Gaius Paulinus Maximus

An excellent review Pertinax and after reading what Phil has to say aswell it appears that it would be an absolute crime not to possess this book, so i suppose i'll have to put my hand in my pocket and splash the cash

It is neither unusual nor particularly Byzantine that a foreign unit would gain such access and prestige. Augustus himself had a personal guard of Germans, the Collegium Custodum Corporis or Germani Corporis Custodes, to protect himself from the native Praetorians. This guard was revived by Tiberius and continued until Nero.

Thats a new one on me Phil, but i'd be very interested to find out more about this rumour

Yes ok maybe i went a bit OTT, i wasn't suggesting that Augustus was mearly Agrippa's puppet (although reading back it does look that way) because he wasn't, i was just saying that Agrippa played a major part in the creation of the principate, Augustus was a very intelligent man and a fine politician, Agrippa excelled in the military side of things, so together they made a perfect team, i guess i was just trying to say that where as Augustus was the brains and made the final decisions, Agrippa was the muscle and the support needed to see whatever was decided through

Here's a pretty creepy picture of the little fella HERE

Heeheee 'The infamous giant talking frog of Rumia'

My knowledge of ancient Greece is pretty limited, i really do need to improve it, but of the choices i would have to go for Athens, again because of the cultural aspect, closely followed by Sparta because of it's military expertise. As for the others i dont know enough about them to be able to give a valid reason.

No this is not a mistake Sextus Julius Caesar was Julius's uncle, he served under Marius then held preatorship in 94 BC then a consulship in 91 BC. he died during the siege of Asculmum.

Without the help, support and advice of Agrippa (and Maecenas), Augustus would never have achieved as much as he did. Not only was Agrippa a fantastic general he was also an architect,he was responsible for the building of the first Roman Pantheon which was destroyed in 80BC and then later rebuilt by Hadrian using Agrippa's original plans, he was a writer, especially on geography, he helped to make a complete survey of the empire, and probably above all he was a very loyal friend, he stood in Augustus's shadow and let him take all the credit and glory and was happy to just stay Augustus's right hand man. Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was undoubtedly the driving force behind Octavian's rise to power.

I think we can all agree that this was better than last weeks effort, but i still find it so annoying that the whole thing is so rushed, like DC says no mention what so ever of his brother Gaius Gracchus, surely he's important enough to at least warrant a mention? On the plus side the acting was a lot better than the previous lot and the battle scenes were more realistic aswell, i'm no expert but the soldiers all seemed to be wearing the correct uniform for that period,it seems to me that the directors are paying more attention to the visual aspect of the show than to the actual storyline. I still dont see the logic of skipping backwards and forwards in time, surely this is only going to confuse the newcomers to Roman history. Hey i've just had a fantastic idea why not start at the beginning and finish at the end!! Looks like next week it's Vespasian and Titus, hope they get this one right as Vespasian is a particular favourite of mine.

Hehe, i know what you mean, i imagine it will be pretty intense stuff, i'm sensing a headache coming on just thinking about it

I think Phil is right in saying the directors probably didnt want Hinds performance to dominate the show, there's so many other storylines going on like Octavian, brutus, pompey etc that the directors didnt want the viewers just craving for Caesar, they wanted the other stars to also shine, after all the main storyline in the first series followed the lives of Vorenus and Pullo, in my opinion they were the main stars of the show. Back to Hinds Caesar, i thought his interpretation on the whole was pretty good, although like many of you say he was just lacking that bit of charisma, that air of confidence that set Caesar apart from your average roman, the X factor!

You have classical antiquity which i suppose started with early greek poetry like Homer in the 7th century BCE and continued right through to the fall of the western empire in the 5th century CE, and then we move on to late antiquity which filled the gap between the fall of the western empire and the start of the middle ages in about 600 CE

Wow these books really are expensive!! Your talking nearly

There is evidence that they were probably a client state and fought on the Hittite side against the Egyptians, but Troy wasn't a Hittite city in the strict sense. In the 1920s the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer claimed that placenames found in Hittite texts

OMG!!! WTF!!!! OMFG!!! That really is top quality, Caesar is best remembered for his salad Caligula is latin for "murderously insane inhuman monster wearing cute little booties"

This sounds like it could be a pretty mad film, monsters fighting against Spartan warriors..... I like the sound of that! Does anybody know the release date yet?

I remember when i was younger the only Roman related films we used to watch were re-runs of either Ben Hur or Sparticus and oddly they only seemed to be shown at christmas???? But now a days with such advances in special effects and cinematography i think the makers of the modern epics such as Gladiator, Troy and Alexander realised that they can finally do the stories justice using the technology that wasn't available ten or fifteen years ago, they are now able to show all the battle scenes in their true glory, with the help of computer imagery they can now have battles consisting of hundreds of thousands of soldiers instead of just a few hundred extra's re-enacting battle scenes, they can show us how Rome would have looked in all its glory or the walls of Troy for instance.

Here's some other areas around the Pontus Euxinus that you might enjoy investigating: Hylaia/Olbia Getarum Solitudo Chersonesus Taurica Thanks Moonlapse, i'll definately look into those.

I think that at the time of Caesar's assassination Octavian was quite happy to tag along behind his adopted father and then eventually take over the reigns, but after Caesar's untimely death Octavian was left with two choices, to step up to the mantle and try to continue where Caesar left off (wether he knew where that was or where it was going is another question), or to just fade into the background and spent the rest of his life as a could have been. I think with the help of Agrippa and Maecenas he was able to forsee the possibilities of what lay ahead and also his own potential, those two played a major part in Octavian becoming Augustus. He was a very clever man and although i dont think he had his entire life mapped out ( not even he would have expected to achieve what he actually did ) i think he definately knew which path he was going to take and just pretty much like you say took one step at a time and turned each one to his advantage, some of it with luck, some of it with skill and intelligence.

Here's a very good source, its got all the genealogies of most of the famous families of ancient Rome http://www.roman-emperors.org/stemm.htm hope it helps

lol, you mean my childish photos? I talked about Venice and Milan only. I too was recently in Venice this summer, i was staying in a hotel right beside the Rialto bridge, You've got so many wonderful pic's of the rest of Venice but none of this famous bridge, i just wondered why, did you run out of film

This is quite an interesting thread, i'd never heard of Colchis before now, it's has a very interesting history. Here's a bit of info on the where abouts and history of Colchis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/colchis

Like to be :- a general in Caesar's army Not like to be :- a cleaner- uper in the gladiator arena, disposing of severed limbs and cleaning up blood and guts all-day

I sort of wish i'd missed it too