caldrail

Concerning Jesus and moneylenders.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple So it seems the Bible misinterpreted the story too. Yet toilet facilities and public baths were commonplace in Roman society. The Romans made a great deal of cleanliness (despite the poor condition of umch of society, but that hasn't changed a great deal today overall - you only have to inspect a works toilet to understand how filthy some human beings are prepared to get). There are other examples of the ancient world where cleanliness was encouraged. But it is worth pointing out that the ancients did not have modern cleaning materials or anti-biotics, which tended to reduce human population to a average level via infections and so forth (please the current concern about resistance to anti-biotics which is threatening to reverse the effectiveness of modern medecine and reduce population levels to Victorian standards and numbers). Also, like many third world areas today, sewage was not cleared by networks of drains, mostly left to rot in the street and thus attracting pests and disease, as often happens when human beings congregate for communal life. It is true that the Romans were proud of their main drainin Rome ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca_Maxima), but such works were quite rare. Navigating the oceans in ancient times was an extremely difficult and hazardous enterpise, particularly with vessels only designed for short coastal journeys across the Mediterranean, and the landings in Britain by Caesar show how vulnerable and unseaworthy such ships could be. Yet the Red Sea port of Berenice was a very succesful port dealing with maritime trade with India, known to have had a Graeco-Roman trade mission present for some time, based on the seasonal trade winds.

The issue with auxillaries is that the Romans used such formations as allies, second class forces, based primarily on the frontier, whereas the later feoderatii were part and parcel of the Roman defense system, largely because they needed the manpower in arms and finding enough recruits had become all but impossible (they had been experiencing difficultuires since the reign of Augustus and quite probably earlier than that). The rsurgences you mention are not those of the Roman state, but of initiatives led by individuals. Skilled leadership had declined along with everything else in the empire thus when someone came along who genuinely had talent, they usually made a big difference. As a case in pojnt, note how Sebastianus, when summoned from Italy to lead the eastern armies, realises that the bulk of the legions were pretty well too far gone to be any use. He deliberately handpicks younger, keener men who were more easily trained and willing to fight. Without his initiative, the Goths would not have been been on their back foot prior to Adrianoplke, and notice that the petty intrigue and lack of ability in senior command made certain that Valens army would not capitalise on their advantage.

Whilst agree that immigration was gradually diluting the latin-ness of Rome, so the same process had been underway via slavery. As it happens Rome was a very cosmopolitan society anyway and all this 'romanisation' stuff you read about is often miodrn invention. True, the Romans did encourage people to adopt latin ways, and gave them preference if they did, but there was never any compulsion and large sections of the population were essentially maintaining their cultural roots. That these people interacted daily with the empire in which they lived does not infer they adopted a complete cultural packakage to go with it - as I've said before, owning a roman pot does not make you roman. As for attitudes toward authority, there was a drift away from loyalty toward the city stateafter about two hundred years of prosperous empire. After that, the economy of the Roman world began to shrink (though in some repects it occaisionally did well). Bishops were only directly affecting a proportion of society anyway, and many of them only paid lip service to their preferred faith. In fact, bishops were lamenting the state of Roman morality. Where now is the ancient wealth and dignity of the Romans? The Romans of old were the most powerful, now we are without strength. They were feared, now it is us who are fearful. The barbarians peoples paid them tribute, now we are the tributaries of the barbarians. Our enemies make make us pay for the very light of day, and our right to life has to be bought. Oh what miseries are ours! To what state have we descended? We even have to thank our the barbarians for the right to buy ourselves off them! What could be more humiliating andand miserable. Salvian it would seem that the decline of the west had less to do with immigration and more to do with political will. Cicero had said that civic duty required more courage and dedication than military careers (he was almost certainly right), whereas the bulging and anonymous civil service of the later empire encouraged apathy and corruption. In the end, though, all the countless pages of speculation about why the border collapsed, paticularly in the west, amount to one simple fact: the empire grew old. Adapt though it might, its mechanisms for dealing with with change gradually became set and atrophied, its military 'immune system' needed more and more help from outside, and finally - faced with new generations of vigorous neighbours, who had borrowed from the empire what they needed to give their political system and their cultures strength and coherence - it died of old age. The Empire Stops Here (Philipp Parker

Christianity isn't a mndset at al. Not even close. Even today there's no complete agreement on how christianity should be worshipped and cultural variations dominate. African christianity, for instance, only resembles that found in England at face value - note the behaviour/expectations of many african priests is simply transposed and watered down from their witch doctor predecessors (that was not intended as an insult - it's merely an observation of differnces in style and content). If christianity conferred a middle eastern mindset on its worshippers, then you're asserting that religion changed the personality of its worshippers. It doesn't, and never has. Modern research has shown, rather interestingly, that moral standards between christians and non-christians are on average pretty well identical. But look more closely at the historical context and the legacy of the Roman world. Firstly, our marriage customs. According to your hypothesis, they would be more or less Judaean in form. They aren't. They remain essentially pagan Roman. Exchanging rings, cutting the cake, confetti, carrying a bride across a threshold - these are all pagan Roman customs continued by christian Romans and passed down to us. Secondly, the issue of gender. Under Judaean practices female christian priests were as acceptable as male. It's taken us around sixteen hundred years to return to that level of equality, and even then, with some controversy. Roman chauvanism has persisted for a very long time. Thirdly, when the Romans wished to honour the departed, they sometimes made them gods. Under christian rules, there can only be one God. Therefore, the cultural desire to elevate the honoured to divine status inspired the establishment of the 'Saint'. The Roman Catholic church still raises chosen people to that status to this very day - two women were recently declared saints. But it remains a substitute for Roman deification, a practice the Judaeans would not have agreed with. People maintain the same personalities whaever religion they worship, despite adopting a set of rules and practises. Christianity promulgates an image of conformity even though there are often specific differences in teachings vbetween various churches. These differences in teachings have caused conflicts since the Romans fostered the christian systems, not only because of what is taught and expected, but the interpretations of the people who declare themselves christian. One dark age writer described the Saxons as "a race hateful to God". Not just because he considered them a barbarian people - it was also because they worshipped christianity differently, itself because a Roman missionary decided it was easier to convert Saxons if he didn't have to change their ways too much.

Christianity is often credited with the 'fall of Rome' (I had a lengthy debate with someone on this sort of subject elsewhere) but that really doesn't cut it. Non christian faiths were still commonplace even after the adoption of christianity by the Roman state, which signified a preference rather than any legal requirement, and Rome was always tolerant of local faiths, though as religions became more organised and more inclusive of the common people in ritual obligations, so the bitterness increased among them. However, Rome was changing due to a number of factors and singling out christianity for all the causes is basically a tad too convenient (Bear in mind I'm a pagan, I don't like christianity, so I'm only defending it on historical contexts).. In fact, it might be realistically argued that the increasing popularity of christianity was because Rome was failing, in that the promise of salvation, an integral part of christian belief, offered something to look forward too as opposed to the distance and apparent fickleness of pagan belief. As for mindset, the idea it was middle eastern is nonsense, even though the faith originated there. The mindset of christians deopends on the culture that adopts it, not the other way around.

Sorry, I was being vague. Yes, the soldiers of the British Army swear an oath of allegiance "I (your name), swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors and that I will as in duty bound honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, her heirs and successors in person, crown and dignity against all enemies and will observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors and of the generals and officers set over me." Non-christians may swear 'solemnly' and omit the reference to God. The reason the Army is not called 'Royal' as the air force and navy do is because of the English Civil War and its legacy. However, the regiment has an abstract virtue that a battalion does not, again, for historical reasons, seeing as senior officers - noblemen more often than not - were recruited to serve the regiment, and as these things follow a natural order, so ordinary soldiers were recruited tp serve them via the same formation (though the situation is of course more to do with the service these days, but of course, legacy customs continue).

The difference between pagan ceremonbies and christian worship is one of involvement. Many pagan ceremonies were duties toward the community that did not involve the community directly, and people generally got involved via festivals - of which there were a considerable number. As long as the priests saw to their religious duties, the gods were happy, and life could go on. However, for the common person, the temple was akin to an atrium in which the worshipper sought favour by sacrifice and request. Christianity demanded civic duty at a klevel that the pagan did not, and also had the advantage of strengthening communal ties in this manner. It is wise to avoid too many modern parallels - christian Romans weres till Roman and lived in the same culture with more or less the same mindset.

Although these definitions are not strictly promulgated, I understand the battalion is a fighting formation, whereas the regiment has a social aspect as well. British soldiers were (I'm not sure about today) loyal to a regiment rather than the battalion they fought with.

As I understand it, the concept of 'state religion' is a bit misleading. In pagan times the state did not rely on religion as such other thasn it organised communal festivals. Worship was very much an informal personal affair, where the worshipper goes to the temple to ask for divine favour in the same manner he went to his local patrician to ask for mundane favours. The presence of christianity was as a series of seperate cults led by individual and unattached bishops until Conbstantine attempted unification for his own purposes. Thereafter, christianity had a higher level of prestige and ivolvement. Marcellinus wrote about the "roads filled with galloping bishops" as they got their act together and capitalised (I use the word in all senses) on their new found influence. However, even then, christianity was not absolute in terms of authority and would not be until the folly of the 12th century. Mithraism was competing for influence and both religions complained the other was using their ideas.

Ostia was attacked once in force by Cilician pirates, and as a result, the Romans sent a force that defeated them. The attack caused considerable panic at the time and many Roman ships had been burned. The port was left to decline after the 5th century and within four hundred years had been pretty well abandoned completely aside from materials appropriation. As for the Cilician pirates being the "first true pirates", I hardly think so. The earliest mentions I've found of piracy in the Mediterranean go back to the 14th century BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_of_the_British_Army It seems to me that 'equirement' is the key here. Formations acquire battalions according to necessity, advantage, or budget. The naming of them is simply expedient.

The problem with Roman remains is that they're essentially static and anonymous, even when in sight. Fascinating to me but for many in this high octane electronic media world, a crashing bore by nature of the concept. People like to be entertained (how Roman!!!) thus unless there's regular activity to enthrall the masses, they see a few stone ridges as little more than a manicured building site.

Early christian zealousy had a hard time with financial affairs - witness the story of Jesus overturning the tables of the moneylenders - but that was a judaean based story, whose people were often very hard nosed about religion among other things. The Romans were more diffident in the lare empire and I hardly think the issue of moneylending vanished overnight. It is of course true that Romans lending large sums made huge interest charges as a matter opf course, but note also that the sources also talk about debt quite a lot. Romans habitually spent money they didn't have and some got into legal trouble, or in the case of one serial diner, committed suicide because he could no longer impress his friends with sumptuous evenings. Caesar took advantage of Gaul and used his campaigns to gain booty to pay off the debts he accrued in financing his political career. Augustus would later strip the royal coffers of Egypt to pay for his resettlement of veterans, and his desperate need for dosh to pay for 'marble', bread, and circuses led him to a military disaster. Dio even refers to individuals 'being made a slave of' because of debt. He doesn't mean actual enslavement - he means that the man in debt was in the creditors pocket. Some even allowed themselves to be enslaved to pay off debts, such as volunteer gladiators. Note also that under the definition of Nexum (bond slave), the debtor could hand over his son as surety, a practice abolished in the 4th century BC - but one that probably continued informally for a good time longer, especially as Cicero mentions it.

Given the huge sums of money we see frequently mentioned in the sources, this makes an interesting question. As it happens I don't know for certain. At some point a lot of coins or something equally valuable has to pass from one owner to another, so slaves with chests of cash probably weren't that rare (suitably guarded with gladiators or other such burly no-nonsense loyal srvants). In fact, there's every reason to believe that the Romans conducted such business in the sort of manner a gangster would today. Transactons would have to be arranged so that the money could be safely transferred. The Romans had banks of a sort. Moneylenders and similar financiers existed, though this was an informal process. They never really did much else as Romans preferred to get down and dirty with their own dealing, however unseemly this was for wealthy people in public. In fact, I do get hints that Roman banking became more regulated because of christianity, as christians frowned on ursury and the Roman habit of charging outrageus interest.

So an academic in Australia has indulged in a spot of pom-bashing? Nothing new. But then Australia still has to catch up, and Britain remains a world leader in many spheres with innovation a major part of British success in engineering around the world. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to run for a bus....

The Council of Nicaea was the first attempt to create a consistent christian message. That there were others doesn't suprise me - I did state that the attempts did not work. The relationshipm of the Trinity, the primary subject at Nicaea, was not agrrd until the Council of Constantinople in 360 for instance. However, the significance of Nicaea is that Constantine presided over it and used the meeting to try and unite Christianity, not for spiritual reasons, but to use a common religion to bolster his fragile empire. The unification prcess was not going to be so simple of course and required more councils to resolve debates (which again never fully succeeded)

That's because of the Council of Nicaea, designed to create a consistent and universal form of christianity (in which it failed, though considerable censorship took place, which is where the purity comes from. All sources considered non-conformal were rejected and anyone using them thereafter was considered a heretic)

The 'Tree Of Knowledge' is an allegorical description of everything that could be known, including that stuff God didn't want us to know.. Since by definition humanity has lived outside of Eden since Adam and his missus were expelled for behaviour unbecoming, you can hardly claim the world we know is alien to us. In fact, christianity has always had a difficult relationship with science simply because it's a religion that relies on ignorance, with priests supplying the wisdom to their congregations rather than society revealing all. After all, the story of the 'Tower of Babel' confirms this, as God inserts an obstacle to human progress by forcing them to speak in lots of languages instead of one, a clear recognition that communication spreads ideas, and ideas were not a good thing as far as the fixed messages of christianity were concerned. The initiative to translate the Bible into english so that every common man could read it not only threatened the social influence of the priesthoods, it sparked wars on religious differences, and encouraged colonial ventures to the new world to escape the restrictions of religious argument at home. Of course it has to underlined that the 'stuff God didn't want us to know' is never decided by God - it's always human beings who decide that. These principles are further confused by the history of christianity in that we have to accept our current version is neither conformal nor the same as ancient texts, which were subject to censorship and rwrites. Indeed, the attempts to create a universal christian faith went hand in hand with censoprship, as valid ancient texts were either approved or discarded, and in any case, no version of the Bible contains a consistent account. The 'apple' story is merely there to illustrate an aspect of undesirable female behaviour and a warning to restrain it.

Interesting. You don't hear much about the picts and even though they were technically iron age, it's unsual to discover they actually built anything, which is probably unfair but then maybe it's time they got a little more publicity.

You seriously believe that? The 'state' did not officially support christianity until Constantine made it his favoured religion, and then the whole point was civil order, not riots. Prior to that christianity was in no sense a single coherent movement, unsupported by the state, and more often than not exploited as a wealth creation scheme by unscrupulous self-proclaimed bishops. Lynch mobs are by their nature social impulses, not structures, so therefore your premis seems a bit unlikely to the least.

Odd. The symptoms sound exactly like epilepsy to me.I've seen people go through those experiences. Mini strokes... The difficulty I have here is that strokes cause damage. Other than losing his har, I don't read anything in the accounts of Caesars life that suggest he was on any sort of downward health spiral

Augustus only had one child, the wayward Julia. Tiberius was the son of his wife Livia by her previous marriages. Since Augustus had no male heir he did what Romans traditionally did, and adopted male heirs. Adoption was a frequent part of Roman society because life was often short, and for some, a means of progressing in society. No, it doesn't, it means what it says. Augustus did not want the same accusations of kingship that Julius Caesar had to contend with and officially rejected that path. He found an alternative. That said, as I have repeated before, his 'rule' was not absolute, constitutional, or in fact empowered by the state. He merely kept a lot of armed men under his influence and demanded that people observe his social status. The traditional Roman government remained in place and did not recognise Augustus as a king, merely his status as First Citizen and the 'guidance' he provided (albeit grudging in many cases). There are no modern parallels to this arrangement that I know of. No modern country would tolerate a general from a noble family telling their government what to do. They had plenty. The rules enabled Augustus to dominate politics in the manner described.

A new monarchy? No, he didn't, though clearly he had something like that in mind. The Caesrs of Rome were not technically Rome's rulers, they were simply VIP's with enough status, popularity, wealth, and military clout to dominate Roman politics under the client patron system. What Augustus created was a rival system of government (the Senate was still in business albeit a lot less forward) based on influence and military command, something Dio discusses. Remember that Cassius Dio says that Augustus was 'as good as a monarch', which implies he was not one. Augustus family members did not achieve power by any official selection process either. There was no such system of succession in Roman law, it was simply a matter of popularity and dominance. No-one for instance seriously thought Claudius would rule, and indeed, the Senate assumed they were running the empire when Caligula was assassinated. In the event, the Praetorian Guard insisted that Claudius be installed whether the Senate liked it or not. The title of monarch was never considered. Since a monarch has some right to rule established by society, consider the ease with which Caesars changed - and that the Romans only admitted a son had inherited his fathrs throne for the first time when Commodus came to power - the first Caesar 'born to the purple'.

By coincidence I happened to spot a Roman style DVD cover while browsing my local DVD store (Okay, I was buying the last Hobbit film...I admit it). Fall of an Empire atracted my attention even further when I read the blkurb on the back, as it seemed to have nothing to do with gladiators, Jesus, or Commodus. Essentially the evil Maxientus kidnaps a girl and Constantine rides to the rescue. All very dramatic stuff but possibly naff... Oh well. Won't know unless I watch it.... In fact the film is nothing like the description. The focus is not on ancient derring do but a study of the life of Katherine of Alexandria, based on a woman who may or may not have been real, a woman whose stance against pagan imposition led her to a very stressful life. The film has some serious actors in it. Joss Ackland, Edward Fox, and Peter O'Toole among them. The sound quality is excellent and the music very moody. Imagery is a mix of typical Hollywood Rome, obervant late empire fashion, and some Conan the Barbarian. The acting, despite the pople involved, is a bit naff though. The film is very slow, serious in intent, and I confess I fell asleep halfway though it. Sorry Katherine. I promise I'll try again.

I need to study up on the English Civil War? The one that occurred between 1642 and 1651? The one that saw a transition between Charles I, Cromwells regime, and Charles II? Henry 8th lived from 1491 to 1542, which is a century earlier and neither Henry nor the later civil war had any implications for colonial America, serious or otherwise. As for the concept of Indian Land, it must be pointed out that the majority of native americans had no concept of land ownership since it was merely a wilderness in which they lived, and in any event, some tribves legally sold land under agreement to the settlers. The sort of confrontational greed that spurred later Indian Wars was a product of valuable rsources rather than land as well. Rubbish. The colonies were not sources of manpower. Far from it, since from the 1600's slaves were imported to provide it. They were sources of profit and taxation, but religious arguments in Europe had nothing to do with colonial resentment at remote government which inspired political revolt in the colonies, of which two thids of colonists either opposed or were disinterested in. Rubbish. He had nothing to do with it. The British Empire was a later development, post English Civil War.Byt the way, I must confess to an error. It was 1846 when Britain ceded interests by treaty in the Oregon Territory, which then comprised the modern Oregon, Washington State, British Columbia, and was expected until then of becoming a seperate republic from the Untied States.