Kosmo
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Posts posted by Kosmo
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Did I miss the Confederates, as well as the Ghostbusters?
Do you think they are Union soldiers? Usually confederates are a lighter gray but those uniforms do not look dark blue either.
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Catullus and ask him what kind of music or musician he like to compose to his lyrics "Soles occidere et redire possunt",
because it must be the best love-song ever.
That poem would make an amazing song.
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Some of the Confederates look like Civil War veterans. There are also a couple of Ghostbusters to make sure that spirits don't disturb the meeting.
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A more convincing case can be made that homophobia destroyed the Empire because was a symptom of the intolerant, totalitarian mindset that prevailed right before the Fall of the West an attitude that maybe made homosexuals, pagans, Jews and Christian heretics less interested, or even hostile, to the survival of the Empire at a critical moment.
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Another sexy soap opera masquerading as a semi-historical costume drama.
Just my kind of show.
I am looking forward to this and "Camelot" when they come out on DVD .
Excellent definition!
I don't like much Camelot. With wizards and magic is an heroic fantasy not even semi-historical. The worst part is the absence of eye candy. Costumes, decor and special effects look low budget and it was not really sexy despite some brief nudity. The guy who played M. Antonius in HBO Rome played a very similar role in the first 2 episodes.
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The lengthy pilot was nice with beautiful costumes and decors. The subject allows for all the intrigue, sex & violence the producers want while remaining decently accurate, I hope, but I don't think accuracy is a goal. This show could fill the spot left empty by the ending of The Tudors not only because is the same historical period but it feels similar.
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The arab invasion was preceded by the persian attack that devastated much of the empire including Syria and Egypt, that were later conquered by arabs, but also other regions were devastated in that war like Anatolia, the Balkans and even the islands of the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas, so the empire was much weaker then around 600 AD.
Before the war Arabia was divided between areas of influence of Rome and Persia so even the islamic unification of the arab peninsula was possible only because of the conflict that distracted romans and sassanids alike while destroying other arab entities like the christian Ghassanids, allies and subjects of the romans. Persian weakness was also a factor, a strong Persia would have probably hindered an arab attack on romans.
One advantage Arabs had was that their attack came from a surprising direction and romans had little defenses in southern Syria. Once Syria fell the main roman army had to defend Anatolia while the overland road to Egypt was cut and the small garrison there was left isolated. Another arab advantage was the religious fanaticism of their soldiers.
Without islam it is very likely that christianty would have eventually dominated Arabia.
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What you describe is an ambush but you name it guerrilla warfare. They are different things. Romans had some defeats in ambushes like Lake Trasimene and Teutoburg Forest. Guerrilla warfare was uncommon with Viriathus and his Lusitanians maybe the best example.
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"For many years, scientists have thought that the first Americans came here from Asia 13,000 years ago, during the last ice age, probably by way of the Bering Strait. They were known as the Clovis people, after the town in New Mexico where their finely wrought spear points were first discovered in 1929. But in more recent years, archaeologists have found more and more traces of even earlier people with a less refined technology inhabiting North America and spreading as far south as Chile.
And now clinching evidence in the mystery of the early peopling of America
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This kind of comparisons are always ridiculous and this one even more then most. The technological gap is too big to make a comparison, but playing along I say that early Civil War armies were more like badly organized militias while during the principate romans had a high quality standing army.
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Many happy returns and sunny days Bryaxis.
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Huns were very effective in siege warfare, for example their campaigns in the Balkans conquered almost all fortifications, around 100 fortified cities and forts in one summer campaign. It is very likely that they learned that from romans.
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The roman and the western civilization don't have a simple relationship with catholicism being the first and most influential roman heritage for the medieval West. In this bigger picture the figure of the first roman emperor is not very important.
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What a fortunate day! Have fun MPC.
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Sometimes your money wouldn't save you, but your connections would.
You mean like in the present?
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Both the number of rebels and the roman initial losses are unrealistically high by at least an order of magnitude.
I very much doubt that the rebels, without much military training or experience, could have outmaneuvered a campaigning roman army that was aware of them. Given the topography of the area guerrilla was not much of an option and it would have meant to allow romans to bring reinforcements.
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European elites were always cosmopolitan with the exception of the disastrous last century and the spread of nationalism, the worst political idea ever. Before WW I almost all European royal dynasties formed a big, deeply intertwined family. That cosmopolitanism existed in many aspects of European societies: craftsman, scholars, soldiers, clergy, businessman, sailors etc.
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Happy Birthday PP!
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Welcome Corax.
Hadrian is my favorite emperor since I had read Hadrian's Memoirs by Yourcenar.
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I think the tough part is finding street names.
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You can see your posts by accessing "My Profile" feature on the second row in the right upper corner. Once you are on your profile page click the "Posts" button to see your posts in reverse chronological order or the "Topics" button to see threads you started.
Don't worry proposals and questions are always welcomed here.
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Happy Birthday!
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This is fun!
Macedonians were the first to show what happens when you break a rigid phalanx line and then launch a fast attack through the gap when at Chaeronea Philip withdrawn a wing and pushed forward the other, fragmenting the Greek line. Of course, the Macedonian line was gone too, but it did not matter because they outmaneuvered the Greeks and pressed on an attack that annihilated them.
If I would be a later period Macedonian king facing the legions of the Middle Republic I would not insist on cavalry units. They are expensive, take a lot of time to train and are of limited use in the narrow valleys of Greece where the campaign will be fought. I would have no reason to fear roman cavalry because they would not bring lots in oversees campaign and their Greek allies don't have much. At the same time I know that Hannibal gave some painful lessons to the romans about cavalry so they would be hard to surprise and would know how to defend themselves. Several cavalry units for foraging, scouting, flank protection and pursuit would be enough.
The Macedonian army consisted mainly of the sarissa-armed phalanx supported by the excellent light infantry provided by the mountain tribes and Greek mercenaries/allies equipped with spears and narrow Celtic shields (an evolution of Iphicrates-style units). This is not inferior to the armament of the legions that were still of the veliti/hastati/triari type with spears, shields and javelins. Both sides were mainly levy, mercenaries and allies so there was not much standardization of weapons, every soldier brought what he had at home.
The main areas of improvement would be the recruiting and training of soldiers and officers, organizational reform of units and sub-units and of corresponding ranks, creating legion-like large, permanent units with several types of soldiers so they are capable of independent action and carrying less important campaigns to give combat experience to the army and a proving ground to the officers.
I would try to fight the battle in a easy defensible position, with the flanks covered like in a valley.
I would deploy the army in depth with light infantry in front as skirmishers, or covering the flanks, with a main line of sarissa phalanx and a second line/reserve of more mobile units including cavalry to plug the hole in the phalanx if the romans break it or to pursuit them if they flee. The fact that often Greek and Hellenistic formations lacked reserves is rather an error of leadership then an inherent fault of the phalanx.
But the most important things I would do would be to establish friendly relations with Rome because in the case of a war I'm definitely in trouble, they are relentless and, just in case, to create a strong fortification in a city as far as possible of Rome, but with a good port, in a strategic location that is easy defensible something like ... I don't know... Byzantium?
Shogun 2: Total War
in Circensis
Posted
Creative Assembly recently released Shogun 2: Total War boasting about some new features that interested me like Campaign Multiplayer and improved AI.
In truth, I don't plan to play this game despite the stellar reviews but rumor has it that the next game in the Total War series will be... drum roll... Rome 2: Total War.