M. Porcius Cato

Really?? Who gets the credit for him then?

I enjoyed it. You might want to check out this thread on Spartacus. (For some reason, these threads always devolve into "I'm Spartacus!") PS No, I'm Spartacus!

If you have a long commute to work or an opportunity to listen for long stretches of time, it's really wonderful. Otherwise, it would be difficult to follow.

No source attests so.

I've never heard of such a thing.

I'm 100% sure because I bought a copy.

That precious clip of Cato denouncing Caesar in HBO's Rome can be found at YouTube here.

Here's the critical clip. There are a few things to notice. First, the only arm cut off belongs to one of the early gladiators, not the giant one. Second, it's Pullo who cuts off the arm, not Vorenus. Third, he does it with a normal gladius. A curved blade is later picked up by Pullo, then by Vorenus, who uses it to slice one of the giant's legs.

Looked like an ordinary gladius to me. But then why suppose that the eponymous gladiator would use the gladius?

I agree entirely. Men who had experience in office were always precious to the republic because it was their experience that was the substance of the constitutional order. This working knowledge of the republican system was not isolated to actual magistrates, of course, but also included the sons and male relatives of magistrates, who were reared in the expectation that they would one day wear the senatorial toga and carry on the republican tradition. From Pharsalus to Actium, this wealth of accumulated experience was wiped out in civil war. In my opinion, this factor more than any other is what explains the death of the republican system.

I agree entirely. My point certainly isn't that the patricians were better men and that Caesar's cause was the better (quite the opposite); my point is that the common view of the Caesarian civil war as being "Caesar and the people versus Pompey and the nobility" is just flat-out wrong. Even Lucan fell into this error in his Pharsalia (7.597f): "Here perished all the glory of the fatherland: on the plains in an enormous heap patrician corpses lie, with no plebeians among them." Aside from the obvious exaggeration involved, Lucan has the statistics reversed. To turn Lucan's famous line ("Victrix causa.."), the closer truth was that the conquering cause pleased the patricians, but the conquered cause pleased plebeians.

Good question. I don't think so, and I know of no precedent in which auguries were legally binding. Do you?

Nice work, Asclepiades. Your analysis further supports what I've been arguing--if anything, the patricians favored the patrician Caesar to the republican cause. The only modification I might make would be to count the Liberator Brutus as half-patrician (through his mother and adoption by his uncle, Quintus Servilius Caepio).

I don't understand your objection. The list does include Caius Cassius Longinus as taking sides against Caesar in Jan 49. As far as I know, the list is comprehensive, but it isn't speculative. Figures with no known loyalty are not included.

At one level, Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum was written to explain the Stoic paradoxes to the intelligent laymen of Rome, the same audience as any of Cicero's writings. Of course, the obvious question then is WHY--of all the things that Cicero might choose to explain to the intelligent laymen of Rome--would Cicero choose the Stoic paradoxes to explain in 46 BC? Again, the best explanation is probably that he wanted to defend Cato's reputation. Cato had just died in 46, and Caesar had the gall to celebrate Cato's death in his triumph in April 46 (in a particularly tacky way: showing placards of Cato tearing himself apart like a wild beast). By defending the very thing for which he had himself criticized Cato--Cato's defense of the Stoic paradoxes, Cicero was making amends and making a defiant statement for the "conquered cause" ("Victrix causa placuit diis, sed victa Catoni"--Lucan). None of the Stoic paradoxes can be attirbuted to Cato. The paradoxes were the essence of orthodox Stoicism, which Cato defended against the innovations of later Stoics such as Panaetius, who was popularizing a watered-down version of Stoicism for a Roman audience. One argument is that Cicero's own opinion of the paradoxes was that they were good for oratory, but that they weren't really true. This argument is based on the opinion of Cicero's alter ego in the Tusculan Disputations. I think the argument is pretty sound. Cato--who enjoyed a high moral reputation--was very successful in popularizing Stoicism in Rome. In many ways, Stoicism was the most congenial of the Greek philosophies to the Roman intellectual tradition. However, it should be noted that in the same period , there were many important followers of Epicurus (especially thanks to Lucretius), including Lucretius' patron Memmius, Caesar's father-in-law L. Calpurnius Piso, and Caesar's assassin Gaius Cassius Longinus. Thus, if Cicero had any claim to fame as a philosopher, he had to deal with the Stoic arguments, the Epicurean, as well as the Aristotelian, Platonic, and Sceptical arguments. Cicero's own philosophical views were somewhat of a mishmash of all these (in my opinion), although some philosophers would say that Cicero was just a sui generis Stoic.

had he done that, the Caesarians would just have had another reason to kill him after the Liberators' defeat. Possibly. But when facing determined killers, an army has a funny way of increasing your chances of survival!

An excellent collection of maps can also be found here.

This is highly unlikely. Symptoms of lead poisoning include irritability, low appetite and energy, difficulty sleeping, headaches, reduced sensations, loss of previous developmental skills (in young children), anemia, constipation, abdominal pain and cramping (usually the first sign of a high, toxic dose of lead poison), and very high levels may cause vomiting, staggering gait, muscle weakness, seizures, or coma. As far as I know, no medical research lists suborning spies, confiscating private property, forcing senators' wives into prostitution, raping dinner guests, and torturing political opponents as symptoms of lead poisoning.

To clear things up enormously, I'd highly recommend Rubicon by Tom Holland. He's a superb writer, and he'll sort things out very nicely for you. Right on both counts. George Washington in particular was a huge fan of Cato, largely due a popular play by Joseph Addison, who was an 18th century British Whig (the party that most consistently opposed autocracy in Britain). A very nice edition of Addison's play was published not so long ago, with a decent biography of Cato and an informative introduction. As you point out, not everyone has had a positive opinion of Cato. For example, the Marxist political activist Michael Parenti has nothing positive to say about Cato in his (I think incompetent) work, The Assassination of Julius Caesar. At least as early as the lex Licinia Sextia in 376. (PP--this fact really should be added to our index of Roman laws.) Lintott implies that the lex Ovinia was also important in opening the doors to plebs (or at least in preventing patricians from getting into the senate automatically).

Cato left no philosophical works, but he was well-known for his spirited defense of the classical Stoic paradoxa. Indeed, the night of his death at Utica, Cato assembled his constant philosophical companions (an Aristotelian and a Skeptic, best I recall) to return to the familiar topics that gave him so much joy to argue. In particular, he wanted to argue the Stoic paradox, "Only the wise man is free". (Nice poetic ending, huh?) The basic paradoxes were these: (1) What is morally right is the only good; (2) Virtue is sufficient for happiness; (3) All virtues are equally meritorious, and all vices equally grave; (4) All fools are mad; (5) Only the wise man is free; (6) Only the wise man is rich. Cato's specific argument in favor of the paradoxa may be preserved by Cicero in his work Paradoxa, which was written in 46, the year of Cato's death. That these arguments were Cato's is circumstantial but likely. The basic reasoning being (1) that Cicero had famously mocked Cato's defense of the paradoxa in Cicero's defense of Murena (whom Cato was prosecuting for bribery) and this mockery left a lasting mark on Cato's reputation, which Cicero was hoping to restore after Cato's suicide; and (2) Cicero was not actually convinced of these arguments himself, a point that he was quite clear to make in his own philosophical treatises. A very good introduction to Stoicism can be found in A.A.Long's Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. Cicero's work Paradoxa Stoicorum can be found through Google Books. Also, Cicero's speech in defense of Murena contrasts Cato's Stoicism with that of Panaetius, the Stoic who most influenced the Scipionic circle.

Fair point. I agree with your whole post.

What a refreshing way to ask for help! Much better than the normal requests. I think your understanding of the question is correct: Did the republic fall due to outside factors--such as Caesar's refusal to disband his army--or did it fall due to intrinsic factors--such as an inherent inability to respond to the demands of the imperial system? We debate this question all the time. I agree with Gruen and Meier that Caesar murdered an otherwise healthy but imperfect republic; others agree with Brunt and Scullard that the system was "doomed" to collapse due to its inability to respond to the crises engendered by its acquisition of a vast empire. Look forward to hearing your views after you're finished with your essay.

Of course Cicero didn't deserve to die! What did Cicero ever do to merit a death sentence? I'd say that his death wasn't even unavoidable, but the only protection for Cicero lay in Antony losing power entirely or in being split from Octavian. Cicero tried both tactics, but quite badly. After the second Phillipic, Cicero's first course of action should have been to leave Italy, to join with Brutus and Cassius, and to prepare for the defense of Mutina. Instead, Cicero concentrated on having Hirtius and Pansa do the job, which they did successfully but at the cost of their lives and both consulships. After Antony survived Mutina, Cicero's best course would have been to encourage a rapprochement between Antony and the Liberators who, unlike Octavian, had not fought him at Mutina. Taking this course would have been supremely duplicitous of Cicero since he was the one who most agitated for Antony's defeat, but at least it would have prevented the Caesarian cause from being united, and Antony seemed disposed toward rapprochement. Stupidly, Cicero instead chose to support Octavian (with equal duplicity), a young man who had the wealth and will (but not ability) to defeat the Liberators. After the lex Pedia was passed, Cicero could have fled immediately for Greece to join the Liberators or at least to settle affairs in Cilicia and thereby free up another capable person for the republican cause. Instead, he waited to die. Was Cicero's death deserved? No. Could it have been prevented? Yes--but only in spite of Cicero!

This must have some basis in fact. A wine barrel from Caligula's personal vineyards was found there. See here for source.

That's a fair point.