Kosmo

I fully agree with your idea. Still, I must point that Roman society did produce a major innovation, Christianity, that resulted in major changes (for good or for worse) across society from art and philosophy to political ideas and diplomacy. The Roman Empire produced many new technologies like glass, water-powered mills, paved roads and domed buildings but the greatest effect it had was to spread sophisticated technologies in new areas. The divided remnants of the Carolingian Empire were the birthplace of the Western civilization and modernity. This space was linguistically unified by Latin and that made communication much easier. Religiously it was united under the Catholic church. Similar feudal institution were adopted across the West. Soon this political-religious-cultural system was adopted from Portugal to Finland and from Iceland to Transylvania. The West was never again unified politically and that allowed for vigorous competition that spawned innovation, but the main advantage was a certain degree of uniformity across Europe that allowed unprecedented connections between different areas.

What the heck?? And Tim Burton? Hate to admit it, but I think I'll probably be watching this one. I would watch it for Mary Elizabeth Winstead ( I liked her cheerleader outfit in the second part of Grindhouse/Death Proof, but I was disappointed by The Thing. Why cast a hottie, then dress her in thick polar clothing? ) , not for Tim Burton who horribly butchered Alice in Wonderland. I expect nothing good from him. The one with gladiators against werewolves I must see. Would anyone here be surprised if Romans use silver bullets?

Add Ukraine and Russia because of Black Sea settlements. I don't think Azerbaijan and Kuwait were part of the Roman Empire. If their inclusion rests only on the Parthian campaign of Trajan it is debatable that they were ever Roman.

The content of the will of Marcus Antonius himself was known to Octavian, who made public his content outraging the citizens. It is clear that Romans had ways to certify the authenticity of a will, including witnesses and safekeeping in a temple.

My favorite now is Game of Thrones, a perfect escapist pleasure. The Borgias is also really good. I also like zombies (The Walking Dead) and vampires (Vampire Diaries). The only sitcom I watch is The Big Bang Theory. I also enjoy The Killing and the new series Awake and House of Lies. Fringe is nice, but I feel they jumped the shark in the last season. I gave up on Alcatraz because it became too repetitive. I sometimes watch Top Gear (UK version of course). That's a lot of Tv programs for someone without a TV.

NAPLES

I haven't seen the movie yet but I've read the books and the Roman references are quite obvious starting with the name of the fictional country, Panem.

Thousands of possible early human settlements have been discovered by archaeologists using computers to scour satellite images. Jason Ur said he had found about 9,000 potential new sites in north-eastern Syria. Computers scanned the images for soil discolouration and mounds caused when mud-brick settlements collapsed. Dr Ur said surveying the same area on the ground would have taken him a lifetime. he researcher told BBC News: "With these computer science techniques, however, we can immediately come up with an enormous map which is methodologically very interesting, but which also shows the staggering amount of human occupation over the last 7,000 or 8,000 years. "What's more, anyone who comes back to this area for any future survey would already know where to go. "There's no need to do this sort of initial reconnaissance to find sites. This allows you to do targeted work, so it maximises the time we have on the ground." Iraqi heritage sites In the past, Dr Ur used declassified spy satellite photographs and the human eye to try to identify potential sites. But over the last three years, he has worked with computer expert Bjoern Menze, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to create a software application able to classify a huge range of terrain. He said this had removed subjectivity and allowed them to look at a much larger area. In all, about 9,000 possible settlements were identified across 23,000 sq km. Ideally, he said, some of these would be excavated, but the volatile political situation in Syria had forced them to put any ground searches on hold. However, he did tell the BBC that he hoped to conduct further research in the Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq, and follow that up with excavations that would be "a very rigorous testing of the model". Archaeological work in Iraq has not been popular in the past, but Dr Ur feels the time is right to identify heritage sites of importance and ensure they are not lost as the country presses on with widespread development of its towns and cities. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17436400 Mapping patterns of long-term settlement in Northern Mesopotamia at a large scale Abstract The landscapes of the Near East show both the first settlements and the longest trajectories of settlement systems. Mounding is a characteristic property of these settlement sites, resulting from millennia of continuing settlement activity at distinguished places. So far, however, this defining feature of ancient settlements has not received much attention, or even been the subject of systematic evaluation. We propose a remote sensing approach for comprehensively mapping the pattern of human settlement at large scale and establish the largest archaeological record for a landscape in Mesopotamia, mapping about 14,000 settlement sites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbCNl_K3f6k&feature=g-vrec&context=G2479ebbRVAAAAAAAAAQ

MOSUL, Iraq

It guessed Emperor Hadrian after 42 questions, one of them asked twice, and two other wrong guesses (Caesar and Claudius). Surprisingly, it did much better with his boyfriend Antinous with 22 questions and 1 wrong guess. Vibia Sabina, wife of Hadrian, defeated the game easily, the closest guess was Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus. It gave up somewhere after 40 questions and several guesses. The game seems more focused on contemporary people and pop culture as it guessed Taylor Momsen in 14 questions and with the first guess. Even here it asked some useless questions. After establishing that it is a female singer that acted in Gossip Girl it asked me if she was involved in space exploration or *or* AI is still pretty stupid. Anyway, it was a fun way to kill time when I should be working. Akinator vs. Procrastinator

BBC- Human fossils hint at new species The remains of what may be a previously unknown human species have been identified in southern China. The bones, which represent at least five individuals, have been dated to between 11,500 and 14,500 years ago. But scientists are calling them simply the Red Deer Cave people, after one of the sites where they were unearthed. The team has told the PLoS One journal that far more detailed analysis of the fossils is required before they can be ascribed to a new human lineage. "We're trying to be very careful at this stage about definitely classifying them," said study co-leader Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales, Australia. "One of the reasons for that is that in the science of human evolution or palaeoanthropology, we presently don't have a generally agreed, biological definition for our own species (Homo sapiens), believe it or not. And so this is a highly contentious area," he told BBC News. Much of the material has been in Chinese collections for some time but has only recently been subjected to detailed analysis. The remains of some of the individuals come from Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province. A further skeleton was discovered at Longlin, in neighbouring Guangxi Province... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17370170 As usual, the story is a bit different at the source Abstract Background Later Pleistocene human evolution in East Asia remains poorly understood owing to a scarcity of well described, reliably classified and accurately dated fossils. Southwest China has been identified from genetic research as a hotspot of human diversity, containing ancient mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages, and has yielded a number of human remains thought to derive from Pleistocene deposits. We have prepared, reconstructed, described and dated a new partial skull from a consolidated sediment block collected in 1979 from the site of Longlin Cave (Guangxi Province). We also undertook new excavations at Maludong (Yunnan Province) to clarify the stratigraphy and dating of a large sample of mostly undescribed human remains from the site. Methodology/Principal Findings We undertook a detailed comparison of cranial, including a virtual endocast for the Maludong calotte, mandibular and dental remains from these two localities. Both samples probably derive from the same population, exhibiting an unusual mixture of modern human traits, characters probably plesiomorphic for later Homo, and some unusual features. We dated charcoal with AMS radiocarbon dating and speleothem with the Uranium-series technique and the results show both samples to be from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition: ~14.3-11.5 ka. Conclusions/Significance Our analysis suggests two plausible explanations for the morphology sampled at Longlin Cave and Maludong. First, it may represent a late-surviving archaic population, perhaps paralleling the situation seen in North Africa as indicated by remains from Dar-es-Soltane and Temara, and maybe also in southern China at Zhirendong. Alternatively, East Asia may have been colonised during multiple waves during the Pleistocene, with the Longlin-Maludong morphology possibly reflecting deep population substructure in Africa prior to modern humans dispersing into Eurasia. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031918

What a nice dream!

The oddest thing I've seen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jNeeVO4bk0&feature=g-hist&context=G2500d36AHT1-l_QAeAA

Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant

Happy Birthday Viggen!

Cursus honorum used by Romans insured that candidates for higher offices have gained practical experience in lower ranks and an opinion could be formed about their abilities. This is a system that I would love to see implemented today by setting up two ladders, one for the executive branch and one for the legislative. The Chinese imperial examinations were focused on Confucius, not on practical knowledge. Anyway, this type of selection could produce competent scholars, not necessary able administrators. The exams insured that candidates were literate, have good memory and maybe served like a primitive IQ test like most school examinations do. The chinese writing system is very complex and I'm sure literacy during the imperial dynasties was far below that in Ancient Rome so the pool of potential candidates was fairly small. The worst part is that examinations insured rigid mental conformity to Confucianism across the bureaucracy.

Happy Birthday!!!

Romans were sexist, but so were and are most (if not all) societies. On a scale of sexism Romans would not do so bad in comparison with other societies because they had monogamy, divorce, citizenship and property rights for women, etc. But like most historic republics Rome did not give political rights to women while in monarchies the inheritance of thrones sometimes brought a female to power. Cleopatra was disturbing for Romans not only by being a powerful woman but for her use of sex and seduction to establish relations with two leading romans. Probably in the Middle Ages her tactic would have been seen as more legitimate with vast empires like the one of Charles V being created through marriage and female inheritance. Among queens who troubled Rome we should not forget about the remarkable Zenobia.

Not to be disrespectful to the awfulnesses of British weather but I doubt there are prolonged periods of winter like this on Hadrian's Wall: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17036988 The pipes are temporarily fixed, so now I can shower in my own bathroom. I will be cautious with my comments on global warming, so I don't end up showering in prison

For the last 3 weeks, temperature during the day are around -10 C and -15 C during the night while everything is covered in almost half a meter of snow. Water pipes in my main bathroom were broken by the frozen water inside them, so tomorrow plumbers are going to change them (and wreck my bathroom walls) What happened to global warming? It feels more like an Ice Age. I wonder how Romans enjoyed the winters around here. With the Danube frozen solid they could have expected some uninvited fur-clad guests for a snow fight to alleviate boredom.

Event - the treaty of Apamea. After 3 successive victorious wars in Greece Roman influence now extends into Middle East but Rome still refrains from outright eastward expansion in these rich regions. Time period - The Middle Republic because it was a very successful period under an incredibly stable civilian government that was both lawful and representative. Person - Hadrian, for his (mostly) benign eccentricity and his very unroman persona, but mostly because he wondered around the peaceful and prosperous Empire like no emperor before or after.

Parts of the Praetorian Guard went into battle when the emperor led the army or when the praetorian prefect was sent on campaign so they definitely had equipment for battlefield but because the roman army was far less standardized then we usually portray them it must have varied a lot at least in decoration. They also had some rich dress uniform used on formal occasions like when they welcomed Septimius Sever to Rome only to be stripped of their expensive clothes and equipment.

The tip of a girl

I never heard of Borborophoba before reading about her on a Foreign Policy blog about afghan customs aptly titled Of Alexander, Gods and Bathrooms. "...he was being faced (in the toilet customs of the ANA) with what Alexander's Macedonian Greeks would have called "borborygmus," a word that Plato and Aristophanes and Homer used to describe the filthy, excremental sewage of the underworld of Hades. For was he not in a kind of underworld (Hades or hell) on deployment in an Afghanistan he barely understood? Borborygmus not only means "shit." It also connotes "shit fearing." Borborophoba was known as the Goddess of the realm of death. She had the power to keep shit from flowing, but she also possessed the power to make it flow in the face of mortal fear and threat of death. Every combat soldier has been struck by her bowel- and bladder-releasing powers at least once in his life." http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/19/of_alexander_gods_and_bathrooms_why_the_afghans_can_t_get_their_shit_together?wpisrc=obnetwork