The promises and risks of Artificial Intelligence permeate current policy statements and have attracted much attention by AI governance research. However, most analyses focus exclusively on AI policy on the national and international level, overlooking existing federal governance structures. This is surprising because AI is connected to many policy areas, where the competences are already distributed between the national and subnational level, such as research or economic policy. Addressing this gap, this paper argues that more attention should be dedicated to (...) subnational efforts to shape AI and asks which themes are discussed in subnational AI policy documents with a case study of Germany’s 16 states. Our qualitative analysis of 34 AI policy documents issued on the subnational level demonstrates that subnational efforts focus on knowledge transfer between research and industry actors, the commercialization of AI, different economic identities of the German states, and the incorporation of ethical principles. Because federal states play an active role in AI policy, analysing AI as a policy issue on different levels of government is necessary and will contribute to a better understanding of the developments and implementations of AI strategies in different national contexts. (shrink)

Before the year 1857, when Mommsen published his celebrated treatise Die Rechtsfrage zwischen Caesar und dem Senat, most scholars believed that Caesar's provincial command legally expired at the end of 49 B.C.; but Mommsen demonstrated the falsity of this opinion, and for nearly half a century it was an article of faith that the date fixed was the 1st of March. I may remark parenthetically that, although this date is usually quoted, it would be more correct to say the 28th (...) of February. In 1904, however, Otto Hirschfeld gave reasons for believing that Caesar's command was not expressly secured beyond March 1, 50; and although Ludwig Holzapfel vigorously defended the orthodox view, Hirschfeld remained for several years in possession of the field. In 1913 Walther Judeich, while admitting that Hirschfeld had worsted Mommsen, argued, ‘convincingly’ as Mr. F. E. Adcock thinks, that the date was December 29, 50. The writers of the article on Latin Literature in The Year's Work in Classical Studies , noticing the reissue of the third volume of The Correspondence of Cicero, remark that ‘the authors [Tyrrell and Purser] still hold the pious faith that Caesar's command in Gaul was to run out on the 1st of March in 49; it is a pity,’ they add, ‘in view of Hirschfeld and the rest, that they have not shown the English reader their grounds for that belief.’ I propose in this article to give mine for sharing it. (shrink)

An incidental remark on an otherwise unknown Licinia in Cic. fam. 7,23 offers insights into family relations and female interactions during the first century BCE. The paper provides a prosopographical analysis of Licinia, placing her as half-sister to the Cassii Longini, and of her unnamed mother, who via marriage interlinked three different kinship groups, and thus highlights Rome’s complicated kinship ties. Furthermore, the role of women within these family ties is discussed on a macro level - the social (...) role of kinship - and as well as on a micro level - the importance of quotidian female interactions on behalf of the male members of their domus. (shrink)

It may be affirmed with some confidence that on this topic no generally accepted solution will be found in default of new evidence, for which we can only faintly hope. Against certainty on the matter it would seem that the Everlasting has fixed his canon: quis iustius induit arma scire nefas. Dogmatism is out of place; we must be content with whatever theory is least difficult to reconcile with the texts and with a reasonable interpretation of the course of events (...) at the time and the comments on them of contemporary observers. The thesis advanced in this paper is that there are strong reasons for supposing that the Lex Pompeia Licinia contained a date by which Caesar's command ended, that this date was not the end of February of the year 50 or the year 49 or the end of December of the year 50, that it did not contain a clause forbidding the discussion of a successor to Caesar before March 1, 50, and that if the date ending his command lies between the end of February and the end of December of the year 50, it may have been in fact the Ides of November in that year. (shrink)

The purpose of what follows is to show that if we assume March 1, 50 as the date on which ended the five years of imperium given to Caesar by the Lex Licinia Pompeia, we have a hypothesis which ‘works,’ in the sense that, as far as its relevance extends, it enables us to frame a coherent account of the dispute between Caesar and the Senate in the two years preceding the outbreak of civil war. The method followed will (...) be to give a narrative based on that hypothesis and on the evidence which we possess. Many, at least, of the arguments and conclusions here adopted have been put forward already by various writers. I may mention, as an excuse for raising this question again , that a few suggestions will be made which I have not seen elsewhere. For the sake of clearness some very trite matters which belong to the years before 51 will first be recalled. (shrink)