[The Personal Guard]

Rome: Total War is so full of blantant historical inaccuracies that... you shouldn't use it as a source for historical infromation - never.

[Did Paganism Continue At All In The Byzantine Period?]

If I recall correctly, there was one pagan temple in Constantinople that was left standing and it remain intact until the cruisaiders sacked the city. IIRC

 

Anyway, I think in Europe, many pagan traditions never faded.

[The Late Roman Mystique Of Divine Kingship]

Oh, my grammar failed me, I meant ADDED regal influence.

Soldier emperors like Diocletian, Constantine, Constantius II, Julian, the Valentinian brothers, and Theodosius I all fought on the front lines and earned the respect of their troops and were very active in shaping the policy of the state. It was only when emperors, especially in the West, did little more than sit on their throne, did their power slip into the hands of others.

 

I meant that divine kingship, majestetic ceremonies, and that kind of culture, gave the emperor respect since the common soldiers and citizens were awed by the Emperor's glory and wealth.

[The Late Roman Mystique Of Divine Kingship]

It reduced assassinations of Emperors, and their regal influence. I think.

[Roman Village Life]

I doubt it was that much different from what you'd expect village life to be. Farming, wooden houses ETC

 

IRC word "Village" comes from lating word "villa". During the decline of the Roman empire population began moving away from the cities, because society could no longer support urban life. When trade was disrupted, agricultural products no longer reached the urban areas, in addition, taxation was too heavy. So, people moved outside the cities, to live in self-suffiecent villas (villages), thus the seeds of European feudalism were laid.

[Apology Of The Crusades]

Laid waste?

The world evolved thanks to this european expansion. They brought laws, institutions, infrastructure, tehnology and culture not only pillage and murder.

This is the defetism that PP mentioned. Feeling guilty for what should be a pride.

 

Europeans destroyed entire civilizations, denied peoples their right to their own future. You could say the same about muslims, they conquered Christian lands, but in many cases, they helped to improve civilization, like in northern Africa and holy land. They were still responsible for murder and pillage, but in much less decree than Europeans were.

 

Europeans laid waste to China, India and other civilizations that were incredibly rich in culture and wealthy before the Europeans came. Undoubtetly Europeans brougth laws, institutions and technology, but with a high price. Africa is a hellhole because of European colonization, certainly no proper infrastructure was build by Europeans there, or at least anything that would be worth the civil wars and corruption. China was in a mess, and is partly today. Indian and Incan civilizations are all gone. That's quite a history of bloodshed.

 

Dammit! I have to go, I'll write and answer later.

[Apology Of The Crusades]

Yet another example of the display of defeatism by western culture. Sure, I suppose its a gesture of reconciliation by why apologize for something that men did centuries ago that nobody living today had anything at all to do with.

 

The crusades were nothing but raids with better description. Sure, they had seemingly noble intentions, but every war has noble, yet incredibly selfish intentions.

 

It's hardly "defeatism", it is an attempt to stop glorifing military operations that had religious excuses, but imperial and economical reasons.

Good point. Muslims shuould present apologies for the conquest of christian lands from Jordan to Southern France and Budapest!

 

Why not? After all, it would be the greatest thing if people came to together and try to talk. But should we start apologizing about everything, well, there'd be many wars and conflicts between these cultures to start about. Both sides have plenty to apologize, Europeans, after all, conquered the whole middle east and laid waste to the whole world.

[Technological growth]

some abolished slavery and serfdom quite early (England); some late (Russia); some (in the Arab world) still practice it. One could make comparisons across all of these groups, but the problem is that these nations differ in many other ways that make it difficult (but not impossible) to estimate the impact of slavery.

 

Serfs and peasants demands were accommodated to some extent, but tt was hardly an abolishment of serfdom what happened in England, I think. Anyway, Arab world had far less serfs then Europe during the middle ages, and I doubt that there's exactly what I'd call serfdom in the middle east today. Serfdom and slaves are probably more of an African issue.

[Fall Of Constantinople]

There's even a rumour that in order to crowned himself as Caesar, Mehmet unconfirmally convert himself into Christianity because the Orthodox Pope refused to crown him unless he do so.

 

 

Really? I didn't know that, but i honestly can't see that happening. Although when you think about it, it does make sense as far as winning over the people of Constantinople is concerned, as well as persuading the Orthodox and (little chance) the Roman Catholic churches not to preach more crusades against them. However, knowing of the convoluted treacherous way Sultans were elected and deposed, it would be a bit dangerous to convert

 

 

That is quite a silly rumor. Mehmet would never have considered converting at all. During the sacking of Constantinople, there were only a few terms offered to the men and women of the city. If they did not resist to the Turks they would be left untouched. If they converted to Islam, they would go untouched. Lastly if the Sultan had secured the particular family as pardoned, they would go untouched.

 

The majority of the churches and houses were completely sacked from head to toe, the only districts that were spared were along the sea walls where the fishermen (after seeing the standards of the Ottoman Turks on the walltops) knew that the city was lost and opened up the sea ports to avoid slaughter.

 

To think that the Sultan who allowed the unarmed nuns and priests of the churches to be slaughtered and raped, to have converted to the Christian religion is truly ludacris.

 

I have heard a very different story about the Fall of Constantinople. In it, they say that Turkish troops behaved quite well, and did not sack the city in a huge scale. The crusaiders in the previous fall of Constantinople were far worse, they sacked and plundered, raped and so on.

 

Many simply want to distort the events in order to demonize the Muslims. I find that disgusting. Constantinople was in a very poor condition by the time of the fall. Mainly due to Europeans.

 

I think there are very few, relativly unbiased sources. I wouldn't trust any of them completely.

[4th Century Ad New Weaponry?]

Well, late Roman army used the contos heavily during the late Roman era. It was pike-like weapon devopled from the lance. Late Roman army used different kinds of throwing weapons. Like, darts, javelins and even pilums, IIRC, were not completely abandoned.

[Medical Corps]

Acording to my history book Roman army had the best medical care to that of any army untill 20th century.

 

The Arabs later on copied the Graeco-Roman medicine, advanced it very much, and made a basis for the modern medicine.

[Britain After The Romans]

Natural Economy( would that be the barter-system? or just farming)

 

Natural economy, I think, refers to a well, uh, a complete farming society with little to no urbanization. Also, there were no one to make a stable, relaible currency during the dark middle ages.

[Britain After The Romans]

Pretty much all of Europe returned into natural economy after the fall of Rome.

[Welcome and Introduce Yourself Here]

Welcome, Stefan.

[Byzantine Armies.]

When did the byzantines abandon the Roman helmets?

 

If I remember correctly, didn't the early cataphracts have a Roman style helmet?

[Byzantine Armies.]

Speaking of ultimate tank action, did any medieval nations ever attempt to bring back the elephant? A plate mailed elephant would have made for quite a surprise I imagine.

 

Impossible. The Muslim world's monopoly on eastern trade meant that Indian elephants were almost impossible to buy in Europe. North African bush elephants, which Carthaginians used, were long extinct.

 

Byzantine cataphract rarely faced European cavalry, and probably never plate armoured cavalry since plate armour was invented rather late in Europe.

[Racism In Rome]

On contrary to popular believe, there isn't much racism in our society either. Romans certanly were not racist, pratically racist, but it is undoubtable that there was xenophobia in Roman society, at least in the republic.

[Did The Romans Have Crowns?]

Heh. Do you mean bald? I suppose he could be growing bold and bald. I thought it was the right of any wearer of the corona civica to wear it.

 

Yeah, sorry wrong word. He was indeed growing BALD, and he asked the senate that he could wear it all the time, he was very gracious for this.

[Byzantine Armies.]

At the 4th Crusade, the Byzantine Emperor was a very uncapable man.

He did nothing. When he came to power, the Byzantine army had many bettalions of super heavy cavalry called Clivanoforii.

 

 

But the idiot disbanded them. Thus what the Norman-Italians faced was mere light cavalry.

 

I remember reading somwhere that the Byzantine cataphracts were so heavy that lines were like water when they charged.

[Why Celtics And Romans Never Got Along]

In the end they did, Celts became Romans because they found Roman culture to be better. Of course, ROmans hated celts, but for understandable reasons, they had been fighting for centuries.

[I Figured It Out; The Fall Of The Roman Empire]

But Roman emperors had never needed an excuse to persecute people for political reasons before, so why latch on to a tiny sect for that reason?

 

Well, excuse might have been the wrong word. I mean, with it they could rule more effiencently.

[The Inventions Of Rome Leading To...?]

Romans weren't pratically scientifically progressive, but there was advancement.

[Did The Romans Have Crowns?]

I always thought that the laurel wreath was worn during the empire by the statues of the emperors as a mimic of Julius Caesar. Caesar looked for every excuse to wear his corona civica which he earned by single-handedly protecting a soldier during the siege of Mytiline (I think?) Later emperors constantly sought to prove connection and emulate Caesar, and so wearing that readily recognizable wreath became an icon.

 

Actaully, Caesar got promission from the senate to wear it all the time because he was growing bold...

[I Figured It Out; The Fall Of The Roman Empire]

Most of the legionaries of the time were still drafted from the urban-poor, foreign mercenaries wern't as numerous as claimed. The loss of general morale and discipline in the army was caused by the lack of payments, worthless currency, loss of trust to the Imperial government and many many more.

 

Rome by now also drafted or raised legionaries from the provinces, this allowed them to raise greater amounts of men who were sometimes more Roman then the Italians themselfs. The deromanization of the army was a bi-product (sp?) of the economical problems and civil wars rather than the cause of the fall of Rome, and it was really felt during the dying days.

[Would You Buy This?]

I wanna spatha...