Ask A Historian

[houseofcantor]

He was a total nutbag.

First century BC Rome was a strange place.  It's hard to convey into English exactly what a Roman meant by "dignitas" but Lucius Cornelius Sulla was a scion of the Cornelii, an old Patrician powerhouse whereas Marius was a plebian.  Who can know what Sulla thought of that or what slight to his dignitas he imagined from this low-born scum?

Curiously, when Caesar fought Pompey, Caesar was the Patrician representing the populaires while Pompey was the plebian representing the optimates.  Civil War has a way of fucking things up.

Could dignitas is this context be seen as similar to the Chinese concept of face?

If I may weigh in on JFK,

Between Sam Moore and Bugliosi, there is no 'there' there.

That dumb question came from watching some JFK thing on netflix which looked like enough of an answer from here. I'm not familiar with those people, and I'm definitely not a conspiracy nut. I'm just a regular nut.