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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/25/2025 in Posts

  1. Certainly an impressive curriculum vitae.....but we could turn this into a discussion like the classic one in American baseball history-- who was the best center fielder, Mickey, Willy or The Duke? If you were chosing up sides for a stick ball game in the street, you couldn't go wrong no matter who you chose. Other Roman soldiers of notable bravery mentioned by Livy-- Horatio Cocles, Gaius Mucous Scaevola, Marcus Furious Camillus, and even a woman, Cloelia, who bravely led other women & children hostages to freedom back across the Tiber. Eg- https://pjmedia.com/spencer-klavan/2014/08/11/the-10-most-badass-roman-war-heroes-n154853#google_vignette In the account given by Guy above, Livy at least has the honesty to state that the speech is reproduced "as handed down to us" (a more direct translation from the Latin "fertur" in the original)....Livy says in his introductory remarks to Ab Urbe... that perhaps we should regard the stories coming from ancient authors as works of poetry rather than factual documents. Pretty smart cookie. Dionysius of Halicanarssus, OTOH, reproduces speeches on a regular basis that are pages long as if a stenographer were always present to record things in a Congressional Record. His work reads more like an historical novel than a credible history.
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