by Aldus Marius on Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:52 am
Salve, Cleopatra, et Salvete omnes...
I don't think anyone is seriously thinking of taking the SVR offline. Coruncanius was in the habit of saying desperate things and advocating desperate measures, even when there were no "desperate times" to justify them. He often struck me as a brittle personality, easily upset by anything that looked even remotely like conflict. He wandered into a perfectly normal Comitia debate, on a thread started by a Founder, and felt "caught in a crossfire". What would have happened if he'd served on the Concilium (as at one time appeared likely)? --I think one week of honest give-and-take would have had him putting in for Veteran's benefits.
There was no "crisis" in the SVR until he created one. He slammed down his office, dissolved the whole administration, and walked out on the reform process. It unnerved him to hear us talk of reform; yet by his actions he made that reform unavoidable. I doubt he sees the irony; now he claims that we manufactured a crisis. And he'd rather see the SVR eliminated than have it go any direction which he was not willing to go himself.
And what was the Number One worst thing anyone in the Societas could do as far as he was concerned? --To have any dealings whatsoever with NovaRoma.
Domina Aelia, I have said for a long time that we really need a public account of the history between us and NovaRoma. This would answer questions like yours, keep me from getting PM'ed every time somebody raises the subject, and give the newcomer the context for understanding a lot of what gets said and done around here. I will try to be brief...
NovaRoma was founded in March of 1998 for the purpose of recreating and reviving ancient Roman civilization to the extent possible in the modern world. This was a great idea, almost identical to my own mission in life; but though things have improved somewhat in the last few years, the concept has suffered brutally from its founders and a number of the earlier members.
The founding members were mainly conservative, and Roman Pagans to the core. NR was originally started to revive the Religio Romana, and anything that compromised this goal was tantamount to treason. So of course NR ran into trouble when it acquired its first Christian and Jewish members (they were barred from office); when SCAdians, reenactors and other 'roleplayers' wanted to join and share their considerable organizational expertise (they were distrusted on sight); when younger members aspired to magistracy (age requirements were installed ex post facto, and arbitrarily enforced); and, most notoriously, when a transgendered Civis wanted the Censores to change his name from the feminine he'd been born with to the masculine that best described him.
That was me.
For very many of us, this was the last straw. Most of us had been Citizens for between one and three years; I'd been an active and contributing member since four months after NR was founded. People could not believe what was happening to me. And all of the Novaromani in my camp had experienced the same things I did: one long run of Listwars, malice masquarading as politics, Magistrates vying to see Who Could Do What to Whom, and near-complete inability to even identify, let alone discuss, Roman historical and cultural issues. So NR did not succeed in really replicating anything...except the backstabbing viciousness of the late Republic.
That being the case, we--myself, Gnaeus Draco, Horatius Piscinus, Silvanius Florus, Moravius Vado, Caius Aelius Ericius, and many others--all left the OP on the Ides of March of 2001, or as soon afterwards as prior commitments allowed. We formed an e-List called [Romanitas] in which we discussed whether we even wanted to form any kind of Roman organization; and if so, what its nature and form should be. My essay, "A New Foundation", was one product of this group.
The Societas Via Romana is the other.
We knew we mainly wanted to discuss and share about Ancient Rome in a friendly and informative way. We knew we did not want to be any kind of micronation; indeed, we wanted to keep politics to an absolute minimum, having seen it destroy the Other Place. And some of us, from the very first, were extremely reluctant to accept people who were also members of NovaRoma, or to have any contact with that organization whatsoever.
Tiberius Coruncanius was one of these. I do not know what his experience(s) of the OP might have been, or even if he was ever a Citizen of that Place. But he has a highly-negative image of them, which was shared by most of us who'd been in the original exodus.
However, in the interim, the rest of us have learned to talk rationally about NovaRoma. He has not. I sent him a very long PM describing NR as it is today--an organization of close to 2000 members, all over the world, with more interest in holding Roman gatherings than in masturbating on the Internet. Even still, it is not exactly the House of Sweetness and Light; but it's a lot better than it was, and is finally getting off the floor after a disastrous beginning. Magistrates have posted their opinions that ex-Cives like me are owed an apology, and that NovaRoma had fallen into the habit of legislating things that were none of its business. I do believe the Place has even learned to laugh at itself.
But the critical thing about NovaRoma is that, whatever our opinion of the thing, it is a big part of the Roman scene. We can't get away from them; they hold, sponsor and attend Roman events, arrange lodgings, sell merchandise, talk to people. This was my main point in my letter to the Consul: that we can't keep pretending NR doesn't exist; that we cannot arbitrarily dismiss them as 'the Enemy'; that we need to base our assessments of them on current information, not on a four-year-old grudge; in short, that there was no longer any purpose to be served by pretending there wasn't an elephant in the room.
I never got a reply from the Consul to my PM. But it was right after that that he went all non-linear on us, ranting about our wrong direction, NovaRoma's skirts, Aventine Seccessions, Menenius Agrippa, making nice with the Enemy and all that rot.
So maybe this whole thing was my fault? >({|;-)
In fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.