M. Porcius Cato

Was politics more polarized during the era of Caesar? I'd say it had too few poles. Also, look at the politics in the era of Cato versus Nasica, Nasica versus the Gracchi, Livius Drusus versus everyone, and Marius versus Sulla. The politics during these conflicts were of very high stakes. Consider: even when Tiberius Gracchus feared for his life should he lose the tribunate and pleaded with the citizens to vote for him, he is not recorded as having resorted to bribery.

Apologies for not seeing this until now, but a hearty happy birthday to you Nephele--looking forward to another annus mirabilis.

No. See HERE.

See my post on Luke above. Also, the key to the superiority of John to Matthew is that the latter makes a hash of the chronology of the Passover feast, which must have occurred after the crucifixion and not at Jesus' last supper.

Lucius Caesar was a kinsman of Caesar and uncle to Antony. Thoranius was the tutor of Octavian. Balbus was Octavian's own grandfather. Look through this list, count up the number of family connections to this blood-soaked junta, and the next time you hear about the importance of family connections in Roman politics, say something. Regardless of Syme's misleading stemmata, the fact is that family is not a map to faction. What trial??

I agree, and I see that you beat me to the point that I wanted to make.

Don't quote authority at me. Give me reasons.

I think you have it backwards. John is most reliable. What's your argument that he's the least reliable? Reread my initial statement. I said he was the least reliable chronology wise. Reread my initial reply: I said you have it backwards. John is the most reliable--chronology wise too.

Fascinating. Also, it seems straightforward that a Jew might be tried under Jewish law, and a Roman under Roman law. But what of a child born to a Roman and a Jew. What of a child born to neither? Full-blooded Romans and Jews certainly weren't the only people passing through Judaea. Under whose jurisdiction did these people fall, since we can probably safely assume that they weren't allowed to kill and steal without penalty.

I think you have it backwards. John is most reliable. What's your argument that he's the least reliable?

What I conclude from Faustus' well-chosen examples is this: The origin of Ur may not be found in conscious planning, but the origin of other cities often is. Or, to put it another way, the origin of urbanization as such was not planned, but the continuation of urbanization from that origin was often one of planning. Speaking only of the ancient world one certainly found a mixture of planned cities (like Alexandreia) and unplanned cities (like Ur).

The finding is also interesting for Roman history. Was Rome "founded" in a single act that united the disparate villages of the seven hills, or did the city emerge slowly as a result of commerce among the disparate villages? If the Ur-pattern is universal, we should favor the latter theory.

Was it that they weren't generally empowered to condemn a man to death--or that they couldn't do so for religious reasons on the day before the feast of Passover (since it would mean that they would have to execute him the following day)? The relevant passage from John admits both interpretations.

I don't pretend to be an authority on teasing out the historicity of the Bible, which is why I relied on Fergus Millar's treatment of the text. Although I'm not a Christian and haven't a religious bone in my body, I don't think that ancient history is best served by ignoring unreliable sources. If that's how we practiced ancient history, we'd have to drop Livy, Suetonius, and all the rest.

New York Times. That does sound interesting! Thanks--I love P&T's Showtime series, Bulls*t.

The generally reliable Polybius is apparently misinformed. According to Smith's Dictionary: By the Lex Cornelia Baebia (B.C. 181) those who were convicted of ambitus were incapacitated from being candidates for ten years (Liv. XL.19; Schol. Bob. p361). The Lex Acilia Calpurnia (B.C. 67) was intended to suppress treating of the electors and other like matters: the penalties were fine, exclusion from the senate, and perpetual incapacity to hold office (Dion Cass. XXXVI.21). The Lex Tullia was passed in the consulship of Cicero (B.C. 63) for the purpose of adding to the penalties of the Acilia Calpurnia (Dion Cass. XXXVII.29; Cic. pro Murena, c23). The penalty under this lex was ten years' exile. This law forbade any person to exhibit public shows for two years before he was a candidate. It also forbade candidates hiring persons to attend them and be about their persons. And in case this wasn't sufficient, Bill Thayer comments: none of the penalties mentioned in this article include the capital penalty. The generally reliable historian Polybius, however, a close first-hand observer of Roman polity, flatly states that at Rome the penalty for bribery was death: παρὰ μὲν Καρχηδονίοις δῶρα φανερῶς διδόντες λαμβάνουσι τὰς ἀρχάς, παρὰ δὲ ῾Ρωμαίοις θάνατός ἐστι περὶ τοῦτο πρόστιμον. (Histories, 6.56.4).

It's interesting to note who would have been a shoe-in to win that election--C. Octavius. According to Velleius, Octavius had been the first-ranking praetor of 62, polling ahead of both Caesar and Bibulus, and unlike Caesar, Octavius hadn't been forced to resign from office in disgrace. Unfortunately, after a distinguished campaign in Macedonia where he was declared imperator by his troops, poor Octavius died mysteriously in Nola. Octavius, of course, was married to Caesar's niece Atia....

Ave, Faustus! I look forward to benefitting from your expertise and interest in the building arts! Sounds like a wonderful way to spend a breakfast.

I was thinking of both (i.e., electoral bribery and bribery of the juries), and it does seem to have been practiced on an unprecedented scale during Caesar's run through the cursus honorum. In his run for the pontifex maximus (against Catulus, best I recall), Caesar reportedly borrowed vast sums for bribes, and his run for the consulship was so rife with bribes that his opponents set up a rival fund to give Bibulus a chance at winning too. I doubt these types of bribes made much of a difference for reasons that I've discussed earlier, but bribery of juries may be a different matter entirely: votes of jurors are much easier to guess, and so if you a bribe a juror and he reneges, it's easier to detect. We certainly have some wild cases where this occurred (e.g., the trial of Clodius for the Bona Dea scandal). Was the frequency of bribery in this period some quirk of Caesarian politics, or was it causally related to the powers of the triumvirs? I tend toward the latter explanation. Thanks to Crassus, the triumvirs' agenda included a kind of corporate welfare for the rapacious publicani, who had vast networks of agents in their employ and who could deliver kick-backs to corrupt officials and their allies. If this political machine was the sort of Roman Tammany Hall that it looks like, then by supporting it, the triumvirs ratcheted up political corruption to levels not seen since the days of the Sullan bounty-hunters.

The command in Galilee was divided between Josephus and the leader of the peasant militia, who had the military sense of a goose. Saddled with this band of rioting fools, Josephus' worst fault was his initial cooperation with the rebels, not his surrender to Roman forces. In the event of the inevitable Roman victory, Josephus was right to surrender and to cooperate with a government that could actually govern the region and bring an end to the anarchy and war fostered by the clueless rebels. In this, Josephus betrayed none of his principles, which were mostly Hellenizing and progressive. Had Josephus died as another martyr, Judaea would have lost its best hope for educating Roman governors about how to avoid past mistakes in needlessly offending Jewish sensibilities. Judaea needed a voice, not a Vercingetorix.

I must confess this is a first for me. You mean a Roman or a Jewish patriot? If it's the second, please define the concept. A patriot is a person who wants his country to succeed and is proud of his country's success. Josephus' Antiquities is an extended work of tremendous pride in his nation. Unfortunately, Josephus tends to be known almost entirely for the Jewish Wars, which attempted to justify Roman rule. If you believe, as I do, that Roman rule was (on net) beneficial to Judaea, then these two works are not at all incompatible. It was patriotism that led Josephus to take pride in the successes of historical Judaea and it was patriotism that led him to detest the zealots who stood in the way of further successes.

Roman coins depict the procedure of balloting, and it looks quite modern in conception. The voter enters an area that has been screened off from view, drops a ballot in a container, and then he exits the area so the next voter can proceed to vote. The fact that secrecy really was assured is attested by Cicero, who complains bitterly about the secrecy of the ballot by remarking that it permits shameful votes.