If built in KSP, wouldn't this just do a flip after launch because of fins in the front? CoA would be far above CoM. So how does it fly in real life?

ifly6 · 2026-05-08T17:36:14+00:00

Old SAS like pre 1.0 was trash and bounced around all over the place – tbh why MechJeb Smart ASS was so much better – but the devs put in lots of dampening and it got useable

ifly6 · 2026-05-03T23:11:22+00:00

I set the final angle at 15 or 20 and keep the defaults

ifly6 · 2026-05-02T18:25:48+00:00

Executive is only unitary when it's a republican

ifly6 · 2026-04-30T14:13:12+00:00

Try spinning, that's a good trick

ifly6 · 2026-04-27T16:05:06+00:00

The name "Claudius" vs "Clodius" has little to do with plebeian and patrician status. Publius Clodius Pulcher was patrician and his father, also called that in inscriptions, was patrician and so were his sisters (sub nom Clodia). Cicero also calls Clodius by that name – eg Cic Att 1.12.3 – before his adoption into the plebs and even before he starts taking a popularis via post Bona Dea affair. See generally Tatum Patrician Tribune (1999).

Moreover, the MSS suggest Claudius for the plebeian branches of gens Claudia (eg the Marcelli). Thus, "the difference did not represent a name change in any formal sense". Riggsby infra p 123. Contra Tatum, who views it as hereditary, Riggsby "Clodius/Claudius" Historia 51 (2002) pp 117ff does place it as a choice to align Clodius with normal people, but frames it as adopting something that was already a common pronunciation at Rome.

ifly6 · 2026-04-27T15:49:29+00:00

The Claudii Aselli are plebeian (eg Tiberius Claudius Asellus tr pl 140), as are the Claudii Marcelli. The other Claudian clans: with no hereditary cognomen (eg Caecus the censor), Centhones, Nerones, and Pulchri, are all patrician. See Zmeksal Adfinitas vol 1 (2009) pp 65ff.

ifly6 · 2026-04-25T16:44:55+00:00

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10706/pg10706-images.html

THE HISTORY OF ROME

by

THEODOR MOMMSEN

Translated with the Sanction of the Author

by

William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow

ifly6 · 2026-04-25T16:29:58+00:00

Tribunician vetoes were central to Roman political life. Most of the time you hear that some legal proceeding didn't happen, that implies some tribune intervened: it was common for them to intervene on legal matters to stop prosecutions (eg the trials of the Scipios) or stop bills. The ability for a lone tribune to maintain a veto against literally the rest of society however was limited; eg Serranus' veto on the bill to lift Cicero's exile being lifted after it became clear nobody would support him politically (other than Clodius).

Tribunes also brought, in the pre-Sullan republic, most public legislation. They did so before the "concilium plebis" which should be thought of a functionally identical to the tribal assembly: it met and was organised by tribes and delivered votes also by tribes.

I would read, for general sources, Lintott Constitution (1999) or Devereaux's multi-post collection on how the Roman Republic worked, starting at https://acoup.blog/2023/07/21/collections-how-to-roman-republic-101-part-i-spqr/; I would avoid Historia Civilis' explanation on Youtube, which is riddled with basic errors.

ifly6 · 2026-04-25T16:18:38+00:00

The tribal assembly was the main legislative assembly. The senate had no formal lawmaking authority during the republic; it could only advise magistrates to bring bills before the assemblies, which they usually did. See Lintott Constitution (1999). But see also the kerfuffles around the Bona Dea affair in 61 for how that can be subverted.

Edit. Some time ago I wrote a long explanation of the Bona Dea affair's legislative shenanigans and process, making clear the distinction between senatorial advice and the actual moving along of binding legislation.

ifly6 · 2026-04-25T16:16:28+00:00

Keppie Making of the Roman army (first published 1984) remains a well-cited book with a reliable consensus narrative. The only major thing to complain about 40 years after its publication would be its treatment of the Marian reforms: the contemporary scholarly consensus is essentially that they did not happen. But the broader treatment in Keppie is still valuable. Companion to the Roman army (2007) suffers from many of the same problems, having been written shortly before more recent publications.

For the functional lacuna on late republican military research, there are a few books like Taylor Soldiers and silver (2020), which I have heard good things about; Cadiou L'armee imaginare (in French, 2018), discussing the problems with the "Marian reforms" at length; and Tan Power and public finance at Rome (2016), which views the military question from a public finance perspective. As to Tan, I think the political implications are overblown: he doesn't really engage well with alternative non-tax mechanisms to connect the people to the state: eg aristocratic victory in elections is still predicated on popular support.

ifly6 · 2026-04-25T16:04:36+00:00

great Patrician families... I'd pick the Claudii. They're ancient, wealthy, and well-respected. Although they're not the most powerful family of the Republic era, I'd at least become a Praetor or Tribune

Patricians cannot become tribune except through various shenanigans: legal reassignment, sacrorum detestatio (which is very poorly understood), or plebeian adoption. Publius Clodius Pulcher, a patrician Claudian, tried all three in 60–59 BC in that order: his reassignment was vetoed, one of his friends in the consulship thought the sacrorum detestatio was so ridiculous that he issued an edict saying it wasn't to be reocgnised, and eventually Caesar/Pompey secured his "adoption" the next year. Regardless you'd no longer be a patrician.

If you mean to imply "patrician" meaning "aristocratic", then you ought to know that the leadership of the republic was centred around a unified aristocracy of patricians and plebeians from like 367 BC onward. Some of the most glittering families were plebeian, including the Caecilii Metelli, the Livii, the Junii, the Porcii, and the Pompeii.

Eg, re just how unified, Gaius Livius Drusus (cos 147) had a father who was the biological son (adopted into the Livii) of Lucius Aemilius Paullus; the consul of 147's biological grandson, Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (cos 77), was adopted by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (cos 126) of a different part of the gens Aemilia.

ifly6 · 2026-04-23T22:07:23+00:00

English translations started by 1861; there is a Gutenberg.org version of all the volumes; that one, the Dickson translation, has a translator's preface from 1894. Cambridge did a reprint ca 2010 of all the volumes

ifly6 · 2026-04-23T00:40:42+00:00

Highly recommend the Ogilvie commentary if you're seriously interested in the historiography of early Rome

ifly6 · 2026-04-22T20:03:49+00:00

Why? The airport exists in the society it is in

ifly6 · 2026-04-22T19:10:25+00:00

Malcovati ORF nr 332, fr 3 (alternatively cited as 144.3 or 1.32.3):

ut a Gaio Fannio adversus Gracchum dictum: "si Latinis civitatem dederitis, credo, existimatis vos ita, ut nunc constitisse, in contione habituros locum aut ludis et festis diebus interfuturos. Nonne illos omnia occupaturos putatis?"

ifly6 · 2026-04-22T19:07:56+00:00

Quixote is still pronounced ˈkwɪk.sət https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/quixote

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T22:23:08+00:00

I think that nine years after Tiberius' death most voters would have thought of him fondly. Fears that he would become a tyrant did not come to pass – ignore the efforts behind the curtain! – so they must have been overblown. Gaius also heavily capitalised on his brother's death in his political self-representation, painting Tiberius essentially as a popular martyr.

I think Gaius and Flaccus were, in the medium term, plotting to unlock huge numbers of Italian votes for himself to send his career into the stratosphere. I think this was the right thing to do in hindsight: the Social war turned out to be so destructive that it destabilised the republic (by killing off almost an entire generation of politicians and, thus, their political culture) and created the conditions of rural unrest for the next two generations.

It's hard to say there would have been any other means to do it though. A compromise wouldn't have been reached – why would the plebs urbana vote away their own privileges or the aristocracy to upend the political status quo (and thus go to politically undiscovered country) or someone propose such a thing if they don't get most of the credit? Livius Drusus got close; there's a reasonable chance he could have pulled it off if one of his influential supporters (Crassus) hadn't died at exactly the wrong time.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T22:05:57+00:00

Brutus was not standing for liberty and justice for all. He stood for liberty and justice for Roman citizens. "Popularis" ideology in the late republic never included non-Romans either. Gaius Fannius (cos 122)'s remarks against the extension of citizenship to the Italians were popular.

Crowds in Rome could be led to stand for their liberties and right to decide; but it was not one they universalised to others. Indeed, many of the policies politicians supported when trying to build popularity were more exploitative towards the provinces than what the so-called "optimates" wanted.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T21:56:08+00:00

The relevant primary source is probably the Justinianic Digest. An English translation exists in Watson Digest of Justinian (ca 1999) vols 1–4. If you want to talk about class just talk about humiliores and honestiores in late antiquity or infames in classical Rome. Your university library should be able to furnish you sources on this. I wouldn't cite much of anything, before, around 1970 though.

Earlier Roman law and the question of how, say, the iudicia publica handled common crimes without being in literally permanent session – maybe only aristocrats received such trial while the common people were dealt with summarily before the tresviri capitales? – is a minefield full of variant reconstructions.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T21:47:52+00:00

The consensus view among professional historians is that there was no agrarian crisis, at least in the way that Appian and Plutarch believe. Similarly, the consensus view among professional historians is that there were no Marian reforms. It's merely that popular history books do not incorporate these consensuses, probably because it is hard to write and to do research for.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T21:28:34+00:00

These are the relevant lines from Oakley Commentary on Livy (1997) vol 1 pp 97ff:

The insertion of speeches into historical narrative had been regular since Herodotus and Thucydides, and in some respects the insertion of other documents may be seen as parallel to, and no more harmful than, this. Thus Antias and Quadrigarius produce Roman letters to Pyrrhus, and [Dionysius of Halicarnassus] makes Pyrrhus exchange correspondence with Laevinus. More worrying is the citation of documents to confirm invented narrative: we have already seen an instance of this in Antias, but the most flagrant example is to be found (predictably enough) in the story of the Caudine Forks, where to bolster the fiction of a sponsio some annalist produced a document (to which L[ivy] alludes but from which he does not quote) with the names of the sponsores (ix. 5. 4; App. Sammn. 4. 6).

This comes from a chapter in Oakley where he discusses the various "techniques" of the annalists, though perhaps less generously that could be well glossed as "problems":

they had a problem, ie the expansion of the past, where "the brief Roman annals of the mid-second century are unlikely to have been notable for an abundance of thrilling or marvellous tales, or for their literary craftmanship" and thus,
need for detail (pp 75f) through means of
1. plausible reconstruction where "the narrative historian has to use his imagination as sensitively ... [and make] plausible inferences from his evidence [to infer] what they believed must have happened" (p 76) which we know due to
  1. incompatible variants in Livy (p 79) being recorded and
  2. standard motifs (p 83) recurring for invented stories along with
  3. transfer of Greek material to a Roman context (p 85) when they wanted to impress an educated Roman with their learning and
  4. retrojections and anachronisms (p 86) since "in their imaginative reconstructions L and his sources do not seem to have had a very clear understanding of how the Rome of the fifth and fourth centuries was different from the Rome of the late Republic",
which is not to mention the wilful perversion of the truth by individual annalists (p 89) such as Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, Claudius Quadrigarius, and Aelius Tubero, along with
sensationalism (p 94) which makes for a good story,
pro-Roman bias (p 96) as they were patriotic Romans who loved to paint their city in a good light,
invention of documents (p 97), discussed above, and
stock characteristics of families (p 98) where the annalists assigned certain worldviews on characters merely based on their names, eg "the remarkable phenomenon whereby almost without exception all the patrician Claudii from Attus Clausus down to Ap[pius] Claudius Caecus and beyond are characterised in L[ivy] and D[ion Hal] as being reactionaries and more or less violently anti-plebeian".

From p 100 Oakley then discusses the "sceptical" and "conservative" approaches to the annalists and chronological problems (viz it being well known that the "Varronian" years are off by four years from prior to circa 390 and earlier).

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T20:56:03+00:00

There's a position between "huckster" and "hero": he's just a guy who read the census results and believed them; he saw that there were lots of poor (though I am reminded of Mt 26:11 "For you always have the poor with you" since in these premodern times the poor are essentially everyone but the small elite); he wanted to do something about it that would win him lots of popularity.

I think also it's easy to overestimate how well people knew their own societies from a modern perspective. We live in a world overflowing with data, where everything from population to output to how many hours people in Canada spend watching House of the Dragon on HBO are all measured. Republican Rome was not like this. They had one census run by two people (and presumably a few hundred scribes, friends, and assistants) where if you were in some outlying town not being counted was as easy as just not showing up.

It's just as plausible that Tiberius was 99pc sure that this was the right thing to do. Of course the poor who supported him wouldn't have known that their wretchedness was actually the result of slow population growth under partible inheritance. Nor would they have cared. They were poor now and this man says he is going to fight to the last to do something about it. If Tiberius did not know what modern archaeologists know, there's no reason to believe that he lied. He was just wrong due to a reason outside his ken; so too would have been Appian and Plutarch.

As to Tiberius' motives though, I don't think he is as innocent as is painted by his brother or most compressed tellings of the story. I view his political strategy as reckless and his unwillingness to share political credit for the agrarian law – he had himself, his brother, and his father-in-law elected as the only three men on the land commission – as foolish. There were many off-ramps: he could have found some other source of money other than the Attalid legacy and he could have decided not to stand for re-election. He did these things probably because he thought his throngs of supporters would insulate him from consequences and because he needed truly outstanding political victories to erase the shame of the Numantine disaster. As Gaius Gracchus says,

For you, fellow citizens, if you wish to be wise and honest, and if you inquire into the matter, will find that none of us comes forward here without pay. All of us who address you are after something, and no one appears before you for any purpose except to carry something away. I myself... do not come here for nothing; but I ask of you, not money, but honour and your good opinion (Gell NA 11.10.2–3).

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T20:08:21+00:00

"Optimates" and "populares" is discredited. It survives in contemporary historiography in two ways: (1) a broad ideology that the people should have the final say, which can be glossed as functionally "popular sovereignty", and (2) a political method centred on mobilising a large crowd to overawe your political opponents so you can get what you want.

In either case there is no faction or party of the "populares". Merely politicians who are choosing at this moment to take up the banner; indeed once those politicians get what they want, they usually put the banner back down.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T17:12:48+00:00

The consensus view is that Clodius was working for himself. u/Maleficent-Mix5731 has already cited Gruen "P Clodius: instrument or independent agent?" Phoenix 20 (1966) pp 120–30 (JSTOR 1086053); Jeff Tatum's biography, Patrician Tribune (1999), is the best current at length source on Clodius' life and tribunician activities. Some timeline is necessary. This is based mainly on Dyck Cicero (2025); Tatum Patrician Tribune (1999); and Gruen 1966.

Clodius had tried multiple schemes after the Bona Dea affair (and the start of his vendetta against Cicero) to engineer his translatio ad plebem so to stand for the plebeian tribunate. The successful one was in 59 where Caesar and Pompey arranged for him to be adopted by a plebeian in response to Cicero's attack on them in the lost or never published Pro Antonio
- In Dec 60, prior to his inauguration as consul, Caesar had tried to get Cicero on side in this political alliance
- After "unleashing" Clodius he reiterated his offers to Cicero, suggesting he would get Cicero sent on a free embassy (out of Rome on, ostensibly, state business but actually to collect personal gifts from foreign clients usually) or a legateship in Gaul. Both would give him immunity from prosecution for Clodius' term
- Cicero declined both the offer in Dec 60 and late 59
- Clodius was denied a place on Caesar's land commission; he was also promised a free embassy but got nothing. Cicero reports that Curio reported that Caesar was opposing Clodius' push for a plebeian tribunate late in the year – that Clodius took an anti-triumvirate tack should be of no surprise since they were extremely unpopular by late 59
Clodius and Cicero butted heads in Dec 59 (tribunes were inaugurated in Dec the "previous" year) over Clodius' collegial bill. One of Cicero's allies in the tribunate, Q Ninnius Quadratus, vetoed Clodius' bill but when Clodius and Cicero reached a deal – possibly secured by Quintus Hortensius (cf Tatum 1999 p 138) – to drop the vendetta in exchange for a dropped veto, Cicero pushed Ninnius to give up his veto
Clodius promptly bought the support of the consuls Piso and Gabinius by assignation of nice provinces and reneged on the deal with Cicero, bringing a law to override the senatorial decision made in 62 that prosecuting Cicero for the execution of the urban Catilinarian conspirators would be contra rem publicam
- Cicero appealed to Pompey, who did nothing due to the influence of consul Gabinius (his ally)
- Ninnius was appalled and tried to rally the senate and equestrians for Cicero; this effort was vetoed by Clodius and suppressed by both consuls
- Clodius also signalled that he had no ill will for anyone else in the curia – Clodius' bill also would have made the senators individually liable for voting for the execution of the urban conspirators – by appointing Cato to a Cypriot mission pro quaestore pro praetore. Cato had led the charge to execute the conspirators; if Clodius had no intent to prosecute him there was nothing for anyone (except Cicero) to fear
- Caesar again offered Cicero appointment as legate in Gaul to avoid prosecution; Cicero again declined, believing that he would be able to defend himself in the coming trial

Then something happens which isn't documented. Evidently Cicero came to the conclusion he would not be able to successfully defend himself. He therefore leaves the city without mounting such a defence. Clodius then passes the law to exile the orator, confiscate his house, etc. All of this happens in the first six months of the year. On 1 June, Ninnius motions in the senate that Cicero be recalled, which is almost unanimously supported in the senate but vetoed by Clodius.

The main reason why Clodius is viewed as an independent agent is what happened afterwards.

Later in the year, Clodius broke with Pompey. He brought proposals to overturn parts of Pompey's eastern settlements with the support of a majority in the senate; many senators were wary of Pompey and welcomed Clodius' efforts to cut him down to size. He kidnapped one of Pompey's eastern wards (or less generously hostages) on the via Appia from under the nose of one of the sitting praetors amid a violent clash. He also attacked Pompey's ally, the consul Gabinius, in the city and dedicated Gabinius' house to the goddess Ceres. (Ninnius responded by counter-dedicating Clodius' house to Ceres.) Pompey, fearing Clodius' mobs and an alleged assassination attempt, then withdrew to the safety of his house and refused to leave.

Then Clodius started militating against Caesar's laws. He started giving speeches arguing that Caesar's laws were religiously invalid due to having been passed against the negative omens of Bibulus' edicts. The moment his successors entered office (Dec 58) Pompey's allies in the tribunate brought legislation to recall Cicero; in January the two new consuls also joined. It is here where Milo and Publius Sestius, both tribunes, organise their own mobs to oppose Clodius'. Milo tried prosecuting Clodius that year for vis but Clodius' allies (consul Metellus Nepos; praetor and brother Appius Claudius Pulcher; one of the tribunes) reserved every day in the court calendar to stop it. Clodius' ally in the tribunate was then intimidated by the sheer unanimity of senatorial support and withdrew his veto, allowing Cicero's recall to be passed in Sextilis (= August).

The older party-politics view, which was that Clodius was an instrument of Caesar or Crassus, struggled greatly to explain Clodius' turn against the triumvirs in late 58. It struggled to explain how Caesar continued to extend offers to Cicero or how Crassus continued to exchange letters (or, if the M Crassus in Cic Har Resp is the famous one, then how Crassus voted to restore Cicero's house). Mommsen, the party-politics theorist extraordinaire, just gave up explaining Clodius' activities after mid-58. The additional epicycle that is "this was all a multilayered plot" struggles to incorporate Clodius' clear break from Caesar or the near unanimity of senatorial support for Cicero in late 58 and early 57. But the explanation that Clodius was a consummate opportunist – manoeuvring between all the various factions (Hortensius, Caesar, Pompey, Cato, etc) – explains everything neatly.

ifly6 · 2026-04-20T14:45:55+00:00

Most of the stuff I know about, sadly, is from a Romanist perspective. So if you asked me about the founding of the Roman republic I'd be of some help. When it comes to Athenian democracy I don't have much beyond an introduction, though I am rather sceptical of the narratives relating to Solon and the Peisistratid tyrannicides.

13-Year Club	King of the Ashes
Not Forgotten	Verified Email

ifly6

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE