caldrail

The evidence from Caesar is not yes--the evidence is that a small group of Celts had some siege tech for a single engagement, but never before or after. Classifying ladders and grappling hooks as siege tech is also a long, long stretch. No it isn't. Ladders and hooks are basic stuff but it definitely is siege technique. Most of siegework is actually very basic stuff. Forget all that nonsense about towers and catapults - they were very rarely used anyway and only if an assault on a large scale was taking place. Getting the doors open was the easiest way of getting in. If you can't bribe a disgruntled enemy, then slip a few men over at night. It happened a lot more than people realise. Other than that, sit tight and wait for the food to run out like Caesar did in Gaul. The big impressive stuff requires a lot of manpower and engineering which wasn't always within the romans capabilities, never mind their enemies. But they might get over the wall.....

Agrippina maintained a very close relationship with Nero - she wanted him under her guidance if not her thumb. Nero essentially was a mummies boy, something of a downer in the macho roman world. So it isn't suprising that Nero played at being being a tough lad mugging innocent passers by when he got older. Personally I think she kept on trying to manipulate him past the point of no return, but read the references above and see what you think.

I totally agree. I personally think the pilum is underappreciated in context of romes great victories. It played a huge factor in winning battles. I also think it was the most cleverly created weapon of ancient times because of the many tasks it performed in one throw as you have explained above. The use of it was a devasting introduction to romes enemies of whats to come. Picture and an army of maybe 5000 romans, each throwing two waves of pila. Thats 10000 spears hurtling towards you which must of being devasting not just to the enemies physically but also mentally, destroying morale even before the battle began. It gave the romans a huge advantage to take into the battle and this is why i regard the pila as one of the most clever weapons made. As spears go, it wasn't any better than ayone elses. The only advantage it gave was that you couldn't throw it back. Mind you, I wouldn't like to be the target of a volley

In small numbers and on rare occaisions, troops of gladiators were used as special forces. There wasn't much call for that sort of thing back then. A suprise attack by regular soldiers was just as damaging as a visit by a few hand-picked specialists. Without modern communications to warn your opponent, you simply had to keep quiet and arrive.

Pardon? The whole raison d'etre of a phalanx was to drive the enemy back. It was an offensive formation. You're quite correct though, the phalanx couldn't manoever easily, which is why it fell from favour. As for defense, just wait for the enemy cavalry to get at you from the flanks or the rear. Ouch.

Seeing as barbarians were running Rome after 476AD I'd say the consequences were very important. A lot of them had overrun the west not to destroy it, but to capture it, to rule it, to become like romans. Of course they couldn't because they weren't sophisticated enough (and running Rome wasn't as easy as the romans made it look) but I do find it amusing to think of hairy germans wearing togas and strutting around like tin gods. I'm sure there were a few. It isn't really my period, but I'd hazard a guess that the barbarians basically snatched an expensive toy and wrecked it because they couldn't read the instructions.

Wasn't that true of most of these cases? They simply wanted to preserve the roman culture that they had benefitted from. In England this fell apart when the legions left - A whole infrastructure vanished almost overnight. This was true of my area. A staging post called Durocornovium used to be there. It reached its greatest extent in the early 4th century AD with flour milling, baking, iron working, and especially pottery - and by the end of the 4th century it had been abandoned. Everyone had packed up their suitcases and dispersed. I don'y know of any disease hitting the area, it was too early for the saxon threat to have reached them. They simply lost their customer base. But I wonder how many of those who had lived there desperately wanted to continue?

Slaves were 'talking tools'. Their owners used them for whatever purpose they were good for, or whatever was most expedient. You didn't buy an educated slave to haul stones in a quarry, nor did you get a labourer to become a pedagogue for your kids. It really was a lottery for a roman slave, and a few won. A lot of them didn't. If an owner freed a slave, it was likely that freedman would still be part of his 'dependents'. Therefore the owner could show how generous and kind he was by freeing the slave, and yet retain his services under patronage. Ordinary soldiers kept slaves just likewealthy men, although obviously fewer in number! The attitude toward slaves did evolve toward a more humane one. I don't think christianity caused that - early christians kept slaves too. I think it was more of a case that with each generation people became more familiar with their slaves as they depended on them and were brought up alongside them, thus they became less of 'talking tools' and more like 'talking people'. I like the pirate theory, but I think it only applied to a few romans with the right contacts. For most, pirates were parasites, thieves, and murderers upseting trade in the mediterranean. It was the large number of rural slaves that drove the population of Rome higher than it might have because smaller plebian farms couldn't compete with the big slave-estates.

I'm sure Suetonius wanted to tell the truth, but many of his eye-witness accounts were either wrong, misinterpreted, or complete untruths.

Yes I think it would.

It needn't. It requires a keen eye, a good idea, and the willingness to carry it out to the bitter end. Money? Siege engines were built on-site, not transported here and there. So unless they had pay for the trees they cut down, then costs were nowhere near what you imagine, apart from normal pay and supplies. Experience? No that I agree with. But that applies to warfare of all kinds. It is true that Rome had experience and expertise in siegecraft that made them far more sophisticated than others.

Exactly.

I suppose we ought really to extend Rome via the Byzantines up to 1458AD. If that was todays date, the Rome begins around the actual time of the Punic Wars!

This sort of thing went on everywhere I suspect, although most fell by the wayside quickly without central support, and no-one recorded it for posterity. In England, lots of local warlords tried to keep Rome alive - this is where the legend of King Arthur springs from. In actual fact, a few miles south of my home is the Ridgeway, a bronze age trail across southern england. Beside it is Barbury Castle, a hill fort similar to Maiden Castle but smaller. Barbury is derived from Bera's Burgh, or the 'Hill-top fort of Bera'. Bera was a Saxon warlord who fought a minor battle against romano-celts on the plateau below Barbury late in the 6th century. In fact, this victory allowed the Saxons to advance into south-west england, and another part of Rome was extinguished.

I think he did have physical relations with his sister, though this more due to the fact that growing up he was not close to anyone except her and they were all they had and so it kinda developed... one could blame Tiberius and all of his actions against Caligula and his family by his uncle that caused this and helped shape Caligula into a candidate for a future monster once in power. I understand your reasoning. The trouble is, christian dogma holds that romans were all decadent orgiastic madmen and has done since the dark ages. This colours our attitudes with a little help from Hollywood. Don't forget that Romes had a plethora of laws and taboo's concerning moral behaviour - they were there for a reason. Ok, they did go a little OTT sometimes which can happen when there's tons of wealth lying about, and given the stuff some emperors got up to maybe you have a point Thing is, emperors attracted the sort of comment we see modern day celebrities get from the tabloid press. Rumour mongering was even stronger then since they had no tv set to be hypnotised by. It might not actually have been true. Did Nero And mum get together? Again, I doubt they actually did. Personally I think he had fantasies along these lines and Agrippina knew it. That woman was manipulating him shamelessly, later desperately, by dubious immoral suggestions. How did she know? Acte. But thats just a theory of mine.

Spartacus was an able leader who led his army of slaves from victory to victory. A small core were gladiators, most were nothing of the sort. The best of leaders can work wonders with almost anything. Not the impossible it must be said, and I do agree that training is important. Experience is the best teacher, and vital for success. You can train a newbie all you like but until he experiences the battleground himself he can never match those that have.

Exponential? I wouldn't describe it as such. For any conquest state there is a surge in expansion until it becomes difficult to control the area conquered, at which point conquest states turn into defensive states that either find themselves conquered or dissipated. It happened to Rome, its happened to a lot of other nations - France, Germany, Great Britain etc.

My point was that people didn't experience the entire empire, merely the parts they lived in. We use the term Pax Romana to describe a period, they didn't. Our view is very different from theirs. I still see this 'small-world' attitude even today with holidays worldwide. There are plenty of people in my area that think the nearest town is on another planet. The romans were no different.

GOT IT! (caldrail jumps up and down on seat excitedly) The answer is the Clibanarii, introduced by the emperor Constantius in the style of the persian cataphracts Oh darn, beaten by seconds....

What about generals? I'm thinking in terms of people like Julius Caesar

Oops. Messalina was his third wife. The first was Urginanilla (did I spell it right?), the second was Aelia Paetina - a close relative of Sejanus. Yes you're right though, Claudius did technically commit incest .

Its highly unlikely that lead pipes were solely responsible for lead poisoning in romans. The water could not have picked up enough lead. Womens makeup was far more dangerous, containing lots of lead that was in close proximity to the mouth and - well use your imagination. Cooking vessels are another culprit. Lead poisoning wasn't a huge factor in roman health given that only two out of five survived into their twenties, but I will concede that senile old men were common enough to attract notice in those times. Senility of course is a symptom of lead poisoning although there are many reasons why a roman might suffer so.

The Welsh Flag? I'm not so sure about that. It's more likely that the flag is based on Merlins battle with the dragon that so impressed Uther...

I have seen these - but I don't remember the details. I suspect they were auxillaries though. The only romans I know of who armoured themselves like this were the crupellarii - and they were gladiators.

I'm not a medical-person, but as far as I'm aware consuming small amounts of poison won't imbue you with poison saliva over an extended period. More likely you'd end up seriously ill, although its recorded that some people did this to build up resistance against assassination attempts. Agrippina the younger for instance, who was well aware of Nero's initial attempts to bump her off.