Subject:	Sacred rodents
From:	missmoon@--------
Date:	Sun, 30 Aug 1998 01:07:56 -0400

Found this posted to alt.pets.rodents. So, for what it's worth, I
thought it might be interesting to Nova Romans.

And for me, it explains EVERYTHING!

**********
Researchers [Ferris, Sage & Wilson]from the University of California
published an article suggesting that several strains of the modern white
mouse are descended from Sacred White Mice that lived in the Temple of
Apollo on Tenedos Island, 1500 B.C.E.! White animals were sacred to
Apollo (the white crow was said to have been turned black for having
betrayed him) but the mouse cult of Tenedos honored white mice because
during an invasion (by the infamous Sea Peoples who may have been the
same as the Philistines), the island's mice ate through all the enemy's
bowstrings.

The details of ancient Grecian mouse worship are pretty thin, but they
were definitely bred by generations of priests who used them in
prophesies, & it is easy to imagine them as gifts to rich patrons &
foreign dignitaries, making the white mouse one of the oldest unbroken
pet strains anywhere the world, with a common Aegean ancestress.

Since albinism is common in most animals, it may seem a far-fetched &
unnecessary to explain the existence of pet white mice as the result of
ancient pagan religion. But the California researchers being scientists
rather than mythographers performed specific DNA fingerprinting &
discovered nine of the oldest inbred lab-mouse strains definitely had a
single Great Mouse Grandmother. Aegean sea trade was so situated as to
result in the whole IndoEuropean & Chinese dispersal of white mice, via
breast pockets of sea traders & dignitaries.

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Subject:	Re: the Book store, a suggestion
From:	"Nathan Hicks" moman@--------
Date:	Sun, 30 Aug 1998 06:29:29 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: R-------- razenna@--------
To: <a href="mailto:novaroma@--------" >novaroma@--------</a> <a href="mailto:novaroma@--------" >novaroma@--------</a>
Date: Sunday, August 30, 1998 4:49 AM
Subject: [novaroma] the Book store, a suggestion


>From: R-------- razenna@--------
>
>Salve.
>
>This is mainly to our Web Magister Vedius.
>Would it be possible to get Amazon.Com to get
>some Latin-English dictionaries on the bookshelf?
>What I would really like to find is one of the big,
>Webster size, Cassel's hardback dictionaries.
>I've looked at the Oxford Pocket and I do not think
>it has the depth of Cassel's. I have a 35 year old
>Collins Gem pocket that I think has more shadeing than
>the Oxfrd Pocket. Maybe the Ox Lat Dict, Big'un is
>better, but there you go with sticker shock again.


I agree with you to an extent. I have seen the
Cassel's Latin and own the Pocket Oxford. It's
hard to argue that the POLD is more thorough.
On other hand, it's hard to argue that CLD is
thorough enough, compared with other options.
I am making a defense of the POLD, I guess, by
saying that it fits so much into as little as
reasonably possible. I'll often use it to check
the gender, say, or preterit form of a long-
unused word. I rarely use it uncorroborated
by a larger dictionary in order to learn a new
word. I wouldn't say any more of the CLD if I
had it, though it be, perhaps, a degree better.
I need to have some contexts of usage before
I'm comfortable. And in addition to the size,
the POLD is fairly rugged and cheap.

The smallest book, btw, that permits me a good
sense of the contexts is 'An Elementary Latin
Dictionary' by C.T. Lewis.

And try the Lewis & Short 'A Latin Dictionary'
if you're thinking, more economically, toward
the larger end of the scale.


Cnaeus Aelius Rusticus

Subject:	Re: RE The assemblies
From:	Mike Macnair m.macnair@--------
Date:	Sun, 30 Aug 1998 19:32:23 +0100

I thought I'd add my mite to this discussion. J.A.C. Thomas, Textbook of
Roman Law (1976), 17-20 has four assemblies.

1. The Comitia Curiata or Calata "still existed [in historical times] but
had no real political significance ... Its lack of real power is reflected
in the fact that the curiae were, in historical times, represented by
thirty lictors ... attendants on the magistrates." It still had to ratify
elections, and could be used for old-fashioned forms of will-making and
adoptions. [It wasn't required for mnacipatio, which was a formal
pseudo-sale before witnesses - it would have been too inconvenient if sales
of e.g. horses and cattle could only take place twise a year, when the
Comitia Calata met.]

2. The Comitia Centuriata was divided into classes defined by wealth (for
the purpose of ability to serve in warfare, i.e. as providing one's own
equipment as a cavalryman/ a heavy infantryman/ another infantryman), and
set up so as to assure that the wealthiest classes had an absolute voting
majority. As a military assembly, it elected the magistrates with imperium
and was the final court of appeal in capital criminal cases. It could pass
leges, but was mainly "convoked to enact measures of constitutional and
political imprtance" (20)

3. The Comitia Tributa was based on 35 "tribes" which were defined
geographically (i.e. equivalent to modern electoral districts). It elected
curule aediles and quaestors and was a court of criminal appeal where heavy
fines were imposed; it could pass leges, but this power seems to have been
overshadowed by legislation in ...

4. The Concilium Plebis was composed of plebeians only, but like the
Comitia Tributa was mustered on the basis of tribes. It elected the
tribunes and plebeian aediles, and could pass plebiscita, which were
originally only binding on plebeians but (probably from 287 BCE) became
generally enforceable and were thus gradually assimilated to leges. In
practice, Thomas says, "enactments in the field of private law [for
non-lawyers, property, contracts, family law and torts] emanated from the
concilium plebis" (20)

Any part or all of this account may well have been superseded by research
in the last 20 years since the authorities Thomas uses!

However, it does raise some issues of principle in relation to
reconstructionism. Comitia Curiata is obviously a mere historical survival,
and redundant (except for religious purposes?). Concilium/ Comitia Plebis
is obviously necessary given that we have patrician and plebeian gentes and
tribunes. The distinction between Comitia Centuriata and Comitia Tributa is
more problematic. The original military class structure of Comitia
Centuriata was obviously obsolete by the late Republic and is quite
irrelevant to modern military affairs (though it may be to re-enactors?),
but its wealth-based structure was a part of the formally oligarchic
character of the Republic - the other parts are the facts of (a) the
Senate, and (b) the assemblies can only vote Yes/No to proposals put
forward by magistrates.

L. Sergius Aust. comments that "Having the Comitia Populi passing laws (or
empowered to) is too much like Athens for my taste. It dilutes the
Republican model." But of course, the classical Comitia Tributa - and
Concilium Plebis! - could pass laws. What the Comitia Centuriata did was
(a) to secure a property-based franchise, like a corporation general
meeting, for the election of those magistrates who had imperium, and (b) in
practice, this franchise was used for constitutional changes. The
underlying principle is something like the eighteenth century English Whig
constitutional idea that representation should be in proportion to "stake
in the country".

Athenian "pure democracy" was desperately unstable, which I take it is L.
Sergius Aust.'s point. But Nova Roma has elected to go for equality of
citizen votes, rather than a property franchise (rather impractical for us
anyhow, I suppose). If so it implies that Comitia Centuriata should merge
in Comitia Populi (Tributa) rather than the other way round. The object of
stabilisation is provided by the Senate and the magistrates' powers. On the
other hand, this object might in the addition? be promoted by constructing
the centuries for Com. Centuriata on the basis of length of citizenship,
and reserving constitutional changes to Com. Centuriata.

Hope there's something interesting in this ramble!

M. Mucius Scaevola Magister

Subject:	Re: RE The assemblies
From:	Masterofhistory masterofhistory@--------
Date:	Sun, 30 Aug 1998 15:16:38 -0700 (PDT)

Salve omnes,

Your notes compare sufficiently to my own regarding the assemblies.
If we are not right on their functions and constituents, we are close
enough. What remains to be seen is how the legislative procedures
will work in Nova Roma. We should probably construct a rough protocol
for the carrying of legislation to and through the assemblies. Maybe
the Senate or some committee will work on this in the future.

Avidius Tullius Qf Callidus, Praedans
Paterfamilias, gens Tullia