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Scientists? We're talking about the ancient world, by definition science didn't exist back then. No, I'm sorry, but the technological level of the Roman world remained at the same level from the 3rd century BC until the end of the West in 476, and the only reason that the Byzantines made any interesting progress was because their culture was more Greek than Roman. Rome was a slave using society, it did not invest in new ideas, it had religious objections to progress, deeply held ideas about tradition, and quite frankly a political system that made invention a risk of public ridicule and loss of career.

This is something that for me at least makes Roman history come alive, when you can actually point at the map and see where it happened rather than just read a paragraph or two in some obscure text. Silver was a major motive in the Roman Empire, the basis of their economy, and the direct involvement of the legions is noteworthy.

As the video tells us, Gallienus had two wives, Cornelia and the barbarian lady. Cornelia doesn't appear to made a protest.

I'm a bit less impressed. Gallienus reacts, not proacts. Granted, he was a better manager than some Caesars with some bright ideas about politics, but his career was about sticking fingers in the dam. He seems so obsessed with the immediate situation that he ignores long term planning. Perhaps not entirely his own fault, the era was turbulent, and I do note his marriage to the barbarian woman, but a lot of misplaced effort.

To be honest Guy, I just can't see why the conspirators would trust or want Claudius involved. Chaerea would have killed him had he found him first and remember the magistrates and urban cohorts seized power, not the conspirators or Julio-Claudians. Rome had a culture of virility and physique - Claudius was clearly unsuitable in both counts which was why he was always peripheral to events prior to the Praetorian looters finding him.

This has been suggested often enough but why would anyone involve doddering and stuttering Claudius? He stood little to gain from such a conspiracy ad indeed was lucky not to have been slaughtered in the family purge that followed the assassination of Caligula. The Praetorians had other plans when they found him hiding behind a curtain - he was their ticket to preserving their perks and privileges. So a tense stand-off between the magistrates (who had seized power with the urban cohorts) and the Praetorians (who had seized Claudius) for a day or two. The Senate backed down and had Claudius declared Princeps.

You'll have to do better than that. Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to flee, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. - Nea Historia (Zosimus)

Why did Vegetius write De Re Militaris? What does it contain? If you can't acknowledge that, your opinions are no use to me.

Sophisticated command and control? How? How did one guy receive information and relay orders back dynamically? Didn't happen, it was all localised with an overall plan in the background if it was possible to formulate one before the battle and make junior commanders aware of it. And yes, we can extrapolate from Adrianople like any other battle, especially since you attempted to do the same. Valens was not a bad commander. He was dealing with courtiers and commanders at odds with each other. New boy Sebastianus had been brought in to replace the existing army leader Trajanus who was still among the court with Valens, who had to make a number of speeches to his very reluctant army just to get them to march at all. But realise Valens didn't want the battle. The Trajanus faction had spoken in favour of battle, Sebastianus wanted skirmishers to whittle the Goths down and force a surrender. Seb blew it trying to stay in Valens favour too enthusiatically, and he felt it necessary to turn in favour of battle too in order to take the wind out of Trajanus. Even then, what Valens wanted was a negotiated surrender. Fritigern, the Goth leader, wanted to play for time so the cavalry out of foraging would return to boost his numbers, and this was why Valens was given wrong information from his scouts and spies. Here's the thing. One Roman cavalry unit arrives so late the Goths think the battle is beginning and loose off volleys of arrows. The Romans think the Goths have started the battle and react, beginning an assault on the Goth camp which was repulsed. Valens had no control over this. No Roman commander would have. because units were acting under their own cognizance on both sides. That was normal in ancient warfare. These days we take command and control almost for granted, but if you care to notice, even during the recent difficulties in Eastern Europe C2 is not easy. Not just because of enemy interference, but because of poor training , poor equipment, and a general lack of cooperation. If we can't get it right after thousands of years of military activity, what makes you believe the Romans somehow mastered the art when Vegetius, almost a contemporary of Adrianople, admitted to his sponsor Valentianian that the Roman legions were not as good as they had been?

The average lifespan for Romans was around forty years due to accident, violence, and disease. Those with enough wealth to afford decent care might live longer.

I disagree completely. There's little or no evidence that Rome used complex tactical manoevers - their command and communications were nothing like as sophisticated to allow it, nor did the Romans want that sort of complexity. Give a commander more choices, he risks more errors of judgement. One only has to look at the chaotic deployment of Valen's army at Adrianople to realise how poor Roman battlefield skills were by that time. The later Roman tactical nous wasn't based on official training or policy, nor was it uniform across the entire military - it was the result of native skills that already existed. Also, Vegetius didn't write a military manual in the reign of Valentinian, he wrote a treatise to select which practises of former times should be made standard - implying the old standards of training had gone. Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to flee, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. - Nea Historia (Zosimus) Bear in mind that the late Roman armies were ever more dependent on cheaper foreign mercenaries and many units went unpaid, seeking civilian jobs to make ends meet or simply vanishing.

Height isn't just DNA, it's long term lifestyles too. The Japanese used to be a smaller size but since 1945 and higher protein diets courtesy of the Americans, they're substantially bigger on average.

Go into any library or bookstore and pick up a book about Roman history. Chances are it'll tell you that the Republic came to an end in 27BC as Octavian becomes Augustus and opens the Roman Empire as it's first Emperor. It's standard Roman history. I've done a lot a writing about Augustus in one way or another and it's dawned on me that we're guilty of seeing things the wrong way. It's the later empire writers that label Augustus as a king by another name and indeed by 500ad Zosimus writes him off as an absolute monarch who abolished the aristocracy. This phenomenon was caused by Roman historians describing the past in terms their contemporary readers would readily recognise, rather than analyse the politics of previous centuries - which would bore their readers stiff. Was Augustus actually an emperor? I say no, he never used ay such title, nor even allowed people to call him 'lord' or 'master'. Nor did he have any legal right to command citizens - he had refused a dictatorship. Nor did he command the entire empire, he kept Egypt as his own personal province and via superior right to military command held sway over about two thirds of the empire. The Senate remained in charge of the rest, and was reformed for efficient government. Under the guidance of Augustus, it must be said, and that caused him some criticism (and still does). He did not rid the Empire of democracy either, he managed vacancies in public offices to avoid public disorder since that was a major issue in the late republic era. It would be the Senate who eventually ignored democracy in favour of asking the guy in charge. Nor did imperator mean Emperor in his day - it meant 'Victorious General' and it wasn't until ad69 that it started to accrue a wider meaning as Rome's boss. So what exactly was Augustus? Of late I've stressed his day job as Princeps Senatus, a lapsed republican position he revived as manager of Roman government. Now I begin to think I missed the point along with everyone else. Augustus remained a Triumvir. He wanted to restore Rome as a prosperous successful state, and indeed, when he was first awarded the right to lead an army by a reluctant Senate he was also made to promise that he would protect the Republic. I think that was what he wanted to do and indeed maintained until he died. it was Antony who got in the way, an uncomfortable rivalry that ended with the defeat of Antony & Cleopatra for which Augustus was well honoured. Okay, you may well ask, but why was that not obvious? Because Augustus had struck a deal, negotiated with the Senate over his privileges. Note that Augustus maintained he was still a triumvir after the Second Triumvirate had finished yet that title vanishes. By the rules, he could not be triumvir alone - it was a council of three reformers, but freed without colleagues obstructing his reforms like Antony did, he could achieve his ambitions - if the state allowed him the privileges to do so. That was the ruse that Augustus pulled off. Not to rule the empire, he didn't, but to reform it with the status and privileges to achieve it. So, I put it to you that Emperor is the wrong title, a medieval conversion of the full autocracy of the Dominate that Rome evolved toward. Augustus instead remained a Triumvir by another name.

What's amusing is the series of triumphs awarded to generals for defeating Tacfarinas only to hear he was still active

Parthia, not Persia, though the region is the same. His motive is discussed by Cassius Dio as being about glory and territorial expansion, although there's been some debate about economic motives that haven't really convinced everyone. Now Dio was always a bit revisionist and critical of the Roman leaders - he refers to them as 'kings by another name' so bear that in mind when considering what he said about Trajan. Parthia had of course been a thorn in the side of Rome for a long time already and possibly Trajan was hoping to resolve the problem by conquest, as indeed he did with Dacia.

Roman tactics were minimal to say the least and their training was far from the martial art some people want it to have been, though the relentless repetition and practice "by the numbers" (that's straight from Roman sources by the way) were effective. I've always maintained that half of warfare is psychology but bear in mind the Romans were very certain about this - they stress their one chief advantage was discipline.

Railroads also use girder frames. Truss bridges are not universal.

I've become increasingly aware of how influential Egypt has been over millenia in the ancient world, it set many themes that are suprising, sometimes disturbing, but fascinating nonetheless. Check this video out to learn more...

Now that's an interesting insight into the development of English. We may have gone Germanic in the post-Roman world, but our modern alphabet is still based on Latin, a survivor of the Dark Ages.

It's not atheism, but whilst I have a variant spiritualism, I am first and foremost a history enthusiast. My research on the Principate includes the era of Jesus and quite frankly it's looking increasingly like a story concocted to sell religion. Was Jesus based on a real person? Possibly, there was a string of charismatic preachers that got executed for unsettling authority with their crowd pulling success, but the more I look at Jesus historically, the less I see. The conclusion has to be he was never real, and indeed, it transpires the earliest known Christian writing (among the Epistles of Paul) contains no real world context for Jesus at all. Does that devalue the film? Not as such, it's just a depiction of a myth, but I don't like the underlying concept that it's supposed to be something I should believe in and the idea the film should be somehow be more important for that depiction is not something I agree with.

No, and I'm not getting out of bed for that one.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to fly, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. By these arguments having prevailed upon the emperor, he obtained his desire. He selected, not such as had been trained to cowardice and accustomed to flight, but strong and active men who had lately been taken into the army, and who appeared to him, who was able to judge of men, to be capable of any service. He immediately made trial of each of them, and obviated their defects by continual exercise; bestowing commendations and rewards on all who were obedient, but appearing severe and inexorable to those who neglected their duty. - Nea Historia (Zosimus) So by long unfamiliarity with fighting the Roman soldier was reduced to a cowardly condition. For as to all the arts of life, so especially to the business of war, is sloth fatal. It is of the greatest importance for soldiers to experience the ups and downs of fortune, and to take strenuous exercise in the open. The most demoralised of all, however, were the Syrian soldiers, mutinous, disobedient,seldom with their units, straying in front of their prescribed posts, roving about like scouts, tipsy from one noon to the next, unused to carrying even their arms. - Letter to Lucius Verus (Fronto) Causes of the Decay of the Legion - The name of the legion remains indeed to this day in our armies, but its strength and substance are gone, since by the neglect of our predecessors, honours and preferments, which were formerly the recompenses of merit and long services, were to be attained only by interest and favour. Care is no longer taken to replace the soldiers, who after serving their full time, have received their discharges. The vacancies continually happening by sickness, discharges, desertion and various other casualties, if not supplied every year or even every month, must in time disable the most numerous army. Another cause of the weakness of our legions is that in them the soldiers find the duty hard, the arms heavy, the rewards distant and the discipline severe. To avoid these inconveniences, the young men enlist in the auxiliaries, where the service is less laborious and they have reason to expect more speedy recompenses. - De Re Militaris (Vegetius) Now in the place of Valens, his uncle, the Emperor Gratian established Theodosius the Spaniard in the Eastern Empire. Military discipline was soon restored to a high level, and the Goth, perceiving that the cowardice and sloth of former princes was ended, became afraid. For the Emperor was famed alike for his acuteness and discretion. By stern commands and by generosity and kindness he encouraged a demoralized army to deeds of daring. - Res Gaetica (Jordanes) Dr Adrian Goldsworthy has commented on the strengths of the late Roman soldiery, regarding their ability in 'low level warfare' (raids and ambushes) but the skills of large set=-piece battles had withered along with the Centurionate.

Jesus isn't real and never was. The earliest known and accepted Christian writings don't mention any real world context, that was invented later as a sales technique for want of a better description. Jesus evolved from an archangel in Hebrew myth who passed the test that Satan failed, and was an ethnic version of the Egyptian Osiris, though the concept of a death and resurrection is a fascinatingly common concept in such ancient religions. The Hippy Jesus is medieval. In Roman times Jesus was depicted as all sorts of things because cults were trying to portray him as something real and recognisable.

Yes, I've noticed the Russians have a lot to say. I have a simple criteria too.

There's no connection between soldiers of Thessalia mentioned in Homer's Iliad and a state that didn't come into existence for hundreds of years after.