M. Porcius Cato

In addition to Patriots, mentioned by PP, I'm a huge fan of John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty. This is an important book: it offers a very tight synthesis of Adams' political thought and Adams' political activities. As much as I adore Jefferson, Washington, and Franklin, there is no more important revolutionary figure in American history than Adams, and after you read "John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty," you'll see why. I'm not an avid reader on the American Civil War, but on the principle that "ideas move man; man moves the world", I'd recommend Anti-Slavery Political Writings and the stirring autobiographies of Frederick Douglass. The institution of slavery may not have been the only cause of the civil war, but it was a cause of the war and it was the moral cause of the war.

He stated facts and opinion, which I'm sure you realize. If you dispute either, state your disagreement. Otherwise, you just come off as snide, which was probably not your intention. I don't see anything at all in his post that is damning of the Republic. If you do, identify what's so damning. Again, what exactly are you talking about? What facts are "buttressed in re Cato"?

Come to think of it, we could still get Paris Hilton cast as Antony's corrupt and vile wife. Never in history has a woman had such bad taste in men. Thus, who could be better cast in that role than the supremely tasteless Paris Hilton? BTW, the women in the ROME series really are almost uniformly wicked. It would have been nice to see the heroine Porcia as a counter-weight to Servilia and Atia.

Ursus is basically right, though he underplays it. Many of Washington's officers (not just his aide-de-camp Hamilton) conspired to make Washington king, but Washington squashed the conspiracy in a heart-breaking speech that absolutely refused the office. Hamilton, btw, never understood the point of the revolution. As a symptom of his completely rotten mind, he signed his pro-Federalist letters "Caesar" to the anti-Federalists' "Cato". Is it any wonder he almost killed the republic in its cradle?

Three points are critical. First, any CENSUS is going to provide a low-ball estimate of population. Second, only a fraction of the deaths caused by war occur on the battlefied. Troops are vectors for disease. Often, diaherria kills more than the gladius. Third, after war, there is typically a demographic surge, as men return to their wives after their poor brains have soaked for too long in too much testosterone. Given all three factors, the principate could have been LESS capable than the republic of supporting a large population at their previous levels of comfort, yet still have seen a larger-than-counted population boom simply by virtue of bringing an end to war. See Rosenstein's Rome at War for extended discussion of these issues. It's much better than the now-antiquated Brunt.

I always thought Clodia would be perfectly played by Miss Hilton.

I can't confirm your claim. But I do wonder: Why on earth would you calculate aid as a percentage of average personal income? From the perspective of the aid recipient, it's better to have 10 apples from the rich than have 1 apple from the poor; from the perspective of the aid recipient, help is what you want, not sacrifice.

I agree entirely with Sertorius. Not only is his description of political alliances more accurate than the cartoon factionalism that is bandied about on this forum, he is absolutely correct that the republic was a strong and healthy institution until one villain brought the whole system down--Julius Caesar. If more people on this forum would put down the Colleen McCullough and pick up the Erich Gruen and Lily Ross Taylor, Sertorius' opinion wouldn't come as such a surprise. (G.O. please edit your posts for clarity. It made absolutely no sense to me.)

Can anyone provide a second confirmation that Vorenus DID say Cincinnatus? It doesn't make sense on so many levels. As a strict (if sullen) Catonian, Lucius Vorenus would have admired Cincinnatus. Second, Cincinnatus was not--to my knowledge--ever a tribune of the plebs, so he doesn't fit in the Gracchi/Antony comparison.

I don't care if Caesar had saved Brutus' life (as did Cassius saved Caesar's). Brutus was under no obligation to Caesar; his obligation was to the law and the republic, which are higher duties than any mere personal tie. Do I need to remind you that the founder of the republic, Marcus Junius Brutus, had his own sons killed for conspiring against the consuls? And they did far less damage to the republic than Caesar. Or do you not recall that Romans were legally obligated to kill anyone aiming at regnum--and Caesar was not only called rex outside Italy, he'd even had his statues placed next to the old kings of Rome, had lived in the reggia for years, and was under the crazy notion that he was a god! Rome was being ruled by an old crazed fool--what true Roman could let a few trinkets and tender mercies distract him from his duty? Surely no Brutus worthy of the name, Brutus.

I don't think this cuts it--primary source material (including physical and linguistic evidence) is basic, though obviously secondary sources are invaluable in interpreting this material and offering pointers to basic evidence. Also, let's not exaggerate the difficulty here. With practice, this will get easier because you'll develop a knowledge base of where to find materials on-line, which can be searched quickly. Also, as more contributions come in, a veritable arsenal of citations will accumulate, and you'll notice patterns in the citations that will make for easier access later. As Spinoza says, "All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

Me too. PR voted No. They don't want to be a state; they don't want to be an independent country. What are you going to do?

I think the fight was a symptom of a broader move toward plebs and provincials asserting their place in government; unfortunately, they were overly suspicious of Hellenized rich guys telling them what was right and wrong, and this led them to some reactionary prejudices. This dynamic also seems to have been at work in the rise and fall of the Gracchi too, though I don't think that the specific conflict between Cato and Scipio had any causal connection to that development. In any case, that we're continuing the conversation here rather than under the Imperium Romanorum is an experimental outcome we should think about addressing....

Thank you Gaius, though the conditions of the experiment itself had far more to do with the quality of the post than anything else. Being forced to cite every darned source leads one to many unexpected findings. I literally scratched the outline of my argument on the back of an envelope in less than 10 minutes. Finding the sources for my historical citations took close to 3 hours. I should add that I included a bomb in one of my footnotes for the benefit of dear Clodius. It should be excised.

Diversity generates competition which generates growth. A homogenized society is a stagnant society and a stagnant society quickly becomes backward, resentful, self-destructive, and easily toppled by forces to which it has developed no immunity. This is one of the core principles behind the US policy of relatively open immigration, and why the prospect of restricting immigration to the US is unquestionably a suicidal one.

My thesis is that Cato's opposition to Scipio was not the beginning of "factionalism" in Rome nor was it borne of a mere jealousy of Scipio. The rivalry between Cato and the Scipiones was instead part of a longer running ideological conflict between patricians and plebs and between Hellenization and the agrarian values of traditional societies. In this conflict, the specific rivalry of Cato and the Scipiones may have been emblematic of future conflicts, but as the case of Dentatus and Appius Claudus demonstrates, it was not formative. First, political rivalries and factions long predated the conflict between Cato and Scipio. Even the Fabii, who later produced Cato's mentor Fabius Maximus, were no strangers to political suspicions. When Q. Fabius Vibulanus (cos. 485) met success in the war with the Volsci and Aequi, he sold the booty and deposited the money in the treasury instead of sharing it among the soldiers, leading to his immense unpopularity with the plebs (1). When the patricians installed K. Fabius Vibulanus in the following year (484), Kaeso and his colleague opposed agrarian laws brought forward by tribunes, which he did also (against the tribune Sp. Icilius Licinius) in his successive consulship of 483, leading his troops to abandon him in the field, much to the astonishment of the opposing Veientes. These political rivalries, it should be added, were short-lived because the Fabii apparently took the plebeian opposition to heart, and later became their greatest allies--bringing wounded soldiers to their own houses for care and securing for them the rights they had long resisted (3). This precedent foreshadows a second important point: that the political rivalries were ideological and not simply personal. The overthrow of the decemvirs and the secession of the plebs in the years to come were not simply personal affairs, having occurred over several generations and over many different families, some in rivalry with one another. Nor were these political movements unproductive: with no inconsiderable opposition, the tribunes Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius (376 367) produced the Lex Licinia Sextia, which first opened the consulships to plebs (4), including many who later save Rome from her worst enemies. This raises the third point, which is that the agents in these political rivalries, though they did not share a personal connection, shared political goals, with patricians often seeking to reduce the rights of plebs. For example, almost immediately after the Lex Licinia Sextia, the candidacies of plebs were abrogated by the patrician consul Appius Claudius Caecus, who ironically gained power by filling up vacancies in the senate with a large number of the still lower popular party (5), until it was restored by Cato's hero and Sabine neighbor, Manius Curius Dentatus.(6) Dentatus, like Cato, was a homo novus (7), and he made a name for himself in another "factional" rivalry, specifically as a tribune opposing Appius Claudius, whose exclusion of plebs was rescinded by Dentatus compelling the senate to sanction any legal election before the outcome was announced (8). This "factional" conflict immediately yielded two dividends for Rome. First, after Dentatus won the consulship that he opened to his class, he defeated the Sabines, to whom he immediately reconciled Rome by granting them Roman citizenship without suffrage. Second, Dentatus further distinguished himself by expelling the Greek tyrant Pyrrhus from Italy after defeating him near Beneventum, for which Dentatus received a magnificent triumph, though Dentatus himself took none of the booty except a wooden vessel used for making sacerdotal offerings.(10) Dentatus' display of the agrarian virtues of thrift, self-discipline, and a suspicion of Hellenism were much admired by Cato, who often visited the small farm and poor dwelling to which Dentatus retired after celebrating three triumphs. (11) According to Plutarch, it was in this house "that the ambassadors of the Samnites once found him seated at his hearth cooking turnips, and offered him much gold; but he dismissed them, saying that a man whom such a meal satisfied had no need of gold, and for his part he thought that a more honourable thing than the possession of gold was the conquest of its possessors. Cato would go away with his mind full of these things, and on viewing again his own house and lands and servants and mode of life, would increase the labours of his hands and lop off his extravagancies." (12) In my view, these precedents to the rivalry between Cato and Scipio highlight two points that may serve as a future thesis. The first is that political rivalries were often far broader and deeper than mere personal difference: for many years, there was something of a "culture war" in Italy, represented by Hellenicized patricians on the one side and the traditional plebs on the other. Cato's Lex Porcia, which observed plebs' rights to appeal magisterial acts, and his opposition to the repeal of the Oppian laws, may be seen as emblematic of both trends. (13) Second, these rivalries had beneficial consequences: they led to political settlements (such as the Lex Licinia Sextia) that benefitted Rome and led to the advancement of many (Dentatus) who would defeat Rome's enemies, much as Cato himself did as hero at Metaurus and as a commander in Hispania Citerior. (13) (1) Liv. ii 41-43, 46; Dionys. viii. 77, 82, 90, ix. 11 (2) Liv. ii. 43 ; Dionys. ix. 1, foil. ; Zonar. vii. 17 ; Val. Max. ix. 3.

All duly noted; thank you. Were these all the guys who were princeps senatus? Is there a list I need to see? Thanks for the additions--these are great!

No kidding. How is this relevant? I doubt the Spanish could have dealt with two revolts--the one in Britain and the one in the Netherlands. Once the Inquisition moved to Britain (as it had to the Netherlands) moderates would have become radicalized, and the Spanish would have still had to deal with William's son, who defeated the Spanish several times and forced them to sign an armistice. I did mean William I (the Silent), prince of Orange. His murder in 1588 is also completely irrelevant. The premise was that he would have been celebrated by a wider audience if--with their future British rivals crippled by the Spanish--the Dutch had filled the vacuum left by the downfall of Elizabeth and, not having three Anglo-Dutch wars to fight, the Dutch Republic had enjoyed the widespread expansion that Britain had after the defeat of the Armada.

You can only dispute sources with other sources (op. cit., PP iv).

All I care about is the evidence--you can hail whomever you'd like (even your Queen of Bithynia).

The Academic forum is a great idea, as it is opposed to the Arena, where anything goes. BUT, let us please try to keep the rest of the boards closer to Academia than to Arena--if you're not going to cite chapter and verse, at least cite facts to support your opinion. It's not fair to have a perfectly good discussion interrupted with so many "Hail Caesar!"-type comments that the whole thing gets tossed to the Arena.

Will Clodius care to pepper his invective with evidence, or shall it be pure invective this evening?

Loyalty and honor to what? To ideals or to blood? If to ideals, then Brutus was certainly loyal. If to blood, Brutus was also loyal--he was a kinsman of Cato and the husband of the illustrious Porcia. Could you suck up to a dictator who had caused the death of your wife's beloved father, destroyed the lives of all your friends and family, and on top of all that marched against the capital of your nation? If you could, there are many names one might call you--but not loyal and not honorable. Brutus, on the other hand, may have had many faults--but not disloyalty and not dishonor.

Did you look at the lives of Marius and Sulla in Plutarch?

Caesarion. He did less harm than all the rest.