Cicero and the Romans (Cicéron et les Romains)
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is going to provide abundant data for medical experts and scientists in terms of low-level dose effects.
What Hiroshima and Nagasaki Reveal About What to Expect from Fukushima Nuclear DisasterThough no nuclear panic has occurred around Fukushima Daiichi and all over Japan, tens of thousands of dosemeters are being sold per month in Japan nowadays. As Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims provided precious medical data, millions of people living around Fukushima Prefecture should contribute to nuclear medical study. Looking at the global nuclear situation, it would be useful in future. It will be a great sacrifice, too.
Public health expert looks for clues to health impacts of Fukushima disaster
"There haven't been studies of large groups of people exposed to low-dose radiation," says Randolph Carter, UB professor of biostatistics.
Release Date: August 1, 2011
...
At the same time, he says, the Fukushima power plant disaster underscores how little is yet known about the health effects of low-dose radiation...
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/12751
However, it is expected that average residents in Fukushima City will receive about 14 milli Sieverts of radiation for a year starting from March 2011, while...
"Our research at UB shows that both cardio-metabolic risk and the proportion of lymphocytic blood cells with genetic damage increases the risk of cancer in atomic bomb survivors as radiation doses exceed 240 millisieverts."
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima nuclear incidents occurred about 2000 years after the emergence of Christ Jesus.
So, it would be important to know what was happening just before the emergence of Christ Jesus 2000 years ago.
SECTION I: CICERO
When Caesar was assassinated, Cleopatra and Cicero were in Rome.
Cicero took some major role in politics in Rome after the incident while Cleopatra returned to Egypt. The two were indirectly linked through Mark Antony.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC; sometimes anglicized as Tully), was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist...
After Caesar's victory at Pharsalus, Cicero returned to Rome only very cautiously. Caesar pardoned him and Cicero tried to adjust to the situation and maintain his political work, hoping that Caesar might revive the Republic and its institutions.
In a letter to Varro on c. April 20, 46 BC, Cicero outlined his strategy under Caesar's dictatorship. Cicero, however, was taken completely by surprise when the Liberatores assassinated Caesar on the ides of March, 44 BC. Cicero was not included in the conspiracy, even though the conspirators were sure of his sympathy. Marcus Junius Brutus called out Cicero's name, asking him to "restore the Republic" when he lifted the bloodstained dagger after the assassination.[45] A letter Cicero wrote in February 43 BC to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, began, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March"![46] Cicero became a popular leader during the period of instability following the assassination. He had no respect for Mark Antony, who was scheming to take revenge upon Caesar's murderers. In exchange for amnesty for the assassins, he arranged for the Senate to agree not to declare Caesar to have been a tyrant, which allowed the Caesarians to have lawful support.
Opposition to Mark Antony and death
Cicero and Antony then became the two leading men in Rome; Cicero as spokesman for the Senate and Antony as consul, leader of the Caesarian faction, and unofficial executor of Caesar's public will. The two men had never been on friendly terms and their relationship worsened after Cicero made it clear that he felt Antony to be taking unfair liberties in interpreting Caesar's wishes and intentions. When Octavian, Caesar's heir and adopted son, arrived in Italy in April, Cicero formed a plan to play him against Antony. In September he began attacking Antony in a series of speeches he called the Philippics, after Demosthenes's denunciations of Philip II of Macedon. Praising Octavian, he said that the young man only desired honor and would not make the same mistake as his adoptive father. During this time, Cicero's popularity as a public figure was unrivalled.[47]
Cicero supported Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus as governor of Cisalpine Gaul (Gallia Cisalpina) and urged the Senate to name Antony an enemy of the state. The speech of Lucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, delayed proceedings against Antony. Antony was later declared an enemy of the state when he refused to lift the siege of Mutina, which was in the hands of Decimus Brutus. Cicero's plan to drive out Antony failed. Antony and Octavian reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Second Triumvirate after the successive battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina. The Triumvirate began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals immediately after legislating the alliance into official existence for a term of five years with consular imperium. Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, and reportedly, Octavian argued for two days against Cicero being added to the list.[48]
Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted among the proscribed. He was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public and many people refused to report that they had seen him. He was caught December 7, 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia.[49] When the assassins – Herennius (a centurion) and Popilius (a tribune) – arrived, Cicero's own slaves said they had not seen him, but he was given away by Philologus, a freed slave of his brother Quintus Cicero.[49]
Cicero's last words are said to have been, "There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly." He bowed to his captors, leaning his head out of the litter in a gladiatorial gesture to ease the task. By baring his neck and throat to the soldiers, he was indicating that he wouldn't resist. According to Plutarch, Herennius first slew him, then cut off his head. On Antony's instructions his hands, which had penned the Philippics against Antony, were cut off as well; these were nailed and displayed along with his head on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum. Cicero was the only victim of the proscriptions to be displayed in that manner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero
Put simply, Cicero was not a good friend of Caesar. Cicero supported the assassination of Caesar. Cicero shared power with Antony. But Cicero became at odds with Antony. Cicero helped Octavian, an adopted son of Caesar, to set him against Antony. But, Antony and Octavian allied. Cicero was labeled as an enemy of Rome. Cicero was killed by soldiers sent by Antony.
Of course, after this incident, Antony allying with Cleopatra of Egypt was defeated by Octavian through a big civil war over the Mediterranean. Therefore Antony and Cleopatra were forced to kill themselves.
Then Octavian became the first emperor of the Roman Empire. Then, Christ Jesus was born in Judea, close to Egypt, though 30 years after the imperial establishment of Rome.
So, this is the situation and what was happening in Rome and its imperial territory as symbolized by death of Caesar, Cicero, and eventually Antony as well as Cleopatra.
Yet, this is the vivid episode of the Roman Empire the most widely known to peoples of the world to date.
SECTION II: Cicero and Israelites
Cicero as an author gave a great influence on the European culture in these 2000 years.
Cicero was however neither Christian nor Judaist.
Roman statesman and orator; born 106; died 43 B.C. In 59 he delivered in the Aurelian Forum at Rome a speech in behalf of Flaccus, in which he spoke disparagingly of the Jews; this was perhaps not from conviction so much as in the interest of his client ("Pro Flacco," xxviii.), though in Rhodes he had been the disciple in rhetoric of the anti-Jewish writer Apollonius Molon...
In the trial of Verres (70 B.C.) Plutarch reports that Cicero, in speaking of one of the accusers, Cecilius, who was suspected of a leaning toward Judaism, made the pun, "Quid Judæo cum Verre?" (What has a Jew to do with a pig?). Finally, in a speech delivered in the Senate, May, 56 B.C., and entitled "De Provinciis Consularibus," Cicero refers to the Jews and Syrians as "races born to be slaves," an expression not uncommon in the mouths of the Romans of his day.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=507&letter=C
It is said that Cicero had said, "A Room Without Books is Like a Body Without a Soul."
He has been also respected as a man of humanity: "The good of the people is the chief law."
Yet, the Roman Empire was a military state: "The sinews of war, unlimited money"; "Laws are silent in time of war."
Cicero had no influence on Romans' military operation against Israelites, to our disappointment.
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In this week access to this blog has been mostly from the United States, Malaysia, Germany, Canada, Russia, India, Ukraine, Israel, Poland, Thailand, etc.
However, relief and condolence money to victims and refugees of the 3/11 Great Disaster of Northeast Japan is, for example, from:
Taiwan ($225 million), the U.S. ($125 million), South Korea ($20 million), and China ($3.75 million).
Some Japanese are disappointed, examining this data, since Japan has provided ODA worth total $60 billion for China in these decades.
Joh 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
Joh 8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Joh 8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
Joh 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
Joh 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Joh 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.