Virgil61

I don't know if I'd buy them, ebay can be iffy and I'm wouldn't want to ship from overseas, but they are very cool. I'd like to get a replica of a Roman standard, I'll surf around and see if they're available unless someone has a link.

Did anyone see "Foot Soldier" on History International this evening [it looks like a repeat]. Not bad, it was an hour on the life of Roman soldiers. They spent some time on Hadrian's wall, covered the assault on Masada and most of the other highlights like retirement. They even mentioned auxiliaries. It wasn't perfect, the biggest down side was the host Richard Karn from Home Improvement and Family Feud. But his silliness was kept to a minimum, a solid B. BTW, I didn't capitalize "foot", and couldn't edit the title. Not a biggie, but is title editing possible?

What a great trip. I've spent a few months in Turkey but never Greece, it's really a great place. Did you get to visit the ruins of Ephesus? Really stunning. The leather jacket story is familiar, I did the same thing only it was in eastern Turkey, near Adana, and the prices were even cheaper then western Turkey. It's really a great country to visit and very inexpensive; almost unkown to most Americans, but the Europeans have figured it out.

Have I missed something? I have no idea what group you are talking about. Could you give more information?

In spite of my Catholic upbringing I'm not a believer anymore. Nevertheless I don't fall to calling others who believe in religion as exhibiting "levels of stupidity". My own mother is one of those "ignorant and stupid people", for her religion allows a measure of consolation for a difficult life. As for myself, I continue to allow Catholcism a large amount of respect as a legacy of my own ethnic background and the role it's played in my family's cultural past. I think religion has evolutionary biological origins that impart psychological and cultural functions. And while it's responsible for a lot of "unpleasantness" in this world I acknowledge the fact it also help millions to cope with life in lieu of a secular philosphy. I also know many other people, friends and acquiantances, who exhibit "levels of stupidity" by maintaining religious beliefs. They also happen to be MDs, lawyers and Phds in areas as diverse as the humanities to scientific research. One of my closest friends has a Phd in mathematics with which she works conducting studies of cancer trial outcomes. She is an atheist, raised in Russia while it was a part of the Soviet Union, but baptised her children and raised them in the Orthodox church. Why? Because she believes it's a part of their Russian heritage. As for "human beings were born to destroy", I'd take a look at studies of primate [and more recently dolphin] cultures if I were you. You'll find that the capacity for destruction and quest for dominance within a species isn't limited to human beings. It seems to be a common trait among the highest life forms on the planet. Having said this I think this thread shouldn't be closed- but it should be moved to the lounge. It has nothing to do with Rome.

I was googling for info on Rome- can't remember the specific issue- and one of the returned links brought me here.

Leave it with the Bradley? Mech's always had it nice. In Iraq [both times] all our gear was strapped along side the HMMWV and after consolidation, left in camp during missions. Here's someone's recreation of a Roman on the march, and yeah, I'm sure they dropped it before going into the fray; http://www.caerleon.net/spectacular/photos/page17.html

It certainly comes down to Caesar or Scipion in my opinion, with the edge to JC in my opinion. The dark horse would be Trajan, not listed, with his conquest of Dacia and sacking of the Parthian capital. Unfortunately for him he has no battles that make anyone's "greatest battles of..." list which always boosts a generals reputation. Pompey isn't listed as well, which is unfortunate. Plutarch says something along the line of Pompey having been judged the greatest if he had died at the age of forty. In my edit I'd like to add I see no reason why Augustus/Octavian is listed.

I need to clarify since I missed it the first time. Tacitus is the one who may have misunderstood the wall used in the ambush as the German wall, he wasn't there but relied on second hand accounts. The possibility of a Roman wall as a defensive site may still be valid but it hasn't been found. I think everyone agrees the wall along the ambush route is the German wall.

Good questions and here's my answers and take on them. There are no human remains surviving except for those found buried, probably by Germanicus, in two or three mass graves. I know I've read this and remembered it either from the book or from another source; apparently individual bodies left out on the field have not survived. It's fair to say the ramparts built along the pathway are those of the ambushing unit- the Germans. The Germans, according to sources, did not immediately leave these ramparts but launched a sustained missile attack of javelins, spears and arrows first. I'm not sure that "you don't carry personal items into battle", which normally would make sense, necessarily applies when the ambush and battlespace is measured in meters. Along an ambush route of several hundred meters I'm certain some unlucky ones were near or next to the wall, while others further away. They are carrying equipment, personal effects, baggage trains, etc., when ambushed. I'll add that the amateur archeologist who found the site, a British Army Major, has written his story up. I haven't read it yet but aim to: http://tinyurl.com/b6uhc

I don't remember much about the music played on Empire. It's interesting that I was doing some searching last month on music from Rome and Greece. Not much survives, but I do know that the Romans, as usual, drew a lot from the Greeks. If you're interested there is a very small amount of Greek musical notation discovered that has been deciphered to the best of anyone's ability. There are even some surviving vocals. The site has some music and vocal samples you can listen to: http://classics.uc.edu/music/ Here's a decent page: http://www.musica-romana.de/ There's also a small sampling of some scant surviving works of a musician from Hadrian's era named Mesomedes from Crete:

Bad. Really, really bad.

Not at all, thank you very much.

Thank you very much Ursus. The book was a bit of a disappointment in the last half. Of course after rereading it I've found grammatical errors and a couple of places where I cut and pasted but didn't check the sentences for clarity of thought. I'll get around to fixing them later.

The Battle that Stopped Rome by Peter S. Wells In the "Battle that Stopped Rome" Professor Peter Wells brings to light discoveries in the recent find of one of the most famous and influential battles of the ancient world known as the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. This should be a welcome work, the battlefield is the most complete one of its kind ever found, located in a semi-rural area of Germany and undisturbed for two thousand years. Unfortunately rather than stating the discoveries and giving a view to all possible theories, which would have made this a seminal work, Wells misses this opportunity by embarking on an opinionated interpretation of the event. Judicious and balanced this work is not. Perhaps this is possibly explained by his area of concentration in anthropology; his writings are almost exclusively dedicated to the northern barbarians of antiquity. In spite of their victory, Wells seems somewhat defensive of the German tribes in his portrayal of the battle.... ...read the full review of The Battle that stopped Rome by Peter S. Wells

I rarely follow or join in the After Hours lounge, but what exactly is it's purpose? I ask because it is apparently the place for off-topic discussions. The forum states very clearly that it is: "The relaxed place where anything and everything can be talked about". The site shouldn't state the above and then have threads yanked because someone's tired of them or doesn't like the topic, etc. Perhaps the admin's intentions for the After Hours forum conflicts with the introduction sentence above?

What's extremely interesting is there are two communities in Southern Italy that still speak Greek based on the Doric dialect. Here's the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griko_language

There's a good paper written by a Stanford undergrad on taxation from the late Republic to Augustus at: http://www.stanford.edu/~chenliw/school/ihum31brp.pdf

I didn't start out to be overly critical but the problem with your parallel is it seemed somewhat absolute in terms of similarities and the accuracy of some of the claims was suspect. The implication of a possible outcome based on them was obvious; when that happens and you post it on this board then it's going to be dismantled and analyzed pretty thoroughly. It's not a "seemingly impossible" standard, it's a valid criticism of a popular old thesis vis-a-vis Rome and America. It's an old thesis that's been used a lot to support political ideologies and notions on decline [your's is certainly a cut above most I've read]. You tried to field a somewhat comprehensive draft thesis for parallels and it deserves scrutiny. For example your reply: Agriculture is an economic sector and it was the basics of the Roman economy, while the U.S. economy has a variety of different sectors. Corporations on the other hand are legal, financial and organizational entities to manage and conduct business, they aren't an economic sector. That�s comparing apples and oranges. Wealth distribution patterns aren't the same, while 1% of the population in the U.S. own 1/3 of the wealth, in Rome the top 1% owned a substantial majority of it, if I remember correctly well over 90%. You argue that farmers in Rome and America lost their farms but don�t follow up the obvious vitally important difference; The Roman farmer was often left destitute while the American left for a job in industry. The mechanisms of why something happens are as important as the surface similarities. Just because both threw off the yoke of a king doesn't give their parallel situations meaning except on the most shallow basis. While mingling of races occur in both Rome and the U.S. [and other countries] the question of why, what forces are at work and the context tell a more complex story and determine the outcomes differently for each. I'm not sure what sort of "blood aristocracy" we have in the U.S. that is similar to Rome but is different than anyone else's or a mingling of the races that puts us closer to them than to Britain, South Africa, Canada, et. al. I don't think digging beneath surface similarities conveys an "impossible standard". Making close parallels between civilizations is fun and instructive, but it can rarely be done without highlighting the differences as well. When that's done it becomes comparative history. I think tightening up the factual accuracies and including both similarities and contrasts between the Empire or the Republic and the U.S. would make the last statement; "I wonder what America's fate will be" more powerful. To answer your last question, I don't believe there's any decent parallel you can make about America�s situation, what can be done is a comparative history- a subtle but important difference. Niall Ferguson does this when comparing British and American imperialism in "Colossus". If you get a chance try reading "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy or "Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World" by Barrington Moore. Both are flawed but still great comparative histories; they highlight similarities and then they contrast differences that lead to the outcomes of the respective nation or class depending on the book.

The most commonly flown flag isnt' the Mexican, at least nowhere I've ever lived in the South, the East coast or the Northwest. I'm not sure what a "culturally not American" immigrant is. Say black and brown if that's what you mean. No, studies show that using the criteria AT THE TIME OF THE STUDY will result in a certain type of growth. It doesn't take into account changes that happen a year [or ten years] later in birthrates, intermarriage, etc. I don't think there is any more similarity to Rome than the similarities between it and the influx in immigration of Africans and Indians to England, Africans and Algerians to France [both of which are actually more "parallel" to Rome] or even Zimbabweans into South Africa. People move, it's happened throughout history. I think the relevance of this issue is floating away from the topic anyway.

I think you've fell into the trap that most young historians fall into, parallels are the easy way to analyze history; they're clever, you can find linkages anywhere and make things fit into a nice pattern. Unfortunately the devil is in the details. The idea that history is cyclical isn't exclusive to the Chinese; take a historiography course at the graduate level or at a decent undergrad college. Toybee, Spengler, et al., were talking about historical cycles one hundred years ago. There are patterns, but I think you're far too simplistic in your analysis. I could easily make a link between the Rome and British Empire, the Chinese and the Aztecs and so on. I'm not saying that there aren't commonalities between historical entities, but the link between the U.S. and Rome doesn't parallel as closely as you've made out. Tarquinus was an Etruscan not a Roman; both the colonials and George III were English, same society, same language and same political culture. The colonies had self-government for over 100 years before the revolution with sanction and charter from the king. If you don't believe me take a look at the colonial histories of the legislatures of Mass, RI, NY, Virginia, et al. Democracy- of some form- was alive and well before the revolution both in the colonies and in George III's English parliament. I'm not sure how this counts [though I know of no "state religion"]; sure the Founders based part of the structure and much of the terminology on Roman institutions but they also had years experience in running colonial governments. As I wrote above, colonial legislatures had been in existence since the first colonies. Our judicial branch wasn't created out of scratch, colonial courts and judges had also been in existence in the U.S. and based their standards and conduct on English legal traditions and common-law. I think it's a real stretch to think the judicial branch is anything like the tribunes, assemblies etc. of the Republic. The distinction between optimates and populares is a economic and political split common from ancient Athens to the U.S. or even a newer democracy like Poland. Except for the fact that the Romans and U.S. started with somewhat homogenous cultural groups doesn't make it some sort of deep parallel. The forces behind U.S. immigration were vastly different politically, culturally and economically from conquered peoples moving within Roman borders. Again forces at work are so different in time, quality, technology etc, that I think the comparing the loss of Roman farms to a major economic and technological force like the Industrial Revolution which touched across nations and boundaries makes the parallel very flimsy at best. A Rome-America parallel? Most nations use the same rationalization. Even Hitler rationalized the attack on the Soviet Union with the same argument. The better question is what country hasn�t conducted a spree of social, legal and economic reforms or indeed an upheaval based on similar forces such as the French and Russian revolutions? The availability of open lands, slavery, a labor shortage in our early history, political unrest and poverty in other countries brought immigrants to the U.S. Romans were more apt to colonize overseas. I don't see how Gibbon's and Suetonius' imagery of a few decadent Romans compares to the social movements of today except in the most general sociological manner. It's a nice try, but I honestly think you've chosen poor thesis. The Rome-America parallel isn't new and while it looks good on the surface I don't think it's ever stood up well to critical analysis.

Do you have access to some of the basic studies on the Roman Army? A good start is The Roman Army at War: 100 Bc-Ad 200 by Adrian Goldsworthy, it's flawed but very informative. Pompey loaned his legion to Caesar in Gaul (and wanted them back). I would imagine that a governor would appeal to Rome or, if the need was immediate, to the governor or military commander next door Don't forget that while commanders might ask for and get reinforcements they often resorted to creating new units from the locals [Caesar in Gaul is the first example that comes to mind].

Very interesting. What a great job he's done on that site.

Attend a mass, read up on Catholic theology, history and heirarchical structure. Much of it is based on Roman custom and co-opted pagan ritual.

It's one of the great "what ifs" of ancient history in my opinion. Plutarch (if I remember correctly) wrote that he wanted to crush the Parthians, move through Armenia into the land of the Scythians and come back through the Germans to Gaul. Whether he could have succeeded or not, there's no one else I could imagine more capable of it in his era.