M. Porcius Cato

Looking a bit closer at the family connections, I learned that Drusus the Younger, whom I mentioned as the great optimate hero of Italian rights, was also the maternal uncle of my namesake, M Porcius Cato. I can't quite find a geneaology yet for the whole Cato family, but when I do, I'll be sure to post it here to correct my earlier error.

For Agrippa and Octavian, see http://www.unrv.com/fall-republic/octavian.php BTW, Octavian fought on the same side as Decimus Brutus in Mutina. Together they defeated Antony, who was sent home licking his wounds. Had Antony been killed at the battle, Caesar's heir would probably have been absorbed as junior member into the optimate faction, which would have loved to have had him lest he join forces with Caesar's avengers. For that bit of strategem, we can thank Cicero, who knew a canny political talent when he saw it. Actually, I think I screwed up. Agrippa the future general and bestest-buddy of Octavian did serve under Cato as I said, but it was his brother who was to be executed by Caesar (also presumably for fighting under Cato, but that's unclear). Also, the ancient source for the execution bit was Nicolaus of Damascus, who isn't very reliable.

Are you speaking of Decimus Brutus at Mutina? No, the liberator Marcus Junius Brutus in the First Battle of Philippi. Brutus ate Octavian's lunch. Octavian's military prowess came only from Marcus Agrippa, who had previously served under Cato and was later set to be executed by Caesar the Merciful, but Octavian intervened and by his clemency captured his most valuable military asset. If Agrippa had joined Cato in his trip from Utica to Elysium, Octavian would have been a footnote in history.

Maybe. But I didn't see a or a or even a

Time zones were invented by the railroad companies to allow for standardized time tables. Why would a Roman legionary in a back-water like Palestine care whether or not he was sweating at Roman time or at Palestinian time?

Technically since our calendar, the Gregorian, is an evolution of Caesar's Julian, which is an evolution of the earlier Republican system, its really all the same thing. Though there was some 'correction' that took place in conversion from lunar to solar and with the addition of intermittent leap years. Still using our current calendar, wouldn't 2005 simply be 753 BC + 2005 AD or 2758 a.u.c.? (of course assuming 753 BC as the traditional founding) It's the correction part I can never get straight. Is the correction built into our calendar or not? If it is, why is Jesus said to be born in 4 BCE? You are wrong. I beleive (and will bet on) that it stands for Christ's Era and Before Christ's Era and so I refuse to use it. Actually, I'm not wrong. You're refusing to use a secular alternative when you should be embracing it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

Unless you're on a horse, what good is all that extra sword? Just to wave it about for the girls?

Yes, I think you're right--but what a legal matter to have to decide! The implications, one way or another, would have been profound. Caesar v. SPQR might have been the greatest legal case in the history of the world. If Caesar were found guilty, provinicial rights would have been vindicated even more than in the Verres case. Allies of Rome could have breathed an enormous sigh of relief, and the enemies of Rome would have lost their favorite bogeyman. The Pax Romana would have commenced immediately, and who knows where the process of Italicization might have ended? Most importantly, however, the rule of law would have been upheld against the mightiest of threats. If Caesar were found not guilty, the flood gates would have opened the provinces to every ambitious plutocrat that fancied himself the better of Alexander. Caesar's run from the law would have ended, leaving him free to pursue the Parthians abroad and his allies in Rome to begin their program of reform. Most importantly, however, the rule of law would have been upheld against the mightiest of threats.

I don't think there is a need to start another thread, this one seems adequate. I agree with Germanicus--there should be a new thread. And I don't think anyone is simply a product of their environment, whether there is precedent or not. Obviously almost everything Caesar did was precedented--I don't dispute that. But defending a wrong action based on someone else doing it first is a child's excuse.

Waging war outside one's territory either was or was not illegal--it was. Yes, that's fine. As I've said before, I'm happy to agree that Caesar's actions in non-Roman Gaul may have been legal due to Rome's entangling alliances. Caesar's crime was in spreading the war to the Germans, and I can't see how the same would not have made it criminal also to invade Britain.

The freedom of speech I enjoy is far more important to me than the language I speak. And for that the British (and the Americans) may thank the Dutch, who freed England from the rule of kings in the Glorious Revolution.... The rights to wage war where???. The governor of Sicily hasn't the right to march on Dacia. The governor of Hispania hasn't the right to march on Africa. And the governor of Gaul hasn't the right to march on Britain and Germania. End of story.

Who said a country could "achieve greatness without military action of somekind"? Not me. I said, "without conquest." If you can't distinguish between conquest and any kind of military action, it's no wonder you didn't understand why the Dutch Republic was the perfect example. The military actions it took between 1572 - 1672, generally regarded as the period leading up to and including its golden age, were the ones that expelled the Spanish kings and established a republic, the ones that defended her citizens against English aggression (e.g., against Manhattan, which the Dutch purchased from the natives, unlike the starving English settlers who alternated between begging from the natives and stealing from them), and an occassional skirmish to protect the colonies it inherited from its days as a Spanish puppet state. Even then the Dutch disdained overseas empire, preferring to let them go without a fight, as the cost was greater than the benefit. Later, long after the golden age of the republic, the Dutch behaved like ordinary European imperialists, but it never brought them the greatness. Frankly, as much as I'd love to discuss the history of the Dutch Republic, this ISN'T the place for it, and it's simply irresponsible to go on discussing it. By the conspicuous silence, I assume, then, that everyone is now in agreement that some of Caesar's actions in/around Gaul were illegal, and the only question remaining is whether "the end justified the means" as Tobias has maintained.

CE=Common Era; BCE=Before Common Era. They mean exactly the same thing as BC and AD, even down to the error that Jesus was 3 years old in 1 BC.

I agree with Virgil and Ursus. The parallels between any two eras in history aren't hard to find, and once you find a few, it's tempting to fit everything on that Procrustean bed. While it's natural to use one's own experiences to understand that of others, the danger is that it gives one an illusion of understanding when all one really has is an analogical projection. My feeling is that what makes Rome cool is that it is in some ways utterly unique. Wouldn't it be sad if there were nothing new under the sun?

Early 30s here.

And aqueducts--we have lots of aqueducts.

Me too, but it would take so much practice. I'm not even sure I know what this year is in auc. On whose calendar is dated the traditional founding of the city?

No controversy here. As a city-state surrended by friends, Rome's very survival demanded her loyalty to her allies. But if Caesar were obligated to defend Rome's allies, he was also obligated to defend the Aedui against the incursions of Ariovistus, but instead he initially lobbied to have Rome recognize Ariovistus as a Friend of the Roman People. Only when Ariovistus insulted Caesar, did Caesar attack him and subsequently occupy Aedui lands. I'm not even arguing that these were illegal--just not good foreign policy. After occupying Aeduian lands, I don't think his legal authority allowed him to take control. This was really the casus belli: if Rome can't stop an ambitious plutocrat from conquering her friends, what chance do her unallied neighbors have? Again, the law was designed to prevent this kind of foreign policy disaster. The job of the senate was not to try Caesar in absentia, and the absence of criminal evidence is not evidence of criminal absence. Just because Caesar wasn't yet charged doesn't mean he didn't commit a crime. Also, there were events in Rome for which some Senators were thankful--for example, Cicero was ebullient that Caesar had worked to get him his house back, so he proposed a thanksgiving for Caesar. That kind of quid pro quo is hardly evidence that Caesar was acting legally. Well, the semantic issue concerns the title of this thread more than the legal issue at stake. Caesar's conduct in Hispania was also illegal (again betraying an ally of Rome, as I recall), and the only reason Caesar hadn't been tried on that charge is that he held a series of offices since that time that gave him immunity from prosecution. After Hispania, Caesar was perpetually running from the law and his debtors. Gaul offered him a shelter from both, but even in Gaul (or, to be a stickler, just across from Gaul but technically inside Germania) Caesar went beyond his command. I'm not even sure his conquest of Britain (such as it was) was legal. Ex post facto laws were apparently enforced in Rome (that's how Clodius took Cicero's house). But I don't even think we're dealing with an ex post facto law here. The law gave Caesar a proconsulship, and the proconsuls were only permitted to conduct within a defined sphere (again, the case against Verres is the relevant case law). A proconsul was not a dictator of a foreign land who might also enjoy the use of Roman troops at his leisure. That's not just illegal, it's rotten foreign policy. (MacArthur comes to mind here.) Perhaps these ex post facto laws are offensive to our modern sense of justice, but there are two important points to be made. First, the senate did not pass these laws on their own (they didn't have that power in the first place, and there was a strong Caesarian faction in the senate). Second, the expiration of Caesar's command in Gaul was not extraordinary, and by failing to step down, he clearly was guilty of breaking the law establishing terms of governorial tenure. It would make for an interesting novel, but I agree we can't predict the outcome of the case. We can, however, clearly see that at least *from* Gaul, Caesar broke the laws defining his office--once, when crossing the Rhine, and again, when crossing the Rubicon. Really! Name one. The Dutch Republic.Didn't they colonize areas in Africa and Indonesia? That was after they were already great.

Really! Name one. The Dutch Republic.

At least we don't insist on dating everything ab urbe condita!

Without Caesar's will, Octavian would not have had the loyalty of Caesar's veterans nor the resources to accomplish their goals. Without Caesar's will, the senate would have had no reason whatever to "praise him, honor him, and put him aside", as Cicero famously suggested they do. Without Caesar's will, Octavian could not have outcompeted Antony. The interesting question is what Antony would have done with no Octavian around. The latter was no great shakes on the battlefield (even a tyro like Brutus defeated him), but Antony was obviously easy to outwit, outlast, and outcompete in politics, which is why he always had to resort to his soldiers to get out of a jam. In no sense was Antony Caesar's heir, and I'm very far from a fan of Caesar.

Great example--this kind of venality was certainly an impediment to reform. Look forward to continuing this discussion elsewhere, especially to hear how Caesar was just "a product of his environment"--was it his lack of a good male role-model?

I do! I raised the topic briefly under the Eternal Questions thread. Personally, I've always greatly admired the veristic portraits from the Republic. These portraits didn't idealize their subjects the way the Greek ones did (compare the portrait of Perikles to Cicero for example; or better, Alexander to Pompey). Instead of kalos kagathos (the good and the beautiful), we get severitas et auctoritas. Very Roman. Still, for all the realism and individuality of the veristic portraits, I can't help but think when I see them that I could be looking at a Wall Street stock-trader or Milwaukee shop-keeper--there's something about that stern and crabby demeanor that's universal.

I'm a Carnegie Mellon alum--you from near Pittsburgh Ursus?

Ooops! Good call--ist there a good geneaological chart on the internet? I'm on vacation, so I don't have my library to do a fact check.