M. Porcius Cato

Yes. From the Appian I linked to above: It is said that at one of their meetings in the gymnasium Scipio and Hannibal had a conversation on the subject of generalship, in the presence of a number of bystanders, and that Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general, to which the latter replied, "Alexander of Macedonia." To this Scipio assented since he also yielded the first place to Alexander. Then he asked Hannibal whom he placed next, and he replied, "Pyrrhus of Epirus," because he considered boldness the first qualification of a general; "for it would not be possible," he said, "to find two kings more enterprising than these." Scipio was rather nettled by this, but nevertheless he asked Hannibal to whom he would give the third place, expecting that at least the third would be assigned to him; but Hannibal replied, "To myself; for when I was a young man I conquered Spain and crossed the Alps with an army, the first after Hercules. I invaded Italy and struck terror into all of you, laid waste 400 of your towns, and often put your city in extreme peril, all this time receiving neither money nor reinforcements from Carthage." As Scipio saw that he was likely to prolong his self-laudation he said, laughing, "Where would you place yourself, Hannibal, if you had not been defeated by me?" Hannibal, now perceiving his jealousy, replied, "In that case I should have put myself before Alexander." Thus Hannibal continued his self-laudation, but flattered Scipio in a delicate manner by suggesting that he had conquered one who was the superior of Alexander.

The best primary source of information about the Battle of Magnesia comes from Appian. A very nice, annotated version of Appian's Syriaca can be found at Livius.org, complete with images of the types of combatants that would be found at Magnesia.

Certainly compared to all the other despots mentioned, Augustus' monarchy ended in a fairly mild and beneficent government. I'm not sure that he was any better than Trajan or Hadrian, but I take your point that he was about as good as a monarch can be (which isn't saying much). Still, if you compare him to his contemporaries (like Cicero), Octavian was a bloody terror, and if he had died at Actium, his reputation would have been no better than Catiline's.

I haven't read Maty's book yet, so I don't want to address the above as though it belongs to Maty's thesis. However, I don't think the most important constitutional changes involved substituting the imperial family for the senate. The two most important changes in the constitution were stripping the people of (1) the right to bestow tribunician power, and (2) the right to elect magistrates. The first move was Augustus'; the second was Tiberius'. Limited, representative government came to a final end when the people lost these two rights--the right to have someone to run to when a rotten magistrate wanted to abuse you and the right to choose your own officials. Without fear of the tribunes, Augustus and Tiberius could (and did) exile, torture, and murder political enemies under the cover of law; without elections, Augustus and Tiberius could (and did) elevate even children and teens to the highest levels of government. What a sham! It's certainly true that during the republic, the people had a self-destructive tendency to elect rich men of well-known families (some things never change). Cato the Elder, a new man, upbraided the people for this tendency, telling them that if they kept voting for candidates with familiar names, they should expect to have the senate filled with Metelli, Cornelii, etc. All of this smacks of elitism, but it was an elitism that rested entirely within the control of the people to change--which they did, often enough, by electing New Men (after Sulla--the majority of the senate) and by electing plebeians like themselves (also the majority of the senate). The republic wasn't a utopia, but no place is a utopia (literally!). In spite of its imperfections, however, the people had real rights and protections under the republic that were stripped of them by that most-holy Venereal Family.

I agree that by the first century BC, Rome was ripe for change--whether that change came from positive reformers like Livius Drusus and Cato the Younger or from opportunistic thugs like Cinna, Sulla and Caesar. What I object to is not the notion that the republic faced new challenges that required adaptation. What I object to is the notion that the victory of the thugs was pre-destined, that the republic was "doomed," and that the conditions that created the opportunity for the thugs also absolves these thugs of their moral culpability in the demise of representative government. In fact, there was a flurry of reforming legislation from 133 onward, with most of that legislation approved by the senate itself. Thus, though the republican system was conservative, it was also responsive to new needs. In this way, it was able to do what the principate could not: adapt to the growing pains of expansion while providing stability as imperium passed from magistrate to magistrate. In contrast, the demise of the republican constitution brought expansion to a grinding halt and simultaneously exposed Rome to the risk of civil war with the death of every princeps.

What a motley bunch of myopia, silly speculation, and outright falsehood. First, Augustus' legacy was not limited to his own reign. By kicking aside a deliberative mechanism of succession (i.e., the vote) for no mechanism whatever (i.e., adoption did not grant imperium), the principate--with its unlimited powers--was always up for grabs, thereby inaugurating centuries of civil war far more brutal and wasteful than any from the republic. Count up the 400 years before the inauguration of the principate and the 400 years after, and you'll find that nearly HALF of all emperors were killed in civil wars and strife, compared to only some 5% of consuls in the republic. Augustus brought an end to one civil war--but his constitution (such as it was) led to many, many more. Second, what evidence is there that Rome got a "better police force and fire department"?? These institutions didn't exist in the ancient world. Moreover, Augustus' one contribution to the water supply--the Aqua Alsietina--produced such undrinkable water that it was mainly used for watering gardens and ancient industrial work like tanning. Third, the quality of literature in the Augustan age is a matter of taste, but Augustus' treatment of the people who actually produced that literature is a matter of record. The greatest of these--like Ovid--were persecuted by Augustus' fascist family values campaign, a program of minute control of the very reproductive freedom of Romans that would not see its equal in totalitarian ambition until the advent of Communism, or were so utterly disgusted by Augustus--like Virgil--that they wanted their work destroyed rather than to be used to marble over the sewage heap of Augustus' legacy.

Did Sir Ronald publish any books on this topic? His stuff is really hard to find here in New Zealand. I'm hoping that I can find some on the net. The Roman Revolution contains a few prosopographical analyses, but his serious prosopographical work was published in scholarly journals.

The IPCC findings were not co-signed by thousands of climatologists. Many--maybe most--signatories were simply bureaucrats working for international agencies. In any case, there is a nice web site--Climate Debate Daily--aggregating the latest news supporting each side of the global warming debate.

LOL. What % of Americans pay no Federal taxes at all? I think I heard it was nearly 40%.

As a family, the Claudii have a reputation for arrogance, cruelty, malice, and spite--from Appius Claudius the Decemvir (who sold the free girl Verginia into slavery) to Publius Claudius Pulcher (who threw the sacred chickens overboard before destroying a Roman fleet) to Livia herself. I'm wondering when this family reputation was first noted: Was it read back into far history from the knowledge of Livia's behavior, or was it acknowledged even before?

I know the timeline of some of the events in 63 BC are a little murky, but is it known when the Senatus Consultum Ultimum was granted to Cicero? October 21. See Cic:Cat_1'4, '7; Sall:Cat_29'1-3; Plut:Cic_15'3-4; DioCass_37.31'1-2 Is it your view that was what Caesar was after all along? Even if the Senate yielded to his request to run for Consul in absentia? Do you think Caesar would still have been moved to make a grab for Dictator? I think Caesar supported the OFFICE of dictator his whole life--or at least he wasn't opposed to it; he was also universally suspicious of the role of the senate his whole life (a cabal of plebs, don't you know?). That's all I wanted to argue--that in dealing with temporary crises, Caesar favored dictatorship to the Ultimate Decree, not that Caesar had designs on the dictatorship for himself as early as 63 BC (he may have, but the assumption isn't necessary for my argument).

What about to the point itself? What would the rationale be for trying Rabirius on a 37 year old charge BEFORE Cataline? Was it Caesar just trying to do anything to stick his thumb in the eyes of the Boni? There's no need to view Caesar's motivation this way. The target clearly wasn't Rabirius (hence, the charges were dropped) or even the party of Catulus (hence, no further charges were brought), but the SCU itself. The SCU was emerging as the preferred mechanism for dealing with temporary crises--preferable, that is, to dictatorship, which was seen by many (including ultimately Pompey) as a dangerous office that could be abused by another Sulla. At this juncture in Roman history, NOBODY wanted another Sulla. (Well, almost nobody--there was a band of entitled young patricians who seemed to love the idea of wearing purple...when they weren't wearing pink.) Constitutionally, this conflict was inevitable. There had to be something to deal with the weaknesses of the co-consulship during a crisis. Caesar's apparent view--and this is clear from his behavior during his entire career--was against the SCU and for the office of dictator. Working against the SCU is consistent with his support for the office of dictator, as were his comments regarding Sulla's foolishness in giving up the office voluntarily, was his support for Pompey's extraordinary powers, as was his marriage to the daughter of the blood-stained Sulla, as was his approach to his own consulship, as was his own seizing of the dictatorship for himself. Of course, each of these actions might be explained ad hoc, but together they point to a consistent constitutional view. At the very least, Caesar never showed himself to be opposed to the dictatorship (to say the very least). First, McCullough herself says that her reconstruction is BASED on her Caesar-worship (see quote above). That said, one of her hypotheses was worth thinking about--namely, that the trial was cut short because Catiline's army was in the field and that this was the reason for lowering the red flag. It's an imaginative idea, but it's hardly compelling.

What foul language? I used no foul language.

It's a good article. Thanks for pointing it out. I think the article makes it quite clear that the destruction of Carthage was not entirely unjustified, but consistent with conservative Roman values (i.e., the equation of trading with murder, the romanticization of peasant farming over urban civilization, a policy of ruthless suppression of revolts, the belief in Roman maiestas--"betterness", etc). It was obviously shameful to kill and to enslave so many unarmed men, women, and children, but those events were made possible not just by Cato's famous exhortation but by the shameful ideas that made it possible to ignore the humanity of the Carthaginians.

It's not quite as bad as that (it's 1 in 3). So, you follow their error, it goes: 123412341234, and then the sequence repeats. That's 4 leap years (in bold) in 12 years, or 1 every 3 years (non-inclusive!). Anyway, this kind of error answers Cato the Elder's famous question, "How do two priests meet each other in the street and not fall over laughing?"" Answer: they're too damn stupid to get the joke.

Magnificent piece of scholarship in the Journal of Roman Studies; lovely description here.

That explains everything. What branch? Plebeian or patrician?

Except of course Judah, son of Jesus. Kind of strange to take the four names that match the relations mentioned in the writings as statistically significant while leaving out the one that that doesn't. That's a good point.

I don't know if it's an issue of your English, but this is statistical gobbledygook.

Another very nice contribution. Regarding "Asina", my understanding was that it was meant to denote stubbornness. Though I do like the anecdote regarding the business transaction. Also, whatever happened to the Potitia? The fact that they were in charge of the cult of Herakles suggests that they were truly an ancient family, but why did Caecus deprive them of their honors?

Absolutely right, but the Greek name for Magdalene was very uncommon (she's the "Ringo" in the John/Paul/George Beatles analogy that I drew earlier). But that's not even the biggest issue. The much more important issue, statistically speaking, is that the conjunction of names reportedly found in the tomb (although this has been since disputed) matched exactly the relations reported in the Gospels. Of course, this could be a coincidence. But, statistically, such a coincidence is very improbable. For this to occur by chance, it would be like the situation where I draw four cards from one well-shuffled deck and you draw the exact same four cards in the same order from another well-shuffled deck. That's not very likely to happen by chance. Thus, if I predicted that you would draw the same four cards in the same order that I did, and then you did, it would be reasonable for you to think there was something other than chance at work (like a trick). That's the basic reasoning here--it's not likely a coincidence that these four names bear exactly the same relation as the ones reported in the Gospels, thus it's reasonable to think they might be the same people reported in the Gospels. I don't think the problem here is with the rationale, but with the evidence. The fact is that the whole case rests on the four names being found in the right relation to one another, yet (if i understand the report correctly) by the time archaeologists had a chance to study the tomb, everything had been moved and rearranged, making it impossible to tell whether the Jesus remains were really connected to the Magdalene and Mary remains at all. If they were, then the original reasoning stands; if not, not; and no one really knows.

There is no such thing as the "statistical chance of finding the one tomb of Jesus". The probability of a single event is either 1 or 0. In contrast, the probability of finding a tomb belonging to somebody named Jesus can be calculated (from the incidence rate of the name). As can the probability of finding a tomb belonging to somebody named Mary, Joseph, etc. From these, it is possible to calculate the probability of finding these names together simply by chance. Thus, you're asking for a comparison that is statistically meaningless.

Good question. Mary Magdalene is the "Ringo" in the four names mentioned--Magdalene is a totally uncommon name, as weird to them as Ringo to us. But, yes, it's in the tomb, supposedly connected with "Jesus, son of Joseph" and another "Mary". Even if you don't believe that this is the tomb of Jesus, you have to acknowledge that this is a REALLY huge coincidence. The probability of these names occurring together purely by chance is infinitesimal.

Thanks for pointing this out. Though it's better than this, McCullough's argument, "To place the trial of Rabirius before Catilina smacks of, if not caprice, at least pure naughtiness on Caesar's part" (p. 635), made me laugh. Oh, no! Caesar naughty?? Say it isn't so! Not the deified catamite of Bithynia! Nothing naughty about the Venereal butcher of Gaul! Oh, no--we must fix the chronology to save Caesar's reputation from being naughty. LOL. Worse, she even admits "That I have preferred December 6 to December 9 --four days altogether--lies in my interpretation of Caesar's character" (p. 637).

Sure. But how improbable compared to there being a family of "Jesus, son of Joseph"/"Mary"/"Mary Magdalene"? It's like finding a tomb of John/Paul/George/Ringo, and saying it's just a coincidence that they have the names of the Beatles. It's possibly a coincidence but not statistically likely.