Post-Prototype

There were plenty of useful comments about the website itself, as well as its content.

There are two main theses:

First, Caesar had to be diplomatic in order to keep himself in Gaul, and to position himself so he could be successful militarily.  His need to be diplomatic lessens greatly over time, which corresponds with how many legions he had at a time.  Something I ought to add is how being diplomatic involves the attempt to avoid battle.

Second, there are some theories about how and when the books were written.  Either they were done each winter in camp, or published together around 51 B.C.  There is even a theory that both happened, which was plausible because of the rift between Caesar and the men in the Senate.  By using the graphs, I think that it is more likely that they were written within a particular context during the year, which would explain why on earth there is a section in the middle of Book 6 which talks about the cultural differences between the Gauls and Germans.
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It was also mentioned that I could use my map for each page to show where Caesar was in that particular book.  Such will be simple, and should work out.

I had some comments about the website being both too wordy and not enough.  If this thing is to exist on the internet, I think that being as efficient as possible with any writing is paramount.  Get the point across, show the evidence, move on.  This is supposed to be scholarly and public, and the public doesn't have the attention span needed, so I'll work on a balance of these things.

It still feels strange, going through all of these books and articles, since I still haven't found any source with a particular emphasis on diplomacy in Gaul.

So, the goal currently is to get the other pages up, Secundus through Octavus, then work on the introduction page, and also a conclusion page.  Convenience for the website will come later.

Cheers,
Dominic Martyne

LAUNCH

O Di, the mistakes I have made in coding.

I tried the methods shown in class, but there was something wrong.

I attempted to use only Notepad with File Zilla, but something was wrong.

Yet, as always, the internet has saved me.  I have not been able to upload much to the website as of yet, but it is bloody functional, and I'm happy for it!

http://dmmartyne.iweb.bsu.edu/

Now that I have the form down, the graphs put in, I need to plug in my text and references, which is much, much simpler.  However, the internet is meant for quick browsing, for looking at something side-to-side than left-to-right, top-to-bottom.  I've played with hyperlinks a little so far with references to Wikipedia and the Internet Classics Archive, and what I plan to do is to have clear links at the first mention of a particular tribe which leads to the relevant Wikipedia page about who they were, allowing for a quicker glance, and non-linear progression on the website.

The libri are all on the left, so one could go into any book to see the textual graph of Caesar first, followed by some contextualization, then down farther to the more technical aspects of how Caesar acted with the Gauls and Germans.

Flailing About in XML

Good evening!

I haven't any maps or textual graphs to show for now, but I've spent a sizable portion of this weekend working out how to do XML properly with the Free CSS templates that were shown in class last Odin's Day.  To help anyone who is unclear on just about anything regarding XHTML, here are a few links:

This is File Zilla

Here is Notepad++

Here is a YouTube link to what has saved me a bunch of time with many great short videos about how to set up your websites, especially with multiple pages...which I thought I found figure out on my own.  And didn't.

Combine these three things and there should be no trouble uploading anything for our projects!

One of the most salient things about using websites is how one can navigate them in a different manner than left to right, top to bottom.  The notion of sideways movement will have to come in in a big way for what I'm doing.  Much of the context of De Bello Gallico is outside of what I'm looking at, so there will be many clear links to relevant informational pages.  Luckily, Wikipedia's Classics stuff is superlative.

Valete,

Dominic Martyne

P.S.

Hagfish

Maps of Gaul

Cives,

One of the most interesting things about De Bello Gallico is that it gives a surprisingly concise definition of where things are in relation to each other.  Taking the idea from the Etruscans, they used straight lines, mountain ranges, and rivers to define territory.

Here are some useful maps I have been able to find:

With the end of the semester surprisingly close already, I believe that any map work will have to be done last.  What I think will be useful will be an interactive one based on the first map up there, which shows Caesar's movements quite well.  Also, it shows a useful time stamp for his movements, making his eight-year campaign much easier to understand.

Now that Voyant is working for me again, here's Book 5:

The end of this book is quite interesting.  Like previous chapters, it ends with a Roman victory, and generally follows the pattern of Caesar being mentioned, at least relative to the beginning and end.  However, even though the book ends with a Roman victory, the stage is set for all of Gaul to rise up against the Romans.  Book 6, however, follows a different pattern for Caesar:

Here we have the largest difference in any other book thus far.  In the middle is a long section on the culture and government of Gaul and Germany.  It focuses on how often they wage war, the social power of the druids, as well as their religion, which Caesar put into Roman terms.  Now, this is based on a conversation I had some years ago, but here Caesar talks about how these people worship Mercury moreso than other Gods, and the best explanation as to how he came to that conclusion is that he is referring to Odin, or rather, Wodin.

The Romans get bloodied here, albeit it is the loss of two cohorts, but even at the end here Caesar finds a way to come out on top.  Both the Senones and Carnutes betrayed Caesar, were defeated, and the instigator of the conspiracy was put to death, "after the custom of our ancestors."

Edit: I just had a funny thought about this strange interpolation of cultural information about the Gauld and Germans.  I think that Caesar is trying to make himself look better at the end to keep the pattern going.  Now, why do I think this?  Well, earlier in this life, Caesar held several religious positions, one of which was that of pontifex maximus, or "greatest priest."  The Roman calendar, before Caesar changed it, was a mess, and there was an entire month that could be shoved in whenever one needed extra time to do something...like win an election.  He had to be conscious of this, and the sudden dip is explained by the notion of him "buying time."  How the next book falls out might affirm this.

There is not much left for these charts, and the situation will only get worse from here, but, while it is the case that this chapter is different from every other because that pattern is missing, it would seem that here Caesar only has the heights or is not mentioned at all, which might suggest what he thought about his successes during this particular year in campaign.

More to come shortly,

Dominic Martyne