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M. Porcius Cato

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Everything posted by M. Porcius Cato

  1. This was an interesting article, and I'm always very thrilled to see quantitative analyses of Roman history. That said, it seems like the article ignores an important insight gained from the many previous attempts to understand what caused the changes that occurred in the late Roman empire. That insight is that the variables that appear to explain change in one part of empire (e.g., the Western empire) fail to accurately predict what happens in another part of the empire (e.g., the Eastern empire). So suppose the authors' theory is right: climactic change causes disease, famine and war. If so, the theory explains their observations of climactic change occurring with the Germanic migrations in Central Europe. So far, so good. But what about the rest of the empire? The theory predicts that there would be much less climactic change occurring in North Africa and the Levant, which were relatively healthy, prosperous and peaceful during this period. But that prediction seems highly unlikely to be right. In North Africa, for example, there was massive desertification and shortages of water, leading the agricultural frontiers of the empire to move back toward the coasts. Yet, the empire was fine in North Africa throughout this period of climactic change, and it only began to decline when the same Germanic people that invaded central and western Europe made it to North Africa, where they busied themselves impaling babies and butchering children (which I'm sure the authors would argue is just a rational response to climate change....) The history of North Africa, then, presents a real problem for the theory. That is, given climactic change, we have an equal likelihood of experiencing disease/famine/war (like Central Europe) or continuing health/prosperity/peace (like North Africa). Framed that way, the article totally loses its Cassandra-like punch regarding modern climate change. Framed another way, however, we could observe this: given massive migrations of violent, anti-GrecoRoman foreigners, we have a much greater likelihood of experiencing disease/famine/war (like *both* Central Europe and North Africa). When you look at the *whole empire*, and not just a fragment of it, you come away with a very different historical lesson. Namely, the most likely threat to civilization isn't climate change but cultural change, specifically people starting to act like those early Germanic hordes. Of course, I'm sure no one in New York, London, Madrid, and Moscow could possibly imagine that there's a group of armed fanatics who hate the Greco-Roman way of life.... Anyway, that's my two cents. Source: Roman rise and fall 'recorded in trees'
  2. M. Porcius Cato

    Roman Mathematics

    Roman mathematics has always been puzzling: Why would they use such a weird, non-positional system when there was already a much better one (the Hindu-Arabic) in widespread use? Further, given that they didn't employ a positional notation system, how could they multiply? The rationale for their numeric system may have its origins in mercantile security. In the arabic system, a number like 1039 talents can be easily forged to read 9039 talents. Thus, by simply adding a little circle to the 1, it would be possible to defraud someone of 8000 talents. In contrast, to accomplish the same feat in Roman numerals, one would have to change MXXXIX to MxXXXIX, a change which could be more easily detected. Further, Romans didn't always use their numeric symbols to complete computations. More often, they used a Roman abacus, which did have a bi-quinary coded decimal system. What to do if you left your abacus with that little she-wolf whom you were visiting by the Temple of Venus? Well, there was a method, but it was complex.
  3. M. Porcius Cato

    Happy birthday Cato

    Yet you always remember it. Thanks for the birthday wishes.
  4. M. Porcius Cato

    Roman rise and fall 'recorded in trees'

    This was an interesting article, and I'm always very thrilled to see quantitative analyses of Roman history. That said, it seems like the article ignores an important insight gained from the many previous attempts to understand what caused the changes that occurred in the late Roman empire. That insight is that the variables that appear to explain change in one part of empire (e.g., the Western empire) fail to accurately predict what happens in another part of the empire (e.g., the Eastern empire). So suppose the authors' theory is right: climactic change causes disease, famine and war. If so, the theory explains their observations of climactic change occurring with the Germanic migrations in Central Europe. So far, so good. But what about the rest of the empire? The theory predicts that there would be much less climactic change occurring in North Africa and the Levant, which were relatively healthy, prosperous and peaceful during this period. But that prediction seems highly unlikely to be right. In North Africa, for example, there was massive desertification and shortages of water, leading the agricultural frontiers of the empire to move back toward the coasts. Yet, the empire was fine in North Africa throughout this period of climactic change, and it only began to decline when the same Germanic people that invaded central and western Europe made it to North Africa, where they busied themselves impaling babies and butchering children (which I'm sure the authors would argue is just a rational response to climate change....) The history of North Africa, then, presents a real problem for the theory. That is, given climactic change, we have an equal likelihood of experiencing disease/famine/war (like Central Europe) or continuing health/prosperity/peace (like North Africa). Framed that way, the article totally loses its Cassandra-like punch regarding modern climate change. Framed another way, however, we could observe this: given massive migrations of violent, anti-GrecoRoman foreigners, we have a much greater likelihood of experiencing disease/famine/war (like *both* Central Europe and North Africa). When you look at the *whole empire*, and not just a fragment of it, you come away with a very different historical lesson. Namely, the most likely threat to civilization isn't climate change but cultural change, specifically people starting to act like those early Germanic hordes. Of course, I'm sure no one in New York, London, Madrid, and Moscow could possibly imagine that there's a group of armed fanatics who hate the Greco-Roman way of life.... Anyway, that's my two cents.
  5. Isn't the veneration of saints a hold-over from paganism? Seems to me that many aspects of pagan religion were simply co-opted by the Christians. In this way pagan religion is still with us in much the same way that the Pantheon is still with us (i.e., as a Christian version of the pagan form).
  6. M. Porcius Cato

    The Antikythera Mechanism explained with LEGO!

    I agree! And--many thanks to you, Klingan, for those nice photos of the mechanism, and the quotes from Cicero too.
  7. M. Porcius Cato

    ...the next Wallmap should be...

    I think there's an overlay in GoogleEarth that's somewhat similar to what you're describing.
  8. M. Porcius Cato

    ...the next Wallmap should be...

    I'm with Doc on this one -- the key to making a new map of Rome distinctive, interesting, and valuable would be to show how Rome evolved over time. Of course, that's a lot trickier than just showing the 3-D model of Rome in 119 CE (or whatever date you choose), but if you can come up with a good solution, it would be really cool. Heck, just showing the evolution of the Forum vicinity would be cool.
  9. M. Porcius Cato

    What Romans Were in the News?

    At long last, Google's project of digitally scanning the books of the world has been finished, polished, cross-checked, validated, and all the rest. The result is a tool of immense value to scholars -- a database of every term (or Ngram) to appear in about 4% of all book EVER published, spanning a range of hundreds of years. You can use the tool yourself at http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/, and see how words like "neurons" suddenly pop up and overtake terms like "humours", how "dude" suddenly arose to prominence in recent years, and so on. It's really cool. Of course, if you like Romans, then you'll want to see how the literature paid attention to your own favorites. Here I've mapped out how literary sources paid attention to folks like Cicero, Cato, and Caesar. As you could see (if this stupid forum software weren't so backwards), Caesar-worship is apparently of very recent vintage, with far more mentions of Cicero and Cato throughout the Enlightenment. Anyway, try it for yourself!
  10. M. Porcius Cato

    When was Rome the Most Just and Fair

    There's no objective way to answer this question from our sources, but it seems like we could mark some milestones (such as the Licinian laws of 367 BCE) that achieved some advances in justice.
  11. M. Porcius Cato

    Io Saturnalia

    Io, Saturnalia!
  12. M. Porcius Cato

    The Fall of the Republic

    I agree there's a parallel here between the Late Republic and US history, but I don't think the numbers tell a story of two republics being taken over by prominent political families. During the late republic (Sulla and beyond), the number of New Men in the senate seemed to have risen dramatically, while the number of nobiles (literally, the "known"--but let's define as someone who had a consul or praetor in the familiy) was falling. That's what Gruen's appendix shows rather nicely, doesn't it? According to his appendix, between 78-49 BCE, 7 non-nobiles held the consulship (11.5%), 91 non-nobiles held the praetorship (51% of known praetors), 27 non-nobiles held the aedileship (56.25% of known aediles), 80 non-nobiles held the tribuneship (71% of known tribunes), and 154 non-nobiles were ordinary senators (77% of known pedarii). Thus, after Sulla, the majority of magistracies were held by non-nobiles, which I don't think had been true of earlier eras. Same basic story can be seen in the history of the US congress. Here's a chart that was prepared shortly after "Cennedi"'s death -- in response to claims like the one above. What this means is good news for our own New Men, guys like Nixon and Obama.
  13. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    I think Kosmo has raised an interesting issue -- it really isn't certain that Marius couldn't raise enough troops through regular means. I mean, we have testimony to that effect, but testimony doesn't close the book on a topic. This is something worth considering more carefully. (If only we had a better sense of the demographics of Italy at this time!) I think Marius uncovered a good solution in dropping the property qualification, whether it was strictly necessary or not. Just to be clear, I don't think these aspects of the Marian reform were necessarily destabilizing. After all, the Athenians had the same policy with respect to the landless men who rowed the triremes that defeated Athens' enemies, and it didn't lead to private navies, etc. What Marius did do -- and the Athenians didn't -- was to promise land (that Marius didn't have) to his landless recruits. As I've pointed to previously, that particular Marian policy wasn't very well thought out, and it led to a number of unavoidable conflicts in later years (esp. with Pompey's troops).
  14. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    You're just repeating your claims without offering new evidence or answering my counter-arguments. Vale!
  15. M. Porcius Cato

    Christian Era Roman army brutality

    Shouldn't this question be moved out of the Res Publica folder?
  16. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    That's a highly misleading comparison for several reasons. First, Rome had an overwhelmingly agrarian economy, so it's unlikely that soldiers returned home and couldn't find a job. Most likely, they went back to their family farm, where their father and younger siblings were happy to have the help with the harvest. Second, most early wars were not fought year-round, but only during the "war season", to allow sowing and harvesting. Later, when wars were fought year-round, the demands would have increased, but--for reasons below--this wouldn't have been a big hardship. Most importantly, however, you're not considering the relation between the structure of a legion and the lifecycle of a typical Roman, which differs from that of modern Americans. Specifically, what you're envisioning is an army composed entirely of triarii--i.e., men of marriageable age with a family to support. But the structure of the pre-Marian legion avoided calling on such primary bread-winners in large numbers: the largest portion of a pre-Marian legion (1200 velites, 1200 hastati, and 1200 principes) comprised men in their late teens to mid-20s, with only 600 triarii per legion (or 14% of an entire legion). Thus, the genius of the pre-Marian system was that it minimized the contribution of men who were at the point in their lives when they were likely to own their own farm, to marry and to take on the responsibility of raising a family. Taken together, these three factors imply that the pre-Marian system normally allowed Rome to call on huge numbers of men without disrupting the agrarian base of the society -- something the Romans were able to do with tremendous success for almost all of its history. I should add that there was one prominent exception here--the war with Hannibal, which obviously did disrupt the economy--but the Marian reforms wouldn't have protected the Roman economy from Hannibal any better than did the pre-Marian regime .
  17. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    To put it mildly, huh? But what about the feud with Sulla put those heads on poles? Don't you think it was more the fault of Cinna (Caesar's father in law, not the poet)?
  18. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    I agree that colonies of Roman soldiers outside Italy might not have been such a great problem -- but it wasn't a great solution either. Farming takes skill and knowledge, and it's unrealistic to suppose that urban proles would have necessarily made the most productive use of the land. It would have been far better for the veterans to have been given a cash pension by the Senate -- then, the vets could have assessed their own best options, and the land could have been leased to those who wanted to try to make a go of it. I also think it's true that the vets wanted their land in central Italy. And it's easy to see why Pompey, Lucullus, or anybody else wanted to give it to them. With your vets in central Italy, it's more likely they'll show up in the forum when you need them (e.g., when a vote is called). That's not a policy that ensures that the most rational options are likely to prevail in assembly.
  19. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    What an active imagination you have, 9544bhana. The rich were taking everything! The poor veterans were left with nothing! Marius had to enact his reforms or the very sky itself would have fallen! Please, as a corrective to this cartoonish view of history, I'd recommend Rome at War: Farms, Families, and Death in the Middle Republic by Nate Rosenstein. By surveying archaeological records from this period as well as demographic statistics regarding the balance of population to agricultural output, Rosenstein shows that the pre-Marian military structure did not impoverish small freeholders by sending them off to war and that small farms flourished beside the latifundia that grew up after the Punic Wars. Marius did face a shortage of soldiers -- but this was largely due to a string of military disasters and a large commitment of soldiers outside Italy. Against Hannibal, Pyrrhus, and a string of enemies far worse than the iron-age Cimbri, the pre-Marian structure was more than sufficient. With property-owning Italians and Roman leadership, the republican army was strong enough to defend Italy and secure her friends and allies. What it couldn't do is stretch as far as Marius' ambitions -- and, if you ask me, the whole human race couldn't have stretched that far. That's the problem -- and, yes, Marius' ambition is completely Marius' fault (no matter how much he wept for the poor before he sent them to die).
  20. M. Porcius Cato

    Were the Marian reforms the doom for the Roman Republic?

    Rather than agreeing that the Marian reforms doomed the republic, I think it's more accurate to say that *one* Marian reform was destabilizing--and it was actively opposed by the defenders of the republic. What were Marius' reforms anyway? First, he dropped the property requirement for enlistment in the infantry. Second, he had the state provide for the equipment of the infantry. Third, enlistment in the military was rewarded with citizenship and land. Of these reforms, I only see one as intrinsically destabilizing -- namely, rewarding vets with land. This reform has several destabilizing elements. The fundamental problem is that there is no such thing as free land; it varies greatly in value; and the land already held by the state was in continuous use (by lessees) as a means of raising revenue without direct taxation. Thus, finding land for vets--especially land in Italy--was politically difficult and far more expensive than other forms of compensation (e.g., a cash pension controlled by the Senate). In consequence, infantry had an interest in securing the political success of their generals to ensure that their land promises were made good. That's the heart of the problem. It's true that Marius' reforms had the effect of creating private armies that could -- and in Caesar's case did -- topple the republic. But Caesar would never have had that army in the first place were it not for his success in securing land for Pompey's vets. Had that land-for-service regime been brought to an end (as Cato endorsed), Pompey's vets would not have been politicized, would not have been brought as thugs to the forum, and would not have propped up that 'three-headed monster' of Pompey/Caesar/Crassus. In contrast with the land-for-service regime, Marius' other reforms strike me as being quite positive, and they didn't need the land-for-service regime to support them.
  21. M. Porcius Cato

    Digital Atlas of roman and Medieval Civilizations

    Are you writing about Sertorius?
  22. M. Porcius Cato

    A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names

    "Ancient Greece was a culture where names were assumed to mean something," writes James Davidson in THIS book review in the LRB. Oh, yeah? Tell it to Aristopsolos.
  23. M. Porcius Cato

    Second thoughts on Wikipedia...

    Personally, I'm forever indebted to Wikipedia for giving me my favorite complaint about almost everything I read-- citation needed.
  24. M. Porcius Cato

    Cicero Translations: Shackelton Bailey vs. E.S. Shuckburgh

    Personally, I prefer the Bailey because his notes provide better and more complete context. What I like about the Shuckburgh edition, though, is that the correspondence is chronologically arranged.
  25. M. Porcius Cato

    "V" Marks along Via Sacra?

    Totally wild guess: maybe they laid out the stones before assembling, and they numbered them so they could be put back together? See any other numbers?
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