Q Valerius Scerio

Muhammed does count - if the legends are true. Shaka Zulu would be an African leader as well, but one would hardly call him the most influential. Simply put, only Adolf Hitler on your list, and perhaps Stalin, Hirohito, and Chairman Mao have a chance for that title. No one else had the influence world-wide like these men did. Oddly enough, all of them are tied to World War II and its immediate affects. No one else, no other war, has had that sort of global impact. Actually, in retrospect, I can also add Muhammed or Constantine to those, but their influences are not nearly as immediate as Hitler's or Stalin's.

It's very difficult, but perhaps Adolf Hitler should be rewarded the prize. His fascism opened up the doors for even eastern fascists such as in Thailand. To this day, he probably has affected the world the most, both east and west, with his global war, although surely in the east it wasn't nearly as influential as the emporer's was. As far as positive contributions...well...hrm...maybe his paintings...nah...dunno? The guy was a douchebag.

Of course - during the course about the subtleties of the Roman state, we ought to always rely on the wise Wikipedia.

No, it was unprecedented. Call me crazy O Valerius - but when a guy becomes Dictator for life - I'd call the state a Dictatorship. It doesn't really matter if the Dictator still calls it a Republic. What do you think Sulla had? Because he gave it up a couple years before he died doesn't mean that he didn't have the power to be dictator until he died. If that's the case, then the "Republic" fell decades before Caesar, however absurd that might be.

The dictatorship was still part of the Republic, though. Sulla was dictator, still a republic, even Cincinnatus was dictator, but still it was a republic. The Republic had provisions for dictatorship. What was so remarkable about Augustus was that though he held only legal titles, he held nearly all of them at once - unprecedented.

Agreed. It was only after Augustus became uncontested that it truly became the Principate. Before then, it was still the Republic.

Were the military reforms of Marius good or bad for Rome? And to negate a false dichotomy, it was probably a little bit of both. Looking for some input on the debate. On one hand, his reforms led him to win battle after battle with astonishing success. The other Italian city-states in the Social War really didn't have that much of a chance with the influx of new soldiers into the army. Also, it helped give the plebs more of a chance to rise to riches. On the other hand, the duty to the state lessened as the soldiers gave allegiance to their generals for pay. I don't think much of the (third) Civil War would have happened the way it did if the generals weren't able to raise their armies themselves. I doubt the name Julius Caesar would have risen to prominence at all. It's quite possible that the fall of the Republic would have been delayed for quite some time. So whaddya think?

I got the same thing as Kosmo or Honorius, although from my own relationship I can say for certainty that she is nothing like them.

I'd like to meet two people. First, I'd talk with Cicero in his advanced age. This was a man that has seen it all - from Sulla to Caesar and everything in-between. A man so cultured in Greek philosophy, I would be able to learn much from him that is now lost. And the trials! Who was at fault on the Appian Way? What was Cataline all about? His knowledge spanned the entire Late Republic, and for that, he is the person I'd love to speak with. Next, I'd talk to Constantine before his "conversion" to Christianity. I would suffer a lie by telling him that he would fail if he converts to Christianity, and would, from future experience, show him what he needs to do to become the greatest emporer without the help of the superstition of Christ.

It certainly was quite the popular phrase. I reckon it can be found in a dozen of different languages.

As you should have seen from the google link, literally "the beginning is half of the deed."

My vote is cast for Sulla the Lucky. I think the Republic had a chance of recuperating after Marius, but with Sulla the worst of the Roman politics was shown and the power of dictator reached it's most powerful and most horrendous stages. Sulla laid the groundwork for the big names of the Ciceronian era to do their worse.

For me, it's actually the period of the Roman Revolution up to the death of Marcus Aurelius.

I disagree. Plautus shares many similarities with Vulgar Latin of the later ages. Classical Latin, i.e. what you find in Cicero or Vergil, was an artificial style modeled after the practices of rhethoric. It's like a miixture of Shakespeare, legalese, and politalk. Sure, technically legalese is spoken, but you can hardly count it as a living language. The Basque-Etruscan linking has failed miserably. However, Etruscan as a Ilyro-Thracian language has merit. Check out The Etruscans Begin to Speak by Zacharie Mayani.

None recorded. It obviously came from something somewhere.

The earliest Romans were Latins. Not far from them, though, were the Etruscans. No Roman spoke Celtic until the Celtic invasion in 387, and then they seemed to have only borrowed a few words. Greek was a common tongue around the area as well, but I don't think you can call the Greek's in the area "Roman".

It costs 42 euro.

The Ecclesiastical Latin c differs. In ca-, co-, or cu-, it is hard. In ce-, ci-, cae-, or coe-, are like "ch" in church. Italian adopts this. I don't recall seeing ae or oe in Italian, but for sure for the ce and ci. Ciao.

None of English came from German or Swedish. English itself was born out of the Germanic family, and the Viking warriors gave English a lot of words from Old Norse, but those are very different from German and Swedish respectively.

I saw the other day that they have a comprehensive Ren & Stimpy DVD out... I must own that I have the first two box sets (season 1-3 1/2). By far, that episode is my favorite of all time. "We're not hitchhiking anymore. We're riding."

Actually, Latin doesn't use any commas. The only punctuation they had was dots in between words, and the letters were in all caps. I separated them by commas for grammatical reasons. In English, when speaking to someone, the vocative is always separated by a comma. "Do you want to go to the movies, Mary?"

"blow wind, come wrath. At least i will die with this harness off my back." Flare, vente, veni, ira. Utique iugo de tergo moriar.

What line needs to be drawn? I think we all know the differences between physical sciences and social sciences, but that doesn't make either one "more scientific" than the other. In both cases, interpretation ultimately lies with the scientist. And as for your hypothetical publishing company, have you any evidence of this at all, or is this your gut intuition? I have already shown you a highly respected anthropologist using scientific to describe archaeology - what more do you want? Where's your evidence now, eh?

Perhaps a moderator can split topics? And frankq, I have no problem with making the distinction between physical sciences and social sciences, but they both fall under the realm of "science". And no, using "science" when connected to archaeology is not, in fact, laughed at by the greats of it. Joe Zias, a very respected archaeologist/anthropologist, recently commented on Larry Stager's statement of concern regarding unprovenanced antiquities. (You can read about the statement at my blog here.) Here's what he had to say (from ANE-2): Huh, would you believe it? A highly respected anthropologist described his work as scientific, and no one laughed him off the scrictly academic list? I don't mean to be mean spirited about this frankq, but seriously, it is very insulting to archaeologist and historian alike when someone claims that "it's not really science". Perhaps you should spend less time on UNRV and more time in the field with the experts before formulating these opinions on these fields. Sincerely, Chris Weimer PS - If the moderators refuse to do a split, then we can start a new thread on it. As I see it, this topic has run its course on this thread, and we really ought to be getting back to dealing with Rameses the Great's odd ideas about Spartacus instead.

You thoroughly confuse me. Social sciences is science still, what is it you're objecting to? All you keep complaining about is how it's not scientific, and yet you haven't even bothered explaining why.