point-patriae:

Latin, literally point country, meaning each polis as a separate country

 

Roman citizenship:

the edict issued in 212 AD by Caracalla (Antonine Constitution) ended the exclusive nature of Roamn citizenship when it declared all freemen & free women in the Empire were to receive full Roman citizenship & rights.

 

Realm:

community or territory over which a sovereign rules, commonly used to describe a kingdom or other monarchical or dynastic state.  A realm is distinct from a polis, a single & specific, exclusive geographic point, by nature a small, habitation.  Spengler suggests that the broad region, the realm now replaces the more distinct, point polis.

 

Roman army (as corps): 

Until 107 BC the Roman army was a militia: service was for a short period & restricted to a small class of volunteer citizens (well off property owners) who had to supply their own arms.  This militia was ineffective in handling crisis or expanding the Empire.  The Marian reforms instituted a permanent professional army with a fixed term, open to all regardless of class.  Salaries were provided (& included war booty); soldiers were equipped, enjoyed retirement benefits & were granted citizenship.  These reforms massively improved performance: the standing army of professionals was always available in a crisis & effectively extended the Empire.  Loyalties shifted from the state (the city Roma) to the generals.  Roman generals had to promise rewards — either booty captured abroad or land awarded to them on their return — to attract soldiers to their banners.  Because commanders were responsible for making sure these promises were kept, the troops increasingly felt personal loyalty to these generals rather than abstract loyalty to the city.  Thus the soldiers had a direct financial incentive to support their generals' ambitions.  It became common for generals to prolong command by using the army to influence the senate.  This professional body became a major factor in the future civil wars. 

 

Legatus:

Latin, a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Army holding full power over his legion; during the Republic he received large shares of the military's rewards at the end of a successful campaign, making the position lucrative; legates were drawn from among the senatorial class & were appointed by the Senate

 

exercitus Scipionis, Crassi:

Latin phrase, noun exercitus (a disciplined body of men, an army) + proper noun (of Scipio, of Crassus); meaning the army of Scipio or the army of Crassus; Spengler’s point is that until 212 AD armies were the tools of a specific commander or legate, not agents of the polis;

 

exercitus Romanus:

Latin phrase, noun exercitus (a disciplined body of men, an army) + proper noun (Roman); meaning the Roman army.  Spengler’s point is that until 212 AD armies forces of a specific commander, very different from THE army of an abstract idea (e.g. the Roman state).

 

civis Romanus:

Latin, a Roman citizen; citizenship in Rome was a privileged political & legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws, property & governance; he enjoyed a wide range of privileges & protections defined in detail by the Roman state.  Before 212 AD, only inhabitants of Italia held full Roman citizenship; after 212 AD this distinction ends, everyone had civis Romanus (other than slaves).

 

Roman civic deities (abolished): * see EndNote<A>

Although the Edict of 212 AD is nominally political in nature, conferring citizenship on the masses, it also has a religious element (unfortunately obscured in the fragmentary nature of the edict’s physical survival).  The civic deities were Jupiter, Juno and Minerva & their temple was on Rome's Capitoline Hill.  This triad held a central place in the public religion of Rome.  Since official Roman cults were exclusive, membership in this cult was barred to non-Roman citizens.  Cicero states: “Every state has its own cult, Laelius; we have ours."  Consequently, when Caracalla granted political citizenship (equality) to the non-citizen masses, he was inferentially also admitting the equality of foreign cults with Roman cults.  Political inclusion ended the religious exclusion of Rome’s civil religion.

 

Imperial Army (post 212 AD): 

Prior to 212 AD the Legions (formations of heavy infantry, recruited from citizens) were the symbol of the dominance of the Italian "master nation" over its subject peoples.  The Auxilia were regiments (smaller formations then Legions) providing specialists (cavalry, light infantry, archers) as well as some heavy infantry.  They were recruited from non-citizen of the empire (90% of the population);  as non-citizens they had second class status.  Caracalla’s edict of 212 AD, giving Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, in effect ended the distinction between the citizen legions & auxiliary regiments.  No longer were the Legions socially superior to their auxiliary counterparts.

 

separate legions:

The first legions levied in Republican Rome were nondescript & simply numbered 1 through 4; this pattern continued through the 1st century BC when Pompey personally raised & financed several legions in 84 B.C.; he named them the 1st & 2nd Legions.  He went on to raise the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th & 9th Legions.  In 61 BC Julius Caesar (as governor of Spain) raised a new legion locally, he called it the 10th.  Subsequently he raised six more, calling them the 11th through the 16th.  Early in his reign, Augustus began to bestow titles on legions (Legion VI Victrix) as rewards or to celebrate their land of origin.  Later emperors granted titles to legions for varying reasons; for instance III Legion “Parthica” in 197 AD by Septimius Severus, for their campaign against the Partians.  These names gave its history & reminded the legionnaires of their predecessors glorious victories & achievements and encouraged them to follow their example.

 

fides exercituum: * see Endnote<B>

Latin, idiom, inscription found on Roman coins; refers to the bond of trust between soldiers, denotes “a soldier’s trust”, a very generic sentiment, used to unify the army in the wake of the civil wars (fides meaning faith or trust; exercituum meaning army)

 

fides exercitus: * see Endnote<C>

Latin, idiom, between 235-284 AD minting coins to honour the army became much more common.  Although "fides" was a popular theme for inscriptions before this time bit was rarely used in a military context until around 220 AD.  The 3rd century crisis led to a massive increase in coins with such inscriptions.  This proliferation reflects the willingness of the Emperor to recognize that he ruled WITH the support of the army (fides exercitus = loyalty of the army) and to use coinage to create a closer bond of identity.  Coinage inscriptions might be directed towards specific units of the army such as legions (fides legionum =loyalty of the legions) or cavalry, or Pretorian guard.  This reflects a wide array of support for the emperor and that this array of military support was replacing the old fashioned general good will.

 

legion (deities special to each):

The Roman military was a very religious organization & many cults proliferated in the camps.  Some were universal (such as the state divinities- the Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, past & present emperors, or Mithras).  Many however were very specific to particular legions or units.  Standards played a major role: the signa (standard of the smaller units), the aquila (eagle of the Legion), the vexillum (a square flag with the zodiac signifying a significant date for the unit such as when the legion as born).  Eagles were common to all legions but the signa & vexillum were particular to each unit.  On religious festival days (such as the Rosalia signorum) the standards were anointed with oils, decorated with garlands & may have received sacrifice on a sanctified alter.  The eagle along with the emperor’s image was kept in a stone shrine.  Another particular cult, specific to each legion, was the genii, a cult which thrived between the 1st & late 4th centuries AD.  Every unit had its own particular genius, that is the divine nature innate in everything, the spiritual aspect of the particular legion or unit.  Dedications to the genii were made by the commanding officer (legatus if a legion) on behalf of his men.  Dedications (for the person own welfare or his family & friends welfare) might also be made collectively by the unit, or privately by individuals.

 

Saxon Emperors (German impulse to the South & ruin): * see EndNote<D>

aka Ottonian dynasty, a dynasty of 4 German kings who initiated the German pre-occupation with Italy & the Imperial title.  This pre-occupation had profound long term consequences.  Although a confederated realm of German princedoms existed as early as 843 AD, German national identity was still weak as late as 1800.  This was due to the autonomous nature of the princely states inside the Holy Roman Empire.  Most inhabitants in the Empire (outside of those ruled by the emperor directly) identified themselves with their prince, not with the emperor, nor did they identify with the German realm as a whole.  This internal division became known as the "practice of kleinstaaterei", or the "practice of small-statery".  Only with the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 did German nationalism began growing to become irritable in the middle of the 19th century.

 

Hölderlin (German impulse to the South & ruin):

Although Hölderlin (1770-1843) never travelled to Italy or Greece, he did fall deeply in love with southern (meaning Greek) religion.  He was devoted to Greek mythology & saw the Greek gods as living forces whose presence manifests itself to humans in sun & earth, sea  & sky.  His poetry succeeded in naturalizing the forms of classical Greek verse in German & melding Christian and classical themes.  His most famous works were Hyperion & the tragedy, Der Tod des Empedokles (The Death of Empedocles).  For him being a poet meant exercising the priestly function of mediator between gods and humans.  However he was also deeply Lutheran & the strain of divided allegiance remained a permanent condition of his existence.  It all proved too much & in the late 1790s his mental condition declined & with the death of his illicit lover in 1802 his mind broke.  In 1806 was sent to a clinic.  His condition was deemed incurable & he was given lodging by a carpenter, Ernst Zimmer.  He spent the final 36 years of his life in Zimmer's residence, and died in 1843.

 

Nietzsche (German impulse to the South & ruin):

Early 1889 Nietzsche went completely mad while in Turin Italy; he was institutionalized that year.  Although released in 1890 for the rest of his life was cared for by his mother & later sister.  He never published again.  Spengler much like Hölderlin fell in love with Antiquity & developed an aesthetic theory based on Greek religion.  Although the term Apollonian and Dionysian is linked to his The Birth of Tragedy (1872), they were also employed by Hölderlin decades before him.  This premise holds that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "artistic impulses" formed dramatic arts.  This critical fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians.  Nietzsche believed (erroneously according to Spengler) that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles represented the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy.

 

South Pole (exploration):

the first & most famous “race to the poles” occurred in 1911 when the Norwegian Amundsen & the Englishman Scott competed to be the first men at the south Pole.  The Norwegian won buy a few days, Scott was not so lucky, he & his entire party died from exposure.

 

North Pole (exploration):

The US explorer Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908; in 1909

the US Navy engineer Robert Peary also claimed the honour.   Both claims have been questioned however.  The first claimed flight over the Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by US naval officer Richard E. Byrd & pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft.  The first consistent, verified, and scientifically convincing attainment of the Pole was on 12 May 1926, by Norwegian Amundsen and his US sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth from the airship Norge.

 

global colonial & economic system: * see EndNote<E>

The greatest single colonial system of the 19th & 20th centuries was the British Empire, which in 1918 was approaching its zenith.  The largest empire in history & for over a century the foremost global power.  By 1913, it held sway over 412 million people (23% of the world population); in 1920, covered 13,700,000 square miles or ¼ of the Earth's total land area.

 

Meister Eckhardt (world dominated by thought):

While in Paris (1302) Eckhart developed & lectured on a new thesis (against Aquinas).  He contends that the absolute principle (the absolute cause: God) is pure intellect and not being.  According to this view, being is always caused & thus presupposes intellect, itself without being, as the cause of being.  Eckhart holds that being is, in intellect, nothing other than intellect and, therefore, not simply being, but instead being that has been elevated to intellect.   

 

Kant (world dominated by thought):

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781) was written towards the end of the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment was a reaction to the rise & successes of modern science in the 16th & 17th centuries.  Newton’s spectacular achievement engendered widespread confidence and optimism about the power of human reason to control nature & improve human life.  Kant tells us that Enlightenment is about thinking for oneself rather than letting others think for you:

                                        Our age is the age of criticism, to which everything must submit. Religion through its holiness and legislation through its                                                        majesty commonly seek to exempt themselves from it. But in this way they excite a just suspicion against themselves, and                                                    cannot lay claim to that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand its free and public                                            examination.

                                                                                       (extract from the Critique of Pure Reason)