Julius Ratus

Either the extraordinarii or the evocati would be my guess.

If I have anything to say about it there will. But it is ultimately up to the god-consul. Oh, BTW, don't even think about JR becoming a casualty anytime soon...there will be no fraggings on my watch.

I loved both Mr. Bean and Blackadder, though they are totally different styles of comedy. The former slapstick and the later dry. As far as stand up goes, Eddie Izzard is totally fabulous!

Adios muchacho...

I hope we don't have to opt out. Egads, that's bad. Alright PP, that was 2/3 of a pun. (Pee-eww). You too, GO, enough. G-Man, an optio is the second in command to a centurion, kind of like a corporal. Since I am a Centurio, your my optio. We both serve GO in his unceasing war with RtG and his Egyptian hoardes. You up to it?

Oh, the irony!

I think not. Alexander's advanced version of the phalanx in tandem with his intelligent use of cavalry would have caused serious problems to the incipient Roman legions, and Rome would have become a historical curiosity, like the Etruscans and the Kingdom of Pontus. This is the key here. Alexander and his dad Phillip used the cavalry as the hammer, to the phalanx's anvil. Later Macedonian leaders stopped using the cavalry as the killing arm of the army, hence the legions being able to hurt Pyrrhus, and eventually defeat the Macedonians under the later Phillip.

My celebrations tend to go on for days, but alas, work began again Sunday night . Thank you very much, to all my well-wishers.

Some Roman tombs had holes in them where wine could be poured in libations. If we could find Lord Augustus' tomb we could stuff some cake down the hole.

If I understand GO, he means if you are not going to log in for a while (a long while, like the last four months for me!), let PP know so your profile isn't erased. This is standard procedure on forums because the servers get clogged with the profiles of people who are on for a few days and then never show up again. During my four months of interlet-less-ness I had my profile for my WWII forum deleted during the seasonal upkeep. (BTW, I thank the mighty PP and &c for not delteing poor JR duringhis time away!)

Who is Ptellius Cerialis? I can't find him on wikipedia and have never heard of him. Please enlighten me.

I get your point. Marius and Sulla butchered unarmed men in thier beds and on the streets. Caesar killed armed soldiers on the battlefield, and pardoned them after their surrender.

When he bought them off, how much did Caesar pay Ahenobarbus, Pompey, Scipio, Cato, and Labienus? If you speak of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, Consul in 32 BC(?), he was pardoned by Caesar and joined with the assassins. He was pardoned by Antony, and then sided with Octavian. He died shortly after Actium. Pompey was killed by the Egyptians, not Caesar. Labienus died in battle in Spain. Cato and Scipio killed themselves. Anyone else?

In the long run, the assassins did more harm to the Republic than good. At Pharsalus, Caesar demonstrated that his way was the new way. I would venture as far as to say that from Sulla on a military dictator was inevitable. What made Caesar different from Sulla and Uncle Marius is that he did not initiate a blood bath upon taking power. Instead he had the policia of climentia. Instead of killing opponents, he bought them off and forgave them. The two chief assassins, Brutus and Cassius, were both men he had spared. The next military dictators, Antony and Octavian, saw that they had little choice but to kill their opponents, because if they let them live, there would have been another Brutus and Cassius amongst them.

Gratias ago vobis. Julius Ratus vivebat viginti et tres annos!

I was going to guess Cataline, but since Nephele beat me to it... My second guess would have been Clodius Pulcher, but he didn't fall in a conspiracy. Milo?

Take a look at Mesopotamia, by Gwendolyn Leick. That book deals a lot with architecture.

Really? This doesn't make sense linguistically, but that doesn't mean as much. What sources do you have for this? I'll leave Viking influence on England to other people (not my specialty). If you read the rest of the thread it is discussed, even linguistically by The Augusta and by sonic. Linguistically, Viking influence in Scandanavia is very obvious . As far as the Viking creation of Russia goes (this is one of my specialities), Russia was founded by a Sweedish tribe, Rus'. They sailed down the Russian rivers and traded with the Byzantines, the Volga Bulgars, and with the Moslems. The main source would be the Russian Primary Chronicle (Povest Vremenik Let). Linguistically, Old Norse and Russian are very different, but keep in mind that over the past thousand years or so the Russians have had many influences: Byzantine Greeks, Tatars, Turkic tribes, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, French, so on and so forth. Beside the RPC, the best source I can point you towards is The Varangians of Byzantium by Sigfus Blondal.

Germanicus?

The Vikings created many of the modern kingdoms of Europe. England and France were influenced by the Vikings through the Normans. Russia was founded by the Vikings, the Rus. All of the Scandanavian kingdoms were the remainders of the Vikings. They 'discovered' America before Columbus, and gave the Native Americans their only lastin victory against the 'White Eyes'. In addition they connected the entire Medieval world. Their trade networks streched all the way from Iceland to the Volga.

They were more of a medieval seige weapon, than an ancient one. The Eastern Roman Empire (mighty Byzantium) did have knowllege of them from 539 AD on; they appeared in the Strategikon of Maurice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet

Wow, I signed on just in time to be mustered out. Oh well, I'll just see if Gaius Octavius and Rameses the Great are still dukeing it out.

Thanks a lot, P. Clodius. I did my historical research paper on Roman mercenary cavalry, and since then have been interested in our understudied friend, Labienus.

The Romans. The most destructive wars that Rome fought were her civil wars. Had it not been for the century or so of internecine struggle, the Germanics would have had no chance at taking on Rome and the Persians would have been held off at arms length as they always had been.

I have no wish to be a general, but if anyone needs a trusty centurion...have gladius, will travel.