Divi Filius

The thing is that the Ottoman Empire didnt and later could not keep up with Europe. No modernization of any significance took place in the Ottoman Empire until the rise of the Young Turks and Ataturk. An example is that they were still using wooden ships against the Russian ironclad ships during the Crimean War. Not to mention that smooth-bore dominated their arms till relatively late. In terms of industrialization, there was next to none.

This is what people call Hellenistic warfare: war on a limited tactical scale where both sides stop fighting once their losses outweigh the possible gains. Rome, however, fought a total war.

This is the view I support. I think Hannibal had little choice. Its amazing to think that Rome, even though it dominated the naval aspects of the war from the beginning, increased its navy. Whereas Carthage did not even attempt it. Carthage seems to have completely ignored the value of a total war, relying entirely on the successes of Hannibal. However, this is also because of the fact that they did not realize that the strategic advantages were on the part of the Romans. The antiquities view of war on a tactical level means that Carthage viewed Hannibal's victories as mark of his success. Not until the very end did they realize that he was losing.

Its also the method that cavalry employed. At the battle of Cannae we hear that Maharbal's cavalry did not simply charge the Roman line, but rather penetrated deep into it and caused havok from within by terrifying the footmen then rush back out before the enemy could counter. I would say that the same thing occurred at Zama and many other battles until the rise of the cataphract.

Its most probably due to the fact that these are technical colleges where most of the students are nursing majors etc. so they really dont have much interest in the classical. However, I was somewhat disturbed to hear that Queens College (in which my last semester in will finish pretty soon, where then I say hello Binghamton) is downgrading its "physical" library and making everything more electronic.

Happy Birthday

I was recently reading an old article by professor B.D. Hoyos(professor and author of numerous studies on the Punic Wars): Hannibal: What Kind of Genius?(JSTOR) Hoyos' conclusion is quite typical of other Hannibal evaluations: He understood the value or tactics but not strategy; his mind set of war was based on the Hellenistic model and under-estimated the Roman determination. However, many of his points are rather interesting, in particular is his view that he should of considered marching against Rome, not with his entire army but rather with a large division of cavalry: "Maharbal wanted permission to press on with the cavalry: in other words he hoped to seize the city by surprise or as a result of the panic and demoralization that would break out at the news of Cannae and the appearence of his squadrons at the gates". Goldsworthy takes a somewhat similar approach, albeit in a far less aggressive tone: "The central question is not whether or not he could have captured the city by siege or direct attack, but whether the Romans would have resisted him at all."(Cannae 163) Secondly, I have always been under the impression that Hannibal did not receive reinforcements due to the half-assed determination of Carthage, who did not value the overall strategic center of the war(Italy) and wasted its resources of maintaining or recapturing old imperial possessions. Hoyos seems to take a different stand on this also: "In these arrangements there is no evidence that Hannibal was sabotaged by a hostile home government. His authority over strategic decisions is shown by his arrangements for Spain and Africa before setting out in 218 for Italy... Polybius stresses that it was Hannbal who all these years held the threads of all theaters of war and diplomacy in his own hands. Thus it was Hannibal who allowed himself to do without reinforcements for years on end". He says further on: "When the expected denouement to the grand strategy failed to occur, his Italian strategy collapsed. To replace it tried envelopment of the enemy again, but on a Mediterranean scale." He also goes on to attack Hannibal for his overall lethargy in meeting up with his allies. He made no attempt to ever meet with his brothers half-way, but rather expected them to march all the way down to him: resulting in the alienation of Mago when he entered Liguria and defeat of Hasdubral. This could not be the fault of his inability to maneuver, he says, since Roman armies were still terrified of him and he continued to move as he wished. ------- I personally do not know what to make of this. Hoyos presses his view on again in 'Maharbal's Bon Mot', but the general concensus seems to remain that Hannibal did right in not going after Rome immediately following Cannae. Similarly with much of this. I do not remember Goldsworthy(one of the most recent treatments of the war) stating that Hannibal was importing Cannae on a gigantic scale. What are some thoughts? For me the article fails to convince. Saying Hannibal had overall control of the war because he commanded things in Spain cannot possibly fit considering that Barcists controlled nearly all matters in the peninsula. How could it have been possible for Hannibal to direct the events of the war while in the middle of a campaign in Italy? Im still in the belief that it was the Carthagenian senate that worried more about maintaining or reclaiming imperial possessions due to an unawareness of the overall situation in Italy following Cannae. His treaty with Macedon seems to have taken simply Italian concerns. He may have had significant control over the process of the war, but I can hardly believe that he had the ability to wire and rewire manpower. The view doesnt seem to have taken off...

Great find Virgil!

Why attempt a coup when frail old Tiberius is just waiting to pass on? He was the next in line and probably considered himself quite safe.

Today I was driving home and saw that a local college was clearing out some of its library books. Rarely have I found anything of real interest here as most books are unused literature from a bygone era. Whatever scholarship is there, its most likely outdated. However, I passed through it anyway and was surprised to find a good I have been searching for a while now: Roman government's response to crisis, A.D. 235-337 by Ramsay MacMullen. At first I thought the book would be 20-30 bucks but I was surprised to find that it was just 2 bucks. So I quickly grabbed it. I also purchased The World of Late Antiquity 150-750 for 50 cents. Very nice!

*Quickly files transfer papers for Dickinson*

The amount of sestercii seems astounding. I wonder how much of a role inflation played in it.

Well... the religious have set dogma's and scriptures which they have to follow. I know a couple of secular Muslims who do not follow the Hadiths, something which conservative Muslims would be terrified to hear. I once heard a Jew say "I follow parts of the religion that I like, but reject those I dont", when I asked him how he could do that, he responded by asking: "whats going to stop me?". The case you brought with Christians is a common one. Italians in my neighborhood are a great example. Many of them outright hate the church or shun it; often times it values with it. Most are keen to drinking and gambling and casual sex, yet they describe themselves as Christians(well, Catholic, actually). I think that once you have no concern for the rules of your religions, or follow them at will, you cease to be a faithful of that religion. I would say that you are developing the characteristics of a "nonbeliever". When the fear of divine retribution --so typical of conservative adherents -- is no longer in you, then you cease to be religious. If you do not fear a god, then certainly you must have come to question his existence, consciously or subconsciously.

I do live in the US; even here those who say they are "religious" are heavily influenced by secularism and/or lead very secular lifestyles. However, they are generally not aware of it and cannot differentiate.

I think secular expresses my views. 90% of the western world is secular today, yet very few of those people would say that they did not believe in god.

I have a couple of weeks left of class. In a short amount of time the website will receive my review of a book dealing with, more or less, the figure(s) most important to this era. Afterwards I will get started on my other focus. Still collecting sources.

Heritage wise I am a mix of Orthodox Christianity and Bektashi, although today my family follows various versions of Christian. I, however, am an Atheist. Although I generally say that I am Agnostic to escape the look most give when I say that I am the former...

I heard that the city was favored due to the marshes nearby, which made sieging the city quite difficult. Kulikowsky seems to take this stand when he has the Goths go for Rome.

The only reason I say that the east's image of Attila did not influence us much is because of the way we view him in the modern western Catholic world. To us he is the one who was just barely defeated at Chalons; and only through the united force of Goths and Romans(even though, I would say, Attila's forces were just as much a conglomerate as the latters were). When we picture Attila it is usually followed by Aetius, or the destruction of Aquileia, plunder of Gaul or the near march on Rome.

I would say that its their contemporary mindset, more then anything else. Otherwise these structures would not have lasted as long as they did.

I dont see the east influencing the western perception of Attila all that much; plus we have to take into account the various people that came in after Attila and did their damage to the empire, for example, the Bulgars and the slavs. Attila's damage may have been great, but it not long lasting.

I think it was more or less due to the fact that those who came to power in later times were deeply influenced by Attila. The city of Venice attributed its origin to Attila's destruction of Aquilea; the Popes of later times glorified their success in "forcing" Attila to retire from Italy and thereby spare Rome. The other barbarians were more or less embarrassments that later Catholic or Italian forces could not really explain, whereas Attila's failure, or rather near success, was what ultimately drew attention to him. There is also the fact that the Huns were never really tamed. The Goths and other barbarian groups were in fact brought to the authority of the Pope -- excluding the Vandals, who live on in our vocabulary -- but Attila and the Huns were not and would not accept either Christianity or civilization for that matter.

Africa was heavily Donatist, a groups which was heavily persecuted by both the Orthodox-Catholic Roman Empire and the later Arrian Vandals and then the Byzantines. Iberia was Catholic and the Visigoth conquerers eventually converted out of Arrianism.

Apparently new details have come out regarding the killer; much of it is the usual: - loner(antisocial) - possible history of abuse* - HE SET HIS DORM ON FIRE AT ONE POINT!!!! The upper ones only appear in hindsight of the event, however the third is incredible. The fact that he was allowed to remain in the campus after he committed arson strikes me as odd. *The plays he wrote while in a creative writing class have been released. Many of them are disturbing; he was recommended counseling for having been the victim of sexual abuse in his childhood.