Klingan

I must unfortunately be bold enough to disagree with Mets. Sure, glass was used in the baths, but then often specifically to let the sun into the rooms (e.g. the Suburban Baths,Herculaneum, which even has a sundeck). You can also notice that large windows does not appear in baths until window glass was invented - other forms of covering would not do. We also tend to think about glass as something valuable in antiquity. Fair enough, it wasn't cheap per se, but not that much more expensive than pottery (here I'm referring to vessels of different kinds) and I do believe, and this is my own opinion, that glass windows were far more common than what we tend to think. I know that they have found almost complete windows in Pompeii taverns - not only fancy houses - and it seems quite clear that the small amount we have preserved today is a affect of modern find treatment rather than ancient usage. The shards were simply not collected until quite recently and still only a handful of experts can use them productively. Further on, it is also quite clear that glass was not the preferred choice when it came to security; there are ample evidence for the usage of iron bars in low windows. I would really like to know their sources behind the safety issue. And at last, window glass came, as far as I know, in several different qualities. The simplest were produced as here described, the somewhat better possibly polished at one side and the best polished at both sides. This means that a window glass wasn't just a window glass - you had a wide range of qualities to make your choice from depending on your ambition - and purse. This is a very important point; glass was simply the somewhat fancier solution, but still one among many other. You should take a look at Domenic Ingemarks (Lund) work if your interested in Roman glass.

Well, they are always going to be useful for our understanding of how we know (read: come to think we know) what we know. There are a lot of ideas floating around that were actually just made up back then that we simply take for facts now and use as a basis for further interpretations.

Socrates, the famed Greek philosopher, made a rare public appearance on May 12, in the Ceremonial Courtroom of Manhattan's Federal Courthouse. In fact, he took the corporeal form of famed defense attorney Benjamin Brafman, currently representing embattled IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was highly animated in his defense against the millennia-old impiety and corruption charges levied against the Athenian. Fortunately, there was not a toga to be seen in the audience. Read more here.

I've been able to get my hands on the first couple of episodes and I really like it. I actually like it as much as Rome, if not more (call me a traitor if you need to! ). HBO manage to pull it off once again.

Great news, thanks for sharing it M! There's always something special about it when an ancient ship is found, too bad that it would be difficult to get to see this one.

Spoiler warning! Great review Ursus. Oh, by the way, to be a little bit of a language nerd. That people say The Kraken is killing me - the shouldn't really be there, Kraken is already a definite article in Nordic languages (Krake, Kraken comp. to Car, the Car)

Grattis p

Gratulerar!

Thank you very much for the upload! I find this very interesting as I saw these kind of shows back in Sweden, but only with medieval knights - the thought of doing it with Romans never even struck my mind.

Poison was obviously not only utilized in warfare; it seems to have been much more commonly used as a mean of assassination and for, more or less, voluntary suicide

It's quite easy to find in southern Europe if you pass by, I see tons of them. They are quiet expensive thou.

Man f

Well, I recognize the Avatar and I guess that's the equivalent of a face here! Welcome back

True, the Romans had a patron-client relationship to their gods, but that's probably not the reason why a very small selected number of powerful Roman patrons (emperors and their relatives) could become deified. What I was trying to come at is that nobody, as far as I know, outside the Imperial family was ever given the statues of god after his or her death. It was a thus an imperial monopoly, constructed to secure the throne for the heir and the dynasty, as far as I know.

Could you possibly elaborate on this? I have never heard anything about this theory before and no such patrons come to mind immediately (as there were other, far more important, motifs for the deification of the emperors).

HYDERABAD: A Roman gold coin weighing 7.3 grams issued by the 7th Roman emperor Nerve Ceaser (96-98 AD) was unearthed at a Buddhist site in Phanigiri in Nalgonda district during the course of archaeological excavations recently.... Read more here.

There's not really any new information, but they have some really nice shots of the pieces, well worth seeing.

What is Tacitus' description of Germanic religion? Is there anything that sounds cognate to later myth? One always must remember that the book is Propaganda. I have to admit the Bos Cervi, Alces and Uri dont ring a bell except that Alces refers to Moose. Perhaps I haven't gotten there yet. But couldn't an innaccurate description be caused by ignorance? I mean how often did he hunt? People didn't believe in Gorillas until one was shot. Dugongs were mistaken for Mermaids. Similarly Caesar, and his men wouldn't have spent much time observing German religion. The Bos Cervi is sort of a cross between a reindeer and a unicorn, I'm sure that it'll give you a god laugh. It really would have been counter-productive to turn Gauls into monsters since he put them in the Senate! He also engaged the Britons and didn't conquer them. Still they do not come off nearly so barbaric as the Germans. That explaination alone cannot be completely the cause for Germanic bad press That is true, but a single explanation can seldom be used to describe a phenomena. Remember though that he invaded Germany as well, without finally conquering them. They are also an Ultima Thule people, they must be barbarian (Or Hyperborean ).

Obviously this differs greatly from the Eddas or later Uppsala Temple worship. What is the source of this cultural inconsistancy? Three possibilities spring to mind. I actually believe that he had no intention of narrating the truth - he was much more interested in painting a picture, one that served his aims, for the Roman populus. The quote here is perhaps not the best example, but I'm sure that you are familiar with the Bos Cervi, Alces and Uri in De Bello Gallico VI 26-28. The description of the appearance and habits of these was, more or less fabricated, most likely to make the people in Rome amazed by the wondrous creatures living in the newly conquered lands. I have to agree with Ursus on this one, there must have been deities, the question is again what Caesar wanted the Roman people to believe - notice how he contrasts the implacable, un-civilized, Germans to the strange but not entirely alien Gauls. The former were never conquered by him, the later were. I don't really know enough about the cultures to comment in detail upon this, I'm afraid.

I believe that it would be Regina Arenae, but there are other words for sand as well.

Crap, I'm late.Anyway, Grattis!

Great stuff, especially the end!

I usually view pre-nation state wars in Europe as more or less of a family feud. The same phenomena has been observed in ancient Greece, e.g. in the Athenian elite during the Peloponnesian war and the Iliad and Odyssey.

I think that I could possibly find a couple in Scandinavian, if that will do, but unfortunately not English. The easiest thing otherwise would probably be to look at your local university's student papers publishing site (I know that at least some unis have that).

This is one of the absolutely funniest clips I've seen in years. I just love the Onion!