Virgil61

Are you sure you aren't confusing him with me saying something similar about gilius' claim that the Roman Empire has never fallen and the Pope is the present day ruler [somehow including the EU]? Is Sarris saying this because it'd be pretty interesting--to put it mildly--if a Cambridge prof would claim this.

I have to admit I laughed and thought of the Chewbacca Defense being used as historical analysis when I saw this. 1. A public building was named after an emperor's family. 2. Loot from a subject people used to build a another public building. Hence, the Flavians invented Christianity.

Well the Roman legions often did march that lightly, which I guess is one reason a lot of military guys throughout history give them so much respect. The better way to put it is the better legions did it [the variation of quality vis-a-vis legions in time/space and all]. According to Polybius Scipio stripped his soldiers loads down to the bare necessities. In N Africa Marius was up against Jugurtha who fought a highly mobile mostly mounted war against Rome & the Romans had to respond in kind if I remember my Sallust. In Gaul one of the trademarks of Caesar's generalship was getting his legions to the hotspot in very quick time, much of it in northern Gaul and a famous incursion into Germany. He's also very clear that in winter campaigning generally ended & he split his legions up housing them throughout Gaul sometimes a few cohorts at a time. We know the kits aren't hypothetical. They've been described in Polybius & Appian among others, plus we have visual confirmation on some ruins/digs/other 'works' like Trajan's Column [below from Wikipedia]. The column shows the legions in Dacia;

No one's mention Vespasian's quip [via Suetonius] to Titus when he complained about the urinal tax yet? To paraphrase, Vespasian; "Do these coins stink son?." Titus: "Um, uh no." V; "Well they came from p***."

The official was Zahi Hawass. You'd recognize him if you saw any specials on the History channel (when it was about history). He ruled the Egyptian history/archaeology sector like a dictator. He'd all but bar archaeologists or historians who disagreed with his take on things. Good riddance. As for the collections I have no problems returning them, it belongs to the Egyptians in the end. I've worked in Cairo on a couple of occasions. Two things strike struck me; the number of tourists--in the tens of thousands at any one time & from all over the world and second the number of Egyptians who make their living in some way connected to tourism. At all times I felt relatively safe, I mean there were thousands and thousands of Russians, Brits, Germans, Japanese, etc walking around at that time. The Egyptian economy is something like $250 billion now, US aid is a pittance of the % it once was. A billion $ 20 years ago was a club, now it's a small stick. There was no good way to deal with the uprising. We support democracy, that's our 'thing'. I've done a few target audience studies in the ME and had we openly backed x, y or z it wouldn't have helped that candidate, probably the opposite. We're damned if we supported a regime w/the Muslim Brotherhood and we're damned if we support a military coup. It's a no-win crap-sandwich, Bush & Co. wouldn't have done any better. Armchair quarterbacking leaves me cold.

.I need pretty big fonts and still may have to view pdfs by the half page if the DX sharpness doesn't make up for it. Amzn still haven't shipped or given me a DX delivery date after several days, yet they are now airmailing 3 gallons of something I hardly need at no extra cost! I love big screens... you should see pdf on my 13" laptop folded into tablet mode and rotated to portrait... luxury! But all my laptops have died due to screen failures, and I don't want to burn extra hours e-reading on them. Same for an 11.5 inch android tablet I ordered from China... pdf looks marginally good, but all my bargain tablets develop touch problems in midlife, so I don't want to kill big, more expensive ones early just staring at books. One solution is to convert pdf to epub or whatever (losing a bit in translation) then reading on a smaller device which is cheap enough to bear the earlier screen failure. I don't like it too small so I am paging every few seconds. But the DX has a large-ish screen at a cheap, expendable price. Not only is it extra sharp but can work in bright outside light, which I want. My wifi router security setup is maxed out with device count, but the DX can use free 3G. Ahh, the anticipation is always greater than the reality. That pdf to epub/mobi conversion can be a real mess & takes some tweaking to get it right. My Calibre software seems to work well at that. I have articles from longform.org, thebrowser.com, aldaily, and the like forwarded to my Kindle readers via Firefox's "Send to Kindle" plug-in [there's one for Chrome & Explorer as well] via the 3G thingy.

Some older works are getting a second life due to archive, googlebooks, gutenburg hosting pre-1920s historical writing. Like I said earlier the MacDevitte translation of Caesar was very good as was T. Rice Holmes' narrative of the same. I read those on the ipad but if I'd had the older Kindle DX at the time I would have preferred it. The Kindle DX does fine reading pdfs, the 9.7" screen is almost an inch larger than the ipad's & that really helps.

As far as I know it's only streaming although there's some software out there if you look that'll copy streaming vids. I watch it through my Panasonic Viseo which has wifi & comes with Amazon streaming. I only used their book borrowing thingy once just to check it out, I've got more than enough to handle without it & I think the selection is limited.

.Maybe this sale indicates they are clearing out stock for an improved DX, although today they have extended the huge price cuts to some fire models. I can't find any academia forum, unless you mean the Brazilian one. Oh goodie, I have lots of .epub and .pdf available. Strange how amazon isn't giving me any delivery date on the DX after a full day, yet they are working on 30 minute deliveries by drone:. I meant the Acadamia forum on UNRV - http://www.unrv.com/forum/forum/56-academia/ . PP pinned the "Ancient Sources" post. I have a 7" Kindle Fire & an ipad 2, while they're both fine for reading ebooks and all I think the DX and Paperwhite 'read' better for my eyes. The fatigue factor is a lot less then reading from an ipad, it has something to do with how the e-ink renders on screen apparently. The readers are also great because they're devoid of distractions like the internet or apps, and that's no small thing I think. Amazon is wild. Anything in their Seattle area warehouses come to me within a couple of days, other things take a lot longer. I have Amazon Prime which is worth the $75 a year for as much as I buy from them.

Yeah that's the Kindle DX with a great price I see. Mine is packed with pdf files. The Paperwhite is useless in that respect & it's easier to read them on the DX than the ipad I think (except of course for the lighting). I'd love it if they'd come out with a Paperwhite-like DX reader. The Academia forum has tons of sources pinned, many are in epub (easy to convert to mobi) or pdf formats. Between Gutenberg.org, googlebooks, archive.org & Amazon's free offerings you'll be stocked full of reading for quite a long time. Most of the Rome related stuff is pre-1920 where the copyrights have expired. Some of it is outstanding, the MacDevitt translation of Caesar's "Commentaries" & Crawley's of Thucydides come to mind. I have a lot of ebooks but still find it difficult to pry myself away from hard copy reading.

.Oh, too bad it looks like he died last fall. I guess I'm listening to his "Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life" and the order got scrambled so I don't know what book I was on among the jam packed digressions upon Rome and Greece. Additionally, maybe in the St Mark Gospel he riffed about how Christianity was so much shaped by the Greek/Roman culture... more than just St. Paul making it a bit more Rome friendly, but the whole trinity crises was because Aristotle taught there must be hierarchy rather than joint rule. Graven images had to be allowed due to the Roman and Greek heritage of art. Stuff I never heard before, so wondered if his appealing ideas are accepted or eccentric. What a relief to load his lectures on my mp3 player for long walks... I just endured 24 lectures on that kook Richard Wagner, and then bailed out of a series that demonized St. Paul. How can I learn about St. Paul from a lecturer that hates him him as practically a Franco type reactionary vs Christ as revolutionary Che Guevara role model... Too bad about his death. Quite a lecturer. I have a few of the Teaching Company lectures & they really help with driving. I'm listening to Kenneth Harl & his Peloponnesian War lectures. I'm reading Thucydides as well--the Landmark translation, one by Oxford and one by Steve Lattimore. An interesting way to read it, each translator's strengths and weaknesses really stand out against each other.

[This isn't the place for this discussion. If the mods ever show up it would be nice if they moved it.] At least you didn't double-down on the SCOTUS boycotting the State of the Union argument. This makes no sense since concept & expectations [if not execution] are part and parcel to policy, any policy. Look I know a few things about policy & the law. I left active-duty to become a lawyer & worked downtown DC for a federal agency for several years. I know education and experience mean little to a certain crowd so anyway... The presidency & Senate are in Dem hands though popular vote. The House passed the ACA. The nation knew about the ACA prior to the 2012 election and still handed the Dems a 59.9 - 58.5 mil win over the 'Pubs in congressional elections & the president a 65.9 - 60 mil win over Romney not to mention a lopsided electoral count. You made an outrageous claim that Obama was like Caligula in his disregard for the American legal tradition but gave no evidence for it [see below]. He appoints judges. His only control of congress is through pressure, the kind every president has exerted, on his own party. He is allowed certain administrative law 'elbow room' like other presidents in the executive branch. You haven't shown evidence of anything else. Yeah Tyrants like to have health care bills passed by a majority in the House and Senate. Someone has blown serious smoke up your rear-end. The Origination Clause argument is a crock for the consumption of those who simply want to believe, but to blame it on Obama is glaringly ignorant of the facts. There is a briefing filed against the ACA by a right wing group w/the support of a lot of 'Pubs. It uses the Origination Clause argument. That somehow has 'internet morphed' into Obama having eliminated the House of revenue responsibility and all that 'Magna Carta & the present, erased' stuff. Obama did not pass the health care law, the House and Senate did. In fact presidents, Obama or any other pass no laws. Basic civics. The Origination Clause argument [once again nothing to do with Obama] has to do with the fact that the ACA bill

I don't recall this lecture but I will say Rufus Fears is really an enjoyable prof to listen to in the Teaching Company series.

OK, I'll bite. The premise that Obama is the equivalent to Caligula, even as far as legal reasoning goes is ridiculous. First he there isn't a bit of evidence to show that he is 'more hostile and controlling of our American independent legal tradition' than anyone--esp other presidents. Your personal dislike for his policies isn't the same as a rational argument for his supposed hostility. I challenge you to present evidence. Neither have the SCOTUS justices boycotted the State of the Union address over perceived intimidation. Justices have often not gone to these things; Rehnquist was the chief justice attended only a handful. Scalia hasn't attended since '97. Alito famously showed a lack of respect in the 2010 address, got criticized for it & never returned. It's no ones fault he can't man-up and go, if it's criticism that's 'intimidated' him then he's probably in the wrong job. It's naive to think that Obama has lied more than other presidents. Again show evidence that the justices have been intimidated or have used Obama's lies as an excuse not to attend.

Found this on the web. Have not read it yet. Looks incredibly interesting so I downloaded it to my ipad. A British legion stationed near Orl

I'm not sure what this is a response to but I do know there is no constitutional bar to keep the Coast Guard from filing charges or arresting anyone. The bar for the armed forces does not come from the constitution but from the Posse Comitatus Act--which is part of the US Code of Laws [and it's an act which the Coast Guard as well as the National Guard, when under state control, is exempt from]. The Dept of Homeland Security is restricted to civilian & Coast Guard which is why it does not come under Posse Comitatus either.

My opinion? Screw the 'civic duty'. You performed above and beyond 'civic duty' when you deployed, a hell of a lot more 'civic duty' than the typical chickenhawk flag-waving stayed at home types will ever do in their lives. It's not only about the money, don't take that if you don't want it, it is about the medical available; that includes pharma which is really costly. I'm lucky financially but most veterans aren't & that's a lot of why the VA healthcare system is there. It's about the nation paying it's debt to combat veterans. Access to VA programs and all is also a part of the deal when a soldier signs up just like education benefits etc. Do what you'd like of course we all follow our own star but from my pov I'd say you shouldn't allow them--the rest of the country--to get away as freeloaders regarding your work/sacrifice/efforts/whatever.

It sounds like you really need to get a VA disability rating claim in, screw the Army & their bs. The VA isn't perfect--the benefits board takes forever, they really try to weed out the undeserving but I think go too far--but once it makes a decision most veterans I know who deserve it get a decent claim. It ain't a hand-out it's well deserved compensation for injures suffered. We lost four during my last deployment to Iraq but have lost more to suicides in the last few years. A good friend of mine committed suicide two months ago, he'd just got out. He was a hell of a 1st SGT and mentor to a lot of people. My ex-BN CDR became a civilian & killed himself 6 months ago. That's just the leadership! There's several others who've done the same from 4th Group. I never imagined I'd see anything like this to be honest. They've burned people out with multiple deployments then sent them back to the civilian world and people are having trouble fitting back in.

Funny my experience with socialized medicine--the VA hospital system in Seattle--has been the opposite; probably the best care I've ever received far better than Kaiser. The docs at Kaiser were the worst & seemed to be asleep on the job, at the VA clinic I go to everyone seems to give a damn. But being held over while in the Army on a medical, that would suck big time.

I think you're right that there were a chain of decisions which Crassus is mostly to blame for but I think that ultimately his lack of a sufficient number of missiles w/distance to counter the Parthians was the single fatal mistake [he had some minimal number of archers if I remember correctly]. Over a century later the Roman governor Arrian [of the 'Campaigns of Alexander' fame] made a list of units to deploy to counteract a similarly equipped enemy (the Alans) in his area of operations. His missile mix--archers mounted and unmounted--was far more robust. What's up Onasander? Are you still in or did you get out? I used to have a slingshot on Bragg & when we were in the field I'd mow down racoons at night. They'd keep coming back, pretty tough animals. Remember that damn village on the Iraq side of the Kuwait-Iraq border? One time we came to a halt and one of those snot-nosed kids reached into my commanders humvee and took one of his bags. We ended up chasing that little **** until he gave it back. Wish I'd have had a slingshot.

I didn't contribute but I just pre-ordered from Amazon.

Burgess was a mainstream author who only wrote a couple of historical novels. He wrote Clockwork Orange among other things. For my tastes he was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, he's usually associated with the other English-Catholic writers of his era--Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh & Muriel Spark.

Burgess is one of my favorite writers, has anyone read this one set in the empire of the 1st century A.D.?

I don't know gilius, why even tackle that sort of silliness? If people want to be critical of Catholicism then fine, if they use historical nuttiness as part of their proof factual evidence won't change their opinions.

I've seen this before but only on the internet, honestly there isn't a contemporary historian worth his or her salt [at least none I'm aware of] who'd posit this as a thesis.