Kosmo

The most direct military reasons for the failure to conquest Scotland are the roman defeats in Dacia and against the Yazyges during the reign of Domitian that prevented romans to fully exploit the success at Mons Grapius because they had to withdraw a legion and other forces from Britain. This allowed Caledonians to survive and to learn a valuable lesson about the way to fight romans. After that they never offered romans a decisive battle.

I just finished reading the 4 books. The fifth is supposed to come out this summer with two more in a probably distant future. By the 3rd I felt that the series lost it's momentum and it was moving along the plots at a too slow pace and with too many details. Some characters were just going back and forth across Riverlands and new main characters/points of view were added with no end in sight while others were gone without explanation. I wonder how the Tv series will handle this. I also found queer some of the words choose to give a more Old English feel to the books like writing five-and-twenty instead of twenty five and Ser instead of Sir. Maybe it felt slow to me because before A Song of Ice and Fire I've been reading The Hunger Games and that trilogy is very fast paced and thrilling, especially the first book. This Games are a deadly reality show, a sort of gladiatorial games in an vast outdoor arena. What's not to like? The books carry even a bit of social/political message in them. They are shooting a film after the books.

I always thought that Balearic slingers spent their time in Ibiza nightclubs.

I liked the first few episodes and because of that now I'm reading the book. The Tv series seems to respect the book in every detail so far, all characters are present and even most of the dialogs are the same. I love the way the Tv series looks: cities, castles, costumes, horses, wolfs, the Wall, jousts etc everything is amazing. Maybe the inspiration for the Wall comes from Hadrian's Wall.

Serving in the army was a privilege that only citizens of a certain wealth had so I guess that one had to prove those qualities. With this in mind I think that recruitment was done by the tribes.

Not with that mortality rate! I watched True Blood and enjoyed it a lot. Behind the thin veil of fantasy there is often a morality tale and a lot of humor. My favorite character is Eric maybe because he is a more traditional vampire among those colorful rednecks from different species.

If a concept was invented in the 18th century then it can be used to describe pre 20th century warfare. I don't see what Hannibal's decisions have to do with modern changes in military doctrine so let's stay on topic.

This two are actually British but the language in this song is a bit weird

This is basically what happened to Carthage after the war when they had to set free all their conquests and allies so the goals of the two sides were fairly similar. The huge difference is that most roman allies stayed with Rome even when their lands were invaded while the allies of Carthage turned on her and played a decisive role at Zama and in forcing the Carthaginian surrender. While the difference may be born from the way each treated it's allies and subjects one element hindering Hannibal's plan may be the absence of a viable alternative to Rome in the Italian peninsula. Gauls and Greeks looked forward to return to independence but I doubt that Italians believed that independence was possible for them at that point and there was no local power like the Numidians in Maghreb to take over the leading role in the region.

"So - what did the Romans ever do for us? They taught us genocide and the advantages of spreading propaganda about the enemy. On principle, don

Happy Birthday! My favorite beer is called Ursus and I 'll drink one for the occasion.

Happy Birthday!

German experts are carefully taking apart a complete Celtic grave in the hope of finding out more about the Celt's way of life, 2,600 years ago, in their Danube heartland. It wasn't the most glorious final journey for an aristocratic Celtic lady who, in life, clearly had a bit of style. She died just over 2,600 years ago and rested in peace until a few months ago when her grave was dug up in its entirety - all 80 tonnes of it - and transported on the back of a truck through countless German towns. In the grave, too, was a child, presumed to be hers. Their last inglorious journey ended in the back yard of the offices of the archaeological service of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. When the truck arrived, the grave encased almost entirely in concrete, was unloaded and a tent constructed around it. The archaeologists decided that removal of the whole grave would allow them to use the most modern resources of analysis, from computers to X-rays. From the gantry above a pit, archaeologists leant down and scraped the earth from the bones and jewels speck-by-speck. What emerged was the lady, the child and their ornaments... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13225829

Malta?

I've only seen the first episode of Tru Blood but I didn't get hooked mostly because of those irritating heavy Southern accents. Maybe I should give it another try. I love The Vampire Diaries first of all because of the good looking and talented actors, especially Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder. Keeping a feeling of drama and suspense is difficult, especially in a lengthy TV series, but here they do it very well not only by all kinds of plot twists but, highly unusual, by killing fairly important characters and that keeps one guessing. They also allow a high degree of moral complexity and ambiguity to the characters so they can act surprisingly sometimes and the good guys/bad guys line is sometimes blurry. The dark cinematography, the elegant sets and the occasional use of beautiful costumes adds to the gorgeous actors to make it visually appealing. Did not meant to make a review but I guess I really like it

That is a nice picture of Jerash!

A catholic church in neo-byzantine style? Unusual. It must be in Greece.

The only thing that could be interesting to watch at the wedding would be if Prince Philip does something crazy.

In Romania the Easter is at midnight when most people go to church to light candles and bring them home. Many go to pubs/clubs/parties after midnight, so the city is very alive all night with people going around with lit candles. Another tradition is to tap decorated eggs. The bunny started to become part of the holiday only in the last years and mostly as chocolate. The ears are truly the best part. It is funny that our media pays attention to the royal wedding. After all we have our own dynasty we don't care about. They expect 2 billion people to watch the wedding. This points to a Princess Syndrome on a massive scale and it affects also lots of man. Or boys have the Charming Prince syndrome?

The church looks catholic with those double bell towers so I will go for Italy.

15 minutes after I posted and you gave the right answer.Good job!

Guess this:

Hatra.

I'm adding also something that some may find unusual

Wow, that was different. I have nothing so spectacular but in the last few days I left my usual rock/metal pasture, after a massive dose of The Kills, to discover the ye ye girls (that millions of people know very well so it is not really odd but it is new for me)