M. Porcius Cato

Certainly your characterization is supported by what we hear from Cicero's speeches and by the fact that Sulla's own former supporters rushed to undo his legislation. Still, I wonder whether those who had been victimized by Cinna and Marius felt the same way.

Very cool. What does the S stand for?

Isn't the name of the store--Basilica Porcia--a clue about the identity of the designer?

What do think of Sulla? Perhaps this could be a thread unto itself?

Very illuminating. I guess if you're looking for a paraphrase of other's work, Adrian Goldsworthy is your man.

I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem physically possible to have more than a dozen dagger-wielding senators rushing a non-complaisant Caesar without so much as one accidental fatality. Even just six or seven assassins would be a grave threat to one another in the scenario described in the sources. More than 20 is just absurd. I wonder if there has been a forensic re-enactment of what's been described in the various sources.

HERE the NYT reports that former classics student Boris Johnson stands a chance of beating Red Ken for mayor of London. Can anyone across the pond tell me, What do Brits think of Boris?

Adrift from Sulla, posts 73+ should maybe be split?

Caesar's siege engineer, Mamurra, was very accommodating (or so Catullus says).

Yeap, it's Cicero's de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. Find it HERE! Ironically, the production of the Lorem ipsum text is known as greeking.

Ugh. This kind of thing gives historical imagination a bad name. What I have in mind as a good reconstruction is Italian Manpower, where Brunt essentially takes a small number of population statistics from ancient sources and considers what they imply in light of modern demography. Or, as another example, how Syme used prosopographical evidence to reconstruct stemmata for the leading figures in the late republic and thereby trace possible family connections that might cement long-term political alliances. Or, as still another example, how Keith Hopkins traced the birth and death rates of leading aristocratic families to shed light on the relative stability of the Augustan regime. In all three cases, the historical narratives that emerged were novel, but they were clearly rooted in evidence that previous historians had not considered systematically. I hope the difference between these reconstructions and those of Everett are clear.

What's this recent biography? Is the theory based on any newly uncovered facts? In either case, a good reconstruction of events adheres to Occam's Razor and does not make any more assumptions to piece together what is known than is necessary. In your example, the author assumes that the ancient slander against Livia was correct, which simply isn't necessary to explain why an old man would die.

Novel reconstructions? Thats speculation, not history. And in mentioning these historians you reinforce your view that the only historians worth reading are the ones that agree with your own opinions. You really don't know what you're talking about. I'm assuming you've read none of the authors on my list. Almost all the historians on my list are those with whom I have grave disagreements. These aren't small disagreement either, but the big ones that we have fought about in the past. For example, my theory on the fall of the republic is diametrically opposed to almost everyone on the list with the exception of Gruen and Millar. And if you think that it's possible to put forward an ancient historical narrative without reconstruction--that is, without going beyond the raw evidence given--you must have a crystal ball. Lacking such magical devices, every historian is forced to put forward some kind of reconstruction of events from the limited information given. In this they're no different from a prosecuting attorney: not eye-witnesses, but forced to put together a theory of who did what where when and how and why from a less-than-complete record. (Actually, their position is even worse than that of a prosecuting attorney, who at least can choose not to prosecute cases with insufficient evidence.)

He did this not out of necessity but choice. So what other citizen cavalry could he have chosen?

I think we all agree that Goldsworthy attempted to present his book on Caesar as non-judgmental. I just don't think we need another non-judgmental book on Caesar. If AG has some very definite views on Caesar, I'd love to hear them even if I disagree. Now that sounds fascinating! If so, three cheers for AG!

I think we discussed this in another thread. Outside P. Clodius, there were no other clear-cut examples that could be named as having renounced the patriciate for the sake of tribunician power. Who were you thinking to have transferred to the plebs for the sake of a priesthood?

That's a delicious What-If: What if the Book of Enoch had been substituted for the Book of Revelation?

'ius imago': The priviledge of the nobility to preserve wax deathmasks of their ancestors and display them at funerals. No. According to the review by Stevenson, "there was no formal ius imaginum." As Flower points out in "Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture" (pp. 53-55), the very Latin phrase "ius imaginum" is an an invention of 16th century scholars. In the ancient sources, the closest phrase appears in Cicero, who refers to a ius imaginis ad memoriam posteritatemque prodendae, that is the right of handing over one mask to future generations, NOT the right to preserve such death masks in the first place or to display them at funerals. To answer the original query, within one's own home, one could display one's own portrait at will. And there are certainly plenty of examples of private portraits to be found, including portraits donated by municipia (e.g., Brutus had a number of these portraits at his Tusculan villa). Of course, putting a statue of oneself in public was not legal, and censors often pulled down unauthorized statues (e.g., Livy 40.51.3). Further, the senate could vote to erect a statue of a magistrate in a public place (typically in a temple precinct).

No--the Gracchi were born plebs. You've misunderstood PP. Caste (like citizenship) came from the father's line, not the mother's. And no--they didn't get any special support from the people because they were plebs either. Most of the Senate was plebeian. (Also, who do you think put the Senators in the senate in the first place? It was the people.) And once the Gracchi supported enfranchisement for Italians, it was the Roman people who abandoned them.

A fair possibility, though we know that there theoretically should have been at least 23... once for each of Caesar's wounds. Actually, that should be NO MORE THAN 23, no? Why assume just one blow from each assassin? If I'd been in Cassius' sandals, I'd not have been content with less than a dozen!

Rosenstein & Morstein-Marx (Eds.). A Companion to the Roman Republic. Gary Forsythe. A Critical History of Early Rome. A E Astin. Scipio Aemelianus. Nathan Rosenstein. Rome at War. ****Erich Gruen. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Meier. Caesar. **** If you read only one book on the late republic, read this.

For the most part he did. It just took him a bit longer to do the job, and the death of many opponents was masked by the fact that they occurred in battle. Notice that most of those involved in his death were actually considered his friends. Of all of those named, only Quintus Ligarius showed any real history of being an anti-Caesarian as an opponent in the war in Africa. (Lucius Tillius Cimber's brother had been exiled but Cicero claims that Tillius himself was a strong partisan of Caesar... at least prior to joining the conspiracy). Of course, in fairness to Caesar famed clemency, Ligarius was one of those who had been pardoned and we certainly can't be certain of the partisanship of the 50 or so other conspirators who have not named in our surviving sources. Were there really another 50+ conspirators, or were there just another 50+ citizens whom the next triumvirate needed an excuse to kill?

Why do you think there is any?

Cato as Jacob Marley, huh? Who will play the role of the Ghost of Republic Past, the Ghost of Republic Present, and the Ghost of Republic Future?

That will make pigs of most, if not all, civilisations for most of history. Historically, slavery is not that as common as you think. But, you take my implication correctly--before the Stoics developed the concept of individual rights (and for a very long time after), most civilizations were piggish and had no idea that anything better was possible. By the 1860s, the South had no such excuse.