sylla
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Posts posted by sylla
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So I'm correct then?
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.
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Torture may have been a common result for a slave assassin, but since the slave was his and therefore not sent to kill him by someone else, was there any need to uncover the reason? Slaves are either obedient or punished. Caesar is therefore dealing with Philemon in a very practical manner and to do otherwise would give Philemon status he did not deserve.
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").
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In answer to Primus Pilus and Sylla:
Difference of views again. What we're arguing about (as I see it) is not the benefits of Oligarchic Republic vs Absolutism. That's how the Republic and the Empire respectively were run. I argue that the Imperial State - the Empire itself, was vastly superior to the Republic city-state organization. Thus can Caesar and Augustus both be said to have "begun" the Empire: it was Caesar who effectively established the foundation for the Imperial State; it was Augustus who devised the means by which it would be ruled.
My view on Caesar's rule being likely to have been the better of the two stems in a large part from the same reason why I think it ludicrous to say that he was a tyrant: whereas Augustus had no compunctions about reducing the rights of the citizenry drastically, under Caesar they remained in full place. Caesar established the practice of regularly publishing the procceedings of the Senate, Augustus put an end to this. Caesar responded to criticism of his reign with indifference or even encouragement of a form (one thinks of his response to the eulogies of Cato), Augustus did not tolerate disent at all. And so on.
I also mark that Caesar's policy of clemency and reconciliation likely reflected (among other things) his recognition of Rome's old elite, for all their corruption, nevertheless continuing to posess the attributes that had made Rome great in the first place.
In short, of the two Caesar probably would have been the better of the two to rule the Empire, but as was, the Imperial System was preferable to the Republic, and so I can look favorably on Augustus for upholding it, and devising a method for its continuance.
I've been repeating my argument for a while, let's turn things on their head: could you throw up for me some reasons why you think the Republic was superior to the Empire?
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.
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Wasn't the idea that Caesar had promised the miscreants that he would crucify them? Therefore he was delivering on his word, even though he was 'kind' enough to crucify them as corpses.
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
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Regarding this thread's original question:
Besides simply adopting Christianity, I wonder if a case could be made that the Roman world shaped it's very doctrine. Not in passive ways, like a Christian reaction against Roman ways, or having Roman citizens defect to it... but as a flexing of Roman power to shape Christianity to Roman interests in some degree."In some degree"? Absolutely. Just check out the Jewish commentaries on this topic.
One example might be the Apostle Paul http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/paul/paul.htm who was an early persecutor of Christians and seemed to be funded in this by the Romans although maybe had other motivations. His later life as a Christian convert seems to involve removing some Jewish aspects out of Christianity, and some think this was to make it especially convert-friendly and to seem less foreign to the average Roman citizen. That took a long while, but maybe still is effective today in conversion efforts.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.
Another example is Constantine, who kind of chaired committees such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea on Christian doctrine. Sometimes described as a passive role in settling esoteric questions, but I think other accounts suggest the stifling of alternative Christian doctrines that would be harder to manage in the context of his empire, such as more mystic and decentralized ones.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.
Could modern Christianity still include echos of things that were "for the good of the Roman Empire"?How could it not?
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It's possible the story is apocryphal. If not, this certainly isn't a case of state-sanctioned crucifixion, so I excluded it from the discussion.
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.
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Suetonius was most probably not being ironic. Think about it. What would you choose ?...Could it be that in Roman times you also had two or more kinds of crucifixion ? The most merciful one where they killed you before they crucified you...
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.
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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
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I've read that kids were not allowed to use the public baths, but specifically, how old did ya have to be in order to do so??
I hope this may HELP YOU.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'd put it as having mostly started to materialize after the Second Punic War, when Rome truly started out on the path of aquiring an empire. Rome's territories in Italy by the time relevant were effectively a part of the city-state.
The military aspect has two possible starting points: Marius's reforms to the army or Sulla's first march on Rome, take your pick.
The other problems took more time to acumulate. I'd put the start of these aspects of the Republic's incompetence as having begun and risen with the Latifundia.
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.
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The attitude of Romans toward Christianity was largely one of ignorance. I don't think we can blame tactius and Dio for that alone.
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.
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So, we have any reference about the book in pagan writings, let say between 120 to 500 ? It seems that they (pagan writers) ignored it .
I'm not sure they ignored it, per se. It's possible they weren't even aware of its existence, certainly the probability that they didn't know about it was higher in the second and third centuries.
I'm not aware of ANY textual quotation from the New Testament by any pagan writer.
The closest we get would be Celsus (II century), known only from his Christian detractors; it can be inferred that he knew some of the Gospels and maybe even some Pauline Epistles.
The Emperor Julian must have known well the Gospels and other Christian books, and maybe Porphyry too, but it seems no specific reference from the NT for their lost works can be inferred (However, Porphyry quoted the Book of Daniel).
On the other hand, some of the Roman historians (like Tacitus and Cassius Dio) at least partially reviewed the content of Jewish Scriptures (ie, the Christian Old Testament), probably via the Egyptians and other hostile neighbors, as their records are rather confuse and chaotic.
In essence, the consequence was that such historians deeply despised and mercilessly mocked the Jewish theology.
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They certainly knew about it by the Council of Nicaea in ad325. Curiously, for a book that is a call to arms against Rome, it was included as canon by the priests convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine to unify Christianity. It seems then the underlying message in the Book of Revelations had been misunderstood within three hundred years, or were the priests including it for subtle reasons? True, the Christians felt their time had come, and that Constantine was supporting their efforts, but he was still pagan at this time, a sun worshipper, and tried to have one of his relatives worshipped as Jesus.
Were the Christians playing it both ways? Or simply like today, assuming the prophetic prose spoke of future events rather than a diatribe against Rome?
Actually, Revelation was considered among the Apocrypha by Eusebius (ergo, Constantine I) at Nicea I (325); it would not be included in the canonical New Testament until 367, by Athanasius of Alexandria.
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I wouldn't dare to take such kind of risks in Singapore, due to their legendary fine culture (and obviously because photo flash is forbidden in their museums too).
Some examples (from THE GUARDIAN 2002):
- dropping gum or litter S$1,000 (
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Greetings all,
I am gathering some initial data for a research project at my university. I need sources, or a push in the right direction by some of the intelligentsia around UNRV. I am anxious to know if anyone (scholar or historian) has ever looked more in depth at the physical makeup of the Roman army. What was the percentage of ethnic roman/italians to the Foederati or barbarian allies?
Were there more Romans during the late Republic and Principate, as opposed to the Dominate?
Any assistance would be of great help.
sincerely,
GJC
Not so sure about your last statement, but here come my two cents.
Your first problem would be the definition of "ethnic Roman/Italians"; I don't think it's possible to get any useful operative criteria. At least since Zama, Rome and Italy had been receiving a massive influx of migrants, both free but especially slaves. For obvious reasons, the immigrants usually pretended to be Italians or, if they weren't able to, at least Greeks; the overwhelming majority of slaves from any province received Greek names. Conversely, we have evidence of huge Italian emigration as early as the beginning of the I century BC (just remember the Asiatic Vespers of 88 BC).
Some examples: were the Jews born in Italy after many generations "ethnic Italians"? How would we know how many of them were local converses? The same can be said regarding any other "ethnicity". What about the native Italian Greeks (from Magna Grecia)? Not to talk about the offspring of "mixed" unions. You only have to check on the Imperial biographies; how much of an "ethnic Italian" was Caracalla?
On the other hand, it would be almost impossible to obtain hard figures; even for the former period they are quite unreliable; for the Dominate, they are almost absent. In fact, for the late Dominate we lack almost any kind of information; it has been called a Dark Age for a reason. Again, let us check out the emperors; what do we know about Pupianus, Iotapianus or Aureolus?
All that said, IMHO the predominant scholar consensus would be an affirmative answer for your original question. Irrespectively on how "ethnic Italians" are defined, there is abundant evidence suggesting that the non-Italian portion of the Army (and Emperors) was constantly increasing.
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Oh? Why? Do you imagine two opposing phalanxes 'pushing pikes' in a sort of military rugby scrum?Phalanx against phalanx would rarely render a decisive military result.In fact, most combats from the endless Diadochi Wars were macedonian inter-phalanges battles.
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But scientists believe the new samples of hair are the remains of an early species of human that was scavenged by hyaenas after death, allowing the delicate hairs to be preserved inside the dung as it fossilised.As reported at Telegraph.co.uk...
QUOTE: "Dr Backwell added: "Brown hyaenas are scavengers, not hunters, so the hominid was dead by the time the hyena came upon it..."
These scientists seem to be as pious as they are misinformed; hyenids are actually far more predators than scavengers, and a tiny human would have had very little chance against a carnivore that regularly hunted medium to large sized ungulates.
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No reason for that. But since the argument over one little point was beginning to dominate the entire discussion, I split it off and moved it here.
Excellent idea; by themselves, the crucifixion and related public exemplary torture/execution methods were not religious at all.
Fallacies aside, if anyone want to check on the use of these methods on slaves and other low status populations by the Romans and its social implications, your search will be greatly enhanced if you add the heading "furca".
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The incompetence of the Republic for governing its Empire can very broadly and roughly be divided into two aspects:/quote]
And when did such incompetence begin? Before of after the first Samnite War (343-341 BC)?
Crucifixion and Roman punishment
in Romana Humanitas
Posted