Carthago delenda est

Hmmmm....this reminds me of another country of my acquaintance. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it sounds so familiar.... Excellent post.

My personal favorite is Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. Nero should have let him finish what he started.

I have read all the replies to this thread, and most of them make some very good points in a partisan sense, i.e., as either "pro-Caesar" or "anti-Caesar". I take a rather different view of the matter of the late Emperor; and please note that I didn't say "better" or "superior" to anyone else's, just different. I start with the bare facts pertinent to this discussion as we find them in the historical record: 1. At a point after the Roman Army ceased to strictly be a "civilian" army, i.e., one that only summoned its membership to active enrollment in the ranks as needed, and transitioned to a nucleus of full time "professional" Regulars, it became necessary to promulgate a law that forbade territorial governors from transgressing the boundaries of their assigned regions. This was for obvious reasons: professional armies, by their very nature before the Treaty of Westphalia, tended to gravitate their deepest loyalties not to the impersonal state that sanctioned and garrisoned them, but to the ranking officer or officers that led them. This was before the historical advent of what we call "nationalism," please keep in mind, so the entire concept of "patriotism" was seen from a psychological viewpoint by the average Roman soldier in a way that would be quite alien to our modern way of understanding that concept.* 2. Julius Caesar knowingly, and with what the law would call "malice aforethought," violated that law the second his feet touched dry soil on the wrong side of the bank of that famed (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint, I guess) Rubicon River. None of these facts are in dispute. What is very much in dispute is whether Caesar was justified in breaking this singular law on this singular occasion due to what some courts would call "extraordinary necessity," or simply "necessity." I think a case can be made that he was so justified, and please remember that, at this point, we are not entertaining the least notion of his possible motives for doing what he did ("power hungry"; "greedy"; etc, etc.): we are simply looking at the bare fact that he did it, and the consequences that immediately flowed from it. The Republic was no longer working; the apparatus of state & bureaucracy that had been erected at a time when Rome was little more than an overgrown city-State--like an ancient New York City with a kick-ass military--was simply no longer functioning, despite numerous cosmetic modifications aimed at keeping the machinery going while preserving its basic antiquarian form. Something was bound to give, and such circumstances in cultures are god-sends to the ambitious like Julius Caesar. But a case can further be made that it was Rome's tragedy that Caesar was not it's equivalent of Oliver Cromwell: a reforming dictator who fundamentally changed the laws and cultural landscape of his society in a modernizing sense that allowed for constructive progress, who then died after a long rule, and whose culture then reverted to the basic form of it's political existence before him without the actual impediments of all that made the rise of the original revolutionary necessary. Imagine a Rome revitalized by Caesar's deep-seated reforms, ongoing right up until the time he died of old age, which then reverted to its republican existence in pragmatic recognition that they'd needed a dictator for a time and had found the right one, but now it was time to return to the old traditions within a new framework. And then, like the British did to Cromwell, Caesar should have been tried posthumously for his very real crime, and properly reviled for the ambition that led to it, regardless of the good that came from it. Just imagine if Rome had been able to reform itself and then revert to the best of its republican traditions after Caesar's passing! Rome would have inevitably faded anyway, no doubt: that is the way of empires and mighty civilizations. It will eventually be the way of our own. But we might have had a few hundred more years of interesting history to study beyond the calamity of 476 (yes, I'm a purist: Rome recognizably as Rome does not exist for me beyond that point in the historical calendar). Alas, beyond the bare facts of what we know did happen, it's all "what if?", as some one has already said. But it's fun "what if?", nevertheless. *No, I'm not saying American soldiers are more loyal to their commanders than they are to the Stars & Stripes or their oath to the Constitution of our own United States; different time, different era, different culture. Please, to those tempted: don't weary this discussion with such accusations.

Not sure if I would say it's his 'greatest moment,' but I thought immediately of this quote when I saw your post: "...indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular, all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him."* I think history--all of political history, in any event--is replete with that timeless theme. And vice versa. *Tacitus, Histories I.5-9

Thank you for your warm welcomes. This is such a vast resource that I could literally spend hours reading through the fascinating post topics and subsequent threads every day--it humbles me to realize that after all the years I've studied Rome, I have only grasped the very tip of that scholarly iceberg. Again, thank you for your warm welcomes, and I look forward to interacting with each of you on the forum about our favorite fallen civilization, the late, great Roman Empire (and Republic ).

(taking brides from Senators) is that a mistake or are you serious I keed! I keed!

Actually, I think you're thinking of this guy: The estimable General Jack Ripper from Stanley Kubrick's Cold War classic. And, if I catch your drift, you are quite right: Curtis LeMay was considered by some of his time to be a bit...enthusiastic shall we say, about the uses to which nuclear warheads could be put. However, I think it was JFK who put it best: he said something to the effect that while he didn't want General LeMay being the one who decided when it was time to go to war, if war did come LeMay was the kind of man he wanted around to wage it. I concur. BTW, I'm new here, nice to meet you. Regards, -C.D.E.

Hello, everyone. I stumbled onto this site while doing research on the Battle of Watling Street. I took one look around, and saw it was a fantastic resource and forum to discuss all things Roman. I already recounted how I came to be a Romanophile in this thread: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showto...ost&p=65821 Other than the fact that I think Latin-as-a-second-language should be mandatory in our schools and I like cold, cold Beer, there's not much else about me I could say without boring everyone to tears. So I'll just close by saying I look forward to reading your posts and interacting with everyone on the threads in this fantastic forum! On edit: fixed defective link.

I voted "other" for the General who did more to deter another huge world-wide war from breaking out than any other: General Curtis Emerson LeMay. Cognizant that an Atomic "Pearl Harbor" would mean the end of the United States as we know it, he built SAC into a ruthlessly efficient organization with a "triad" of nuclear deterrence that came to inlcude: Air (B-52's), Land (ICBM's), and Sea (SLBM's). Also, if our political leaders had listened to his advice regarding Vietnam one of two things would have happened: 1. The war would have never been fought. 2. The war would have been won. IMHO, of course. -C.D.E.

Well, now, I hate to be contrary...but a fair-minded person might say you paint with a brush that's a tad too broad there, partner.

One word: concrete. -C.D.E.

As an adult, my interest was piqued (an interest that turned into a fascination) when I was in the Air Force, stationed in Germany. I was making awkward small talk with a snarky German taxi driver, and happened to ask him what he thought about all these Americans in his country on the Army Posts and Air Force Bases. He shrugged, motioned over his shoulder to the Rhine River (this was in Cologne), and said something to the effect of "and before you, the Romans. And they even built us a bridge." I guess I had an "epiphany" right then; when I got back to base, I went straight to the base library and checked out a book on Roman warfare called "The Conquest of Gaul" by this fellow Julius. I've been a Romanophile ever since. I should mention that as a child the seed was probably planted early for such a development: my elementary school, under the guise of "an historical re-enactment," put on an Easter play in which I got to play one of the Roman soldiers at the scene of Jesus Christ's crucifixion*. I understood that the Romans were supposed to be the bad guys, but I just couldn't help notice that my character, as well as that of my fellow soldiers, got to wear the coolest clothes, tote swords around, swagger about like badasses, and play with dice! Everyone else (except the kid who played Pilate, of course) dressed like a bum, and was either enraged, weepy, or about to get nailed to a cross. No fun! Like St. Augustine, I decided there was time for salvation later; at that moment I was content to be in the Roman's camp, with all the other cool kids. (*Yes, I realize such a play would probably bring a half-dozen "church-state separation" lawsuits today; no, I'm not interested in debating, either pro or con, whether my public elementary school should have put such a play on in the first place; yes, I have had this discussion in a web forum before and it turned real ugly on me real quick. Sorry for the snark, but the disclaimer had to be made.)

Well, if I had my druthers I would've been in the speculatores doing reconnaissance work. But reality tells me I'd probably have wound up in the praetorians, taking brides from Senators to keep them informed of the Emperor's movements and who he was swapping pillow-talk with...

I voted for The Principate, with particular emphasis on the period beginning with the reign of Nero through Commodus. I'm generally interested in all historical periods of Rome, of course, as long as they took place before 476 A.D. But the specific focus of most of my study and research centers on the period from A.D. 54-192. On edit: removed grammatical redundancy. -C.D.E.

Perfect, twice over. The first puts me solidly in the respectable mainstream of Roman society, and the second lands me in the James Dean-equivalent, Roman style, of "Rebel Without a Cause"--putting me in touch with my "inner Spartacus." That casting director still doesn't know what he missed when he cast Russell Crowe instead of me in "Gladiator".... Seriously, thank you. Both for the Roman names anagrammed from my own real one, and your warm welcome. Sincerely, -C.D.E., aka Spurius.