M. Porcius Cato

Yes, I understand the reasoning from modern cultures that have some similarities to ancient Rome, but what is the ancient evidence that Romans weren't candid and even confrontational? We have written records of what people said to one another in private correspondence, plays depicting how they spoke with one another, poems that reflected thoughts intended for a wider audience, and biographies. All of these sources include frank, candid, sometimes intimate and very often confrontational personal exchanges. After reading Terence's Woman of Andros or Propertius' poems about Cynthia or Cicero' letters to Atticus, I don't see why anything in the HBO Rome should seem out of place.

That's an interesting question--how did Romans really interact? Looking at Plautus, Catullus, and Cicero, I'd say that the Romans were pretty loose-tongued. One senator (according to Suetonius, I think) used to enter the senate house greeting Pompey "king" and Caesar "queen". Not exactly a set piece of what you delicately called "indirection." Do you have any evidence suggesting otherwise?

How does your explanation account for the fact that different parts of the empire fell at different times? There is no independent evidence that the aristocrats in Britain, Gaul, Italy, Africa, or Asia were any more or less willing to lose their money than the aristocrats in the other regions. So why did some areas fall before others? I say this because the new Senatorial aristocracy of the East was new and thus not as hell bent on holding onto all thier property and holdings, even if they were, the Emperor in the East had actual authority where as in the West the Emperor was a puppet of the Magister Militum or the Senate and so they could not wrest control of thier money from thier hands. I have difficulty understanding your reasoning at all. From "new", you get "less tight-fisted"? That's a complete non sequitur. What *evidence* is there that the "aristocracy" (who is always a scapegoat for everything on this forum) were more or less tight-fisted depending on which region they lived? It seems like you want to uphold your hypothesis at all costs.

Although Jesus certainly had to have known that slavery existed, he never condemned the institution nor did any of his apostles, and in fact St. Paul preached on behalf of slavery in his famous "slaves obey your masters, wives obey your husbands" sermon. Christianity has never taught that all men deserve equal political rights--that is, until it was already a political fact.

People commonly refer to an aquiline nose as a being a "Roman nose", but what exactly is Roman about it? Among the portraits we have of Romans, I can only think of one fellow with a decidedly "Roman" nose, and that's my namesake (look to the left). So where did the idea come from that Romans had such substantial schnozen? The earliest mention of one that I can find (1832) in the Oxford English Dictionary? refers to a horse as being Roman-nosed, not a person. Is it possible that there was an Italian breed of horses or other animal that was distinctive for its peculiar proboscis? The Online Etymology Dictionary says Roman nose dates back to 1624, but it gives no source. Anybody have any more information about where the idea got started?

My guess is that it's neither a recipe for freedom nor the end of the rule of law in the US. Regarding the first option, I'd not applaud our handling of the people picked up--some certainly deserved to be interrogated for months, but some didn't, so the freedoms of the latter group were violated and that's not part of a good recipe for freedom. However, the legal decisions made about the treatment of enemy combatants do not form the basis for precedents in the treatment of US citizens, so they hardly entail an end to the rule of law in the US.

The Magna Carta and US Constitution do not guarantee habeas corpus to non-citizens. GIs in WWII did not need a writ to apprehend enemy combatants. Get real.

TRANSLATION: It's dead, don't enter. Tu parles francais comme vache espagnole.

How does your explanation account for the fact that different parts of the empire fell at different times? There is no independent evidence that the aristocrats in Britain, Gaul, Italy, Africa, or Asia were any more or less willing to lose their money than the aristocrats in the other regions. So why did some areas fall before others? Again, a good explanation for the fall has to account for the geographic and temporal variation in the decline of the empire (i.e., why *what* fell *when*), but since all general factor explanations (decline in morality, loss of will to live, willingness of the aristocracy to lose their money, etc) haven't the temporal or geographic specificity to explain these variables, they're bad explanations.

Except that it's not your eye that's being tricked but your brain. The eye registers light differences pretty well, but the cortical mechanisms that code brightness have a geometery that is optimized for light differeces without being misled by shadows. FWIW, the shadow checkerboard illusion is in the same class as the White illusion, and they are apparently caused by pattern-specific inhibition filters. :smartass:

But the problem with all propaganda explanations is that they fail to account for the report of Caesar's problems in the Alexandrian and Civil Wars, which were written in part by Caesar's lieutenants and published long after they had any propaganda value. In contrast, the blitzkrieg theory can account for Caesar's supply problems in all the campaigns he fought.

Yes, and in terms of confidence, you can build that up by continually getting yourself out of jams (which Caesar was as good at putting himself into as getting himself out of).

Well said Prometheus.

Our answers are similar Virgil, but is it necessary to delimit Caesar's supply troubles to the specifics of Gaul? After all, Caesar had the same problems in Greece and in Africa, where his opponents had no such troubles. Isn't it Caesar's blitzkrieg strategy--which he used in all the campaigns--that gave rise to the problems? After all, he had never bothered to create a well-organized commissariat.

I guess the question is whether Catiline had a realistic shot at overthrowing the consuls. If he did, and if he could get the backing of Crassus and Caesar, he would probably have stood a better chance at winning Rome than did the earlier revolt by Lepidus and Brutus (who were defeated by Catulus and Pompey). With the addition of the near Gauls to Catiline's cause, the odds in favor of Catiline improve. If in addition Catiline could have won over some of the old Sullans (perhaps Pompey himself), the putsch would have gone from difficult to fait accompli. Granted, an alliance among Crassus, Caesar and Pompey is far-fetched...

Why should competence in one area imply that competence exists in every area? All generasl (and all men) are mixtures of strengths and weaknesses, generally because even successful strategies involve trade-offs. One of Caesar's successful strategies was his celerity--his charging ahead in anticipation of the enemy. The problem was that he also often charged ahead of his supplies, and sometimes even charged ahead of his other men. You can see this both in Gaul, and in his crossing to Britain, and in his crossing to Greece, and in his African campaigns. In fact, if you look at the sum of all of Caesar's days campaigning you find that nearly HALF of them involve rummaging around for supplies that he had failed to obtain or in extricating himself from dangers that he put himself in needlessly. So, he was quite obviously not simply driving forward by virtue of his men's hunger. Rather, his supply problems led him to take a step in place for every step forward. BTW, my criticism has absolutely nothing to do with my support for the republican ideal. Every general who has commented on Caesar's campaigns (Napolean, Fuller, etc) have come to exactly the same conclusion about his failures in this regard. What military considerations are you considering that these generals are failing to consider? Except this interpretation doesn't explain why he also mentions running off--not only with insufficient food--but also insufficient anchors, sails, men, grain, and all the other goods in the supply wagon. Not carrying spare sails doesn't sound "tough"--it sounds ill-prepared. Just to be clear--I'm not arguing that Caesar's logistic problems are a consequence of any military incompetence or "weakness". I'm arguing that they were an unavoidable side-effect of his blitzkrieg strategies.

Trojans, viruses, spyware -- it's all greek to me. Get a Mac, and you'll be rid of them. I haven't suffered from a single virus or anything like that since installing Mac OS X, plus I can still run Rome Total Realism on the XP partition whenever I feel like walking on the wild side.

An interesting viewpoint on Goldsworthy's book, FC. You raised an hypothesis about Caesar's supply problems that puzzles me, however. On the one hand, Grant famously observed that "an army marches on its belly", yet you suggest that starving the troops somehow drove them forward. Is that your conjecture or Goldsworthy's? I can't find him making such a claim.

Either beat them in the political sphere or retire from politics--just like everyone else does. Did you know that Caesar wasn't REALLY descended from Venus? Caesar hadn't any divine rights, and he wasn't the first to have rivals attempting to wreck his political career. From the earliest days of the republic right up to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, competition was fierce. If a man isn't willing to stand for competition, he should quit the race. Yes, he was--until he crossed the Rubicon. Then he was a traitor. What on earth are you thinking? That Caesar somehow is such a godling that he doesn't have to play by the rules? That's how a sociopath thinks of himself, but you needn't play along with his megalomania. A sweeping generalization about a large and diverse group, and with no supporting evidence--very well done, Phil. Please, vent more.

Other than that I can think of nothing else at this time, but it's enough for me to imagine what would come if they won the war. Hold on--you are presuming to use your imagination as evidence? Now it's all becoming clear. Sure, the republic was flexible in the sense that it could adopt new laws and policies for the good of the republic. But Caesar's demand to keep his army wasn't for the republic--it was to threaten Rome should it displease Caesar. The senate did not intend to be blackmailed by Caesar--so they required that he disband his army like every other returning general. There was nothing in the interest of the republic that would have had generals doing otherwise. I'm sure you would like that. With Sertorius' and Cicero's commnets, I've finally had the pleasure of seeing opinions I agree with that weren't my own!

Maybe the Oxford edition of his Political Speeches? This volume contains two of the seven speeches that Cicero prepared against Verres, but Verres fled before Cicero could deliver them all.

"Teenage butcher" as I recall. Though he hadn't butchered a million yet--that was Caesar. Assumption...fact--which is it? Frankly, I don't see an "uncompromising attitude" as a threat of physical force--the "uncompromising attitude" was rhetoric as usual, and in fact, the senate voted overwhelmingly for Curio's proposal for compromise. With no army behind them, the 22 remaining senators who voted against Curio's proposal hardly constituted a Marian-level threat. We've been over this before, and now we're just repeating ourselves.

I don't think the analogy between Marius/Sulla and Pompey/Caesar is entirely apt. Pompey, unlike Marius, was not butchering his political opponents in the streets of Rome. Had free and fair elections been held we might know the answer to this question, but insofar as people voted with their feet, the length and duration of the civil war is the best proxy we have. Based on this, a large number of both ordinary and extraordinary people favored both sides in the struggles to come.

Breaking news from EIA: 9/11 - US Avg (All Gasoline Grades): $ 2.618 9/18 - US Avg (All Gasoline Grades): $ 2.497 9/25 - US Avg (All Gasoline Grades): $ 2.378 Data still consistent with two opposing hypotheses: (1) oil company/GOP price manipulation in anticipation of early November elections, (2) the seasonal fall in prices that occurs every year. The real test will come between early November and December. The first hypothesis sees a gradual return to pre-election prices (when oil companies would feel free to 'gouge' consumers); the second hypothesis sees continuing declines until demand picks up again in the spring. Only time will tell...

Thank you, WotWotius (and everyone else who liked the review). And also thanks for the congrats too.