M. Porcius Cato

First, let's observe the vast gulf between the issues that drove Pompey and Crassus versus the issues that drove the Gracchi. The Gracchi--at least nominally--wished to enforce an existing law regarding the ager publica and to help poor landholders increase their agricultural productivity; therefore, they proposed land commissions and colonia. In contrast, Pompey wanted to reward his legions--already fat off of the spoils from the East--by essentially confiscating legally held lands in Campania; and Crassus wanted to help the rapacious tax farmers re-negotiate a contract for which they had simply overbid. In both cases, the Senate was absolutely right to resist. With respect to Pompey's demands, the lands in Campania generated 1/4 of the state revenue, and giving them away (for bargain basement prices) from their rightful owners would be disastrous for the state and totally immoral to the already settled Campanian families. With respect to Crassus' demands, the stupid tax-farmers who bid too high at the auction to beat out their competitors may have had buyer's regret, but that was their problem, not the problem of the state, and it was unfair to let them renegotiate without reopening the bidding de novo. In neither case was the Senate faced with the destitute farmers of Gracchan mythology--they were dealing with rich and powerful patrons of well-to-do, greedy clients. This was the ancient version of corporate welfare, pure and simple. No compromise with these groups was moral, and the senate was right to refuse them. With respect to Crassus' demands, it was not the people who were clamoring to let the tax-farmers renegotiate their contracts--that was a special interest group that had absolutely no popular support outside a sub-group of equites. With respect to Pompey's demands, the people too were not sympathetic, which is why Caesar had to bring gladiators and other thugs to the Forum to prevent anyone from giving the opposing view. If the people had really been on the side of Crassus and Pompey, violence would not have been necessary to carry the bills. But the people were not on their side, so violence was necessary, and violence is exactly what the triumvirate brought. The triumvirate was a completely un-democratic coalition that used violence to oppose free speech and private property. Morevoer, it is a complete mistake to view the agitation of the Gracchi and the program of the triumvirate as on the same page. They were completely different beasts, and calling them both "populare" obscures the massive differences between them.

BBC Channel Four.

GO, I have no idea what you're trying to say. You truly are the Father of Mysteries.

Is it from Tripoli, Septimius Severus' hometown in northern Africa?

On the contrary, it was rather one grand compromise--between Crassus, Caesar, and Pompey--that doomed the republic. If they had been more uncompromising, they never would have been able to consolidate so much power. Moreover--and I can't repeat it enough--what happened with the Gracchi was not the norm. Normally, there were no dramatic showdowns between senate and people; rather, the dramatic showdowns were typically tribune vs tribune (e.g., Nepos vs Cato) and senator vs senator (e.g., Catiline vs Cicero). Why people take the atypical Gracchi as their prototype simply boggles the mind.

I believe Tacitus also gave Cassius that title. Our source regarding Cremutius Cordus is Tacitus. Whether he agreed that Cassius was the last of the Romans, Tacitus doesn't say.

Perhaps because a master of propaganda would care to protect his reputation? You do realize that people defended themselves and their friends against personal attacks. I cited an example above. It won't be hard for you to find new examples. Get real. Where have I ever shunned the use of Suetonius or claimed that he is 100% fact? I've never claimed either. Nor do I particularly credit this story about Octavian and Caesar. It's possibly true, but it sounds like slander to me. Moreover, why don't actually read this thread WW instead of responding to the last post out of context. You'd see that I'm on record saying that I don't think Octavian's alleged affair with Caesar "quashes" his reputation in the slightest: Octavian's reputation as a murderer and despot is sufficient. He could have been the catamite to every centurion in the legion and it wouldn't matter to me.

Cheers! Although wasn't that prestigious title also given to Emperor Valens and Flavius Aetius? True enough, but I've always thought that the Roman historian Cremutius Cordus had it right when he said that Cassius was the "last of the Romans". After Phillipi and after the rights of Romans diminished exponentially, all that were left were Romanaculi.

First, Yahoo! cravenly handed over user records to Chinese auhoritarians authorities. Then, "Don't be Evil" Google promptly complied with Chinese demands to censor results from web searches. What next? The censorship of No-MSG recipes on Epicurious.com? Will the whole internet be forced to kowtow to the brownshirts in Beijing? Not on Jimbo Wales' watch! Wikipedia, the ultimate source of truthiness on the internet, will not yield to Chinese demands to censor their content. Read the whole story here.

According to this Voice of America piece, The wife of a Chinese dissident jailed for publishing articles on the Internet says she plans to sue U.S.-based Internet company Yahoo for allegedly helping to put her husband in jail in China. I hope she wins her case against those unprincipled yahoos, who are resuscitating the old Stalinist claim that capitalists would sell the Soviets the rope with which to hang them. Good on VoA for covering this heroic woman.

Yahoo betrayed my husband

I admit to be a congenital contrarian. I choose Cato over Caesar, Macs over PCs, ancient history over modern, and so on. As John Tierney puts it, "Just because everybody believes something doesn't make it wrong, but that's a good working hypothesis." Given this penchant, it's probably no surprise that I've been highly skeptical about the CO2 theory of climate change since I first heard about it in 1990, a particularly hot summer in the US. Although I wrote my very first research paper on the topic (back in high school), I hadn't followed up on it since then. In the meantime, however, much has changed: initially, all a skeptic could say was, "the evidence is not convincing because it doesn't rule out alternative explanations for the same data"; now, skepticism is buttressed by an alternative theory of climate change--the solar energy theory of climate change--that does a much better job of explaining the data than the much-popularized CO2 theory. If you're interested in seeing the two different theories presented for a popular audience, I'd recommend Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" (for the CO2 theory) and BBC's "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (for the solar energy theory). You can watch the BBC special on Google Video for free.

It certainly obviates the possibility of ending a war because it makes it impossible to target command-and-control, dual use infrastructure, and armament manufacture, all of which must be destroyed to reduce the capacity of the enemy to wage war. Moreover, if one army uses civilians as human shields, your definition implies that the opposing army is the terrorist, whereas the reverse is in fact true. You seem to imply that opposing armies are to choose their seconds, don white gloves, and draw pistols by mutual consent. These quaint ideas may have some place in children's books, but they have nothing whatever to do with real warfare. Well, at least your Latin is correct.

GO: How could one conduct warfare of any kind without meeting your definition of terrorism? It's impossible.

Yes, and so what? Take the most clear-cut example, the tribuneship of Livius Drusus. Look at his notorious obstructionism. C Gracchus proposed 2 colonies, with only the best class of citizens eligible; the senate's 'stooge' counter-proposed 12 colonies, open to the poorest. C. Gracchus proposed dividing the public land amongst the poor and charging them a small rent; the senate's 'stooge' counter-proposed that no rent be charged. C. Gracchus proposed suffrage for Latins; the senate's 'stooge' upped the ante by proposing that it might not be lawful for a Roman centurion to scourge a Latin soldier. As Plutarch remarks, And Livius, in all his speeches to the people, always told them that he proposed no laws but such as were agreeable to the senate, who had a particular regard to the people's advantage. And this truly was the only point in all his proceedings which was of any real service, as it created more kindly feelings towards the senate in the people; and whereas they formerly suspected and hated the principal senators, Livius appeased and mitigated this perverseness and animosity, by his profession that he had done nothing in favour and for the benefit of the commons without their advice and approbation. But the greatest credit which Drusus got for kindness and justice towards the people was, that he never seemed to propose any law for his own sake, or his own advantage; he committed the charge of seeing the colonies rightly settled to other commissioners; neither did he ever concern himself with the distribution of the moneys; whereas Caius always took the principal part in any important transactions of this kind. So, Yes, tribunes were sometimes co-opted by senators, but they could play the populare game too--and they could play it better. And that's the strength of the republican system: when politicians compete for the people's votes, the people get what they want. The problem, of course, is that the people needed to be more careful in what they wished for. The Roman people successfully resisted civil rights for Italians until it blew up in their greedy faces.

I agree with Kosmo's definition, and I don't think much of what the Romans did could be justly classified as terrorism. They certainly believed in savagely punishing those who attacked Romans, and the execution of the combatants in the Servile War is as good an example as any. But even at their most bloody-minded (the sack of Carthage, say), the Romans declared war, wore their uniforms into battle, and fought first and primarily against armed adversaries. They didn't send children through the gates of Carthage to poison the water supply. Yes, the Romans were brutual. No, they weren't terrorists.

I had to check to find out whether this thread was in the Arena. Isn't that the place for questions about the moral equivalence between (1) strapping a bomb to your chest to blow up teenagers in a discotheque and (2) unavoidably killing civilians in a surgical strike against genocidal dictators?

This is a rich re-telling of history! First off, the senate was not a monolithic body that "opposed the Gracchi". Rather, the Gracchi had many prominent supporters in the senate, but the majority were opposed. That's how votes often go, and losers need to deal with it rather than whine about how persecuted they are. Second, what was most objectionable from a constitutional standpoint wasn't the fact that Tiberius Gracchus brought a bill before the people without an endorsement from the senate (that was bad, but not the worst of it). What was most objectionable is that Ti Gracchus ignored the veto of a fellow tribune for no other ground that he, Tiberius Gracchus, believed that his own will was the true will of the people. This is why he was regarded as a would-be monarch and why the senate passed the SCU against him. The SCU was completely legal, and--though you might disagree about whether it was justified--it was completely in line with the laudable goal of protecting the tribunes from one another. Finally, the notion that the senate was completely closed to change is as big a falsehood as any that could be imagined. Why don't you take a look at the vast compendium of laws that were passed during the republic? Where do you think they originated? The aether? Obviously this long list of laws came about because the senate was constantly thinking about reforms to the system, asking the people to sanction these proposals, and very often convincing them to do so. If this is a system that's closed to change, I'd hate to see one that was open!

Greetings Cassius! It's so nice to see the "the last of the Romans" gracing our forums.

Kind of like the National Enquirer saying that President Bush & the first lady are getting divorced... Actually, it would be Suetonius filling the role of the National Enquirer, which--like Suetonius--always puts sensationalistic charges into the mouths of others. That's why NE has never lost a libel suit.

Not at all.

First, there were several competing traditions regarding the origins of the Romans, including Roman origins from the Achaeans returning after the fall of Troy, descending from Odysseus or his sons, being descendents of Heracles or the Arcadian hero Evander, or a Trojan captive name Rhome. All these strands were freely combined to create new stories as well, including the idea that Romulus and Remus were distant descendants of Aeneas. Moreover, these weren't just tales spun by Greeks. Rome's first historian, Fabius Pictor, had the colony on the Palatine Hill founded by the Arcadian Evander. Also, even the most ferocious anti-Hellenic like Cato the Censor, endorsed the idea of Greek origins in his Origines. Indeed, Cato himself was of Sabine origins, and he traced their lineage back to the Spartans, implying that Roman ruggedness came from the one group of Greeks who weren't soft. Second, the Trojan/Greek dichotomy is meaningless with respect to the Roman origins stories. According to Varro (Serv. Ad Aen. 3.167, 7.207) and others, Aeneas' ancestors (Dardanus et al) came from Arcadia, which is Greek. Thus, Aeneas was a Greek ex-pat living in Troy.

In the long run, are lemons cheaper than Apples?

AD makes an important point, but I think it's vitally important to distinguish between cultural openness to outsiders and legal openness to outsiders. Culturally, the Romans--though they never ceased to celebrate invented stories of Hellenic origins, whether singing of Trojan and Arcadian progenitors, of Numa studying at the feet of Pythagoras, or of the Sabine harsh spirit deriving from its alleged Spartan origins--also traded in the crudest stereotypes of non-Romans. Looking eastward, the invective became progressively more caustic. "The words of Greeks issue from their lips; those of Romans from their heart" (Plut. Cat. Mai., 12.5). Phrygians, Cicero tells us, are best improved by whipping; 'worst of the Mysians' was the ultimate insult; Carians were so worthless as to be fit only for human experiments; Cappadocians were paragons of stupidity, tastelessness, and beastliness (Cic. Flac. 65; Cic., Red. Sen., 14). Finally, Asiatic Greeks, Syrians, and Jews were born for servitude (Cic. Flac. 67, Livy 35.49.8, 36.17.4-5). Looking southward, the Punica were considered paragons of treachery, with Sardinians being so rotten that they were abandoned even by the Punica (Cic., Scaur. 42). Egyptians, of course, were animal-worshipping degenerates (Cic. Tusc. 5.78, Nat. D. 1.16.43). Looking westward, the Romans saw nothing but barbarism: Gauls and Spaniards were hairy, cruel, ferocious monsters (Cic. Font 31, 33, 41, 43-4; Cic Q Fr 1.1.27), and Spaniards brushed their teeth in piss (Catull. 37.20, 39.17-21). Legally, all of these peoples could be admitted as citizens, it is true. However, the only gateway to citizenship was slavery. Moreover, the passage from foreign slave to free Roman--with all the rights attendant thereto--was often purchased by the slave himself, who then lived in perpetual obligation to his former master. It was a good system for Rome (until Augustus put the brakes on it), and--to return to AD's comparison with the Greeks--even the Greeks admired it: Phillip V himself commended it in a letter to the Larissans (Syll. 3, 543: 29 - 34). I think the bottom-line is that the Romans, though inclusive politically, still never doubted their superiority of other peoples, whom they showered with slurs, stereotypes, and slavery. I wonder, can you think of another republic with the same history?

Noone say that you are condemning him for that. I just said - basing on our earlier discussions - that you judged him on the ground of roman moral values. Fair enough. BTW, is there an historical source that denies that Octavian and Caesar had an affair? Not that that is compelling, to be sure, but one would think that someone might have attempted to present Octavian as a different sort of fellow after such charges had been leveled. Some suspect that Caesar's womanizing was a response to the charges often leveled at him (e.g., the wit who greeted Pompey and Caesar as "King" and "Queen"). Similarly, when Caesar charged Cato with an un-Stoic fondness for the sauce (in his Anti-Cato), Cicero responded that the pamphlet was "impudent rubbish". So, where are the denials?