Adelais Valerius
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Posts posted by Adelais Valerius
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I was recently reading up on Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and I was wondering if someone could lend me a hand in explaining in detail what their reforms were meant to do totally. I don't mean "o, they helped the roman poor", but in detail from that. I know when Tiberius was tribune, he tried to pass laws that gave land to Roman poor from the public land that had been seized during the 2nd Punic war, and that motion was defeated, with the help of Scipio Ameilianus, and of course Tiberius's death. I also know that Gaius picked up where his brother left off so to speak, with reforms such as the formation of the quaestio de repetundis, which was formed to investigate abuses and bribe acceptances by the provincial governors. When I was reading though, I didn't quite get EXACTLY what he did. I know the outcome, but what other things did they do specifically to try and help reform the government(modified motions, laws, etc..)? If you could also add some references to any answer you give, just so I can get some more books to buy,lol.
thanks in advance, cheers
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hell yea....nice
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I also would like to bring up the fact the good and evil is just something that we recently came up with in the greater scheme of things.
Antiochus III
i agree with this. The actions that the Romans took to create such an empire they had would be similar to the genocides in Darfur and things like that. Society has changed greatly since the times of most if not all of these people.
as for the actual good and bad argument, i believe that since yes, we as a society has changed, we can't help but pepper in some morality into the equation on who was the most influential. We base our judgement on great leaders nowadays by how they helped there people, not how they killed this many people or how good there propaganda worked on brainwashing people into commiting genocide, it just isnt in our nature anymore. of course those were great achievements, but i can't help but think they were great achievements for the WRONG reasons, and therefore i can't put those people higher than people that did great things for the RIGHT(morallly, from my pov) reasons
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to whom ever has itunes(which you can get free from apple.com), try searching for Ancient Rome in the itunes store,and you'll find "The History Of Rome by Mike Duncan". Its a free podcast and every week it has a different topic that you can listen to. Quite interesting.If you can't find it, contact me and I can help. cheers
Thanks mikeal, I've just listened the current iTunes podcast "The Third Macedonian War" It was pretty interesting although I thought the narrator was a little bit on the dull side, but other than that it was good.
It's currently on pod cast 26, is there anyway I can get them back dated back to the beginning?
i have itunes, so i know if your using itunes, when you highlight podcasts on your itunes and it takes you to the list of subscriptions you have, you hit the tiny arrow next to history of rome and all of the podcasts you have on the history of rome will pop up. the rest of the ones offered can be downloaded by clicking the "get all" button. i personally don't remember what number i started on, im at school right now, so i can look at mine when i get home and send you a pm if you'd like? message me if you need anything else, i might be able to call or something...
its also possible that once a podcast gets old enough, they delete them. not all podcast subscriptions do that, but some do...
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In his biography "Constantine and the christian empire" C.M. Odahl makes a pretty convincing case that he was openly a christian from the Milvian bridge onwords. The great churches he built in Rome and Jerusalem and the absence of any new temple in his new christian capital make this highly possible. When he entered Rome he had christian symbols on flag (labarum) and he made not sacrifices to the gods on the Capitoline hill.
It seems to me that this could be more of a statement to Christians, not necessarily a personal advocation of Christianity. By doing this, he was trying to create a more unified Rome, instead of the citizens squabbling between different religions. Since Christianity was already on the rise, it seems that he chose it because it was already organized and strong within itself, and with the help of a person in his position, it could flourish.With the Roman gods, not all people could be directly unified under one person because most people believed in many. christianity only had faith in one(or two if you count jesus, or three if you count the holy trinity, i guess it depends on your faith).
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GO's thread got me thinking (I know, a rare feat in and of itself) ...
this is extremely off topic, but it seems you've gone full-fledge, using uber amounts of brain power on deciding which celebrites will kick the bucket on your blog,lol...
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Id like to meet up with Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and ask him about his life and what it was like to live as Augustus' second in command. Id ask him just how big a role he really played in transforming the republic into the principate and was Augustus really all he's been made out to be?
I'd also like to know what he made of Livia, was she really a wicked poisonous woman like she's been made out to be or was she a perfect example of a Roman matron?
lol...i just found that humorous, the Livia part.... but I don't think if you met up with Agrippa, he would be willing to downplay himself though
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Not that I mean to stifle discussion, but the original post here was from over 3 years ago. However...Who sanctioned the Triumvirate? Did the three just meet somewhere and decide this? Did they march into the senate and said, this is the way it is going to be and that is it?
Thanks for the info, I have been thinking about the triumvirate for the last couple of days.
Though much more involved than suggested, yes, Pompeius, Crassus and Caesar for all intensive purposes, virtually announced to the Senate they were in charge by virtue of controlling the key components of the Roman political system. There was still considerable opposition of course, and that opposition had a voice (M. Porcius Cato in particular), but little real power. The "triumvirate" (so-called only in retrospect as it was not an official designation of government or authority) controlled the tribunate (and therefore the power to legislate) through support of the urban populace, held significant support of the army via Pompey and had access to massive wealth and the support of the Equites via Crassus.
Additionally, even after Caesar had left Rome for Gaul, the scheming of Clodius managed to manipulate the senate into sending Cato to govern Cyprus (and exiled Cicero, but Cicero could hardly be recognized as a great opponent to the triumvirs and in fact supported them in some legislation/activity).
Thanks for the info, being I am still an infant, I do go back and try to read as many posts as I can. I don't look at the date, I just look at the subject. Are there more up to date ways of looking for certain topics? Sometimes, I just happen apon one and just start writing questions. Thanks again!
I think you just have to look and pay attention. I was looking for some kind of filter, but there isn't one.
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to whom ever has itunes(which you can get free from apple.com), try searching for Ancient Rome in the itunes store,and you'll find . Its a free podcast and every week it has a different topic that you can listen to. Quite interesting.If you can't find it, contact me and I can help. cheers
Thank you for the heads up on this! I quite enjoyed this.
Actually, you don't need itunes to listen: go to "The History Of Rome by Mike Duncan" at blogspot.com to listen online. http://thehistoryofrome.blogspot.com/
well there ya go,lol. Aren't they sweet?
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Nothing changes does it? Modern politicians sometimes use the perceived external threat as a way of pushing potentially unpopular policies on us, like the time they had the army guarding heathrow very publicly - you have to wonder if it wasn't just some stunt and the real threat is taken care of behind the scenes the way it usually is - you only hear about it when the arrests and court cases take place. Don't get me wrong - the threat to the early republic was real - but overstated at times by those politicians keen to exploit public fear for their own ends.
Its sad that politicians have come to think that it should come to that, manipulation.
I didn't think that those dinky Hill tribes would pose such a threat during that stage of Rome's expansion.
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Yeap, and this was independent of Patrician/Plebian status of the politician/patron.
there, that helps alot...I understood it as they were both connected. That made it confusing on how they worked together, but I guess they don't
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Well that's because a plebian politician could have clients too. I think you're getting confused slightly. Patricians were the ONLY politicians, plebians were also. The patrician pool got smaller over time till we arrive at the late republic and it consists of an extremely small and select group of people, some of which weren't all that powerful. A certain individual will probably respond to your post and say the system of clients didn't exist at all, but that's just blatant revisionism.
so one could say this is the "downfall" of the Patricii. That once plebs were allowed to partipate using the clientela, they eventually moved into the political light? I read that Clientela were legally passed down from generation to generation, so I imagine that eventually it had to have been lost that a person came from plebian background. am I getting this right at all? I thought clientela was simply a quick favor type of system, but i'm finding its not.....
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I was listening to a Roman History podcast earlier today, and they were talking about in the early Republic, approx. 470-460 BC, and that Rome's biggest threat at the were the hill tribes surrounding Rome such as the Aquae and Vulshens(spelling obviously off, I apologize). The podcast went on to say that the actual threat level of these raiders were possibly fabricated by the Patricii for the Plebs, the question of honesty raised due to the record Rome had against the tribes, which was strikingly positive. My question would be, if this is true, would the reasoning behind this be plain and simple to keep the Plebs busy at war, or were there ulterior motives that the podcast didn't address
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I understand what clientela's purpose was in Roman society, which was to enable Plebs to have "rights" through favors concerning legal, social and even economic matters, which were done by Patricii. Both were beneficial to each other, and in most circumstances, set a person's status higher. What I'm wondering, is by this "big brother" tactic that was formed, why did they even have statuses still? By a Clientela actually being lawful, whats the point of saying Pleb and Patricii? I guess I don't fully understand the need for both if as long as you have a clientela, your going to get what you need anyways?
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....Too bad you don't have a chance to do a report on Cato the Younger--he's much more interesting.
I was going to do both, so I guess good sources on the younger would be good too, I just didn't think to ask. In a couple weeks we have another paper and I was going to follow up with the younger. That family tree is quite interesting, I didn't realize some of the people he was related to.
Thanks to everyone for their help!
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I need good,convient sources on Cato the Elder for a project. Their wasn't a huge section on this website, and I don't really like using Wikpedia. It's only a 2 minute presentation, but I really want to show how he was, not just the normal"o he was a censor and a praetor" things. Any suggestions? I imagine M. Porcius Cato should have good information
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I loved six form. Loads of discussion and interaction with enthusiastic and interesting lecturers and students. My friends said it was totally different after they progressed to Uni. No discussion, just sat listening to the lecturer, recording his/her voice on a dictaphone and becoming rapidly disillusiioned with it all.
Does this sound like a bad example of a graduate course or the normal situation?
Graduate classes in the US typically involve very little lecture and a great deal of discussion. If students read material reliably, all classes could focus on the evaluation and discussion of materials.
I'd add that there's usually quite a bit of what I call 'practicum'...not only discussion but paper-writing, all utilizing the information found in the readings and the personal interests of the students. But I must say that in Europe it can be different; in Spain, for example, there's quite a bit of lecture, even in graduate courses. I've heard similar stories elsewhere.
It can be quite disillusioning for students if there is no discussion I agree, but as someone teaching undergrads in the UK I would have to say that discussion has to come from the students too. Sometimes I am banging my head against a wall trying to get people to speak in seminars. Here we generally have lectures and seminars in the first year and only seminars in the second and third years. My own graduate study has been all research but it is possible to start grad study in a taught programme.
As to what languages for PhD I would say don't kill yourself trying to do everything at once. If you want a career in academia afterwards then you will also need to have done other things while a PhD student. You need to organise a conference, give a paper at one too and preferably get an article published in a decent scholarly journal. You will also almost ceratinly need to work to support yourself during this time. If you do any teaching the preparation will take you ages when you first start out.
I have been at it nearly three years (and yes I am nearly done) and I have got Latin and Italian so far. I intend to do the Greek intensively after I finish and I will almost certainly learn German over the next three years too. But none of that matters if you don't finish your thesis. It is the thesis above evrything that matters, learn the languages as you go along - NOT before you start out or you will never start.
Hope that helps
SF
O all this is helping greatly. My biggest fear is that I don't know what to expect, and I was hoping that I would get some good information and advice, which I have. Keep it coming,lol, and thanks to all
Mike
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That was my question. I was just confused on what inherited rights the Patricians had, I didn't understand what Grant met by that for some reason.
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So are you saying that all you just said was normally in the hands of the Patricians, and that over time the Plebians were giving the ability to these things so that they could have political influence?
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I would talk to Julius Caesar and Scipio Africanus, my favorite Romans. Discus tactics, and possibly play a game of Rome Total War. Perhaps I would have a good joke or three with Martial and Catullus. I would teleport Cicero and Marcus Antonius back with me and we all would hopefully have a more interesting election year!
lol, I wonder what both would think of the game and how they would react to it. That gave me such a laugh, thanks..
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What do you polan on specializing in? Anything? or just the classical civilizations?
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Although I also agree with Ursus on this review, I can't help but love it when Octavian sticks it to Marc Antony concerning the affair within the family. It escapes me what episode it was, but the actor that portrayed Octavian did a WONDERFUL job in that scene. Such a Badass.
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I see in a recent v program that there's a debate about one of Jesus's followers, Thomas, wghse gospel is not included in the Bible. Apparently Thomas left Judaea in the mid 1st century AD to travel to India, where he began converting jews amongst the small communities in India that sprung up as a result of trade.
Western scholars poo-poo the idea, claiming there's no evidence. Indian scholars say otherwise, that the indian king of the time has been confirmed and that the traces of these settlers and their descendants (There's a group of indians who claim direct descent from early christian converts) are documented. Also, we know the later portuguese explorers who found the Thomas Christians conducted a purge to bring them back to roman catholicism (the priests considered the Thomas Christians to be heretics).
A fascinating footnote then to the early christian expanson.
What traces were found? Scripture?
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I was recently reading Michael Grant's History Of Rome, and I came across the evolution of the Patricii and the Plebians during what Grant calls the "class struggle" following the formation of the Republic, and basically the ensueing years until the Empire is formed. He also mentioned the inherited rights of the Patricii to converse with the gods, control the law and calendar(which were understood to be religious in character). The Patricii comprised of, according to Grant, over 1,000 families made up of clans(examples:Cornelii, Fabii and or course Claudii). These clans included sons, decendents and relatives mainly. My question being, what type of impact did these inherited, custom filled rights have on the Republic? Was the effect mainly on the senate, which though had no executive power, did hold extensive constiutional power, or were there other ways that the Patricii made a difference? With that many people, with apparently that much political weight to throw around, there had to have been a large footprint left by them?
A question on the Gracchi Brothers
in Res Publica
Posted · Edited by Adelais Valerius
that was exactly what I was looking for, sometimes I forget to check the website....gratias ago vos quamvis(pardon if the latin is off, I wasn't 100% sure)