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Amused to Death posted:Quick Rome question, could Tribunes veto the actions of Consuls(or magistrates in general for that matter)? I believe no, but I'm not certain. Kind of. Tribunes were sacrosanct, so laying a hand on them was a capital crime. Their ability to veto was a side-effect of this, because they could do things like physically interpose themselves to obstruct an act being carried out, or place someone under arrest or in some other situation where in order to escape they'd have to touch or physically resist the tribune and thereby be subject to execution, and so on. Outside of the physical city of Rome, they might have still theoretically had this status, but they didn't have the plebeian orders around to actually enforce it.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:18
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Noctis Horrendae posted:These are both very good points and I shouldn't have made such an all-encompassing statement. From what I understand Ares was a god that was worshiped primarily out of fear, and he was the god of general blood-spilling and killing in general, while Mars was held in a higher regard. Fear was a big deal with Ares, hence Phobos and all. Ares is usually depicted as a bit of an idiot as well--he is representing all the bad parts of war, the chaos and madness and whatnot. He's not a figure that is liked or respected, but he is a part of all warfare. When you go to war, you want more Athena, less Ares. In contrast, Mars was literally the father of the Roman people and one of the most central of all the gods, basically only playing second fiddle to Jupiter. Mars is a figure of great dignity, and in fact also represents peace, which shows how very Roman the ideas associated with Mars are. Pax per bellum, as Caesar's Legion would say. 
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Feb 8, 2014 03:29
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Tao Jones posted:Kind of. Tribunes were sacrosanct, so laying a hand on them was a capital crime. Their ability to veto was a side-effect of this, because they could do things like physically interpose themselves to obstruct an act being carried out, or place someone under arrest or in some other situation where in order to escape they'd have to touch or physically resist the tribune and thereby be subject to execution, and so on. People used to "buy" Tribunes, right? Could the other Tribunes negate or outvote a single dissenting opinion or was any one single veto enough to bring an end to an act they were opposed to? Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 03:38
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Grand Fromage posted:Fear was a big deal with Ares, hence Phobos and all. Ares is usually depicted as a bit of an idiot as well--he is representing all the bad parts of war, the chaos and madness and whatnot. He's not a figure that is liked or respected, but he is a part of all warfare. When you go to war, you want more Athena, less Ares. In contrast, Mars was literally the father of the Roman people and one of the most central of all the gods, basically only playing second fiddle to Jupiter. Mars is a figure of great dignity, and in fact also represents peace, which shows how very Roman the ideas associated with Mars are. Pax per bellum, as Caesar's Legion would say. I thought Jupiter was considered the father of the Roman people, or is that mainly a Greek thing (Zeus)? It's kind of funny to me how the god of war represents peace. Maybe the word "irony" wasn't part of the Roman vocabulary until later on in its history.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:45
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Noctis Horrendae posted:I thought Jupiter was considered the father of the Roman people, or is that mainly a Greek thing (Zeus)? It's kind of funny to me how the god of war represents peace. Maybe the word "irony" wasn't part of the Roman vocabulary until later on in its history. Jupiter was king of the gods, but Mars was literally the father of Romulus and Remus in the legend. Venus was the mother of Aeneas, so you can consider Mars and Venus the mythological parents of the Roman people.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:46
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Grand Fromage posted:Jupiter was king of the gods, but Mars was literally the father of Romulus and Remus in the legend. Wasn't Hercules the father of Romulus and Remus?! Now I'm confused.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:47
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Noctis Horrendae posted:Wasn't Hercules the father of Romulus and Remus?! Now I'm confused. Hercules had a lot of childbirth-related cult stuff but I don't know any tradition where he fathered them. Doesn't mean there wasn't one, religions are messy, but I've never heard of it. As for the irony, the Roman ideology saw them as making war in order to create a peaceful world. (Almost) all their wars were defensive. According to the Roman ideology, anyway. So it makes sense that Mars would have an aspect of peace to him.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:50
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Grand Fromage posted:Hercules had a lot of childbirth-related cult stuff but I don't know any tradition where he fathered them. Doesn't mean there wasn't one, religions are messy, but I've never heard of it. A quick Google search tells me that the "Hercules gave birth to the founders of Rome" thing came into play much later on, perhaps during the Imperial era. It's probably cult related, yeah.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:51
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Noctis Horrendae posted:A quick Google search tells me that the "Hercules gave birth to the founders of Rome" thing came into play much later on, perhaps during the Imperial era. It's probably cult related, yeah. From what I've read, the childbirth stuff was because Hercules had a rather tough infancy, what with fighting off snakes all the time and poo poo. So he was seen as a good protector of babies.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:52
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Noctis Horrendae posted:I thought Jupiter was considered the father of the Roman people, or is that mainly a Greek thing (Zeus)? It's kind of funny to me how the god of war represents peace. Maybe the word "irony" wasn't part of the Roman vocabulary until later on in its history. Mars represented military strength, and being militarily strong meant others were reluctant to attack you, bringing peace. Being militarily strong also meant you could defeat enemies utterly when war did come, so peace would reign afterward. Mars was also the guarantor of treaties, which kept the peace. It's not so weird.
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Feb 8, 2014 03:55
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Noctis Horrendae posted:A quick Google search tells me that the "Hercules gave birth to the founders of Rome" thing came into play much later on, perhaps during the Imperial era. It's probably cult related, yeah. Commodus thought himself the reincarnation of Hercules, if that's what you're thinking of.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:00
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Grand Fromage posted:Jupiter was king of the gods, but Mars was literally the father of Romulus and Remus in the legend. Venus was the mother of Aeneas, so you can consider Mars and Venus the mythological parents of the Roman people. Another difference; while Jupiter and Zeus were both bearded sky-dudes, Jupiter was a lot more aloof, only interacting with people through omens and the occasional smiting. You'd never catch Jupiter swan-raping some Roman woman.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:28
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sullat posted:Another difference; while Jupiter and Zeus were both bearded sky-dudes, Jupiter was a lot more aloof, only interacting with people through omens and the occasional smiting. You'd never catch Jupiter swan-raping some Roman woman. Can it be said that Roman gods were a lot more civilised and had a tendency to abide by most human laws, or is that another generalisation?
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Feb 8, 2014 04:30
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Jerusalem posted:People used to "buy" Tributes, right? Could the other Tributes negate or outvote a single dissenting opinion or was any one single veto enough to bring an end to an act they were opposed to? I'm not sure. I think it would depend on whether tribunes were sacrosanct to each other. My understanding is that the tribunal veto didn't technically overturn a law as such like the Presidential veto, but was more like George Wallace standing in the door and physically stopping the law from being carried out. (That is, the law was still the law, but it was clear that the tribune was going to make everyone's life miserable if it wasn't revoked or changed.) The tribunes' power came from the fact that the plebeians in Rome were sworn to punish with death anyone who offended the body of a tribune. If that oath didn't include other tribunes, then I could see a situation where Tribune A could try to push Tribune B out of the way, but if it did then I don't think there was a possibility of overruling the veto.
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Feb 8, 2014 04:31
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Carthaginian/phonecian melquart was associated with Hercules/Heracles right? Were there other overlapping gods or mythology between phonecian and Rome/Greece?
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Feb 8, 2014 09:05
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Grand Fromage posted:Fear was a big deal with Ares, hence Phobos and all. Ares is usually depicted as a bit of an idiot as well--he is representing all the bad parts of war, the chaos and madness and whatnot. He's not a figure that is liked or respected, but he is a part of all warfare. When you go to war, you want more Athena, less Ares. In contrast, Mars was literally the father of the Roman people and one of the most central of all the gods, basically only playing second fiddle to Jupiter. Mars is a figure of great dignity, and in fact also represents peace, which shows how very Roman the ideas associated with Mars are. Pax per bellum, as Caesar's Legion would say. A lot of what we know about Greek gods was written by Athenians, so it's reasonable to assume that the depiction of Ares as a jerk was probably propaganda. Athena was supposed to at least be competitive with Hera and Aphrodite in a beauty contest, better at war than the god of war, and on top of all that, she was also awesome at arts & crafts. I think it's reasonable to assume that the Athenians might have hyped up their favorite goddess, and downplayed the gods they weren't fans of.
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Feb 8, 2014 09:41
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thrakkorzog posted:A lot of what we know about Greek gods was written by Athenians, so it's reasonable to assume that the depiction of Ares as a jerk was probably propaganda. Athena was supposed to at least be competitive with Hera and Aphrodite in a beauty contest, better at war than the god of war, and on top of all that, she was also awesome at arts & crafts. I think it's reasonable to assume that the Athenians might have hyped up their favorite goddess, and downplayed the gods they weren't fans of. sullat posted:Another difference; while Jupiter and Zeus were both bearded sky-dudes, Jupiter was a lot more aloof, only interacting with people through omens and the occasional smiting. You'd never catch Jupiter swan-raping some Roman woman. fecit olorinis Ledam recubare sub alis; addidit, ut satyri celatus imagine pulchram Iuppiter implerit gemino Nycteida fetu, Amphitryon fuerit, cum te, Tirynthia, cepit, aureus ut Danaen, Asopida luserit ignis, Mnemosynen pastor, varius Deoida serpens. I guess you might argue that this is more syncretisation of Zeus to Jupiter than 'pure' Roman Jupiter, and the names of the women would support you at least some way on that. But it's still a notable Roman source saying "Jupiter screwed all these women, in some really hosed up ways". Including Leda as a swan. Noctis Horrendae posted:Can it be said that Roman gods were a lot more civilised and had a tendency to abide by most human laws, or is that another generalisation? So far as we can tell there was no Roman Homer or Hesiod, and Rome didn't have those particular archaic poets' influence weigh quite so heavily on their mythology either - not that it's light even so. Together with our Roman mythological sources generally being later than the Greek ones, that possibly means that we're getting a more gentrified depiction of the Roman pantheon where it might have been as chaotic and violent as the Greek one in earlier sources. It needn't be that this is the case, but it's something to keep in mind.
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Feb 8, 2014 11:39
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Eh, Ares as the violent idiot is present as early as the Iliad - Zeus calls him the worst god and basically says if you weren't my son, there's no way I'd let you stay on Olympus. The Spartans probably viewed Ares a bit more favorably, but I think they were probably the exception by not looking down on him, not the Athenians. EDIT: drat, beaten. Though that does raise a question - did Greek religion change much after the Romans moved in? Did Ares, for example, get a bit of a boost to his reputation once Mars-loving Romans started running things, or was there not much change in things? Angry Salami fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 11:43
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Noctis Horrendae posted:Can it be said that Roman gods were a lot more civilised and had a tendency to abide by most human laws, or is that another generalisation? I would say that the Romans have a greater belief in "theodicy" than the Greeks--the idea that the universe is ruled by gods who are good. In most Greek thought, the gods are capricious and everything has just gotten worse since the time of heroes. History progressed from "Gold (Great) -> Silver (Good) -> Bronze (Sucky) -> Heroes (Pretty good again)-> Iron (now, really bad). See the paranoid tyrant Zeus as depicted in Prometheus Bound or vengeful and cruel Aphrodite and Artemis in Hippolytus for how divinity operates. There are some exceptions: during the Golden Age of Athens some Athenians started rethinking things, because obviously Zeus is just and we are great because we are kicking all sorts of rear end. In contrast, Romans viewed themselves as the divinely-ordained eternal Masters of the Universe, culmination of all of history and myth, world conquerors. This a central theme of the Aeneid, in which Jupiter is omnipotent and explicitly promises that the Romans are going to be the best ever. Because the Romans believed in their divinely-ordained destiny, it is natural that they depicted the gods in a more benevolent manner. Additionally, much of Roman myth was concerned not with the actions of the gods, but of the deeds of 'historical' Romans that serve as exemplars to be emulated: think of the oath of the Horatii or Gaius Mutius trying to assassinate Porsena as the more typical Roman mythology. This stories had far less of a divine element.
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Feb 9, 2014 02:26
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Smiling Knight posted:In contrast, Romans viewed themselves as the divinely-ordained eternal Masters of the Universe, culmination of all of history and myth, world conquerors. This a central theme of the Aeneid, in which Jupiter is omnipotent and explicitly promises that the Romans are going to be the best ever. Currently reading The Last Myth (http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Myth-Apocalyptic-Thinking/dp/1616145730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391922425&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+myth) where the authors argue that before the spread of Abrahamic religions, cultures generally viewed the world in the terms of cycles of growth and decay as opposed to the "modern" perspective of viewing the world as focused on human activities progressing linearly to some sort of endpoint. Gods were primal forces that created the way things work and would gently caress you up if you were ungrateful for it, but generally weren't concerned with the course of history because history wasn't headed anywhere in particular. I think I remember this thread hitting on the fact that the Roman worldview was also very cyclic in nature, but that doesn't seem to gel with they way they believed themselves to be Chosen Ones who were divinely ordained to rule the world. Did Romans (say, during the rule of Trajan) accept that the empire they ruled was going to eventually decline like all things in accordance with the cycles of nature, or did they think that they think that they were destined to rule forever?
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Feb 9, 2014 06:50
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Here's a question I've been thinking of for awhile. It's bound to be speculative, but I still find it interesting - How invested was the average roman in the republic? I mean the man on the street, who can vote but whose vote is controlled by his patron. Did he truly find the centralization of power under Augustus as onerous as all popular history and historical fiction likes to portray it - Or was pining for their lost pre-eminence the purvey of the oligarchs?
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Feb 9, 2014 10:30
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Paxicon posted:Here's a question I've been thinking of for awhile. It's bound to be speculative, but I still find it interesting - How invested was the average roman in the republic? I'd imagine like most people today, the average Roman really only cared about politics insofar add it affected his daily bread or maybe on the level of sports teams, I.e. he was on his patron's team and so wanted them to win. By the time the Republic fell people were so sick of civil war I'd guess most would have been pretty ok with anything that changed the hosed up system they'd been suffering under.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:28
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Paxicon posted:Here's a question I've been thinking of for awhile. It's bound to be speculative, but I still find it interesting - How invested was the average roman in the republic? I mean the man on the street, who can vote but whose vote is controlled by his patron. Did he truly find the centralization of power under Augustus as onerous as all popular history and historical fiction likes to portray it - Or was pining for their lost pre-eminence the purvey of the oligarchs? It's only really the high aristocrats that resent Augustus, and even then it's often a long time after the fact. The actual people of Rome broke into rioting on several occasions, at one point threatening to burn down the senate with its members inside, demanding Augustus be made dictator or take up more honours. Most ordinary people were probably just happy to see stability and prosperity return. And before Augustus, there's just Caesar and then the triumvirate blatantly controlling everything. Before then, you have decades of powerful men playing fast and loose with the republic. The pretence that the republic was still ticking probably felt like an improvement. For those who did still care, it let them justify things and comfortably turn back to these sweet new baths. Arguably Augustus didn't so much bring down republican rule as bring all the semi-constitutional powers and dominance, which already had precedent, under one person.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:57
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Best as we can tell yes, the average Roman was stoked simply because there had been a century of civil strife and Augustus ended that. Bring peace and prosperity to people who have never known that for more than a few years at a time in living memory and you'll be popular. For the average Roman, life wouldn't have been any different either way. There were certainly people who had interests in politics and had moral ideas about proper governance and whatnot, like today, so there would've been some political feeling and grumbling. But in any society throughout history, most people don't give a poo poo about politics as long as things in their life are working okay.
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Feb 9, 2014 14:09
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Can anyone tell me about Faustina the Younger? (Marcus Aurelius' wife, I don't know if there are any more Faustina the Youngers out there.) Basically, was she really a giant bitch? Or is it debated? What? My girlfriend and I are trying to knock the Confucius out of her head, so we're reading Meditations together. She is saying how she understands his point, but she's having trouble trusting his judgement since he talks highly about his wife but according to the forward in her book (which I haven't read, I'm reading it in English and she is not, we're comparing as we go along but of course the forwards are different) Faustina was a horrible wife and a horrible person. So was she really awful? If yes, did Aurelius know during his life? Did he care or did he not because of some Roman/Stoic thing? Do we not know?
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Feb 9, 2014 15:33
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There's not much material on her, but what exists has a clear divide. She was popular at the time and Marcus Aurelius seems to have been deeply devoted to her, and then there are later sources making GBS threads on her. I would tend to suspect those sources; it's a very common thing in Roman writing to attack any woman who is viewed as doing, well, anything. My suspicion is she was a strong character and thus not a proper Roman woman for the people who wrote that sort of thing.
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Feb 9, 2014 15:40
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Squalid posted:I doubt maximum army size is a very good proxy for total population. Holy poo poo no, that battle happened in the wrong country. I'm talking about a battle which happened in northern Germany. (I still hadn't time to go to the museum, by the way. Next week, though... )Grand Fromage posted:That's exactly what happened. Rome came back some time later for revenge and murdered everyone/burned everything they could get their hands on. Deep into Germany too, I think to the Elbe. If Germany had been rich it would've been conquered, but it just wasn't worth the trouble. Actually that didn't happen. What happened is Rome conquered Germany to the Elbe first, then Arminius later rebelled and lead an Roman army into a trap (battle of Teutoburg), then Rome tried to squash the rebellion, which resulted in several horrible battles. Those battles ended in stalemates, with both sides taking high losses. Since Germany wasn't worth the trouble, the war ended with both sides claiming victory and Rome retreating. Later Arminius was assassinated by Rome as a "thank you" and his new kingdom died in infancy. (Also one day I promise I will find the source for this.)
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Feb 9, 2014 15:55
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The real reason for Christianity's success more then likely had to do with recruiting reasons. It would be impossible to prove but most sources that come down to us say that the professional army was most likely Mirthrain in it's internal religious following since mid-250's. However, given that Constantine was fighting a civil war the need for troops more then likely overwhelmed him and promising people rights is an easy way to recruit. It also fits with the way the Battle of Milivian bridge comes down to us with the symbol being used to lead him to victory.
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Feb 9, 2014 18:36
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sbaldrick posted:The real reason for Christianity's success more then likely had to do with recruiting reasons. It would be impossible to prove but most sources that come down to us say that the professional army was most likely Mirthrain in it's internal religious following since mid-250's. If you follow the theory that Christianity was most successful with the middle class (not only Equites, but also the ranks and informal classes right below), which was also the group most of the bureaucracy and lower/middle army command structure comes from, the benefit of accepting Christianity seems maybe even more focused on the time after the battle of the Milvian bridge (which, after all, was more or less the crowning battle of a rather successful campaign than a win-or-lose-it-all-scenario for Constantine). So, maybe not so much something to get the military on his side (although it might also have been a benefit), but rather the civil bureaucracy.
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Feb 10, 2014 08:08
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I think early Christianity was also very focused on being nice to people, which accrued sympathy and good will from the neighbors. Diocletian's anti-Christian Great Purge was deeply unpopular despite Christianity being a minority religion. Couple that with the old Roman gods being seen as irrelevant to a population that no longer identified with Rome the city and an existing predilection for Eastern mystery and it's not hard to see how it spread. Plus they were well-organized and proselytized which was new.
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Feb 11, 2014 04:01
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Christian stoicism in the face of persecution also appealed greatly to Roman values. It's been argued frequently that watching Christians die with dignity in arenas (which didn't happen as often as popularly believed, but it did happen) converted far more people than it ever dissuaded.
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Feb 11, 2014 04:45
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When I say deeply unpopular I mean like people hiding Christian neighbors and some governors refusing to enforce it. So clearly the Christians were considered nice enough people.
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Feb 11, 2014 04:50
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A religion about how you should be nice to people and then you can live forever in paradise has a lot of obvious appeal to people existing in a religious system based around keeping a bunch of psychos mollified so they don't hit you with lightning. Also if you're lucky you get to spend eternity floating around aimlessly in a gray void.
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Feb 11, 2014 04:54
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Paxicon posted:Here's a question I've been thinking of for awhile. It's bound to be speculative, but I still find it interesting - How invested was the average roman in the republic? I mean the man on the street, who can vote but whose vote is controlled by his patron. Did he truly find the centralization of power under Augustus as onerous as all popular history and historical fiction likes to portray it - Or was pining for their lost pre-eminence the purvey of the oligarchs? We don't really know. The average Romans of the Republic, sadly, don't have any representatives whose writing survived. I imagine there was a spectrum of opinion, but I have no idea what sort of arguments they'd have made, pro and con, the principate. Roman history writing was the domain of conservative figures who belonged to the Senatorial class, like Tacitus, and they obviously had an ax to grind with the Imperial system. Since they presumably couldn't write that the present emperor is terrible and this whole empire thing sucks poo poo, they wrote about how awesome the previous political system was -- with the obvious implication that it should be preferred to what was going on in their own times. A side note: you're right to suggest that the average Roman's vote as irrelevant, but not because his patron controlled it. Instead, the Romans had a voting system where, on election day, everyone assembled into their 'century' - which were something like military platoons. What century you were in was determined by wealth. Votes technically were cast by century, so each century would vote among themselves and whichever decision won the majority would be that century's vote in the general election. Wealthier centuries voted first and had a proportionally bigger vote. We don't know exactly how it worked, but it's said that if the two wealthiest classes of centuries were in agreement, that was enough to elect. (I imagine it would be something like some kind of crazy Electoral College situation where Maryland and Alaska, the two states with the highest median household income in the 2010 census, have enough electoral votes to elect a president together regardless of the wishes of the rest of the US.) Some elections were by 'tribe' which at first may have been actual tribal relations but even very early on were representative of geography rather than family.
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Feb 11, 2014 06:37
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Note that geography and family are in some ways still equated: if you're from the same village, you're cousins. Because, in all likelihood, you are. Interesting point above re: stoicism.
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Feb 11, 2014 12:08
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Grand Fromage posted:Also if you're lucky you get to spend eternity floating around aimlessly in a gray void. Would you be able to go into any more detail on the Roman version of the afterlife? It seems for a society with such a strong belief in military service and duty that any idea of an afterlife that they held would reward the bold and brave and punish the cowardly. Was there any detailed "official" belief in the area, or was it largely based off the Boatman + underworld theme?
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Feb 11, 2014 14:45
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Tao Jones posted:We don't really know. The average Romans of the Republic, sadly, don't have any representatives whose writing survived. I imagine there was a spectrum of opinion, but I have no idea what sort of arguments they'd have made, pro and con, the principate. Roman history writing was the domain of conservative figures who belonged to the Senatorial class, like Tacitus, and they obviously had an ax to grind with the Imperial system. Since they presumably couldn't write that the present emperor is terrible and this whole empire thing sucks poo poo, they wrote about how awesome the previous political system was -- with the obvious implication that it should be preferred to what was going on in their own times. Also, the centuries weren't the standardised bodies you might see in the army. The urban poor might be placed into a handful of huge centuries that still got only one vote each. The aristocrats had a ton of small centuries, and so a ton of votes. Augustus reformed the system later to give the equestrians and senators even centuries, I think. So in a way, it's just like Maryland and Alaska example.
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Feb 11, 2014 15:14
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handbanana125 posted:Would you be able to go into any more detail on the Roman version of the afterlife? It seems for a society with such a strong belief in military service and duty that any idea of an afterlife that they held would reward the bold and brave and punish the cowardly. Was there any detailed "official" belief in the area, or was it largely based off the Boatman + underworld theme? There are no "official" beliefs of any kind until Christianity, because most ancient religions are not about what you believe, but what you do. It's one of the reasons the Romans thought the Christians were so drat weird and stubborn -- the traditional Romans didn't care what god the Christians worshiped or believed in, as long as they did the required (pagan) sacrifices, while the Christian Romans couldn't do it, because believing in The One meant never doing the other. I think the two best (primary source) things to read on Roman religious beliefs are indirect, but worth your time even in English: Cicero's De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) goes through many religions and philosophies of the time, and my own favorite, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), is a work of persuasive Epicurean philosophy (!) in epic verse (!!) that rails against the day's versions of the afterlife, especially in book 3. If you do read Lucretius, starting at Book 1 can be really rough, so feel free to skip to the good parts.
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Feb 11, 2014 15:43
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homullus posted:is a work of persuasive Epicurean philosophy (!) in epic verse (!!) SOLD Thank you for that quick answer!
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Feb 11, 2014 16:37
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Tao Jones posted:We don't really know. The average Romans of the Republic, sadly, don't have any representatives whose writing survived. I imagine there was a spectrum of opinion, but I have no idea what sort of arguments they'd have made, pro and con, the principate. Roman history writing was the domain of conservative figures who belonged to the Senatorial class, like Tacitus, and they obviously had an ax to grind with the Imperial system. Since they presumably couldn't write that the present emperor is terrible and this whole empire thing sucks poo poo, they wrote about how awesome the previous political system was -- with the obvious implication that it should be preferred to what was going on in their own times. This was a very interesting post and I'm intrigued as to how Republic era in-depth politics worked as a result. Are there any books on the subject that you folks know of?
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Feb 11, 2014 21:44
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