M. Porcius Cato

And, a propos of Augusta's post, features a phoenix named Fawkes.

Looking over the California State Standards, it doesn't exactly say that students are expected to know how the distribution of news caused the collapse of the Empire. The idea is to study the strengths and weaknesses of Rome and to use knowledge of these strengths and weaknesses to figure out what caused the rise and fall of the Empire. The wording of the Standards don't necessarily imply that every strength (e.g., citizen rights; Roman engineering; etc) caused the Empire to rise and that every weakness (e.g., slavery; lack of CNN; etc) caused the Empire to fall. Presumably, a sophisticated teacher and an intelligent student would realize that some strengths and weakness were more important than others. More broadly, I'd say that the most important fact that has to be kept in mind in explaining the expansion of the Roman empire is that Rome did NOT expand at a slow, constant rate -- it expanded in fits and starts. For example, it took Rome almost as much time to finally defeat and conquer the small city of Veii (roughly 100 years) as it is did to acquire the whole Carthaginian empire. Why? (Personally, I like Polybius' socio-political explanation, though Polybius didn't follow his explanation to its full implications.) Second, the most important fact that has to be kept in mind in explaining the collapse of the Roman empire is that Rome did not fall at a slow, constant rate -- the fall of Roman government of Western Europe occurred prior to the fall of Africa, which occurred prior to the fall of the Aegean world, which occurred prior to the fall of the Levant and finally Constantinople in 1453. Why? (Personally, I like Ward-Perkins' explanation: the barbarians dunnit.) In either case, it's simply impossible to understand Roman history without understanding the chronology. For this understanding, it's not enough to have a catalogue of "strengths" and "weaknesses". That's important for students to have, but it won't really allow them to see how the major pieces of the puzzle fall together. If I were a teacher, I'd organize the "strengths" and "weaknesses" in following historical narrative: After defeating successive attacks from neighboring Italian autocrats, the small Roman republic became increasingly Hellenized and evolved a competitive electoral system that rewarded expansionist policies, thereby leading Rome to acquire a vast Empire (subject to the domination of successful generals like Pompey and Caesar); once that electoral system was undermined by political violence and civil war, succession was determined by short-term political dynasts, but the very civil wars that brought these dynasts to power also left the empire vulnerable to the new threats posed by the Germanic migrations, which swept first over Eastern Europe, then Western Europe, Africa and the Aegean, leaving only the sea-based power of Constantinople secure, until it finally fell to the Arabs. That's my two cents on the matter.

Thanks for finding the material in Appian--his account is immensely clarifying, and I see you're right that it's entirely consistent with Augusta's conjecture.

You're missing the point of my question. If Octavian did not know that he was Caesar's heir until after he arrived in Italy (as Augusta posited), why did he go to Italy in the first place? My understanding was that he went to Italy because he had learned he was Caesar's heir, and he wanted to claim his rights. If this is wrong, then we need some other explanation for Octavian's journey.

But this doesn't make any sense either. Plebeians and senators were not mutually exclusive groups. In fact, most senators WERE plebeians. What do you think a plebeian is?

Do California State Standards require teaching that news distribution contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire?

Why did Octavian go to Brundisium?

http://www.unrv.com/government/legal-insti...-chronology.php

Thanks for that Asclepiades. It's a reasonable reconstruction of the Tophet. Still, the practice of child sacrifice among the Phoenicians in Canaan leaves me wondering if perhaps the Phoenicians in Carthage weren't guilty of infanticide too.

I've been resisting doing MPC because there are no primary sources to confirm that he dressed like a Goth. Au contraire. The primary sources say that Cato wore the toga pulla, a black toga that would certainly have qualified as dressing like a Goth. Apparently, senators found his toga quite fetching:

It's true that the Eastern capital of Constantinople didn't fall until 1453, but Roman dominance of the Levant and the lands bordering the Aegean fell to the Persians, Arabs, and Slavs beginning around 600. Moreover, the continuation of the Church in the West is small consolation for the utter collapse of all the literary and material comforts enjoyed by Romans, including such basics as tile roofs, pottery, and trade in specialized goods. Heck, even the quality of cows declined to that of the Iron Age. For most of Europe, the barbarians brought a horror-fest of wrenching poverty, vast illiteracy, and bloody violence. If that's not a Fall (with a capital F), I don't know what would be.

"The child mortality rate in Carthage was very high, apparently every 4 out of 10 children died before their second birthday, so some historians believe that this place called the Tophet was in actual fact just a children's cemetery and not a place of sacrifice." What on earth could be causing such an abnormally high child mortality rate? Even by ancient standards, this seems off the charts. More broadly, I'd point out that skepticism about Spartan child sacrifice was the norm too--until a cave cram full of healthy child skeletons was found. In my opinion, the Carthaginians were guilty as charged. (Oh, and Carthage should be destroyed.)

What supports the assumption that Rome actively sought to eradicate the Punic tongue?

Seriously, I don't think people will learn Latin so that they can read the Vatican web site. The Vatican web site might be interesting for teachers of Latin, but even then I think it's utility is pretty limited. In my opinion, the best way to motivate interest in Latin is to motivate interest in the Roman world, where you need Latin to really know for sure what happened, and Latin literature (which can be really, really good). It's the ancients--not us moderns (if Vatican can be called modern)--that will turn people on to Latin.

Thanks Andrew! That was really enlightening.

As MPC will probably point out, no matter where Caesar goes ... corruption is never far behind. And, therefore, no better place to be named after Caesar than Sopranoland.

The Romans certainly thought their empire had fallen, and many blamed the Christians (hence, Augustine's reply in the City of God). Hard to align these facts with your porcelain musings.

What about Dis, the god of the underworld who gave birth to the Celtic nation? Wasn't Dis revered in Rome as well? And, by the by, what kind of savages would worship a deity such as Dis? Hairy, trouser-wearing barbarians... <blech!>

Leaving aside the particular selection of Sulla, the assignment of many offices were by lot, including the assignment of praetors to their various jurisdictions. The rationale should be pretty obvious--once 11* praetors were chosen, deciding who does what would have consumed enormous and precious time in argument, with little gain for anyone. Thus, it was in everyone's individual interest to have the offices assigned by lot, and it would have also been in their individual self-interest to ensure that the lot was not fixed. If this principled argument isn't enough to convince you, there's also the historical observation that the lot as often fell to unpopular, incompetent magistrates as to popular, competent ones. Thus, given how some of the lots fell out (the Fates could be cruel to Rome too), it appears that the Romans really did take the lot seriously and avoided fixing it. *needs fact check

Here's what Appian records: When Mithridates, king of Pontus and of other nations, invaded Bithynia and Phrygia and that part of Asia adjacent to those countries, as I have related in the preceding book, the consul Sulla was chosen by lot to the command of Asia and the Mithridatic war, but was still in Rome. Marius, for his part, thought that this would be an easy and lucrative war and desiring the command of it prevailed upon the tribune, Publius Sulpicius, by many promises, to help him to obtain it. He also encouraged the new Italian citizens, who had very little power in the elections, to hope that they should be distributed among all the tribes

Athens isn't one of Rome's nearest neighbors, and Rome's nearest neighbors weren't democratic. See Asclepiades' post above.

See my post regarding Q. Curtius Rufus' History of Alexander above.

Along the lines of Nephele's argument, I'd point out that there is a fascinating difference between the enthusiasm for space travel among astronauts and that of the general public. Perhaps if more people could go up in space themselves (via commercial space travel) and could have an earth-rise cup of coffee in the morning at a space resort (yes, the prices would probably be out of this world), then there would be not only higher demand for increased space exploration, there would also be the economic resources that would make it possible.

If the money were in the public treasury, wouldn't it have fallen under the jurisdiction of the presiding quaestor? Who was quaestor?

Asclepiades is right about Magna Graecia and Syracusa, meaning that Rome couldn't have copied the political structures of her nearest neighbors. Moreover, what is the likelihood that the ancient Indus river valley civilizations--some of which were also democratic--were also copying Cleisthenes' reforms? It seems more likely to me that the democratic elements in Athens, in the Roman republic, in Carthage, in Etruria, and in India were pragmatic responses to local events rather than wholescale democratic revolutions inspired by Athens. We could be wrong about that, but it seems to fit the facts most simply.