Gaius Paulinus Maximus

Ave Gladius xx To be honest i'm torn between the two, the 'Gallic Wars' is a fantastic insight into the mind of a military genius, it's one of the only pieces of work where you get a first hand account of the lives and ways of war of the "barbarians" but on the other hand his 'Civil wars' i think really gives us an indepth picture of the Roman army itelf i.e. how they lived, the hardships they went through and most particularly the art of the siege, during the civil war part of the book book Caesar must spend at least 60%? of the story describing how and why the siege works were manufactured and used, unfortunately there's no diagrams in the 'civil war' like there is in the 'gallic wars' so you (or maybe just I??) spend a lot of the time just trying to imagine how it would have have looked. I've just recently re-read the civil wars so i might be a little bit biased but all in all both are fantastic pieces of work and just for us to be able to read them so many years down the line is a total and utter PLEASURE

And just what did the Pompeians do after Dyrracium? Haha basically underestimated Caesars legions and promptly got a good seeing to

Well here go's!!! I've been a member of this forum for a while now and to be honest I've found it pretty hard going, not on the forums behalf but on mine,UNRV has been an absolute godsend, my problem is that i find it difficult to put my thoughts onto paper(as such), my knowledge of ancient Rome is pretty good on the whole but when it comes down to putting it all down on the screen i just seem to turn into a dyslexic buffoon , why, i don't know? (any thoughts??) I don't know why i became intrested in Roman history, i can't pin point the actual moment when i thought " yeah, thats intersting i think i'll look into that a bit more" it's not like i've been brought up on it or anything, not one member of my family (past or present) gives a flying f*** about what happened thousands of years ago, but for some strange reason i do! Everybody say Awwwwww, That's the self pity over with, i'll now tell you about my day. It started at 06:30 this morning when my beautiful daughter Isabel (20mths) woke up in her usual butter woudn't melt mood, which proceeded in waking my other daughter Madison (5 next month) ( yes i know what your thinking , poor bloke , a minority of 3:1 in his own house (if you count the hamsters then it's 5:1!), puberty to go through, two weddings to pay for etc etc haha hehe, i'm not laughing!!!!!!!!!) and to add to the fact that the wife went out on the town last nite with her friends (which my friends and i call 'The Cauldron Club') and was suffering from a severe hangover then my day is looking pretty bleak. As it turns out it was a pretty enjoyable day, i took the girls to dance class, which p***** me off a bit because thats mum's job ( but she was currently attached to the toilet) so daddy saved the day :king: As soon as we got home i sorted the girls out with some dinner then put the footbal on T.V. (Leeds got beat by the way .... again) ,got plenty of toys out for the dominilla's and proceeded to enjoy the rest of our afternoon. After many hours of football, games of Guess Who (xmas pressie), dressing dolls!!! and the odd can of amber necter i.e lager, 18:30 arrived, hallelujah, bath time! Quick bath, brush of the teeth and bedtime ahhhhhhhh thought it would never arrive ( by the way, the wife is still in bed!!!!) Downstairs opened a very expensive bottle of red wine i recieved as a xmas present and very slowly and enjoyably sloped into a state of intoxication i very much deserved!

Been in that very situation myself but it's safe to say that the egg was VERY hard boiled................we are talking concrete!!!

You cant beat a bit of cheese! Must admit though Super Trouper is a personal favorite of mine......... Why, I have no bloody idea!

Law of the telephone : when you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy tone Ahhhh but if you get the busy tone you'll never know that it was the wrong number because there'll be nobody on the other end of the line to tell you that Dominatrix Denise dosn't live there

Just started reading all the blogs, all of which i've found very funny and interesting but if i ever find myself in the situation where i need to 'bump' somebody off i know exactly who's blog i'll be visiting first

Oh dear oh dear, it really does sound like you've had the bummer of all christmas's, but look on the brightside, it can only get better................. we hope!!

During the civil war Gaius Scribonius Curio was fighting for Caesar in Africa, he came up against the army of the Numidian king Juba who was fighting for Pompey. Before the battle he gave this rousing speech then promptly led his army to nearly total annihilation. Was he too confident, arrogant or just unlucky? But I suppose, although you are pleased with Caesar, you are offended with me; however, I shall not boast of my services to you, which still are inferior to my own wishes or your expectations. But, however, soldiers have ever looked for the rewards of labor at the conclusion of a war; and what the issue of it is likely to be, not even you can doubt. But why should I omit to mention my own diligence and good fortune, and to what a happy crisis affairs are now arrived? Are you sorry that I transported the army safe and entire, without the loss of a single ship? That on my arrival, in the very first attack, I routed the enemy's fleet? That twice in two days I defeated the enemy's horse? That I carried out of the very harbor and bay two hundred of the enemy's victualers, and reduced them to that situation that they can receive no supplies either by land or sea? Will you divorce yourselves from this fortune and these generals; and prefer the disgrace of Corfinium, the defeat of Italy, the surrender of both Spains, and the prestige of the African war? I, for my part, wished to be called a soldier of Caesar's; you honored me with the title of Imperator. If you repent your bounty, I give it back to you; restore to me my former name that you may not appear to have conferred the honor on me as a reproach." Would you have followed?

Ave I think Caesar was responsible for the book upto 'The Alexandrian War' as for the rest of the book a few names have been suggested like Hiritius who was known to have written some of the Gallic Wars, Oppius, Sallust, and Asinius Pollio all who had supposedly participated in the civil war. But for me the best part of the book is the actual story of the civil war itself which we know was written by Caesar himself. Will look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The battle of Pharsalus Pompey some 45-50.000 men ( plus another 7 cohorts guarding the camp) v Caesar's 22,000 men (plus 2 cohorts left to guard his camp) I'd say the odds were firmly stacked in Pompey's favor, but we all know the outcome.

What about the Sibylline Scrolls? The original Sibylline Books were closely-guarded oracular scrolls written by prophetic priestesses (the Sibylls) in the Etruscan and early Roman Era as far back as the 6th Century B.C.E. These books were destroyed, partially in a fire in 83 B.C.E., and finally burned by order of the Roman General Flavius Stilicho (365-408 C.E.). It would have been pretty interesting to see what all the fuss was about.

I've become quite interested in the story of Belisarius and am thinking about ordering this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belisarius-Great-G...TF8&s=books Has anybody read this? Would you recommend it?

The ancients have been storing and processing grain from as far back as 8000BC, yet just how they did it I'm still trying to find out, probably something along the lines of the pit system mentioned by Moonlapse i expect

If you type 'Buddug' into the welsh lexion search engine provided by DC then it does actually come up with the translation 'Boadicea ; Victoria' Strangely though if you enter 'Caradoc' which we believed to be the proper name for Caratacus then no match comes up so maybe we're barking up the wrong tree with that one?? Edit: Sorry guys(and gals) my mistake :bag: if you type in Caradog not caradoc then it does infact come up with Caratacos ; Caratacus.

True, Augustus founded the military harbor after he defeated Antony in 45BC and it became an important station for the imperial fleet for many years. Ravenna also had another role in Roman history, it was where Caesar gathered his troops before deciding to cross the Rubicon.

A big happy birthday to a fellow northerner :beer: :drunk: ENJOY!!!

Interesting, Decimus. Have you any idea, then, where Manda Scott the author got the name Breaca from for Boudica? I have always assumed it is her own interpretation, of course - but wondered if it had any basis in truth. (Scott gives it as a form of Briga, the goddess). I should add, of course, that as far as I have always understood it, the name Boudica meant 'bringer of victory' and was a title given to the Queen, rather than her given name at birth. Would be interested to hear what you think. I too was under the impression that the name Boudica was given to her by the Britons meaning 'bringer of victory' as for her birth name, that i think we will never know. As for Vercingetorix, i thought that 'cingeto' was his gaulish(birth) name and 'ver' meaning 'the' and 'rix' meaning 'king' was added to his name after he united the gallic tribes and lead them to war against Caesar.

I wouldn't call it a lie, i think exaggeration is a better way of describing what Caesar wrote

How very true PP. Surely one of the best pieces Roman of propaganda has to be Caesar's Gallic Commentries, what better way to 'big yourself up' than to record all your "amazing " victories over those terrible Gauls and then let the people back home know how much of an all conquering hero you really are. How very clever :smartass: Does anybody know of any other pieces of propaganda dating earlier than this period and if so what's the earliest piece available?

Propaganda is considered to be a modern political art, but the Romans were masters of 'spin'. How did Rome's leaders communicate their power and their policies to a massive and diverse empire? Have a read of this article and tell me what you think. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/roman...rticle_01.shtml

I've just recieved my wallmap and i must say that i'm very impressed with the quality and detail of it, i've spent the last hour studying it and am delighted with my prize. All i've got to do now is find somewhere to put it! Thanks UNRV

If it's true that there's no Marcus Agrippa in series 2 then this is major cock up on HBO's part, Agrippa played an essential role in the rise of Octavian/Augustus, to cut such a major historical figure out of the story is just so wrong!

The true numbers of this battle we will never know but what we are pretty certain of is that the Roman army was definately greatly out numbered and only overcame thier foe through organization, discipline and training. Lets not forget, this was a professional army with years of experience and training up against an enemy which relied upon brute strength, courage and numbers. For years the Britons had just proffered to harass the Roman lines and engage in small skirmishes and to avoid full on confrontation with the Romans because when evenly matched they knew that they could not defeat them in open battle, but i suppose that when the numbers were so greatly stacked in thier favour, the Britons thought that the time was right to end it once and for all, but unfortunatly for them they totally underestimated the fighting quality of the Romans.........And the rest as they say is history!

Ah, well, I'm dating an 18 year old girl. But a 15 year old boy would be not to my taste. 18 years old???? Who's a lucky boy then? No wonder you've been in such a joyous mood lately! Love really is a many splendored thing :wub: :wub: