🔘 CAESAR SURVIVES THE SOCIAL WAR

“Then followed the consul­ship of Gaius Caesar, who now lays hold upon my pen and compels, whatever my haste, to linger a while upon him. Sprung from the noble family of the Julii, and tra­cing his descent from Venus and Anchises, a claim conceded by all investigators of antiquity, he surpassed all his fellow-citizens in beauty of person. He was exceedingly keen and vigorous of mind, lavish in his generosity, and possessed a courage exceeding the nature, and even the credence, of man. In the magnitude of his ambitions, in the rapidity of his military operations, and in his endurance of danger, he closely resembled Alexander the Great, but only when Alexander was free from the influence of wine and master of his passions for Caesar, in a word, never indulged in food or in sleep except as they ministered, not to pleasure, but to life. To Gaius Marius he was closely related by blood; he was also the son-in‑law of Cinna, whose daughter no consideration of fear would induce him to divorce, whereas Marcus Piso, a man of consular rank, had divorced Annia, who had been the wife of Cinna, in order to win Sulla's favour. Caesar was only about eighteen years of age at the time of Sulla's dictator­ship; and when a search was made for him with a view to putting him to death, not, it is true, by Sulla himself, but by his minions and partisans, he escaped from the city at night by assuming a disguise which effectually concealed his rank.”

Velleius Paterculus, Roman History

🔵 ROMAN VS GREEK CAMPS

“It is because the first object of the Romans in the matter of encampment is facility, that they seem to me to differ diametrically from Greek military men in this respect. Greeks, in choosing a place for a camp, think primarily of security from the natural strength of the position: first, because they are averse from the toil of digging a foss, and, secondly, because they think that no artificial defences are comparable to those afforded by the nature of the ground. Accordingly, they not only have to vary the whole configuration of the camp to suit the nature of the ground, but to change the arrangement of details in all kinds of irregular ways; so that neither soldier nor company has a fixed place in it. The Romans, on the other hand, prefer to undergo the fatigue of digging, and of the other labours of circumvallation, for the sake of the facility in arrangement, and to secure a plan of encampment which shall be one and the same and familiar to all.”

Polybius, histories

The philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy

Ok

GN.

✅ NOTES AND OTHER STUFF TRANSMITTED BY ROMULUS.

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🟣 SIEGE OF CROTONA

“The consul Cornelius Rufinus for some time besieged the city of Crotona, without success, since it had been made impregnable by the arrival of a band of Lucanian reinforcements. He therefore pretended to desist from his undertaking, and by offers of great rewards induced a certain prisoner to go to Crotona. This emissary, by feigning to have escaped from custody, persuaded the inhabitants to believe his report that the Romans had withdrawn. The people of Crotona, thinking this to be true, dismissed their allies. Then, weakened by being stripped of their defenders, they were surprised and captured.”

Sextus Julius Frontinus: Stratagems

They can’t? 🤯

Can you be a little more specific, or give an example? Tnx

⚪️ CYRENÊ

“Cyrenê grew strong because of the fertility of its territory, for it is excellent for the breeding of horsesand produces beautiful fruit, and it had many men who were noteworthy and who were able to defend its liberty in a noteworthy manner and to resist strongly the barbarians who lived above them. Now in ancient times the city was independent; and then the Macedonians, who had taken possession of Aegypt, grew in power and attacked the Cyrenaeans, under the leader­ship of Thibron and his associates, who had slain Harpalus; and having been ruled by kings for some time the city came under the power of the Romans and is now joined with Crete into one Province. But Apollonia, Barcê, Taucheira, Berenicê, and the other towns near by, are dependencies of Cyrenê.”

Strabo

Read nostr:nprofile1qqsw4v882mfjhq9u63j08kzyhqzqxqc8tgf740p4nxnk9jdv02u37ncpzdmhxue69uhhyetvv9ukzcnvv5hx7un8qyg8wumn8ghj7atn9eexyu3wvf5k7mcvmcy Book “Broken money”. Then you will still not understand it, but in a much more sophisticated way. 🤌🏻

🟢 CONSIDERATION

“When the forum is placed, a spot as healthy as possible is to be chosen for the theatre, for the exhibition of games on the festival days of the immortal gods, according to the instructions given in the first book respecting the healthy disposition of the walls of a city. For the spectators, with their wives and children, delighted with the entertainment, sit out the whole of the games, and the pores of their bodies being opened by the pleasure they enjoy, are easily affected by the air, which, if it blows from marshy or other noisome places, infuses its bad qualities into the system. These evils are avoided by the careful choice of a situation for the theatre,

taking especial precaution that it be not exposed to the south; for when the sun fills the cavity of the theatre, the air confined in that compass being incapable of circulating, by its stoppage therein, is heated, and burns up, extracts, and diminishes the moisture of the body. On these accounts, those places where bad air abounds are to be avoided, and wholesome spots to be chosen.”

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, de Architectura

I like it here and i don’t know why.

Why not? The ancients did it.

It was a great day. GN frens 🤌🏻

⚫️ IRONY

“When the proscription lists were fixed up in the forum, a multitude of people promptly came flocking in to read them. Most of them pitied those that were thus condemned to die. But one amongst them, a most malicious and insolent character, gloried over the miserable fate of the afflicted, and yelled out most spiteful remarks against them. Some incensed deity soon repaid him with a just revenge; for he happened to read his own name as one proscribed at the bottom of the list. He covered his head, and tried to run away through the thickest of the crowd; for he hoped in this way to escape detection and reach safety. But someone who stood nearby recognised him, and exposed him as one of the condemned; he was instantly surrounded and seized, and then put to death, to the great joy of all that heard it.”

Diodorus Siculus

🟡 PLINY ON THE GERMAN TRIBES

“There are five German races; the Vandili, parts of whom are the Burgundiones, the Varini, the Carini, and the Gutones: the Ingaevones, forming a second race, a portion of whom are the Cimbri, the Teutoni, and the tribes of the Chauci. The Istaevones, who join up to the Rhine, and to whom the Cimbri belong, are the third race; while the Hermiones, forming a fourth, dwell in the interior, and include the Suevi, the Hermunduri, the Chatti, and the Cherusci: the fifth race is that of the Peucini, who are also the Basternae, adjoining the Daci previously mentioned. The more famous rivers that flow into the ocean are the Guttalus, the Vistillus or Vistula, the Albis, the Visurgis, the Amisius, the Rhine, and the Mosa. In the interior is the long extent of the Hercynian range, which in grandeur is inferior to none.”

“NINETY-SIX ISLANDS OF THE GALLIC OCEAN. In the Rhine itself, nearly 100 miles in length, is the most famous island of the Batavi and the Canninefates, as also other islands of the Frisii, the Chauci, the Frisiabones, the Sturii, and the Marsacii, which lie between Helium and Flevum. These are the names of the mouths into which the Rhine divides itself, discharging its waters on the north into the lakes there, and on the west into the river Mosa. At the middle mouth which lies between these two, the river, having but a very small channel, preserves its own name.”

🟤 THE THIRD LEGION

The Legio III Gallica was founded by Julius Caesar himself in 49 BCE during his civil war against Pompey. Its name, "Third Gallic Legion," suggests its early recruits were drawn from veterans of Caesar's Gallic campaigns. The legion's symbol was a bull, likely chosen to be associated with Venus, the goddess claimed by Caesar as his ancestor.

Legio III Gallica fought in Caesar's civil war and later served in various parts of the Roman Empire, including Gaul, Moesia, and Syria.

TROPHY ERECTED ON THE ALPS

“It may not be inappropriate in this place to subjoin the inscription now to be seen upon the trophy erected on the Alps, which is to the following effect:”

"To the Emperor Cæsar—The son of Cæsar now deified, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, and emperor fourteen years, in the seventeenth year of his holding the tribuni- tial authority, the Senate and the Roman people, in remembrance that under his command and auspices all the Alpine nations which extended from the upper sea to the lower were reduced to subjection by the Roman people—The Alpine nations so sub- dued were: the Triumpilini, the Camuni, the Ve- nostes, the Vennonenses, (etc, etc etc.)”

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder

Note:

The trophy or triumphal arch which bore this inscription is that which was still to be seen at Torbia near Nicæa in Illyria, in the time of Gruter, who has given that portion of the inscription which remained unobliterated, down to "gentes Alpinæ," "the Alpine nations." Hardouin speaks of another triumphal arch in honour of Augustus at Segusio or Susa in Piedmont, which appears to have commenced in a somewhat similar manner, but only the first twelve words were remaining in 1671.