Ursus

1) It means we have been sabotaged by our Nebatean foes. Those micro-nation witches probably cast some black spell on us. You are no doubt a fifth column for our foes, and they are promoting you as the front man for an insidious insurrection against the UNRV Senate. 2) This is vile treachery, by the gods. It shall be crushed. I appoint MPC as prosecutor against Gaius Octavius, suspected Enemy of the State. 3) Secret agents in service of their nefarious scheme ... as you well know!

The problem is money. The Italians need more of it to preserve the Roman legacy.

Very interesting, Moonlapse. That solves that mystery.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_...Ch5R6D0xbes0NUE

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And if you've ever smelled an Amishman, you'll be thankful they keep to themselves.

Yep, I do. I'm a big fan of Rick Steve's Europe, which is produced by PBS. The episode on Ancient Rome was really well done. I highly recommend it. It amazes me how little the "History Channel" actually has on Ancient Rome. It used to be the Hitler channel, with a WWII program every night. Now it is just a lot of fluff. It has really gone down hill in the past few years.

I think I'll move this to the after hours forums, as it's more of a modern opinion piece (though with insightful analysis of historical paradigms). One thing I don't like is that the author seems to paint all Monotheists with the same brush. Jews generally don't convert other people to Monotheism at the tip of a sword ...

Hadrian was a patron of the arts and Hellenic aesthetics. He gets my vote for being a decent emperor. Perhaps a little too given to infatuation with young boys, however.

The earliest accounts of the myth simply have Osiris drowning in the Nile. As time passed the god Set, who had once been a revered if frightening god of chaos, turned into an evil figure. He then became the murderer of Osiris. The fullest account of the myth - the one where indeed Set dismembers the corpse and scatters it across Egypt - isn't even Egyptian. It was told by Plutarch. And I surmise there are Platonic overtones added to the myth.

I took someone's advice and played RTW with a non-Roman faction, and it did play a lot better. No factions, no ridiculous Senate. I played the Greeks and managed to conquer Macedon and Pontus. I then destroyed the cities of the Brutii. I could then have conquered all of Italy had not Egypt attacked my right flank! I still find many faults with the game. It's fairly easy to conquer Carthage, nothing like the historical three Punic wars. For some reason, Egpyt always manges to become a superpower, even though it was weakening by this time frame. Blah.

I like it. Looks more professional. And, yes, for people on miserable dial-ups, it does load faster.

John Schied, author of _An Introduction to Roman Religion_, has done a retranslation of Augustus' political biography. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2007/2007-10-40.html Should make for interesting reading.

Drink some beer!

Depends on what standards you apply. I only expected some passable special effects, some fun if brainless plots, and lots of pretty girls in suggestive outfits. On those accounts I have not been disappointed. Now, I will expect a higher level from the upcoming "BattleStar Galactica" prequels in November. It got savaged by the critics. I take it you disagree?

The Sci-fi channel. "Ghost Hunters" is my favorite, and I also watch "Flash Gordon." I used to be an avid fan ofn the History Channel, but lately I think it sucks.

After consideration, the moderators and administrators decided that reconstructions or reenactments of Ancient Rome and its culture did not meet with the spirit of existing historical forums. However, it was felt that reenactment/reconstruction is certainly a valid field in Romanophilia. We thus created a subfolder for it. It is attached to the Legion folder as most reconstruction or reenactment is military in nature, but your post on religious rituals are welcome here. As a note to the general public, however, one thing we are not interested in are any claims of "micro-nation" status - that is to say internet organizations that place a special claim of independent political authority would not be allowed to proclaim their sovereignty here.

I can't even check this website during work hours. Needless to say I missed the announcement.

Well, whether its Christianity or Paganism, on the religion folder we generally try to keep things objective, historical and academic rather than personal. While some of us are practicing pagans, this is more of an educational site - unlike, for instance, your Nova Roma, which claims to exist specifically to recreate Rome and its "state" religion. As for myself, I think getting into personal, modern involvements in faith could open a can of worms - especially when devout Monotheists appear to convert us to their way of thinking (it has been known to happen on this site, much to my annoyance). However, I invite the other Legati and the Triumviri to weigh in on this, and if I am overruled by them then I will bow to their collective counsel.

In this forum at least, and perhaps more generally in a universal sense, Augustus is usually evaluated in terms of his impact on the dying Republic. As this is the Republic folder that is a very condign thing to do .... but this is exactly why I rarely venture into these discussions on the Republic folder. I prefer to see Augustus and his successors on their own terms, in light of their own triumphs and failures in the imperial era, and not in reference to some idealized Republic ... or even, for that matter, in reference to modern sensibilities. In that light I do see, based on the best available evidence left by history, a generally successful system for the times. But my comments can be found in various threads on the imperial folder, so I won't repeat them here.

Just a minor bookkeeping note: Since this deals with modern practice rather than history per se, I am sending it to the afterhours forum. Cheers.

Walter Burkert's _Greek Religion_ has a full chapter on Hera, as well as the other major goddesses. Beyond that I am afraid I can't help you. I have little interest in Hera. My interests in goddesses focus on Isis.

I'm drawing upon Robert Turcan's "Cults of the Roman Empire" who in turn draws upon Plutarch, Apuleius, Seneca and some of the early Christian writers.

You might want to check with Nova Roma. The only group I've seen dedicated to Mithras was connected with them.

What Pan is saying is that the oldest temples built in Greece were decicated to Hera in the region of Greece he cited. There was a temple to Hera at Olympia, Zeus' main cult center, before there was a temple to Zeus ... suggesting that Zeus wasn't always the chief deity in that area. In a patriarchal Greek society it doesn't make sense for a marriage goddess, no matter how stately, to be afforded such honors. It is sometimes speculated that Hera was some type of Aegean great goddess in the time period before the Indo-European offshoots invaded Greece. It is then further theorized that the patriarchal, warlike Indo-European invaders couldn't very well demote their sky god to second rate status, but neither could they completely eradicate the existing Hera. The simplest solution was to make Hera the mythological wife of Zeus, making her in effect secondary to him. This must have caused certain tensions, which carried over in myth as the stormy marriage between the two deities. Creedence to this view comes from the fact that in other places of Greece where Hera was not pre-eminent, Zeus is linked to goddesses other than Hera. This suggests that the Indo-Europeans simply took whatever primary goddess existed in a given region and made her the consort of Zeus.