by Aldus Marius on Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:10 am
Salvete iterum, amici Romani,
> ([Cassius] has learned his lesson about mistakes made with NR he says).
Putting this out there where Cassius and Vedius can see it:
1) Start with the community, not the governing structure. Collegia/Sodalitates; discussion and revival of arts, crafts, trades, language, literature...in short, lifeways. Reflections on history, both ancient and recent, the better to mine the gold from those experiences and avoid the mistakes. If you're going to make mistakes, at least let them be new and interesting ones.
2) Do not claim to be the "legitimate heir" to anything. If the members regard themselves as Byzantine, want to live like 21st-century Byzantines, and wish to encourage and mentor each other in their Byzanti-humanity, awesome. But call it what it is: a cultural-interest or even cultural-revivalist group. Not a "sovereign" anything.
This could be modelled less like a "nation" and more like an expatriate ethnic community. In California alone I met Native Hawai'ians, Armenians, Mayans, Assyrians (yes!) and a number of other peoples whom the average Joe thinks belong to the past. Persians who do not regard themselves as Iranians. Alexandrian (Egyptian) Greeks. The whole Celtic revival at its best. Romans (us) who are not Catholics or even Italians. Again, the emphasis should be cultural rather than political. Nova Roma is technically a political simulation first and foremost, however much the people who run it want to think of it as something with a broader band in the spectrum of the humanities.
3) While we're discussing politics, don't let the group be pinned to any specific era or form of government. Otherwise you'll miss getting the best of all eras.
4) Lose the anti-Muslim slant.
The Arabs, not the monks, are the main reason we even have as much of ancient literature and science as we do. They rediscovered it as they rolled over Greece, Roman Africa, southern Europe; because they were not Christians, they didn't destroy anything just because they didn't think it was "godly" enough. They read the philosophy, struggled with it, and finally assimilated it into their faith and worldview. They were the first people who, never having lived in the Greco-Roman world, still found it worthy of emulation and made it part of themselves. Not like the Western Church at all. We owe them.
5) Per deos immortales, know when it's time to bail out. You do not get extra points for watching the thing go all the way down the crapper. Bolt when you hear the flush, OK? >({|8-p
In amicitia et fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.