Viggen

It’s one of archeology’s most astonishing finds: A mysterious bundle of cogs and wheels pulled from the depths of the Aegean Sea. It’s the most sophisticated device ever to emerge from antiquity.It’s taken decades of study to decode exactly what it does.... ....and then there’s a second, as-yet unexplored wreck.. fantastic news and a great article!!!! full story at News.com.au

...after 11 years it is time to move on. Worpress served us at times ok but security and spam issues are got so out of hand its no longer sustainable, and that despite the good reputation it has in general. There are just too many hack attacks and spam floods coming with it that i decided the time has come... To give you an idea, we run wordpress really only for the front page, basically a news window to new content we produce. The forum, gallery, blog and download section is all one softare and integrated. Now the front page will join the party. Its a huge upgrade for us. There is one database driving than all comunity related. Looking really forward to that. The only thing that is left are the internal pages. Those are all hand coded with no database at all, that will be than the final step to have everything from one database. A beautiful example (hey dont shoot me if you hate chelsea) is this page that uses the full software suite (forum, home page and content) http://www.talkchelsea.net/ ...so dont be surprised to see the home page soon in a bit different look...

Overrated by whom? Historians maybe, the commoner on the street probably never heard of him, so i guess his fame is on par with his rating? You might want to check out this thread from a few years ago http://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/8199-greatest-roman-figure/?p=81485 cheers viggen

File Name: Treatises on Friendship and Old Age File Submitter: Viggen File Submitted: 14 Sep 2014 File Category: Free Classic Works in PDF Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist. He is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary, distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. Click here to download this file

File Name: The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero File Submitter: Viggen File Submitted: 14 Sep 2014 File Category: Free Classic Works in PDF Written in the form of a letter on the topic of the perfect orator, it includes a defense of Cicero’s own oratorical style (Cicero was never known for his modesty). It emphasizes that the orator must be able to prove things to the audience, please them, and sway their emotions. It also includes the famous quote “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” Click here to download this file

I am currently reading The Mythology of Plants: Botanical Lore from Ancient Greece and Rome a very beautiful looking book (as to be what you would expect from Getty Publishing) with loads of images. Another direction i might go is to start reading german books. There are many published gems that have never been translated to English....

The Ancient Olympic Games, an invention of the 700s BCE, preceded Athenian Democracy by about 200 years, and yet those earliest Games allowed any free citizen to participate and win the supreme Panhellenic crown. Yes, probably most of the first contenders were wealthy by token of having more leisure time to train and travel to the festival. Yet in the pre-democratic centuries, the sporting model showed that what counted was individual ability and acquired skill, not status by birth. So the era of rule by tyrants and elite families was balanced by models of egalitarian display in the stadium in footraces, wrestling, boxing, and other track and field events... ...full article at OUP Blog

...some update; Morgan Freeman Joins Ben-Hur found at Empire Online

...I found it on the Carnuntum Museum Facebook page, its not your average military outfit, anyone know more about it?

In Europe countries change shapes and forms bascially all the time. I say good for Scotland if they want to be on their own, they have more people than Finland for example and the Fins are doing just fine.

In a week’s time, the residents of Scotland (not the Scottish people: Scots resident south of the border are ineligible to vote) will decide whether or not to destroy the UK as currently constituted. The polls are on a knife edge; and Alex Salmond, the leader of the separatists, has a track record as a strong finisher. If he gets his way, the UK will lose 8% of its citizens and a third of its land mass; and Scotland, cut off, at least initially, from every international body (the UN Security Council, NATO, the EU) and every UK institution (the Bank of England, the pound sterling, the BBC, the security services), will face a bleak and uncertain future. In the first century BC, the Roman republic was collapsing as a result of its systemic inability to curb the ambitions of powerful politicians. Everyone could see that the end was nigh; no one could predict what would follow. The conditions were ideal for the development of political oratory, and Cicero emerged as Rome’s greatest orator, determined to save his country even at the cost of his own life. During his consulship, he suppressed the conspiracy of Catiline, denouncing that man and his deluded supporters in his four Catilinarian Speeches. He pulled no punches: he did not hold back, like the supporters of the Union today, for fear of appearing too “negative”. So he informed the senate.... ...continue at the OUP Blog

A 1,500 year old papyrus fragment found in The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library has been identified as one the world’s earliest surviving Christian charms. According to the researcher, the charm casts important new light on early Christianity – just 300 years after the Roman emperor Constantine converted to the religion. It shows how Christians adopted the ancient Egyptian practice of wearing amulets to protect the wearer against dangers. This practice of writing charms on pieces of papyrus was continued by the Christians who replaced the prayers to Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods with extracts from the Bible. ...full story at The University of Manchester Library

File Name: The Letters of Cicero File Submitter: Viggen File Submitted: 11 Sep 2014 File Category: Free Classic Works in PDF The letters of Cicero are of a varied character. They range from the most informal communications with members of his family to serious and elaborate compositions which are practically treatises in epistolary form. A very large proportion of them were obviously written out of the mood of the moment, with no thought of the possibility of publication; and in these the style is comparatively relaxed and colloquial. Others, addressed to public characters, are practically of the same nature as his speeches, discussions of political questions intended to influence public opinion, and performing a function in the Roman life of the time closely analogous to that fulfilled at the present day by articles in the great reviews, or editorials in prominent journals. Click here to download this file

Some of you might have noticed that the site was offline for a few hours. Reason beeing; we have switched from our shared IP adress to a dedicated IP adress. I am not going to bother you much with nerd talk, just that much. Its good!!

...i am happy to say i like the iPhone allot and cant imagine using anything else, however, as long as my 4s is going strong, i see no need to upgrade for me... ....how about you?

Thales of Miletus, not really from the classibal period, but he was the first in many ways, larger than life and ahead of its time by about 1000 years... Everything in (western) philosophy starts with Thales

Hi Chris, seems like an ambitious project especially as you claim you dont really know much about Romans. Simon Scarrow and Anthony Riches have written novels set in Roman Britain the closest time period you have in mind would be from Keith Nixon, you might want to look into those....

In the fourth century, the Eurasian Steppe was a vast sea of grass extending for thousands of miles, from Mongolia in the East to the Danube in the West. Nomadic tribes roamed the steppe, fighting over grazing rights, women and honor. Occasionally a leader would emerge, unite the tribes, and lead them to pillage the farms and sack the cities of their more “civilized” neighbors, who called these nomads “barbarians”. Barbarians are glamorous. Therefore, coins of the Migration era with a definite barbaric attribution usually command a higher price than the equivalent imperial issues they imitate. But “definite attribution” is a problem, since experts may disagree whether the style (or, rarely, the provenance or pedigree) identifies a particular coin as imperial or “pseudo-imperial.” Collectors must often content themselves with descriptions like “uncertain Germanic tribe” or “unbekannte munzstätte” (“unknown mint”, since these coins are most likely to appear in the sales of German dealers.) In auction catalogues and reference books, barbaric coins fall at the end of Roman or the beginning of Medieval. Grierson and Blackburn is the standard reference work in English, but much of the relevant numismatic literature is in German, French and Italian. Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek…

Archaeologists have unveiled the most detailed map ever produced of the earth beneath Stonehenge and its surrounds. They combined different instruments to scan the area to a depth of three metres, with unprecedented resolution. Early results suggest that the iconic monument did not stand alone, but was accompanied by 17 neighbouring shrines. Future, detailed analysis of this vast collection of data will produce a brand new account of how Stonehenge's landscape evolved over time. Among the surprises yielded by the research are traces of up to 60 huge stones or pillars which formed part of the 1.5km-wide "super henge" previously identified at nearby Durrington Walls... ...full article at the BBC

...one of the real pain in the ass consequences of having many fake accounts is that email get bounced, ALLOT! Which means the reputation with email providers (Gmail, hotmail, etc..) drops like a stone. Which in the end means almost no emails gets delivered, because everyone in the email-world thinks you really suck! This happened in 2013 and with most of the internal notification system done via email, hardly anyone ever got a notification that someone replied, or that he got a new message or a post was quoted etc... Which means we had a considerable drop in engagement as people just did not get notifications... In the end it got so bad i couldn't even send out a single email without having the dreadful "return to sender" mail coming back to me... Luckily there are companies like Smtp2go. As of September we are using their service and it works like a charm. Not only does everything work again as it should be, now it is even better than before. Their reputation is so good that we can reach now people that had before our mails ending up in their spam folder... All internal communication (and external for that matter) and notification are now via Smtp2go and you should get now all of them uninterrupted! cheers viggen

Many thanks to the team of Ancient Warfare for providing us with this very special download!

Willkommen Armenius, nice to have you here. Thanks for your comments, as you said an akward moment in the movie indeed, and btw. you might be interested that there is a book on a very similar topic coming out soon... The day Commodus killed a Rhino

Hi Valka D'Ur, great to have you here... I hope you feel welcome and if you have any questions, just ask! cheers viggen

File Name: Ancient Warfare - VIII.4 (sample) File Submitter: Viggen File Submitted: 06 Sep 2014 File Category: Ancient Warfare Magazin Ancient Warfare - VIII.4 UNRV teaser special - first 15 pages Theme: The Seleucid Empire at war Theme: Michael J. Taylor, 'Historical introduction - The Seleucid Empire'. Illustrated by Philip Schwartzberg. Seleucus, who eventually acquired the epithet ‘Nicator’ was not a prime candidate to succeed to the largest share of Alexander the Great’s empire when the king died in Babylon in 323 BC. He certainly held some rank in Alexander’s chain of command, but he was not a member of the inner circle, and a host of men had greater claim to rule. As things turned out, this was a good thing for Seleucus, as an early start in the age of the successors usually meant an early end. Theme: Mark McCaffery, 'Seizing Alexander's Asian conquests - The rise of Seleucus'. The forty years following the death of Alexander the Great, in Babylon in the year 323 BC , witnessed continuous struggles between his various successors, otherwise referred to as the Diadochi. Under the guise of preserving the empire for Alexander’s royal heirs (i.e. his son Alexander IV and/or his half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus), some of these Diadochi aspired to dominate individual satrapies. Others, like Perdiccas and Antigonus, aspired to dominate Alexander’s empire of old. Yet in the estimation of Arrian (7.23), the greatest king amongst Alexander’s successors was Seleucus. From a commander of the hypaspists under Alexander to ruling over the greatest extent of territory of anyone during the successor period, Seleucus negotiated an incredible career. Click here to download this file