Online resource for Roman history

[Paul Innes]

Hi all, I've been looking for easily accessible information on the interrelationships between the Jugurthine War, the Cimbric migrations and the ongoing problems the Romans were having with the Scordisci and friends. Found this on the web:

http://erenow.com/ancient/crisis-of-rome-the-jugurthine-and-northern-wars-and-the-rise-of-marius/5.html

There's quite a lot of other material on there too - might be of interest to someone?

Paul

[Duncan Head]

That's the whole Sampson Crisis of Rome book online, isn't it? Anyone know if that site posts books with anyone's permission, or is it just piracy?

[Patrick Waterson]

No idea: we could perhaps ask Adrian Goldsworthy, whose In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire appears as part of the collection.

[RichT]

Judging by the number of copyright complaints featuring erenow.com

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=erenow.com&sort_by=

I would guess this is just piracy - or to give it its less glamorous name, theft.

[Duncan Head]

So - buy the book, Paul!

However, on the plus side, looking at a few pages suggests that Sampson's Crisis of Rome may be a more interesting book than I'd initially given it credit for, so it moves up the buy list a bit.

[Patrick Waterson]

Judging by the number of copyright complaints featuring erenow.com

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=erenow.com&sort_by=

I would guess this is just piracy - or to give it its less glamorous name, theft.

I observe that all but one of the complaints are by the same entity, Digimarc, which seems to specialise in, among other things, "Deterring counterfeiting and piracy".

Erenow's own position seems to be this:


"We respect your privacy and copyright! We will delete from our site the materials violating any party copyright in case [presumably meaning "in the event that ..."] we get proper notification about such infringement. This is done due to Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users. Read more..

You can inform about copyright infringement via contact email."


In essence, they seem to be relying on the following provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

"DMCA Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act ("OCILLA"), creates a safe harbor for online service providers (OSPs, including ISPs) against copyright infringement liability, provided they meet specific requirements.[4] OSPs must adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to alleged infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) when they receive notification of an infringement claim from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent. OCILLA also includes a counternotification provision that offers OSPs a safe harbor from liability to their users when users claim that the material in question is not, in fact, infringing. OCILLA also facilitates issuing of subpoenas against OSPs to provide their users' identity." - from the DCMA Wikipedia article.


In short, it looks like legalised piracy, we might say privateering, in that they do not have to give up their prizes unless challenged and they do ostentatiously proclaim their own willingness to do so.  In any event, members who have had books published might do well to check through the items erenow.com has on offer and contact their agents if their own titles appear.

[valentinianvictor]

No matter how its dressed up this is downright theft!

I see that a number of Peter Heather's booksa re located there, I am sure he will not be pleased at all about that!

[Paul Innes]

Thanks for spotting the privateering, Duncan et al - first time I'd heard of this particular website. I ordered the book anyway; it does look rather good.

[Justin Swanton]

One thing I did like on the site was the quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

Actually it was Thomas Henry Buckle who said it: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas."

[Erpingham]

So if I discuss Caesar, I'm small minded.  If I discuss his battles I'm average.  If I discuss whether the fall of the republic was inevitable, I have a great mind?

[Duncan Head]

"One day, you will realize that "Caesar" is not a man, but an idea."
- http://constantpated.blogspot.co.uk/2005/01/iraq-rewriting-history-and-creating.html

[Justin Swanton]

So if I discuss Caesar, I'm small minded.  If I discuss his battles I'm average.  If I discuss whether the fall of the republic was inevitable, I have a great mind?

I think he means, if the staple of one's conversation is gossip about one's neighbours then it's smallmindedness. If's its about discussing events or things, as a historian or scientist would do, then it's average. If it's about the big questions then it is the mark of a great mind. Discussing Caesar would fit the average or perhaps great category. but here's an etymology for the quote.

[Erpingham]

Thanks Justin.  I perhaps should have put a smiley in   However, the etymology is fascinating and is a classic of how a saying is refined to produce the final accepted form.  Another good one, from a military perspective is

No plan survives contact with the enemy

by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.  This begins as

The tactical result of an engagement forms the base for new strategic decisions because victory or defeat in a battle changes the situation to such a degree that no human acumen is able to see beyond the first battle. In this sense one should understand Napoleon's saying: "I have never had a plan of operations."
Therefore no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.

[Patrick Waterson]

Nice quote.  The attenuated popular version is occasionally used by the uninitiated to avoid serious planning, though Napoleon himself in his Military Maxims advocates the importance of planning as thoroughly as possible and the concomitant necessity for information on one's own and one's opponents' resources to be as complete as possible.

Maxim II: "In forming the plan of a campaign, it is requisite to foresee everything the enemy may do, and to be prepared with the necessary means to counteract it. Plans of campaign may be modified, ad infinitum, according to circumstances -- the genius of the general, the character of the troops, and the topography of the theater of action."

All of which is getting us somewhat off a presumably exhausted topic: perhaps we should revive the Favourite Historical Quotes thread?