M. Porcius Cato

Can you PM me so I can fix it so everyone can comment?

I think this is a very good idea, but I'm afraid there might not be enough demand for it. Perhaps if science/natural history were included, we would have sufficient material--after all, we have a very strong group here discussing Roman medicine. (What I now know about Devil's Dung but never would have thought to ask....) Alternatively, we could expand it still further to Arts and Sciences--that would include architecture and technology and also give us a place to put the "English/Latin translation" threads in a better home.

If by 'prominent' you mean 'famous', I suppose Julius Caesar is now the most famous Roman. Among their contemporaries, however, perhaps Augustus was the most prominent Roman leader. The Res Gestae was plastered everywhere, and he had a stable of propagandists to celebrate him to most of the civilized world. If by 'prominent', however, you mean 'having great significance or value', I think Scipio Africanus was the most important Roman. He saved Rome from annihilation; he generally respected republican institutions; and he provided Polybius to posterity, thereby providing a conduit between the political philosophy of the Roman world and the political revolutions that shaped our own world. Again, I'd nominate Scipio. He conquered Africa, saved Italy, had a hand in conquering Spain and Asia, and he turned the Roman army into a tactical tiger. These accomplishments were much more important in laying the groundwork for Italian domination than running up the body-count in Gaul to get a triumph. Depends on what I was thinking of before I was thinking of Rome. If someone says "blah blah architecture blah blah Rome", I think Vitruvius. If someone says "blah blah Germany blah blah Rome," I think of Mussolini! That's just how memory works--it's called priming.

OK--I'm now done with the family tree of the Porcii Catonis. You can view it here. I think it may be the only stemmata of this family that is available on the internet. I also couldn't find one in any of my books or any cited anywhere I looked. The main point to make is that the L. Porcius Cato who died fighting the Marsi was the paternal uncle of Cato Uticensis. This is actually ironic because Cato's maternal uncle, M Livius Drusus, was a pal of the Marsic leader Silo. There is a cute anecdote in Plutarch about one encounter between Cato and Silo: The anecdote is somewhat doubtful, as Cato would have been only 4 years old at the time (91) and unlikely to have any views on Italian citizenship one wasy or another. Also, being that Cato's family was Sabine and his great-grandfather a New Man, it would have been even more absurd for Cato to have had any anti-Italian views.

while unpleasant, I think Cato is accurately describing things only from the plaintiffs viewpoint. That's right--personally, I love Italy (especially the food!) I know the Church isn't a monster, and I agree with you that most people in the west enjoy enormous freedom and toleration for their religious (or lack of religious) views. I'm just trying to project the plaintiff's frustration for the benefit of those who might have never considered what that frustration might be.

Thanks Ursus. I'd forgotten about the specificity of Levitican prohibitions. It's interesting how often they come and go out of style. The Victorians seemed to have medicalized all sorts of Leviticus-inspired taboos (the most famous being the alleged connection between 'onanism' and blindness).

Any statistics available on this? Yes, but I don't have them handy. I think my old teacher David Buss has them in his book, "The Murderer Next Door." Wilson and Daly probably have them also in their book on homicide.

Cicero really, really tried to change the system so honors were bestowed for good statesmanship. Unfortunately, he ended up looking like a braggart in doing so. I do think his efforts were in the right direction though.

Heh--this thread is just one step removed from Tartarus.

These years were critical and were the best documented of any other period. And I might add by far the most interesting years (along with the 2nd Punic War) of roman history for me. I agree with you completely--the late republic/early principate were much more interesting (and well-documented) than the domestic affairs of the middle and early republic. My concern, however, is that these "interesting times" (to recall the Chinese curse) may also tend to distort our appreciation for the relative stability of the two systems.

What I find psychologically interesting is that when adulterous couples are caught in flagrante delicto by a husband, the husband very often kills his wife but not the male adulterer. For those who think the mind is shaped by culture and not biology, I'd be very interested in hearing an explanation for this disparity.

Is Hebrew tribal law really the source of Christianity's hang-ups about sex? Seems to me the neo-Platonists weren't too happy about corporeal pleasures (or corporeal anything) either. If the sexual ethics of Hebrew trial law were really the lasting legacy of Christianity, well that's just sad.

Is there a page with all of the UNRV-Amazon links in one spot? I'm about to buy a whole mess of stuff from Amazon, and I'd like you guys to get the kick-back.

The guy who's bringing this case to court is nearly 80 years old. Let him get all off his chest so he can die happy. Living as an atheist in Italy must be a surreal experience. To understand it, you have to take this militant atheist's perspective: Your whole life you're watching people gobble up crap while telling you you're a sinner for not joining in the feast; your country is renowned as the gourmet epicenter of crap-eating; and your school-boy chum is a crap chef. Now, you're almost dead--what could be more liberating than telling the whole world that they're full of crap? I know--seems crazy.

OK. I still prefer Lucretius to all the fawning power-worshippers in the empire's "golden age". Those court jesters of Augustan literature (especially Virgil) were servile tools of dictatorship, and their love notes to Augustus were nothing compared to the poetry of Catullus, who still had the freedom to insult a Caesar. This is probably all a matter of taste--which is why I would never have guessed in a million years that someone was evaluating the republic versus the principate based on the evidence of comparative literature. Why not sculpture instead? Or maybe the quality of the brothels? Judging by my bookshelf full of "golden age" literature, it seems there were plenty of top-notch whores during the principate. And who but a whore would write for his patron, Makes me want to vomit. And to think--that Augustus exiled Ovid after this literary irrumatory ! Fine, count them up and divide by total number of senators, and do the same for the last two hundred years of the principate. You, of course, can't do this because we don't have the names of all the senators in later years, and for good reason. It would have been a meaningless excercise to record their names--they were powerless. Next time you propose an alternative measure, you might bother checking with it even exists. Produce the list and do the math--otherwise, you've only listed 5, 3 of whom were killed after the senate and people of Rome were no longer in power. Have you ever heard of the Crises of the Third Century? Roman culture sure exploded then.

Phil, I realize you prefer dictatorship to freedom, but could I remind you for the last time to quit trashing my country on a forum about Rome????? Your position is clear--you desire a despot; you think all moral evaluation is puerile (except of course your own moralizing about America); and you believe that cherry-picking data is more productive than statistical anaylsis. Fine. We disagree.

While drawing up a stemmata for the kinsmen of Cato, another connection between Servilia and the liberators emerged: she was not only the mother of Brutus but the mother-in-law of Cassius! Looking at the stemmata, it becomes quite clear just how very well-connected Servilia was: grand-daughter to two consuls, half-sister of Cato, sister-in-law to Lucullus, mother of Brutus, wife to a consul, mother-in-law to two consuls, and so on. It's no wonder the liberators met at her house.

Not much consolation to be told that everyone is equal in the eyes of X, when you're also being told to obey your masters, obey your husbands, etc. At least that's my thinking.

Not really. And thanks--I just uploaded my first gallery item: a stemmata for the family of Cato!

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No males or females??? Then how do we reproduce??? Obviously, Paul's theology (as well as his biology) was a jumbled hash of contradictions. How anyone manages to make a dogma of it is beyond me.