Kosmo

The view of the Ottoman Empire as "The sick man of Europe" it's not entirely correct. There were different periods, ups and downs. Mostly downs followed by stabilization periods. The war of 1683-1699 was a low period followed by a partial recovery due to modernization and reform (Tulip reforms, recovery of Belgrade, Oltenia, Morrea, conquest of Crete, victory over Russia etc). The begininng of XIX C was also a bad period (Napoleon victories, Russia attacks led by Kutuzov, Serbian and Greek revolts, Mehmet Ali etc) followed, after 1830, by reform (the end of jenissari and spahi corps, the demise of deir beys etc)

It sure did! At least for culture. From an economic point of view it was bad news. Ottoman conquest greatly hindered the lucrative italian trade and gradualy reduced the genouese and venetian trade bases in the region. The fall of Constantinopole was just a step in this evolution that slowly turned Black Sea, Egeean and Eastern Mediterranean in turkish lakes. For the Black Sea trade 1453 (with anihilation of Galata as well) was a devastating blow followed switfly by the ottoman conquest of Trapezunt, Caffa, Mangop and romanian ports Chilia and White Fortress (Akkerman). With the ottoman hold on Byzantium and near artillery armed fortresses in the straits the trade routes and bugets of the neighbours of the Black Sea were at the mercy of ottomans. Genoa was the Western state who felt the worse blow but Venice, Hungary and Poland were hit as well. After the loss of eastern trade routes genovese moved their trade to Spain and Portugal and that included financing of portuguese exploration of African road to India and of spanish conquest of America (Cristofor Columb was genovese) They also invested in sugar plantantions in Spain and Portugal, then in the islands of Africa and finally in America. So, after all the West made nice profits even from the shift of trade caused by the byzantine tragedy.

AD you did not filled the gaps, you made a sequel "Satyricon Reloaded" I guess Trimalchio's banquet drawn your attention. Indeed beside being fun this novel it's also a mine of precious informations in many areas including gastronomy.

PS. Hungary was never an empire.

It's true that ottomans outnumbered the hungarians, but this is not what brought them victory. Strangely the hungarians attacked while most ottomans units where setting camp for the night achieving a great surpise. Despite the surpise the battle turned in a confusing mele while the ottoman rearguard still on the march joined the fray. I've posted before the link to an excelent study of the battle http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/warso (the site it's a nationalist, iredentist one)

Even in his Golden Age the Ottoman Empire had to rely on european weapons, tehnicians and officers. Orban, the infamous hungarian gunbuilder, italians like Barbarossa and Sinan, british like Osman Pasha, were integrated in the ottoman army while often military missions provided support. Sometimes, like in the 1877 war, ottomans had technological advantages over opponents because of the weapons imports and the importance of the army. In WWI they defeated the Entante forces at Gallipolli but also the british in Southern Mesopotamia and fought well in Syria, Arabia and Caucasus. This was shortly after the terrible defeats from the First Balkan war and despite having no supply line to Germany until the fall of Serbia.

HC - While I agree that cavalry was used to charge massed infantry in Middle Ages I know no evidence for this during Antiquity. From my knowledge Alexander's cavalry charged persian cavalry and not infantry. Persian infantry was much lighter then greek or roman. Excepting greek hoplite mercenaries and maybe some others it was no problem for macedonian cavalry to charge at the persian missile troops.

I liked very much this book, is the best roman novel, and the first ancient text I've read as a child. It was funny to read that book whitout my parents minding as they were convinced about the qualities of classical culture . To bad some parts were in latin and the words were not in the dictionary. Some of the stuff in the book really amazed me as no similar information was available to me then. I've heard that someone had filled the annoying missing gaps. It's any good this version? Are there any other roman novels?

Caldrail, I fully agree with your conclusions. Roman cavary did not charge infantry. But, all 4 reasons you mention can be applied to medieval knights and I believe that they charged infantry. Bigger horses, better armour and harnasses and poorer infantry opponents made that possible.

Well done Doc!

Happy Bithday!

Home Front?

Funny name "macrohistorical" I thought that it was something fashionable to eat Maybe you should explain better. It's about a small battle with big historical significance or a important one that is not well known? Ain Jalut it's not so important. A mameluk forced defeated a mongol rearguard. The important aspect it's why the mongols stopped thair campaign and retreated leaving only those small forces behind. The reason was the death of the Great Khan Mongke and Hulagu's attempt to gain the throne. That also was the end of mongol unity. From that moment the mongols of the Middle East (the Il Khans) coud not count on outside help and the biggest threat was the Golden Horde. The extremly long conflict beetween the two western khanates put an end to the offensive phase of mongols. Both Egypt and Europe were safe from that moment.

First, we should establish the place and then the time for the estimate. A german limes could mean the Rhine frontier, the Upper Danube frontier, or the land fortification between the two. If we speak about legions than must mean principate. Having eight legions and at least an equal number of auxilliaries, fleet, cavalry, etc means minimum 80.000 soldiers for the Rhine frontier and that is too much.

It was a good ideea and one that could have been highly succesfull. I doubt that plans for conquest of the Gaul were made but Spain could have been added to the Mediterranean empire and also the southern provinces of Gaul that belonged to the goths. The superiority of the empire to the germanic succesors was great as proven by the relative initial speed of the conquests. Several factors made the reconquest a mixed succes. First, the persians were fully aware of the danger that a reunited empire represented to them and broke the "eternal peace" to help the hard pressed ostrogoths. Romans had a hard time with them and this diverted resources from the West. The danubian policy of Justinian failed. He was actively raiding slavs north of Low Danube while fortifing the Balkans in depth. Also he was seeking to use longobards and gepids against each other. The gepids occupied some Pannonian cities so when longobards attacked in alliance with avars he did not helped them to keep the balance. To everybody's surprise the gepids were totally smashed. Longobards attacked Italy and avars got a safe heaven in Pannonia were they were relieved of turkish pressure and started to seriously raid the Balkans as slavs and other steppe people were doing. This also diverted resurces from the West reconquest. The third blow was a string of epidemies that greatly reduced the population of the empire shrinking to a great extent the recruit and tax bases. If the reunification would have been a succes the empire could have benefited from a rebirth of trade and culture and from the unity of the christian church under imperial guidance. And it would have greater resources to focus on specific threats in crisis moments. Italian reconquest alowed the empire to retain some serious influence there until the XI C and was the begining of Venice but also of some of the medieval arts and sciences. The hold on Africa was also quite strong and helped the empire.

In my childhood to be openly a christian was not a good ideea so I grew up without giving much thought to religion. After the Revolution, when I was a teen, I became much more interested in christianity and, as I always do, I've read some books about it, but did not became a true believer. This christian phase ended a couple of years later when I had read Nietzche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", a book that brought me a lot of joy and freed me from religious self interogation. And now I'm perfectly at ease with the dreaded "nothing".

Yes, why would you want to say that? I understand that the greeks used the word "apple" for many fruits with something added like "persian". If both fruits were adopted from the Persian Empire this might make a confusion. Modern french uses apple as a base for the name of other plants like "pomme-de-terre", ground-apple for potatos.

Mosque courtyards in Spain had orange trees and orange cultivation with irrigation was spread by arabs. But it seems that this were bitter oranges. Sweet oranges were brought by portuguese from India. Lemons were cultivated by summerians and were spread in the Med by the greeks after Alexander's campaign under the name persian apple. Or so a book about Summer says. It might be the citron AD mentions. Cofee originates from Ethiophia and it's use spreaded in the Ottoman Empire after XVI C. Tea it's used in China since Antiquity. Use outside East Asia was started by dutch traders in the XVII C and in Russia as a result of trade with China thru Siberia. Cultivation spreaded outside China only in the second half of XIX C. Did greeks and romans used plant "teas" - boiled parts of dried plants (not of the tea plant)? They are efficient as medicine and I often use mint tea for stomach problems. And boiling would have purified the water of dangerous life forms.

I thought cavalry used the slightly larger spatha, not the gladius. Anyway, the cavalry usually rellied on spears. Generals of classical Greece fought usually on foot as hoplites. Later everybody important was on horseback and armed with a spatha. Of course, city assaults were foot business. One of Caesar man at Thapsus cut the trunk of an elephant that had risen him above the ground. Also the wide blade it's a indication of slashing movement while the sharp point it's an indication that it was also a thrusting weapon. It was dual purpose.

A pharaoh without soul? Maybe Seth stole it from you and now you must ask the Master of Mysterious Emoticons, the god consul, to help you in your quest. Of course, he will be happy to send you Hehehe, I make great jokes! Of course, language it's often a barrier and so it's culture. Some times I don't get the jokes. What's an eldberry (a berry?) and why it's a bad thing to smell like that? Ni? Hamsters eat eldberry? It nice to have both good debates and informations about our mutual thing and a cheerfull atmosphere. Usually, agressive people don't stay around much.

Greek identity played a little role in chosing sides. After all Rome conquered Greece with the active participation of many greek cities. Even later christians fought between themselves more then they did others. Decisions were taken based on the interest of the polis and the political sympathies of the leaders rather then on panhellenism that was never a rallying cry. Many ionians fought biterly against Alexander and were later opposed to the diadohi. Cowardice? No. Cowards don't fight. Just political reasons to bet on the persians and maybe hopes to became a hegemon of Greece under persian supervision. Today's Russia it's the direct growth of a small city, Moscow, that won the trust of his mongol overlords and was empowered to police some other vassals. The example of Alexander I of Macedon that in the same campaign as a persian allie tipped of greeks of persian plans and finally attacked the persians cutting their retreat it's a good one as is the good fight that the queen of Halicarnass put at Salamina.

Happy birthday wizard of signatures!

An interesting theory connects eating of food from an area and living in the same area. Food from the area we live gives as defance against allergens from this inviroment. This is a good explanation to the increased occurence of allergies in corelation with increased food trade.

Do not worry NN I did not considered you one of the pseudohistory kind, not only because I know and appreciate your posts, but also in this thread you did what this type never does: have an argumented debate.

The patriarh of Rome lost North Africa for good and most of Spain for 700 years. He also had under his authority, in the begining the west and south of the Balkans including Greece, Macedonia and today Serbia. I was thinking about that, but decided not to include NW Africa because the Church hadn't yet split. The Catholic West never lost territory after the 1054 split. The Balkans were under the Patriarchate of Rome, but after the 476 fall it was controled by the remaining Roman Empire, on and off. When the Western Church broke away, these areas were still aligned politically with the East. I fully agree, that's way I used the term "patriarh of Rome", but this brings another question: how you define catholicism especially in comparison with orthodoxy? Usually authors name those who obeyed the Nicean edicts as catholics. So, Justinian was a catholic and so was Clovis. Can we say the same about Vasile II Bulgarochton and Otto in early XI C (before the great schism)? Can we speak of orthodox and catholics before 1054? We could say that each patriarch had control over an area within the greater christian church and we could call this areas catholic, orthodox (with an added problem for the 3 patriarchs of the Middle East)