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Cohort

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Posts posted by Cohort

  1. Ciaran Hinds is my favorite Caesar. He has the charm, ease, dignity, arrogance, vanity, and flashes of cold rage that could, in two consecutive instants, attract and repel with equal force.

     

    Patrick Stewart was a very good nomination for a Caesar. The one contemporary portrait we have of Caesar looks quite a bit like Stewart, but I doubt Stewart could ever project the haughtiness and humanity that Hinds did.

     

    Hinds was so good I *almost* felt pity for Caesar. Almost.

     

     

    I cannot get past Stewart as Sejanus in I Claudius... :no:

     

    I liked Gielgud but have to agree, Hinds has that certain omppph. Raines was the caesar that shaw wrote the play for....I have an affection for it as its a pascal film,the color and the ambience is there.

  2. I would like to read up on Crassus. Does anybody know of a good book to recommend?

     

     

    Other than Plutarch's bio, most of the attention focussed on Crassus has only taken place as sidebars to bio's on other later Republican figures. (Caesar, Sulla, Cicero, etc.)

     

    If you can find them for reasonable prices, these are options...

    Crassus: A Political Biography by B. A. Marshall

    Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic by Allen Mason Ward

     

    'Primus Pilus' the Ward book is a whopping $120.00 used!! and the marshall book is no where to be found, do you have any purchase options for the marshall book that you can post? I cannot find any.

  3. I have a few- I am alawys tryiong to get a leg up on some of our most influential but not so well know Emporers. Aurelian comes to mind...

     

    I have read 2 books (there aren't many more out there btw) on this obscure but important Imperator-

     

    Aurelian and the Third Century by Alaric Watson and

    Restorer of the World: The Roman Emperor Aurelian by John F. White

     

    I recommend both, highly.

     

    I wish Aurelian had minted more in sliver or gold, all I could find to purchase was this- http://www.parthia.com/coins/peg_9723656.jpg

  4. I am not sure who made the allusion but Casear may have threatended to decimate the 10th, but he never carried it out....he needed them ....is there a source for this?

     

    Dio Cassius. He is actually quite vague but I'll let his words speak for themselves rather than paraphrase.

     

    Caesar put aside the turbulent spirits among them,
  5. I believe that it was Fuller who held that Scipio Africanus was the Greatest Captain in History. Again, had it not been for Scipio, would the world be as it is today?

     

    My opinion only.

     

    welllll, I have to say that is not my take at all..regards the Fuller quote...

     

     

     

    Hart said Scipio was "greater" than Napoleon which in my eyes from almost any perspective is hogwash.

  6. I am not sure who made the allusion but Casear may have threatended to decimate the 10th, but he never carried it out....he needed them ....is there a source for this?

     

    regards Crassus as a general , he was a legatus in Spain under Metallus (where he got rebuffed by Sertorius I think) ..he was hopelessly out of his depth in Parthia...his poor son who had done well with Caesar in Gaul paid the price too, he took several cohorts away from the main force to try and pin Surenus down but was overrun..its interesting, Julian faced generally the same tacitcs and did well ( exact details are poor)..until he got killed of course, not pausing to put on his amour etc...oh well...

  7. I remember translating the passage as part of my first year of latin at grammar school. The story has stuck ever since.

     

    Only the Claudii Pulcheri could have been so confident and foolhardy, so brazen and so stupid (all at once) - clearly a family characteristic!!.

     

    Phil

     

     

    he was also venal.....when he rteurned to Rome after the battle, he was asked to name a successor to his office....he named his dispatch rider..... :)

     

    The Claudians certainly were interesting..........to say the least

  8. I have just started The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians by peter heather.

     

     

    It's a great book. Goes on a bit long at times, but an interesting new look at the later Roman Empire. The author also has a sense of humor at times. It helped arouse me an interest in the later empire, something I had previously neglected.

     

     

    Thanx Ursus..I have been "wallowing" a bit in the fist 100 pages or so, I'll stick with it...

  9. I don't pretend to be very good at writing reveiws, if I bore you I apologize in advance. :P

     

     

    The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean

    by Nigel Bagnal

     

     

    Nigel packs a lot into 335 pages ( 8 font)

    • Like 1
  10. Chalons did not relieve the Empire of his threat. Death did the deed. With that his realm withered; so I guess that a victory at Chalons would have resulted in the same happy ending.

     

     

    Assuming his fate was pre-ordained yes..but if not? IF the Huns had won and set up a Asiatic styled government, in Gaul, and prcaticed there usual brutal style.....how would the Romanized natives and customs faired?

     

    The Burgundian franks would not have been influenced by Christianity, or coalesced under Childeric, he would probably have been dead as he fought with Aetius, Clovis (his marriage to Gundohars daughter would not have occurred) would not have united the Burgundian, salian and riparian franks

  11. The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean by Nigel Bagnall

     

    just finished it ,not bad at all in fact some refreshing views not seen often seen or discussed etc......well documented and well done overall........well worth the price....

     

    The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean

    by Nigel Bagnall

     

    just finished it ,not bad at all in fact some refreshing views not seen often seen or discussed etc......well documented and well done overall........well worth the price....

     

     

    apologize for the double post..... :lol:

  12. The face of a Roman VIP who has been buried since the fourth century has been strikingly recreated by archaeologists.

     

    The clay portrait is based on the skeleton of a young woman discovered last year in a Roman cemetery during the redevelopment of Spitalfields market near the City of London.

     

    Her stone sarcophagus, with a highly-decorative, sealed lead coffin inside, has attracted enormous interest.

     

    The BBC series Meet the Ancestors followed the story of her excavation and commissioned a facial reconstruction from the Unit of Art in Medicine at the University of Manchester.

     

    'Striking looking'

     

    Liz Barham, Museum of London conservator admitted: "It was strange seeing her face for the first time, somehow it made her even more of a person.

     

    "I expected her to be striking looking and she is. She has very strong features.

     

    "She was in her early twenties and obviously came from a very wealthy family. She probably died from some sort of infectious disease.

     

    "There were some expensive glass vessels and jet pots and ornaments buried with her. The vessels would probably have contained perfumed oil.

     

    "There was also some silk with gold thread in the coffin and she was lying on bay leaves."

     

    Permanent display

     

    Analysis of the Roman woman's teeth suggests her family came from Spain, southern France or Italy, and that she was not born in Britain.

     

    The sarcophagus, coffin, skeleton and facial portrait are all on permanent display to the public at the Museum of London's Roman gallery.

     

    Liz Barham said: "It has been a wonderful project to be involved in because it seems to have captured the imagination of our visitors and they have been able to share in the excitement of the excavation."

     

    I have some pics if I can post them?

  13. I thought gavin a bit wooden.....personally I thought geilgud was a very good caesar actually Hinds isn't bad either....I think the role calls for an actor that can portray Caesars gifts....an all encompassing intellect..quick but measured ....calculating but even tempered...

     

    I loved Caesar and cleo, if for nothing else Pascal

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