Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 June 9

= June 9 =

Is the word "peace officer" a technical term for the word "police officer"?
I see this term "peace officer" sometimes but it this a jargon for the term "police officer"? WJetChao (talk) 08:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * See the article about it. In the US it means anyone charged with upholding the law not necessarily a police officer, for example a game warden. In the UK an 'officer of the peace' does mean a police officer. Dmcq (talk) 09:24, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Plutarch about Cato the Elder
According to Slavery in ancient Rome Cato the Elder used to sell slaves that had become unable to work. The source is Plutarch's Life of Cato the Elder but it's not given as an exact quote. I'm baffled as to why anyone would buy a useless slave. Did the WP editor go beyond what Plutarch actually says? If you have access to Plutarch's text could you check? I have read that Cato used to throw out of the house old or sick slaves, but not that he actually managed to sell them. That's the bit that puzzles me. Thanks. Basemetal 10:05, 9 June 2018 (UTC)


 * In this translation Plutarch says:
 * "He tells us...that he never paid more than fifteen hundred drachmas for a slave, since he did not want them to be delicately beautiful, but sturdy workers, such as grooms and herdsmen, and these he thought it his duty to sell when they got oldish, instead of feeding them when they were useless...


 * These things were ascribed by some to the man's parsimony; but others condoned them in the belief that he lived in this contracted way only to correct and moderate the extravagance of others. However, for my part, I regard his treatment of his slaves like beasts of burden, using them to the uttermost, and then, when they were old, driving them off and selling them, as the mark of a very mean nature, which recognizes no tie between man and man but that of necessity."


 * I skipped a bit because it's not about slaves, but Cato wanted everyone to think he was very austere and morally upright, and Plutarch saw through it and thought he was kind of a jerk. There were lots of other things a slave could do once they were slightly too old for Cato. Cato worked them to exhaustion (or death) but they could still be perfectly economically viable for another owner. It's almost like buying a used car today. In Rome, teachers were very often slaves. Cato employed a slave schoolteacher himself, but Plutarch says he "thought it not right...that his son should be scolded by a slave, or have his ears tweaked when he was slow to learn, still less that he should be indebted to his slave for such a priceless thing as education."


 * Basically the most important thing to keep in mind is that Cato the Elder is an asshole. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks Adam for the exact Plutarch quote which does indeed clarify things. And of course he was even by the standards of Plutarch, let alone ours. He is also the Carthago delenda est guy which does not exactly make his case any better. But he also had a kind of wry sense of humor at least judging from the fact that, while he recommended strict formal adherence to the traditional religious practices (as a matter of conformity to tradition and the laws of the state, not of one of ethics or philosophy) he was not fooled by them: he used to say, it is said, that no two diviners could walk past each other without laughing (because, it was implied though not stated, they both knew and knew the other knew what their "divining" was really worth). I hope I got the paraphrase more or less right, though this fact is not mentioned in the WP article.  Basemetal  12:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

WWII & Maritime boundaries
During WWII there were a lot of changes in the land borders but I can't find anything about maritime boundaries changes (both internationally accepted and claimed). I'm not talking about post-war decisions but during the war. Do you have any information? Thanks. --79.26.127.82 (talk) 15:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * As regards western Europe, the Germans retained the borders of the occupied countries for their administrations; France was split between the Occupied Zone and the Free Zone, the former controlling the entire Channel and Atlantic coast of France, so no maritime changes there. The boundary changes for the Greater German Reich were a peacetime project and were never implemented. In the east, Austria, Czechoslovakia were incorporated into the Reich but had no coastline. The Second Polish Republic's coastline was only 140 km at the top of the Polish Corridor, which was sandwiched between Germany proper and the German territory of West Prussia. The zone occupied by the Soviets had no coastline. Alansplodge (talk) 11:57, 10 June 2018 (UTC)


 * In 1940 Italy annexed a small area of south-east France, including the town of Menton, and in 1941 the Axis powers partitioned Yugoslavia. Presumably territorial waters changed hands both times, though I could find no details. --Antiquary (talk) 13:13, 10 June 2018 (UTC)


 * I cannot locate any pre-war maps which show maritime boundaries, and wonder if there was as much significance to them at that time. With a 3 mile territorial limit, and a mid-line when shores were too close for that to apply. The only maritime treaty listed from that period was between Turkey and Italy, and seems to have been more concerned about which islets were in which country. During a time of war, I doubt anyone bothered much: how far your coastal guns could fire was more important than where the official boundary lay. Wymspen (talk) 16:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)