M. Porcius Cato

I thought about mentioning Hadrian as the limiting case. So, knowing nothing else about Hadrian, what would you conclude about his ideology from his "melons"?

I meant where did you get the information that the Cimbri kept a census?

This is a cute analogy. Still, cats don't burn other cats at the scratching post for being heretics!

If you haven't already downloaded it, Google Earth provides a fabulous way to visit Rome from the privacy of your own home. There are a few plug-ins already that provide an overview of the major Roman sites, but I'll bet even better things are yet to come.

Nice rebuttal. Where did you come across this fact?

Salway , who I cite, refers to exactly this theory-and to my mind argues very well. What's the gist of the argument? Did the Roman build a naval force to secure the Channel?

Can the architects ideology not be reflected through their building design ? Ideas--yes; ideology--seems a stretch. For example, what exactly would it mean to build a 'populist' building? To take a poll of every fishmonger's opinion on pediments?? It seems to me that two architects with very similar ideologies are as likely to build radically different buildings as to build quite similar ones--unfortunately, architects simply don't get to build exactly what they want. Too often they compromise their original vision with the competing (even irrational) demands of clients, city-councils, peers, and so forth. So, even if the architect were a true visionary, his buildings aren't likely to provide much insight into his ideology. I guess if more architects were like Howard Roark, I'd change my mind.

I like the Meier treatment, but my preferences generally tend to run in the opposite direction--I like lots and lots of specific facts (especially numbers!), and I'm a big fan of historical treatments that seek to persuade the reader of a new reconstruction (e.g., "Rome at War" by my colleague Nathan Rosenstein)--or to vindicate an old one that's fallen out of favor (e.g., Ward Perkins' argument "Yes, Virginia, Rome FELL"). Generally, I'm not big on biographies because authors tend either to fall in love with their subjects (maybe to justify their efforts) or to villify them utterly if the subject's reputation has grown too large (not thinking of any bios of ancients that I'd put in this category, btw).

Clodius, you quoted from Gelzer's bio. Do you think it's better than Meier's? From flipping through it, the Gelzer bio looks awfully dated, no?

At the risk of sounding completely old-fashioned, I don't see any ideology in architecture at all. Ideas--obviously; ideology--how??? You could read anything at all in the fact that a building has one wing, two wings, or no wings. So what? These were changes that were not even contemporaneous with the building of the Domus Aurea--so how on earth are these facts relevant to whether the building has one ideology or several. My take: the building doesn't have any ideology because the building doesn't have brain.

There are racist elements in Israel, but I don't think the two sides--Hamas and the Knesset--are morally equivalent.

Yes, I think there was a Servilii Caepiones involved in some funny business there. But, were there fortifications involved? Seems to me that the Celts and Germans were no good when attacking walled cities. But I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

I was a huge fan of Julian the Apostate until I read on URNV that he wasn't a traditional pagan at all--he simply imitated everything about the Church but substituted Jove for Jesus. Not the recipe for toleration if you ask me. Back to the point of the thread--I'm as indifferent to religious disputes as the next fellow, but I don't believe that the enemies of Israel are motivated simply by a religious disagreement. Many want to annihilate the Jewish people--not just in Israel--but everywhere. At one time, Baghdad was home to an enormous community of Jews, but they were completely eradicated over time. All over the Mideast it's the same; even in Paris, attacks on Jews are growing. Hamas is a violently racist political party, and it's support partly comes from rejection of Fatah corruption, but its success also comes from an anti-Semitism* that is again spreading all over the world. (* Yes, I know that Arabs are technically semitic people too. You know what I mean!)

While we're on the topic, does any know of any good sources on the constitution of the Venetian Republic during the renaissance?

Who are "the people"? It seems to expand over time in every society where "the people" have some legal authority. I think it would be mistake to take a narrow meaning at an early age (e.g., those eligible to fight in militias) as the meaning at every age (e.g., after the "struggle of the orders"). Come to think of it, the populations denoted by all the letters--S, P, and R--changed over history. "The senate" was opened to non-patricians and later non-Italians. "The people" in Rome who could vote and run for office changed over time. And even who a "Roman" was was expanded until Roman citizenship was given to people who had never even set foot in Italy. Most broadly, however, going back to "original meaning" via etymology can be quite misleading. The standard example from Logic 101 is "sincere." Originally, it meant "without wax", and it referred to sculptures that were all marble and didn't have any wax parts to fill in the mistakes of the sculptor. But to say, "Oh, well of course President Clinton was sincere when he said he didn't have sex with that woman Ms. Lewinsky--there wasn't a single part of him made of wax!" would be disingenuous at best.

How do we know that they were drinking the beer? Couldn't they have been using it to bake bread instead?

Were Noreia and Arausio fortified as Aquae Sextiae was? Broader question--did any Celtic or Germanic army ever manage to sack a fortified town? Without siege works, how could they?

Without looking it up, I think it was the Caelian Bread Bakers Guild. Using only real Italian grains (instead of that welfare stuff), they indeed made "True Roman bread for True Romans."

That's a biased comparison--to be fair, look at the last 150 years of both or at the first 150 years of both.

It depends on why you admire the Roman world. For me, Rome's greatest contribution was in its laws, not in its having quirky characters. So, Roman politics is not just a "personal issue" for me, but part of a broader historical claim I'm making about what made Rome great. When a Roman tells some barbarian ruler, "I am a citizen of Rome, and you are just a king," he's making a statement that is far more powerful (in my opinion) than in sacking some group of hovels in the backwaters of Britain.

Prove it. Make a list of the "failures of the republic" and explain how each of them WERE fixed by abolishing the imperium of the senate and people of Rome and explain how each of them COULD ONLY BE fixed by abolishing the imperium of the senate and people of Rome. It's a hungry world out here, huh? No kidding. That fact only raises the question--what system of government manages to keep power-lusters from slitting everyone's throats whenever they feel frustrated? The beauty of a republic is precisely that it provides checks and balances so that no single power-luster can ever gain enough power to be threat to his fellow-citizens.

The lex Iulia was one of the most admirable pieces of legislation in the history of the republic. If I ever got around to say something good about any of the populares, this would top my list.

OK--point us to the original sources that support your claim. Any examples of Jesus engaging in systematic hypothesis testing?

What effort did the Spartans make to be paramount in trade, in art, or in philosophy? Seems to me that they were pretty content with their mediocrity in these domains.

What is your evidence that the Roman republic at the time of Sulla was too corrupt or too large to defend itself? The best proof is as Rome grew from a city state and new provinces were constantly being acquired, centralized power collapsed and was fragmented to a point that the weakened system did not have the capacity or reach to control or discipline its provincial governors and military generals who acted on their own behalf with complete disregard to the traditional decisions makers such as the assemblies and the senate. How can a divided nation defend itself against increasing enemies. First, nothing in the (run-on) sentence above even mentions corruption. So am I right you've retreated from this position then? Second, the argument doesn't support your case. It's post-hoc reasoning. You've said that after the republic gained territory, it fell. So what? After I started my car, my telephone rang; that doesn't mean that starting my car caused my telephone to ring. Try again. You do realize you're talking about a period of 90 years, don't you? During this 90 years, how many consuls were there and how many had their opponents murdered? If you can even name 10 (only about 5% of the total number of consuls during this period), I'll concede your point. But you can't, so you should really admit you're wrong. While you're at it, make a list of the legislation that was passed during this period of time (there's a partial list on this site). After you look it up, you'll see that reforming legislation was moving hard and fast from the era of the Gracchi to the fall of the republic. So, again, you're simply wrong about all reforms being blocked--reforms were being passed all the time. Ever hear of Douglas MacArthur? Read "American Caesar" sometime, but then discuss it someplace else. This is a Roman history site, and we don't do modern parallels on this forum. So the republic is to blame because it didn't stop the enemies of the republic? That's as good of an example of blaming the victim as I've ever heard. It's logically equivalent to blaming a woman for being raped.