caldrail

Came across this video. An interesting speculation, one I'm a little dubious about, but you never know...

Firstly the inventor of this concept didn't know much about physics. Rapid bursts of speed? I seriously don't think so. Secondly none of this stuff was ever taken seriously any more than the much vaunted Leonardo Da Vinci got his machines to fly.

Freedmen were ineligible for citizenship, gladiator or not, in line with traditional Roman practice. But realise that the granting of citizenship was not an ongoing process anyway, it was an edict, a one-off event, with citizenship passed on to children of provincials awarded full citizenship of Rome.

No, necessity and competition do not inspire free thinking, they merely increase the intensity of acceptable boundaries.. The Roman Empire was one of the most competitive societies ever and its scientific contribution to the world, all those centuries of it, is almost zero. They finished with almost the same level of technology they started with. Free thinking comes about by communication and freedom to express new ideas, the point being that people in power tend not to like others thinking for themselves. I don't have any formal sources on the British monastic thing, but one monastic site was working on iron casting, but of course Henry VIII wanted cash and to remove allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church so a great many of these places were closed in 1536.

The reason for the European renaissance lies beyond Europe No it most certainly does not. It emerges from the Republic that encouraged free thinking in Florence, Italy, in the 16th century. Eastern advances were ignored by the West for the most part.

The Vigiles might have carried clubs or something similar but I don't recall any mention of arms. They were not based on the Urban Cohorts which were three re-purposed Praetorian units.

Everything you need to know is contained in human psychology. You might consider yourself rational and intelligent, but under stressful conditions with everyone around just as scared, you'll do stupid things too. We all do. Training and experience helps of course, but our primeval behaviour underpins our decision making process.

According to Lactantius, Constantine chose a Tau-Rho (a tall letter P with a crossbar) and Eusebius, from whom the Chi-Rho story is derived, is not consistent about it either.

Yeesh. I know that there was a roaring trade in 'false teeth' after the battle, but wholesale exploitation? That's fairly extreme.

Hi. Welcome to our little corner of the world.

Heck that must have been a deep excavation!

Siege warfare is a specific event in one location with fixed numbers (usually) of forces involved - mass mobilisation theories do not apply.

Monotheism among the ancient Hebrews evolved from a little known legend. The father-God, El, gave each of his sons a human tribe to call his very own. Yaweh got the Hebrews, and so they were obliged only to worship Yaweh. Also stories that are thought to be uniquely Christian are often anything but. The story of the Great Flood? It' common these days to hear it was probably inspired by an actual event like a flooding of the Black Sea Basin, but no, it started as an explanation for huge ruined and abandoned cities found in Mesopotamia, the remains of Assyrian cities long forgotten whose destruction was explained as the result of some terrible fllood in times past. A legend of a flood survivor arose - of course that had to be enough survivors to explain why anyone was still alive, and the Hebrews incorporated the myth with their own version, a practice not unusual in the ancient world.

Can be. During the expedition into Germania by Varus in ad9 the Roman shields got so soaked by rain the soldiers couldn't use them, just way too heavy with the added weight of water. Note that dropping a shield was a serious military discipline offence to the Roans. I ried a reproduction shield at Vindolanda once. Not too heavy when dry, but constantly holding it up or using to bash your enemy in front of you was going to need resilient shoulders.

Interesting rationale about fate rather than probability but isn't that putting the cart before the horse? I mean, I doubt the Romans had any standard for making dice and they certainly weren't mass produced, more likely someone just cut a cube-ish block with "yeah that'll do". The facility to game would be more important to the Romans that any scientific exploration of probability, irrespective of believing fate was the key.

I see. I would question whether such a collegium would happen since gladiators within a familia already had all the fraternity they needed. There's no mention of such a collegium in anything I've come across and if you think about it, Rome is not going to let slaves and trained fighters organise themselves. They wouldn't let fighters who spoke the same language stay together, and from the sources I gather there was a sort of status thing going on between different classes of gladiators that would mitigate against a collegium as well. If I find anything I'll revise my opinions, but for now, I would treat this Collegium Armariorum with raised eyebrows.

Society of the Cupboards? I haven't come across that before and can't find any reference to it. I suspect you were hoping for something about weaponry which is the meaning of the root Arma, but the inflection is rather different. Do you have any context that would help?

You want to discuss this stuff? Knock yourself out. But I don't see why it matters. Mr Eagle isn't going to change the world and there's a reason why not.

I would say the whole point is largely irrelevant. Just another self-proclaimed expert. The internet is full of them.

I've noticed your agenda concerning Europe already. I would advise caution in attempting to be so prophetic as there's another Russian who's learning that making assumptions about the West is prone to miscalculation. Europe's global role is not diminishing, it hasn't broken through through national inertia yet.

Some fun viewing for ancient history fans. It is fairly awful, but it costs nothing.

There are ways to interpolate aspects of the lives of Rome's common folk, their graffiti and funerary inscriptions. Based on what I've read, the Roman were often lively townsfolk with very childish attitudes according to modern standards. Sex in particular is a demonstration of male virility, petty revenge like drunken louts on holiday. We read of drama, tragedy, or happy lives on tomb inscriptions. Deep feelings for loved ones, friends, partners, or pets. We can see the warning signs painted on the walls of a tavern in Pompeii and realise that this unwanted behaviour is typical. A report of crowd violence between the townsfolk of Nuceria and Pompeii. The importance of solitary but useful possessions.

(duplicate post)

The problem with this idea is that it's part of a politically correct agenda to emphasise climate change and apply it to historical events with undisguised zeal. It might be correct, I don't know, but I don't recall the Romans talking about food shortages with respect to Palmyra. I do concede that the Palmyrene Empire annexed Egypt, a major source of grain, but that might have been for other reasons too.

I still don't buy this. Proto-Norse which emerges around 750 was already based on a divergent dialect of older Germanic and the Saxon language dominates in the South, which funnily enough, has always been a centre of power in England. Northen accents may be a result of Viking influence given the Danelaw , but not the English language. The language of the Angles.