Kosmo

I see. Thank you for the answer.

Ok, not only Cato, but all the optimates are guilty for their inability to deal with Caesar. So, my client Cato it's guilty of being the figurehead of a faction that is in part responsabile for one of the civil wars. This does not make him responable for "the fall of the Republic" an ample, complex procces that started before his birth and ended after his death. He could play nice and give Caesar a chance, but he could not change the already established proffesional army, the violent political ambitions of some groups, the enrichment of the equites or the decline of the peasantry. He was a defender of a Republic doomed by many interactions and evolutions that he could not control. Probably he would lose even if Caesar was defeated and Pompey would became the new absolute ruler.

Was Cato strong enough to defeat Caesar in a public, normal debate? If it was then it means that he had a large group that agreed with him and he was a spokesman for many. So, not only him it's to "blame", but everybody from that group that Furious mentions. If he was not strong enough then all was just an excuse for Caesar to get not power, but absolute power. It seems stupid for the optimates not agreing with Caesar when he had a large army. They probably had reasons not to trust him about laying down the arms etc.

As pointed by others the problem it's political. The army was the most important political force and it was increasingly provincial and barbarian. The power shifted from the roman center to periphery and finnaly to the independent "allies" or to other regional centers like Byzantion. The military sistem of the professional army was so wrong that it needed the empire to collapse to be fixed. And the sucesors turned to a recruitment army like it happened in the East during the VII century crisis.

I think that building a huge "house" (palace) in a city where only public buidings were great it's a political statement in her self.

We put to much focus on individuals. Some were great, but others, like Hitler, just went along.

Great info Decuriones are not part of the equestrian order?

I doubt that Caesar croosed the Rubicon with an army to face Cato. He could do that alone with his nasty tongue. His army was meant for Pompei. Cato was not even very important. Cicero also had a nasty tongue that was used greatly to make Octavian and the consuls chase Antonius and defeat him at Mutina. It's an important event and some great speeches.

Ghinghis Han as he opened West- East trade routes to an unprecedented scale and his destruction of muslims helped Europe supremacy a lot.

Maybe it was not a disaster, but a return to a more economically efficient size. When Rome was great it was a terrible drain on a weak budget.

The most important trade roads were not thru the ottoman teritory when he took Byzantium, but thru the mameluk holdings in Egipt and Siria. When they conquered this regions the portuguese were already established in the Indian Ocean. The ottomans tried to expand in that area, but were defetead on the indian west coast and their allies in Ethiopia (Galla) and Sumatera (Aceh). They also had troubles in Irak with the shia persians that kept them out of the Persian Golf (where the portuguese were already strong) They had control on the trade routes in the Black Sea and Aegean, but slowly this trade moved westward with the opening of atlantic routes. For example Genoa that had many cities, islands and a lot of trade in this areas started to trade a lot with the portugues and the spanish in the West. The northern route that connected Tana and Caffa north of the Black Sea with India and China was closed as the portuguse opened the more efficient sea routes. Metternich said "Asia begins at Landstrasse" the road from Viena to Buda. It's impossible to point to a eastern border for Europe, but Hungary and Poland were peripheric to the Western civilisation.

Romans had a lot of victories, but many defeats as well. I think their main weekness was cavalry. They always had to rely on others for cavalry and when the role of cavalry increased so did the role of this auxilars.

I don't understand how the most important defender of the Republic can be blamed for destroing it! If he had agreed to Caesar (and he was not alone to oppose him) the Republic would have collapsed anyway but maybe without a civil war (but I doubt that all other ambitious generals will submit to Caesar without a fight) Why don't blame Cicero for sparking the wars against Antonius?

I agree with what you say. The personalty of the leader was exagerated by ancient historians.All goverments are oligarhies. It's difficult to point from the informations we have who made the groups of interest in ancient Rome. I see it something like the piramidal structures in soviet politics. Each high placed person has a following of clients and when he advances he helps his clients. The first clients have clients of their own and so on. The fact that the birocracy was made of freedman does not change anything. We can see politics in a group of cimpanzee, so it's everywere. The problem it's we can not document this because this groups were informal. In roman politics we don't see the parties of modern Europe with different, conflicting views about major issues. All it was just a fight for personal advance to a higher position. This is why there were no more civil wars, but short conflicts between leaders. For everybody except the clients it's irrelevant who is the emperor.

The abandonment of Dacia was a bad thing, because Rome lost a source of gold that could finance her deficit in trade with the East and could not prevent forming of alliances and federations between the Pannonian steppe and the steppe north of the Black Sea. This was very important when the huns created a state that controlled both regions.

The romans were military superior before the reforms. They had defeated Carthage, Macedonia and the Seleucid kingdom. The problems that they still faced were not as serious as the ones they already solved. Republics always feared proffesional armies and generals. An army it's a terrible force and if it's not made from people who want to keep the existing form of government it's nothing you can do to stop it from changing it. Money are no good and the history of the roman empire it's a good example, because the army will want always more and will bring a goverment that gives more. A goverment should have an army that obeys him because it's a legitim regime and the army believes and defends his legitimacy. After Arusio they could take the soldiers from where they took them after Trasimene and Cannae. It's obvious for me that Marius created a proffesional army and then was the first roman ever to use it to get absolute power. Can you deny this? Do you think that the US Army will bomb Washington if it's not payed?

I don't believe in clear cut periodizations, but I think, what it's usually accepted, that the period of the civil wars belongs to the Republic period. So, yes Actium it's the begining of the principate. Logic it will be to consider Philippi as the end of the Republic, the moment when the last republicans died or maybe the first triumvirate, when a small oligarhy ruled, but if we consider that the principate it's a monarchy then it must be a sole ruler who transmits his power herditary. And this happened only after the death of Marcus Antonius.

The turks depended on Europe for their forces thru out their history. If we take the siege of Constantinopole as an example the famous great gun was made by an hungarian named Orban and most of the rest of the guns came from France and Germany. The ottoman admiral was a bulgarian renegated prince. Europe was seriously ahead of them in tehnology and resources, but we should not believe that the states of S-E Europe were the same with those of W Europe. When Constantinopole was defending with some conscripts and mercenaries France was expelling the english at the end of the 100 Years War using a permanent force of 10.000 heavy cavalry and a large siege artillery besides levies and swiss and other mercenaries. As time went the difference became even greater. I don't say that the ottoman empire was not very strong, because it was the most powerful state of Europe and West Asia, but I doubt their capacity to extend in W Europe which had larger resources then S-E Europe had after a long crisis. At that time European states would have helped more then they did after the Reform. The ottomans were helped in their expansion in the Balkans by the conflict between ortodox and catholics. For example the first major antiottoman crusade, that of 1396 was defeated at Nicopole largely by the charge of serbian cavalry in the service of Bayazid while the french refused the advices of Mircea the Elder the ruler of Valachia. @Aegyptus- no need for that. It's a nice topic.

It was a disastrous decision. Not only the fall of the Republic was generated by this reform, but also the crisis that will later lead to the fall of the roman world. The proffesional army was a good instrument, but the romans have conquered the world before it. If they kept some form of a conscript army they could defend themselves in much greater numbers and much cheaper against the barbarians and this "popular" army would have prevented the rise of absolute rulers. They needed a reform at that point as the wars were fought far from Italy, but not that. Extending the citizenship and creating some form of permanent army thru drafting like athenian efebs or modern conscript armies would have been better. After the end of the civil wars the proffesional army was fully established at a moment when it was less needed and the defense of the established borders could be done by less qualified soldiers.

Cato comited suicide on 13 april 46 BC. Cleopatra suicided at 9 august 30 BC. So, Cato died 16 years before the establishment of the empire. He was important for one of the civil wars, not for a crisis that started with Marius and ended with the nephew of his nephew, Octavian.

The pyrhic wars started as Rome placed some garrisons in the greek cities of the south. After the war a garrison was placed in Tarentum. At the time the roman army consisted of drafted land owners. This garrisons are dreafted the same or are some permanent forces used to garrison in times of peace?

Cato died long before the "fall of the Republic". How could he be responsible for it?

You should not put the kingdom of Bosporus as was not a roman province. This is a hard task. There are debates about the borders of Dacia, but if you have to consider desert areas like North Africa and the Middle East it's even more difficult. It's a big difference between the borders of province and the outside areas were roman authority was accepted. In Dacia many areas were sometimes under roman influence. Maybe the provinces proper are just a half from what it's showed on this site map.

Thank you! I was never thinking of kurds when speaking about the Byzantine empire! Were they in the area at that time? Don't know much about their history before the XX century. Anyway, my question was about Anatolia proper and not the eastern regions of Taurus and Caucasus were the turks were not present until later.

@ Honorius- i know no sources online and I don't think romanian books will help you The ottomans were never able to control the Mediterranean so any force in Italy will be sooner or later isoleted and destroyed. We must remeber that at the time Italy was the most developed part of Europe. Milan, Rome, Venice, Genova, Napoli and Florence were the largest and richest cities in Europe. If Italy will be seriously under threat they could easly defend it with a huge fleet and lots of mercenaries like Sforza or Gattamelata and also get help from France, Germany and Spain that were all to happy to go to Italy. The ottoman empire was very strong, but had serious trubles with the well equiped armies and navies of western Europe. Ottoman expansion was favored by two events. The conquest of Byzantion by cruseders in 1204 and the defeat of the Rum sultanate of the selgiuk turks by mongols. This created an area from Danube to Taurus mountains where no power was able to establish a strong control, but too many were competing creting instability. The ottomans created a military sistem that used fanatical holy wariors "ghazi" from the other turkish states to get control of christians and the money, soldiers and alliances from the christians to conquer the other turkish emirs. After finishing off the orthodox in the Balkans they had lots of problems with Hungary that was their most important foe with the help of the catholics (1396, 1443, 1444, 1448, 1456 - hungarian led crusades). When they defeated and conquerd most of Hungary they faced the Habsburgs that created a strong union blocking their expansion in the Danube valley and on the sea in a moment when the ottoman feudal military was becaming increasingly obsolete. Ottomans were attempting to expand in the Indian Ocean, Irak, Galitia and the areas north and east of the Black Sea in the same time. So this "what if ?" it's a long shot. For a nice reading on ottoman military power and political objectives in the Reinassance this internet book it's great: http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/warso/ (a good book on a brain-washed, lousy propaganda site!)