Kosmo

On the purported "unprofessional" nature of the Pre-Marian Roman army, please check on post # 90 from this other thread. Roman army was clearly the best of it's era and I believe that the pre-Marian army was as good as the principate one, only with higher reserves and far more politically loyal.

I doubt that most ancient armies were capable of complicated tactic movement on the battlefield. The units were placed in lines then ordered to move forward or to stand their ground. Flanking movements were usually predictable when possible and countermeasures were taken so we don't see many battles won like that. Reserve units were deployed when needed... etc Most armies were of levies/recruits with little ability to do more then keep formations and not even the principate romans that had a professional army did not had professional officers until much later. I also doubt that a maniple was a unit designed for movement and maneuvering because it did not had an officer but 2 centurions and an unit with 2 commanders/2 standards can not keep cohesion during movement.

I think that the color factions were the teams.

Anyway, for me the most surprising thing about huns it's their excellent siege ability. Between 440-447 the huns not only defeated the Eastern roman field armies but conquered most of the cities and fortresses in the Balkans and there were lots of them. In many places the destruction it's confirmed by archeology so the complains that more then 100 cities were taken may be true.

I think Mel Gibson it's psychopathic sadist that makes extremely cruel movie scenes under the guise of telling history.

I don't see many differences between the two as both evolved in time and were influenced by various factors. In the end they were both infantry with defensive armor, a shield, a short sword or a dagger and a spear that had to have officers and units.

The italians were masters of Dodecanez archipelago in the Aegean and did some surprising things in their colony. The first was the reconstruction of the Castle in Rhodos and they did an amazing job with it despite the huge size of the thing. The charming medieval old town would have looked very bad with a pile of rubble in the middle. Inside the castle they put some of the ancient mosaics they found on the islands, the mosaics were in this way protected and the castle made more interesting for tourists that are not disturbed by a modern mix of medieval and antique.

The reforms started earlier when the empire was at the point of collapse and for me they make good sense, much more then the augustan model. The principate army was placed in a thin line along the borders, often to thin to stop a large invader striking a point and as there was no strategic reserve the romans had to pull other units from the border, gather them in an area and then chase the enemy. In the process the border areas were laid waste. The reforms created a larger, politically more reliable and cheaper force that defended better constructed fortifications along the borders - the limitanei, while field armies acting as highly mobile strategic reserve were concentrated under the watchful eye of an important official (sometimes even an august or caesar) ready to move and meet the enemy. The military, political and religious reforms of that period prove that the empire was still capable to reform itself in order to survive.

Humans are probably the reason behind the extinctions of many species of large animals at the end of the last Ice Age. The open plains of East Africa like Serengeti famous for their wildlife are believed to be created by man when they deforested these areas with fire to make way for cattle.

Colonia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa Dacica to be more exact I told you it has a long name. Congrats for the reply and the 1000 post in this thread. Your turn.

I drove by this amphitheater.

That's a convincing fungus.

No. The name of this city can run for the longest roman city name.

Never heard of horseback racing in Antiquity. Ancient Tomis is named Constanța in modern times.

That was a lucky guess.

Italy, like most of the other countries around the Mediterranean, it's not open plains but few narrow plains along a coast or a river and a huge number of steep and dry mountains and hills, a land very hard to move around. Greek and roman armies of heavy infantry were developed to have a large number of men, many enough to completely block a narrow valley or plain. As they had to fight only the enemy ahead of them the ones with the heaviest equipment were the strongest. In the valleys of Rhine and Danube romans met a different geography with much more open space. The Sarmatians of Tisza valley or North of the Black Sea lived in open steppe and were difficult neighbors for the romans along the Danube or in Caucasus and so were the related parthians on the syrian plaines. This people used lots of cavalry including horse archers and heavy cavalry so romans copied them. By the time of Trajan and Hadrian they started creating heavy cavalry units and deployed many numidian cavalry units and palmyrian horse archers in Dacia.

Bored...

Volci?

Truly amazing! I thought that you made this up so I goggled the game and checked it myself. This is the absolute winner!

Indeed, using a rifle for WW1 and a machine gun against swords it's unfair.

Constantine disbanded the praetorians and the urban cohorts because they were the supporters of Maxentius and I believe of a movement that wanted to restore Rome as the political capital of the Empire. After Constantine the emperors lived in other cities and used other units as guards so the role of this units stationed in Rome was lost.

Heaving good all around "national" forces (heavy infantry- cavalry - light infantry/missile) would have been the best but this was never the case (maybe Macedonia of Filip and Alexander had the most balanced army). Hannibal made very good use of mercenaries with different abilities and it was the numidian cavalry that gained his great victories and the same cavalry that sealed his defeat at Zama when it was employed by the romans.

I'm also curious about the urban cohorts as I don't see much utility to them. The praetorians had clearly the job of keeping the emperor safe while the 14 cohorts of the vigiles were doing the police/firefighting work and even acted as a balance to the pretorians once when under the orders of Tiberius and the leadership of Macro they dealt with Sejanus.

The last scene in Gladiator when the emperor and a former general fight in the arena like gladiators for the rule over the Empire.

The inkjet will soon run out of lila colour I'll rather read on the screen then print something. Thank you for the link!