SOCIETAS VIA ROMANA NEWSLETTER BIMONTHLY MAGAZINE: YEAR 1 - ISSUE 1 (july / august 2755 AUC) In this issue: Editorial 1 Trivia 2 Message from the consules 3 Essay: Measuring time in ancient Rome (P. Dionysius Mus) 6 Cartoon 8 News from the collegia 9 Essay: Chronus (Romulus Aurelius Orcus) 10 Interview: Gnaeus Dionysius Draco Invictus 13 Message from the editor 16 Caesar: History by Television (M. Moravius Horatianus Piscinus) 17 Games 18 T H E F I R S T W O R D S … Roar the drums, sound the trumpets! I proudly present the first issue of our new Societas Via Romana newsletter! Available to all our members, and everyone outside the Societas, downloadable through our website. This will be a bimonthly magazine during the first year, a try-out year. For now, the newsletter has no name. There is however a contest to find a suitable name. Everyone can participate, just look on page …! The magazine will be electronically available in pdf format. To read and print the downloaded pdf newsletter, you Acrobat Reader on your computer (available for free at http://www.adobe.com). This first issue is filled with lots of interesting stuff, so start reading and discover for yourself!! The next issue will be available on September 1st. 2 TRIVIA In this section you will find all pieces of news, gathered by the editor, or sent by members. Make sure this section gets filled for our next issue: If you want to post something here, send your message to [email protected] 3 MESSAGE FROM THE CONSULES The consul speaks! In each issue, one of our consules will address the members in this section. The Fasces of Rome During the time when Roma antiqua was ruled (Livy 2.7), a traditional salute to the citizens of by the Ten, and those magistrates exceeded Rome that was followed ever after by all their authority, plundering the Roman people, consules in recognition that true sovereignty in scourging and beheading citizens without trial, Rome resided solely with the Roman people. confiscating the land of others, using the courts When therefore Appius Claudius, one of the to seize free-women as chattel, and murdering Ten, attempted to have his lictores, bearing those who spoke out against these abuses, Livy fasces with axheads, seize Valerius and especially pointed out that among their many Horatius as they defended the right of crimes the Ten had brought fasces into the city provocatio of Verginius, it was the people of of Rome itself. Rome, assembled together in the Forum, who seized the fasces from the lictores and broke Tradition held that the fasces composed of the rods that symbolized the magisterial bundled elm rods from which protruded authority of Claudius. axheads, would never be permitted anywhere inside the pomerium that marked the sacred That which the members of the Societas Via boundaries of the city. This was regarded to be Romana most admire of Roma antiqua, that a sacrilege against the gods and against a free which we most seek to emulate as the virtue of people. Inside the city the lictores who Romanitas in our societas, that which we honor proceeded magistrates bore only the bundles of by having established our societas, is all to be rods. While the lictores and the fasces they found in the Res Publica Libera of Roma bore symbolized the auctoritas of magistrates, antiqua. We do not praise a king like the absence of the axheads represented that Tarquinius Superbus and the rule of privilege, their powers were limited inside the city, and but rather we honor the memory of Junius that these powers did not extend over the lives Brutus who overthrew Tarquinius’ tyranny. of citizens. From the Founding of the Res We do not praise Coriolanus who sought to Publica Libera, in fact Cicero says by the very have the people of Rome give up their rights, first legislative enactment of the Comitia to put aside their tribunes, but rather we praise Centuriata (De Republica 2.53), under the Lex Veturia, Volumnia and the women of Rome Valeria no Roman citizen could be executed who marched against his treachery. Is it Kaeso without the right of provocatio, allowing them Quinctius we should honor, with his thugs an appeal to the people of Rome. That then attacking the tribuni plebis, coercing the became part of Rome’s written laws, first in praetores, and murdering the poor and the ill, the Twelve Tablets VI.6: "Putting to death of and who then fled when confronted by a trial any man, whosoever he might be, if before the people of Rome? Or is it rather his unconvicted is forbidden" The basic founding father, Quinctius Cincinnatus? Once ruined by principle of the Res Publica Libera was stated his son’s flight, Cincinnatus was raised once by Livy (4.4.10-11) through the voice of more to a position of honor by his appointment Canuleius, "Finally, I would ask you, is it not to the dictatorship. But it is not for this reason the Roman people who hold the supreme that we honor the memory of Cincinnatus; authority?" This principle was symbolized rather it is because when, his duty completed, from the very beginning, when the first consul he laid down the powers entrusted to him by of the Republic Publilius Valerius Publicola the people of Rome. had his lictores lower the fasces upon his entry before the assembly of the Roman people 4 When the sons of the leading Falerii were people. In doing so, he set the example delivered by treachery to the Roman whereby politics in Rome declined into a commander Camillius, he responded in part by constant series of civil wars. The legacy of saying, "Neither the general nor the people of fascist regimes, even in ancient Rome, was one Rome, to whom you have brought this wicked of brutality, violence, constant strife and gift, are like you… War has laws even as oppression. Sulla, Caesar, Commodus, Franco, peace, and to these laws we have learnt Mussolini, Hitler, Somoza, Pinochet, Castillo obedience." Ancient Romans understood Armas, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and all where their duty lay in the defense of their other such sullatoriones in the end have only liberty and their freedom. They knew what was managed to destroy their own societies. sacred. They knew from where true sanctity was derived. And they knew what true courage The political legacy that has endured from entails, honoring it in every story they told. For Rome, from the Roman people and Roman the ancient Romans, the principles of justice by civilization, was not that rule should be which they had established their Republic were imposed by fasces. Rather, the principles of handed down by the gods. These principles of law, the rule of law, respect for the law, and justice were not meant to benefit only a the underlying principle that law is a compact privileged few, and could only be made between all people within a society, are the meaningless if not applied equally to the composite parts of the heritage we have lowliest member of Roman society as they received from the mos maiorum of Roma were for the powerful. As those principles antiqua. This is the legacy of Rome, of that were derived from the gods, so too, as Res Publica Libera, that forms the basis today Camillius demonstrated by his honorable of the legal traditions inherited by Western actions, they also applied to the enemies of civilization and has been passed on to all Rome and to their children. The duty of every civilized nations. The rights of every citizen to Roman is to abide by what the gods had free speech and free assembly, the right of ordained, and true courage is measured by redress of wrongs in a court of law, the those who stand in defense of others. publication of laws and the equal application of law for every citizen, were first won by Republican Rome, so long as it still held men Romans standing together for their individual and women of courage, virtue, and honor, rights, and were ensured by Romans standing would not become a state ruled by fasces. together in defense of the rights of others. The Those who hold such values in contempt, as plebeians who assembled in peaceful protest they hold their fellow citizens in contempt, are on the Mons Sacra, individuals and tribunes ignorant of the true meaning of the State as a like Macer, the Gracchi, Sicinius, and Volero commonwealth to benefit all its members. Publius, who stood in public to voice their Those who try to disenfranchise or otherwise dissent, offering themselves in self-sacrifice in eliminate whole groups of people from the the cause of freedom for their fellow citizens, body politic, those who seek to impose the will those are the true heroes of Rome who have of a few on the whole of a populace, are inspired generations of free people in cowards who fear open forums and the free Alabama, in India, in South Africa, in Burma, exchange of ideas. They would rather murder and elsewhere. This is the true legacy of Rome those who would speak out against them, that endures and inspires the world today, this brutalize those who would listen, burn books is the heritage celebrated by our Societas. that hold ideas they cannot understand, than be counted among honorable and free men and The Societas Via Romana, by its formation, women. has chosen which face of Rome it seeks to emulate. We cherish the stories told by Livy of In the end, it may be argued that tyrants did a free people, and of free individuals seize Rome.