M. Porcius Cato

Good points. Of course, it's impossible to prove that exposure was NOT practiced in the Republic. So don't you have the onus of proof inverted? Typically, the onus of proof is on he who asserts the positive.

What evidence supports such a claim? What evidence--in principle--would falsify it? As far as I can tell, the list I've presented shows that a selective pulling of a couple opponents of Caesar fails to represent the actual political backing that Caesar possessed before marching on Rome.

Decimus Brutus certainly was. Also, Cassius himself had experience fighting the Parthians, and he would have been an ideal legate in the Parthian campaign.

Is it Crimean?

Well, the republic was morally superior. That said, I can think of at least one infant that they should have exposed... Seriously, if there's no evidence of any kind that they exposed infants during the republican period, isn't it possible that the practice was some sort of foreign import?

According to this news report, the key ingredient in a recent *iagr*-alternative was inspired by the Roman use of walnuts as an erectile enhancer. Anyone come across this one before? Or is it nuts?

The one thing that seemed, ah, fishy about the notion that Roman ate dried fish is that they were normally such devotees for really, really fresh fish. That, at least, was my understanding of the explanation for Tiberius' dining room on top of a fish pond.

This is a really cool concept--very much like the computers in "Minority Report." It's not quite ready for prime-time though. See here for review.

These sound quite interesting. I'd love to see your reviews!

Strange then that he didn't put the fate of the Gracchi in mind as he pondered assuming lifelong dictatorial powers. As I recall, it was his unabashed aiming at regnum that finally got him killed by senators.

I find it difficult to believe that a trial system--composed of senators and equites as jurors--that had returned an acquittal for Clodius in the Bona Dea scandal would have failed to do so for Caesar.

Hot stuff! I just now placed an order for this one -- thanks for the recommendation, MPC! You're welcome--can't wait to find out how the Romans had sex for 350 years

I see. But does Tacitus deserve the benefit of the doubt here? Don't get me wrong--I'm a huge Tacitus fan--but it seems to me that if you know and abhor stereotypes, you'll not repeat them causally in a book where you want to establish and protect your credibility.

Cicero: A Portrait (Bristol Classical Paperbacks) Elizabeth Rawson Swords Against the Senate: The Rise of the Roman Army and the Fall of the Republic Erik Hildinger The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World) Harriet I. Flower The Roman Republic in Political Thought (The Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures) Fergus Millar The Fall of the Roman Republic (Lancaster Pamphlets) David Shotter Cicero: Letters of January to April 43 B.C (Classical Texts) M. M. Willcock Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine, 4th Edition Nancy H. Ramage, Andrew Ramage Roman Sex: 100 B.C. to A.D. 250 John Clarke

According to this map of trade routes in the ancient world, dried fish was brought from all over the Mediterranean to Rome, suggesting the Romans actually ate the stuff. Has anyone an ancient dried fish recipe they've actually prepared and sampled? How did it taste?

BTW, if anyone is interested, there is an interesting biography of Labienus that you can download for free.

One should also add the Mycenaean cities to those venerating the Greek gods. When Linear B was cracked, they found that Hera, Artemis and Hermes were worshipped in Pylos and that Zeus, Athene, and Poseidon were worshipped in Pylos and Knossos. Dionysus

This is fine for Tacitus' view of the Germans or Caesars' view of the Britons, but it's not the whole story. My examples included Cicero's views of ethnic groups with which he and other Romans had much contact. When the stereotypes I quoted above were written, the Greeks, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Sardinians, and Spaniards had been dealing with Romans for some time and in many contexts--much longer and more broadly than had the Germans and Britons been dealing with Romans at the time of Tacitus' and Caesar's writings. I don't think a lack of contact was the cause of the ethnic stereotypes and negative attitudes.

Why isn't number the ONLY thing that matters? The jurors voted, and the majority ruled.

I wouldn't say they thought the 'treacherous' Carthaginians their equal in honor, but they didn't regard them as wholly inferior as piss-drinking Spaniards, animal-worshipping Egyptians, hairy Gauls, and giant German oafs (to put things in Cicero's terms).

The Romans were beaten by other groups from time to time (e.g., Greeks), yet they did not harbor everlasting enmity. Isn't it possible that the German and Gallic victories were so galling to the Romans precisely because the Roman viewed them as especially inferior? To be defeated by an equal is no great dishonor; to be defeated by an inferior is maddening.

They are different but certainly not incompatible. If Roman culture had been a continuous force in Europe, that might be said. However, after the Germanic invasions, Europe went right back to the Iron Age level of civilization that had existed before Rome invaded. The Roman language, literature, architecture, political system, and the like had a greater impact on Europe during the Renaissance than it did under Roman occupation. Petrarch did more to Romanize modern Europe than did Caesar.

Good point. I was talking about the republican era (almost all of my quotes are from Cicero). At least during this period, citizenship was jealously guarded by the Romans (probably because it actually meant something). As for freeborn provincials, I'd remind you of the case of the Gallic nobles who were given citizenship by Caesar (totally illegally but almost possibly high-minded) for having served in a municipal capacity. The consul Marcellus ordered them to be flogged. This act of course was high symbolism. The very definition of a citizen--going back at least to the lex Porcia passed by Cato the Elder--was the citizen's inviolate right to be free from flogging by a magistrate. By having the Gaul flogged--and sending him to show his scars to Caesar--Marcellus was making a clear statement about the types of men whom he thought fit for citizenship and what he thought of Caesar's opening Rome to the "hairy monsters". (As an historical analogy, it would be like a Southern governor lynching a black Senator during Reconstruction. Not that that ever happened, mind you.)

It has been claimed that the Romans possessed "a different mindset", but what is the evidence for this claim? WotWotius and I have listed about a dozen or so examples of ethnic stereotyping. Do you have any counter-examples? If not, how do you explain them from the premise that the Romans were not racist? How, other than racism, could an educated Roman like Cicero claim (for example) that Carians were only fit for human experimentation? My heavens! It's like something out of Mengele!

That's my interpretation. At the very least, the lists show how darned misleading Syme's stemmae are. His implication is that the families of the nobiles somehow mapped onto factional divides, but once we actually look at the factional divides we see how badly family and faction overlap.