Favonius Cornelius

Thanks Cato. It is my conjecture, and I add it in just to give an alternative since Goldsworthy gives no in depth acessment from what I remember of Caesar's most criticized military weakness. It is an interesting idea isn't it? I think I'll start a thread on it.

Caius Julius Caesar. Probably every educated person in the world is familiar with the name, for the man's life played a large role in shaping the western world as we know it. Few people in history can claim such an importance. Dissecting the aspects and times of this man has been an academic pursuit since right after his death to the modern day, so it takes a sharp mind and an expansive grasp of the history of the Romans to say something new, or put the story in a different perspective. I've read many of them, so it is with no small pleasure that I can confirm Adrian Goldsworthy's new book Caesar, Life of a Colossus succeeds in providing exactly that. Not a new age reinterpretation, ideological sermon, nor conservative rehash; Goldsworthy's book is a firm accounting and fair assessment, based on fact and sensibility of interpretation of the ancient histories.... read the full review of Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll try all these things tonight and see what happens. A selective prohibition to getting to UNRV...it's some cruel and unusual joke! But also testimony to the greatness of UNRV; must be my most clicked on link.

http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html There havent been any issues with the server,the site was always available, must be on your site... cheers viggen Thanks Vigs. I have two computers here at home, and my secondary one here apparently can contact UNRV, which means my primary must have a virus. What happens is when I click on the UNRV link, it takes forever to load up, then goes to some *or* or shopping mock web page even though www.unrv.com is still listed as the address. Really annoying. To think that people sit around their homes and waste long hours thinking of ways of screwing over people's computers.

Yes I would claim that. Caesar was capable of bloodshed as you say, but only under very particular circumstances. Far more I think he had the opinion that it was better to preserve and build than conquer with steel and blood. He saw it I think a greater victory to win the heart and mind of an opponent, than to force it. In fact he would be willing to accept even setbacks and reversals in the attempt to make something work peacefully, but in the end he was capable also of doing what he had to. It's important not to compare the war in Gaul with the civil war. Other than that I can think of nothing else at this time, but it's enough for me to imagine what would come if they won the war. I really don't buy the Caesar illegality arguements. Honestly, the idea is mostly prophaganda of Pompey's camp which they used to garner support. I don't mean to suggest that Caesar's actions are totally free from illegality, nor that someone could not peg him down for something or another, but in this late a day in the Republic, illegality was commonplace, and depending on who you are and the general situation, it could be totally ignored. Just look at Pompey's career, the so called defender of the Republic. The Republic was flexible, and that was a strength. In order to function properly while being an empire rather than a city it sure as Hades had to be flexible, but this last instance of inflexibility of people like Cato and Domitius Ahenobarbus, for reasons selfish or idealistic, was the last time the Republic could bear it. At that point you had to go with the wildly swinging power blocks and hope for the best, because anything more rigid would cause it to crack. Anyway, you all know my opinion by now. I'd love to see L Quintus Sertorius, M. Porcius Cato and M. Tullius Cicero all have a debate here now between each other; I bet you all have some interesting insights into these times.

It is hard to say what Sulla would have done had the Marians not started the bloodshed. Perhaps he would not have the lists, but the fact remains that they happened and Pompey was a primary tool in this episode. Pompey was young at the time, and learning. This was his political upbringing. The difference is Caesar always gave a first chance, even to Gaul tribes...anyone, to drop the matter of their attempting to kill him, and let them live with all their possessions if they simply promised to halt the opposition. If they attacked him a second time he killed them. Obviously releasing someone who will not relent in their opposition would be foolish. Sulla nor Marius ever gave that, and I seriously doubt Pompey would have. The entire equestrian order?! I'll have to ask you for proof of that. From what I remember most folks blended throughout Italia and waited for the war to end, and Caesar had trouble with summoning the senate because most folks were neutral, so they could not join Pompey in Greece nor Caesar in Rome. Actually it was Cato's inflexibility which probably precipitated much of the eventuality of the civil war in the near term. Perhaps we can come down on Caesar as overly prideful and not philosophic enough to see the benefits of maintaining the Republic and going to Rome to put himself at the mercy of men like Cato who would ludicrously hand him over to barbarians. I for one have a hard time blaming him for not relenting in his position to protect himself. It was a matter of dignitas, and in that respect Caesar was as true a Roman as any of them.

We are speaking in facts yes? It is a fact that Pompey killed in his lifetime up to the civil war many more Romans than Caesar. By it's end, they were probably equal, but if Caesar could have achieved his aims without killing any Roman he would have done so as clearly exemplified by his record. The Sullan/Marian revolutionaries saw murder of opponents as a viable political solution. Pompey was one of them, and probably his own willingness to do so was reflected in his paranoia of assassination, just as Caesar's inherent clemency can be seen reflected in his lack of precaution that led to his death. I imagine that most of these people stayed in Rome or Italia and did not take sides, the same people who the Pompey camp considered to be an enemy of the Republic for not joining them, the same camp led by the Butcher, Executioner, whatever they liked to call him. I don't think we are repeating much, we're getting into what was behind the minds of the Pompey camp, which was composed of many of the leading men in the senate who had considerable influence, but the majority of the senate did not want things to come to this as exemplified by their votes. All of this leads to the concept that the Pompey camp was not such a noble cause for the republic in my opinion (that was mostly a brag to garner support), but more of a contest between Pompey, some stubborn and poor politicians who needed his protection, and Caesar.

The second time around, or the first? Pompey earned himself the nickname 'the executioner' under Sulla for doing his dirty work. Considering the uncompromising attitude of his camp when they battled against Caesar (even neutrals were considered enemies), I think it reasonable to assume the same would have occurred if they won. Sadly this fact sours the perception of their stand against Caesar as being something noble, when in fact clemency during this age was so rare as to be an unparalleled mark of nobility.

I have a feeling its my machine, maybe a virus. Also recently when I punch in a search in google for something it will jump to say ebay or amazon for a list of products under that heading. Any virus hunter programs you folks can reccomend?

Interesting pro and con on the gas price manipulation. Almost 50% of Americans think that the administration is using it's oil connections to manipulate the price of gas.

Well I was on a different PC, my home one. But that never in the past has been a matter. From my home PC I was able to connect to everything else but UNRV.

Very true. The senate had Pompey 'The Executioner" as it's champion, which makes me wonder if it would be more correct to make it a matter of a civil war between two generals as was Marius vs. Sulla, rather than a romantic defense of the Republic. I suppose for some it was a romantic defense, but without the bulwork of the greater names, might not have happened at all.

We all owe Virgil a debt of gratitude for his promotion of...educational...discovery.

I couldn't log into UNRV all weekend long. Did anyone else have this problem, or am I missing something?

The Second Punic war ended in 200 BC, Tiberius Gracchus was born in 163 BC. That's about three or more generations of Romans, seeing as how they married quite younger than 20 years of age very often, especially in the rural areas.

Ah yes, the slave minimization theories. Cato I have some points in defense of Wot's ideas, which for the most part I do believe played a role in the Republic's corruption, maybe you can clarify your ideas on them. I've heard of this mentioned before, but archaeology is a clumsy tool sometimes. So archaeology tells us that there were many huts and remains of various artifacts throughout Italia. (If you could explain in more detail how archaeologists claim this I would appreciate it). The thing with latifundia is they were big tracts of land. Latifundia do not leave as many archaeological remains necessarily as do the small holdings and huts of numerous farmers. So isn't it possible that there were actually large latifundia monopolizing the land, where the number of huts and small steads as you say, remained at the same number? Is it proved that these small homesteads were not populated by slaves by a landlord who did not want to construct convenient large housing structures for later archaeologists to find? How could Gracchus hope to claim something in front of the senate and people that was blatantly not true and expect to be believed? If there were so many landholders, why did Marius find it necessary to open the legionary ranks to the landless as well? I find this revisionist take on the land issue intriguing, and I don't pretend to say it absolutely is not true, but as with all revisionist theories I am compelled to ask many questions. You see scholars needing tenure have sometimes struck out new ideas simply for the sake of striking out new ideas you know. If there were so few slaves, why is it then that Sparticus was able to collect tens of thousands of slaves to his cause? If slaves died out so easily why then was the slave trade so lucrative? Why would anyone bother to buy a slave in the first place if they were such a transient purchase? Cato the Elder's work on estates proves to us that the Romans were no fools on the running of their estates, so mistreating property so as they die out in a few years time seems highly unlikely to me. Quite true, but we only hear about the land issue raised in Gracchus' time, many generations after the losses of the Second Punic War, so I am not sure if this has any bearing on the problem at hand. I get much of my ideas and support from The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture by Peter Garnsey & Richard Saller

If you can't get the Scipio book, Scullard goes into much detail on the man anyway in his general history of the Roman Republic. He's an excellent author and detailed, I learned my history from his books. In fact might be more of what you are looking for if you were interested in a more global look of his times in relation to him.

Gravely...phew that's a heavy word for it! If Sertorius was rebelling against Sulla's dictatorship why did he continue to rebel against the Republic when he stepped down and died? Regardless, if a revolt, rebellion, war or whatever else you want to call it, the point is it was an abnormality of the status quo, and seems to indicate another story than a perfectly fine Republic until Caesar comes around. At any rate, you should start a new thread on the man, quite an interesting episode in Roman history worthy of much discussion.

I suppose there was something of a Republic, but peace? The revolts of Sertorius, Cataline and Lepidus do not strike me as peace.

It is a vigorous weed here, but one needs to bruise the plant to see its colouration. Ive posted previously as regards its properties, (an excellent external "buffer" and ready use wound salve-but very poisonous as an internal medication, most blue things are(prussic acid) ) its strong anti-tumour properties are being looked at by scientists presently. So not just a striking and warlike ornamentation, but a useful epidermal protector. It's strange to me that it is poisonous if injested but good on wounds. A wound is open access to the blood stream, and so is the gut.

Pertinax, as our resident herbalist, have you ever seen this woad growing around in Briton and seen its bluish quality?

Heh, I don't see what the big deal is. :tomato: It's all a big gamble, it could go either way for a number of reasons. If the thread is a problem delete it.

I need to stress my stipulation: there has to be no major event that plays into Republican hands. A new war, American terrorist attack, Republican assassination, Osama bin Ladin found hiding in Texas, etc. According to my theory, any of these would give enough added momentum to Republicans in general for big oil to turn up the prices and bring in more money. So long as things are business as usual until December after the election, and we have to wait until a few weeks into December to see the increase. We should do this again in 2007, I bet in that year the price would decrease slightly this time of year but no where near an astounding $0.50 As far as oil consumption Cato, the deeps of winter and summer cause more of it to be used, how and why are numerous.

Did it though? People seem to think that since Sulla laid down his dictatorship when he was at the edge of his life, that all was well. During the Marian Sullan civil wars, how many great senators and their families were murdered and forced into destitution? I think if ever there was a period when the Republic was given a mortal wound, it was here, when the life blood of her governing class was drained. Here also some very ugly precedents were made with bringing armies into Rome, proscriptions, civil war. All things never before seen, at least not seen in ages. The Republic may have been 'alive' after Sulla, but it was this bleeding shell of a thing laying on the battlefield waiting for it's day to come. Seems Caesar was in the right place at the right time, could have easily been any number of other people in his place eventually. In fact perhaps for his ability, the Roman people were spared even greater calamity. Imagine a more ambitious and less able Sulla instead of Caesar conducting those civil wars.