caldrail

The use of a lonsword would have meant that the large rectangular scutum (shield) was too big and inhibiting for roman-style combat. Training would have declined because a longer sword requires less expertise, since you're relying on reach and swing. It would have required a less compact fighting order to make room for sword swinging, both reasons leaving the infantry more vulnerable to cavalry action, aside perhaps for the fact that a longer sword could tackle riders easier - and thats possibly another reason why the cavalry spatha was adopted wholesale in the later, more cavalry dominated, declining empire. All in all, the longer sword would have made the legions less capable, and indeed, the use of the spatha by infantry is often quoted as the sign of legionary decline.

Not because of race. The romans are noted for their lack of racism. They were after all a cosmopolitan society and as long as you adopted roman ways, the colour of your skin didn't matter. Theu did notice that skin colour got darker the further south you travelled, but for them this was merely a curiosity. For instance, Trajan was laughed at when he first spoke in the senate. His spanish accent was a matter of hilarity to the wealthy roman establishment, but he still became an emperor, not to mention one who was regarded as one of their best. Syrians and at least one arab also made the top slot. However - the romans were definitely culturalist. They regarded thenselves as the center of civilisation and no barbarian culture was regarded as equal in their eyes. The romans for instance were not keen on greeks. They regarded their language as essentially 'lower class' and vulgar, despite its importance in art, commerce, and literature. Greeks were regarded as disreputable and untrustworthy because of their national image, not because of racism. Individual people would have been abused certainly. That was standard practice in politics and intrigue, where slaves or clients were paid to harangue your rivals or paint graffitti on their houses.

Computer games are fine but they're intended as entertainment, not simulators. The Total War series are great fun but if you look closely they play around with physics and tactics for visual impact. Thats understandable - its a commercial enterprise. However, there are circumstances where computer games spawn real-world applications. The Doom engine was used for a US Army training aid, Operation Flashpoint spawned a military simulator for the same purpose, and if you ask nicely the creators of the IL2 series will present you with a sim version of their new Battle of Britain engine, for documentaries or such like. None of these are cheap because it represents a lot of work for few customers. Ancient bows for the most part were small lightweight affairs, although suprisingly sophisticated using compound construction rather than simply using a carved wooden stick. These bows were designed to attack the people the archers encountered in battle. Only in the medieval period with a serious need for penetration were larger, more powerful bows derived. I seem to remember a mention of longbows from the ancient world (not as powerful as the the english I must add) but I'll have to dig around to find a reference to those.

The bonuses of stirrups are nowhere near what some people suggest. They add nothing to the charge or the impact of weapons because the rider cannot brace himself against them. The reason medieval cavalrymen didn't change horses every five minutes was because they couldn't - a destrier stallion (the size of those big cart horses) is an expensive commodity, much pampered by its owner. Is anyone seriously suggesting he's deliberately going to injure that horse by colliding into a pack of men? The horse wouldn't have any of it, and the riders of that time knew it. Like every cavalryman of every period known to cavalry history, they either stopped or went round if the infantry didn't give ground. Apart from a few nutcases and mistaken horses I imagine, but those men and horses were dead meat. I cannot stress this enough. Cavalry only penetrate an infantry unit at the charge if the infantry give ground. I mean, if you see a heavily armoured rider galloping toward you are you going to want to stand there and let him collide? Takes a bit of nerve I think. In any case, the point of this thread is roman tactics. Roman writers have left us with descriptions of cavalry tactics and behaviour on the battlefield. They operated as light cavalry, they rode mares as opposed to stallions, they rode smaller horses than today, they stressed mobile and complex manoevers to outwit the enemy, they rode against opposing cavalry first as a priority, they are known to refuse a head on charge against infantry, preferring hit and run fights that allow them to exploit their mobility. Anything else is a romantic fantasy.

No, not trinkets. Resources - people - animals - all sorts of things. The romans became wealthy and chose to spend that wealth on luxuries and public entertainment in such a way that saw an export of money to all intents and purposes. Their balance of payments was a joke.

I've noticed some of the posts on this thread are claiming that Rome was uncivilised. By whose standards? We think very highly of our democratic, increasingly socialist and restricted modern west, but the romans thought very highly of their state. To be frank, if you were able to voice your criticisms to them, they'd probably laugh or shake their heads. Are we so different from the romans? No. Ouir culture is broadly based on the ruin of theirs, and we have much to thank them for. What you must remember is that they lived two thousand years ago, in a world that was universally harsher and more violent. Life was short for everyone due to accident, disease, or violence, and if the romans employed violence as a means of preserving peace, were they doing anything worse than their rivals? Or are our wars more ethically sound than theirs? The only difference between our culture and theirs that matters is that they institutionalised violence in a way that we now find abhorrent. But ask yourself - Are we that far away from where the romans were? The answer is unconfortable - because the answer is buried in human behaviour and with different circumstances, we too would be like them.

Nothing grand I'm afraid. Anyone expecting yards of green baize and thousands of brightly painted lead figures is going to be disappointed! No, the game was played on a cofee table with coloured carboard as military units. The battle took nearly one and a half hours to play, and about twice that to set it up. Rules were... oh gawd this is going to ruin my credibility.... Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, with units and casualties instead of characters and hit points. The reason I did that is because I was familiar with the rules, and these rules cover both periods... sort of. Not historically accurate to the nth degree by any means but it produces a passable result.I used to do things like that a lot back in my wargaming days, but I suppose you shouldn't take the result too seriously. After all, I only recorded it for a talking point to expand the discussion.

I'm not interested HC. We're discussing ROMAN cavalry, not something that happened nearly a thousand years afterward. In any case, you still miss the essential point about cavalry vs infantry. In a charge situation, its a game of chicken. Who's going to give up first and get out of the way? usually the horse decides that for the rider which is why few cavalry ever do anything so rash. Tell you what. Find a site on medieval history. You'll impress them perhaps?

Its political correctness. They don't want adverse publicity because someone got upset and wrote a stiff letter of complaint. I imagine the friends and family of the kidnapped child would indeed get upset at such a storyline - they've got reason. I think most people who write in over this would mean well but really ought to be sympathetic and helping rather than sticking their oar in. These days I guess the BBC has no choice. The kidnapping is after all still in the headlines of the media.

I accept I was wrong about border length - fair enough. Nontheless Romes position as a conquest state has parallels with other nations and periods. Rome did over extend itself - and I can prove this by the failure of roman government. As a large wealthy empire often does, it becomes a target for the have-nots. You see this happening today and lets be honest, one of the primary reasons for germanic invasion was the possibility of grabbing roman wealth for themselves. I also note that other conquest states suffer similar political problems as Rome did, in that politics becomes ustable under pressure and the economy falters. What I notice about commentators looking at the fall of the west is that they always try to isolate one precise reason for the collapse. I think thats wrong. The seeds of roman collapse were put there simply by absorbing so much territory aggressively. During the pax romana the roman economy was living on borrowed time due to booty, not economic success. I would say that the east/west split advanced the roman collapse somewhat because the money went east. When the western wealth grew scarce, then rome wobbled and its deflation began. Conquest states do this. They expand a little here and there, then get confident, blowing up like a balloon. Its all a question of whether the ballon bursts or deflates, politically speaking.

Its quite possible that a meteorite exploded over america, but I not so sure it had the widespread effect as you posted. We know that human intervention added disease into the equation, and also that some primitive hunting methods were not exactly geared to preserve wildlife. Still, it might be case, and after all the K/T Event certainly tipped the balance worldwide 65 million years ago.

Egyptians didn't use slaves to build the pyramids - there wasn't enough labour to go around. They employed out-of-work farm labourers to haul stone (or concrete) blocks.

In a moment of complete nerd-dom I put this to the test. A typical principate army vs the english of the hundred years war. Well now... The roman cavalry were scattered like leaves in the wind! Disaster for the romans as the medieval knights make short work of the roman horsemens outflanking moves, leaving the english in command of the right wing completely. English longbows prove effective unless the testudo is employed and even so, the romans lose a good few men in the advance. Infantry on infantry belongs to the roman legionaries. Their heavy infantry goes toe-to-toe with men-at-arms until morale makes a difference, at which point the romans have it. Peasants? Gladius fodder basically. The returning medieval knights have the field to themselves and only their lack of numbers prevented a roman defeat. Being so heavily protected and confident they make severe inroads into the roman formations who simply didn't have the equipment to deal with them. In actual fact, the romans would have won but for heavily armoured knights making hell for them. The losses were mounting up and a somewhat less than daring commander meant they split into two groups. The right were set to flight by horsemen and left the field. The left advance pushed the english back. What I discovered was that the mix of troop types influenced the outcome of this fictional encounter. The romans had a very uniform capability, but the medieval troops varied enormously and some were better protected.

Possibly, but nature can roll right over us any time it wants. We're lucky enough to live in an era of relatively stable climate and earthly peace and quite. Or perhaps the earth is changing again as it has periodically over the last few million years?

Maybe the soldiers were not truly Romans, but Germanic mercenaries hired to fill in the army? Or was this practice done later in the Empire? I don't know, the legionaries are depicted in full legionary uniform - lorica segmentata etc. Did mercenaries wear that kind of armour and helmets? Almost certainly german troops, who usually get depicted that way. Now you come to mention it, most of the legionary depictions are indeed clean shaven. I suspect many were anything but, soldiers being soldiers on campaign. Back at their barracks it was something else of course...

Why not? Women throughout history have gone to war disguised as a man (or a younger boy). Beats me why they'd want to, war is not something pleasant or sociable, but I suppose some women just wanted to know what is was that men did, or perhaps didn't see why men should have all the fun, or was it just a sort of primitive 'equal rights for women'? In your case it appears you like shouting at men!

Ignore this one... Multiple post.

I'm going to be controversial, just for a change I think the biggest contribution to roman collapse was becoming a conquest state. No nation or state can conquer indefinitely - eventually it becomes impossible to guarantee their own borders and those borders get disproportionately bigger along with conquered territory. Looking through the history books I see a number of conquest states went the same way. A nervous initial expansion, then going for it when their confidence increases. This is followed by a period where expansion becomes too difficult during which the costs of running the new found empire increase. Then it either deflates under its own weight or collapses under external pressure. Rome actually did both at the same time I think as a result of their imperial gains.

Yes this happens. Penguins have wings but swim instead of fly for instance. Its also surmised that cold temperatures increase the rate of brain evolution, since thinking isn't too necessary in tropical idylls with food everywhere. As for less intelligent species of humanity, they're already with us, and you may well find them engaged in their mating rituals on a saturday night I also read that our modern society has boosted the need for intelligence. Fine if you're a nuclear scientist, but for for the average grunt has life really got that much more complex? Since many of them do no more than lower classes did in roman times?

Yes - Politicians want our vote, they want us as concerned citizens who believe our politicians are out there saving the planet with our consent, they want our money. In a way I may have overstressed my arguement. The problem we modern humans have is infrastructure. We have these huge conurbations and most of the important ones are adjacent to coastlines for obvious reasons. This means we are trapped by our own development since we can't easily uproot civilisation and move it five miles up the hill. Thats why I say that humanity needs to adapt rather than plug gaps in the dam. Its ok saying that - what I don't want is some sort of eco-tryranny which we're very close to already.

No, I don't think the fall of constantinople had that kind of effect. The process had begun much earlier, at the end of the 11th century ad with the first crusade. Large migrations of warriors and assorted misguided innocents were travelling to this area and undoubtedly a few returned much wiser and better endowed with scholarly material. I agree that most crusaders weren't exactly keen on learning anything except where the cashbox was, but this to-ing and fro-ing across europe and asia minor must have opened channels of communication that weren't there before.

The foosil record reveals this sort of thing in all kinds of species. Notice how cunning and intelligent modern cats of all sizes are. The older sabre-tooth varieties (which apparently survived much longer than we previously realised, and may even have survived the ice ages before dying out) were not so clever either. Dinosaurs too are notorious for having small brains. Massive animals like sauropods had brains way smaller than our own, and some species had a second brain devoted entirely to allowing the beastie to walk. But - after all those millions of years dominating the world - right at the end they begin to evolve intelligence. For millions of years being big was a major survival advantage. In the harder poisonous late cretaceous world, outsmarting your rivals suddenly became more important. You might argue the opposite considering that neanderthal men had larger brains than us, but then they were specialised human beings evolved for cold climates which were disappearing. The more aggressive and general purpose cro-magnons moved in a with a hostile migration, apart from evidence in Portugal, which seems to show both species living together. The last remaining neanderthals throwing themselves at the mercy of their enemies? Maybe they were more intelligent.

And an even later happy birthday from me, assuming you're still sobre enough to switch the PC on....

Its undeniable that we've been adding to CO2 levels, but the underlying evidence is that CO2 is not reponsible for global warming. Its a by-product. The tropopause, a hot layer of air very high in the atmosphere, isn't changing temperature despite all the greenhouse gases supposedly fillig it up. The CO2 cycle of this planet is well established and varies from period to period. Its a curiosity that sunlight on the oceans produces bucketloads of the stuff eight hundred yeras later in some interaction that may even reach the sea floor, yet that same CO2 is re-absorbed by the oceans after time. My own feeling is that we're still leaving the last ice age whose frozen blankets faded away ten thousand years ago (and arguably, still fading). Here in britain we may well be returning to the 'african' climate we enjoyed between ice growths. Seriously - african animal fossils have been found in england dating from that era. But then the earth wobbles on its axis and another ice age can happen very quickly indeed. The end of the last ice age was for that same reason. The mean temperature rose seven degrees in fifteen years. Ouch!