Fwd: RE: How did Caesar become dictator?
L. Livia Plauta
Da: <charlesa...@sympatico.ca>
Data: 06/dic/2015 15:00
Oggetto: RE: How did Caesar become dictator?
A: "L. Livia Plauta" <livia....@gmail.com>
Cc:
This SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM is enacted by the Executive Committee of the Senate of Nova Roma, through the exercise of all of the authority of the Senate/Board of Directors of Nova Roma granted to the Executive Committee under the authority of the SENATUS CONSULTUM ON CORPORATE COMPLIANCE.
1. The Executive Committee of the Senate of Nova Roma, comprising of appointed officials of Nova Roma, determines that pursuant to the methodology outlined in sections III.1 and IV of the “Senatus consultum on derived meaning from legal authorities”, the derived meaning of the word “emergency” as used in section IV.B.1 Constitution, is defined as:
“an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action”
2. The Executive Committee has determined that based on the derived meaning at (1) above, the circumstances described in the SENATUS CONSULTUM ULTIMUM ON THE TRIBUNICIAN INTERSESSIO OF NOVEMBER 13th 2015 constitute an emergency, as so described by the Senate, for the purposes of section IV.B.1 Constitution.
3. Therefore pursuant to (2) above and pursuant to section IV.B.1 of the Constitution of Nova Roma, Gnaeus Iulius Caesar (citizen # 7228), censorial, consular, praetorial pontifex, proconsul and senator of Nova Roma, is appointed Dictator.
4. Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (citizen # 8), princeps senatus, pater patriae, censorial, consular, praetorial and senator of Nova Roma, is appointed as Magister Equitum.
5. Pursuant to (3) above and (4) above, the Dictator and Magister Equitum shall form the constituent parts of the combined office of the Dictatura.
6. For the purposes of Title 13-B: MAINE NONPROFIT CORPORATION ACT, §709.1. the Dictatura shall be defined as exercising the authority and powers of an Executive Committee of the Senate of Nova Roma.
7. The Magister Equitum shall be subordinate in authority only to the Dictator. Any actions and/or pronouncement of Magister Equitum shall be considered as an action and/or pronouncement of the Dictatura, unless such action and/or pronouncement is amended, and/or overridden and/or cancelled by the Dictator.
8. The Magister Equitum may, if he disagrees with any action and/or pronouncement of the Dictator, resign his office forthwith by posting such a resignation on a Nova Roman public forum and/or on the Nova Roman Senate list.
9. Upon such as resignation as at (8) above, the action and/or pronouncement of the Dictator that the Magister Equitum disagreed with shall be void, and the office of the Dictator shall be suspended pending a decision of the Executive Committee of the Senate of Nova Roma over the continuation or termination of the Dictatura under such amended or re-affirmed conditions as it sees fit to impose.
10. For the purposes of section I.A.1 of the Constitution of Nova Roma and under the authority of section V.E of the Constitution of Nova Roma, the Dictator shall be deemed to have been appointed as though by Senatus Consultum and any action and/or pronouncement of the Dictatura shall be deemed to be an edict of the Dictator as defined under section I.A.1 of the Constitution of Nova Roma.
11. The Dictatura shall remain in existence for six months from the date of the enactment of this Senatus Consultum Ultimum, or until the resignation of either the Dictator and/or the Magister Equitum, should such resignation(s) occur prior to the expiry of the six months.
DICTATORIAL EDICT 001
I, Gnaeus Iulius Caesar, Dictator of Nova Roma, issue the following edict..
1. The following persons are forthwith and immediately stripped of their Nova Roman citizenship and expelled from Nova Roma and subject to a permanent membership/citizenship ban:
Publius Porcius Licinus (citizen # 13779)
Aulus Vergilius Figulus (citizen # 14560)
Marcus Martianius Lupus (citizen # 11054)
Sextus Lucilius Tutor (citizen # 8934)
2. This edict takes effect immediately
DICTATORIAL EDICT 002
I, Gnaeus Iulius Caesar, Dictator of Nova Roma, issue the following edict..
1. The following persons are forthwith and immediately stripped of their Nova Roman citizenship and expelled from Nova Roma and subject to a permanent membership/citizenship ban:
Decimus Curtius Papus (Citizen # 15001)
Titus Flavius Severus (Citizen # 12928)
Marcus Flavius Celsus (Citizen # 15410)
2. This edict takes effect immediately
DICTATORIAL EDICT 003
I, Gnaeus Iulius Caesar, Dictator of Nova Roma, issue the following edict..
1. The following persons are removed from all Nova Roman offices/positions held, including membership of the Senate, forthwith and immediately. Their citizenship remains valid and unaffected:
Aulus Liburnius Hadrianus (Citizen # 10604)
Publius Annaeus Constantinus Placidus (Citizen # 5934)
Gaius Petronius Dexter (Citizen # 11584)
Aula Tullia Scholastica (Citizen # 6596)
2. This edict takes effect immediately
DICTATORIAL EDICT 004
I, Gnaeus Iulius Caesar, Dictator of Nova Roma, issue the following edict..
1. The upcoming 2015 elections scheduled in the Comitia centuriata, the Comitia populi tributa, and the Comitia plebis tribute are forthwith cancelled.
2. The following magistrates are ordered to remain in office until further Dictatorial edict:
Marcus Pompeius Caninus - consul
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix – censor
Gaia Maria Caeca - praetor
3. All other persons holding elected positions shall occupy those offices until either:
a. Further Dictatorial edict or
b. The natural expiration of their term of office or
c. Resignation of the incumbent
4. Vacant positions will be subsequently filled by either Dictatorial edict or election.
5. This edict takes effect immediately
Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2015 13:21:04 +0100
Subject: How did Caesar become dictator?
From: livia....@gmail.com
To: charlesa...@sympatico.ca
Salve,
I still read the NR announce list (for the moment). Probably they will remove my address even if, as you say, I'm still on the Album Civium.
I'm just curious to know how Caesar became dictator, because nothing I had read before prepared me for this event.
Optime vale,
Livia
V. Claudius Iohannes (alio nomine JKN)
Salvete!
Since Lucia Livia posted these details of the dictatorial edicts at NR, I have found out some more about the process that led up to them, so I can now now see some of that ACTUAL coonections between the different events that each side cites when they talk about when the dictatura. So as far as I know this is what happened:
NR (Nova Roma) has always had its simmering political frustrations. I should start by mentioning that you may or may not know that the SVR itself was born of an earlier NR controversy, back in 2003. NR member Marius Peregrinus was hounded out of NR and brought with him a freedom-loving group, and they founded the SVR. Years later, for a time in 2008, thanks to broad-minded people at NR, there was a period of rapprochement between our own SVR and NR. I speculate that NR's resumption of relations with what Sulla and company called a "competing organization" -- one that was attached to inclusiveness and freedom -- may have irked them, and helped prompt their long-range plans for consolidating power.
In any event, politics in NR are stormy, and in 2009 a different faction attempted to create a dictatura of their own. Strangely enough, according to my source, it was Sulla who threatened legal action if they seriously tried to impose such. The dictatorship faction consulted an attorney, who said, no, it's not legal to do so; and so that faction exited NR "en masse". They apparently tried to set up their own group, which I have yet to identify.
At some point , around 2011, the party who had favored reconciliation and so on were themselves hounded out, so far as I can tell. They went on to set up a new "competing organization", the RPR (which Livia Plauta mentioned), to try to improve upon NR. Among their founders was our own founding member, Horatius Piscinus, cultor extraordinaire, scholar of Rome, man of sound judgment. This may have added yet more to the Sullan faction's paranoia: losing some of their best people to yet another "competing organization".
In 2013, Sulla posted an announcement (on which forum is not clear) that indicated his colleague Caesar had come up with a "legal" way to impose a dictatorship on NR. (I'd be interested to know if they were portraying themselves at that time as giving warning to other officers of this danger, or what.) Later, in the Senate session of July, 2013, an agenda item appeared about the creation of an "Execute Committee", a smaller group of two (Sulla and an appointee) who would (in an emergency) exercise all the powers of the Senate (the Board of Directors). In the business world an Executive Committee allows one or two people to take care of the day-to-day board work and leave the rest of the board free for other things. Some may have seen "Executive" in the Committee's name and put two and two together, but not enough people did; the actual law was titled "Senatus Consultum on Corporate Compliance." Sulla portrayed the Committee as being legally desirable and "advisory in nature" rather than actively executive, as it would in the end prove to be. It was sold as an antidote to the hypothetical problem of a magistrate gone wild, sold as a failsafe device.
I'm told a certain Senator Cato queried Sulla as to why an advisory committee should be gifted with actual Senatorial powers. I'm told there are over a dozen pages of back-and-forth argument on this before Sulla discloses that the Committee needed the power to issue Senatus Consulta, as the only way to combat its hypothetical crazed officer. But the creation of this Executive Committee was then approved (Cato dissenting, I believe). We should note that later, at some point, said Senator Cato was "tried" for "treason" in NR. (I wonder who the prosecutors were? A treason trial? By Gadfrey, what a give-away.)
And some time after this, Sulla posted, with no mention of course of the "Corporate Compliance" law, that he and company had verified with an attorney that, yes, Caesar's un-named method of establishing a dictatorship in NR was apparently legal.
Also, at some point (I don't know when) it had become NR law that no one in NR could simultaneously belong to any "competing organization": not allowed, period! And so it was that, although invisible to the eyes of most NR citizens, all these snares had been laid.
Finally in 2015 two controversial Consulta were proposed to the NR Senate; these involved requirements for new members that would preclude admitting anyone involved -- or even suspected of involvement -- with "competing organizations". I am told it had precisely the wording used to facilitate the McCarthyite proscriptions of the 1950s -- "Are you now or have you ever been a member of...?" Many in NR could not fail to see a disgraceful parallel with real-world witch-hunts forming. I'm told that when the Senate meeting took place, there was a storm: NR Senator Audens spoke out against the measures, the argument boiled over, and ultimately Audens resigned in disgust from both the Senate and from NR. But despite the objections he had raised, the two Consulta passed easily. Apparently this involved the controversy surrounding Publius Claudius Caecus, which is mentioned in Lucia Livia's second post, in the "explanatory" (obfuscatory) post from Sulla.
One NR Tribune then conscientiously posted an Intercessio (in common terms an appeal for a stay of execution, in effect a veto by the Tribune). Now this had to be ratified by the other Tribunes, and although Sulla and company argued the Intercessio was improper, it was upheld by the other Tribunes. This was too much for the Sullan faction, this actual practice of republican government, and so they announced the dictatura, revealing that the "Executive Committee" had already been more-or-less secretly activated in 2013 and were now going to issue not just Senatus Consulta, but Senatus Consulta Ultima -- senatorial executive orders of the highest authority.
And that brings us up to what can be seen in the documents posted by Lucia Livia: the proscriptions, demotions and expulsions followed, in the worst tradition of the malefactors' namesakes, Sulla and Caesar. I'm glad our own Marius, in his day here, never lived DOWN to the level of his namesake's worst behavior, which however is just what the ruling faction at NR has done.
On Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 12:34:43 PM UTC-8, L. Livia Plauta wrote:
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Data: 06/dic/2015 15:00
Oggetto: RE: How did Caesar become dictator?
A: "L. Livia Plauta"
Cc:
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To: "Societas Via Romana" <societas-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 3:37:57 PM
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L. Livia Plauta
Marcus Livius Horatius
Salvete!
What a mess... I left Nova Roma in 2003 fed up with the political fighting and lack of initiative. I checked back periodically hoping things would get better. Sadly, it looks like the opposite is true.
I remember Sulla, he was a constant problem even long ago. This Caesar fellow looks like his kindred spirit.
The problem with Nova Roma is that it has been plagued by political roleplay at the expense of the Religio, learning, and offline activity. I think the time might be ripe for Nova Roma to be rebuilt elsewhere, I certainly don not see Nova Roma repairing itself, and sadly this group is largely inactive.
Marcus Livius Horatius
V. Claudius Iohannes (alio nomine JKN)
...
eljef...@gmail.com
I'm the tribune who pronounced the intercession. After the first batch of edicta were announced, some of us got together to take stock of just where we were at and what, if anything, we should do about it. We decided to put together a "Bill of Particulars" to try to chronicle the acts that we thought were wrong, and that expanded into a 13-page document that started with the founding of Nova Roma, as I tried to comprehend everything that happened, and tried to put everything in its proper context. I joined Nova Roma in late 2010, so a lot of this stuff was "ancient history" to me. Some of the older hands corrected my errors as I went, and I ended up with several revisions of the thing. So, that's why I was able to present a history of events leading up to November 2015.
Basically, all the details of the history that JKN presented are correct, save for the following (so far as I know):
The dictatorship attempt that was thwarted by Sulla's threats of a lawsuit happened in 2010, not 2009.
It was Crassus who tried to pin down Sulla and Caesar on just what the Executive Committee was and why it needed so much power.
We don't know exactly when the Executive Committee was "activated". Theoretically, it could have been activated in July of 2013, November of 2015, or any time in between. It really doesn't matter.
As of today, anybody in Nova Roma can belong to any "competing organization". However, there is a prohibition on serving on the board of Nova Roma (the Senate) and on the board of any "competing organization". That has been in place for some time, at least a year and probably more.
There might be some other minor errors that I've overlooked, but those are all the big corrections. Beyond that, it's a fundamentally true narrative of "how we got to where we are".
I'd also like to say that Caesar and Sulla have been doing a lot of speculating lately about who the plaintiffs are, why we are doing this, what our goals are, and what legal theories we are applying. Practically all of this speculation is wrong, which is amusing to me because I've been very straightforward with them about all of this. We do add new plaintiffs fairly regularly, and we're currently up to about 90 plaintiffs, but at the time of the first demand letter, we sent them a list of everyone who had joined the suit at that point. With each new communication, our attorney updated that list, so they should know the first 23 of those 90-odd names. If they've lost his email, I can resend it to them.
I also suspect that their misunderstanding of the legal issues has hampered their attorney's ability to prepare a proper defense. If they pay him to do enough research, he'll eventually figure it out, but so far that hasn't happened (we've spent several times what they have so far on legal advice), and until it does, I suspect that they have a rather false sense of confidence in the strength of their position.
Valete!
Publius Porcius Licinus