[Weapons]

Thanks for all of the posts. This really helped me alot.........

[Roman Cavalry]

Lol.

 

I laugh because usually (elsewhere) I am the one grilled for spelling errors, so it's nice to look from outside the box.

 

i know how you feel.

in fourth grade i was terrible at it.

now, i have a vocabulary as big as a college student's!

(or so people tell me)

[Weapons]

Have to disagree with you there I'm afraid In the hands of a Roman soldier it most definitely was used as a weapon to hit the enemy, using the boss to punch with, and the edges to smack on an enemy's foot or up into his chin to make him falter or lose balance. Search around for reenactor accounts of its use in this way.

 

Jim.

 

thanks for the heads-up. I'll look into shield tactics abit more. I know that the spainish devised a shield so small, it was barely bigger then a clinched fists, used but troops trained to get inbetween a phalanx's pikes and could deliver a nasty punch, if used that way. But i still thinking (at the moment) that thats not the shields' primary function. Afterall if we are including anything which can be a weapon, then anything can count as a weapon, pens, keys, bread-knife and it makes the whole thing a lot more complicated.

After all, discipine, ideaology and leadership can all be counted as weapons if u stretch the concept far enough.

Alitte of topic i know, but i'm just sayin i choose spear on it's primary function, and although the shield can be nasty in the right hands (or wrong hands, depending on how u look at it), it's not primarily a weapon. Or am i alone on this one?

 

Yes, but the formations of Chinese infantry never faced the Romans and their pila, did they?

True but they did face their fair share of quality bad guys too. Romans aren't the only empire to include highly quality troopers

 

well, thanks for the dicussion.

I needed most of that and one of my friends will love the info I got for him!

-military

[Weapons]

there were so many different weapons in the ancient roman times. which one was your favorite? mine is the ballista/catapult. amazing how smart they were, isn't it?

[Worst Roman Punishment?]

I wanted to get people's opinions on the worst Roman punishment of the anceint world. Any time period is fine but I thought I might learn something new out of this and might make some people feel sympathetic for the criminals today he heh....

 

Personaly, I think the worst Roman punishment was the punishment for patricide or killing your father. This was considered a act of ultimate evil durring the pagan ages or Rome. The punishment was devised by the Priests of Jupiter rather than the roman politicians. My file name is actually the name fo some one accused of this crime and also the case where Cicero made himself famous

 

The first thing that happened was that you were taken to the feild of Mars outside Rome. they would Then strip you of everything on you and have you put one foot on two pedestals placed a couple feet apart as to expose every part of your body. You were then wipped until there was no difference between flesh and blood on your body. The crowd was free to throw stones at you and about anything they wanted really.

 

After you were completely whipped they took your naked body and but you in a sack with a snake, a chicken and a dog. This was to simbolize the reverse of being born. Thus un-born since you had taken the life of the one that gave life to you, it was seen as fit punishment. After you were in the bag with the other animals they would sow the bag shut and then chuck it in the Tiber. How gruesome

I can only imagaine the poor person who had to do thins... :fish:

 

P.S. not sure why I put the fish thing but I thought it was rather funny at the time...

isn't that punishment pretty muchdeath since most people couldn't swim?

 

-military

 

I always thought that one of Nero's favourite punishments was quite nasty. The offender's penis would be wound with wire, and he would then have to drink water until he died (presumably from a burst bladder).

ouch

-military