Kosmo

Interesting, but I think the author it's confused on what means terrorism. Everithing becames terrorism with such ambiguity. I define terrorism as an act of mass violence, targeting unprepared civilians at random, carried by camuflaged irregular forces with the purpose of creating fear. Political assasination it is not an act of terrorism, but an ancient and wide spread practice. Neither the deliberate spread of fear by armed forces does not represent terrorism.

Some equate scythians with their succesors sarmatians and alans because they seem different federation names for largely the same people. If this is true it means that alans and sarmatian yaziges spreaded scythian genes thruout Europe even to North Africa. And alans were the direct ancestors of today Caucazian Ossetians "The linguistic descendants Alans, living in the autonomous republics of Russia and Georgia, speak the Ossetic language, which belongs to the Northeastern Iranian language group, being the only remnant of the Scytho-Sarmatian dialect continuum which once stretched over much of the Pontic steppe and Central Asia. Modern Ossetic has two major dialects: Digor, spoken in the western part of North Ossetia; and Iron, spoken in the rest of Ossetia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alans#Medieval_Alania

Scythians controlled the steppes. That means the plains north of Black Sea, Caucasus, Caspian Sea and the plains of Central Asia. On a modern map will be south and central Ukraine, South Russia and Kazahstan. An early Scythians tribe called agatirsii settled the Transilvanian plateau. Latter they created small kingdoms in the area between Danube and the Black Sea, south of Low Danube. This is the reason why the region was called Scythia Minor in the late empire. By then scythians had disapeared long ago from history and the name was applied to many steppe tribes.

Amazing indeed. It looks like it was made for around 300 AD. The latest building seems to be from Aurelian, but of course there are so many I can't be sure.

A trade route to the Baltic sea started from Pannonia to the Marcomanii and over Carpathian monutains and down the Vistula. Scandinavia proper and North Sea trade I don't know. There is a convincing theory that no transsaharian trade took place either by sea or land.

If I had a "smote" button here... Hehe not a germanophile it seems. I have to disagree with you. Northern Germanic means ones of the brunches of German and not a different thing. A subgroup in a group. The theory goes that part of the goths migrated from Scandinavia to Prusia, then to Ukraine, ending in the empire. A part of them remained in Scandinavia and the islands hence many goth place names (Goteborg, Gotland etc). So, either goths were not germans (doh! ) or they were unrelated to "the peoples that lived in Sweden and Norway migrated south into Jutland" (despite themselves living in Scandinavia). My bet is at 1 AD there was no significant difference between germans and their northern neighbours and a serious differentiation took place much later. But I guess that we are a little of topic here and we should continue the discussion at the appropriate place the GERMAN subforum. Now I'm heading to the mountains for cover

By 650 Constantinopole was practicaly the only city of the former empire that still had kept the former classical greatness. From the Hadrian Wall to Palmyra ruins were everywhere, including inside former great cities like Alexandria and Antioh. It must have been strange to live close to the marble monuments in mud huts, with no or little coinage and with hand made pottery. Of course roman poor lived in mud huts at the hight of the empire. The ruining of still prosperous cities had to do with the uninterest in many monuments as a result of social and cultural change. In Dacia the material culture by 450 was largely inferior to that existing before roman conquest. And the process afected areas that were never conquered by Rome.

Some degree of local elections existed thru out the empire. Local urban authority suffered greatly in areas afected by ruralization after mid III C crisis, but still existed. Only the great provincial cities were under the central authority. Medium and small cities and rural areas kept some forms of self management. This does not mean neccesary democracy but federalism and Rome was definetly federative. Even in the times of Justinian local affairs were done by an elected council led by the bishop as decurions existed no longer.

I really doubt that those sailors were latin speakers. The Red sea trade was well established in ptolemeic times and was done by greeks and orientals. Probably that did not change when Rome conquerd Egypt.

Economy obviously suffered because of increased goverment spending, but this spending was always driven by internal political problems and the need to buy social peace. Increased salaries for soldiers, games and distributions for plebs, unproductive public buildings etc drain resources from producers and this is why taxation had to increase, but public spending was also a key for economic life in many areas. Economy of the late empire was different of the Antonines one especially in regard of trade, but archeolgical evidence shows that the empire was still active and undoubtly rich. The decline in urbanisation in the West from the III C did not diminish trade and crafts. The economic decline of the empire before 400 AD still has to be proven especially in the Med region. The same must be said about demography. Border regions exposed to raiding suffered a reduction of rural population but before 400 Ad romans were largely succesfull in defending the empire. Balkan region that suffered the most from goth and other attackers remained roman long after unafected Spain was lost. Epidemies were a normal occurance and I know no extremly severe epydemy between Marcus Aurelius and Justinian. I see the fall of the West as a result of mounting pressure from internal conflicts towards a inefficient political system, of military defeat against goths and the vandal group and as a result of splitting the empire depriving the West of acces to the rich resources of the East. After some "barbarians" settled the empire their use of roman internal conflicts prevented a reconquest by a state with dwindelling resources. So, I generally agree with Peter Heather. The fact that local populations were not very fond of the overtaxing and always in crisis empire was often expressed thru rebellions and accepting of barbarians and this was also a problem.

Happy birthday MPC! Have fun!

If celts invaded Italy and Greece because of germanic pressure in Central Europe then it is not surprising that their power faded away between the german hammer and the hellenistic anvil. Actually, I'm not convinced about the identity between different celtic groups and the celtiness of celtiberians and caledonians but this was debated already and repeatedly at the appropiate forum. Training of a warrior was done in other culters thru a variety of means including stories, myths, songs, dancing, ritual trials, rites of passage. Military experience was completly interwined with culture and political organization. For example ephebia a greek institution resembling modern conscription had visible myhtical connotations especially in Sparta while youth organizations with military attributions but also many others features were widespreaded thru out the world. See Pierre Vidal-Naquet - "Le chasseur noir" - "The Black Hunter" about Ancient Greece.

Any army has some degree of cohesion, chain-of-command, individual units, logistics etc. This can be related to political units - a tribe has an army made of cavalry, infantry and archers and all of them fight as a unit under their leaders command in a greater army made from several tribes. As in Rome and Athens the army was the nation under arms and the political structure was translated in military structure. A "barbarian" army needed less order that the ones that used the phalanx because the phalanx has to be kept straight while more flexible units can do without rigid order. This also means less need for training. Probably the positions in the line had to do with individual courage, social position and ambitions, friends and kin and not with a preestablished order fixed thru drill. The celts are famed for the overruning of Macedon at his peak, Europe most powerful army was defeated, the king was killed and the country pillaged. That was a bigger thing that what happened to Rome. Generalship for the early period is overrated, before Epaminonda "civilised" armies fought by head-on charge between hoplites. Even the spartans that had many drills and excelent manouvering used this manouvers to create a straight batlle line with the best soldiers at the front and not for flanking and outmanouvering the opponent. Barbarians were effective armies and they remained so even after the legions disappeared.

Happy Bithday PP! Have a merry celebration!

"Shortly after Diocletian, the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and all the charming archaic features of paganism, naked athletes at the Olympics, priestesses of Apollo in trances, ithyphallic Hermae on street corners, priests of Astarte cutting off their genitals, orgiastic Dionysiacs, etc., began to disappear. The empire of 476 was therefore, except for philosophers and yokels (paganus, "pagan," means "rural"), in an official Christian hammerlock. Steady political and legal pressure would eventually eradicate the old religions and gods. The Roman army, which had previously been strongly Mithraic, showed its sympathies by electing the Christian Jovian on the death of the pagan Julian in 363, and then the Christian Valentinian I, who would remove the Altar of Victory from the Senate in Rome, in 364. Indeed, at the time, the accusation was that Christianity itself was the cause of the empire's problems. What did they expect when they scorned Victory herself? St. Augustine of Hippo answered this charge in the City of God by denying that it even mattered -- only the City of God was eternal -- even as the Vandals took Hippo in the year of his own death. The charge was later taken up by Edward Gibbon, who saw religious superstition as more enervating than the antics of any Caligula or Elagabalus. Such a charge was still being repeated by James G. Frazer in his classic The Golden Bough [1890, 1900, 1906-15, note]. " Some clues about this ideea you can find here starting with the above quote http://www.friesian.com/decdenc1.htm As you know the christian roman empire continued, centered in the East, for another 1000 years. That thesis is not original (1700 years old) and it is very hard to prove.

Yes, get to work :whip: and let's hope that they are better then the poem of our beloved lyra-playing, Rome-burning god-consul :tomato:

Happy Birthday Viggen :drunk: :punk:

Good point MPC! Did the patron used a rigid discipline on his clients? It is more easy to admit that military neccesity imposed discipline rather then this mysterious relation that was not backed by public force. You start by claiming that the romans of mid-late republic were more disciplined then others, but there were some armies highly disclipined and the obvious example it's Hannibal's Italian campaign. To keep an army in enemy territory for that long requires a lot of discipline.

The favor of the public counted for something, but the army, the pretorians, the people of the palace and the Senate were more important. Probably there is a gradual change from Augustus to Diocletian.

Sanctimonia. Now I have to found out what it means... For english anagram CANNIBALIZATIONS a more easy to understand word

Those people got very rich thru the largely illegal scrap metal trade. A lucrative bussines in the moment when the huge industrial plants went out of bussines. The village it's full of black BMW and Mercedes and they have drivers for the cars because being illiterate they can't get driver licenses. A "funny" event took place when several horse driven carts full of scrap metal were crossing overcrowded Bucharest. They were stopped by police for ruining the traffic and the police was shocked to see that the scrap metal was WW2 ammunition. :blowup:

I'm not sure if I remeber well but did not Caesar tell that belgae were part germans or pretended to be germans?

In "glod" (mud) I've been, but in that village I did not and I have no plans to go. The competition for ugly places it's high around here. I've been to a gypsy village near Bucharest. Here are some pictures I found on the web. The place it's really amazing because of the gypsy palaces, but they are hardly visible in the pictures. A fine example of nomad arhitecture. http://www.jeremysuttonhibbert.com/feature...?fldfeatures=23 BTW gypsies are called in PC language "Roma" like in United Nations of Roma Victrix

Architecture: Walls go up in the search for security "Not so long ago, architects were obsessed with the notion that globalism, the Internet and sophisticated new building technologies were opening the way for a more fluid, transparent landscape in which walls would simply begin to melt away. Things didn't turn out that way. After Sept. 11, a craving for the solidity of walls reasserted itself. And the wars on terror, and fractious peaces, enforced it. The Green Zone in Baghdad, Jerusalem's separation barrier, the concrete bollards that line corporate headquarters on Park Avenue in New York

Walrus here. With a touch of porcupine and maybe bat.