Kosmo

In 1480 ottoman forces landed near Otranto in southern Italy. They were defetead and left. The sultan was not in this campaign. Pirats from N. Africa under ottoman flag attacked constantly all Mediterranean coast line. From this to conquer it's a big way. No, this not the right place and maybe not even the right forum

I looked on the net for informations about Venice just some days ago, but what I found most was about the city and his italian possesions and little about what I was interested in: the sea trade and the oversea teritories. As usual, informations found on Internet have little details. Good luck!

When the selgiuk turkish invasion took place most inhabitants of inner Anatolia were greeks or hellenized? I know that in the coastal areas there was always a massive greek element, but I don't know about the inside regions. In the Caucasus and Cilicia armenians were present in numbers. Maybe isaurians also, but what about the people that we know from the hellenistic and roman times: bythnians, galatians, carians etc. Did they became multilingual using greek in public and their own languages in their comunities? I ask this because I wonder how the turks became the main ethnic element.

Trade and urbanisation started to be reduced even in the Late Empire when we see the change in the cities name after the populations in the area and ample fortifications thru out the empire. Some trade continued after the fall of the empire in the west and it was quite important, but the most important change was the expansion to the East and North of Europe of what will became "the West" and the ample changes in Mediterranean because of islamic invasions. First Germany then Scandinavia and Central Europe joined this super entity that it's christian, romanic and german in the same time. A lot of trade was carried in the Rhine areas, over the Alps and the Channel. Vikings created a vast trading network from Groenland to Dublin and Kiev. They connect this network with the byzantines and arabs in the valleys of Dniepr and Volga. In Sweden are found lots of arab coins and a german emperor imprisons in 860's some vikings that came from Byzantion. So, the trade networks of the dark arges are quite ample. After the year 1000 a rapid urbanisation develops thru out Europe and the italians in the South and the Hansa in the north create vast networks connected thru the Rhine and the Alps. When western Europe exited this period by 1100 it was larger then the roman Europe centred on Mediterranean Sea.

Oh no, not the ancient concrete mix! We don't want to go there! What it's this, arheology or Erik von Dinneken? Wow, that egiptian expert in pyramids it's quick. At 10.07 PM we find out that he arrived yesterday and at 10.36 PM he already knows everything. Probably not much to know except some cash with a pyramid on it. @Xtbay: Regarding the third inconsistency- he is not quoting himself, he is quoting the only reliable source I know this people. And how twisted their minds and arguments are! "You have no ideea how advanced the dacians were! The romans spoke dacian! The goths were dacians. In our mountains it's the energetic center of the Universe" Let's all hold hands and focus on the balkanic pyramid.

Dacia was rich in resources, not only gold but also silver, led, copper, lots of salt and it was a fertile land. Because of the military situation this were hard to exploit. Pax romana was never extended to this region. For example at the death of Trajan in Asia sarmatians and free dacians launched a large attack. A similar thing happened during the marcomanian wars of Marcus Aurelius. Several other wars had to be fought against sarmatians in the Pannonian plain to the West and against dacians and germans to the North and East. Moesia Superior was also attacked from the north. The province had some natural defences to the East along the Carpathians, but they have many passes. South of Carpathians the border was along the Alutus (Olt) river and it was defended by a limes east of the river. The north was not defended by mountains and the north legionary castrum of Porolissum was attacked repeatedly. In the West the border was in open plain in the south and mountainous in the north. Despite these low western mountains barbarians were able to attack thru the mountains the gold mines. The roman garrison in Dacia was some 50.000 men and other troops had to keep defending the Danube border to the south because of raids over middle and lower Danube. One of the reasons Trajan had to conquer Dacia was the potential of the dacian kings, with their ample gold resources, to use against the romans the tribes of Pannonia and Sarmatia. The problem that the romans had it's the fact that despite Danube being the largest river from Europe proper it is not difficult to pass. During the winter the ice makes a bridge over it and in summer small boats and rafts are good enough for the short crossing. During recorded history there are countless examples of armies going north and south over lower Danube. From the Iron Gates to the sea the Danube was crossed very often and even dacians had control over both banks. So I think that Aurelian was forced to abandon Dacia because of the crisis, but this was a bad thing for the empire. The moment when Dacia was abandoned it's still debated and so are the conditions in which was abandoned and to whom. Romans kept control over large areas north of Danube at least until the time of Iustinian. A limes was build by them over the Romanian plain paralel with the Danube for hundreds of kilometers.

Romanian National History Museum exhibits a copy of the column. I might have posted this in the wrong place. If I did please move it where it belongs.

This will be the smallest inconsistencies. How about "there is no pyramid there"? That's a big one!

Did the roman army lost in time her skill in siege? Byzantium was hard to conquer for Septimius Sever and I can't think of a succesfull siege during the dominate. Of course they did not make any conquest so they had little to siege. They never took Hatra, but this was mainly because of a supply problem.

The fall of the empire was violent, but also what happened after it was violent. We see a gradual destruction of what was left from Rome until the years 1000. It was a gradual process of transformation, but also a visible regres in some areas of life: number of inhabitants, urbanisation, transport, trade, coinage, education, arts and crafts, public works, even politics and military art etc. Odoacru was a roman general, the ostroghots were quite civilised, but the gothic war left little after it and then came the very barbaric longobards and the conflicts with byzantines and franks, avar, hungarian and saracen raids etc In Britain we see internal conflicts within the romano-briton society with raids from Ireland and saxons then large scale germanic invasions. After this settle a new wave of german invaders comes with ample destruction. I see the dark ages as a period that gets darker as time passes.

Tamerlane was not the Khan of the Golden Horde and he fought a bitter war against the Golden Horde led by his former friend Tochtamis. He was of mixed descent turkish and mongol and he became de facto leader of the Horde of Ciaghatai.

Do you think that it's possible that romans did not want to know much about the outside world? The imperial ideology was that Rome have conquered the whole civilised world. Showing that large areas exist outside Rome will put to question the universality of the empire making it just a big state. "Urbis et orbis" means nothing if you know geography. I read a similar theory about the reasons why the chinese Ming put a stop to the succesful sea voyages that had taken them to Africa and Arabia.

Worse figure: Marcus Aurelius because he proved that, no matter how inteligent, educated and devoted to the others a person is, personal feelings take over reason and damage everyone. If the perfect emperor-philosopher did it so bad what can we expect from the others.

I was once looking at the paintings of R

The remebering of Holocaust it's too exceptional to have an effect. There were many similar things, but they are slowly forgotten.

^_^ Sorry, I did not made up my mind. I agreed to prestige because it seems possible, but it's not an explanation. Why would some egiptians (even of greek descent) be happy when their kings spend lots of their money to send a fleet and soldiers in a distant area with little benefit? I must add the kingdom of Pont to the ones that tried their luck in Greece. This area was a batllefield until Actium.

Why would Rome be interested in the legacy of Xerxes? And the hellenistic kings hated to be considered barbarians and never claimed to continue the rule of persian kings. So, they all fought to control or to keep others from controlling Greece for emotional reasons and heart problems? Seeking prestige I understand as prestige keeps one in power. In terms of wealth I don't think that kings of Egipt and Syria needed money from Pelopones.

Of course any conquest may bring some advantages, but they look small for me compared with the costs. Macedon was a neighbour but Egipt and the Seleucids were quite far, but tried to control at least some areas in Greece.

After the death of Alexander the most important hellenistic states were deeply involved in bloody struggles to control Greece. After the second punic war Rome joined the fun and send her armies in Greece despite the terrible losses she suffered and the problems in Spain and Cisalpine Gaul. Why? Greece was never wealthy or fertile. Her cultural glory did not meant that people needed to fight for it until it's turned in a ruin. Why would want the kings of Egipt or Asia to control a small, poor city in Pelopones? They had better targets closer to them and so did Macedon and Rome. For the safety of Macedon the "barbar" regions in the North, West and East were more important then to besiege Athens. After all from there came the celts that made it a ruin. After Lysimah and Ptolomeus Keraunos the macedonians abandoned the Balkans, but kept on making useless attempts to expand South. A Macedonia with borders on Danube and Adriatica it's better then one that controls Athens and Sparta. To see Antioh the Great risking his life for an adventure in Thessaly while his empire extandes from Bosphorus to Hindu Kush it's puzzling.

Phalanx was tough oponent in open field and sometimes hellenistic states had a good cavalry. The batlles with Pirus showed that the phalanx could break the legionary formation and use cavalry reserves to great benefit. I think that many things said here about the hellenistic phalanx are untrue. They had reserves, cavalry (sometimes elephants) and manouvered quite well. Unlike the roman republic they had professional soldiers and professional officers. The battles of Alexander show a high level of complexity, not a straight forward mindless assault. They were usually decided by a dashing cavalry charge against an enemy vastly superior in cavalry. Anyway, the roman battle formation proved to be better most times. Why? I don't know. Caesar crushed the legion type units made by hellenistic kings and the employed them with great succes.

Hello and thank you! What made Rome the one to succesfully unite Italy and not the etruscans, greeks, other latins, samnites, gauls or other competitors?

This was from "Istoria Romanilor", 2003, the first chapter by M. Barbulescu. He lists in an incomplete bilbiography, but the best that I found, 171 titles in roumanian, 11 in latin (inscriptions and literary sources), 16 in german, 18 in french, 1 in italian and 14 in english ( I did not put in the list two studies from the 20's). The best books are in roumanian If I find more, and I hope more recent books, I'll post them, with the ISBN code, here.

Antic history D. Berciu, Romania before Burebista, London, 1967 Vl. Dumitrescu-Al. Vulpe, Dacia before Dromichaites, Bucharest, 1988, used in Cambridge Acnient History, third edition History of the area M. Gimbutas, Bronze Age Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe, Paris, Hague, London, 1965 Geto-dacians Maria Chitescu, Numismatic Aspects of the History of the Dacian State (BAR, 112), Oxford, 1981 I. Glodariu, Dacian Trade with the Hellenistic and Roman World, Oxford, 1976 M. Eliade, From Zamolxis to Gengs Han, Bucharest, 1980 roman Dacia Iona Bogdan Cataniciu, Evolution of the sistem of defence works in Roman Dacia, (Bar international series 116), Oxford, 1981 D. Alicu, C. Pop, V. Wollmann, The figured monuments from Sarmizegetusa (Bar, 18) Oxford, 1978 Lucia Teposu Marinescu, Figurary Monuments in Dacia Superior and Dacia Porolissensis (BAR, 128), Oxford 1982 Romans and Barbarians Gh. Bichir, Arheology and History of the Carpi from the second to the Fourth Century AD (BAR, 16) Oxford, 1976 R. Harhoiu,The fifthe century a.d. Treasure from Pietroasa Romania, (BAR, 24), Oxford, 1977 Relations between autochtonous population and the migratory populations on the territory of Romania, Bucharest, 1975

Byzantium it's the outside place that played the most important role for W. Europe. They saved and passed on books and knowledge. They were the trade area that got started the italian trade powers. They lured the West in contact with Islam in the Middle East creating that full of flavour area of Levant where W. and E. Europe met Asia. And they were the buffer that absorbed most nomads allowing for some stability in the West.

These kind of lunatics are all over the world. And they get lots of attention and money.