M. Porcius Cato

Yes, I agree with Millar about clientele and about the importance of the democratic character of the Republic. Please note, however, that I did not say that Rome was a democracy; it wasn't, at least not in the sense meant by Polybius. BUT, popular co-sovereignity with the senate wasn't just a motto ("SPQR"), and Millar has been invaluable in pointing out the many sources of information that attest to this fact. I don't want to hijack a thread on the army, but I vigorously dispute the idea that the Republic was dominated by an unelected elite. For more details supporting my argument, click here. I'd also heartily recommend an excellent volume for your paper, A Companion to the Roman Republic (Eds. N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx). The chapter "Popular Power in the Roman Republic" by Alexander Yakobson is relevant to Millar's thesis about popular sovereignty; the chapter "Patronage" by Elizabeth Deniaux is relevant to your paper (she's more sympathetic to the idea than I am). But it's logically impossible to find something that backs him: he says that a system of clientele did NOT dominate Roman politics. Since you can't find evidence FOR a negative, no evidence can be found for Millar's position. But the onus of proof isn't on Millar: it's on those who make the positive claim that the system of clientele DID dominate Roman politics. But there were well-disciplined armies with no such system (e.g., the Argives, the Spartans, etc); therefore, clientele is an unnecessary assumption. Clearly this is a double-edged sword. If you motivate your troops merely by the prospect of spoils, you get mutinous troops when the going gets rough. Also, the earliest case you can make with much certainty here would be Marius, and then (to a greater extent) Caesar. In both cases, btw, the patron-like generals suffered several potentially disastrous mutinies. Neither--it was based on religion, discipline, and training. See the chapter in Rosenstein's Imperatores Victi on the role of religion on Roman confidence in their commanders. The book is on-line somewhere.

Maybe.. Or Fergus Millar is right--that is a possibility, you know. Also, when--in the vast history of the Roman world--are you talking about? My own view is that Millar is dead on, and it's high time for someone to present some actual evidence that clientele played a significant role in the Roman politics of the middle to late republic. As it is, the patron and the client are the Batman and Robin of Roman history: whenever some motivation is difficult to explain, these two masked figures fly in from nowhere to save the day, and after all this time we know absolutely nothing about the history, operation, and limits of these shadowy figures.

Happy birthday Viggen.

Pure mythology. There is absolutely no evidence for a decline in small holdings after the Hannibalic War, nor is there any good reason to expect such a decline. There is no evidence that the urban poor in Rome was predominantly of agrarian origins: in fact there is plenty of evidence that the urban poor was overwhelmingly of servile origins. There is absolutely no evidence for--and actually quite a bit of evidence against--the notion that the "upper crust" disapproved of any changes: in point of fact, the Gracchi had a number of super-wealthy senatorial supporters. Finally, putting the Gracchi and Caesar in the same category is without any merit whatever. Julius Caesar was a patrician thug, and his legislative agenda prior to his dictatorship was largely confined to supporting his political seniors, Crassus and Pompey: there was no populist element to it. Also, if you're not fabricating Roman history solely from out of thin air, find where Caesar called the republic a "dead body." I suspect that this little tidbit, like all the others, is pure fantasy.

This whole thread is grotesque, but what the heck... Indict.co.uk provides first-hand testimony from the victims of dictatorship in Iraq. The punishment described by this witness seems supremely barbaric: "There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they were put in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food.... On one occasion, I saw QUSAY SADDAM HUSSEIN personally supervising these murders."

Fox--my favorite animal at age 9.

Nice Life of Brian reference, but the widespread view that crucifixion causes death via suffocation is incorrect. (Follow up here.) One pathologist writes: The complicated and much debated issue regarding how the individual expired on the cross has generated widespread debate over the years. While many researchers have believed that death occurred as the result of a ruptured heart (Stroud 1874, Whitaker 1935, Wedessow 1978) due to the story in John 19:34 of the water and blood flowing out of the wound, pathologists such as Zugibe (1984) have ruled this out as medically untenable. Other scholars (LeBec 1925, Hynek 1936, Barbet 1937, Modder 1949) have regarded asphyxiation as being the cause of death, however the latest research findings have shown the issue to be more complicated depending upon the manner in which the victim was affixed to the cross. A series of experiments carried out by an American medical examiner and pathologist on college students who volunteered to be tied to crosses showed that if the students were suspended from crosses with their arms outstretched in the traditional manner depicted in Christian art, they experienced no problems breathing (Zugibe 1984). Thus the often quoted theory that death on the cross is the result of asphyxiation is no longer tenable if the arms are outstretched. According to the physiological response of the students, which was closely monitored by Zugibe, death in this manner is the result of the victim going into hypovolemic shock[5] which can be in a manner of hours, or days depending on the manner in which the victim is affixed to the cross. If the victim is crucified with a small seat, a sedile, affixed to the upright for minimum support in the region of the buttocks, death can be prolonged for hours and days. In fact, Josephus reports that three friends of his were being crucified in Thecoa by the Romans who, upon intervention by Josephus to Titus were removed from the crosses and with medical care one survived. (Life 76) So, it could be worse: you could be stabbed...

I have (but have not yet read) Renault's The King Must Die. Any particular suggestions? BTW, thanks for the recommendations and keep them coming!

Nice bit in today's NYT.

If not for the war of 1812, Andrew Jackson ('King Andrew I') would never have able to seize the party of Jefferson and turn it into the populist abomination that betrayed Native Americans, preserved slavery, energetically sought empire, ignored constitutional government, fostered cults of personality, and laid the groundwork for a corrupt political machine that brought economic chaos and civil war. You won't find it in the Hermitage gift shop, but The Passion of Andrew Jackson is well worth a read.

I liked the Posca character too, but I think the character has been successful so far because it was such a useful foil to Caesar. Without the Caesar-Posca interactions (*ahem*), Posca's been less interesting. My hope is that Posca jumps ship to Octavian before Actium. That's my line!

I've finished Harris' excellent novel, Imperium, and I was wondering what other novels set in ancient Rome people might suggest. (Needless to say, I found McCullough's Caesar-is-the-most-perfect-man-ever series pure crap not my cup of tea.) My all time favorite is still Quo Vadis, but I also liked Harris' Pompeii very much too. Suggestions?

Highlights from Episode 19: Atia yet breathes, while Servilia performs the office of Porcia; all Rome is divided into three parts, and a bribe from Herod threatens the unity of the triumvirs; Pullo is distracted while preparing to beat Gaia; Octavian arranges a cold wedding bed for Antony. Thanks to the magnificent opening shot depicting the death masks of the Junii (and Servilii Caeponis, one presumes) and a much better depiction of Roman weddings than we've seen thus far, this wasn't the worst episode yet. As a bonus, there is hope that we'll never see Timon's satyr-face again (the actor playing Timon would make a perfect Socrates, btw), and the lovely actress playing Cleopatra will be a welcome change from the interminable screeching by the wicked witch of the Julii (who should be dead by this point).

I recall reading that there were rich and large farms in Africa, where the farms were often fortified against indigenous raiders. The size of the farms strongly suggest that they employed slave labor, but one should recall that even rich farmers often worked in the fields beside their slaves (see, e.g., de Agricultura).

That seems like a fine description to me, but I think your examples and others point to the wide variation that it admits. Actually, I didn't claim this. I claimed that our own age informs what we consider to be traditionalist versus revisionist. It's possible that ancient history has been getting progressively closer to the truth since the day of Dio Cassius. If so, historians have becoming progressively less biased. Yet even under such a scenario, the views considered traditional vs revisionist would be constantly changing, even if while the bias would be progressively less. That, in a nutshell, was my first argument, and I'm very glad to see you're in agreement. I think this is a telling example. The approach to history that aims not to enlighten but to bemoan our darkness is sometimes called 'critical' history. This is a very different enterprise than the one that Peter Heather, Nathan Rosenstein, Keith Hopkins, and others have entered. These latter historians attempt to persuade us of a new perspective or explanation; they don't just pick-pick-pick for nothing. I'm no fan of 'critical' scholarship (as I'm using the term here), and since I think you're right that it would logically fall under the same umbrella as 'empiricist' scholarship, I think there should be a novel term for scholarship that seeks to summon new evidence and new analyses to advance a new conclusion. For me, that's the essence of revisionism, properly understood. Actually--and here I strongly depart from GO--I don't think the suspension of the self is a desirable thing in scholarship. What is needed is objectivity--that is, sticking to the facts--not neutrality, which is refusing to advance any particular thesis. To adopt neutrality, the historian doesn't need to know anything; to adopt an objective and new thesis, the historian must be brilliant, but not selfless. Moreover, I'm thrilled we have an ancient history written from the perspective of one who lived under the threat of fascism! It tells us about that age, as well as bringing attention to neglected aspects of ancient history. There are many historians whose perspective on ancient history is tremendously valuable precisely because they are not selfless, including Tacitus (pro-senate), Macchiavelli (pro-republican, if read properly), Gibbon (pro-enlightenment), and so on. Today's historians--who can write while gazing at the ruins of the Berlin Wall--may provide yet another unique perspective. As far as I'm concerned, the more the self is put into history, the better. I'd also point out that selfless history isn't an unattainable goal. If you want an example, look at Crawford's (1974) two-volume, Roman republican coinage. I'll wake you before you finish, I promise.

(BTW, I completely agree with Ursus about Peter Heather, and I think the jurist approach to ancient history is correct.)

As I indicated in my earlier comments, I'm not a fan of Scullard's history, which I consider to be wrong, but what I find truly objectionable is not Scullard's history but the reactionary historical attitude "If it sounds familiar, it must be right." Whether Ursus mean to communicate this attitude, I don't know. He does, however, raise a broader issue of "revisionism vs traditionalism." As I'll explain, I think the more apt description is "revisionism versus anti-revisionism", and in my view, anti-revisionism in Roman history (or any field) is an intellectually indefensible approach. First, let's be clear that traditionalism has no actual intellectual content for the simple fact that traditions endlessly change. Look at the many histories of the Roman republic: which one can be picked out as "the traditional view"? The history of Lucan? of Dio Cassius? Machiavelli? Montesquieu? Mommsen? Gelzer and Syme? Brunt and Scullard? Meier? Gruen? Millar? For a true traditionalist, this list should be an embarrassment--what is "revisionist" in one generation becomes "traditional" in the next. Picking out any of these, therefore, as "traditional" is completely arbitrary. Thus, the traditionalist approach amounts to, "the view that I started with (from my local library) is the true traditional view, the true Old School; all the other Old Schools were wrong, and all the New Schools--i.e., all the ones I will encounter in the future--are just revisionist." This attitude is exactly analogous to the Biblical Literalist who wants to take his familiar set of Gospels (and no others) as the word of God. It's a completely arbitrary position, and it's a recipe for a closed mind. Second, if traditionalism has no actual intellectual content (i.e., there is no true "traditional view"), what the traditionalist really is bringing to the table is simply the anti-revisionist slogan, "Don't change your mind about history." If any adult wants to argue for this, I really have nothing to say, except, "you aren't merely an amateur, you're a closed-minded fool." (To be clear, this is NOT what Ursus argued, but I want my opinion on this stated for the record.) Possibly, there are some children who take this view: you can simply point out to them that ancient histories are written on the basis of the ancient texts, artifacts, and context in which these are discovered; since new texts and artifacts are continually being discovered, our histories are constantly being updated. Third, the merits of revisionism are not limited to updating specific facts (e.g., the prevalence of roof tiles during the fourth and fifth centuries). The merits of revisionism lie in their calling attention to assumptions that have no firm basis in fact. Indeed, from the slim catalogue of facts that we have about the ancient world, the potential reconstructions are nearly infinite, and historians so far have only picked out a handful of the reconstructions that are consistent with these facts. Considering alternative hypotheses, therefore, is absolutely essential. To take just one example. For many years, we knew that foreign kings depended on the services of Roman statesmen, to whom they returned favors. Also, we have Cicero recording that Romulus "had the common people enrolled as clients to the leading men" (Rep. 2.16). Is there a connection between these two facts? Maybe, maybe not. Fustel de Coulanges thought so, and he put forward the revisionist opinion that the leading men of Rome were engaged in a patron-client relationship with voters. This leap of faith is now taught as self-evident fact in undergraduate classes on Roman society, whereas the exact opposite opinion is freely exchanged in graduate classes and Roman history journals, where no one could put forward the de Coulanges hypothesis without considerable discussion of the counter-arguments. What has emerged from this debate has been fresh inquiry into the whole realm of social relationships in the republic, and the wider idea of political culture, where informal practices yield insights into how ordinary people thought about their rights and roles in the state. Although there is no true "Old School" and there are true benefits to revisionism, I hasten to add that old historians are worth reading too. Sometimes (though not always), the old histories are fun to read for their stylistic flourishes (Gibbon springs to mind), for their politically incorrect cluelessness about women and non-Western cultures, and for their cranky moralizing and sincere hero-worship. These minor virtues help to smooth the way as the reader gags through long, pretentious, untranslated passages of Greek and Latin, and they distract one from the old authors' utter ignorance of anything outside the straight-jacket of the liberal arts. As I say, they have some minor virtues. As history, however, I prefer to read something I've not already heard 20 times before (call me crazy). I prefer to take a new perspective on familiar facts, to learn new facts I've not encountered before, and with these two conditions met, the more bracing the revisionism the better.

Honey, of course, was a commonly used sweetener in ancient Rome. I was surprised to learn, however, from AD's The Classical Cookbook that sugar was also used in Rome, albeit as a costly medicine. I wonder: Where did they get sugar? How did they use it medicinally? What are the literary sources testifying to its use?

Happy birthday, LQS! In honor of your namesake, will you be having venison for your birthday?

I don't think there are any surviving statues of Cato wearing a toga.

What about--superhomo .

As much as I admire the republican constitution for its administration of Italy, it's always seemed to me that Augustus' reforms of provincial administration (e.g., direct taxation vs. tax farming) represented progress. In what other ways (for better or worse) did the Roman administration of the provinces change with the rise and fall of the principate? Did the inhabitants of the provinces enjoy greater security from rapacious officials? Did tax revenues rise as a result of the new system? Is there archaeological evidence of generally increasing material prosperity as a result of the changes?

Perhaps a valid point. Too bad you didn't expound on it into something resembling a full length review that could grace our front page. Nice reply. I tip my hat.

Scullard always struck me as the greatest Roman historian of the 19th century. Which would fine if it weren't for the fact that he wrote in the 20th century, and it's now the 21st. I guess if you really want to kick it Old School, you'd be better off reading Dio Cassius: those 19th century revisionists are just pedantic academics seeking to make a name for themselves, right?