Bryaxis Hecatee

One possibility for the absence of our genome in Neandertal's DNA might be that interbreeding worked one way only, either by DNA incompatibility or because Cro Magnon women could not bear the larger half Neanderthal babies and died in childbirth.

On the other hand Guy I'd suggest you to read Paul Barford's arguments on his blog http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/ for he will answer better than most of us. Is the Italian law too strict ? Probably on some minor aspects. But this trade is in good part exploited by criminals, be it in Italy or in the Balkan, from where most current coins lots come from and such laws are necessary.

Also one has to remember that the Phalanx is born in a place of narrow valleys where peoples defended the access to their town and, even more, fields against their foe, engaging in rather flat places where their aspect would be one of a wall of pikes in the way, a wall that could only be broken by another compact formation such as the phalanx. Later, when number of men grew from some hundreds to thousands of troops, the fighting moved to larger plains and valleys but always, as much as possible, on flat ground. It is only in the late hellenistic period that fighting in rugged terrain became more common, and especially against a specific foe : the Romans.

The diagonal battle line means not that the front troops were in diagonal to the enemy's front lines, but that the Thebans had put more lines of soldiers on one side than on the other, giving them more pushing strength than usual and thus causing a faster break of the enemy line on that side, allowing the Thebans to roll the side of the Spartans and thus win the battle. Usual battle formation was about 8 men deep, at Leuctre the Thebans had 16 men deep formations on part of the line (if I remember well, my books are still in bags and cases) and could thus more easily roll the Spartan left, before the Spartan's right could break the Theban left.

It depends on how you think hoplite fight worked. But most current models consider that the most important thing in such kind of formation was the cohesion of the unit, a cohesion that a run would most likely disturb, except maybe for very, very well trained units (as Spartan or Theban Sacred Band units). Also the almost complete lack of light infantry and distance weapon (at least early on) did not make a charge useful to diminue time under fire. Finally it is generaly considered that the time of contact was closer to american football contact or british rugby melee, with two great corps pushing against each other and using weapons in an overhead fashion to try to cut (and thus exhaust) the enemies in the first ranks in order to split the enemy formation which would then crumble and flee, giving their back to slaughter... What use would thus be a final run in the last few hundred meters ? None. But a higher walking pace on the sound of music to provide an equal step to all and some increased velocity for the crash of contact, well described in our sources, is something we can (and in fact must) consider as probable.

Thanks everyone 27 seven years are now gone, let's just hope I'll be able to spend at least as many in your generous and knowledgeable compagny !

Another wonderfull piece ! If I dared I'd order a A3 or even A2 Athena (but which one exactly I'm not sure yet) from you But I'm affraid of the cost too...

is it me or it does look a lot like King Arthur ?

Great historical theories in ancient studies have often shown themselves to be problematic because things that seems to explain later developpements of civilisation proved unable to explain the greco-roman world. Among the famous examples are Marx theories, Weber's ones, etc. In France, where they like big theories big time (

Presumably Caesar would have been called to account for any peculiarities in his account after he returned to Rome. But on his return to Rome, he found his opponents elsewhere, no? It would have surfaced much earlier, for exemple when there was an attempt to recall him from his proconsulship (55 or 54 I think). Also I've found the numbers of Valleius Paterculus and Plutarch : the first speaks in his roman history II,47 of at least 400 000 dead and much more enslaved, the second tells us in his biography of Caesar (16) that he took some 800 "cities" by force and killed at least one million, with a least as many enslaved, fighting 3 millions gauls of some 300 tribes.

first, to answer omoplata, it is to be remembered that early on Caesar had theoretically to do 10 years of service in the infantry or 6 in the cavalry before being able to get on the political carrier that we know of. It does not mean he had to serve continualy, only when he was conscripted. It seems he went to the army around 80 B.C. and fought as a lower officer in Asia, taking part in the siege of Mytil

I've seen the movie in Paris last month and, as I said then ( http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=102093 ) I must say that I' was bluffed away. Yes they are some issues with the historical reconstruction (building in the wrong place, soldiers' outfit not fitting for the period, ...) but the plot is interesting, the themes spoken of are numerous and well treated, not putting any blame on a religion but on fanaticism, ambition and blind stupidity, and it is a moving and rare description of the fall of the Roman Empire, much worth seeing. It use a lot of allegories and symbolism (like the Occulus of the Atrium) but does also have wonderfull pictures. All in all a very good movie. Cyril is a bad guy in the movie ? Yes of course, for he was indeed a bad guy at the time. But other christians do show a better side of their faith, and Cyril isn't the only bishop shown in the movie. His forces were mindless brutes ? Yes they were, as shown by their actions. But it's not faith that is at the heart of their behaviour, it's fanaticism, ignorance and intolerance. And the stupidity of the Jewish and even Pagan fanatics is also shown. So to me it's not really anti-christians, if it is against something it is more against intolerance, which is more often something monotheist suffer from...

Hmm, late Roman films never seem to get the detail right with uniforms. As far as being anti - christian goes, unfortunately any movie dealing with Hypatia in particular and the end of classical civilisation in general is not going to show Christianity in a favourable light. However attached we may or may not be toward that religion, one cannot deny that it and other monotheistic cults were responsible for the 'transformation' of much of the classical world. I've just seen Agora yesterday and I must say that I'm bluffed away. Yes they are some issues with the historical reconstruction (building in the wrong place, soldiers' outfit not fitting for the period, ...) but the plot is interesting, the themes spoken of are numerous and well treated, not putting any blame on a religion but on fanaticism, ambition and blind stupidity, and it is a moving and rare description of the fall of the Roman Empire, much worth seeing. It use a lot of allegories and symbolism (like the Occulus of the Atrium) but does also have wonderfull pictures. All in all a very good movie

I would also add that some volunteered into slavery (for exemple peoples of greek culture hoping to become a house slave in charge of the education of the children of a household or to become secretary of a rich gentlemen, ...). After all roman slaves were (at least household slaves) paid a salary. Also we have to remember that their might have been clothing differences or haircuts that would make a man look as a slave in normal time (we know of the felt cap of the freedmen, but for the slaves...)

damn ! I know of a few pharaos turning inside their tombs !

Make sure to visit places like the little known site of the Amphiaireon of Oropos... such a delightfull place ! Also please do take some pictures of the 4th century attic fortress for I have not been able to visit those during my last trip (i had also been unable to visit eleusis). And if you take a week end off for a boat trip to some greek city of the turkish coast please also share, especially if it's hot and sunny have a good trip !

Crossbows were known for military use by the Roman if we believe those who, like Goldsworthy, think that the "balistarii" fighting for Julian II the apostate were in fact using crossbows. We also have texts saying that crossbows were in use for hunting. Thus if anything it was a loss of the technology in the eastern part of the roman empire, but had it gone there in the first place ? Because, as far as I know, all the mentions of this weapon in the roman period came from the west.

Here in Belgium it is supposed to get out on December 12 2009 CORRECTION : now announced to come out on January 6

I've read it about a month ago (time flows so fast...) and I must say that I did not really enjoy it. We cover a lustrum (5 year period) going from the beginning of Cicero's consulate to his exile. Why did I not enjoy it ? Numerous reasons, first among them the fact that I think the same period is better sketched by C. McCullough's "Masters of Rome" books, which are richer, more detailed and a bit more correct on the factual side of things. One example of such "mistakes" are the marriage clothes' colours as described in the novel. Also Harris use a lot of expressions which are clearly anachronistic and, to me, detrimental to the overall feeling of "being" in the ancient time. So really not one of my favourite Harris' book.

Flemish/Dutch is not mandatory in all of Belgium : it is in Flanders and in Brussels but in Wallonia you may have German or English take it's place, with Flemish/Dutch possibly going as third langage for those who have such an option. But a Belgian student in Eupen (former german land taken in 1918 as war reparations) will study german as first language, french as second language and english as third for exemple, with maybe spanish or italian as fourth language (if the option exist) or ancient languages (latin and, possibly ancient greek) in lieu of the fourth modern language. To get back on topic, I don't really have any studies plans for the new year since I've just bought a new appartement (I'm signing the last papers on december the 15th) and that will take a lot of my time. Also I might change job, and this does also contribute to make my future unplanable. Yet I've got so many books in my library that I still have to read that I've got an idea of the main topics I might work upon : ancient greek land warfare, especially command and logistics; ancient greek naval warfare; ancient roman land warfare, especially in what relates to demography in the republican era; late empire religious dynamics, especially (but not only) around the time of Julian II the philosopher; roman rural daily life; greek women's condition; athenian political institutions; hellenistic history. A tall order, with a lot of different topics, and I'm not sure I'll finish them all by the end of 2010, especially with my novels' reading rate, but it'll be attempted

Hi everyone, I come back to this thread because I recently read that Google had built a new function into it's Picasa system, in this case multi-users albums. We could maybe use this to launch ourselves in the global UNRV ancient remains pictures project we discussed over the summer ? Also I've discovered a program that could help us achieve our goals by providing both the completeness of features we need (categories as well as albums for example) and can be integrated with IP.Board (modules already exist) so it would gently go into the UNRV appearance. So are they still any peoples interested ?

The bronze weapon also surprised me at first, but then I re-read the information available and it looks like the place is from time to time dug out by the wind and then covered back, so it could be that the sand grains borne by the wind did indeed damage the tools. As for the way the remains are found, I'm not sure we can give that much precise meaning to "mass burial" as used in the articles. But the fact that Herodotus could speak of a storm that destroyed the army might mean enough peoples survived to tell the story, so it could be that some kind of rescue expedition found bodies and buried them.

Indeed we don't know yet how many peoples are in this mass grave, and their might very well be more than one lost troop in the history of the area. Still I don't think they were that many persian among thoses and the chances are good that this is the lost army. Maybe not all 50k of them, if they ever were so many, but a significant part of them. What information has been given on the web is not enough to conclude with any certainty that this lot of corpses are persians but the fact that theses finds are in fact some years old means that the few thing they did find have probably been well analysed so their must be some confidence in the identification... still you're right to be cautious.

The news is indeed awe inspiring. This is really what I'd call the past coming back to life and should this news be confirmed in the following weeks then we'd have a great discovery ! Now I can only wonder what awaits an archeological team under the sand for if they are that many men under the sand we could be looking at the biggest ancient weapons trove in history, even if persian forces were more lightly armored than most mediterannean forces and a lot of the troops must have been light infantry...

Well Colonia Claudia Ara Agripina (K