M. Porcius Cato

This made absolutely no sense to me. Ages are a continuous variable, therefore using a nonparametric test is inappropriate. Good question. The independent variable (length of life) is indeed continuous, BUT the dependant variables for each analysis (1.- born before or after 100 BC; 2.- firmness of the dates of birth and death) are not; they are categorical. As far as I now this test is an acceptable alternative under this circumstances. You have it backwards. The DV is the thing being measured--in this case, lifespan. The IV is the thing being manipulated (or, acting as a predictor of the DV)--in this case, category of date (before/after 100 BC) and "firmness" of dating. When you have an continuous DV (which lifespan most certainly is) and a categorical IV (which is what they're using), choosing a non-parametric test is typically inappropriate (especially for small samples) because it's likely to make overly conservative errors (i.e., fail to find differences where they really exist). Given that a few assumptions are met (which they don't report on one way or the other), they should have instead used some variant of a general linear model (probably a mixed model would be best). BTW, since their chief claim is that the samples don't differ, their choosing a statistical test that is biased to fail to find real differences is pretty sleazy. In fact, the only reason that this was news was the surprise value of their "finding" that the lifespans of the ancient Romans (at least the elite ones) was no different from the lifespans of the modern ones (at least the elite ones). Tsk tsk tsk.

Right--the rationale is understandable, but the remedy makes no sense. To protect sites, the Cypriot government can pass all the laws they like, erect barriers, whatever. That might even prove successful. It's also reasonable to sign treaties (which they already had with the US) that would ban the sale of unique antiquities like sculptures and the like. None of this is new, and none of this is objectionable. What's new and objectionable is putting ancient coins on the list of antiquities. No other nation has such a treaty with the US (or anyone else, as far as I know). The reason that coins aren't included is precisely the one that I stated earlier--the source of an ancient coin on the market is impossible to determine. All that can be determined (at best) is where the coin was minted and where it is being sold, neither of which is relevant to the cause of protecting archaeological sites in Cyprus. The only thing that could help--and this is my real fear--is the banning of ALL sales of ancient coins. And, frankly, I don't think it's right to do that for a very long list of reasons.

Camillus was undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the history of the republic. Out of curiosity, is there a UNRV biography on anyone (in the appropriate time frame) who has not been mentioned in my list? I don't think there's a Biographies section here at UNRV, and it might be useful to use this list as a way of organizing the biographies that have been written (e.g., by including a link to the bio on Spartacus in the entry on Crassus).

Of 1000 coins minted in location A, how many are likely to remain there? Likely, not bloody many--a fact you can check for yourself by tracing the flow of your own dollars all over the place. Of 1000 roof tiles placed in location A, how many are likely to remain there? Likely, most of them, because people don't move their roof tiles willy nilly. This means that if I outlaw trade in Cypriot coins, I'm most likely not protecting ANY sites in Cyprus for the elementary reason that coins minted in Cyprus are not likely to be FOUND in Cyprus. They'll be found all over the Roman world and acquired legally. And if I do find a coin in Cyprus, there is no way anyone could know that I found it there as opposed to a zillion other possible locations. The only practical consequence of this law is that coin dealers are going to find it irritating to point out these facts to some measly bureaucrat, and they're simply going to quit advertising coins minted in Cyprus (there weren't that many) so that they'll be left alone.

Why is Pyrrhus ranked higher than the man who defeated him--M Curius Dentatus?

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction. I see no conflict with what I said. Non-human primates think, just not to the degree and development that we do. But this assumes that all differences in thinking are a matter of degree, not kind. In contrast, the specialization of neural circuitry for distinct mental processes shows that there are kinds of thoughts not shared by non-human primates. Needless to say, none of this implies evolutionary discontinuity with primates or some kind of absolute human superiority. All over the animal kingdom, genera of the same family can differ enormously due to specialization of function. Just look at birds, where you can find both the songless and the flightless. Yet, no one dreams of arguing (with Darwinian indignation) that the difference in flight between an ostrich and an eagle is merely one of degree.

Yes, according to Gregg Easterbrook, at least by the media and general public.

"You blocks! You stones! You worse than senseless things!" -- my favorite curse while driving in traffic. From the original Shakespeare (Julius Caesar, Act I, Sc I): Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels? You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave shores? And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now cull out a holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude.

This made absolutely no sense to me. Ages are a continuous variable, therefore using a nonparametric test is inappropriate.

That reminds me to mention that I automatically included everyone who was a subject of Plutarch's biographies (those names are in bold). For this reason alone, I had to include the two Porcii Catones (like it was twisting my arm--ha!) My criteria for most influential was making a significant contribution toward (1) integration of plebeians and non-Roman Italians into all levels of government, (2) the Hellenization of Roman culture, and (3) the projection of Roman power outside Italy. Scipio Africanus gets high marks for #3, but his Hellenizing role was less than that of Scipio Aemilianus and Aemilius Paulus (both whom contributed greatly to extending Roman reach) and his role in working toward the political participation of plebeians and Italians much less than that of Publicola, Dentatus, and Livius Drusus. There was a fourth criteria I considered, which was the role in protecting Rome from invaders. It might be a fun exercise to make a list of Rome's great defenders. Camillus, in my view, would probably top that list, with Dentatus closely behind.

I agree. Now if young Marlon Brando been given the same script...

Thanks for posting that. I think the most interesting data from the study is that when you go either from "circa" to "firm" dates or from earlier to later dates, you get lower life spans. What this suggests is that there was a tendency to overestimate the ages of eminent men. Moving away from the estimates of our ancient sources to firm records, the most reliable data would be the ages of those born after 100 BC for whom we have definite birth dates. This group had a median age of 58 years compared to the modern median age (for comparable sample) of 78 years. Thus, the life-spans of the Roman elite were shorter than that of the modern elite.

That is a very difficult question, but it can be broken down. Start by asking what positive events were most responsible for shaping the classical republic. I'd say they were (1) integration of plebeians and non-Roman Italians into all levels of government, (2) the Hellenization of Roman culture, and (3) the projection of Roman power outside Italy. These are the three events that transformed an agrarian-based, local power ruled by a hereditary aristocracy into a money-based, international power ruled by elected representatives of the people. It's difficult to find one man who very substantially contributed to all three trends. Maybe Aemilius Paullus.

For normal artifacts, I understand the need for the rules. But in the case of coins, it is impossible to enforce and merely attempting to do so will destroy the openness of the coin community, which is indispensable to the dissemination of knowledge.

The free flow of U.S. dollars for ancient Roman denarii has been the joy of American numismatists for ages. On Monday, that Geldfreude came to an abrupt halt at the borders of Cyprus. According to this NYT article, "new rules...would essentially bar the importation of any ancient coin from Cyprus unless authorized by the Cypriot government. The limits are part of a broader agreement between the United States and the Republic of Cyprus to extend for five years existing restrictions on the import of pre-classical, classical and Byzantine art and artifacts from the island." Maybe somebody should just go annex Cyprus and be done with it... Is Clodius still around?

Indeed, this is a burning question for our times. According to this Spiegel article, the garden gnome is "a symbol of German diligence and order" that has unjustly had "his reputation tarnished by campaigns led by mean-spirited elitist intellectuals and even perverts. To intellectuals and other touchy types, he's despised as the embodiment of kitsch and petit-bourgeois parochialism." (Elitists, intellectuals, and perverts--oh my!) Creators of the garden gnome are equally concerned with widespread scorn for their handiwork, blaming "the arrival of mass production and plastic." "Saturation of the market with garish overly 'cute', often oversized caricatures of gnomes," writes Kimmel Gnomes, "has given the gnome a bad name." My own view is that even the expensive, non-plastic things are artistic abominations and symbols of nothing but atavism, but--being an elitist capitalist intellectual--what the hell do I know?

From the lady who has previously compared two hypothetical counter-factuals (which is at least a quaternary relation) and has beautiful grammatical skills, I'd say you're much smarter than any bonobo.

Thanks, Augusta. If I had had this handy earlier, I'd not have made the error of accusing Regulus of being the killer of the Sacred Chickens. In my entry on Appius Claudius Pulcher (cos 249), I list his killing of the Sacred Chickens as his very first important deed. Just goes to show, human memory is subject to massive interference (which is why I'm such a nag about citing sources and evidence).

Really. I'm just testing PingBacks. PING!

Despite repeated attempts to teach them to do so, non-human primates have never been shown to spontaneously invent rules for grammatically marking number and aspect, or to engage in ternary relational reasoning with perceptual distractors, which are tasks that young human children can learn almost effortlessly and often with no (effective) direct instruction.

Then your sources are really, really incompetent, and you're too lazy to check the accuracy of your posts. What authors and researchers? You have yet to cite a single historian for the view that Americans were Nazi-sympathizers. In 1936, few Brits supported Britain's cause!! In 1936, Churchill was a lone voice warning the British of Hitler and the German threat. By your reasoning, the British were guilty of anti-British sentiment! I see. You really just don't know much about the period in question and are relying on totally incompetent source material.

Aha! I knew there had to be a good explanation. Generally, it doesn't seem that the modern categories of roads--which are distinguished by levels of access--readily maps onto the Roman taxa. The closest English term I can find for the viae communales might be "expressway". If you said, "180,000 miles of highways and expressways" would that better approximate the right meaning?

Returning to the topic at hand... We know that many families in Rome lived in small apartments with no kitchens. I'm wondering: did each apartment have its own heating source?

Right. There's 130,000 miles unaccounted for somewhere, and I'm trying to find them!

No, you absolutely haven't. You have provided evidence of anti-war sentiments (which I don't dispute), but you have provided absolutely no evidence for your claim "the Americans were sympathetic to the Nazi regime" (which I hotly contest). First, as far as I can tell, Gallup's poll in 1936 was assessing American attitudes about the Spanish civil war, where fascists were duking it out with communists. At the time, there was a Neutrality Act that Roosevelt supported and that was designed to prevent another stupid war like WWI. This act in absolutely no way whatever supports your claim that "Americans were sympathetic to the Nazi regime." Moreover, I'm beginning to think you're completely sloppy with your American history when you cite howlers like, Are you unaware that there is a vast difference between Nazi sympathy and non-intervention? Must I remind you that the failure to grasp this distinction is the very essence of the widely ridiculed, "You're with us or you're against us"?? Also, "Wendel Wilson" is a figment of your imagination. No such person exists. There was a US president named Woodrow Wilson, and there was a US presidential candidate named Wendell Wilkie (to whom I referred in an earlier post). Neither of them expressed sympathy to the Nazis. Quite the opposite, Wendell Wilkie urged unlimited aid to the United Kingdom in its struggle against Nazi Germany, which isn't exactly what you'd expect from a Nazi sympathizer. The only fact you cite that is even remotely supportive of the idea that there were A FEW Nazi-sympathizers in the US is the existence of an American Nazi Party, a group that was deeply reviled and never held a single major (or minor) office in the US. In contrast, the British Union of Fascists included high-ranking British officials, including Labour government minister Sir Oswald Mosley, and the infamous Mitford sisters. Would you conclude from this that "the British were sympathetic to the Nazi regime"? I wouldn't. [EDIT: comma added so as not to imply that the Mitford sisters were high-ranking British officials!]