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So basically all the territories that were under the English crown in the Americas.

Canada, Bermuda, Bahamas, Florida, Jamaica, Antigua, St Kitts and Nevis, etc...

And not just joined the revolution but deliberately sent delegates to the continental meetings, overthrow their local governors, etc..

Basically the war is between the crown and all their English colonies in North America and the Caribbean.

Saint Augustine was founded in 1565 so it was already twenty years old by the time it happened. This was back when Queen Elizabeth was launching a war against Spain.

Also around the time the English established the lost colony of Roanoke in North Carolina.

This is a very interesting word in English.

It comes from the medieval Latin - Passio

You would get this word in strong sentences to emphasize.

- "They had a passionate love affair"

- "She left to pursue her passion projects"

- "What's your passion in life / what are you passionate about?"

But sometimes I feel it could be awkward to say.

I read this writer from Scotland, he is from the Georgian era, George II and George III, born 1711 and died in August of 1776.

He corresponded with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin, the main republic in those days were largely Switzerland and the Dutch Republic. He was not a Christian but did very much admire the culture and grace of France at that time. Not clean of criticisms, of course.

But one thing his essays have been able to convince an American like myself is that republics are in many ways quite rude and rowdy. There is not much emphasis on manners.

Of course, there is also that journalistic element of slander and sensationalism that always sparks dissensions. Yes, the UK media can be very sensational as well but it does tend to have more formality and respect for traditions than US media. Canada as well despite many scandals.

It's quite noticeable that throughout the world, one sees similar parallels to this as well, although there are nuances and exceptions.

I turned 30 years old last year and have felt very dissatisfied with my circumstances. I was working as freelancer and struggling to pay my debts. I recently got a job and have been paying things off together with helping tackle household expenses.

Much of this has come through sacrifices, I had to give up a lot of pleasures and privileges but looking back, I see it as a necessity in order for me to be where I am now.

I do have two friends in particular, both very different men, one is 31 and the other is also 30 like me. They both have a very strong resentment towards the world, institutions, laws, etc...

This is in Alberta, Canada, to give it more geographic and cultural context.

At any rate, I sometimes feel so bogged down when I spend time with them. One of them is very hedonic while the other is a doomer who consumes pessimistic news ad nauseam. Both of them work in menial jobs and spend their free time either in solitude or in the pursuit of corporeal pleasures.

Is it too late to maintain these friendships? Is there no hope for them to find solutions in life and become more adult?

I'm very involved in international cultural institutions (museums, libraries, historical societies, etc...) and this largely leans towards UK English. The same type of English that is spoken at the United Nations.

But whenever I consume American media, I notice there are these very cheeky little words in their English. It sort of has a jolly vocabulary, doesn't it?

I'm not talking about C-SPAN and PBS, Im talking about colloquial American English.

"Guy", "Dude", "Babe", "Bestie", "Doll", "dead-ass", "literally", "low-key", "clout", "flex", "hustle", "hack", "shady", etc...

I find "barking up the wrong tree" and "Threw me under the bus" charming and silly.

Also words like "normalcy" and their quirky approach to 'aluminium'.

It's making me view American English as more fluid, less rule-bound, prone to all sorts of twisted changes, etc...

Even comparing it to IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, one can see the difference.

Why does American English behave this way?

I know not every American speaks like this, it's just a casual observation from my own experiences.

Even in Canada, there is a noticeable difference in how vocabulary is approached.

Let's really zoom in on things over here.

From 395 to 423, we have Honorius in Mediolanum and Ravenna out West and over in Constantinople we have his big brother, Arcadius, and later his nephew, Theodosius II.

I remember this period vividly in my study because here the sources have this shift in narrative from focusing on the emperors to focusing on the courtiers, provincial leaders, and magister militii.

What a gang we have over here in these 28 years.

Stilicho, Gainas, Constantius III, Galla Placidia John Chrysostom, Eudoxia, Rufinus, the eunuch consul Eutropius, Anthemius, Olympus, and, of course, Alaric, Radagaisus, and the infamous Gildo from the Gildonic War. What an era this was. Not to mention all the people in the city like Jerome, Augustine, Prudentius, our historian Ammianus Marcellinus, the court poet, Claudius Claudianus, Pelagius, the heretic British monk, Telemachus the martyr who jumped in front of a gladiator fight, and many many other interesting figures.

Look back before the age of Honorius and Arcadius, the focus is very much on these rugged soldier emperors, the Aurelians and Gallienuses of earlier times, the two Valentinian brothers, the Constantinian emperors and Tertrarch leaders, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, the wild princes like Nero, Elagabalus, Commodus, etc...

Why this shift to the courtiers? Were the two brother emperors, Honorius and Arcadius, really that sheltered?

I heard that Honorius was a sort of sheltered kid who really loved birds and had a big aviary which he took care of. This largely comes from Olympiodorus of Thebes and Zosimus of Constantinople. Literary treatment focuses elsewhere in the empire. Even in Constantinople but especially out west.

There are some writers like Peter van Nuffelen (published by Cambridge) that suggests that these eastern writers had a sort of propaganda to project 'Eastern triumphalism'. In other words, focus on the crippling events of the West as a moral lesson.

Because eventually Aspar gets taken down and Leo I from Thrace sets the eastern empire going again while the West falls to predatory magister militii and foederatii demands.

Just one of those things I come across in his writings.

Goethe, Hume, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Mozart, Rossini, Petrarch, 17th century Dutch art, Byron, Schelling, Chamfort, La Rochefoucauld, etc...

We also get works from India, Classical Greece, and Ancient Rome that he admired

These gentlemen were quite cutting edge, patrons of excellent artists, eminent poets and comedians like Terence of Carthage, Ennius the father of Roman poetry, Polybius of Megalopolis, Panaetius of Rhodes, and many others.

The Cornelians serve as the first Hellenistic patrician Romans, a fascinating family that rocks the boat of the republic. They were the first family to really have this sort of distinct brand.

The philhellenic gens Cornelii.

Even the famous Gracchi Brothers are technically Cornelian on their maternal side.

But the main branch always had these ambitious bad boys, didn't it?

They were very stylish, had beach villas in bay of Naples, wore silk, spoke Greek, etc...

What about the aedile, Lucius Cornelius Spinther, displaying banners of Tyrian purple and Faustus, Sulla's son, who was quite the hotshot in Rome as well in terms of fashionable imports, Hellenized manners, wine, etc...

I mean eventually Caesar crushes them and the dominant family becomes the merging of the Julii and Claudii.

But back in the republic, the Cornelians were this cosmopolitan, charismatic, literary family that played a major role in how Rome itself changed as a city and empire

I figured I would mention them since we largely think of such bold hellenistic style being associated with emperors, but the Cornelians were the pioneers of it.

I learned about this bloke from Gibbons and Ammianus Marcellinus, they both make note of him.

This man was of the Anicii gens, the most prominent family in Rome, donors to the church, and the family of both emperors and popes.

One patrician, Sextus Claudius Probus, was incredibly wealthy and owned estates in Gaul, North Africa, Italy, Illyria, etc... this man owned thousands of slaves, had tenant farmers in his lands, and also saw both his sons become consuls at the same time.

The year is 395 also known as the Year of the Consulship of Anicius Probinus & Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius.

His grandsons were Petronius Maximus and Anicius Olybrius

Sometimes I come across this misconception of late Rome where people think the patricians were just these frumpy men sitting in a mansion all day and had no real impact on imperial policy. That the honestiores of Rome were just sort of 'going with the flow'

But not really, a lot of them were very active.

Yes, you know what Im talking about. The haunting music in the minor keys sprinkled throughout his career.

What actually got me into Mozart originally in my youth was not "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" it was the Requiem and Symphony No. 40

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe knew this dark side of Mozart's music, Beethoven loved it, the philosopher Kierkegaard loved Don Giovanni.

That ending is also so spectacular, bold and outrageous.

The Piano Concerto No. 20 is another one together with this very beautiful early piece, the Andante from Piano Concerto No. 4

This is young Mozart in his early teens composing a fragile melancholic piece in G minor. A delicious little nocturnal serenade in the second movement from his first Flute Quartet (1777), this is Mozart in his early 20s in Mannheim.

Milos Forman's Amadeus (1986) alluded to this side of him as well.

I don't know what it is but there is this sort of posh boutique Latin energy to them. The illustrious emperor and the Augusta. Forget this image.

Im talking about the time when both of these two were married to their previous partners. Scribonia was pregnant with Julia when Octavius ran off to meet up with Livia, who was also pregnant with her husband's child, Livius Drusus. Keep in mind, you also had little Tiberius as a kid going through this whole affair.

Honestly, it feels very "tabloid". At the same time there's a bit of this "Bonnie and Clyde" energy to them. Judging from the primary sources, these two were scandalous adulterous lovers that rose their middle fingers at Mos Maiorum.

A pregnant Claudian matron having an affair with the grandson of a money-changer, a novo homo, a noveau elite more or less. The Claudians going back to the founding of Rome and this affair was outrageous. There are also recordings that Octavius wore wool clothes instead of silk, linen, and cotton.

Here he is at 24, and Livia at 20. Some folks were outraged by Octavius, they basically saw him as a warlord. There were even a blockade of grain imports by Pompey, causing a panic in Rome. It's crazy to think how dependent Rome had become of imported food even this early.

But also, they were a couple with no biological children. None. It makes me really wonder who they were. Why they approached each other in this chaotic time to have an affair instead of just politely staying in their place and following the priests and conscript fathers.

It really sheds light on how the republic collapsed. I mean luckily for him many of his enemies/rivals were weak and he had a strong sense of diplomacy. Similar to Constantine in a way.

But he also did Proscriptio, the hit list for cash, the heads being piked right in the Roman Forum. It's insanely graphic to visualize. Maecenas plays a huge role here as this sort of dandy equestrian mingling with these families for pro-Octavian motives.

I really enjoyed the German series Barbaren and felt they did a decent job on the Augustan era Roman camps by Germania.

It does make me wonder tho, how did camps look like when Valentinian I was meeting the Quadi? How about a hundred years ago during the age of Aurelian when he was fighting Zenobia? A lot of things happened in those one hundred years.

How about Majorianus' campaigns? Or how about Septimius? How were camps like in Britannia vs Parthia?

I recall that Mithras was a popular figure among the Roman legions. What about during Christianization? Do we see an enormous Chi-Rho designed on the tents?

Who really were these Roman lads? Here we have these Italians and Gallic cavalrymen playing bodyguard for Ptolemy XII The Flute Player. Courtesy of Aulus Gabinius. Marcus Antonius was also the pivotal commander in this mission.

Of course, this was all illegal and the Conscript Fathers viewed Aulus Gabinius as a scoundrel and got him banished. He eventually dies in Salona.

Caesar's Bello Alexandriae is a fascinating book, especially book 3 when we get the commentary on the Gabiniani. This is the Alexandria squabbling court of Cleopatra and her siblings. The Gabiniani are basically a clan of foreign mercenaries on the court of Ptolemy XII's children.

The Gabiniani had the major figure of Lucius Septimius, the executioner of Pompey.

We have Rufio, Caesar's commander who watches over things with three legions. He was the son of a libertus back in Rome. Suetonius says that he was the exoletus of Caesar. Basically a boytoy. But what other source do we have here? On both the early Gabiniani and the late Gabiniani?

We also get the horrific deaths of the sons of Bibulus, the Roman commander fighting the Parthians. These two young men were sent as ambassadors by their father and were killed. Like what were they thinking? What source do we have on this?

Appian of Alexandria writes about the Gabiniani being thugs on the streets, menacing folks, and acting as a sort of thug overlords. But of course Appian was also a bureaucrat of the Roman state.

But do we have any other details on the lives of these Gabiniani? Greek commentary? epigraphs? epistolary material? etc...

Appreciate the answers

Obviously this is your opinion.

The question is meant to stir a debate and discussion.

Is the constitution of Vermont better than that of Virginia? Why? Does the constitution of California ensure better human rights than that of its neighbors? Which state constitution does the best for students and teachers? Which one has the fairest property laws?

Louis Brandeis, one of the justices during the Roosevelt era referred to this system of different state constitutions as 'laboratories of democracy'.

I have an understanding of Canada, Australia, Scotland, Ireland, and England. I would like to leanr more about the US and how these states differ in their constitutions. They are all mini republics in a way.

Hawaii and New Mexico, for example, are very different from West Virginia and New Hampshire.

What makes a state constitution strong? What makes it weak?

It's something that was recently brought to my attention, Muhammed's visit the Roman empire.

The fascinating thing is that this was under the emperor Maurice (582-602)

He visited Tyre, Phoenicia Maritima, surely must have seen the Hippodrome built by Hadrian and Septimius Severus, the bustling fashion trade that happens there, the Latin and Greek tourists, the statues, etc..

He visited Gaza city which was patronized by Hadrian and Augustus, this was also a vibrant wine region back in the day surprisingly.

Damascus was a city of symbols and statues everywhere, many busts of the rulers, images of saints, etc...

What do we know about the eastern cities at this time? No doubt Tyre was the most elite town.

How were tariffs and identification done? How were the trade fairs like?

Obviously, this doesn't apply to private accounts.

Im referring here to public accounts where users are looking to gain followers, the influencer economy.

There are all sorts of people ranting their grievances, promoting their pornography page, doing surface-level activism, posting artificially generated content, shallow nationalist memes, religious feuds, "hot takes", and just plain old attention-seeking.

Is it impossible to deactivate all these posts? I don't follow these accounts, why did Instagram flood my feed with them?

I understand the advertisements are part of the package. Im talking about non-advertisement photos and reels that pop into my feed.

It's no surprise that we have mostly discourse by British writers at this. The prominent Frenchmen we do get like Voltaire, Diderot, Holbach, Helevetius, among many others are quite openly anglophobic at times but also they sometimes praise England for having certain laws that hinder tyranny together with their protestant religion, which they felt made them less prone to despotism.

David Hume and many others are very open about this. All sorts of slurs are used like "Papist" and "Popery". The Dutch also had deep suspicions of France and kept panicking about their southern frontiers.

We also get certain Italians and Rousseau who hate France because of the opera and theatre scene in Paris at the time. Wolfgang Mozart also said some nasty things about the French and never really cared for them.

But France does have commercial ties with royals in India and Spain through the shared Bourbon dynasty. I dont know much about relations with other countries too.

Im just trying to picture the Versailles of Louis XV in a different light. It's very hard to find positive foreign material about them and the other aristocrats.

This is the age of Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Trajan, Plinius Minor, and even Martial's late career.

What strikes me here is how Augustan the senatorial Latin is. This is the reign of Trajan and Hadrian, the empire at its most splendid height and the Latin feels very bricked up. Tacitus and Plinius Minor, Trajan are great examples of this. It has that smooth rhetorical gravitas to it. Which they took very seriously, and it sounds very introverted, especially Tacitus.

My spark of interest me with how Juvenal stands out. In a similar way to Martial who is also extremely obscene but also very funny

There was also get so many peregrini in Rome, foreign neighborhoods, all those Alexandrians and Lydians in the Baths of Nero, the cooks, the dancers, the athletes and gladiators, etc...

This Latin up in the Palatine and Capitoline must have been extremely archaic and stiff to folks.

What material and information do we have of this?