Pantagathus
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Posts posted by Pantagathus
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Happy Solstice! The days will be getting longer now (yay!) If you don't celebrate the solstice, then have a happy first day of winter. It's been winter here for a while now though...if the subzero temps and snow are any indication
The true day of the Saturnalia!
Happy Solstice to you too LW!
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I think they're patriotic. And with the economic growth they're going through at the moment, and the wonderful history they have, they have every right to be proud...
The west needs to get over jealousy of any other country that does well for itself.
Lo-Lo,
It's not that, and I don't think that Favonius was pressing that issue.
You have to admit these structures have been around for quite a long time. Is it such a novel break through to just now suggest similarity enough that (as the artical said) indirect influence from the Great Wall on the Roman Limes is certain? Of course there are similarities, it's a forified wall for Pete's sake... It's no different than the theories of the Egyptians or Sumerians having a hand in the design of Mesoamerican pyramids...
To me it seems that Professor Zsolt is possibly using this current prosperity of the Chinese to get published in an overcrowed area of scholarship...
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The 'Smith Geography' may appear a bit expensive but if it is even half as good as Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, it will probably be an invaluable investment.
It is of the exact same caliber. In fact, I've found it to be item for item vastly superior to Harry Thurston Peck's Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities
Don't let the 1854 publishing date decieve you. It's not only the most thoroughly researched resource I've come across, the theories that they venture to speculate on certain unsolved issues are often more sound than many modern ones...
But to bring it back home, I apologize to Spurius in regards to steering his fine thread off topic.
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I think I'll stick to the version on perseus.tufts.edu.
As do I...
But someday I'd love to have a copy in the home library. But seriously for those interested: Preorder on Amazon
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If you are interested in particular cities, the entries in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Edited by William Smith usually indicate what rights they held & when. There are a few places you can find that resource online.
Massilia is a great example of #3
Ummm--is that still in print?
It's about to be again and can be yours for $598!
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You know, I really don't know how to articulate what I think about it so I'll leave it to Mr. Smiley:
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At least its better than the Palestinian gunman who stormed Bethlehem's City Hall on Monday...
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do we know the status of many of the cities of the Roman world? I'd love to be able to find a map that's color-coded with these.
If you are interested in particular cities, the entries in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Edited by William Smith usually indicate what rights they held & when. There are a few places you can find that resource online.
Massilia is a great example of #3
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rather than to simply announce that Romans may have been Neanderthals.
Yes, don't do that because:
a) There have been many geneographic studies done recently that without a doubt indicate that the Y-chromosome & mtDNA haplogroups that made up the majority of ancient Romans weren't even remotely contempoary with Neanderthals
Based on forensic data from Neanderthal skeletal remains, it is abundantly clear that neanderthals were quite small in stature. Not some big brutish cave man as depicted in cartoons...
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I'm sidelining myself hoping to prime a response from another member of the Forum.
BTW, Flavius thanks for the response which is as decent a guess as any.
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If I am not mistakes the anient Romans made a fish gruel that they put on many things....seen it made on the BBC...the chef said it was most disgusting.
Yes Garum. The Romans used it about as much as modern folks use salt...
As for the second part of your post, it might be best that you start a new thread to pose that question as it's a bit off topic.
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In short reply, I do not believe that the Parthians were the only worthy opponents...
The Lusitanians in Hispania gave the Romans an extremely tough go and it was really only because their main leader was assassinated that opened them up to being bribed to end the war.
It took over 80 years to finally pacify the various Ligurian tribes in the Northern Apennines & Western Alps. Like the Cantabrians, the only way Rome finally succeeded was to resort to mass deportations if/when they achieved a small victory.
But I will admit that the difficulty for Rome in these cases had to do with the guerrilla tactics of the foe.
Fact of the matter is that it's not right to judge the Romans and their adversaries by the end result of the campains. (Which we all know eventually was in favor of the Romans). If the Romans really had to conquer Parthia I do believe they would have. However, I just don't feel that they had the true economic motivation to see the submission of the Parthian's realized and so they didn't.
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may I ask a Briton who has not visited the States -how large are your counties of "york" and "Lancaster" in physical size and population?
I could answer that for South Carolina... (Both near where I grew up in North Carolina)
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Taking from various things I've read here & there, I feel it would be safe to assume that the average lifespan of the priests would be anywhere into the 50's & 60's, some 70's. Perhaps a bit shorter during the early & middle Bronze Age.
Even the skeletal evidence from elite burials at Catal Huyuk, Turkey (~6,000-~4500 BC) indicate a life span usually into the upper 50's.
So we really need to know:
1. Number of Priests employed
2. Average life span for the Priest class
3. Period of employment (20 years? Life?)
4. What factors could end a tenure short?
5. Guestimate of % times that #4 happened...
What if we find out its only 4 priests at a time who serve a lifetime (~30+ years active)? That could be indications that a paradigm shift is required!
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firstly-any prescribed length for a period of priesthood?
secondly-if answer to (1) is no , then what was likely longevity and age at accession to full preisthood? In a priveliged college a mans life expectancy might be greatly above the average ,but perhaps not too far above the expectancy of other "priveliged" full citizens.
the equation might include overlapping incumbencies as you hint,so the 345 could be overlapping "cohorts".
Exactly why this is a facinating puzzle! I agree that overlap must be factored in. But I assume that it would operate as we know the V-V's did where there is a set number of priests (like the set amount of V-V's in training and serving at a given time). So overlap is washed out a bit by a definite number of priests at a given time.
If we consider a set number of priests serving for their lifetime, even if their were 6-10 priests, we're pushing well into the Bronze Age are we not?
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"Hecataeus the historian was once at Thebes, where he made a genealogy for himself that had him descended from a god in the sixteenth generation. But the priests of Zeus did with him as they also did with me (who had not traced my own lineage).
They brought me into the great inner court of the temple and showed me wooden figures there which they counted to the total they had already given, for every high priest sets up a statue of himself there during his lifetime; pointing to these and counting, the priests showed me that each succeeded his father; they went through the whole line of figures, back to the earliest from that of the man who had most recently died.
Thus, when Hecataeus had traced his descent and claimed that his sixteenth forefather was a god, the priests too traced a line of descent according to the method of their counting; for they would not be persuaded by him that a man could be descended from a god; they traced descent through the whole line of three hundred and forty-five figures, not connecting it with any ancestral god or hero, but declaring each figure to be a
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I dug there yesterday... they've uncovered somewhere around 13 to 16 skulls (one is a donkey). Many of the skeletons are partially articulated, but it's basically a mass-grave. They're still not sure what it is and since it's a salvage project, there's not much time to dig it all up.
-Webmaster
moonstart.com/dig
Thanks for the first hand update Moonstar!
I do hope you stick around.
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***Moved to it's own Thread***
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I'm pretty sure we'll find evidence of earlier conflicts, even if its done by sticks and stones.
Seriously though.Off the top of my head, there are cave & rock face paintings in eastern Spain & Sicily that date to the Early Holocene (end of the Ice Age) that depict 'squads' of men armed with bows and spears ceremoniously 'dispatching' smaller groups of individuals...
If seen pictures of them and its pretty hard to interpret the scenes any other way than armed conflict.
Also dating from about the same time is a mass burial found near the Black Sea (Georgia? Ukraine? I can't remember exactly) where all the bodies intered there apparently died violent deaths at the hands of other humans. I.e. there are projectile & spear points inbedded in bones and signs of lacerations on other bones.
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I can't really see much use in it. I believe in the old fashion read the sources by actual text, interpret it, and the teacher will tell you the correct information. I don't believe in online teaching unless it was for find information and reputable sources.
While a student should always listen and respect the teacher as a matter of course, there are many out there who don't have a clue what they are talking about. Just like in any professional field, there are good and there are bad. I tell my own children to listen and learn but to always question and seek out more information than a single teacher can provide.
Online learning and study is quickly becoming an educational standard (especially among adults who 'attend school' while working) and in my opinion it should be embraced, encouraged and expanded.
I really want to echo P-P here. If anyone plans on working towards post graduate work in an academic field, the goal once you get to thesis should not be to show that you stayed awake during those years and read what you were supposed to read. The goal should be to present a unique approach to a given topic; to show that you have uncovered elements of a subject that have either been overlooked, misrepresented or misunderstood in the past by other scholars.
If one is satisfied with riding the coat tails of other's research and opions, you're likely to be the one wondering why it's so hard to find a staff position or get published...
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At private parties, no doubt, anything went including clothes, but I think not generally on stage or in public. You could crissare in a g-string I would imagine (I won't try it). That was all that Theodora wore; thinking about it in later years, Justinian was probably very pleased she did ... The fact that total nudity was normally beyond the limit (if my conclusions were correct) helps to explain why exactly the Floralia were different.
Thank you
Do you think that this was always this way or only later during the more Christian era?
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Without delving into too much detail right now on the subject, I would just say that I wish my Congressmen would read or brush up on Polybius, Chapter 6 because I know our Founding Fathers were versed in it.
Specifically:
Denegration of Constitutions, 6.8
How Democracy Rises & Denegrates, 6.9
Lycurgus, 6.10
Conclusion: Dangers Ahead for Rome, 6.57
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Hmmmm, I thought that Jerico held the honor for earliest evidences of devastation due to armed conflict in some of it's very earliest levels (~9th-~8th Millennia BC)
Regardless, I feel it's safe to say that as long as man has been building & owning things, other men have come along to either take it or destroy it in the process.
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In the end I do believe it is quite safe to say that just about everyone in the ancient world was equally bloodthirsty to a certain degree. They just had a different way of going about it...
Except Socrates of course. He was a nice guy. And we know what happened to him.
Then I guess my sentance should read: 'every society'? But then, the Phoenicians from the motherland weren't really? No wait they sacrificed children...
Slingers
in Gloria Exercitus - 'Glory of the Army'
Posted
I considered starting a new thread on this but didn't think it would last long so I placed it in the 'Weapons' thread. However, even there it seemed DOA so here I am, again giving the subject it's own home...
We often overlook the Slingers!
They were usually a small portion of auxillaries (~1000 men) in various armies but were important enough that many generals went out of their way (most notably the Balearics) to recruit them. Hannibal employed them, Caesar employed them, Cyrus the Great, Pompey, etc...
Great article:
The Use of The Sling Among The Ancients - Walter Hawkins
It would have been a skill that I personally would have liked to have mastered (as a back up of course)