Kosmo

It's used with this meaning here in Romania. In Israel means to wait, while in Turkey - beautiful. Interesting.

Yes, the place were elephants die. How it's Beckham doing there?

That's an elegant way to say that we are not used with some many breaks in a game?

Happy Birthday Doc!

The winter mini vacation it's coming to an end soon. I had connected the days off (25, 26 and 1,2) with the weekends with some vacation days making a vacation from 20 dec to 8 jan. Now I have to return to local time because I live after Hawai time. I went to bed at 9.00 AM and wake up at 19.00. Did not see the sun much this days, but I had seen lots of romantic comedies in this time, many with Hugh Grant. BTW, who are the Pats?

All those people, real or not, from Jesus, Peter and Paul to Constantine and the Chalcedonian bishops were romans. Some from the elite, some not but all took part in the development of this religion that is far more then a marketing exercise. What Paul did was a rebranding but he was not the last one.

What you say Caldrail it's probably correct but largely unsourced. There are sources that mention repeated charges by both sides, that implies that they withdrown after failing to break the enemy line, but this it's not always mentioned.

I think that the association of slavery and moral decadence has more to do with modern historical discurse rather then antiquity. All societies were before XIX C sclavagist. Were all immoral? Romans tried to resist the temptations of Orient from Cato to Diocletian. Even Caesar tried to reform the morals thru edicts. They also innovated a lot in the area of immorality from Claudia to Elegabal. The last moral reform the romans made, christianity, was rather succesfull and killed all fun for a 1000 years ... make that 2000 years.

Besides Vegetius and other less relevant sources we actually know very little about those things. Probably most were so obvious to romans that there was no reason to write them down.

In Edward Champlin's "Nero" the author mentions an old article by Jean Colin about men dressing as women and getting merried with other men as part of initiation to the mysteries of Bona Dea. That would explain many things from Clodius to Nero himself, but the author sees Nero's case as saturnalia mocking rather then serious religious act, if we can call transvesting a serious religious act. Bona Dea it's associeted with the better known to us Cybele cult.

Will go once the holidays are over. Have patience

Oh!, just great! As if I know what you are babbling about. What goodies did you stuff down your gullet that had to be washed down by that vino? Don Tomato Traditional food for Christmas around here it's with a lot of pork meat. We passed that (we also used a fig tree for a Christmas tree as a departure from tradition) and eat turkey, smoked fish, octopus etc. Beside the wine mentioned above we boiled some italian wine with spices. It's great in this cold nights.

Craciun fericit si la multi ani!!! For me the main course was red wine - Pinot Noir from Murfatlar vinyards. Edit of a romanian name

Vandals were remebered for the sacking of Rome. The city still held enormous symbolic significance and the brutal pillage and the destruction that followed made the name vandal immortal.

The conspirators were hated by most plebs and all soldiers. One should remember that at that moment all roman soldiers were Caesar veterans. So the murderers tried to keep M. Antonius to save them from the fury of the army. Anyone could have led the army against the murderers. After all those man had fought from Britain to Egypt for Caesar and knew the bussines of war very well and did not really needed the cavalry hero to lead them. Keeping M. Antonius was a good move. Maybe he behaved more shrewd then they expected but saving a drunkard, incompetent foe in the game can be a better move than to kill it and open the spot for someone brighter.

Richelieu, Bismarck, Stalin, Justinian, Frederick the Great, Peter the Great, Columb, prince Henric of Portugal, Deng Xiao Ping, Ghandi, Magellan, FDR, Churchill, Nasser, Stephenson, Curie, Fermi, J. St. Mill, Hegel, Herder, Kant, Toma D'Aquino, Voltaire, Nietzche, Mussolini, Lorenz, Wilhelm the II (rather then Gavrilo Princip), Adam, Eva, Cain etc

I just started to play Barbarian Invasion and I love it. My goths won when sacking Dacia over 2 billion dinari that tend to make thing easier. I knew that Dacia had gold but I had no ideea how much especially after changing hands twice quickly beetween me and huns. I'm thinking that after finishing BI to play a mod. Which one is the best of the two? Or maybe you like another one.

I thought we talked about POW's. The data given by the first poster says "a Gaul soldier in somewhat high rank(like centurion)" That is enemy soldiers captured in battle. Not hostages given in a peace treaty (like Polybius) or civilians. Probably the gaul NCO we are talking about will end up in the slave market.

In the begining they did not. Possiblly they had a peltas when acting like peltasts. Later the veterans got a silver shield becaming the famous argyraspides that were thought of by the diadohi.

They chocked to death their leader. What will they do to a centurion? Rather merciless people those romans. Dacian captives died by the thousends in the Colliseum. Mercy was seen as a weekness.

Language it's politics. Because language it's the sign of national identity and this the core of politics. For example serbo-croatian was adopted by serbian and croats in 1840 despite being the language spoken in Bosnia and different from what was spoken in Srbia and Croatia. Later a croatian grammar book that stressed the differences with serbian was the focus of political struggles for many years.

Troy was a port on the Aegeean, in today Western Turkey, just some sailing days from mainland Greece. No land crossing at all.

I think Sulla's acts were considered legal otherwise all acts would have been nul without being needed other special gradually enacted laws. Sullans kept power for sometime after Sulla's death and prevented a complete return to the previous situation. The principle "tempus regit actum" it's roman so I presume that they could not convict someone for carrying a legal order, but could prosecute someone if the act was unlawful.

Until the ottoman conquest of Byzantium in 1453.

Very nice reviews. There is a "G" mising on the last line of Grant's review. I think it's good to have some book reviews about hellenism here.