Nostalgia

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Nostalgia

Postby Q Valerius on Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:33 pm

You know what I miss? I miss the old system of doing things. I miss the elaborate Senate, the fancy elections, the Patrician and Plebeian distinctions; while those may still be there, I miss the social movement incorporated with them. Last year we set out to be a "web community" instead of a "bureaucratic regime", and in the process, we lost a little of both.

I miss the emphasis on the SVR, and not the phpbb. I miss feeling Roman.
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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:42 pm

Gosh Sceri, I know what you mean. In the discussions leading up to the adoption of the new regulae, I worried about the lose of "color" in SVR: the titles, the gentes, etc. We did lose something.

Two things may give us comfort, however. One is the view taken by the curatores that just because something isn't explicitly mentioned in the new regulae, it is not prohibited. So we can keep on awarding patrician rank, establishing provinciae, etc. Second, in the Curia we are engaged in a discussion about how to recognize individual sodales in creative and "colorful" ways. So there is plenty of reason to hope that we will gradually move out of this gray landscape.

By the way, you can contribute anytime by proposing a motion in the Comitia to award a special title or avatar (maybe a laurel crown?) to an individual. Hades, you can propose anything you want!

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Postby Q Valerius on Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:15 am

Salvete Tergeste et Sodales.

Yes, but its still a watered down system. What we have now is good for normal fora, but this is a societas, not merely a forum, and as a societas Romana, we ought to still feel Roman.

I think what we ended up with was a mistake - probably a mistake with good intentions, but a mistake nonetheless. Does anyone else (besides you and I, Tergeste) share this sentiment?

In pace.
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Postby Q Valerius on Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:21 am

I was looking at our old Regulae and thinking to myself why this was ever so drastically changed? Especially now as we grow closer to organizations like Nova Roma, I think a special emphasis of Romanitas should be reinstituted. I am currently drawing up coherent plans for the Comitia to vote upon. However, I do not wish for my actions to be done in vain. Am I alone in this thinking, or are there other sodales who also wish to feel the Romanitas again?

in optima pace,

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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:26 am

Salve Sceri,

I think that we can feel more Romanitas without necessarily reinstituting the old regulae. They were repealed for good reason: there weren't (and still aren't) enough of us active members to fill all the offices. In fact, I would vote against reinstituting the old regulae. Other than that, I'm all ears. What do you have in mind? Individual titles for the officers instead of the bland curatores? OK, I'll run for Consul or at least Master of Horse!
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Postby Q Valerius on Fri Jul 21, 2006 5:59 am

I wouldn't recommend instituting the old regulae either. But there are some things in there that I miss. Although you are correct that the current regulae allow for sodales to propose near anything, I don't think it's accurate enough for the purpose of SVR.

On the officials, perhaps it was not being filled because the functions and duties were not compatible with SVR? Were we thinking about only the forum and not the societas? Are we neglecting the societas still?

I think if we place more emphasis on the societas, perhaps we can draw in people looking for a Nova Roma without the absurdities or draconian demand?

I know of several people interested in a "role-playing" environment - perhaps we can incorporate a more hierarchical structure into the societas itself, not just the forum.

I know we've before talked about expanding the fraternitas, closer ties inter gentem, and, as our old regulae stated, re-enactment of Roman life, politics, culture, etc...

Moreover, as one of the issues brought up during the interregnum, when we decemviri were called to establish the Res Publica again by a certain consul, deciding how to keep new sodales was an important issue, and as we can tell by looking at the forum, we do seem to have decreased activity, with short spurts here or there.

Now, I do understand maintaining proper boundaries, and the forum, currently the life of SVR, shouldn't be shaken up so much, I think we have room for a more creative SVR, one that, as our old regulae state, not only is for discussing academic matters, but preserving Romanitas.
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Ego Quoque, or, Marius does a 'Me Too' post

Postby Aldus Marius on Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:07 am

Salvete amici...

I have posted extensively on the same subject and from the same point of view. Some of my stuff is in the Curia (formerly known as the Senate), some in Comitia, some scattered about in other areas of the Forum. But by far the bulk of it is in the Concilium deliberations, which were moved to the Comitia once the new Regula was adopted. I won't make you go there. (You can if you like, though; I was eloquent that year.) In sum: I find the current system colorless, amorphic, and confusing.

Consuls, Censors, Praetores, Aediles...Orders, Provinces, the Collegia, the Senate...all were written out of the new Regula. (I could've used a Praetor last week.) What's left...? --A charter for a well-run Web site, with Board and chatroom attached. I had that much on my own Page, the Roman Outpost, ten years ago...and an e-list besides. The way things stand right now, it is difficult even for someone with a long memory to think of the SVR in terms other than as an Internet resource. Maybe that's just your confuzzled Webmaster speaking; the site and the Forum have been my world for the last several months, and it's hard to pull my head out of the code some days. But it's a far cry from the magistri and discipuli, the praeceptores to guide the newbies, the rectores of actual collegia, the provinciae and circuli I had envisioned way back in the neverwhen (go ahead, ask), when the SVR was going to be not just about learning the Romans, but being one...and helping the next person to become one.

There's a thread in the Comitia called Towards a Better SVR. In it, several founding members discussed their visions for this community. The train of thought is rather broken-up now since the abrupt departure of one of our last two Consuls, Tiberius Coruncanius, who had a lot to say on this subject and took all his posts with him. But I re-posted a talking-paper I wrote for the Yahoo group [romanitas], in which our future conditores, having just left Nova Roma almost en masse, kicked ideas around about whether they wanted to form a Roman Entity of their own, and if so, what its nature might be. The paper is called "A New Foundation", and still represents my two bits on what the Societas looked like to me back when we all were excited about it.

I have enjoyed my experience with the Societas. To the extent that it was going to be a scholarly yet friendly community of Roman enthusiasts and Romans-in-Spirit, I have not been disappointed. Perhaps it felt more Roman when most of us were fresh from an environment where we had gentes and Citizenship, the two great forms of Belonging that greet the newcomer to Nova Roma. (These may be a large part of that organization's appeal.) In that case, Romanness is something we each brought with us...and it hasn't gone away.

But there are environments in which Romanitas flourishes; those in which it takes a brutal beating; and those in which it just gets by. I believe inner Romanitas (as opposed to interest in Rome) has been "just getting by" in the Societas for some time now, certainly since the tepid restructure we blessed ourselves with last summer. We lightened the hand on the reins, certainly; but we've lost any sense of guidance. What is in the SVR now for the sodales? Do we have real-world activity, do we recruit our friends and interested strangers, can we (re)create a more close-knit learning experience for new members...? If we only meet online, this will stay an Internet society. What we need instead is our own version of a great Belonging; not borrowed from any other group, but one we make for ourselves.

Any ideas? Quid censites, amici...?

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Postby Q Valerius on Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:45 am

Gratias tibi, mi care Mari.

Actually, these past few days I've been scouring the forum for bits and pieces found in threads for ideas for a more Roman SVR. I heartily agree with Marius that I want to put the Romanitas back into SVR, and not merely have it a nice website for discussing Roman antiquity. There's no allure in it, and there's many better run websites (or at least more active) for these dealings. While we definitely need to keep what we have of SVR, it could really use a little salt and paprika to spice up the life.

I also am taken by Marius' idea that we should involve a real life sequence to SVR's internet community. I would strongly caution against anything resembling NovaRoma, though. I don't want a micronation, but merely a societas, a sodalitas, a phratra. (for some reason, Greek ain't working here. Hopefully that'll be fixed when I update the site as well).

I also like the idea of the gentes playing a crucial part in the SVR. It's unfortunate that so many nomina here are of a non-Roman gens, the gens Dionysia (not to knock it or anything), but even there I don't see a lot of real patron-client and inter-gentes relations blooming.

In short, this website is becoming like so many other websites out there. If we're truly a societas, we need to give more.
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