sylla

Criminal investigation doesn't seem to be our strong point by now. At the risk of overstating the obvious, the only rational choice for Caesar (or any other slaveowner from any time or place) after a criminal intent from any of his slaves must have been the utter determination of the motives by any available mean, and certainly not because of his concern for the slave's sensibilities. Needless to say, the Romans (like everyone else) were perfectly aware that any slave could have motives of any kind like any human, irrespectively of their legal status.

If no one of us is saying that anything is perfect, we are in a good way. The Roman Republic was at the end quite far from being the perfect democracy; from the very beginning, the Empire was rather close of being the absolute autocracy. The definitive right of any citizenry is the vote; any autocratic "respect" to such right is just an oxymoron. The right of disagreeing is by itself another typical democratic trait, and even if we have not restricted ourselves in using it, no one questions that Caesar became an autocrat, simply because the evidence available here and elsewhere is insurmountable. The exercise of our right to disagree has changed our predominant topic; we are now mostly comparing the relative benefits of the Republic (democracy) versus the Empire (autocracy). BTW, our use of this right is a positive action, and actions speak louder than words, now and ever. In any democracy we have indeed the right for the paradoxical choice of living under autocracy (the opposite is evidently impossible), as the German people did in 1933, and one notes that as long as the Nazi autocrat was not overly insane, the system functioned far better than its Republican predecessor. Once it happened so, Hitler did stir up a lot of angst, to put it lightly. By definition, all autocracies lack the checks and balances developed to protect us from the potentially deleterious effects of the abusive use of power by our rulers. A critical major part of the argument here that definitely comes down on the side of anti-Empire is that it couldn't control the army; it was the unopposed army which controlled the Roman state after the demise of the Republic. . The careers of men like Caesar, Pompey, Octavius/Augustus and even Brutus and Cassius make this all too clear (Sulla was a more complex case) ; they ruled just because they were active commanders backed by huge armies; from the late Julio-Claudians on, the rulers were openly selected by the Army. Such were the significant foundations for an imperial system, and even those could hardly have been attributed to Caesar alone; any rebel Roman general since Marius used their soldiers as a political factor, and the Roman Republic was perfectly aware of the risks inherent to an autonomous military force since its very beginning; arguably, it's plain common sense. How can Caesar be seen as anything but Republican? Not only was he the product of centuries-long Republican society and family; it was not just that Caesar thrived from the use and abuse of the Republican rules. Each and any one of Caesar

Thanks,DD. Kyle indeed seems to be a rather interesting source; he quotes literally myriads of non-political crucifixions, for example, Scipio's on Roman deserters (obviously citizens) in 146 BC at the siege of Carthage. I don't think any more evidence on the high prevalence of non-political crucifixions will be required.

The four Gospels were originally written in koine Greek, which I can't read. As explained in previous posts, bona fide political rebels like the zealots were regularly called "robbers" or equivalent terms under the legal nomenclature of the time, widely attested by Josephus; this would be analogous to the Nazi terminology for the European resistance. My position is still the same (BTW, in agreement with Maty): the relevant point for this thread is not if the zealots and the WWII partisans were regular thieves or not (which they obviously weren't) but rather that the use of such denomination allowed both the Romans and the Nazi to punish their opponents; ergo, the crux was as valid an option for regular thieves in Roman Judea as a firing squad was in the Nazi occupied Europe. This passage clearly came from Mark, as the three synoptic Gospels (but not John) called

A piece of trivia from Ms. Glynn: "...in Nero's Golden House, the Domus Aurea, they perfected the use of concrete."

Were we studying marriages in our regular classical sources (ie, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.), we would find that almost all of them were of political nature, involving the families of famous men and women and their close associates. That doesn't mean the regular anonymous Roman mob remained unmarried for life; it simply means that our scholar annals and biographies couldn't care less about the prosopography of "Caius Populus" and his wife. At the risk of overstating the obvious, the vast majority of the Roman sources available to us are political in nature; unsurprisingly, their record of specific social events is heavily biased. That applies the same to marriages as to crucifixions. That's why it's so hard to find the detailed description on how "Caius Populus" crucified his slave. Anyway, here comes another curious account about a non-political crucifixion, this time affecting a Roman citizen (Suetonius; Galba 9,1): " (Galba) crucified a man for poisoning his ward, whose property he was to inherit in case of his death; and when the man invoked the law and declared that he was a Roman citizen, Galba, pretending to lighten his punishment by some consolation and honour, ordered that a cross much higher than the rest and painted white be set up, and the man transferred to it."

Then, I'm willing to agree that we disagree.

This seems like a quite creative explanation for the secret of the famous Roman cement; it would be interesting to check if there is additional confirmatory evidence for this thesis.

Let me put it in this way; nothing from the available works of either Tacitus or Dio allow us to determine if they had an attitude toward Christianity at all.

If any of my slaves (or let say my dogs, their closest modern equivalent) ever tried to kill me, I'm pretty sure I would like to know the reason. Being Philemon Caesar's property in no way excluded an external influence, as Suetonius actually stated ("Philemon... had promised Caesar's enemies that he would poison him").

Thanks for your answer, even if I'm not sure if such was the question; as I see it, the mere intention to define our differences of view previous to arguing about them after repeating our arguments for a while is a great advance by itself. I stated that Caesar was an autocrat and you stated Caesar was not a tyrant; no difference there. The core of the rights of the Roman citizenry was their political rights; under Caesar, such rights didn't "remain" anywhere; they disappeared, period. We agree that Augustus sometimes reduced and Caesar didn't (across the few months of his aborted administration) the right of not being butchered for expressing your political opinions. Caesar was the proud paramount example of Rome's corrupted elite; primus inter pares. I'm not sure if we disagree here. Caesar's clemency was an extreme example of Republican corruption; the enemies of the whole state were pardoned just by the autocrat's caprice. We agree that Caesar established the practice of regularly publishing the proceedings of the Senate, not their own; as under Caesar the Senate was not ruling, that was irrelevant. In short, what Caesar's rule would have been is mere speculation. As it was, the ultimate evidence of political success is survival; the comparison between Caesar and Augustus couldn't have been more eloquent. I didn't state which was better, the Republic or the Empire; I stated that we haven't explore this topic deeply enough. But since you ask, I think I can throw you a most definitive reason; the Imperial system had no balance or check of power, the attributes that have made Rome great in the first place. As soon as the third imperial reign, Caius Julius Caesar minor (aka Caligula) painfully showed the risks of the autocratic rule; and we are all perfectly aware that he was hardly the only example. For that, both Caesar (who effectively established its foundation) and Augustus (who devised the means by which it would be ruled) must be held responsible. If you live under any more or less democratic regime, you should have no problem in understanding such concept; if you don't, it may be even easier.

That's exact. This strange mercy (cp. 74) is rather suspicious, because: - Neither Velleius (the earlier account) nor Plutarch (the most detailed), not even Suetonius in his first quotation (cp. 4) mentioned the open throats. - As most of his peers, Caesar mostly reserved his mercy for other Romans, especially when it was politically useful. - After his traumatic experience for so many weeks, it

Regarding this thread's original question: "In some degree"? Absolutely. Just check out the Jewish commentaries on this topic. Saul/Paul was a Cilician Roman citizen that took the ideas of a Jewish sect with good marketing expectative, copied and translated their sacred texts without too much consideration for trademark issues, and then adapted them to the eastern (Greek) half of the Roman Empire, essentially by purging his new alternative sect from all those nasty Mosaic practices and by editing the troublesome passages that might have offended the Roman taste. At a time of civil unrest when even the personal patron deities could made the difference for any Imperial pretender, Constantine tried to make a sure bet by adopting as many as possible, Jesus included. He eventually favored Christianity and assimilated the highly hierarchical structure of their Church with his Imperial administration for the further consolidation of his dynasty. How could it not?

As I have already noted, this story was reported by three independent and regularly used classical sources, two of them regularly considered as particularly reliable. With all due respect, this story performs far better on this count than Jesus' crucifixion. BTW, it is exactly because it wasn't state-sanctioned that this crucifixion is so relevant for this discussion.

The implicit irony would be that, if the victims have already been killed, why would you bother in hanging them? IMHO, hanging a corpse would deprive the crucifixion from most if not all of its dramatic effect; it would be like using slaughtered cattle for bullfighting.

The demise of the Roman Republic after two or three centuries of conquering and ruling the known world and one hundred years of killing each other is a fascinating topic that surely deserves a far deeper analysis; maybe even its own thread. For now, I will only remark that the Roman Emperors themselves hardly considered the Republic as an administrative failure; the core of the Republican institutions and legislation survived for centuries under the Imperial rule at Rome and even at Constantinople. It's refreshing to confirm that the Classical rhetoric can still have its desired effect with such strength after a couple of millennia. "Tyrant" or "not tyrant"? I think we may all agree (or maybe not?) that Caesar became an autocrat in his last days. The dispassionate assessment of Caesar

I hope this may HELP YOU.

I'm still not sure why would any UNRV member, with the limited experience of 3 years and more than 100 posts, require any advice for filling up four pages with more than five centuries of Roman History. Are there any additional requirements involved? In any case, it seems that "War", "Campaign", "Territorial expansion" and "Creation of New Provinces" may be the key words for your essay. No doubt you're well aware of UNRV resources; I would begin by searching such key words either in the "Military" or in the "Roman History" folders; there you will probably find as many pointers as you need.

It seems that one of the better known anecdotes on Roman crucifixion has not been mentioned yet on this thread; the famous execution of a pirate crew from Pharmacusa by a private citizen, Caius Julius Caesar, at Pergame in 75 BC. Caesar's excuse was that Marcus Iuncus (or Iunius?), the Proconsul in Asia, failed to punish them; as we all know, the same pirates had previously held Caesar captive for weeks. Velleius, Plutarch and Suetonius agree all that Caesar crucified them; with (unintended?) irony, the latter adds that as a sign of his mercy, Caesar cut their throats previous to the crucifixion. For any reason, I guess a hidden esoteric political explanation may be hypothesized for these crucifixions. Needless to say, I'm not aware of any source that would support such extraordinary idea; I don't think I would be able to add anything else.

There's far less information on the Dacian than the Parthian campaigns of Trajan, as the accounts of Appian, Dio Chrysostomus, Statilius and Trajan himself have been all entirely or almost entirely lost; besides, the epigraphic evidence is relatively scarce and only the elite units can be identified at the Trajan's column. Since Domitian, the Danubian border had nine legions as a permanent garrison; XV Apollinaris was a recent acquisition for Pannonia from the Eastern border, maybe related to the demise of XXI Rapax; the other legions were: Pannonia: I & II Adiutrix and XIII Gemina (lately redeployed to Berzobis in Dacia); Moesia Superioris: XIIII Gemina, VII Claudia and IV Flavia (lately redeployed to Sarmizegethusa); Moesia Inferioris: V Macedonica and I Italica. Two elite units were brought in full; the Praetorian Guard under Claudius Livianus and I Minervia from Germania Superior commanded by the prince Hadrian. Vexyllations from VI Victrix and X Gemina (Germania Superior) came also under Hadrian. Vexyllations were brought from at least three Eastern legions; IV Scythica, XII Fulminata and an unidentified unit. These are minimal figures, since in all likelihood some units are not attested in the epigraphic record. Trajan recruited two additional legions for the second campaign (circa 105): II Traiana Fortis and XXX Ulpia Victrix. No less than 90 auxiliary units were involved; their organization was far more complex. The usual estimation is of at least 1.5 auxilia for each legionary. In addition, the armies of several client kingdoms were involved. My main source was also Bennett.

Imagine for a moment that we were perfect passive agnostics; ie, that we couldn't care less if any divinity has ever existed or not. Now, let us try to reconstruct the political and social history of the Julio-Claudian Principate with the New Testament and related Apocrypha (canonicity is not by itself an index of historical reliability); for millions of people through centuries, such have been indeed their main or only source. This is a heterogeneous collection of complex anonymous or quasi-anonymous texts, often directed to an initiated audience and plagued with external and internal inconsistencies. On the other hand, the number of such inconsistencies actually points against any late thorough systematic revision and edition; otherwise, we would expect to have, for example, just one Gospel (that was actually the Marcionites' project in the II century). As most sacred texts, NT agenda is no secret; religious conversion. Its historical records are scarce and accessory, almost incidental; and even then, their intention is clearly exemplary. At a biographical level, skepticism is required regarding the countless recorded miracles; in the same way, the historicity of any event unattested by independent sources may rightly be challenged; for example, the massacre of the innocents or the post-crucifixion darkness. We can't ignore the eternal possibility that these events might have been created instead of recorded. All that doesn't mean NT lacks any historical value; historians simply can't afford to ignore any available source. In fact, NT has been occasionally crucial for specific research; for example, the use of the process of Paul as evidence of the legal restriction for the use of torture on Roman citizens. As with any other source, we simply need to be cautious.

Documentary analysis is science, scripture exegesis is religion; they shouldn't be mixed. A common misconception is that the age of a sacred text is directly related to its intrinsic value as religious evidence. Consequently, believers tend to consider these texts older (and detractors younger) than the average scholar consensus. If I were a true believer, a sacred text is not just an account of miracles; it's the word of God, a miracle by itself. That's faith, and it wouldn't change if the testimony came from an apostle of the I century or a scholar of the IV. Given its own nature, faith can not be reduced by any proof; anything that might have happened would be explained by the mere will of God. Conversely, if I were a true non-believer, the mere biological fact of the resurrection would still be considered unlikely to the last degree, irrespectively if the text was written the day after or two centuries later. As everybody know, the estimations for the chronology of the books of the New Testament vary enormously; however, it would safe to state that the current scholar consensus for the initial composition of most of them essentially goes from the middle I century for the earliest (ie, Galatians) to the late II century for the latest (ie, Revelation); some minor books (ie, Jude) or passages may indeed have been included as late as the early IV century.

It's hard to see how the acquisition of such an Empire can be seen as a sign of administrative incompetence at all. It's evident that from at least two centuries before the Hannibalic War, Rome's territories in Italy were effectively many times larger and more populated than any Classical city-state; countless city-states were actually included within its boundaries (all Magna Grecia poleis, to begin with). If territorial continuity is your criterion for defining city-states, then Russia would just be an overgrown Moscow.

Actually, what Tacitus and Dio despised and mocked was the Jewish theology as a whole. There are no specific commentaries on the Christians within their surviving writings; the controversial passage of Tacitus on Nero's persecution in the XV book of his Annals and a couple of potential indirect references from Dio is all we have.