Julius Ratus

Interesting poll, Kosmo. I voted for Giap. I have read a good bit on the tactics and strategies employed by the VC and the NVA and they were pretty good fighters. The Vietnamese utilized their limited rescources to great extent in the war, and always used their knollege of the local culture and terrain to their advantage. BTW, my grandpa fought in the Vietnam War as a chopper pilot, and I in no way belittle the experience of Vietnam vets. They fought hard and gave it their best. I respect our enemies because they fought hard, and in the end, their resolve was greater, which is why they won.

The patriarh of Rome lost North Africa for good and most of Spain for 700 years. He also had under his authority, in the begining the west and south of the Balkans including Greece, Macedonia and today Serbia. I was thinking about that, but decided not to include NW Africa because the Church hadn't yet split. The Catholic West never lost territory after the 1054 split. The Balkans were under the Patriarchate of Rome, but after the 476 fall it was controled by the remaining Roman Empire, on and off. When the Western Church broke away, these areas were still aligned politically with the East.

You missed the point, Ludovicus, which was brought home in 2002 when armed students at the Appalachian Law School in the state of Virginia stopped a gunman cold, in his tracks. Cowards who attack those whom they perceive to be helpless, unarmed victims will be less inclined to do such deeds if there

Julius Ratus, who is half drunk as we speak, kicks the door open with sottish enthusiasm and enters the party wearing his very best lorica and helmet. He shouts out a few salutations to the Beloved Consuls G.O. nad A.o.S., and stumbles over to the wine bowl where he teaches MPC how to unwind. Before he can loose his wits and try hittin' on any of the Matrons, he falls to the floor and passes out. Ursus the butler dunks JR in the impluvium until he can sober up.

Happy Birthday! Half of this glass of Vodka I'm sippin' at goes to your health! Bashe Staloviye i Za Dnyom Rozhdeniye!

There may be attempts at more GC, but the prez will probably veto them, and for once I would support him. The constitution has the second amendment for a reason and it isn't to support sport hunter's rights, but for the defense of the people. This recent instance just shows, the police are NOT there to protect you, they are there to clean up the mess after the incident has already taken place. On to the topic at hand, I was at school today when this happened. The talking heads on the news even were interviewing people about the time I was there. I grew up under the spectre of Columbine, it took place while I was in middle school. Getting shot at school never scarred me, living in fear does. Besides, a classmate once told me, with all the Bloods and Crips at my school, if any depressed suburban kid brought a gun to school, he would have been taken down bwfore he got a shot off. Needless to say, there were no shootings at my school, though a few kids got caught with 9's. Armed society is polite society.

1. A History of the Roman People, Ward and Yeo 2. The Western Way of War, Victor Davis Hanson 3. Chronicle of the Roman Republic, Matyzak 4. The Rise of the Roman Empire, Polybius 5. Anthing by Plutarch

Looking at history, the Catholics and the Orthodox churches were always rather well balanced in size, until the growth of Islam. The Catholic nations had their backs to the Ocean and only had to face the Moslems that invaded through Iberia, and those that made it through the Orthodox states. The Orthodox, on the other hand, were surrounded by enemies. To the South East were the Arabs, to the East and North were the Steppe people, many of whom had converted to Islam. To the West were the Catholics themselves who were often as grave a threat as the Moselms were. Basically, the Catholics never lost territory, they only gained it, and the Orthodox areas were under constant threat. Also, the Easternb Church was far more fragmented early on than the Western Church was. This gave the Western Church time to consolidate while the Eastern Churches were still fighting amongst themselves.

If I can find a copy of it over here in the states I will try to pick it up. Those clips were better than most.

Has anyone seen the South Park spoof yet of 300?

I always considered the Romanness of the Byzantine Empire to have ended in 1204. After the Empire was restored, it was with a different character. Since Moscow was the Third Rome, Tsar Nicholai II could be considered the last Roman(ov) .

During the middle ages the Rus' called the Greeks 'Gretsi', IIRC. The city of Constantinople was called Miklegard by the Varangians and Tsaragrad by the Rus'. BTW, how did the word 'Greece/Greek' come into existence? I know the Romans called them 'Graeci', and the country was 'Graecia'.

I loved the movie, but have never read the book. The portrayal of Augustus was a bit off, Rome's was far more accurate, but I left I Claudius with a good opinion of the first Emperor. After Rome I was rooting for Antony. I think that comparing I Claudius with Rome is good, because I Claudius really takes up where Rome left off. Overall, I was especially pleased by the performences of Caligula and Sejanus. I will never look at Jean-Luc Picard the same way ever again!

If the threat of violence is our criteria for populares, then I would put Crassus with the populares. Suetonius mentions that early in Caesar's career the two planned to start a revolution and kill their enemies Sulla-style (ch 9).

Keep in mind that even today, people do not always toe the party line. Here in Nebraska, we have two senators, Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel. Nelson is a Democrat and Hagel is a Republican. Nelson often votes with the pro-Bush crowd, and is very conservative, and Hagel is often in the anti-war party. In Roman times. politicians probably went with against their allies when it was profitable.

There used to be a few threads floating around that talked about looking for some criteria to use for judging the quality of the Emperors, rather than basing assessments entirely on opinion. Constantine, for example, is looked down upon by modern Neo-Paganists for his conversion but to Christians he is a Saint. Likewise, Diocletian is considered to be just shy of the anti-Christ by the Church for his persecution, but many historians will rank him with the good emperors for his effots to preserve the Empire. Anyway, for my good Emperor I will put Trajan because you can't go too wrong with one of 'The Five Good Emperors'. For a bad Emperor I will put Nero because he seems to have been an all around rotten guy.

I would consider the difference between the Optimates and Populares is how they operated. The Optimates recieved their authority from tradition and the Populares harnessed current popular sentiment to give them power. With this as the criteria I would consider Caesar and Pompey to both be Populares. Likewise, I would add Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, Marius, Clodius, and even Milo to the list of Populares. I am not as familiar with the Optimate politicians so I would say that M. P. Cato, most of the Scipii and Metelli, and the Tribune Octavius to be examples of the Optimates. I will not try to convince you that they were stable groups because I don't believe they were. Look at my list of Populares, Caesar fought Pompey and Clodius fought Milo. Both Milo and Pompey fought for the Optimates, but I believe they were Populare in methodology. I think that the Populares and Optimates were examples of Roman ideologies. Thanks MPC for starting this thread, this should be an interesting discussion.

This is an offshoot from the "Famous (and Infamous) Individuals with History/Classics Degrees" thread on the Historia in Universum section. I will have a B. A. in History with a Minor in Russian in August, unless I fail something, which is not expected, knock on wood.

In a few months you can add me! Julius Ratus -- B.A. History (Russ. Minor) UNO

IIRC, the mullet punnishment wasn't a legal thing but a threat made by the poet Catulus as a joke. I can't find the exact poem but here's the lot of them in translation here.

I think we tend to overestimate the importance of consuls due to their military responsibilities. In consequence, most consuls end up famous (to us), but from the Roman standpoint, there may have been more famous non-consuls than famous consuls. Just look at the list of great tribunes who never attained the consulship. There were important tribunes who never became consuls, but who ever talks about, "Oh, he was the greatest Aedile there ever was!" Adding tribunes to my earlier assertion, anyone who was anyone became either a Consul or a Tribune. Cicero was a very good Quaestor in Sicilia and gaind some of his fame there. As a result of his fame and greatness he achieved the Consulship. The Tribuneate seems to have been the place where people could get their fame quickly without having to work their way through senetorial politics. The younger Gracchi, Clodius, and Milo are four such examples. The elder Gracchus (Tiberius Semphronius Gracchus, a.k.a. Daddy Gracchus) did become Consul due to his achievements in war.

I was not on the internet yesterday, but to all religious folk out there, Chirst is Risen!

Obviously, my favorite Consuls are the two from 2760 A.U.C., G.O. and A.o.S.! But seriously, I never gave the topic much thought. I guess I would go with either Caesar or Marius. Since most famous Roman politicians ended up as Consuls at some point or another, you could really pick any one of them.

I always thought that the pila-strategy sounded fishy, particularly the notion that Caesar told his troops to stab at the faces of the young cavalry-men, who--being young and valuing their looks--were particularly vulnerable to the tactic. To me, that sounds utterly ridiculous. I agree, the part about them attacking the faces to damage their looks sounds rather bizarre, but the tactic itself is plausible. While I find the thought of the Legionaries making a phalanx with pila to be fanciful at best, the pilum gave far better reach than the gladius would have, allowing the foot soldiers to stab up at the cavalrymen. One important point to consider when looking at this tactic is, the cavalry formations were not a dense as they would be with knights or Napoleonic cavalryment. The lack of stirrups would have made it difficult to use cavalry as shock troops, rather they were for harrying. Cavalry were generally supposed to chase off other cavalry and then attack the flanks or rear of the enemy formation, disrupting it. Labienus' cavalry did chase off Caesar's cavalry at Pharsalus, but Caesar was expecting this. When the Pompeian horse broke through the Julian cavalry, they ran into the front end of a formation of foot troops who were waiting for them.

Non nuper dixi in linguam latinam. Dico melior lingua Russorum quam lingua Latina .