Julius Ratus

I think this is being proved in the world today. In the last bout between Israel and Hizbollah, Hezbollah was using more conventional troops. They general dressed similarly, if not in uniform, and utilized machinegun nests and such, as a regular army would. They even carried out rocket artillary strikes against Israeli targets. Unlike the Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah had the economic means to build up forces and has a nation that they largely control, using it as a base.

A few questions. First, how big was the average farm for a well to do person? In my Roman Republic class, the professor said that under the Gracchan land reform bill, the poor were supposed to be alotted 30 iugera of land, appox. 20 acres. Also, how many slaves did it take, generally, to work a farm? How many slaves in general, would most Romans have? Thanks.

How could this be? AoS, this is so not my fault. I tied him in a sack with an asp and a poodle and dumped him in the Nile, I swear it!!! His super sexy mom Isis must have had someting to do with it! Don't fire me, please!

Here is a translation into English, G.O.. Listen up :wheelchair:! Jive turkey (n., similar to a swindler), Are you not aligned with me? Do not speak disrespectfully towards our Patrician organization. Moonlapse (who the author is recognizing as his offspring) increases the volume of the music, and we proceed to engage in a form of dance with his paternal reletive, Primus Pilus. Pertinax and Pantagathus court all of the beautiful local females, until Cato puts an end to their revelry

Since the uniform is not the issue, and the targeting of civillians is, does the fire bombing of Tokyo count as terrorism? What about Dresden, or Hiroshima, or Hanoi? When governments knowingly kill civilians is it suddenly acceptable?

I agree that Kursk was not so big as it is made out to be, but it was the end of the Germans going on the offensive. It was the turning point of WWII. After Stalingrad, the Germans were not stopped. They struck back under Mannstein, trying to relieve Stalingrad, then they took back Kharkov, then they attacked the Kursk Salient. Stalingrad did not end German momentum. Loosing Kursk did. Likewise, the Russians had gone on offensives before in '42. They were stopped. Even after Stalingrad they had setbacks. After winning Kursk they attacked on the Dniepr front and then in '44 launched Operation Bagration, which pounded the last nail in the German coffin. EDIT: Since this is the Historia in Universum, I am not off topic, right? If so, sorry.

Thanks Ursus, now I don't feel as guilty for arguing a modern issue. Sorry to the origiator of this thread. Since this is now a terrorism-as-a-concept thread, here I go. What is a "proper war", stand two armies against each other, in colourful uniforms, with precussion lock rifle-muskets, and let the soldiers go at it. There are still tactical considerations, bloodthirsty leaders still get to kill people, no civillians die. Everyone's happy. Or, as G.O. said, the North African campaign in WWII is a good example of a "proper war". Hell, British POW's in German captivity in Africa were given a larger water ration than German soldiers were. The Russian Front was a rather rotten fight. There were ununiformed partisan bands bushwacking German uniformed troops. Bridges were blown up by civillians. The Germans, on the other hand, would often kill ten random civillians in retaliation for these attacks. Uniformed groups of SS and Einsatzgruppe would kill millions (no exaggeration). Bands of thugs, like SS-Dirlewanger and the Army of National Liberation commited unspeakable atrocities. These last several are obviously commiting "terrorist action" but what about the conventional acts of rottenness, such as the German shelling of Sevastopol or the Soviets at Berlin? So, who was more justified? The Soviet partisan-terrorists who fit the definition of terrorist to the letter? Today these Soviet partisans are considered heroes who defended their country, even though many who they killed were the common German soldiers. If the Germans had won the partisans would have been declared terrorists to the fullest extent possible. The SS, on the other hand, would have been called patriots who fought against evil Bolshevists. Likewise, in a few decades when the "terror war" is over we will be told who were the terrorists. If the U.S. still stands, than we will have been in the right. If the Neo-Caliphate dominates the world... edit: I don't consider either the Nazis or the Soviets to have been fully justified in their actions, both were rather rotten, though at least the Soviets were defending themselves. I'm just making a point that is relevant to the modern world.

Does that make him great or terrible? There will be people on both sides of this issue.

He did deal with it. He went to the people, and since they agreed with him, they affirmed his proposition. He also had the tribune de-elected first, so technically he didn't violate the sacrosanctity law. I realize that this is bending the rules terribly, but still, not illegal since there was no law prohibiting it. Also, he was never tried for this. He was never tried for anything, he was murdered in cold blood. The SCU was passed against Gaius Gracchus, not Tiberius. Tiberius was beaten to death by Nasca and his cronies with clubs made from broken up benches. This SCU was not called by the Senate to protect tribunes from one another, but as a result of Gaius Gracchus resorting to violent measures after loosing his bid for a third term. Against Gaius Gracchus, I agree, it was justified. He was being violent. Against Tiberius it would not have been. The only ones who were being violent and totally illegal were Nasca and his thugs. The SCU was legal, and was a law. De-electing a fellow tribune was unconventional, but there were no laws specifically prohibiting it, probably because it was unforseen. Having a second term as tribune was unconvential and possibly illegal. Beating a tribune to death while he was still in office was a religious and temporal crime. Nasca should have been executed and then dumped in the Tiber.

That would be nice. A factually based show covering events from Marius and Sulla to the Principate.

The whole terrorism issue in the world today is utter BS. How is suicide bombing any worse morally than aerial bombardment? One bomber mission in WWII could kill more people than all the suicide bombings in Iraq in the past three years. Terror tactics are just one more interesting way for people to murder one another. On topic: since there is a disconnect between our everyday lives and the atrocities commited in the ancient world we are more able to dismiss them as just tactics. In a few centuries, today's terrorism will be the tactics of the past..

Remember, he tried going to the senate first. Since reasonable dialogue witht them was almost impossible most of the time, he had to use alternate measures to bring relief to the Roman people. Later populares like Marius and Caesar saw what happened to Tiberius Gracchus and had to fight the optimates in the only manner they understood. No one argues with the business end of a gladius .

That's what everyone was asking a century ago! It really was a suprise to Europe. The main thing that the Japanese did was they attacked fast and fought hard. The Russian Army of the era was reknowned for it's ability to march like at galacial speed . If the mass of the Russian Army had made it to Manchuria before peace broke out...I'm sure the Cossacks would have made life miserable for the IJA.

I'll be either Priapis or Odin.

That's why you have few problems. Windows 2k is, IMHO, the best OS ever made. I wouldn't even use crappy XP if 2k could run Age of Empires 3.

Pretty terrible, eh? At least it has a good tune, though.

I'll bet that if they do a third season they won't announce it until later. That way there will be no anticipation and such, so they can take their time in making a strong show, without all the soap opera BS.

Yes, many other factors so the answer is yes & no... My main point in regards to bringing up central Asian history was to highlight the endless waves of peoples from the east pressuring people of this region west (& northwest & southwest) into Eastern Europe & Asia Minor... So yes, there are bound to be some decendants of the Scythians there but *probably* more are to be found now in the Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, Bulgaria, etc... Does that make sense? I think you have it right. The Steppe People tended to migrate further and further west. The Huns, we all know ended up in Central Southern Europe, and ultimately settled in Hungary. Next the Avars went west, but I don't know much about them, just that they fought the Carolingians, who were quite west. Later the Polovtsians were pushed west when the Mongols came, ending up in Hungary, many of the Cherniy Kobluki went North with the "forest" Russians. The Turks went South and West into Anatolia and ultimately into the Balkans. Some of the Cossacks settled in the Ukraine (the Zaparozhian Sich). The only group of Steppe People, it seems, that didn't settle in the west were the Mongols, who largely retreated further and further East. I think the list is rather exhaustive. I'll bet that at some point the Sythians moved into and settled somwhere in Eastern Europe. There is no evidence to support this, but it would fir the pattern. On a side note, didn't the Parthians come from the Caucausus?

Optimates represented the need to do your own homework, whereas populares represented the right to steal the optimates' homework for you. At least that didn't sound biased . The populares, IMHO, started out by responding to serious flaws in the Republican system. The Gracchi fought against the wholesale abuse of the ager publicus (public fields) system, among other things. The old Roman laws stated that no one could "own" public land, hence the title, and no one could use more than 500 iugera (roughly 2/3 acres per iugera). By this point, the large land owners had gobbled up all the ager publicus, leaving none for the common citizenry. Tiberius Gracchus fought against this with his land reform proposition, which basicly reiterated the law which was being ignored, and then redistributed some of the ager publicus amongst the poor. Unlike with the Communists of the modern era, his land commission did not confiscate private land, it just assured that the public land was being used by the public. I see nothing wrong with this, and in fact, it appears that the senate did not either, they disagreed with the means by which he accomplished his ends. After murdering him (which was very illegal since he had tribunician sacrosanctity) they left his legislation in place. As far as later populare tactics go, how were they supposed to accomplish their goals? I know that MPC will say that they could use "honest discourse" in the senate, but I don't think they could have. Tiberius was not breaking any law by bypassing the senate and going directly to the Popular Assembly. Look what happened to him. Scipio Nasca and his cronies got off scott-free after murdering a Tribune! Later when Caesar was ordered to disband his legions, he asked that Pompey be made to disband his legions as well, even offering to disband the majority of his own, provided that he be allowed to retire in Illyria. This seems to be a rather fair proposition, but the senate refused to compromise, they wanted it all their way. I have said my 2 cents, and I forsee a reaming in my future .

Hey, don't worry. The Iberia in the Kavkaz always threw me through loops, and I study Russian history .

G.O., how is it that you are not a patrician by now? You'd think that being Consul was enough to qualify one for such august rank and stature. edit: BTW, when do I get to be a Centurio? It seems all I've done is tote about flags and such .

Yeah, I feel your pain. My hard drive turned traitor a few months ago. It took me forever to scavenge pieces to build a new one. Microsoft sucks, eh? Most of my problem was that I couldn't find a boot disk to load my copy of 98, which I needed to load my copy of 2k upgrade. I ended up finding XP laying about somewhere.

I was going to post on St. Paddy's day but was outrageously sloshed. I left the drunk dialing to my drinking buddy. Neither of us needed artificial Irish names though, O'Dubhda and 0'Keane (these are the pre-Ellis island spellings of our surnames ) were good enough. A tidbit: both my drinking buddy and I are descended from the brother of Niell, Niell of the Nine. It was us drunken louts who kidnapped St. Patrick in the first place so you all can start thanking me for the holiday .

Suetonius also writes about Caesar being boy-toy to Nikomedes of Bithynia.

I assure you from the ears of a Southerner that Midwestern is a definitely a discernable accent. I've always been interested to know, can someone who isn't a midwesterner tell me, what parts of our "accent" make it discernable? Are there any characteristics to the "Midwestern accent"? I sure can't hear any, but maybe someone who hasn't spoken like this for their entire life can point them out.