M. Porcius Cato

I agree about the earlier edition. When I was in Rome last, I carried the Oxford Archaeological Guide with me everywhere, and it was invaluable for identifying some of the more poorly preserved remains.

Polybius' numbers don't really add up. His figures for the losses total to more than the size of the figures that he gave for the whole army at the beginning of the battle.

Best I can tell from Plutarch, Cato the Elder was concerned that the geographic position of Carthage gave it an enduring competitive advantage in maritime trade and made it a permanent military threat to Sicily and the western Mediterranean. Moreover, Carthage was in constant conflict with Numidia, a good Roman ally. I don't think either of these factors required razing the city (nor did most Roman senators either), but it does explain Cato the Elder's beef with Carthage, against whom he had personally fought.

For evidence on Roman attitudes towards barbarians, you needn't look only at what the Romans said but what they did. Roman governors and generals treated unarmed, starving Goths and Britons much more harshly and cruelly than they treated Greeks and other Hellenized people. This, by the way, also exonerates Romans from pure xenophobia (a la the Spartans) -- rather, it was a graded xenophobia.

Not only was Carthage beaten and cowed, it remained a strategically important site for maritime trade. I don't see any reason Carthage couldn't have been given the same treatment as the Greek cities.

The identification is based on pretty slim evidence. Given this, we really need to know how common the minotaur motif was during this period.

But I digress.

Bene! Gratiam habeo! It's already burning a hole in my inbox. --MPC

Pink as a female gladiatrix...ugh. I'm going to get a Coke.

I'm pouring a libation for Fortuna.

Another good reason to visit Ibiza.

All great questions. It really is an amazing find.

Wired Magazine commemorates the discovery of the century HERE.

An interesting question to raise on a forum devoted to ancient Roman history...

I don't get the "DNA incompatibility" idea. Could you give another example of a known "DNA incompatibility" leading to a one-sided exchange of DNA? Also, even if all Cro-Magnon *women* were killed in childbirth bearing the offspring of Neanderthal fathers, that would still leave Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon babies with a chance to grow up and interbreed with either Neanderthals (thereby leaving a trace of Cro-Magnon DNA in Neanderthal DNA) or Cro-Magnons (thereby leaving a trace of Neanderthal DNA in Cro-Magnons). So why are we only finding Neanderthal DNA in us, but not our DNA in them?

What's weird is that there is still no evidence of any of our genes surviving in the Neanderthal genome.

Can you imagine any facts that would convince you that you were wrong? If not, why go to the bother of summer research on the topic?

With respect to the US, absolutely. You will indeed find that industry, banking, and trade grew much, much more in the South in the 150 years after emancipation than it did in the 150 years prior to emancipation. Without slave labor, former Confederate states opened up far more to Northern and international trade, developed transportation hubs, and a vibrant industrial base in textiles, petrochemicals, tobacco products, sugar refinery, and much, much more. Indeed, if you compare the states of the old Confederacy against their former rivals in the North, the most successful (Texas) now has a higher GDP than that of the most successful northern state (New York). Going down the list, the story is much the same, with Florida outperforming Illinois, and North Carolina/Georgia/Virginia sitting between Ohio/New Jersey/Michigan/Massachusetts. (Texas, BTW, now has a GDP almost three times the size of Sweden.) Now what about other countries that emancipated their slaves? You mention Jamaica and Haiti, which is very odd. Perhaps you're unaware that slavery was also abolished throughout the British and French colonies, including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Ha

The fact that the "Roman consul" had used his or her auctoritas to liberate the "slaves" suggests the kids readily detected that something wasn't fair about this whole affair.

But your example of the US supports my point much better than you realize because there's an absolutely essential distinction that you're failing to draw here: the difference between the North and the South. In the Northern US, where slavery was illegal, you had a vast textile industry, as well as industrial production of farm equipment, a very high use of farm machinery per acre of land, massive demand for steel (and thus iron and coal), with railroads and steam-ships carrying these goods, all crossing territories that had been inhabited only by Indians back when Southern states were celebrating 50 years of independence from Britain. In the Southern US, where slavery was legal, industry of all sorts was backward and sparse. Thus, over a single generation, the part of the US that had slaves was living with roughly the same level of technology and civilization that had existed around the turn of the 19th century, whereas the part of the US where slavery was illegal required, rewarded, and spread the technology that did more work than the sum total of the entire slave population of the South. If you're really interested in pursuing this point seriously, you really should read more in-depth American economic history. And WHY don't manufacturers prefer slave labor? Have you ever worked in manufacture? It would be obvious: machines break down, require maintenance, and above all require BRAINS and SKILL. Yet educated slaves are a nuisance -- they're always looking for ways to escape, to regain their freedom, and to get out of work. More than that, an educated slave makes one fact quite obvious: they are human beings like anyone else, not "living tools". It's awfully hard to maintain a slave population and a high level of technology (witness North Korea). First off, an issue like "the effect of slavery on labor-saving technology" won't be settled by trading anecdotes. If slavery reduces the adoption of labor-saving technology 50%, 500%, or 5000%, there will still be SOME technology where slavery is practiced. Consequently, it's entirely possible that Rome would have seen greater use of technology had it abolished slavery AND that Rome used labor-saving devices like water-powered grain mills. (The same point applies to the cotton gin, btw.) Second, Janiculum and Barbigal each present some unique factors that affect the marginal utility of slave labor. One issue is the the opportunity cost of putting a slave to work on a low-profit activity like milling when there are higher-profit jobs to which the slaves can be put. In a situation where slaves could earn more for their masters by prostitution (or other activities) than by milling, we shouldn't find technology replacing slave labor to be too surprising. Another issue is the steady supply of slaves: if the demand for slave labor is elastic, whereas the supply of slave labor is relatively inelastic, we would also expect to find technology replacing slave labor. However, in the aggregate, these types of factors should tend to wash out, leaving a main (negative) effect of slavery on labor-saving technology, just as we see in the American case.

I interpreted the "Strength and honor" line to be a watchword, a word or phrase used to authenticate an order as legitimate or to allow a soldier to pass by a sentry unmolested.

What's the matter? Isn't Forster's (1913) translation of the Latin translation made in the thirteenth century by the Englishman Alfredus from an Arabic translation (now lost) of the Greek original good enough for you?

No one is making any claims about the effect of technology on slavery; the claim is that slavery has a negative effect on (some) technology. And let's be clear about what kind of technology-- labor-saving devices. The claim is that if you have cost-free labor (a questionable assumption about slaves to be sure), then it's easier to add another slave to get more work done than to purchase some kind of device that will do it for you. Given this, all this discussion about weaponry is completely beside the point.

I really really really want to respond to misconceptions regarding Soviet and Nazi technological prowess, but ... this is supposed to be a site on ancient Rome. So, let's try this another way -- among the ancient Hellenistic states, which relied MOST on slave labor? Which relied LEAST on slave labor? Among these states, where was technological innovation highest and where was it lowest?

The V2 was a propaganda device and is a perfect example of both the backwardness of the Nazi regime and its waste of productivity. Of all the weapon systems produced during WWII, none but the V2 has the ignominious distinction of having caused more deaths in its production than its actual deployment! The fact is that the V2 was a total failure -- each V2 cost 100,000 Reichmarks, 1/3 of the total alcohol production of the 3rd Reich, its guidance system was too primitive to hit any intended target (unless you count LONDON as a target!), and as a weapon was worth less than 1/4 of a conventional bomber. The only reason the Nazis even resorted to such a stupid system was that the war was already lost, and they hoped that the mere novelty of the V2 would somehow fool the allies into thinking the Nazis were stronger than the impoverished, backward state that they were in actuality. Since you wanted to use the Third Reich as a some paragon of the 20th century, I'd just point out that the rockets used by Americans were VASTLY superor, capable of landing a man on the moon and with no use of slave labor.