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Hope this is okay with you all as it's self-promo. I checked with the mods who said it should be alright. Anyway, for the last two years I've been writing a novel based around the Battle of the Frigidus. The more I read into it, the more I realised just how needlessly destructive the whole affair (the second civil war in 6 years) was. Beforehand, I thought it was a candidate reason for the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Now, I'm certain it was (at least the main catalyst). Anyway, here's the deets for LEGIONARY:DEVOTIO AD 391: in the aftermath of civil war, the Roman Empire lies broken. The emperor is missing. Rumours fly that he has lost his mind. Sensing weakness, the Goths rise in revolt. All to the delight of the dark hand who orchestrated the civil war… and plots to stoke another. Far out at sea, Pavo stands watchfully at the prow of the Justitia, running cargo between distant lands. At every port, he hears of the empire's swelling troubles. Of fire and zeal and panic. Of legions, bristling for battle. But his days of protecting the provinces with sword and shield are over. He, his wife and his lad will soon have enough funds to make a home on a quiet island, far from the madness. Yet the empire is an ever-hungry beast, and Pavo is about to sail straight into its jaws… It is a journey that will take him to the brink, and throw down before him the question to which there is only one answer: what would you sacrifice to save your loved ones? Blood, treachery, reckless heroism, justice, honour. This story has it all. If you fancy a read, it's out on all the usual places: Amazon: http://mybook.to/LegionaryX All other retailers: http://books2read.com/Legionary10 Thanks!

The major problem faced here is that the general public want a simple description of how the legions were formed, deployed and disbanded. Because of their need for a straightforward narrative, books such as that by Dando-Collins, which purports to give a straightforward narrative, are bought, read and believed by those with a general interest in the Roman Legions. Consequently, any information which goes against the simple narrative are discounted 'because Dando-Collins says so'. The next stage is that this information passes into 'everyone knows' territory and so becomes accepted as fact, appearing in other books and on TV/the internet. Hopefully sites such as UNRV can help to correct the spread of false information.

I'm interested in material artifacts aspect of Roman history, and am less interested (skeptical in fact) about the going narratives. Think how wrong the media gets a story if you happen to have local knowledge of it. But there are hard to overlook vignettes evoked by ruins that just beg for some contextual story, like the alienation of Tiberius or the refinement of the Quintilii brothers based on their respective villas. Same could be said for their meditative portrait sculpture...

Studying Latin in school-- the myths and legends of the early history. It fascinated me that we were reading the very words written by men who walked the earth more than 2000 yrs ago. Speaking of church, my cigar chomping, truck driver uncle who quit school after the eighth grade was quite irate when Vatican II did away with the Latin Mass-- "That's crazy. We should be hearing the words the way The Lord really said them.' (??)

Respectfully, many items sold on Amazon are also stolen from brick-and-mortar retailers. I was buying a product from a “reliable source” that was using some strange packaging material. Then I realized they were selling stolen items. Now I try to buy directly from the manufacturer. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/06/amazon-sellers-suspended-over-stolen-goods-caught-in-crime-ring.html

These genetic studies must always be taken with a grain of salt...They are obviously not random samples including large numbers of test subjects gathered over the whole geographical area, but usually small numbers from just one or two burial sites, sites probably being family/clan burial sites for obviously closely related individuals....It's just absurd to claim that 99% of a population was wiped out when you only deal with a sample of a few dozen individuals out of a population with numbers in the thousands. It would more honest to claim that "of our small sample, 99% were of new genotype and 1% were of the old." Throughout history, it's been more common for a vanquished population to be taken in as slaves and genetically melded into the population of the conquerors.... ...and Caesar is quite right-- only Adam & Eve had no one else to push out of the way as they expanded their hunting grounds

Good point....For comparison-- over two million cuneiform clay tablets from Mesopotamia have been found, but only ~2% of them have been translated so far, but look how much that has contributed to our knowledge of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, etc civilizations.

That's one of the planet's most seismically active areas. Ground levels regularly rise or fall up to a foot a year. Modern Pozzouli -- Ancient Puteoli https://watchers.news/2025/02/18/over-550-earthquakes-recorded-at-campi-flegrei-caldera-prompting-school-closures-in-pozzuoli-italy Nearby Baiae was developed as a resort starting about 100 BC and became a favorite, decadent vacation spot for the imperial court. It began sinking in the 4th century AD....I think they found a graphitus there that reads "Quod Baiae accidit Baiae manet"

Ave, my friends! I haven't visited here in a long time, but I wanted to tell you all about a new project I started this year. In 2019, I published a novel called PRESIDENT HAMILTON, an alternative history of Hamilton's life had he not died in the duel with Aaron Burr. In 2023, I wrote another novel, yet unpublished, called WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE, based on the premise of John Wilkes Booth failing to kill Abraham Lincoln, and what Lincoln's second term of office would have looked like. Since I seem to be in a groove now, I decided to take on (and reverse) the most tragic assassination of them all, the murder of Julius Caesar. I had originally wanted the focus to be Caesar's campaign against the Parthians, but I found another author has already written a whole series about that scenario - and the first book, at least, was quite good. So instead, I titled this book THE RETURN OF JULIUS CAESAR. It takes place five years after the Ides of March, with Caesar on his way back to Rome after vanquishing the Parthian Empire, and deals with his political struggle to restore and reform the Republic before stepping down as dictator. It's a monumental undertaking, and right now I am seven chapters in. In case you are wondering how I got Caesar past the Ides of March, I originally wrote that as a short story and have now incorporated it as the prologue of my novel. It is available to read on my blog, and I would love some feedback on it from the learned members of this forum. Here is the link: https://lewisliterarylair.blogspot.com/2025/01/here-is-prologue-for-my-latest-novel.html