M. Porcius Cato

I admit to being Buffy-obsessed too. What a great show!

Any idea when Romanophiles across the pond will have a chance to watch?

Generally this is the right principle. But I would not include the case of the Catilinarian conspirators as an appropriate application of the principle--the conspirators could not have been turned loose while awaiting a trial lest they tear down the state and render all laws useless. Mind you, they were not railroaded--indeed, they were properly given a chance to speak in their own defense, and they confessed to their guilt. Given that an army was already in the field to march on Rome and their guilt was beyond question, the conspirators absolutely should not have been treated as if they had committed merely a civil offense--because they had not. Thus, at best, they should have been given a military hearing. Moreover, if Caesar had been captured at Pharsalus (or had been intercepted by Marcellus en route to Rome) or if Caesar continued to refuse to lay down his arms after the expiration of his legal term as proconsul, he should have met the same fate as Catiline's conspirators. I'd also point out that all Romans were obligated by the most ancient laws of the Republic (the lex Valeria) to kill anyone declaring himself king. Caesar had already obtained a prophesy from the Sibylline Books that only a king could conquer Parthia, and he was to leave for Parthia shortly after the Ides, leading to widespread speculation (based on the events of the Lupercalia and previous incidents) that he did in fact intend to declare himself king. Had he made such a declaration, he also should have been given no trial, only daggers through his throat.

Wikipedia lists the following consultations of the Sibylline Books: 238 BCE: The Ludi Florales, or "Flower Games", were instituted in 238 or 240 BCE after consulting the books. 216 BCE: When Hannibal annihilated the Roman Legions at Cannae, the books were consulted, and on their recommendation, two Gauls and two Greeks were buried alive in the city's marketplace. 204 BCE: During the Second Punic War, upon interpreting the oracles in the Sibylline Books, Scipio Africanus brought an image of Cybele from Pessinos and established her cult in Rome. 63 BCE: Believing in a prediction of the books that 'three Cornelii' would dominate Rome, Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura took part in the conspiracy of Catiline (Plutarch, Life of Cicero, XVII) 44 BCE: According to Suetonius, a sibylline prediction that only a king could triumph over Parthia fueled rumors that Caesar was aspiring to kingship. {Caesar, 79) ??: When the Tiber river flooded the lower parts of Rome, one of the priests suggested consulting the books, but Emperor Tiberius refused, preferring to keep the divine things secret, according to Tacitus (Annales I, 72) 271: The books were consulted following the Roman defeat at Placentia by the Alamanni. 312: Maxentius consulted the Sibylline Books in preparation for combat with Constantine, who had recently switched his allegiance from Apollo to Christus. Maxentius lost famously. 363: Julian the Apostate consulted the books in preparation for marching against the Parthians. The response mailed from Rome "manifestly supported crossing the border this year." (Ammianus Marcellinus, History of Rome, XIII, 7) 405: Stilicho ordered the destruction of the Sibylline Books, possibly because Sibylline prophesies were being used to attack his government in the face of the attack of Alaric I. Can anyone add to this list?

True--look at how Clodius got off for the Bona Dea scandal.

There's also a nice write up in Wired Magazine. Note reference to Titus Pullo at the end.

The fidentist argument on the development of city-states strikes me as much stronger than its appeal to the (general) reliability of oral traditions. But no date is implied by the legend, is there? Without dates provided by conscious recordings (e.g., written histories, annual nails, etc), how could one date the foundation?

OK, I guess it's possible that "Kalends of February" was chosen simply to stand for the events leading up to Caesar's death. Nevertheless, I wondered what those might be so I double-checked the dates. On 26 Jan 44, Caesar rode into the city from the ritual of the Feriae Latinae. Acclaimed rex by some in the crowd, Caesar reportedly replied, "I am Caesar, not king." The next date that we can fix is 15 Feb 44, the day of the Lupercalia, when Caesar again ostentatiously refused to be called king. Accounts of this event are given by Cicero, Nicolaus, Livy, Velleius, Florus, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian. As far as I can tell, the two remaining events that one might place between these two well-dated events are: (1) the placement of regal emblems on Caesar's statues and Caesar's ruthless punishment of the tribunes who had attempted to censure those responsible; and (2) the incident in which Caesar failed to rise in acknowledgment of honors given to him by a host of senators (allegedly because Caesar had diarrhea). Given that HBO's Rome dramatized none of these events, I guess I have to agree that the Kalends is simply shorthand for "What Caesar was up to before he got his comeuppance".

Fly over ancient Rome (320 AD), thanks to this amazing 3D model created by a partnership of UCLA and UVa.

Is there really nothing significant at all about the Kalends of February?

I've always wondered: Why was this episode called the "Kalends of February" rather than the "Ides of March," when the most important event of the episode took place? What is so significant about the Kalends of February?

And it's great that UNRV has you as a part of it! Salve!

Thanks. That was very informative, Ursus. Was Rome founded on 21 Apr 753 BCE? In my view, not bloody likely. How did Varro arrive at this date? The starting point of the calculations is 510 BCE, which was when the tyrant Hippias was driven from Athens (shortly before Cleisthenes founded the Athenian democracy) and Tarquinius Superbus was driven from Rome (shortly before Brutus et al founded the Roman republic). The dating of Hippias' expulsion need not concern us, but the dating of the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus should. This date was determined in 304 BC, when it was determined that there were 204 annual nails hammered in the cella wall of the Capitoline temple to Jupiter, which showed that the temple itself must have been dedicated in 509 or 508. So far, so good. The next step, however, was pure guesswork. That is, they simply estimated the reigns of the seven kings whose names had been recorded and added this to the date. This had the effect of putting the foundation of Rome between 813 and 728. Varro's well-deserved authority as a scholar was placed behind 753, and thus 753 was the convention date of the founding. As far archaeological evidence goes, let's assume that by "founding of the city" we really take "city" seriously--i.e., not a bunch of scattered settlements that go back to the 10th century, but real public buildings, places of assembly, paved roads, bridges, sewers, etc. Remains of these urban structures can be dated to the late 7th and early 6th centuries. The bottom line is that the monumentalization of public functions had their beginnings on the Forum Romanum and Forum Boarium in the late 7th/early 6th centuries, thus the founding of the city in a political sense is more like 625 bc, a little more than 100 years after Varro's date and more in line with the conventional reigns of kings.

Thanks for the link to the Scientific American article, Nephele. I should point out, however, that Shermer's flip was launched by rather equivocal evidence. Let's assume that Shermer is right that the correlation between CO2 and temperature has been newly demonstrated. What does this imply? One of three possibilities about cause/effect--(1) increasing CO2 increases temperature, (2) increasing temperature increases CO2, and (3) increasing a third variable increases both CO2 and temperature. Of these three possibilities, ONLY #1 justifies intervening on CO2 to manipulate temperature. If #1 is incorrect, we could bring all industrial civilization to a halt and live like the Arverni, and it wouldn't make a whit of difference. In my view, however, the most likely of these possibilities is #2. The fact is that oceans are a huge repository of CO2, and as temperatures increase, they release CO2 into the atmosphere. This much is assumed even by proponents of #1. What about the reverse causal direction implied by #1? Well, increases in CO2 in controlled situations also can increase temperatures, but in generalizing this finding to the Earth, this effect should occur at the stratospheric level rather than the surface level (much like the windowed roof in a greenhouse should be warmer than the floor of the greenhouse). Yet this observation does not obtain. Is there another mechanism that might explain warming and thus increases in CO2--some say, Yes--the sun. Specifically, cyclical activity in solar flares is a periodic phenomenon with variable frequency over time. As the frequency of these cycles increase, the effect should be increasing temperature. Indirect evidence for these cycles can be found in the growth of plants, of which we have a record going back many years in some cases. This historical evidence suggests that changes in solar activity are reflected in contemporaneous changes in temperature and in later changes in CO2. Thus, the solar theory of climate change receives not only direct empirical support, it also correctly predicts the time course of correlations between CO2 and temperature, which the CO2 theory of climate change fails to do. As far as I can tell, it's too bad Shermer didn't apply one of most important principles of healthy skepticism: correlation does not imply causation.

2007 is still young. Moreover, Baltimore is merely a short train ride from the whole Eastern corridor, and it's a short drive from Pittsburgh too (another city we mentioned in passing).

There an intriguing (and sometimes gloriously awful) volume of Roman history at Carnegie Mellon University, The Comic History of Rome. You can browse the volume on-line here. Here's an example: Cicero's Oration Against Catiline

Thanks for the suggestions, Nephele. (BTW, it's not for my 6-year-old; I'm happily childfree ATM.) Can you ask Caroline when the BBC adaptation will show in the US? I'm waiting for it with baited breath.

Please do. This is great!

I'm looking for some really great books that will introduce a 6-year-old genius to the ancient world--mythology, history, social life, anything ancient. At the same age, I devoured all sorts of richly illustrated books of mythology, but I can't recall any of the titles. Suggestions?

How do we know whether Caesar (or Pompey, or Cato) were "genuinely popular with urban plebs" in Jan 49? There were no opinion polls except one--the vote. And the elections (conducted by secret ballot) were returning both Caesarian and anti-Caesarian candidates. In 49, for example, the populace turned away Caesar's candidate Galba, in spite of his reputedly greater dignity, in favor of Lentulus and Marcellus, who announced quite vocally their intention of opposing Caesar. Thus, given the outcome of the elections, it seems likely to me that Caesar was a controversial figure, with both popular support and popular resentment.

I don't think that thousands of climatologists even exist! Most of the people who sign statements on behalf of scientists are people whose expertise is not germane (e.g., the Union of Concerned Scientists mostly comprises lawyers, medical doctors, and other professionals, but not scientists). This was the case with the latest 'consensus' document on the CO2 theory of global warming, which was signed mostly by non-climatologists. Among climatologists, discussions on climate change have changed in several ways over time--all the product of healthy debate and skepticism. One change, stressed by theilian, has been greater certainty that the surface temperature of the Earth has really grown warmer since the 1960s. This was once a debatable issue because ground temperatures were most often taken in locations that had been urbanized, and it was unknown whether the apparent warming was due to a simpler phenomenon known as the "urban heat island effect." The other change in the debate, not mentioned by theilian, is much more moderation in the estimates of how much CO2 matters. As greenhouses gases go, CO2 has much, much less power to trap heat than, say, water vapor. Consequently, very large increases in CO2 would be necessary to heat the whole planet even a few degrees, which is why many climatologists (e.g., the MIT scientist Richard Lindzen) doubt that the recent warming has been caused by human activity and why supporters of the CO2-theory must assume (unproven) feedback mechanisms to get from the observed changes in CO2 to the observed changes in temperature. Finally, the costs of reducing CO2 emissions "just in case" have to be weighed against the benefits to which those costs might otherwise be applied. If the costs of reducing CO2 emissions are as high as supporters of Kyoto suggest, it's probably not worth it--for the same amount of money, all kinds of much more terrible ills--hunger, malaria, AIDS, ignorance of Roman history--could be addressed. Environmentalists like Bjorn Lomborg have argued as much (here e.g.), quite cogently too. In any case, the notion that the only skeptics of the CO2 theory of global warming are to be found at Exxon is a complete fabrication. The inconvenient truth is that skeptics are to be found among climatologists and environmentalists as well.

You mean like the "conventional methods" he used when consul the first time--when he had Cato arrested? When he used armed thugs in the Forum to prevent tribunes from using their right of veto? When he used screaming mobs to keep his consular colleague locked up in his house? When he made alliances with brigands like Clodius? When in power, there was nothing conventional about the methods of that darling of Venus--and giving Caesar more power, would have done nothing to change those methods. The fact is that after eight years, feeding like a wolf on the blood of Gauls, Caesar's monstrous vanity and lust for power was worse than ever before. Had Caesar faced his opponents in court, he would have won and been even more unbearable. The only good that would have come of it is that civil war would have been averted, thereby saving the republic. As nice as that would have been, let's not pretend that Caesar's future career would have been 'conventional.'

What "subsidies" are you talking about? Tax breaks for R&D and equipment modernization? That's pretty standard across businesses, and I don't think it's properly considered a subsidy in the same way that direct payments are. One of two direct payments the oil companies get from Uncle Sam is in the form of the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Program, which is administered as block grants to states. Of these funds, state agencies paid a total of $255 million for oil-based energy needs. This is a small boon to the poor (who would have otherwise purchased about 90% of the energy that they currently purchase), but it has virtually no effect on the bottom line of oil producers. The second direct payment comes in the form of a subsidy for electricity production (about $5 billion) by the Tennessee Valley Authority and other rural electrification programs started by FDR. These payments are not directed at the oil industry, but to the degree that the TVA-type corporations rely on oil, the oil industry benefits somewhat. So, what would be the effect of eliminating oil subsidies? Low-income workers (and non-workers) might reduce their energy consumption by 10% and TVA would go broke until it was privatized (almost as if--gasp!--it were the 21st century). Sounds good to me.

I came across a passage from Suetonius that seems to help explain Caesar's popularity with the nobiles: When he [Caesar] had put all Pompey's friends under obligation, as well as the greater part of the senate, through loans made without interest or at a low rate, he lavished gifts on men of all other classes, both those whom he invited to accept his bounty and those who applied to him unasked, including even freedmen and slaves who were special favorites of their masters or patrons. In short, he was the sole and ever ready help of all who were in legal difficulties or in debt and of young spendthrifts, excepting only those whose guilt or poverty was so heavy, or who were so given up to riotous living, that even he could not save them; and to these he declared in the plainest terms that what they needed was a civil war. (Suetonious, Caesar 27.1-2)

Another great example of scientific expertise aiding history. It's too bad that more collaborations like this aren't done more often.