wondering whether (1) there is any evidence that the relatives of kings were necessarily patrician and (2) whether--having joined in the revolutionary expulsion of their king and given an unprecedented chance at participating in government themselves--the Romans would have balked at Brutus assuming the consulship merely due to some ancient scruples about his heritage. The problem in the first argument is that we don't really know how Brutus was related to the Tarquins (or at least I can't find it)--for all we know he came from a local Roman plebeian house who married into the family to help cement the Tarquin arrivistes to their new home. The problem with the second argument is that it seems to ignore the historical context by which the Tarquins assumed power--i.e., as a ferociously aristocratic order that murdered the vastly more pro-plebeian king Tullius. Had Brutus been the plebeian noble to expel the Tarquins, it seems likely that he would have enjoyed formidable support from among the old supporters of Tullius as well as the more numerous Roman plebs. Neither of these counter-arguments, of course, establish that LJB really was plebeian, but I don't think the case for his being patrician seems particularly well-grounded either.

Yes, it's possible that the northern barbarians might have developed advanced mathematics, science, logic, systematic philosophy, constitutional government, secular theater, written literature, and naturalism in sculpture. But they didn't. The Greeks did, and their trading colonies all over the Mediterranean world spread Greek culture to -- among other people -- Italic war bands. Of these Italic tribes, the ones that adopted Greek ways more -- like the Etruscans -- came out ahead of those -- like the Samnites -- who were less influenced by Greek culture. The same process was also occurring outside Italy (e.g., Massilia), so it seems far more likely to me that Greek culture would have been adopted by the barbarians before it was re-invented by them. Also, as much as I love the Greeks, I don't see the Romans as being passive in their Hellenization. Roman pragmatism, an admirable openness to adopt whatever worked for your enemies, seems to me to have been a key factor in spreading Greek culture there, and it's why the Romans could even surpass the Greeks in several areas: they were far more open to foreigners and foreign know-how than were the insular Greeks.

Well-written review. I'm still left wondering what we can learn more generally from the Marius/Metellus relationship. It seems to me that some of many followers of Marius were also ignoring the wishes of their patrons, suggesting that the patron/client relation wasn't as rigid as has been implied elsewhere.

If the members of any species don't reproduce, it's relevant because that species doesn't remain the same; it gets extinct. And it doesn't even have to 'get extinct' to count as species change. If half the red male cardinals evolved blue feathers instead of red ones, that would be a classic example of species change in spite of the fact that red male cardinals didn't go extinct.

I agree completely that "anyone who provokes terror" shouldn't be considered a serious working definition of terrorist. I also agree that the important difference between terrorists and ordinary criminals is in whether they have political motivations. But the Cilician pirates DID have political motivations. They were born of failed states in Crete and Cilicia, attempted to create their own mini-states, and received protection for their local political ambitions by enemies of Rome (like Mithridates and Diodotus) who wanted to use them for proxy war. In these respects, they were almost identical to the PLO, which received money and support from foreign governments interested in toppling Israel. Note, also, that while political motivation is a feature distinguishing terrorists from criminals, the mere presence of economic motivation doesn't make a difference. Consider, for example, such sundry terrorist groups as FARC, Lehi, ETA, etc, almost all supported financially--like the Cilician pirates--by some combination of criminal activity (kidnapping, extortion, robbery) and support from foreign enemies. Surely it would be absurd to absolve any of these organization of terrorism merely because they mixed kidnapping and extortion with their targeting of civilian populations! Yet this is precisely the logic being applied to the Cilician pirates.

Of course traits can give an advantage in the competition among traits, and there is no reason why this shouldn't be true of humans as well. Indeed, population geneticists have identified several genes that spread in human populations where they conferred an advantage. A good example is the ability to digest milk in adulthood, a genetic change that occurred as recently as 3000 years ago (for background, see HERE). If natural selection is not the source of this evolutionary change, I'd love to hear what you think it is.

Of course, natural selection applies to humans. Darwin's theory isn't that the "strong survive." That's just the comic book version of Darwin's theory. Darwin's actual theory is that changes in species are driven by competition among traits that differ in their effects on inclusive fitness, including reproductive success. If Darwin's theory didn't apply to people, it would mean that people who are less successful at reproducing somehow have their phenotypes spread throughout a population with greater success than people who are more successful at reproducing. Surely you don't believe that that's possible, do you?

Nicely put.

Now look at these two arguments: First, we have Asclepiades' claim that the attack on Ostia was merely an attack by "just a bunch of sea bandits looking for easy money" and thus not terrorist. Then, we have Caldrail's argument that the attack was simply bravado and didn't involve blackmail. Now both of these arguments can't be true, but both of them can certainly be false and invaid--and they are. Let's recall the facts shall we? As Harris put it nicely, "In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world

I think Doc already provided the definitive answer to Sonic's question: the notion of inevitable progress over time predates Darwin quite a bit. Indeed, the clearest expression of the idea that history marches through progressive stages comes, not from Darwin, but from Hegel, whose ideas on the topic were inspired by the German Christian mystic [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B

Does mounting arms against the state itself count? In any case, what's this apropos of?

Outside the Bacchants, can you name ONE example of religious persecution during the republic? Because I surely can name more than one example of religious persecution on the part of Christians.

Minerva's right to cite the case of Cato v Galba because it shows that in the tail end of the middle republic, exploitation of the provinces was still regarded as inimical to Roman interests. In contrast, when Cato the Younger made the same argument about Caesar's analogous treatment of the Germans, the charges didn't stick. But PP's point, and I agree with it, is slightly different--that is, exploitation of the provinces spread corruption to Rome.

Their attack on Ostia was no mere monetary target: there were plenty of easier and richer targets. The attack, splendid in its theatricality, was an act to terrify Rome into leaving them alone.