Consensus on Numerian's cause of death?

[Onasander]

Caldrail.... Come on, how far out on the fringe can you get?

 

I don't know all the sources for Aemillian. The book is on Scribn, I only pay 9 bucksa month to read it's books.

 

Big issue I'm facing is with him is, he appears, either ideologically or for propaganda purposes, to of wanted to of been a conservative of sorts, by "cutting back" on imperial authority back towards the flirtatious and yet ambiguous absolute authority Caesar and Augustus had (and yes, they beyond a reasonable doubt had it), versus Thrax was was blantant as you can get. There really wasn't a lot of group feeling (IBM Khaldun term) between Thorax and the Senators, and questionable further gains. Try soliciting the favor of a brute who isn't aware of how underhand and backroom soliciting, groveling, and outright synchopanty for personal benifit works.

 

Meanwhile, there is a odd divide by historians I don't get, seems obvious he was in charge of collecting the gold tribute to give to the Goths, but historians currently are divided into two camps.... He either was sent to give the tribute to keep the Goths from ravaging the territory by offering tribute (taken from where?) or he merely pillaged the Roman territory. Seems obvious, both. Dont expect Romans in Italy to ship their Gold up? Besides, they minted their own gold in Antioch, likely from local taxation.

 

I don't think they had a central treasury that distributed tribute. Just wrestled it from their provinces that needed to pay off the enemy the most. Naturally the locals would be pissed.

Edited February 17, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

One of my posts went missing....

 

 

What I said still holds however.

 

You can find Zonaras on Scribn, it's 9 bucks a month to subscribe.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbannacus

 

Are those the troops your speaking of?

 

And I know I made that post Vuggen, even edited it. Caldrail really is out on left field on this, he even went so far to dodge the Monarchy issue by suggesting it was really more of a mafia. You can't hold that position in the very era we are dealing with. Generissimos are non dynastic. This emperor in question MIGHT fit this 20th century construct, contra monarchy. Caldrail ceases to have a claim in this era, period. Best he can hope for is the Bella Felix dichotomy. It doesn't apply universally, just under one emperor and a handful of rebel leaders (roman and non roman, including Robinhood).

Edited February 18, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

I've just ascertained Aurelius Victor was one of the sources for John of Salisbury, I had translated some of that stuff under 11. of De Caesaribus in De Nugis Philosophicum, which half of that fake work is sloppily yanked from John of Salisbury.... If I recall correctly, chapter 14 of book 3 (bit hazy).

 

http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/victor_ep.html

 

He is mentioned a lot as a source, so went to check him out.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

http://www.luc.edu/roman-emperors/epitome.htm

 

Found the English, stroll down to chapter 31.

[Onasander]

In De Caesaribus, when he says Decius made Decius his son, it's not a typo, they both carried that name, he meant Herennius Etruscus.

 

His brother was Hostilianus Perpenna (or Perperna), and Zosimus thinks he died of the Jealously of Gallus, but I also see plague listed.

 

Hostilius stayed behind in Italy, apparently as the younger brother, but as usual, wikipedia and Google are at odds and says he is also the older brother of Herennius. I also read Herennius was the wife of Decius and not the son, but this makes no sense to me.

 

Obviously they are of Etruscan geographical origin.

 

All involved in useless pogroms against Christians.

 

It's also said Hostilian had no coins minted of him, which I have my doubts. Was the treasury really that full? You gotta continually melt down and remint the old coinage, they wear down, and people shave them.

 

(Tom, your avatar reminds me of the 1/40th Cav Scouts, a Airborne Infantry unit up in Anchorage, Alaska

http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Handlers/ThumbnailHandler.ashx?id=110&size=150

 

We used to say it looked like Barney the Dinosaur waving around a light saber while high on crack. Obviously the pentagon didn't screen the unit crest when some bored, mischief driven lieutenant designed it.)

Edited February 18, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

It starts in Book 9 of Eutropius Abridgement of Roman History:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00CCHCNMC/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?qid=1424276615&sr=8-5π=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&keywords=eutropius&dpPl=1&dpID=51P9rcZiMeL&ref=plSrch

[Onasander]

Hmmm.....

 

Lactantius "On the Deaths of the Persecutors" vs Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists

 

 

One seems to be in partisan reaction to the other. East Side vs West Side kind of bickering in Constantine's Court between the Neo-Plotinist (Vedanta) and Christians. I'm assuming Lactantius came first, but don't know if he necessarily started this fight.

 

I know however, the aftermath.... After a few centuries of infighting, they more or less merged, though with Christian theological priorities domination. It's one of those issues Ive found to gloss over with the Greek "Orthodox", that their not as pure and more faithful to the original principles of Christianity as they think they are. But it's a minor issue, don't care if they stare at their navels.l, keeps them busy.

Hmmm.....

 

Lactantius "On the Deaths of the Persecutors" vs Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists

 

 

One seems to be in partisan reaction to the other. East Side vs West Side kind of bickering in Constantine's Court between the Neo-Plotinist (Vedanta) and Christians. I'm assuming Lactantius came first, but don't know if he necessarily started this fight.

 

I know however, the aftermath.... After a few centuries of infighting, they more or less merged, though with Christian theological priorities domination. It's one of those issues Ive found to gloss over with the Greek "Orthodox", that their not as pure and more faithful to the original principles of Christianity as they think they are. But it's a minor issue, don't care if they stare at their navels, keeps them busy.

 

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eunapius_02_text.htm#AEDESIUS THE CAPPADOCIAN

Edited February 18, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

Original principles? Christianity was not a unfied movement in any sense at all. The Council of Nicaea was supposed to address that by establishing what Christian orthodoxy was (and defining heresy) but even that failed to achieve 100%. There were deep divisions on interpreting christian beliefs and which gospels were satisfactory. In fact, early christianity accepted female priests. Once the Romans fully engaged with christianity, women were removed.

[Onasander]

I've been sick for several days Caldrail, tried writing a post yesterday here but passed out.

 

I'm stuck in a quandary, as I've usually have in philosophy in general held a anti-academic position, but make certain expections for parts of it's branches.... history being one, as it seems to of peaked rather early, and holds to a conservancy and bias unlike few other cultural institutions. I more or less considered it dead in terms of evolution, so why not tolerate the academics? If they specialize, they inevitably become closed minded and closed circle socially, but few people read most of their literature. It's a bit like seeing a barrel on a worm farm.... You know what's inside, you know what's going on, but really, what impact on their surroundings can they really have?

 

So, that's my view on professors, worms in a can, doing it in the dark of a university, might be for a fruitful end, might not.... clearly not aware of the larger world they are in. Yeah.... that about sums up historians in general, every biography just written.

 

In your case Caldrail, I've fully accepted your position that you were a history professor. Sometimes I've held doubts, especially your wild denouncements that the Roman Emperors were NOT Monarchists, but remembered you lived in England, and for patriotic reasons as a subject of the crown, couldn't come to grips like most authors covering the rise of the principate did, bashing and joking at the severe hilarity of Augustus disdain for dictatorship, or how remarkably unrepublican Nepotism bordering on.... Not even bordering, a outright dynastic succession was. You arbitrarily then pulled out of your butt "Constantine" of all people ended the Republic, even though he lived centuries after it's fall. Senate of a kind had always been under the emperors, and continued on long after him. I was stumped, just summed it up to generic pop culture anti-christian populism from England. I half expected you to rant on about Manchester United or some MP no one ever heard of, and essentially wrote you off as marginal, yet representative, of professors in the UK. But I don't have the highest expectations to begin with with academics, and took it for what it was.

 

Now.... I'm worried. You've landed into a few deeply fringe categories of possibilities, and am going to have to ask BRITISH ONLY members to respond to:

 

Scenario 1) Caldrail isn't aware of the history of Roman Christian history, which is at least half of it's total history (paganism the first half, with overlap). If this is the case, I will fill you in.

 

The Christian churches (not christians persay) are organized on the basis of apostolic succession. Every Christian priest is expected to be able to trace his lineage back to Christ, from one ordination to the next. Obviously, this got hard to do after a while. The early apostles (1st gen) after Christ held a Synod, which is a get together of clergy holding rulings.

 

Apostolic Succession + Synod = Organizing Structure of Christianity. It's how it's worked for over 2000 years. This isn't to say there doesn't exist other ways to organize things, just thus is how Jesus and his first Apostles did it under Original Jurisdiction. It won't be changed, not for you, not for anyone. It's his system (Jesus), and if your going to call yourself a Christian priest, you go by his system. They control the rites and rituals of the church.... the sort of stuff I doze off to. It's always been Males as Priests, except for one occasion I recall the Vatican found, in Roman times out in Asia Minor (might of been Syria, like I'm thinking 3rd Century, but it's been a few years). As soon of the Bishops heard this, they moved very rapidly against the Bishop who consecrated these priests, pointing out they never were priests, as there never had been female priests before.

 

Thus being said, we've had no shortage of Female Deacons. They still exist to this day. The Synods of Greek Orthodox Churches IN GREECE a few years back allowed abbesses in all female monasteries, under very strict isolation, similar to his on Mt. Athos only Males can visit, in their case only females.... this appointment. However, a deacon is not a priest.

 

Likewise, a female CAN to my knowledge in all the ancient churches still extant (Im taking a pan-apostolic position, not just a Catholic one) take theological degrees equal to Priests. However, what most people DON'T realise is, a priest isn't a preacher. It became a rule early on (logically a few generations down the road, don't know exactly when) that the only person who was allowed to preach was the Bishop, but he could delegate this authority.... to male or female. Yes, Christians have Rabbis of sorts. I'm told this happens quite often in parish areas of modern Greece in particular where the priest is bona fide but not necessarily eridute, the Bishop allows select qualified members to speak, but only priests can do the priestly things.

 

I know of only two cases where known pagans, both male, had been made Bishops. The one during the Roman era was during the barbarian invasion of Greece.... every person of means was getting out of dodge, and so told a local pagan philosopher he was now Bishop and in Charge, as a Bishop was a government official, and also had secular authority.

 

Obviously, the issue arises, would any priest consecrated under him be valid? I doubt it, as the douche who passed that sort of authority along wasn't being very Christian himself (one must at least be a priest to make another a priest, much less a bishop, I question if a baptism occurred, or it's sincerity). But apostolic succession by this point meant it expanded from a network of priests to tiers of special administrative priests called bishops, and one in particular called Patriarch/Pope/Cathlicos in each region.

 

If the recognized them and their successors, shared communion.... so be it. If questions arouse, ask them, have a conference, synod.... whatever. If obviously solved itself as statistically I doubt his priests went off to become patriarch of every Holy See and shipwreck Christianity.

 

I recall also a instance of a Alexandrian Cynic, upsurping the title of Patriarch of Constantinople. The Emperor wanted nothing to do with it, the Church in the east was torn up over it, but eventually pushed both claiments out just to be safe, and the Cynic appealed to the Pope, who I believe at first backed him.... then the Greeks sent a delegation to explain the coup and how he wasn't even a priest, nor any of those involved in elevating him to bishop.

 

You'll find this basic formula stamped across history used by many churches to this day in determining via apostolic formula who is and is not a bona fide bishop outside their communion.

 

I also know of a case of a courtier arriving to Antioch I believe just when the patriarch of Constantinople died, he loved Christianity, was highly educated, the local bishop was so impressed he made him a priest and then a bishop, and rushed him off to get coronated as patriarch. Only afterwards it was realized he was never baptised, which like.... obviously confused everyone as to whether or not he was even therefore a priest.... I don't think anyone ever solved that one. Feel free to crack that one....

 

So.... now we know this. This is fact. Truth. If you were not aware of it before, then you were merely ignorant, but I'm worried how a historian of Roman history could be unawares of it.

 

The Catholic church in Brazil, for example, is split between grey capped bishops (Brazilian Catholic Church) and Red Capped (Vatican). They do not share communion, but both groups have equally legitimate Bishops.

 

Likewise even with the monophysites. Legit bishops. Only problems arose over a century ago in Sri Lanka, with a Syrian Bishop consecrated a couple of sack jobs like this:

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Vilatte

 

If you look closely at who ordinated him, you'll see he had at the time what seems a sincere ordination. Most Gnostic Bishops and self styled bishops hook up with this lineage, in an effort to point out they have equally valid credentials as any other bishop out there in terms of apostolic succession.

 

The Syrian church is currently deeply embarrassed by this, admits to it, but various churches have dealt with it in various ways. I guess once you get to the point of every apostolic lineage rejecting your lineage officially, your dead. I don't know. Most of the bishops of this offshoot (I think 30+) cross consecrate and exchange offices, which is a tradition none existent in mainline churches, in the belief that the more times your consecrated, the more solid and official your status becomes. During Roman times, communion between patriarchs would of sufficed (the communion of excommunication, hence why the don't do it now).

 

I'm thinking, by very simply, concrete fiat due to preestablished rules already embedded in being a Bishop (which one has to follow if one is to consecrate another as a bishop) is the early Roman rule, that all Romans followed, that females can't be made bishops, as one must first be a priest to be a bishop, and no females are priests (the default) then these so called female bishops cancel out the reconsecration of every male they do it to. I'm just not certain how wide and windy this closed and open circuit would be at any given time. In some off these meetings, hypothetically, all could lose their status, while just some, depending on the domino of the order. However, if the females were not bishops in the first place, did they have the capacity to even nullify the effect of bishop in another? Heck if I know?

 

All I know is, if they develop patriarchs, and they successively all become female for a few generations long enough, by default they lose all argument to being a bishop. The lineage in any form dies off.

 

Likewise, the issue of baptism.

 

Two churches that for a long time were recognized as having legit bishops, The ArchBishop of Cantonbury and the Dutch Old Catholic Church, both attempted to consecrate females. Of course, this isn't possibly, as the rules imbedded in their lineage forbids it, but heretics do as they like. Both churches are being driven to the point if near extinction. 1 out of every 6 to 7 ordained ministered in the C of E is said to be female. Once you get one into Archbishop position, every new seminary graduate ordainef becomes instantly voided. I know the Catholic church is experiencing fast growth in England because of this, as well as the Russian and Greek Orthodox Church, Coptic Church, and even the Gaulic Orthodox (branch of the Syrian church). All likely would plunge instantly for the title of ArchBishop of Cantonbury, as all would have a much better legal claim, as all (save the Russians, they are however offshoots of the Byzantine, and lesser extent the Roman churches) were parts of the Roman Imperial Church. I doubt there be very many confused post war baby boomer Brits around by that point to fight it. Likely goes back to the Catholics.

 

Now.... In Protestant Churches, anything goes. They use self proclaimed ministers. Some might even have a legitimate apostolic succession, but every time I've looked outside save the Lutherans, I can't find it, just smoke and mirrors.

 

It's a simple mathematical formula. I honestly can't even see what the attraction in being a priest is, outside of hearing juicy confessions. You gotta hear a whole lotta lame ones too. Lots of vestments and robes, liturgies left and right. A lot of churches won't let you shave, or make you fast. Gotta consecrate everything and hymn, and no control over finances. And the defrock you at the slightest cause these days. And like I said, you can get appointed by a bishop, male or female, to preach.... or you can become a monk or nun, without bothering.

 

Other restrictions also apply, including in Roman times. You had to be of whole body. All your parts, in order to be consecrated. Why? Cause.... Another early rule. Some big seminaries actually photograph pictures of the face and ten fingers.

 

In the Catholic and Orthodox church, I'm prohibited from being a Priest, just like any woman, because of my voluntary entry into the military. Exceptions are made for draftees who don't kill, and military chaplains and now defunct military orders (if you count the knights of Malta). Catholics aren't as strict on this one, and have been pointed out examples where guys got consecrated anyway. But I'm not breaking that rule, much easier given I don't really want it.

 

Oh.... Election of Pope's by the Roman Senate, and of Greek Patriarchs by the Turkish Government. They were priests before hand. Obviously, Jesus didn't leave behind a pamphlet explaining how Bishops (which hadn't occurred yet) were to be elected by the Senate or Parliament. It's a simple variable in the outgrowth of the mathematical formula. You have a basic root structure, it branches out, but like any tree, each branch can do subtly different things. Most bishops lean towards extreme conservative views, if for no other reasons than fear of realizing their the only one saying it. It's not a position for radical policies or politics.

 

So.... If you were merely ignorant of this, now you know. This is the way it is. Test any fact, I'm not infallible, but much more likely to be correct than you on this matter, and of course I can back any point.

 

However, given the severe state of collapse in your country (C of E dying off, and political and ideological preying on what's left of the church for short turn gains and hooliganism) I ask the other British members here if any of what I said rings a bell, or if the Queen just one day scribbled some lunacy down of paper, handed it off to the Ministry of Defecation.... I mean Education, and everyone got brainwashed a few generations via quacko-history?

 

All I know is, in both England and the Netherlands, one Century ago, Catholics were the minority, and are now the majority. Know no matter how grumpy you get, how emphatic you lie, scream, pout, or change the law, this will not change, EVER. It remains this way till the end of time. We can say this with confidence, because it gas lasted so long.

 

You can select a sister religion, say Christianity's sister religion, the Mandaeans. They only have 9 priests, all heredity. They trace themselves back to John the Baptist. Less likely to have a female priest, but who knows, with only nine, you got a solid shot of convincing them. Just it will never, ever.... No matter how emotive you get, how clever your Davinci code theory is, will ever change it. It is as it was, and will continue to be so.

 

That is the way it is. It's not up to Caldrail to Change it. England lacks the authority, and would likely even at thus stage fail in any attempt to mandate it. Feel free to complain to the Administer, but he lives in a Catholic country and only has to ask someone outside on the street to figure out in under 5 mibutes flat at the very least, your very, very mistaken here.

 

Question is, are you intentionally lying, or just ignorant, and if ignorant, how could you be so if a professor of Roman history. Your statement is like trying to say Muhammed founded Islam in Beijing, and wasn't an Arab. It's so absurd any Arab or Muslim, or school child for than matter would lash out.

 

Your showing a continued fringe pattern. All I can say. I myself am naturally a feral fringe pattern, Roman Cynicism.... But I admit to it, and there is a higher logic to it. In your case, I'm worried.

[caldrail]

 

 

In your case Caldrail, I've fully accepted your position that you were a history professor.

 

Not my position at all. I'm very sorry I disagree with you on many points, but I don't intentionally lie. Whether I'm ignorant is circumstantial. However, I will argue strenuosly points I strongly believe. If that conflicts with your preconceptions, I'm not going to waste time apologising for that. I may not know everything - neither do you.

[Onasander]

I haven't given up on this John Malalas subject, been getting books in.

 

I'm trying to get background works on the Parthians and Goths, so I know what the underlining motivations were.

 

Secondly, I've also been looking into works on 6th century statecraft and philosophy, so I can see the intellectual climate better. I have a potentially wonderful work that has just been translated for this.

 

Also expanding my sources for the Catholic-Orthodox vs Neo-Platonic vs Arian showdown that erupted.

 

And Caldrail.... I don't know everything, but I actually approach history with a overarching methodology that I'm conscious of.... I systematically search out Pythagorean metaphysical conceptions, such as limits that inform essense of a thing to be referee to. An example would be Macro-Micro.... It's a denoted of Space, so I look at the semantic range of space like topics, and also invert it for time.... Beginnings and end.

 

This coincidentally is at root what a Chronological History is. When say, Viggen asked me why I was so concerned with the end points of the Roman empire.... I outright said it's how I look at things (unfortunately for all of us, one roman island was never conquered by the turks or Venetians till centuries later, never found evidence it was).

 

It's a very, very old philosophy, pre-platonic, in ordering polarities in the mind. We all do this, but in my way, I'm just more conscious of it. It provides a ever tighter net where I can flesh out the continuity of ideas in a sociological view. It makes it a much easier task to sniff out stuff that doesn't belong.

 

The priesthood is very mathematical in it's replication, it's very easy to express. It's why it's been so successful. I don't approach the administration of the priesthood on the basis of faith, but purely secular and mundane, but at the same time I'm very aware that toying with it is a high taboo, as that in turn does effect how ideas are transmitted, as well as their validity. The system after all was designed by Jesus.

 

Anyone can grasp this.

 

However, as easy as this was to grasp, know I have searched out the origins of your position, the exchange between Res Publica and Poletia. I'm in the midst of a nightmare of a work called "The Byzantine Republic".... I won't argue that many POST CICERO could argue a Monarchy and the Republic as the same, but you sure the hell can't do this prior. The book makes no sense in terms of point to someone like me who knows damn well the Poletia of Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno of Citrium had no reference to the Romans, and always were Utopian in its outreach for Eudiamonia. The form expressed the desire, merging Concrete and Abstractions. Cicero brought ALOT of foreign philosophical concepts into Roman philosophy that ran assunder the republic. I've brought up some of it in the past, he started the cult of deification that lead to emperor worship, the aggrandizement of living hero worship, and how they could trespass against the underlining political system of the Romans. There is of course more, just.... I'm more or less unimpressed with Cicero, he's reminding me too much of the French philosopher Bernard Henry Levy, who explored the far and disturbing, and comprehended nothing of it, preferring to be a rabble rousing hipster among the political elites instead.

 

Cicero was in constant reference to several extant philosophical schools in his era, and while I'm not opposed to someone trying to connect the dots or having their own opinions, he more than anyone else in my opinion tipped the scales fatally against the republic. What is more upsetting to me in this particular case us, the Cynic concepts of Poletia.... Which was made immediately to Plato's, exist in a total ideological void of this author of The Byzantine Republic, for the points they made in reference to Plato's writing 'The Republic' and then later on writing 'The Laws' (again, really?) more or less hit on the foundational nuances inherit in the term at the getgo. A poletia isn't the Sum of it's Parts, or how it's Anthropromorphised (as in units of a body = parts of a society), as this is a oxymoron. It's neither holistic or divisitory into abstractions, as the two ways of approaching "it" conceals it with "the other". It just is. This is why Diogenes systematically removed the temples, gymnasiums, and municipal buildings from his "system".

 

Hell, in Zeno's case, he made it a Virtue-Vice ridden affair, all the Vices just happened to be related to ADHD (I'm not joking, ADHD, I've carefully listed every symptom of vice in Arius Didymus' Stoic Ethics, it's closely matching to the symptoms of ADHD) and virtues aligned with Love, which was whoever he and his followers wanted to molest (literally, as in pedophilia).

 

How Cicero got the particular mode of government of the Roman State to match up with Plato, Diogenes, or Zeno is utterly beyond me. It doesn't begin to match up. I honestly don't think he himself really grasped the inherent difficulties of transporting the Greek into his choice for Latin, and vice versa. An example being, the Greeks built slavery into the household.... And therefore was part of the larger system.... at least philosophically with Aristotle and Zeno. The reality is both the Athenians and Romans made use of industrial, task specific slavery under lethal condutiins. I truely question how well a dying gladiator or a slave in the mines was part of the republic in the sense this author seems to insist in.

 

Eudaimonia and Poletia can't be separated. It's abstraction is always going to be utopic. It's a messy, sloppy attempt to try to port that word over to express a Roman mode of governance, or even to denote it AS the continuation of government in general. Cause it never was just that. Every source thus author has hit shows this inherit variability.... He takes it as evidence of proof that Rome was simultaneously a republic AND a monarchy (which you caldrail admittedly don't, preferring to pretend it wasn't even a monarchy).

 

Yet his own arguments against "modern historians" each have a tinge of Diogenes and Zeno's arguments. The ultimate irony is he uses various imperial decrees on laws as the basis. All this shows is that there was a Hugh, ongoing debate from Plato, Diogenes and Zeno to the late Byzantine era that each consciously knew the term was philosophically nebulous and literally each took from it in their own way. However, this doesn't mean anything goes.... the term had a origin in the Platonic school, and the interplay of dialectics between Plato and Diogenes is the chief determinate, as it shows what the various nuisances of the meaning was, which the author of "The Byzantine Republic" clearly does not grasp.

 

I usually don't care to argue on the origins of words, or correct usage, but he does, and gets it wrong. I do blame him, but not as much as Cicero. Cicero, I seriously doubt, was aware of how much damage he wrought on the republic. He wasn't the cause of all, or even it's origin, but he did more to plunge it over the edge than anyone. He got his just desserts in the end for playing the game he played.

 

Most roman era historians looking back nailed it.... Augustus was a monarch.

 

Now.... It's that little period between Alexander Severus, the horror of Thrax, up to the time of John Malalas which becomes my chief concern. John took potentially from a very wide range of theological and political historians and biographers. Every nuicased outlook matters here.

 

My reading "The Byzantine Republic" was my best attempt at understanding your position Caldrail. I sincerely tried. It's not fully your position, but does it better and doesn't quite make it convincing to me, but I of course was spoiled in advance in knowing 100% positive that his claim wasn't up to muster. I'm surprised he even acknowledged tyranny as being incompatible with republican government. It should of been a tell tale sign his theory had some issues. You can't have a tyrannical republic, much less a dynastic one (unless the king of course is elected, which was one of the possibilities explored in a 6th century work I'll be getting in two days).

 

Honestly, just Google the kyklos cycle people. This book was unnecessary. Cicero messed up porting a word over that didn't belong to the roman system. It wasn't the only Greek belief he ported over either unfortunately. Luckily, we have other authorities the predate him, and can know better.

[caldrail]

 

 

I systematically search out Pythagorean metaphysical conceptions, such as limits that inform essense of a thing to be referee to. An example would be Macro-Micro.... It's a denoted of Space, so I look at the semantic range of space like topics, and also invert it for time.... Beginnings and end.

Really? Personally I try to be rational and contextual. Works for me.