Caractacus Law Review

Comments

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I wish all law reviews were like this. The country would be a lot better off.

Eh, Daivd?

[DaivdBehar]

I am with the Romans.

I would have offered him a free trip to Rome, with guarantees of safety, to see what his country could become before the conflict. He just didn't know.

War is the greatest idiocy, waste, and crime of all.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Did ancient Celtic languages use cuneiform? Or is this just a Gilbert and Sullivan's reference?

[santamonica811]

Well the G/S song does reference the crimes of Heliogabalus. That's enough of a law hook to include the post here, IMO. 🙂

[Sasha Volokh]

Just G&S.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Criminal punishments according to the code of Hammurabi: A guide to the different methods of execution."

42 Akkad Journal of Criminology 66

[Doug Huffman]

I have enjoyed the youtuber Sargon of Akkad.

[Jerry B.]

How about a little translation for those of us without the secret decoder rings.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Penn law reviews publish the standard system of legal citation called the Bluebook. The cover, which is is very recognizable to legal practitioners, is solid blue with the text,

THE BLUEBOOK
A Uniform System of Citation

https://www.legalbluebook.com/buy

Uruk was an ancient Sumerian city-state: the Sumerians used a form of writing called cuneiform, as did some other Mesopotamian civilizations.

Caractacus was the leader of a tribe of Britons who fought against the Roman invasion in the first century.

The Pirates of Penzance is an operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan. One of the songs, "I am the very model of a modern major general", contains the lines

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform
In short in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
I am the very model of a modern major general.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Thank you! At first, I thought the Reason system had just gone haywire again, leaving an empty article. Then I noted the title, wondering if the similarity to "blue book" was coincidental, not knowing what a "blue book" was, and saw the "cuneiform" and realized it must be some kind of inside joke.

[Sasha Volokh]

Noscitur a sociis interprets the situation exactly right.

[Jerry B.]

Yep. Gotta know the secret handshake.

[Ridgeway]

Wasn't Caractacus also the name of Thomas Jefferson's horse? Or did 30 Rock lie to me?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Wherever archival permanence matters, cuneiform must rank near the top of any list of alternatives.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Interestingly, the current theory is that one of the reasons we still have cuneiform from ancient Mesopotamia is the fondness of these cultures for burning down each other's cities. Baked those old tablets even harder!