Kosmo
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Posts posted by Kosmo
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The galatians are from the branch of celts that had expanded East from the Danube valley in the Balkans and in Ukraine. I heard no mention of druids in this area.
Druids are mentioned only by late sources in connection with Galia and Britannia and not in the Danube valley, northern Italy or Spain other areas of celtic influence so rather then a widespread "celtic" phenomenon they are maybe a local development in the Atlantic region.
I have little faith in modern understanding of celtic identity.
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Happy birthday!
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They used elephants.
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At the end of the day, it would be great to point at one discreet decision and blame it, but the reasons for the fall of the Western Empire are many, varied, and complex. It wouldn't be beyond the knowledge of this forum's contributors to find a way to blame Augustus. (There's a challenge!)
I call dibs by placing the blame on Marius and his military reform. My logic was that a professional army led to the empire and that the empire was inherently unstable.
I wonder if the price edict of Diocletian was really put in practice.
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I think the author of the article it's wrong in his praise of gung-ho military types and scolding of politicians because war it's supposed to be a political tool, not the other way around.
His assessment of Dien Bien Phu it's wrong because he fails to see the French dilemma: in order to rally the locals, divide the nationalists from the communists, appease the anti-colonialist elements of the public opinion and enlist US support it was necessary to give independence to Vietnam, but if they did that there was no reason for France to keep fighting. The french fought to keep Indochina a colony, when that become impossible they did not care enough if it was the nationalists or the communist or both that kicked them out. It was not worth fighting for anymore and the french government realized that before the battle but the Army wanted a victory.
In Algeria, after the arab terrorists did their ethnic cleansing of the millions of Europeans living there, it was little left to fight for except the political goals of the far right.
American contemporary campaigns are plagued by the ideological approach that pushes on those countries a political system unsuited for their level of development. They fail to acknowledge that democracy fuels ethnic conflicts and corruption in weak states and complicates "state building". Whatever US and NATO do in the end this countries will have a political system that suits them and repulses us.
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and Cleopatra looks hot! That's a really bad mistake
You raise a good point, Kosmo. Cleopatra has always been portraiyed as a stunner (I'll go with Amanda Barrie in Carry on Cleo as my favourite, how about you?), but on the coins . . . well, she was no Theda Bara, put it like that. Maybe tastes have changed.
Hang on a minute . . . I've just realised where Nephele got her avatar from. How dim have I been?
Vivien Leigh was perfect as Shaw's cute and naive Cleopatra.
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I actually muted the grunts after a while and just watched the rest of the video in silence.
I had the benfit of watching it in silence first time around (didn't want to disturb the rest of the office). One perceived (by me) inaccuracy became more obvious that way - the guy playing Octavian looks more how I'd imagine Mark Antony, and vice versa (but less so).
and Cleopatra looks hot! That's a really bad mistake
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It's possible that the names of these emperors could give a clue to their origins - Claudius Gothicus and Probus both bore the praenomen/nomen Marcus Aurelius. This indicates that their families received citizenship possibly under M. Aurelius Antoninus, or more probably Caracalla. This in turn would imply that they were probably coming from a non-Roman, and maybe only recently Romanized background. But that's just my two cents.
Usually when ascending to power emperors picked new names for themselves, names that served to legitimize them and very often indicative of a political program. I doubt that the 2 mentioned before were born with those names but picked them to seem successors of the last great emperor.
"Ethnic" ancestry was irrelevant by this time, only foreigners from outside the empire being excluded from the purple.
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But why would this helmet be found in a field? Did some ancient steal it and bury it? Was it ceremoniously buried? was in a grave? I really can't wrap my head around (no pun intended) how artifacts of this nature just "appear" in the middle of nowhere.
Indeed. An object out of context loses much of it's relevance.
They did not even give an estimate dating but an estimate price!
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Already turned 4, growing up so fast...
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Indeed. Nice!
They also have this video, hands down the best music video featuring romans:
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This feminine characters of the last ten years that can fight very well pose some problems that those who made this movie ignored with disastrous consequences.
The villain was a pretty young women, a hero, a freedom fighter and a victim of terrible abuse. The fact that the main character beat and killed her does not really make him heroic, even if he was in self defense (the self defense of an invader BTW).
Then they introduce a roman woman that he soon beats up.
Well done, big man, your greatest achievements are that you hit some women! Yay!
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I found sometime ago a reference to romans abandoning a mine in southern Spain after it was destroyed by moorish rebels in II century AD and I would really like to get details on that because I was never able to find myself more data on it.
Birley's biography of Hadrian mentions the presence of the emperor in quelling moorish revolts and points to a brief reference in Historia Augusta. This rebellion may be connected with the one Marcius Turbo had suppressed 5 years earlier, a revolt started after Hadrian has put to death their leader Lusius Quietus during Trajan's succession crisis.
Your focus is on Hadrian or on Mauritania?
Edit: Oh, I've seen the link and the focus of your book it's actually on Spain.
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I've seen the first 2 episodes. Not impressed.
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One can choose to use "watch this forum" button for areas of interest and get daily or weekly rapports with all new posts. Basically then he will be able to access the forum content from his own mail and will need to visit the forum only if he wants to post something. This is a nice feature but it may result in a reduction of traffic for the site.
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Gentiles are a regular roman army unit made up of barbarian born soldiers, mostly laeti (hereditary soldiers working for Rome in exchange for the right to stay in the Empire with their family after their terms, even getting lands, an individual deal between the soldier and the state), which must be clearly distinguished from the foederati (whole barbarian tribes who have a "contract" with the empire, fighting for it in exchange for land where they can be ruled according to their own laws and customs).
Laeti seems to have been made of mainly defeated barbarians or their heirs, only those surviving a full term of service with the army being given roman citizenship
Thank you!
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I think that functions like "watch topic" and "watch forums" can be used to spot new posts, but I have to see how it works.
I love the fact that links to Youtube have embedded themselves in the post. I had to make several replies to the thread I started because there is only one link per post allowed.
Also, I've seen that the picture posted in this topic
http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11371&pid=105888&st=0entry105888
do not resize themselves and make for a wider page.
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For me the best song with a general historical theme is Within Temptation - Our Solemn Hour. They are now my favorite band.
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Also there are some references to roman history in the telling of London's history by Clint Mansell - Stay With Me (Elfsong's 'Stay With V' Mix). Music from the excellent film "V for Vendetta".
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The Viva la Vida song of Coldplay has a weird reference to "roman cavalry choir"
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Songs with roman subjects are unusual. The best is Spin Doctors - Cleopatra's Cat with some funny lyrics:
Cleopatra's favorite cat
Got his hands on Caesar's spats
The heat was on as you could see
So he front 'em to Mark Antony.
Said, "My girlfriend's cat is smarter than me."
Caesar had an eye for clothes
He saw them spats and said, "I like those."
Caesar had no thing to say, except,
"Jesu Christi Domine,
Et tu, Brute,
Jesu Christi Domine,
Et tu, Brute."
The senate tried to sympathize
It was the cat they should despise
Informant told his whereabouts
Centurions to seek him out
Centurions! There go the centurions.
Brutus had to turn his head
When THIS cat done went and said,
"If he's got this thing for shoes,
He just might be ambitious, too.
They got holidays all in his name,
And all a tyrant needs is fame.
Those fascists don't play pretty games
Egypt is the place to be...
But Rome is a democracy.
Rome!"
Caesar never got them back
'Cause they killed his ass in the second act.
Brutus spoke, then Antony:
Said, "My girlfriend's cat is smarter than me.
Friends, Romans, can't you see
My girlfriend's cat is smarter than me
Egypt's biggest rivalry:
Cleopatra's cat and me."
The song is here -
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"today's active content" button does the same thing what "view new post" did? I used that function every time I visited the site to catch up on new threads and posts. I realize that it is the same the thing poster above said but this was the first thing that struck me after the change.
(edit: and it looks like my satyr avatar taken from the avatar library has run away with Britney)
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flag : headquarter of the Letes, Gentiles and Sarmatians
So it shows the location of some Sarmatian foederati while Letes are Laeti settlers but Gentiles? Who are those?
Rome and the War Elephants
in Gloria Exercitus - 'Glory of the Army'
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They were used also at Thapsus.