Pleb!

Wow
Livy is such a snob!

He attributes pretty much all the Campanian and other cities' desire to revolt to the urban poor. And he blames Varro for the defeat at Cannae.

Livy doesn't really entertain the possibility that the 'aristocracy' in the allied cities was solidly pro-Roman or actually Roman, and that the poor had genuine grievances. He also doesn't discuss the pros and cons of the Roman alliance for any of these states.

The reality was that the vast majority of the allies had been coerced into alliance with Rome, either by direct application of force, or by promises of defence against local enemies. Clearly a large number of these 'subject' peoples were desperate to get the Romans off their backs. And probably quite rightly, too.

But Livy seems to treat the whole problem as simply one of social class and wealth. Like a number of other complex issues that he conveniently simplifies by his own crass political atttitudes.

Catching up to the tortoise

Isn't that some kind of strange Greek mathematical proof?

The weekend - a quiet one, with some deliberation.

Friday
Not a lot (usual failure to go out in Camden due to 9pm shut down)

Saturday
Amazing - got up and watched I :Love: Huckabees and was blown away. What an awesome film. It has existential detectives, dancing, petro-rage, mud wrestling and Shania Twain. What more could you ask for at 7am on a Saturday morning?

Went down to Raynes Park to meet B, E and D. That sounds like a Sesame Street programme. Which it wasn't. B now living with his own 'desperate housewife'. Another crazy situation for him. Even went and saw his parents briefly - it's been years.

Sunday
London Mela!!!!!
I got up at 8am to get to Gunnersbury Park near Acton, so I could work on the office stand there, wearing an office shirt. Don't ask.

Was really good - watching all the families scatter for cover in the intermittent rain. Then hours of raga in the Classical tent. Sitar Fusion with no sitars. Sitarrrrr. Free food (actually good fish curry!)

Exhausted. Must get some sleep. I thought this gym thing would help but I seem to be even more tired.

Still holding over

So the day after Chestnut (see below) I started my new job working on an EU directive. But I stayed in my old desk. Which was kind of weird, to be honest. But not necessarily bad - perhaps it made the transition a bit easier.

The week shot by - meetings and I also started going to the gym. Oh the agony. My pecs felt like someone was slowly dissolving them in acid. Which isn't nice.

Utterly knackered by the end of the week - but feeling good...

Playing catch up

Oh OK
so I never really finished. I've been that busy.

Saturday
Made it to Fruitstock (http://www.fruitstock.co.uk/) in Regent's Park just before Nitin Sawhney (http://www.nitinsawhney.com/) was due on. We bumped into one of P's college friends and then some others turned up.

Nitin came on early and was amazing. He started with Sunset and also played the Conference and Homelands, which are probably my 3 favourites. There was a little of his slightly dirty latin-jazz stuff, which I hate, but the old stuff was sweet.

P and A went home and I went and found the Camden Crew and went to the Oxford Arms for some r-r-ranting, failing utterly to go to Finsbury Park party or the Hammer House of Horror housewarming in Islington. But probably a good thing as:

Sunday
Chestnut down in Merstham - that's twice this week.
Failed utterly to leave as the CRICKET was mesmerising - we finally bowled Australia out with 2 runs to spare at about midday, so I was pretty late. It was worth it though - I've never seen England beat Australia in a test.

Some really good sessions:
Bonnie Dundee by James worked well - all my men died. Probably about right.
Naval system for the massive WW2 game in October was also good, although I whined a bit about the unfeasibility of Japanese success in the system.
The Hitler command game for the same tryout was brilliant - I was Ribbentropp and sank without trace. Donitz grabbed all the 'fireside chats' with Hitler and ran the country
Samurai heroes development was sadly curtailed by the excellent barbacue. Mmm.

Not once... Not ever

A top weekend and I'm only mostly knackered by 5pm on Monday.

Friday
Went to Westminster Abbey. Was pleasantly surprised it how interesting it was - all the different periods' and styles' approaches to death piled on top of each other. Sadly my companions (Prams and Ayelet) couldn't find their C12th Italo-Byzantine (or should that be Byzantino-Italian) floor. It was under renovation. Walked along the South Bank to find that they've built a Foyles, an Eat and a whole load of other stuff west of Waterloo bridge. Mad.

Met up with Sam, Dawn, Alison, Mike and Nick for dinner at Tas in the Cut, behind Waterloo. Had my usual hummus with meat. Mmmmm. And the Tas special which I would recommend. Too tired to do anything other than go home and rant about random sh*t to Marek until I passed out.

Saturday
Meant to get up and out early so I could meet Prams at the Beer festival in Olympia. But sadly I got very distracted by the cricket and only made it there after 3. Which is shocking really given my lack of late nights and my day off.

Tried some mad ciders and some decent bitter but not enough time to sample it all to be honest.

to be continued...

Life and Loyalty in Livy

OK, so I seem to be getting ahead of myself. I commented yesterday on how Rome's allies seemed to be inhumanly loyal given the severe pressure on them from the imminence of Hannibal. Syracuse, which Rome may or may not have directly asked for help, sent them gold and 1,000 light infantry, courtesy of Hiero. But otherwise the theme of book XXIII seems to be the disloyalty of the Campanians, and other Italian allies.

Capua goes over to the Carthaginians - this really ought to have been the end for Rome - Capua shuld have served as a rallying point for other Italian allies and should have spelt the end for Naples and the south as Roman protectorates. Bruttium (the left hand toe) also deserted Rome.

Obviously Livy portrays this as cowardly, disloyal and 'Punic' in its treachery. But what did the Italian states really owe Rome? They had been mostly subjected by force and were utterly disenfranchised from the Roman political process. A Capuan request that Campania would assist Rome after Cannae if one consul was Campanian was rejected. The Romans were being ruthless about their guarded franchise. They even refused to ransom the prisoners from Cannae, but rather freed a number of slaves and arm them.

I'd argue that it was the Roman refusal to give in and their ability to mobilise popular and aristocratic forces that was key, but this is also balanced against their control over their allies. Even after Capua fell, much of southern Italy, Samnium and Etruria stayed loyal. Madness.

Clamo, clamatis, omnes clamamus pro glace lactis

Just read Livy's description of the battle of Cannae. He blames Varro (the zealous and rash plebian consul) pretty squarely for the defeat. Hannibal's weakening of the centre is described pretty poorly and not very clearly, probably because it wasn't very clear to any of the eyewitnesses at the time.

What I find really astonishing about Cannae is that the Roman losses seem to have been 40,000 plus (Livy's own 45-50,000) seems to be the lowest estimate, and that Hannibal's army seems to have only been 50,000 strong. This would be the worst defeat in all history (possibly except for the fall of Singapore) in terms of force strengths and losses. I don't think the Romans would have overplayed their own losses or the size of Hannibal's forces.

Cannae was a greater achievement than Lake Trasimene - Hannibal was more outnumbered, and the terrain less favourable. The Romans also made less mistakes. And they really should have learned by then. Still, Fabius (who is also known as cunctator - the delayer) did get the right idea.

The amazing thing is that more of Rome's allies did not desert. I don't really understand why... the only explanation can be that they were sure of Roman victory.
Hannibal's success seems to have been based on:
1) Cavalry superiority
2) Delaying success of the Spanish and Gaulish infantry in the middle
3) Encirclement

I'm amazed at the losses and the fact that the Romans and their allies didn't break after Cannae. What resilience!

House Party

Oof. Bit of a mad weekend. Party party. Not quite party party party but then we're all human, aren't we?

Finsbury Park strangeness on Friday - sat in the same gazebo on the same chair as I sat in at Glade. And quite a lot of the same people. A mad front room with a spinning white spiral disk and some tuff toons.

Then we had our own party on Saturday, after a delicious porcine pig-out for brunch down at the Duchess of Kent. The evening took a long time to kick off, but then hammered along with a bang. Drunken denizens. Crystals of contentment. Badass barfing. An alcoholic aberrance.

An abundance of assonance and alliteration. Arse.

Spent most of Sunday cleaning up.

Knackered now. Damn.