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Marcus Caelius

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Posts posted by Marcus Caelius


  1. There are a lot of tantilizing clues out there and it is highly probable that the situation Diodorus describes could have in essence happened (a ship blown off course from around the Canaries to be caught in the equitoral current and driven west).

     

    The best single compilation and critique of these tales may be Morison's "The European Discovery of America." Besides evaluating the stories academically, Morison (an accomplished naval historian and retired admiral) attempted to reproduce the various landfalls in his own boat. His ultimate conclusion was, essentially, that there's no reason to vigorously dispute conventional wisdom on this subject.


  2. There is no exact criteria. After a few weeks of quality participation, wherein you demonstrate you are a serious member and not a complete idiot and jerk...

     

    Well, that does me, I'm afraid. Since joining, I've been finding out I don't know anywhere near what I thought I do.


  3. Stick around on the forum long enough and you'll be promoted to Equestrian, giving you access to both the galleries and blogs.

     

    Oh, that's it. How long is "long enough"? Another forum I belong to has a 50-post threshold; I'm heading for my 4-thousandth post there, so being a newbie again is a bit of a culture shock.


  4. Is there anyone who didn't get to America before Columbus? So far, I've heard about the Norse, Welch, Irish, Egyptians, Greeks, Atlanteans, Polynesians, and Japanese. Now, the Carthaginians. It's beginning to look like Peter Minuit didn't buy Manhatten from the Indians, so much as he paid off their mortgage.


  5. If I wanted to find a coin with the image of a specific deity (e.g., Mercury), where would I look and how much would I be paying?

     

    First, if you don't already, learn to recognise what it is you're looking for. I suggest you start here.

     

    Second, learn something about the market.

     

    Third, just start looking. eBay is an obvious place, but you can also just Google. As talked about in previous posts, the trick is to hook up with a reputable dealer so that neither you nor the archeologists and historians get screwed.

     

    Fourth, realize that this advice is being offered by someone who has purchased precisely one Roman coin, which he has yet to receive. Having said that, the rules appear pretty similar to other hobbies of this type: don't buy what you don't know or aren't attracted to, have an idea of what the market is, know how to recognise a fraud, and so on.

     

    Myself, I do have some skepticism about the coin I bought, but I don't plan on getting much further in. Vespasian is my "favorite" emperor, and it just seems rather "convenient" that I found something satisfatory for so little effort and money. Still, I figure I can afford to believe that the coin is as it appears.

     

    I'd post a photo, but I don't seem to have access to any album utility.


  6. Thanks to everyone who replied. After digging around on the 'net and checking out the links provided (btw, the Tantalus at Dirty Old Coins should be considered indispensable for coin identification), I found a bronze coin with an adequately clear depiction of Vespasian (reverse Pax, seated) whose price ($35) seemed to match its condition and purported authenticity.

     

    I subscribe, personally, from the 'Archaeological tragedy' side of the debate...I do hope I have not offended anyone by posting this opinion, but to arrive for a mornings work at a dig and find that hypocausts have been wrecked and tesselated floors ploughed through for the sake of a few bits of metal is a distressing experience indeed.

     

    Neil, I hope I have not offended you by buying the coin! I am in full sympathy with you and completely understand; I've chased more than one treasure hunter out of more than one historical park, myself. I am also aware that no individual raindrop considers itself responsible for the flood. Having said that, I purchased from what I judged to be a reputable dealer, which I take to mean that all his dealings, including his sources, were reputable. By analogy, yes, there are plenty of pushers out there, but there are also pharmacists. I had no more ethical qualms buying the coin than I did buying a lump of coal from the Titanic, a piece of hull from the USS Constitution, or a lump of concrete from the Berlin Wall. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to suppose my coin might have been wrongly obtained.


  7. I'm starting to get interested in coin collecting, and would kind of like to have a few ancient pieces. Problem is, I know absolutely nothing about them (I'm a bit better with current issues). A quick look at eBay fills me with far more trepidation than anything else. For instance:

     

    Just in from Europe!!!

    This lot of uncleaned Roman coins has just arrived from Europe and they are the best we have seen in quite some time. While most of the coins will turn out to be bronze, we have had many recent reports of SILVER and even GOLD as you can see in our feedback...and these coins are from the very same archeological dig!

     

    That last bit, especially, has me wondering, and I suppose it's really the first question I should ask: How do ancient coins and other artifacts cross the Atlantic, legally? Or do they?

     

    And where do I go from there?

     

    BTW, the "Buy It Now" price for the lot from which the quote was taken is $29.95. Seems cheap for the real thing, and expensive for a fake.


  8. M.C., don't you think that the Brits knew the condition of the Black Sea Fleet and the condition of the Japanese Navy and its abilities? Would the Russians leave the Black Sea without a fleet for any long period of time?

     

    Meh. The Russians had lost the Black Sea 50 years before, and it hadn't proved fatal. The British could have retaken it any time since; problem was, once taken it would have had to have been kept. Not hard to do, but it would have tied up at least a squadron that could have been better put to use elsewhere.

     

    The British, especially at that period, were not known for their interracial egalitarianism; in fact, IIRC, the word "n*****r" applied to virtually anyone who wasn't white. It was absolutely inconceivable that any "slanty-eyed little brown monkey" (the racism isn't mine, I'm just illustrating) would be able to operate modern weaponry well-enough to defeat one of the premier White naval forces of the day (Port Arthur, remember, was a cheap little trick that no decent white man and Christian would have pulled). I believe the British were far more afraid of the possibility that the Russians, now that they had the measure of their racially-inferior enemy, would quickly mop the floor with Togo, then do a quick about-face and head for India and/or Suez.


  9. Do you think that the 'family' would have allowed Cousin Nicky's toys to pile up? The Japanese were a threat to the Brits in East Asia.

     

    The precise ins and outs of that family have always escaped me.

     

    However, I believe the Russian threat in the Indian subcontinent (ie "the Great Game") was more of a British consideration than any ephemeral Japanese threat to China. With the Russians pushing by land from the northwest, the English wouldn't have been too happy about the possibility of a victorious post-Tsushima Russian fleet, with no Japanese counterbalance, cutting India off from the sea lanes and effectively isolating the British garrison. Also, rather than pushing at India directly, the Russian army could have turned to the right and made for the Persian Gulf, there to join with the Navy and make a flank attack on either India or, even easier, Suez.

     

    Regarding coaling stations, I'm at work right now and don't have any references with me, but I believe there were several coaling stations available other than British. Bearing in mind the colonial geography of the time, Spanish, Dutch and German spring to mind, especially German.


  10. It was the Black Sea Fleet. Why didn't the Russians attempt the Suez? What was the direct cause of the war? I don't think that the Japanese can be blamed for a 'sneak' attack.

     

    Thanks, it's been many years since I studied the war. As for the Suez, we're getting into pre-WW1 European politics, and you know how convoluted that was. Besides, I have this vision of the entire Russian fleet piling up at the northern entrance to the Canal as the British let them through one at a time.


  11. I tried the link but it doesn't work.

     

    Odd, no problem for me. Here it is in plain English, as it were:

     

    http://www.euratlas.com/shop/01roma.htm

     

    To be able to walk around it and see it with your own eye's, I wonder how big it actually is, if you look at the Colosseum page you can have a look at the work in progress, the Colosseum is tiny, you really appreciate the attention to detail, those guys must have the patience of saints! :(

     

    Here you go: http://www.maquettes-historiques.net/page10de.html


  12. The Japanes got hold of British plans for battleships and the Russian ships and admirals weren't up to snuff.

     

    True, but it's a little more involved than that.

     

    First, at sea, the Japanese made a sneak attack (sound familiar?) on the Russian base at Port Arthur, wiping out the Russian Pacific fleet. The Russians then sent their Atlantic (can't remember whether it was Baltic or Black Sea) fleet around Africa to Korea. This took the equivalent of forever, because the Russian ships were older, coal-fueled and comparatively short-range; they left their home ports literally stuffed and covered with coal (imagine life aboard!), and had to make frequent stops at foreign coaling stations to replentish. Several vessels were lost to breakdowns, and he survivors just sort of straggled to Tsushima looking as if they'd already been defeated. Meanwhile, the Japanese had received frequent reports of the Russians' progress (try keeping a voyage like that secret!) and were waiting for them, with brand-new ships manned by well-trained and well-rested crews, in nice, orderly formations.

     

    On land, the Japanese took advantage of their complete mastery of the sea lanes and the fact that Russian communications consisted of a single rail and telegraph line that reached all the way back to Moscow, by laying siege to Port Arthur and finally taking it. With these two victories under their belts, and with the Russians finally in the process of sending a massive army across Siberia via that single rail line, the Japanese were only too glad to agree to peace in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.


  13. Just took a quick run through the site's index and didn't see that this has been mentioned, yet, so I thought I'd bring it to folks' attention. It's apparently a multi-generational story that begins with Romulus and ends with the fall of the Empire. I'm anticipating a month's idle spell shortly, and just ordered it to occupy my time.

     

    My mistake: It apparently ends with the onset of the Empire.


  14. An almost completely irrelevent derail:

     

    Devotees of "The Late, Great Planet Earth" held that the Biblical Last Battle between Good and Evil, Armegedon, would occur on the plain of Meggido, and be fought between America and the Soviet Union. I have no idea how America got dragged into it, but apparently Soviet Union -> Hammer and Sickle -> Scythian. I understand the real reason the Scythians are mentioned in the Bible at all (Colossians 3:11) is that they represented the most-remote non-Greek peoples in the known/rumored world.


  15. I wonder how long it is before someone does an interactive Rome on PC?

     

    This is about the closest thing, so far. Too bad it requires Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw; those suckers are expensive.

     

    HEY! I just took a look at the model's home page; the builder is somewhere in Quebec, and I live almost directly on the Quebec border. I may be able to see the thing, in person!


  16. I do hope you're right though. I hope it's complete bullocks.

     

    Unfortunately, it's not. I did some more digging around, looking for a trustworthy independent source, and I found one .

     

    However, the sky is still firmly in place. Down toward the end of the article, it is apparent that the law is aimed at sites that require personal profiles for membership.


  17. Uh guys? I took a look at the first page of the thread this was posted on. It's all complete BS. Who proposed it? What is its designation (all bills are given "names," such as "Senate Bill S-1234")? Where was this reported (newspaper, etc)?

     

    Also, "...as quoted in an article on Wired News "? Where's the link? Why aren't there any links at all in the OP? I just took a look at the front page of Wired News, and guess which Really Important Story That Should Be All Over The Internet isn't there? You know, the article that was quoted? Where is it?

     

    Relax. I just looked, and the sky is not falling.

     

    BTW: The top story on Wired is that New Mexico is designating Pluto a planet. Yawn.


  18. Never used eBay and now I am getting e-mails about my 'account'. Anyone else?

     

    I have, in the past. However, I do have an active eBay account. The key is that authentic eBay email will *always* address you by name ("Dear Member," etc, is a giveaway that it's fake). Also, the same message will be in your "My Messages" section of your "My eBay" page.

     

    As to how/why you got the email in the first place, the sender really is "f(ph)ishing." (Hundreds of)Thousands of people have eBay accounts, so a generic spammer's address list will suffice for a phishing message; if you get other kinds of spam, then it's not surprising you'd get this kind.


  19. I just wished that they had spent more time on Erastes, if anyone ever deserved a drawn out death...

     

    They couldn't, because Vorenus' children are not dead. I'm betting they're going to turn up in a later episode in a fairly dramatic fashion. Erastes had to die quickly as a plot device, because torture would have convinced Vorenus that Erastes initial answer, that he didn't know their whereabouts, was true, and the entire series would then have become Vorenus' search for his children, or would otherwise spoil the incident which will involve their dramatic return.

     

    As for Erastes' motivation, repeated denials would have led to his torture, so he goaded Vorenus into giving him a quick death.


  20. Awesome site. I asked my wife for 400 bucks for some Segmentata, she said no.....I'll work on her though

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     

    My wife said I could build a Roman soldier, on the condition I don't get more than one piece per month. What's been stopping me is that I can't find a decent mannequin at a reasonable price. Since I'm 76 inches tall, and almost 300 lbs, there's no chance I'll ever wear the stuff, and it seems ridiculous to start buying before I have a place to display it. ;)

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