Kosmo

On paper that group E looked easy but now it's the most exciting. Group C looked dangerous, but Serbia did not play anything and Cote d'Ivoire prove to be a good team but far from her glamourous opponents. I wish good luck to Australia and bad luck to France. 12 or 8 years ago the best competition will have been the European Cup with Argentina and Brazil added. This year I'm confused. Cehia lost to Ghana, Croatia got it all wrong, France, Italy, Portugal did not play anything. Ecuador, South Coreea, Trinidad, Australia and maybe Ghana are all trying to go up with some succes. But i can bet that when only 8 teams are left at least 6 of them will be from Europe.

If one looks at the large arrary of uniforms and other gear used in WW1 it's obvious that armies in all times were not uniform equiped like they are today. Red was always expesive and I doubt they used it much.

He had no real power base depending on temporary arrangements with his german mercenaries . I'll say that even if he had more succes things would go bad for the empire. His rise and the rise of others like him was bad news. He did little to defend the empire and his policy toward Alaric was strange and gave birth to accuses of treason. In my opinion his actions are treason if he defeated so many time the visgoths and then let them go. He spared Alaric, but hated Rufus. This was very bad for the empire. He was clearly looking for power so if he had the chance he would grab the purple thru his son that was a theodosian by blood. If he could defeat Rufus nothing will stay between his son and the purple. His bad press was deserved.

I saw a list of bishops in early Frankish kingdoms and they had roman names. Later they changed their names to german ones. I have to chek if the roman names were in the tria nomina form. It will take a while as it was not my book.

I'm thinking at Rome fall in the West as a process of cuting unnecessary expenses. This regions did not produce as much as the empire consumed to defend them with their professional army constantly rebeling and other huge money sinks.

I did not know that being called "male chauvinist" it's an insult. You can call me like that anytime Of course, I'm also a feminist as I like girls that earn their living.

Ok, what the text says? Another article that fails to get any depth.

Some of the things that they say there are in good Wikipedia style wrong. What chinese garrisons in Parthia one day from Ctesiphon? They did not even had common borders as the Kushan kingdom was between! But trade was carried with South and East Asia on a large scale with terrible consequences on roman economy.

Czechs are a very strong team. They have a chance this time to go higher. I'm not sure for who I'm going to cheer until I see more games. Holland, Argentina and the Czech republic are all very good. Cote d'Ivoir played nice. That group with Argentina, Holland, Cote d'Ivoir and Serbia it's murder! Poland was a big dissapointment for me. And so was Sweden. The FIFA ranking system it's a joke, but the FIFA World Cup it's great!

I think you are right. It's hard to tell what happened there. Some were killed, some fled after Menzinkert and even later, other were assimilated while some groups remained for many centuries. The process ended in the times of Ataturk. For the ottomans to be so strong they needed at least a minimal turkish speaking base so in late XIII century, early XIV century there was a turkish population in North Western Anatolia. Of course, many (maybe most) of their soldiers were in the begininng from the other selgiuk emirates further east and south.

I don't deny that the japonese made war crimes, I'm just saying that some of the today's claims are not honest, but nationalist rethorics. And some of the POW casualties are not neccesary their foult, but of war conditions. If this sounds like a denial it is not. In order to accuse somebody truth it's important. For example chinese killed more chinese between 1900 and 1945 that the japonese, but it's better to point at the external enemy than trying to understand why your people killed each other with little thought. Romanians made war crimes on jews and soviet civilians, but the goverment it's paying lip service to that and keeps pointing that romanian jews were the largest group to survive in Axis controlled Europe. Several hundred jews were killed from a population of millions. So the jew population in Romania was largely spared, but the romanian army killed many in Basarabia (today Republic of Moldova) and in Odessa. To find the truth a broader view it's needed. Polish resistance was heroic, but some of this resistance groups while bravely fighting the invaders killed many polish jews runing from the germans. This problem it's very sensitive and as the culprits are dead we should try to distance ourselves a bit and see the broader picture because just putting a moral tag on this actions does not help us to understand what happened. The murders in the 90's in Jugoslavia where neighbour killed neighbour are a grim reminder that this might happen again. This conflict that was daily in front of our eyes it's less understood that WW2.

There were many greeks in Istanbul, mainly in Fanar area, but they were not the majority in the city. Areas like Smirna and Trabzon hed large greek poulations until the greek defeat in the war with Ataturk, but for the entire Anatolia they were still a minority. I think turks became predominant in Inner Anatolia since the Rum sultanate, but the problem it's not clear.

To much idealism it's the recipe for disaster. What it's wrong in saying "this piece of land belongs to me and my bloodline"?

They had a huge trade deficit with India and other countries in Asia. That bleed them lots of gold. The land route was thru Parthia and the Kushan kingdom while the see route was thru the Red Sea.

The worst crimes of the allies were made by the soviets. Millions of people, even from allied nations were killed by executions, starvation and cold in Russia. For example when Romania changed sides many soldiers, some 150.000, were arested and send to Siberia. Few of them returned in the late 50's. Not to mention Katyn. This is why most romanians of the WW2 generation had a high regard for the Wermacht and deep hatred and fear for the Red Army. Even cehs and poles are guilty of crimes when they forced millions of german civilians in to exile killing many of them. Everybody was guilty. Nobody was innocent except the powerles. War it's like that. All wars had crimes and cruelties. All wars will keep having them. Of course, it's big difference between mass murder and an isolated act of violence. Going back to the POW's of the japonese many died because of starvation and sickness, but many japones soldiers had the same problems.At a point in the war, in some areas, the japonese were not able anymore to feed and treat the POW's. The claims of the chinese and correans look for me like power games by trying to use the war crimes as a poltical toll in today's confrontations. Remeber the apologies thread Nobody should apologise, but for his own personal deeds!

It was great because of his abilities to melt cultures and to borrow from others . They based everything on imported ideas, tehnologies, people, religions etc.

Egipt will have more turists if they keep them safe. Remember the attacks in Luxor, Sharm el Shaik and Dahab? Much of the gold that barbarians plundered from Rome came from dacian mines, so we, romanians, hold both the latins and the barbarians in debt. Regarding the return of those from both America's, Australia, RSA, NZ I have some messages "guys don't came back, here it's full, try Antarctica", "girls your welcome". Wait, I think we all should leave Europe to the basque and return to the steppe! We should send to Mr. Hawass all the fake stuff (papyrus, parfume, alabaster cats, "diamonds", Gucii) that the tourists brought from Egipt in the last two centuries.

How legitimate it's a claim of today Egipt to pharaonic objects? Should Turkey have a similar claim to byzantine icons? Should they belong solely to a "succesor" "nation" or to the world cultural heritage? Should we send back everything that it's in the great museums to Mexic Cambodja, Greece etc and leave each country with artifacts of her "own"? I've been to Cairo Museum and it's far worse then any collection in W. Europe that i've seen. Most things are there with no lebel or order in huge dark corridors. The few labels are in an english worse that mine (and this means low ) They have more then enough to show and will be better to do something decent with what they have and what they will find instead of trying to be the only ones with egiptology collections. The museum they made for their victory (?) in the war of Yom Kippur looks better (from the outside) that the arheology museum. For me all this it's just nationalist rethorics.

Many arheological sites of the dacians have been destroyed by people searching for gold koson (dacian coins) using metal detectors. It's estimated that many more coins have been digged illegally that by arheolgists. The location of many sites in forests and in mountains makes effective policing very hard.

No way. Those who "stole" this artifacts are the ones who created the science of history. The locals never went digging (unless for gold) before the french and the brits started to apreciate this things. And a modern egiptian claiming spiritual property for what other people did thousends of years ago it's unnatural but very nationalistic. Egiptian nationalism it's quite funny...

If roman army was the same always the hellenistic opponents were different between themselves and in different times as each army was unique. Most roman victories in Macedonia and Greece had the help of many greek allies so the image it's more complex.

I was refering to the selgiuk/osmanli turks. I believe also that the huns were turkish, but there is no evidence for that. And there is no evidence of huns settlement in Anatolia or other regions south of Caucasus

The population of the empire was huge compared with the barbarians. If the romans really had a massive conscription Rome would have had a enormous army. So, I think conscription was very limited.

Pyramidiot...nice word Anyway, they don't say much. I know what the guy is wearing, but not much about what he claims. They just repeat "cuckoo clock" like a cuckoo clock.

I think that Domus Aurea had ties with hellenistic kingship, but definetly not with greek classical arhitecture. Arhitecture tells us a lot about the ideology of the builder if it's in a context.