Kosmo

I don't know about which expansive pleasures and easy life are you talking. He did not build palaces or luxurious ships and did not indulge in rouinous games at public expense for plebeian popularity. He was more of a stoic than an epicurean. I doubt that commoners cared too much when some of the elite were put to death. The senatorial elite were the unhappy, less for the early cleaning, but more about an emperor that ruled from far away. The fact that he builded so much shows that he had the resources and I guess that his constant inspections had lots to do with that prosperity. A hands-on leader that worked a lot rather then a party-man. And he showed much more concern about his succesion than any other emperor. He was the first emperor to recognise the need for a roman heavy cavalry and he led to a large extent the puting down of the jewish rebellion. His rule was the zenith of the roman empire.

Not to mention Athens, Ephes, Attalia and many other places were the greatest roman monuments still standing are made by him.

Thank you BH. About the Black Sea and North Sea I was thinking more about the roman fleets permanently stationed there that had to fight germans in the Late Empire.

Hadrian was a great emperor. He traveled from one end to the other of the empire launching building projects not only for laisure and prestige but also had build ports, aqueducts, fortifications etc He listened local complaints and checked the behaviour of officials and military. He tried to keep peace and to develop relations with neighbours. His only mistakes were his handling of relations with hebrews in Israel and the use of a two emperor system in an effort to secure the purple. He made good choices of succesors trying to avoid the situation that occured at Trajan's death and that had kept the empire safe until M. Aurelius changed the pattern. He also gave greeks a more dignified role in the empire. His love of boys did not affect too much his handling of imperial affairs. The most shocking thing he has done was to deify his mother-in-law. Either he was very glad she was dead, or he was realy strange . Maybe I'm biased towards him thanks to Marguerite Yourcenar and her excellent historical novel.

What about roman and hellenistic fleets outside the Med? In the Black Sea, North Sea and Red Sea. Did they used also rowing ships of the same model (trireme, polireme) ?

He had Apollodorus killed, but not for arhitectural debates as some suggest, but because he was connected to a circle that wanted Hadrian dead. He did killed some important people, but this was only because he felt threatened. He also had some hot temper. He had struck his secretary on the face, but having a sharp "pen" in his hand the secratary lost an eye. This were reasons for which the Senate was not happy to make him a god, some beleived that he should be called a tyrant.

I gave up completly TV more then 3 years ago as I found it ate too much of my time. Still, when I'm in some other place and see a TV I change to Discovery too see the same documentaries they had years ago. When I was looking at TV most I was seeing documentaries and comedies. Still, most of the time I was spending on TV I was just change chanelles. And I had to fight my wife for the remote control because we have completely different tastes. Instead of putting 2 TV's now we use none. In the evenings I read, talk, play computer games and walk the dog. UNRV addiction it's solved thanks to my employer...

Thank you BH for yours informative answers. Added to the supply ships for the triremes they often had the main convoy of the army if the trireme fleet was the protection for the army transports. So, often the rowing fighting ships were just a part of a fleet that had many transport ships. I presume that this transport ships were sailing ships or with mixed propulsion as the transport capacity of a rowing ship was small. I agree with you, but still that must be some cases when the fleets had to spend the night at sea. I'm thinking at open sea crossing like that from Sicilly to Carthage or from Epirus to S. Italy. Or were this crossings shorter then a day? If they use 500 l of water a day this means 1,5 tons for 3 days to be added to the 800 kg of food to a total of 2.300 kg.

This is South of the Antonine Wall I guess.

I think the first entire Zero captured came from the Java Campaign of early 1942. That's from the top of my head. Returning to ancient naval warfare I was trying to understand some (other) things. The main enemy of speed was weight. For the many people on board one needed lots of food and water. So, it seems that often campaigns aimed further away needed to be supplied by a convoy of trading ships. Still, I found mention about this only for the athenian campaign in Sicilly. Opinions? I'm not sure about the way to spend the night. Some say that for the night a fleet would stop on a beach to eat and sleep, but this seems hard to believe in all cases. Did they spend often the night at sea? Did they sailed or waited at anchor? The rowers carried weapons? As boarding was an important way to fight it seems only natural to have them able to fight. Vikings, turkish-arab pirates used lighetely armed rowers to augment the ships fighting power and to reduce the need for onboard infantry (and the added weight).

Slavery was not the only gateway to citizenship and not even the most used one. Citizenship was often given to individuals and groups. And this is especially true for the empire, but also the Republic. But citizenship was not the only good status to be held. A rich person from some "allies and friends" city would not feel the absence of citizenship important unless he wanted a political career in Rome. And for sure many free foreigners made Rome their prosperous home. There is a huge ammount of evidence for that. There can be several status for that: italian, provincial, foreigner etc. The Republic abandoned early all restrictions and would dislike just some categories and usually for good reason like in the case of philosophers.

Cicero was hailed as imperator, but that does not make him supreme commander of all roman forces, but of the particular forces in "his" province. And he was surprisingly shy about this title. Probably at the time there were dozens of people that have been called imperator.

Thank you both. It's amazing to see the high level of losses in some battles, sometimes even for the winner. So, the skill did make a difference, but it can be compansated by numbers.

I generally agree with you. I only doubt that both shipbuilding and naval warfare required to much skill. I have some questions on this subject: Carthaginan warships were different then the hellenistic ones? How naval warfare in Antiquity was different compared with the medieval italian pre-artillery one? Did romans kept the wood several years for drying like it was done later? Thank you!

For a barbarian warlord an entire sheep it's more appropiate. The ship (without head and lower parts of legs) it's cooked in a bag made from her fur and it's filled with vegetables and her chopped internal organs including brains. She it's covered with clay and put in a pit with burning charcoal on all sides for several hours. It's done when the air inside the clay/fur cover bursts out. I'll rather eat some pastrami.

Naval warfare was in the last 1000 years a specialized brunch of warfare. Never a country became a naval power in a short period. You need not just to build ships on a model, but also to train crews and officers. The japanese followed Royal Navy models with the help of british naval missions and also used ships made in the UK. If somebody could create a fleet without traditions this means that neither the skills needed to make a ship, nor the skills to use it effectively were complex. Naval technology and warfare had to be rudimentary. PS I believe that the story with romans duplicating a carthaginian ship it's a propaganda piece. Tarentum and the other greek cities of Italy were under roman power and they knew how to build a ship. But there is no evidence that they manned and lead them and also none for the other examples.

The Iron Age agriculture was limited, but romans pushed the social structures to a high level including higher population without improving to much the economic base. When the subsides from the South ended the system collapsed. They fall from a high place. When population was back at roman level it was based on a much healthier local system thanks to improved agriculture. The event that had cut the subsidies was The Third Century Crisis when usurpers and wars intercepted the money flow and the entire roman urban structure in the North fell to pieces having just a partial ulterior recovery before the final fall.

For sure things go down fast. "Iraq and Turkey see tensions rise after ambush ISTANBUL: A brazen ambush by Kurdish militants that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions on Sunday, bringing fears that Turkey would retaliate immediately by sending troops across the border into Iraq. But Turkey's prime minister said he delayed a decision, after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice personally intervened. The ambush by a large group of Kurdish militants about three miles from the border with Iraq early on Sunday was seen as a direct provocation on the part of the militants, who have increasingly staged raids into Turkey from hide-outs in the mountains of northern Iraq. It was the most serious attack in recent memory by the militants, separatist fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and came only four days after Turkey's Parliament formally approved contingency plans for military retaliation across the border..." http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/22/eur...rkey.php?page=1 Note the picture at the rally in Istanbul and the words of the kurdish president of Iraq "Handing over PKK leaders to Turkey is a dream that will never be realized" and "We will not hand any Kurdish man to Turkey, even a Kurdish cat." Guns will speak soon.

For sure I will fight for the sheeps. The red wine goes well with some sheep pastrami. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastrami

The pharaoh it's attacking from the North... or from the South ... I'm not sure... this is confusing... I give up the ice cold beer ... let the brigantes have it... it's perfect for them when it's snowing... I want some young wine that it's still "boiling" ... a red one!

Doc, I mean mediterranean vs continental. There are no clear cut borders but a gradual change in ecology. For example Spain has largely a mediterranean climate, but conditions differ widely. Carthaginians, romans, arabs, people accustomed with med conditions generally settled the East coast and the South when celts and germans settled the North and West. This was strikingly visible during the Reconquista when arabs made a high yield agriculture and large urban centers with a sophisticated culture in South and East while christians developed an agriculture based on cattle raising in the North and Center. But those christians benefited from medieval advances in continental agriculture. I think that Augustus became wiser from bitter experiance. The imperial overstretch started with Caesar conquest of Gaul and greatly increased by Augustus expansion in Pannonia and Germany. He became wiser after Varus disaster. Claudius and Trajan only continued this tendition. The bid made with this expansion was the roman ability to develop this regions, but after the Third Century Crisis, the North suvived only on subsidies and all pretexts had to be abandoned. When we see the great reduction of cities in the North in the same time with the great growth of Byzantium and the flourishing of Syria it's obvious that the crisis afected diferently various regions. This Northern regions where not poor in an absolute manner because we see that later they acheived great development, rather the means and purposes of romans were inadequate being born in a different climate.

Sahara was as barren as it is today, but smaller. Forests covered some mountainous regions in the Atlas as they do, to a much lesser extent, today. Maybe the climate had a bit more water, but generally speaking the climate it's the same. It's known that forest brings rain and that is why local goverments of today launched large reforestation programs. The differences in climate are generally due to human activity: grazing, deforestation, soil destruction that have led to distruction of habitats and extinction of species since Antiquity.

Hey, if Pertinax and the other brigantes are from Rhaetia, what about Viggen? He is also a brigantian? From North Britain? And the main culprit speaks about this thread going Dada, but we all know that Dada started in Helvetia. It's as good as a confesion. He is trying to take the thread to Rhaetia The plot thickenss...

First of all, it's a bad decision for what it's happening today, not what happened some time ago. Second, this pointing of fingers it's just dumb and no one invested the West or the US with the moral authority to do it. In the light of recent US actions this looks for many just ipocrite. Especially when this decision was taken by politicians seeking the vote of Armenian-Americans and not on a moral ground. Third, this happened during ottoman rule and Turkey kemalist regime did not consider himself a continuation of that regime, but one of the succesors. The differences between the two are many and if you go to Turkey you will see statues of Ataturk, not of the House of Osman. And after all a person can be asked to "come clean" for his own actions and not for others and for sure not for ancestors. I'm a romanian, but I don't have to accept blame for what various romanian govermant did thru out the time to other people, mostly romanians. Comunists imprisoned some 5% of our population and killed some 3%. Can you tell me that I'm responsible for that? It's a difference if the vicitims are romanian citizens of romanian origins or romanian citizens of armenian origins? Responsability must always be connected with an individual, especially when the decision was undemocratic. It's a basic principle of penal law and for sure, to prosecute the mass murderers of today will be more effective than to throw a collective blame on innocents. This PC guilt thing resambles the communist principle (but used also by jacobines/nazists/terorists/etc ) of "objective enemy" that is a person that regardless of his actions it's guilty for his origins. If you are a "turk" you are responsable for what some long time dead "turks" did to some "armenians" ( The quotes are used because ethnicity it's strange thing)

I can't wait to see your review because I'm really interested in this topic, but what I was trying to say it's that the productivity of the agriculture in the North was too small to allow the maintenance of a system that was born in the much productive South. The sophistication on Rome requiered a large surplus and that was absent in the poor North.