M. Porcius Cato

The Roman Historians by Ronald Mellor.

Literally, "adopted out by the Julii" makes the Julii the agents of the adoption--as if the Julii had somehow kicked Catulus out of the family and found him a home among the Lutatii. That seemed like a far-fetched possibility, but I wasn't sure whether you noted the grammatical implication.

I'd just add that usucapio ("you leave it, you lose it") also provides a sufficient legal basis for agrarian-based colonists to claim title to traditional lands of nomadic raiding parties.

I don't think so--why do you ask? Wait a second, what does "adopted out by the Julii" mean?

Greenidge, A H J. (1904). A History of Rome, Vol 1. Greenidge provides a fairly comprehensive examination of the Jugurthine War, and in his biography of Sulla, Keaveney considers this account to be authoritative.

You're right that it's work, but girls were expected to do it, to do it well, and to take pride in it (though perhaps not as much pride as Arachne). No one would have viewed a girl who shirked her weaving as a free spirit--they would have viewed her as lazy and callow. If Jane Austen set a novel in ancient Rome, you can bet that the silliest girls in the household would be the ones pouting about their weaving.

"Go into town"? If you're a young, rich, Roman woman, where do you think you live? The suburbs? The rich paid a very heavy price to live--or at least have a tony address--close to the city forum. And sure, no one will stop you from helping the poor. Except the mob of poor will hound you like the Erinyes once they find out you're giving out free cash. Oh, and your friends and relatives will think you daft for helping the poor (as if drinking the blood of your deity weren't gross enough). There's a great book on this theme, btw. "Quo Vadis?"

I downloaded the demo for Imperium Romanum--or, "Imperivm Romanvm" as the developers like to call it. Based on what little I could make from the demo, the developers' grasp of Roman life is disappointingly svperficial. While you will find lots of V's for U's, you'll also find characters running around with names like "Cicero Julius" and "Caesar Tullius", poorly engineered aqueducts, and large numbers of publicly-owned slaves that scurry to build private dwellings for poor families. After some archers I trained (all native Roman, not even auxilia) defeated a tribe of Gauls that almost bested my hastati, I called it a night.

Now see there Ursus, even your namesake--a Julian--wasn't safe with those emperors running amuck!

All I've got is the memorable first line of Victor Hugo's great novel, The Man Who Laughs: Ursus and Homo were fast friends. Ursus was a man, Homo a wolf. Their dispositions tallied. It was the man who had christened the wolf: probably he had also chosen his own name. Having found Ursus fit for himself, he had found Homo fit for the beast.

This argument is a variant of the broken window fallacy. In short, there is no net economic value created in these cases because the wealth spent on churches would have been spent elsewhere. Thus, the money paid to the builders of churches could have gone to pay builders of ships, grape-presses, and pottery shops. Since these latter enterprises would be able to return the cost of the initial investment (unlike churches and other money-pits), the net wealth of the empire would have increased (i.e., more goods per denarius) instead of declining.

Audrey Hepburn--after "The Nun's Story," it's typecasting. The Nun's Story was my inspiration! But Audrey (one of the greatest) is dead. x_x Do we have any actresses today like her? I can't think of a single one. Audrey was at her best in this film--probably b/c it was such a great screenplay with such a great director (Zinneman, who did High Noon, another classic).

Diocletian's Edict on Prices, which threatened citizens with death for coming to a voluntary agreement on goods and services, was certainly immoral and unjust, and it must have had a negative economic effect as well. When prices are set artificially low, producers stop producing, leading to shortages. When prices are set artificially high, consumers economize by lowering their purchases of other goods. This is the basic law of supply-and-demand, which should be no more controversial than the law of gravity or evolution by natural selection. Moreover, according to Gibson's analysis, the state had lavished the wealth of the state on economically unproductive churches and monestaries, thereby transferring support from the military to idle mouths that contributed nothing more to Rome than removing themselves from the gene pool. What could be controversial about the economic effects of such a policy? By removing money from the capital markets, the state must have made money less available for loan for commercial enterprises, thereby increasing the interest rate and reducing the likelihood of taking risks on overseas trade, new business ventures, and the like. Again, this is merely basic economics, which should be no more controversial than the law of gravity or evolution by natural selection. What SHOULD be controversial, however, is whether the economic policy of the late empire was sufficient to cause the historical decline that was observed. In fact, the material evidence from archaeology depicts a high degree of luxury all over the empire UNTIL the barbarians invaded. Thus, rather than economic decline being sufficient to explain the fall of Rome, it seems instead to have contributed to the inability of the Empire to finance a sufficient defense against the barbarian hordes, which toppled Roman provinces in Europe, North Africa, the Aegean and Levant, and finally Asia over widely-spaced intervals of time. The timing of all this can't be explained simply by reference to economic factors alone.

Audrey Hepburn--after "The Nun's Story," it's typecasting.

There is a nice list of Roman laws (in chronological order) HERE. edit: fixed link

Can you explain what you mean by a "developed labour market"? Certainly, there was a labor market -- free men bought and sold free labor, whether for agricultural production, transport, or management of slaves. On this see, Cato the Elder. What more is missing?

What papers?

Aristotle's observation, "A swallow does not make a spring," seems relevant here. Just change that to, "One swallow's clear liver doesn't make a clear spring." There's an old tradition of attempting to interpret religious silliness (like avoiding pork) in terms of preserving health. In my view, that line of reasoning is no more kosher when applied to Romans than when applied to, well, kosher.

It's certainly to be found in the Renaissance, but I agree with Ursus that it doesn't exactly jibe with pagan worship. The Romans never pretended to love and adore their deities.

Paintings of emperors (such as that of Septimius Severus below) weren't unknown, but they don't survive very well over time under normal conditions.

Too bad they don't provide pictures of the results. Somehow I think the Julia Domina 'flip' would be too redolent of the 80s.

From today's Grey Lady: An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

"Africa" is not an argument. "Eastern European girls" is not argument. At the very least, an argument requires a predicate. And no one upholds the morality of slavery--not even of enslaving Long Islanders. (The inhabitants of Brooklyn, on the other hand, is another story...)

Modern ideas about the breadth of moral rights would both amaze and confuse them. It's true that the the idea of universal human rights was espoused by Stoics and found favor among Romans like Cato the Younger (who opposed Caesar) and the Pisonian circle (who opposed Nero). But these were a small group of people, and even they never imagined that their universal rights conflicted with slavery, with patriarchy (and I mean real patriarchy, not underwear advertisements that "objectify" women), and with wars of conquest. The Latin termmaiestas--literally, "betterness"--perfectly captures the thinking of the ordinary Roman citizen, with his sense of innate superiority over all non-Roman citizens. Presumably, the end of pater potestas , slavery, and imperialism would delight the many Romans from whom we hear nothing. But the same ideas would also confuse them. In the modern world, the cosmopolitan ideal of recognizing the rights and equality of foreigners has extended gradually to encompass not only all humans, but also to encompass the "animal companions" of humans, then rare "endangered" animals, then to protect all animals from "cruelty", and finally now even to extend to protect plants and hills from "exploitation". How far this "expanding circle" of moral protection (to use a phrase from the philosopher Peter Singer) will--or should--go is a matter of debate even today. But I think it's safe to say that for a Roman patrician, the modern world would be like a minefield of moral outrage, with explosions of anger and horror for such ordinary (to him!) behavior as scorning plebs, murdering barbarians, raping slave girls, setting exotic animals to slaughter for sport, razing ancient forests, and washing away the habitats of bunny-rabbits for the mining of silver and tin.