Kosmo

1. Domitianus 2. Sertorius 3. Cato Major The fact that I dislike all of them (but I admit that Domitian had an udeserved bad press) means that I hate myself? BTW I see no connection between those 3.

Why should I complain that my favorite novel set in Rome it's going to be a movie? I doubt that the text it's good for a film, but, hey, let's wait and see.

The emperors tried to establish a system of dinastic succesion but this failed because the emperor had to much authority and no other group or institution could be called to resolve the dispute in an usurpation and because the empire itself was ilegitimate. French history with the amazing dinastic continuity it's a good example of how diverse factors usually prevented dinasty change. The church, the nobles and the population had no sympathy for usurpers. It's hard to believe that a Joanne d'Arc would have rised to defend the Flavii. Politics in imperial Rome was interesting only for the people in the administration and the army. The people changed but the policy remained the same so the only fight was about who got the job.

Form Petronius's Satyricon I remember that the size of the penis of one of the caracters made quite a sensation at the baths on the other man onlookers. Of course, the book it's ironic so you can't really tell what they thought about it.

Happy Birthday, don Tomaso, enjoy yourself!!!

What's a "real" or "true" greek historian? Historians living during roman rule could not ignore this reality and as historians often wrote about their recent history that had to be roman. Still, we have works like Anabasis, about Alexander, written by Arrian that has nothing to do with roman history but it's a great book, written in the attic dialect that presents us a wealth of info. And Plutarch it's a good source for greek history also not only roman. As many things roman this it's a open ended question that, if you don't chose carefully your subject, could have the name of George Sphrantzes as answer.

The snow has melted in the mountains so 10.000 turkish turists are visting Northern Iraq "Gates urges quick end to Turks' military operation in Iraq BAGHDAD: Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged the Turkish military on Wednesday to abandon by mid-March their invasion of guerrilla-controlled lands in the northernmost reaches of Iraq. But Turkish officials said the government had no intention of ending military operations in Iraq before all its targets had been destroyed. Gates's call for an end to the offensive came amid signs that the American and Iraqi governments were growing increasingly worried that fierce fighting along the mountainous Turkey-Iraq border could widen into a much broader and bloodier conflict..." http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/27/mideast/turkey.php

Yes, Diegis is right, some say that the battle in which Fuscus died was at Turnu Rosu near the Olt river, south of Sibiu.

Evolutionism and christian faith are mutually exclusive, because The Book asks you to believe in a set of values including creationism. A believer it's not allowed to take what it fits him from the church dogma, let's say the creation part or the Jesus part etc. Of course, today people tend to do this picking refusing to believe that Jona lived in a sea monster, refusing what Ursus called a literal interpretation. But evolution and a belief in God can be joined like the inteligent design propose. I believe that a renewed religion can adapt to any set of scientific proven facts while science could never prove the existence or nonexistence of God. Science it's pushing religion to change, to adjust to today's knowledge, but the most important part of religious beliefs it's outside the scope of science being either nonexisting or nonprovable.

By 1350 when ottoman power stareted to rise, the West was already far more advanced. The ottomans relied heavily on borrowing from the West in many aspects. After the year 1000 and even more after the mongol invasions the muslim world decayed seriously in all areas including culture.

Happy Birthday!!!

The law around here it's that usucapio works after 30 years of posesion. Romans had a shorter term. Tennessee could use "eror comunis facit jus" - mutual error has legal effects.

Then Arius it's going to spend the next 25 years in the legion and will not marry until the end of his service. If Lucius father it's of senatorial rank, a bussines career would be seen badly. If he is equites then he is free to do whaterver he pleases if he has the money for it. Of course the best way to get richer for a influent roman was in politics. A equites can govern the property of the emperor named Egypt or after an outstanding carrer a senator can enjoy Africa for a year and a couple million sesterts.

A roman girl had no real money to herself so she can not give away. She is under the authority of her father and he takes care of her money if she has any.

During Domitian's dacian war there were 2 battles at Tapae. The first was a dacian victory the second a roman one. It's rather confusing as there were some battles at the same spot during Trajan's wars also. Tapae it's usually identified as the Transilvanian Iron Gates, an almost 700 m high mountain pass that connects Banat and Transilvania. The pass is very steep and closed on the sides by high cliffs. The area was and is forested. In that area arhelogists found dacian fortifications at a hill fort, dava, that it's presumed to be named Tapae. This was a direct road beetwen Middle Danube and mountain dacian capital Sarmizegetusa. Not much info and loads of it are rather speculations.

Of course a productive investment it's more economically sound that a religious building but usually the romans did not invest in economy (except mines or military needs) and we don't know if the economy needed another pottery shop. You are corect about the broken window fallacy when building a church, but building useless enterprises might be the same thing as many development plans showed. That argument blamed the church for eating the money of the empire but pagan temples, priests and celebrations did not come for free either. Hadrian spent loads of money on temples and he was not alone in this. Reading a life of Constantine I was amazed by the resources of the empire after many years of crisis and conflict. He doubled the size of the army, fought many wars, build a new capital, constructed huge churces around the empire from Rome to Jerusalem. The empire was still strong.

How long were the price edicts in force? Giving money to church also meant investment in buildings providing employment and also ment seting up charities that incresed the purchasing power of the poor enlarging the market. That's also basic economics and the argument seems simply anticlerical rather then economic. Pericle's building program it's usually praised despite focusing on another religious building. Maybe the high price of the army, the greatest burden for the empire, has more to do with economic problems, but if certainly created buget deficit and inflation still kept money moving and was beneficial for the regions were the money were spent. MPC I have to agree with you. before looking for the causes of economic downturn we should know if such event happened in the first place. I already admited of not knowing much about roman labour market, but I know that traditional, agricultural, rural societies did not had a developed labour market. A survey of bohemian textile industry in XVIII C showed that 2/3 of the total labour force involved were masters while 1/3 were apprentices and employes. Traditional manufacture was labour intensive but had low capital needs so having large entreprises was highly unusual. More often, manufacture and other labours were done as a secundary occupation for peasants or other people in periods when the main activity was low like in winter. If the work force was full time probably a high proprtion was made of owners and not employes. The early modern industry, that of Industrial Revolution, had serious problems finding the needed labour.

My example had the purpose to show that slavery does not always compete with good wages for workers. We know a lot about roman slaves but very little about wage earners. We know that almost half of the days were holidays and we know that the working hours were few. In Rome at least during the empire the state gave them food, money, entretainment, public baths, fountains etc. That's why they often were not interested not even in becoming colonists less in a difficult job. I don't believe that a developed labour market existed in Antiquity.

I'm not sure that diverting capital from trade/manufacture to land it's a bad thing. In this type of economy there are few profitable investments. American South was part of an industrial capitalist economic system and we can not compare it with a pre-industrial. Did massive slavery worsen the conditions of Murano glass workers in Venice? No, because slaves were not employed in high skill work. They did not "compete" on the same job. And of course glass workers were usually not employes but masters of their own bussines inherited in the family and guild members. On the other hand the prospect of working in the Rio Tinto state mines would not be very appealing for a roman and force recruiting was necesary.

It's true that roman empire economy had many restrictions. Some were created by Annona, the public supply service, by state interference in mining or beast gathering and by tributes in kind. Others were created by the influent profesional associations that acted as guilds. I don't think that this actions were bad for the economy. In the East they were even stonger but the byzantines had a prosperous economy for a long time. Later capitalism in pre-industrial era had lots to do with state organized merchant companies, guild regulation etc. Free market started in mid XIX and state influence was and still is huge. Romans never had a unified market because of difficult and expansive transport. They had interconnected local markets and the trade beetwen regions was reduced by diffusion of technologies. For example the italian wine lost the Gaul market when Gaul became a major wine producer. In a similar move glass making spreaded from Syria thru the empire because it was much cheaper to bring specialists and make glass on the spot then to carry it across continents. Slavery was not a competions for the wage earners but an alternative in the conditions of a poorly developed labour market. Slavery was needed because they could not find man to work when and where they where necesary.

On checking this out, it happens that the black guy indeed WAS based on Eugene Bullard, who I previously knew nothing about. During his career as a pilot for the French air service, he shot down two enemy aircraft. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Bullard gives more info. In future, I will research more thoroughly before I comment... The two things do not exclude each other. They put the 'black guy' in the movie to increase the appeal and they choose a 'black guy' that existed.

I really don't think that sacrifice had a forensic side. Roman medical science was not that evolved and priests received no special training.

Theodoric has a good press because he was praised by panegyrists, but the end of his reign was plagued by executions like those of Boethius and pope Symmachus and worsening relations with catholics inside and the "Byzantines" outside. This changes also promted a change of view with the romans speaking now of abuses, violence and forced conversions. After all he confiscated many properties of romans, forbidden them to carry weapons and violently prevented any merger of the 2 people while persecuting catholics and taking their churches. Only the weakness of the East and gothic military strenght at that point explain the lenght of his reign. A roman army could count on the support of the population at the end of his life. 25 years later was the end of the game for ostrogoths. Longobards got most areas of Italy but the coasts and some inland areas were kept by romans in a great difference of what had happened before when entire regions fell. The main roman region was the one that connected the capital of the exarhate, Ravenna, to Rome. This lands crossing Italy and dividing the lombard realm were kept until the 700's when they were conquered by longobards and retaken by franks that gave them to the pope freeing him from lombard and byzantine threat. A map of Italy in 1859 still showed the areas where romans had resisted the lombards in Central Italy 1300 years before!

Hypocaust was generally rare in the southern regions of the empire and often restricted to just a room, but in Dacia, because of the freezing winters, was common in all better houses and covered all or most rooms.

The only surprise for me it's your surprise. Christians and all "infidels" are mistreated in most ( I say most and not all because I don't want to be asked to make a list) muslim countries. Even Turkey persecutes her christians. The pharaoh hails from Canada. Muslims did not have to be taught violence by anybody, fighting the holy war and spreading islam by sword are among the Coran's commandements and were done by Mohamed himself. I believe that the crusades and military monastic orders of catholicism were attempts to duplicate the military fervor of ghazi's in a catholic context.