Kosmo

Usually large agricultural holdings go hand in hand with small ones that provide labour at certain times of year (this before improved methods made use of the labour more even thruout the year but this is a modern evolution). A field has periods of intensive labour and periods when little or no labour are recquired. For example an olive grove needs labour only at picking but then it uses loads of workforce. To keep a constant workforce all year to the highest level, a level needed for just a brief period, it's very expansive so we can presume that romans, like many other societies, used labour form outside the holding for certain tasks. This labour can be seen as peasants hired for brief periods or as tenants that receive the right to use some land in exchange of labour. The second type is the colonate that was fairly common during the Late Empire and beyond. If the land it's used for raising cattle the labour it's on the same level all year so a large estate specialized on cattle can do witout external labour. Also most italian regions have little arable land so when the prices for grains dropped because of state intervention they lost their market and were forced to produce for subsistence and to change their land usage. The old theory still makes sense to me but I agree that generalisations are harmful and local conditions could have varried wildly. We know that latifundia existed and some people had enormous properties and legions of slaves but also smaller or even tiny properties were around.

Happy Birthday! The waitress was cute even before the beers?

I watched on DVD the spanish movie Alatriste starring Viggo Mortensen. Not the best film I've seen, but a decent one. The action it's set in Spain during the 30 Years War and the movie has a nice battle scene, the best for pike-and-shot warfare I've seen.

http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2008/...l?xtor=RSS-3260 An article about his book in french newspaper Le Monde. We can not discuss more his theory without better knowledge of his work. In a brief summary his thesis as presented here claims that links with Byzantium were never broken and greek manuscripts and people able to read them travelled West especially in Sicilly and Rome. Between 685 and 753 the popes were greeks and syrians. In 758-763, P

We ain't all bigots and knee jerk reactionaries over here sonny. I know, and if you had read carefully my second phrase you would have understood that I believe that americans give less relevance to his ethnic background then people over here would, cher And don't tell me that his name or coulour do not count because they do, one way or the other.

Mubarack Saddam Hussein Osama it's a strange name for a US presidential candidate especialy one that was raised in a muslim country and has a crazy priest that hates US His name makes me remember a scene from the movie Crash when the governor was looking for a black hero and they only got an arab fireman named Hussein. It's hard to believe that he could get elected in an european country, a clear sign of the different way in which europeans and americans define themselves as nations.

There were other commands beetwen legion commander and C-in-C. In many descriptions of battles we hear that the left wing was lead by Cassius, center by Ocatavian and right by Caesar (that had probaly little control on what was going on the other side) also Agrippa was with the fleet, M. Antonius was leading the cavalry while Cato defended the luggage. This commands were temporary and for a given task, but they existed. I also believe that any leader had some form of staff that helped with signaling and transmission of orders.

The faboulous loot of 1204 also brought countless manuscripts to Western Europe. The main point is that after Carlomagne the West had very developed libraries (for their time) in the monasteries and also many educated people. After 1200 his universities were far better then what anybody else had. Besides byzantines a source for classical textes was, surprisingly, Ireland. The ideea that the West lost somehow his roman heritage and recomposed it from various sources in Renaissance should be dismissed. Please reference these ideas with some evidence, some citations other than your own. That would help the discussion a lot. First of all these things are common knowledge and I should be asked to prove only sensational claims. A very good source about education in western Europe during the Middle Ages it's vol 2 of "Istoria Civilizatiei" by Ovidiu Dramba, but I doubt that it is usefull to you Some wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_St._Gall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montecassino http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coll%C3%A8ge_de_Sorbonne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bologna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Montpellier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ir...400.E2.80.93800 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcuin_of_York

Impressive, but would be even more impressive if it would be in a more valuable currency And no, our goverment does not give money to this business. With those fees you could buy a satelite dish and pay nothing. Maybe even buy your own satellite

The faboulous loot of 1204 also brought countless manuscripts to Western Europe. The main point is that after Carlomagne the West had very developed libraries (for their time) in the monasteries and also many educated people. After 1200 his universities were far better then what anybody else had. Besides byzantines a source for classical textes was, surprisingly, Ireland. The ideea that the West lost somehow his roman heritage and recomposed it from various sources in Renaissance should be dismissed. Most latin texts available to us were available to them and they transmitted them to us. It was the greek literature that they did not have and this was what they recieved from Byzantium. What they got was mostly greek originals as they had poor latin translations. Even more important medieval society was inovative and original. Those classical texts had less influence on every day life and here it's were the revolution took place (political and religious institutions, crafts, agriculture, military etc)

I can't help you decide, but for unlimited internet acces and a cable telephone service with 500 free minutes in the network and 100 minutes in other networks I pay 9 Euro a month + VAT (I never use all of them). With some 50 tv channels would be 15 Euro + Vat, but I don't watch TV. The prices you listed are shocking

"When Sylvain Gouguenheim looks at today's historical vision of the history of the West and Islam, he sees a notion, accepted as fact, that the Muslim world was at the source of the Christian Europe's reawakening from the Middle Ages. He sees a portrayal of an enlightened Islam, transmitting westward the knowledge of the ancient Greeks through Arab translators and opening the path in Europe to mathematics, medicine, astronomy and philosophy - a gift the West regards with insufficient esteem. "This thesis has basically nothing scandalous about it, if it were true," Gouguenheim writes. "In spite of the appearances, it has more to do with taking ideological sides than scientific analysis." For a controversy, here's a real one. Gouguenheim, a professor of medieval history at a prestigious university, l'

You have a point, but many parties mean goverment coalitions and those can be used as scape goats for moving away from party line or electoral promises. See Angela Merkel raising old people payments as an electoral bribe despite promising at the former elections cuts in spending. I like anyone that whips politicians

Sickels and especially reapers still do the job. Mowing it's not only an ocupation for design purposes but foremost it's producing hey to feed livestock and to serve as bedding for animals especially in the winter.

Very nice. Can you give a more precise time frame for this?

Smart move. This will give them time to patch the game and you can also see more opinions from the players community.

You are better informed so I'll give up but on the last point because I don't understand why you are so buffled and apalled. Catholicism predates any formulation of human rights. Today's catholic dogma it's that of Toma d'Aquino. Local catholic churches supported many dictatorial regimes in S. America, and also the fascist Spain and murderous Croatian ustasa. The Nazy party and is notorious leader held relations with all states and religious organizations including the catholic church of his country and also with the Vatican. The Duvaliers were recognized as Haitian leaders by all states including the US and the UN and other important democracies and organisations because international relations are based on the pursuit of national interest and not in an endless crusade for human rights. If Mother Theresa wanted to make something in Haiti she had to be nice with the leaders so that Tonton Macoutes were kept away. Putin was the star of the last Nato meeting a month ago despite being truly a dictator and a mass murderer in Cecenia, China will soon host the Olympics despite being a dictatorial country that had just put down 2 rebellions of minorities, the dictator of Pakistan was a key US friend, the Saudi and other arab countries are further away from human rights then the medieval Inquistion etc Why should MT be expected to do what great powers did not do? After all the Queen gave Idi Amin a walk with her carriage thru London.

I know nothing about her other then was presented above and I don't like to much people like her but I have some arguments with the critics made. 1. Not spending money. For an NGO spending surplus money means expanding his operations and that takes time. Donations are uneven and hard to predict while expanses are constant so saving money for low periods it's wise. I'm sure that those money are handy now for the organisation when their marketing icon it's gone. 2. Low quality of medical support. The medic prefers a hospital to her place, but for the pacients it was an option beetwen bad medical asistence and no medical asistence. I know what I prefer. 3. AIDS in Africa. If those people did not listen to her preaching about sex partners why did they listen about the use of condoms? It's not like she said "don't use condoms when you go to a brothel!". What could a catholic leader say anyway? 4. Human rights. Human rights are not part of the catholic dogma and were outside the scope of her activity. There are already to many championing those. Anyway, dictators receive honors from many people including leaders of democracies. If hostile to the leaders she could not do her bussiness there. BTW in 1990 Albania was the only "Balkan Stalinist state" and the regime was reforming not opressing.

Given the agricultural knowledge at the time Scotland was very poor. It was actually conquered by Agricola after Mons Grapius but they decided it was not woth it so Diocletian moved Legio II Adiutrix to the badly threatened Danube frontier. The roman army large numbers in Britain had more to do with rebelious britons then with weak caledonians. They failed to romanise North and West Britain, why do you think that they would have succed in the Highlands? The trade thru the East african coast to India had some natural restraints that made it difficult. The prevailing wind in the northen half Red Sea blows from the north making it easy to go to India but hard to came back above Djiddah so ports tended to be further south poorly connected by roads thru desert, the arid coast does not have water and timber and it's not suited for agriculture etc. An improved trading base would have increased the trade deficit that you complained about. Now I'm trying to find other cases of roman opposition to the empire.

That is criminal stupidity.

Syria, Egipt, Asia and Greece- all were very wealthy and these richness allowed for payment of the army. Yes Sudan and Scotland would have greatly enriched the empire and bolstered his strategic position . They would have liked Mesoptamia but could not conquer/keep it. Crassus, M. Antonius, Corbulo and Trajan failed to expand the empire while the limited conquests of Septimius Sever were a constant source of conflicts. I think that the perception that Hadrian abandoned conquest in the East are wrong. Trajan died in Turkey while heading to Rome, the army was in Syria with Hadrian, most of Armenia was lost and Mesopotamia was placed under a parthian pretender. The campaign was over after the defeat in front of Hatra long before Hadrian's accesion. The humble origins did not meant less ambition but often more. What this policy did was to expand the pool for wannnabe emperors from a narrow group of educated, experienced statesman to any sword carrier that could became popular with the soldiers. I think that Diocletian wanted a system of succesion based on valour like that of the Antonines, so Maximin was forced to abdicate without his son succeding him, but when Constantin was able to succede his father, Maxentius could claim his father succesion as well. When the claims of Maxentius and the unhappines of Rome got togheter the road was open for a new usurpation that Constantine was happy to support because it was raising his own legitimacy based on succesion and not appointement.

Not really. Ottoman law was based on sharia, the muslim law. Their goverment was also on a islamic model based on a slave civil and military elite (devşirme system*). The byzantine land allotment to soldiers seems to have evolved in the sipahi thru a seljuk model, but this was a fairly common system at the time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *please don't tell those who see slavery only as US Southern plantantion workforce that some of the most important states were ruled mainly by slaves (Ummeyad Cordoba, Egypt's mamluk's, the Ottoman empire, to some extent even Rome and China)

One each. 2A+2C. At some point before break down there were 4 legal A + Maxentius A+ some usurper in Africa A = 6 Augustuses

I'm working hard and doing my best

Happy Birthday AoS!