Gladius Hispaniensis

Ave It's a little hard to understand why the Romans would have wanted to create a cult with an anthropomorphic deity and such a cavalier attitude towards Mosaic dietary and circumcision laws in order to pacify Jews. I think the modern mind still has a hard time comprehending the fact that the fundamentals of Pauline Christianity are totally anathema to traditional Judaic thought. The idea is so laughable I wont even bother examining the "evidence". It would have made more sense to say that the Romans conspired to create the school at Yamneh and fostered the evolution of modern Rabbinical Judaism, which is far more peaceful and far less Templecentric and apocalyptic than the religion practised by the Zealots. As in most conspiracy theories, we are treading on shaky ground here.

The run-up to the First World War, following Ferdinand

Oh. Oops. I see you've been corrected already. I was answering the post earlier straight from my email, which I opened after a long time. Anyway "Revisionism" is nowadays often just a label used to do academic hatchet-jobs on people, just like "anti-Semite" or "Communist"(that was back in the fifties). The word is misused so much that people often fail to realize that it does not necessarily have to have a negative connotation. There is nothing wrong with revising orthodox or conventional concepts in history, especially when new data emerges that was not available before. It is very much a part and parcel of historiography. The problem arises when people use historical distortion in order to suit their own peculiar agenda. At any rate I don't think WWII was historically unnecessary but I fervently believe WWI was.

Good show Tobias! It's good to know some of us still stand up for and understand honor, duty, courage, and a willingness to risk all for a noble cause and a national purpose. Delete all except "noble cause". What was so noble about the Great War? I think it was one of the most unnecessary and gratuitously destructive wars ever fought by foolish mankind.

IIRC the whole Gallipoli expedition had as an objective not just the defeat of Turkey but also the twin objectives of forcing a way through the Balkans and threatening Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thereby endangering the entire German left flank. It was a classic specimen of what Liddell Hart would have called the "Indirect Approach" and the soundness of the strategy was proved a few years later by a French expeditionary force out of Salonika that defeated the Bulgarians and threatened the left flank of Ludendorff's great offensive in the west. There are some historians who think that this was one of the decisive factors that brought about the collapse of the Kaiser's final offensive on the Western Front. The execution of the Gallipoli campaign was a dismal failure however and, as Asclepiades pointed out, an arrogant underestimation of the enemy played a part, along with poor choice of terrain and miserable failure on the part of Allied intelligence in knowing the disposition of the Turkish defences. I cannot help adding that the Turks fought magnificently and their fighting prowess was attested to by the men that fought there. Some French officers that were veterans of the Western Front stated that one Turk was equal to two Germans. This may of course have been nothing but a reflection of their anti-German bias but nevertheless it is a good indicator of the high esteem in which Turkish soldiers were held by their foe.

Why is that? I never knew the Carthaginians walked around with turbans wrapped around their heads.

There are other things problematic about that movie. There were no Waffen SS troops on Omaha Beach, nor were there any panzers there on the 6th of June 1944. The British and Canadian sectors are virtually ignored. And these are just some things I can remember.

Well done.

One has to be fair and mention that the rabbinic literature also portray the zealots in a negative way. That is hardly surprising. Rabbinical Judaic literature survived, and could only survive in a milieu that was violently anti-Jewish, primarily because of its dissociation with the Messianic, Apocalyptic Judaism that had brought catastrophe to the Holy Land twice in a century. That is precisely the reason why Pauline Christianity also survived. It would have been unwise of the later sages and Rabbis to glorify the Zealots in a post-Hadrian era. So I think the Rabbinic literature you're talking about also needs to be ingested with a grain of salt.

Yes. But to be perfectly fair to the Jewish-Roman Quisling, he does mention the abuses committed by the likes of Pilate and Felix and does not make excuses for them.

I agree. It was probably a whole series linked circumstances rather than a specific event. One has to really study the careers of the Roman procurators in Judea to feel sympathy for the rebels - in my case that wasn't too hard.

Look forward to reading that one, Sonic. Thanks for your efforts.

Just started Karen Armstrong's "Holy War". Very interesting so far. Explores the impact of the Crusades on modern-day Middle Eastern politics.

I'm assuming the setting for that would have been the island of Malta?

Ave The competitive sports of the ancient Romans and Hellenes have been made known to us through both historiography and the popular media, but what about individual strength and fitness? Did men in the Empire use contraptions such as dumbbells for strengthening the frame or did they rely more on calisthenics? We know that some men were fabulously strong, e.g., the auxiliary cavalryman in Titus' army that picked a Jewish rebel by the ankles with one hand and bodily carried him over to his admiring general. There was even a legionary of Egyptian descent known as Rufus that did the same thing with another Jewish rebel leader during the Judaic Wars. Another famous example is a brother of Alaric who was said to have broken horse-shoes with his bare hands. How did men get so strong back then? Can anyone post any links? Thanks in advance.

Of course that depends on which "followers" you're talking about. The people that knew him personally and followed his teachings were part of what historians have called the Jerusalem Church. The name is misleading to begin with because nothing these people preached or practiced deviated in any substantial way from mainstream Judaism of the time. They followed the dietary laws of Moses, kept the Sabbath, circumcised their children, worshiped in the Temple (which is an indication they did not worship Jesus himself), and drew upon Jesus' immediate family for their leadership. The head of the Jerusalem Church after Jesus was his brother James the Just. This group did not survive the upheaval of the '60s and '70s but were hunted down and practically exterminated, although there is evidence some possible survivors may have fled further east. On the other hand the following of Paul survived because of its apolitical nature and its anthropomorphic concept of a Divine Saviour which did not differ in content from the pagan milieu in which it found fruit.

Ave Here's the latest from the Archeological world: http://technology.sympatico.msn.ca/news/co...mp;pagenumber=1

Isaac Asimov is one of the earliest modern writers to mention this in his "Book of Facts" but Adrian Goldsworthy strenuously derided this as a myth arising from a misunderstanding of an early Latin source (I forget which one).

Salve There was an interesting book called "The Jesus Puzzle" that came out a while back that argues along the lines of Caldrail and Northern Neill regarding lack of contemporary documentary evidence for the life of Jesus but I think we are forgetting that Jesus's ministry only lasted three years in a rather remote province of the empire. Both his career and crucifixion (according to the gospel story) would have had far too little impact on the contemporary world to merit any type of mention by prominent writers of the time.

I thought we Rome-lovers believed in unconditional surrender.

Well, my aunt wasn't they proselytizing type (thank goodness) but I know that Christian missionaries evangelize in Muslim countries all the time. I know because I've met them. They are active from Algeria to Indonesia. I even remember reading an article in Mother Jones about some Evangelical college in the southern part of the U.S that specializes in churning out missionaries for the Muslim world. Some Muslim countries have official laws against proselytizing but the authorities often wink at such activities. The only place that I know of where the ban is rigorously enforced is Saudi. As for King Abdullah's wife, how do you know her conversion was not willing? FYI the late Yasser Arafat's wife is a Christian, as is Hannan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian parliament. You may not be able to visualize a Jewish P.M but there is a Jewish M.P in Iran, Ebrahim and Houda Nonoo are both Jewish M.Ps in Bahrain, Abraham Serfaty was a member of Morocco's Finance Ministry in the '60s, Andre Azoulay is a senior advisor to Morocco's King Hassan and Joseph Bismuth is Tunisian Jewish senator.

Quid? Quomodo?

Just out of curiosity, why do you consider Stilicho's army to have been better than Julian's?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. I also saw hundreds of cedar trees festooned with Christmas lighting and I have also heard Christmas carols openly over the radio there, just as in Western countries. No Stars of David because there is hardly any Jewish presence there. Plenty of Christians though, all practising openly. There are also Christian officers in the Royal Jordanian Army, some of whom were friends with my Dad, just as there were Christians in Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army. My aunt, who was an Evangelical Christian, lived many years in the Middle East and said she was never harassed for her faith, which she made no attempt to hide. I don't think anyone here is claiming that Spanish is an Arabic tongue.