Have we become like Ancient Rome?

[Working Man]

the information is freely available to anyone who seeks it, but most people are either too preoccupied with shopping, following life of celeberties or are just too plain stupid to realize that they have to participate in their society by not only consuming.

My point exactly.... mass media and the government have been in
each others pocket for a long time. The movie industry did great during the
depression because people wanted a form of escape. Movie stars speak at
political banquets and politicians appear at Hollywood gatherings. There are tax
breaks for certain products or industrys, it all helps direct the people and their
point of view.

TV, movies, and various incentive programs to keep the populace quelled or distracted

Food stamps, free clinics, welfare..... these all help keep people quiet. As
long as there are handouts the masses are much more controllable than they
would be without.

 

[fisi]

do our current crop of political leaders resemble Nero or Caligula???????

 

[bouis]

Our legal system has its origins in the "common law" of England, which is a distrintly un-Roman system, even if Latin and classical architecture has been used.

"Roman law" was pretty much lost in the West for a time, supplanted by Germanic (or feudal) customs. When it was rediscovered, the continent was a mess with modern France and Germany being lots of small petty states. England, which had a well-developed and unified legal/political system, wasn't so ripe for order, and the break with the Catholics pretty much kept the civil law from ever taking hold there. That's not to say Roman/civil law didn't influence us, because it did, but common law and its continental equivalents also had a very strong impact on the Roman law when it was rediscovered... a Roman lawyer wouldn't recognize our courts today, for sure.

 

[silliman89]

Frandy,

Ancient Rome did have better drinking water than most of us.

Actually, the Romans got their water through lead pipes. Lead poisoning, which leads to insanity, is considered one of the many causes of Rome's fall.

Lindenburger,

Give me a break. I know that in academia you distinguish yourself from the crowd by staking out some new territory and defending it with some, hopefully, witty reasoning. I wouldn't expect anyone here to be impressed by that methodology though.

Everyone knows that Rome fell. How can you tell, you may ask? Simple. Their armies were defeated in the field. Their cities, including Rome, were sacked and burned. Their citizens were murdered in the streets. Foreigners were named Emperor, and the language was changed.

You can talk all you want about how much Latin is left in the English language. We all know though, that if you took out the Germanic, Celtic, and Gaelic, and just spoke Latin, no one would be able to understand a word you were saying.

TheRealHawkeye,

I was starting to get nervous when I found myself in complete agreement with you. Then at the end you restored the natural order of things by being wrong.

Charlemagne's empire was called, by the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire in an effort to ensconce itself as its religious head, and to use it's power to its own benefit. Charlemagn was more than happy to accept this designation, as he also benefited by it.

Although I personally adhere to the traditional interpretation that the term "Holy Roman Empire" came into use during the reign of Otto I in 962, many consider it to have been a gradual process begun with the treaty of Verdun in 843. The idea which Lindenburger threw out, and you bought into, that the term derives from Charlemagne's coronation as emperor in Rome on Christmas day in 800, is not born out by the primary sources such as Einhard. Charlemagne was crowned simply Emperor and Augustus, and he was not that happy about it. It gained him nothing but trouble, and gave the appearance that the Pope was his superior. Charlemagne called himself King of the Franks.

Einhard -- section 28
...
The truth is that the inhabitants of Rome had violently attacked Pope Leo, putting out his eyes and cutting off his tongue, and had forced him to flee to the King for help. Charlemagne really came to Rome to restore the Church, which was in a very bad state indeed, but in the end spent the whole winter there. It was on this occasion that he received the title of Emperor and Augustus. At first he was far from wanting this. He made it clear that he would not have entered the cathedral that day at all, although it was the greatest of all festivals of the church, if he had known in advance what the Pope was planning to do. Once he had accepted the title, he endured with great patience the jealousy of the so-called Roman Emperors, who were most indignant at what had happened.

 

[bouis]

silliman89: The "so-called Roman Emperors" referred to in the last quote are the Byzantines/Romanians/whatever from Constantinople, the "eastern Empire," right?

 

[silliman89]

silliman89: The "so-called Roman Emperors" referred to in the last quote are the Byzantines/Romanians/whatever from Constantinople, the "eastern Empire," right?

Yes. The quote was from Einhard, written around 830 or so. What he calls the "so-called Roman Emperors" are what we would call the Byzantine Emperors, or the Eastern Roman Emperors.

 

[Lindenberger]

Shootinstudent

Define:

subpoena duces tecum; habeas corpus; mandamus. And to show that you're not looking them up, I want mood, tense and voice for the verbs; and number, case and gender for the nouns. Since you know so much about language, it should be a breeze.

 

[Lindenberger]

Silliman89

Sorry. They attacked me first, and I never back down from bullies or dilletantes (if there's a difference). It's sport to me. I'm also a fundamentalist baiter--but only when they have the truth (and God) in their back pocket.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Define:

subpoena duces tecum; habeas corpus; mandamus.

First of all, what does this prove? Second of all, I recognize some of the words from law and some from my early Catholic training. Tecum from the Ave Maria, means "with you," as in Dominus tecum, meaning the Lord is with you singular. Subpoena we all know from law meaning a legal obligation to appear. Habeas corpus we all recognize from law to mean something like present the body. Mandamus, as in writ of mandamus means a legal order that an official carry out his duty. Duces sound like ducas, as in et ne nos in ducas in tentationem, sed libera nos amalo (lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil). But what's your point? Have you studied Latin? I studied a little Catholic latin when I was a kid, but what does this have to do with the fall of the Roman Empire?

 

[bouis]

The names of the various writs are in Latin because way back when, the courts only dealt in Latin. Eventually the writs came to be written in English but the names remained.

But, so what.. the language they spoke had nothing to do with the legal system they practiced, which, before the revival of the "Roman" system on the continent, more resembled the practices of the Visigoths than the Romans...

 

[shootinstudent]

Lindenberger,

Sorry, we don't really use latin in law anymore (which is what I'm studying now.) Overreliance on latin terms is a sure sign of bad lawyering. And latin terms in law is a tangent to the point. What exactly do the ENGLISH writs you listed have to do with Roman law?

Singaporeans speak english...does that mean that Singapore has Roman law, and a Roman culture too?

What I've noticed is that you have zero defense of the point, except for perhaps the nebulous claim that America might even be a continuation of the Israelite empires. If that's your idea of "continuity", then the idea is absolutely worthless for the purposes of drawing conclusions about our own situation today based on the cited historical examples.

Cosmoline was right on the point. The Roman empire was a completely different form of government, situated in a completely different culture with a completely different economy. Like the Medieval Europeans, we like to imagine a Rome that never existed and then compare ourselves to it.

A Rome that gives direct political lessons for the United States is an imaginary 21st century Rome, and no more.

 

[JesseJames]

The Romans took a great idea or ideas from the Greeks and ran with them.
Their military kicked butt. And they were organizational geniuses.
The Western world is the direct descendant of everything they were. We are just an extension of their legacy.
I'll let the intellectuals sweat the details.
BUT I HAVE SOME GRAVE CONCERNS ABOUT SOME PATTERNS IN OUR CULTURE.
It has been said that the more corrupt a society the more the need for laws.
I think there is a possibility that we are litigating and legislating "common sense" out of our society. Also civility.
For all the exploitation and depredations the mid-19th century American South was guilty of, I can't help but admire the antebellum South. Or was it just a romantic vision of what never really was?

 

[Lindenberger]

Fisi

Our current crop of political leaders resemble no one so much as Alcibiades, who played all sides in the Pelopenessian War. Why do you think so many of them are going to the slammer? Alcibiades was a close relation to Pericles, arguably the greatest statesman of history; and he was a student of Socrates, arguably the greatest philosopher of history (after Dostoyevsky, of course; and maybe after Kierkegaard as well). Look at the Kennedys; John decided that he was really President--and they had him murdered; all the Kennedys acquiesced in his death, except for Bobby--and they then murdered him. And Arlen Specter was one of the conspirators with his "single bullet theory." We are surrounded by lethal adders. This goes way back--wasn't Cleopatra bitten on the udder by an adder?

 

[Lindenberger]

The Real Hawkeye

Thank you for prancing around the definitions. Now--if you're through prancing around--deliver what I asked. E.g., analyze subpoena.

 

[Lindenberger]

shootinstudent

You may be studying law "now," but when (and if) you ever get to court you'll wish that you had studied Latin. I personally know at least one judge (and several lawyers) who will thoroughly disagree with you. Just goes to demonstrate the Liberal influence (and subsequent breakdown) of our institutions of higher learning.

 

[Lindenberger]

Jesse James

J.J. wrote:

"We are just an extension of their legacy."




Amen.

 

[bouis]

Lindenburger:The only reason the names of the writs are Latin is because of the Chuch.

It had nothing at all to do with Roman law, which didn't reappear in Europe for a couple hundred years, and never took hold in England.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

The Real Hawkeye

Thank you for prancing around the definitions. Now--if you're through prancing around--deliver what I asked. E.g., analyze subpoena.

Well, not sure what you are looking for, but the prefix clearly means under, and the root could have various meanings, the most likely of which is a payment made in atonement, i.e., as punishment. Interestingly, Poeni (plural) was the Roman name for the Carthaginians (came also to be a synonym for evil), since they descended from the Phoenicians. Poenarium means of or relating to punishment for crimes, as in penal system or penal code. The Carthaginians were certainly punished by the Romans after the last Punic War (The survivors were sold into slavery), so perhaps there is a connection. Anyway, put them together, and I guess you literally get under punishment. Now that I've plaid your game, what are you getting at?

 

[shootinstudent]

Linden,

Please point to the statutes/cases/admin rulings or any other source of law where knowledge of latin grammar turned out to be decisive.

There's not even a veiled attempt at a point here anymore, so let's just get clear: when I challenged your claim, I wasn't attacking you personally or berating you UMD B.A. in "Ancient Studies." It'd be nice if you could get back to the discussion regarding whether or not we're like ancient Rome, instead of throwing out one-liners designed to insult everyone who disagrees with you.

 

[Lindenberger]

bouls

bouls wrote:
"The only reason the names of the writs are Latin is because of the church."

Allow my correction: The only reason that there is an entity that we call Western Civilization is "because of the church."

And:

The Real Hawkeye:

Yes, sub means under and poena means penalty. Well done, Hawkeye. What I'm getting at is my original thesis, i.e. that we are the heirs of the Roman Empire. Call it what you will. You can call it the U.S.; you can call it Western Civilization; you can even call it "The
Occident;" yet Ancient Rome is the sine qua non of the entirety. We are the present terminus of the continuum begun by Romulus and Remus (if you will) and shepherded by the Roman Catholic Church of Christ. The United States were no accident in the Occident.

"History is not a pie to be sliced into clear and well defined pieces; it is rather a great river with the changes in the course and rapidity of the current sometimes abrupt, sometimes almost imperceptible." Earl R. Beck

We are the Roman Empire as the Mississippi is the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. Without the Ohio (and certainly without the Missouri), the Mississippi would be but a stream.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Yes, sub means under and poena means penalty. Well done, Hawkeye. What I'm getting at is my original thesis, i.e. that we are the heirs of the Roman Empire. Call it what you will. You can call it the U.S.; you can call it Western Civilization; you can even call it The
Occident;" yet Ancient Rome is the sine qua non of the entirety. We are the present terminus of the continuum begun by Romulus and Remus (if you will) and shepherded by the Roman Catholic Church of Christ.

"History is not a pie to be sliced into clear and well defined pieces; it is rather a great river with the changes in the course and rapidity of the current sometimes abrupt, sometimes almost imperceptible." Earl R. Beck

We are the Roman Empire as the Mississippi is the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. Without the Ohio (and certainly without the Missouri), the Mississippi would be but a stream.

I think you overstate your point. The fact that we still have some limited use of Latin has to do with two things. Firstly, the Roman Catholic Church kept a form of it alive well into the period where it had become dead as a spoken language. Secondly, when ancient Greek and Roman literature was rediscovered by Europeans in the Middle Ages, they became fascinated with anything Greek or Roman, adopting the ancient languages to express themselves in science and law. Was Rome a huge influence on present day Western civilization? Certainly, but it overstates the point to equate that influence with a literal continuity of the Empire with later political developments.

 

[Lindenberger]

The Real Hawkeye

Overstated or understated, the point remains. Ask the author of The Apocalypse. We are the Rome of the eschaton.

 

[silliman89]

We are the present terminus of the continuum begun by Romulus and Remus (if you will) and shepherded by the Roman Catholic Church of Christ.

Why do you say the continuum began with Romulus and Remus? They weren't Adam and Eve. They founded a city, not the human race. If you want to describe history as a river, then keep going upstream. The Romans believed, to the extent anyone actually believed this stuff, that Romulus and Remus were descended from Aeneas, who was a refugee from Troy. So they claimed to be the terminus of the continuum begun by Paris and Helen of Troy. By your logic then, wouldn't that make Western Civ. a Trojan entity?

If you want to talk about culture? The Helenization of Rome began when Pyrrhus kept defeating Roman armies in 275 BC, and the Romans said "Hmmmm, maybe we can learn something from these guys." It culminated with Constantine moving the capitol to Byzantium. The Greeks, for their part stole from the Phoenicians and Egyptians. Does this make western civ. Egyptian?

The religion of Christianity clearly flows from Judaism. (Christ was Jewish, wasn't he?) Does that mean they're the same thing?

I like Roman history. I tend to idealize it the way TheRealHawkeye idealizes the Revolutionary period. But there are other influences that went into western civ besides Roman. And civilization changed during the middle ages, even when you could argue that there were no new outside influences being introduced.

 

[Art Eatman]

I just really don't like baiting or sarcasm. Some folks are apprentice baiters; others are masters...

Art

 

[bouis]

What, that's it? I know you can't deny that our legal system's origins are English, not Roman, so why not just admit it?

Anyway, I think the whole Roman/Christian/German origins argument has been done to death, even way back in, say, in France a couple hundred years ago. It ended with the beheading of a lot of priests and blonds...