Kosmo

Thank you In romanian we have a lapida to stone, but I would guess that it's a more recent word.

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Welcome. I can not help you much now but I can tell you that there are many studies on the subject in a debate that has started on this topic some 3 centuries ago.

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Sell the TV, go to Italy.

Check the review part of this site and you should get your answer. I know a couple reviews about the Seleucids.

Roman realism in sculpture it is striking and high quality. I'm in love also with roman mosaics and surprised by your harsh treatment. And the few roman paintings are on par with quatrocento (I don't love them too much).

Glass, in the early stages of glass making, was green as the spring. The technology to make clear glass was just starting in Syria. The first to make colorless glass were the British during the Industrial Revolution. Usually coarse glass is still green.

Students here hate the teachers that ask questions and like those that speak for the entire hour giving them chance to sleep in class. I doubt that I learned an useful thing in about 17 years in school. If I would be a teacher I would avoid talking too much about some things in modern Africa that are dishartening.

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Sixth level. Not bad. Or very bad.

Caldrail, at least you can not blame yourself like I do. I throw away a well paid and safe job in the government and I kept my money in a real estate that it's now worthless. Not to mention my love life... The good part is that life in this shit hole I live in was always hard so I'm used with it. Even prosperity sucked. You finally buy a car, but everybody else does and traffic it's a mess. This last Metallica album that I'm listening now makes me feel much better.

I wish you both a Happy Birthday and many nice gifts roman and byzantine.

When your at the site you can smell the air, see the sky, touch the stone. This give me the feeling that I like as I'm not very interested in the technical details of the site.

The northern invaders could not have been so many as stated. My reasons: With no roads and no supply systems an army that big would have starved quickly. Romans attacked them in Noricum but would have been more careful if they were so many. The invaders could have attacked twice roman lands but choose not to. They achieved nothing against Spanish tribes or in Gaul. About the reform: the romans had permanent forces probably for ever but for sure since they set foot in Spain, roman levy had defeated Carthaginian and Hellenistic mercenary armies so they had no reason to believe that going that way was any good, the recruitment pool could have been raised by increasing the number of roman or italic citizens, standardization (if it was a goal but I doubt it) could have been achieved by the way Athenians did, that is by using state workshops to provide weapons to the citizens, but still keeping the class structure, the number of potential soldiers was huge as proved by the next century of civil wars, romans had money to recruit a larger number of foreign auxiliaries in case of a temporary shortage of man, I know no reason for a roman shortage of man as the losses from barbarians were definitely smaller then those inflicted by Hannibal. Both the reform and Marius consulships had more to do with political agitation in Rome then with anything else.

It is fun. I'm now consul and I've seen that Klingan gets awarded a triumph for his conquest

CA previous release in the series, Medieval II, was not that great. What I dislike most about RTW is that the AI it's dumb. I don't care if they make the game more complex (naval battles will be added) and the graphic looks great if the AI it's still dumb and I can defeat any enemy very fast. Many people play with Very Hard settings to make it a challenge but I don't like that, so I blitz to victory. BI is much more exciting, being attacked by a horde in early game can lead to huge battles (defending against siege while the enemy uses 7 stacks in one battle can kill a computer). The actions of the factions are harder to predict. For example if the hordes do not snowball the romans including the West became very strong or if the East and Sassanids make peace they both expand a lot and build strong armies. Still this games depend a lot on the AI. For example in BI the Eastern Romans can build churches in all cities in the first turn but the AI does not do that so religious struggles cripple the Empire.

I have a bottle of greek retsina wine, claimed to be one of the oldest types of wine still around. If the Ancients drank that I pity them. The resin give the wine an unbearable odor close with that of ouzo and rake.

Both sides decided after Magnesia that peace was better. Seleucids lost soldiers, their holdings in Asia Minor and had to pay a huge amount of money to the romans so their position was seriously weakened. Still, dynastic problems and the growing power of Parthians and Armenians and other rebels like the Jews are to blame for the failure of that state. Rome and Syria never went to war with each other again.

The mercenary army showed the greatest possible level of indiscipline by ending the lawful government and creating a military dictatorship against which it rebelled constantly. And no, roman soldiers were not hippies so the roman army fought the iberic rebellions for some 150 years.

I believe that Marius played the main role in the demise of the Republic. First of all by his unnecessary military reform. The roman army had conquered the world as a citizen levy and could deal with some Celts and Jughurta without transforming in to a mercenary force and a political tool. The Celtic danger was overblown for propaganda reasons, Italy has never been threatened and it was shown before that it could raise huge numbers of excellent soldiers as levy, many more then mercenaries. The folly of this reform was felt extremely quickly when Sulla marched on Rome with his legions. Secondly, he was too ambitious and resorted to illegal means to satisfy his ambition in an unprecedented manner. He gave other ambitious man tools and justifications to gain absolute authority and if the first of them, Sulla, wanted it the Republic would have been over then.

There are hundreds of definitions but for me capitalism should be an economic system based on private ownership of goods and money on a free market. Markets were never free as state involvement was always increasingly present and now most states decide how to spend about a half of a country's yearly GDP. From the 70's the private ownership it's losing importance to management not only by increasing company size, divided ownership and state/public ownership but especially by the explosive expansion of investment funds and other funds where capital owners have practically no saying. Obviously, things are not how they should be according to my above definition, so I say capitalism it's the existing economic system while that definition it's just it's ideology.

In romanian we say "Luceafar de seara" for the Evening Star and "Luceafar de dimineata" for the Morning Star (spelling without romanian diacritics). This is a popular and poetic word while in an astronomical or astrological speech the planet will be still named Venus. "Luceafar" with some other added words like beautiful or midnight were used for some bright stars like Vega, Aldebaran and Hiperion but this uses are long obsolete and I found out about them from a dictionary. Maybe for the romans was the same and ordinary people said Lucifer while more educated ones said Venus, using astronomical and astrological conceptions borrowed from Greeks and Babylonians. The continuous use of Lucifer in Vulgar Latin it's the only explanation for the word survival in romanian language. I think it's related with "luce" meaning light. The people that said Morning Star and Evening Star had in the beginning no idea that it was the same planet.

The markets can regulate themselves if there is a penalty for bad behavior, including for excessive risk taking. The size of today's companies overgrown with mergers and acquisitions makes bankruptcy unlikely for top players making them risk free, at least for managers as stockholders can lose their shares. The outrage against overpaid management it's not populist. This huge amounts of bonus money have no connection with healthy profits and are the root of this crisis. A manager has a huge interest in making profit even if that profit comes with a serious risk. This reckless behavior it's helped by advantages like "golden parachute" so even if poor performing the management gets large "compensation" for contract severance. I don't believe that those stock options paid now are worthless.They could became such if the shares lose value but if they sell quickly the money it's theirs whatever happens with the market.