M. Porcius Cato

Given acclamation of the speakers, the crowds who attended contiones were either (1) attracted to speakers' messages beforehand, much like any modern audience of those with a political viewpoint (e.g., faithful readers of the Guardian vs Telegraph), or (2) swayed by speakers' messages. My guess is that both are partly true.

From the NYT, more proof that power corrupts.

Full story here. (Sorry Augusta)

I don't think so. The effect of a sacrifice was to make something holy. If gladiators were sacrifices rather than sportsmen, then the Coliseum would have been a templa. But it wasn't.

Mouritsen takes an extremely cynical, post-modern (a la Foucault) position on the contiones (and really all politics) that I find very hard to take seriously. Covering the exact same ground, but taking a middle-position between Mouritsen's nihilism and Millar's optimism, is another very good book: Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, by Robert Morstein-Marx. I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through, and I'm finding its approach quite refreshing. BTW, you'd like Gruen PNS.

Yes, and it must have been tough-going if their wealth really were derived from their own agriculture (as opposed to tenancy)--the Romans didn't practice primogeniture, thus threatening to tear every estate among all the surviving sons. My own guess is that patricians succeeded in escaping their mathematical fate by leasing their lands to immigrant farmers (i.e., plebs), thereby resulting in debt bondage and the later 'secession of the plebs' that eliminated debt slavery.

Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House - Ph.D., Tulane University, Modern European History

Top 5 Books to Understand the Fall of the Republic: (1) The Last Generation of the Roman Republic by Erich Gruen (2) Caesar: A Biography by Christian Meier (3) The Fall of the Republic and Related Essays by P. A. Brunt (4) The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme (5) The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic by Fergus Millar

Of course I'm sure you'll agree that it beganas an economic/political marker and, as family fortunes tend to change over time, became a hereditary marker for the more powerful segments of society. It's possible, but I don't think it's likely. The patricians go back to the founding of the city, when Rome was just a village of huts. Given iron age culture, differences in family wealth and status are caused by family size (hence the fertility gods). My guess is that the patricians were simply the first big families in Rome--fertile and large in number, therefore wealthy and high status (for a bunch of people living in huts, that is). Since Rome welcomed immigrants, it was natural that there would be an us/them distinction. Just look at small towns in Appalachia that are the same way, with large long-established (but never particularly wealthy) families taking ferocious pride in their "roots" and seeking to maintain political and religious influence in their communities. EDIT: A better analogy might be Americans who take such enormous pride in tracing their families back to the Mayflower. These American patricians didn't begin as richer than the later immigrants, they were just first and long-established. In fact, those Massachusetts puritans were originally so far from rich that they were stealing and begging food from the natives.

From the UPI: An ancient Etruscan city, where iron was produced thousands of years ago, has been restored and is open to visitors on the Italian coast. Populonia produced iron from mines on the island of Elba and visitors to the $4 million restoration can see how it was done, ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported. "Iron was produced on an industrial scale here," local expert Massimo Zucconi told ANSA. The site includes a huge necropolis containing the remains of Etruscan nobles. The Etruscans lived between what is now Rome and Florence between the eighth century B.C. until they were absorbed by the Romans 600 years later. The site is dedicated to the late Florentine archaeologist Riccardo Francovich, who worked to make Italy's ancient sites accessible to the public. "Franco was an archaeologist but he refused to believe that archaeology should be shut up in a museum somewhere," Zucconi told ANSA.

There's an interesting entry on Roman sacrifice in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. According to the article, Sometimes the banquet was celebrated (doubtless on behalf of all) by just the immediate participants and their helpers, along with those possessing privileges in a particular sanctuary (e.g., the flute-players at the temple of Jupiter); sometimes the banquets united the chief sections of society (e.g., the roman elite for the epulum Jovis); sometimes the meat was sold in butchers' shops (i.e., it was accessible to all); sometimes, finally, it was eaten at great communal banquets, ultimately financed by benefactors. Needless to say, there's nothing about the Romans sacrificing two virgins per annum. (Perhaps none were to be found?)

After a week of beautiful weather, it's now snowing lightly. (Don't ask me what 'it' is.)

In your view, did Livia love Octavian? Why?

I always thought that the pila-strategy sounded fishy, particularly the notion that Caesar told his troops to stab at the faces of the young cavalry-men, who--being young and valuing their looks--were particularly vulnerable to the tactic. To me, that sounds utterly ridiculous.

This poster is pretty cool.

No historian has ever suggested this motivation. The standard explanation is that Octavian curtailed manumission to relieve demands on the corn dole. Previously, slave owners could relieve themselves of the cost of feeding their slaves by passing off the costs to the state via manumission.

I agree that the 'fall' of the Republic was not entirely inevitable, but the 'chain reaction' metaphor certainly suggests a kind of deterministic inevitability. If we look just at the events immediately following the murder of Ti Gracchus, it's clear that the faction in the Senate responsible had completely overplayed its hand, and the rest of the Senate did everything they could to clean up the mess (e.g., in supporting Livius Drusus). Moreover, between G. Gracchus and the Marian slaughter, there was a very long period of time without political violence in Rome (which, again, doesn't support the 'chain reaction' metaphor).

One of Octavian's reforms was to reduce the number of slaves that could be freed. This probably had an impact on the number of poor citizens but not for any reason that could be admired.

Here is the relevant section of the article by Pelling: Finally, Ant. 13 repays examination. Antony has just failed in his clumsy attempt to crown Caesar at the Lupercalia. That episode strengthened the conspirators' hand, and they considered approaching possible allies. Some suggested inviting Antony, but Trebonius opposed this: he mentioned an earlier occasion on which he had himself sounded Antony. His remarks again seem based on the Second Philippic (34): (Antony), quem et Narbone hoc consilium cum C. Trebonio cepisse notissimum est et ob eius consili societatem cum interficeretur Caesar, tum te a Trebonio uidimus seuocari. In Plutarch, the passage is transformed. Antony now shares a tent with Trebonius as his travel-companion; Trebonius broaches the subject and Plutarch stresses (what was a very easy inference) that Antony neither joined the plot nor revealed it to Caesar. The details give the anecdote conviction and interest, but they are again not very substantial. They are much more likely to come from Plutarch's imagination than from any independent authority.

I've always thought the letter from Matius to Cicero best summarized the sentiments of the (few) honest Caesarians: I confess that I have not attained to that height of philosophy. For in the political controversy it was not Caesar that I followed, but it was a friend whom--though disapproving of what was being done--I yet refused to desert. Nor did I ever approve of a civil war, nor of the motive of the quarrel, which in fact I strove my utmost to have nipped in the bud. Accordingly, when my friend was victorious I was not fascinated by the charm either of promotion or of money-rewards upon which others, though less influential with him than I was, seized with such intemperate avidity. In fact, even my own personal property was curtailed by the law of Caesar, [1] thanks to which most of those who now exult in Caesar's death maintained their position in the state. I was as anxious that our defeated fellow-countrymen should be spared as though for my own life. Wishing therefore the preservation of all, could I fail to be indignant that the man by whose means that preservation had been secured had perished? Especially when the very persons [2] who brought him unpopularity were responsible for his destruction?

Note the similarities between the letter to Cassius and the Second Philippic. I wonder how the relationship between that drunken, vomiting "gladiator" Antony and the more cerebral Cassius evolved to the point that Cicero felt so free to share his revulsion with Cassius. For that matter, is this letter the first from Cicero to Cassius? What is Cassius doing in Puteoli anyway? Puteoli was just in Campania. Are we to assume that Cassius is monitoring the grain emporium there? With the largest fleet in the ancient world in nearby Misenum, why wouldn't Cassius commandeer the fleet and hold the grain supply of Rome hostage to his designs? I can only imagine that Cassius at this point has totally given up any hope of future political life. (FWIW, Sulla died in Puteoli; Sophia Loren grew up there.)

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