M. Porcius Cato

Shakespeare had ancient Romans climbing clock-towers to see Caesar, too. This doesn't correspond to any laws that I know of, and it sounds fishy.

Right!

Plebs vastly outnumbered patricians among the magistrates. Far from the plebs having little recourse to elected office, they dominated political offices, the law courts, and the military.

Tingis is about 900 miles from this ancient city. Given the location of Tingis, that's a huge clue.

Close, but no.

Here is another image of the same site: And a view of the city forum:

It's a city that acquired the status of municipium in the first century BC.

I agree with both concerns. Individual rights (including the right to terminate one's pregnancy) deserves federal protection against encroachments by state legislatures. Immigration is the lifeblood of any nation, whose economies depend on the talents of its citizens more than on any other factor. Taken together, these two issues are certainly more important than a hypothetical adjustment of taxes by 2 or 3%. The costs of an unwanted child would dwarf the costs of even the most punitive tax code, and the economic effects of over-regulating immigration are also far more important than taxes. That said, Ron Paul has a deep appreciation for the American ideal of limited government and the use of military power for defensive purposes only. No one else on the political scene fits this description. Thanks for your comments Moonlapse and Nephele.

Here's the interesting part--if you look at academic descriptions of Whitsun, you'd never hear your interpretations.

.... Charming

Nice review! Look forward to reading this.

Why did the ancients engage in animal sacrifice? I'd previously pointed out that Ovid claimed that the gods could be propitiated with mere incense. If this view were widespread (did anyone maintain the contrary?), then one must ask why the religious colleges went to the additional bother of sacrificing whole animals, and why they distributed the meat of the sacrifices to the people. Given that these sacrifices were conducted as part of a state religion, given that the administration of the state religion was conducted by priests who were always members of the socio-political elite, given that the socio-political elite was very often irreligious (particularly in the middle to late Republic), and given that the political status of this less-religious elite derived partly from the services that they could offer to the Roman people, it seems likely to me that the animal sacrifices were continued for political functions, long after they had ceased to have any real religious significance for those who sponsored them (i.e., they were a holy barbeque). Since the "holy bbq" characterization is contingent on at least four separate assumptions, there must be many cases where the assumptions do not hold and the characterization may not apply, including private sacrifices of animals and sacrifices in the pre-Hellenistic world (when the political elite in Rome seemed more religious). No, I don't think that the lares and penates served a purely decorative function, particularly since they weren't displayed in that way. More broadly, I'm not arguing (like Malinowski) for a functionalist explanation for all religious practices. But I think they have their place. While the lares and penates weren't typically used for decoration, some images of the gods were purely decorative and non-religious. Moreover, to point out the obvious, ordinary people and slaves typically could not afford to sacrifice oxen, sheep, and pigs to hand out to their neighbors. Consequently, the beliefs of slaves and the poor are irrelevant to the conduct of the state religion. What you taught schoolchildren is simplistic and misleading. Sometimes, you CAN apply "our" mores and morals to the ancients because we inherited those mores and morals from the ancients. Sometimes, you can't--because we've either innovated new norms or inherited other norms that came after the ancients. To know the difference, you could have taught them, one must study intellectual and social history. It's really too bad that you had a perfect opportunity to introduce children to the idea that our modern behavior and ideas owe their existence to the ancients, and instead you expressed the same gutter relativism they hear everywhere. ... computational engine. You're thinking of the Antikythera Mechanism.

No.

So far Ron Paul strikes me as the most Catonian of US Presidential contenders. Though he's much, much older than the historical MPC (who was John Edwards' age when he died at Utica), Paul's opposition to fruitless military adventures, his principled constitutionalism, and his general philosophical outlook would certainly piss off any modern-day Caesar (or Livia). Here's Ron Paul on The Daily Show.

Wasn't the Robigalia celebrated as a festival to the goddess of mildew? Seems fitting that that particular festival would entail the entrails of a filthy dog. I'm not sure what generalizations are suggested by this.

No.

No.

This is one of my favorites too. The immediately preceding context reminds me of Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot. From Tacitus: Agricola did not live to see the senate-house under siege, the senators surrounded by a cordon of troops, and that one fell stroke that sent so many consulars to their death, so many noble ladies into banishment or exile. Only a single victory was credited as yet to Carus Mettius; the four walls of the Alban fortress still kept Messalinus' bellow from reaching our ears; and Massa Baebius was still a prisoner in the dock. But before long we senators led Helvedius to prison, watched in shame the sufferings of Mauricus and Rusticus, and stained ourselves with Senecio's innocent blood. Even Nero used to avert his eyes and, though he ordered abominations, forebore to witness them. The worst of our torments under Domitian was to see him with his eyes fixed upon us. Every sigh was registered against us; and when we all turned pale, he did not scruple to make us marked men by a glance of his savage countenance -- that blood-red countenance which saved him from ever being seen to blush with shame. Happy indeed were you, Agricola, not only in your glorious life, but in your timely death. When you hear of the legacy of Augustus, remember this.

After my initial horror, I realized that these drunken tourists probably make Rome more like the original--only not far enough. Far from banning public drinking, the mayor should permit public drinking for any Latin-speakers wearing a toga.

Ooops! How embarrassing. You're right--Publius Appius Claudius Pulcher. Similar naval disaster against the same enemy, but (mea culpa) a different culprit.

And how do you know? There has to be an explanation for why the edible parts of the animal were eaten whereas the inedible parts were tossed aside. To assume unquestioningly that this practice arose from piety would be uncritical credulity. Or just intelligent individuals who were not quaking in fear of priests. Regulus (whose name you couldn't recall) is presumably a good example of this ordinary courage in the face of extraordinary superstition. Why would you accept evidence only under pressure? Isn't the desire for accuracy sufficient inducement to recognize a tradition that included some of the best philosophers that Rome had to offer (e.g., Lucretius)? And what does it mean to be "absorbed" in this context? Far from being 'absorbed', non-believers happily used the religion of the believers to manipulate them and the political process. On this see Polybius from the middle republic or Cicero from the late republic. There were natural explanations for many phenomena that had previously been explained by appealing to the supernatural. In consequence, intelligent and well-educated people from Empedocles to Aristophenes to Aristotle to Euripides to Lucretius were deeply skeptical of the notion that the Olympian pantheon and sundry farm gods were necessary to explain observable events. Why assume that these intellectuals--who taught generations of students and entertained generations of audiences--had no wider influence? Moreover, the failure to explain thunder is not remedied by the sacrifice of sheep (even according to the ancients), so I hardly see the relevance of this argument.

An interesting choice. Curtis LeMay, it may be remembered, was the general on whom the fictional Dr. Strangelove was based.

See this thread.

Because government oversight can range in quality as much as the very products that are being checked, Caveat emptor is as valid today as it was for the Romans.

Isn't diction just word choice and pronunciation? If you get rid of pronunciation, the credit for word-choice surely doesn't go to the Jacoby. Would "enunciation" be a better word for the concept you'd intended?