Primus Pilus

Deepeeka is quite popular even if they sometimes get knocked for quality. (Depends on who you ask) But I know their stuff is used rather frequently in the re-enacting world and is widely available through various distributors world-wide.

Thanks LW! Btw, Viggen tells me there are some other options that may be available like personal blogs that are fully integrated with the forum, etc. However, the upgrade itself is a little expensive, so we'll see which options make sense and how popular they may be etc. He'll explain some more over the weekend.

Due to recent investigation regarding the use of the calendar feature on the site, we discovered there were other options available by upgrading our forum software. On top of security measures and various support resources that can come in handy, the new version will have features such as a community blog and picture gallery available to our members, while providing some additional things such as the previously mentioned calendar. This should all be taking place fairly soon, and we may experience some limited down time as a result, but we expect that this will only be a short-lived inconvenience. We also don't expect to lose any previous topics or posts and the basic forum structure should remain intact. We hope everyone likes it

In order to encourage more community contributions to our quickly growing site, we've come up with an idea that will hopefully inspire some new articles. (I have stumbled across major writers block and can only seem to put together a little bit here and there, lately. Hopefully that changes as summer fades away ) Regardless, we'd like to offer random recently published books (sometimes fiction, sometimes non) to community members, courtesy of unrv, to review and submit as new articles on the site. We'd like to do this monthly (perhaps more depending on the response), and give as many who are interested a chance at a book freebie. However, to be fair, we want to start by limiting it to those who have already submitted reviews or other articles. If they decline of course, we'll open it up to anyone who is interested, and will also do so once they all get an opportunity (provided they want to do it). Obviously people have difficult schedules and this is not intended as a homework assignment, but as a way to say thank you for your support, while giving us a little bonus in return. We'd appreciate any feedback on this idea from anyone, not just those folks mentioned... and we would like to get started right away. For those of you who aren't mentioned by name... If you'd like to have an early shot at an occasional free book, just submit a review of a Roman related book you've read and we'll happily add you to those that are already in 'the club'

Viggen, who does our newsletter... was without internet access for a couple of months. Hopefully there will be one in the not too distant future.

You could just quote yourself and re-add the relevant information, rather than try to make the forum look stupid.

I'll quote one line to tell you why the critics don't like it... The very thing that makes me excited to watch this...a recreation of some of the most significant events in human history... and the critics would prefer it be more fictional.

Ahh yes... the Longest Day... a wonderful realistic film with multiple perspectives.

My movie list changes all the time, making it impossible for me to stick to a top 10 list.. However, I will list some favorites by genre in no particular order. Science Fiction/Fantasy Lord of the Rings trilogy Star Wars Trilogy (Episode IV - VI) Westerns Open Range (triumphant return of the western to the big screen) Good the Bad and the Ugly (hey its a classic and its Clint) War Saving Private Ryan (the opening and closing scenes are powerful enough to carry a sometimes weak story) Braveheart (This movie was done before Gibson went crazy making one bad epic after another) Drama Schindler's List (I'm not a big fan of 'holocaust' reminders, but this film is incredible, largely thanks to Neeson and Kingsley's performances) Dances with Wolves (yes its been on TV a million times over the years, but I can still watch this beautifully done epic) Cold Mountain (when my wife wanted to see this I thought, 'Great an extra long chick flick', but thats really not the case. Yes its a love story, but there was alot more in it) Action/Adventure Pirates of the Caribbean (just plain swashbuckling fun... I hate Johnny Depp but he is brilliant) Indiana Jones (another pure fun movie with Harrison Ford, I pretty much like all of his movies) Horror/thriller/what have you Exorcist (the scariest movie ever... and that's coming from an atheist =P) Others (a bit slow, but I thought the concept was unique) Sixth Sense (put that M. Night dude on the movie making map so to speak)

I didn't go into great detail regarding the battle but attempted to give a good overview surrounding the politics of the situation. Marius, the Cimbri and the Teutones

Agreed, it has the looks of being the top of a pillar or a ledge... perhaps a mantle. Though this is of course complete uneducated and idle speculation.

Caesar is a descriptive name of sorts, breaking off that family line from the rest of the Julii clan. While still related to the greater Julii family, Caesar just offers more information. In the Republic children were generally named from the father's side of the family. A first born son was named after the father directly, while successive sons would take a name based on the time of day they were born (Lucius = light or morning), the order of their birth Secundus (second), the month of birth Septimius (September), or for other circumstances such as Posthumus (born after the death of the father). for example... Gaius Julius Caesar (the father of the dictator) had a son, also Gaius Julius Caesar and a daughter Julia (after the clan name) Caesarensis (to specify the branch) The dictators daughter (with the mother Cornelia of the Cornelius gens from the Cinna branch) had no naming relation to her mother at all. This daughter was named Julia Caesarensis as well. To avoid confusion (since many women in a close family line could often have all the same names) the Romans adopted the Senior/Junior ideology. They used Major and Minor (Elder and Younger) to differentiate. A bit later, the confusion seems to have been to must and the rules got a bit more relaxed regarding daughters. Just take a look at the family tree of the Julio-Claudians to see some examples. Many of the girls are named after ancestors rather than directly after their own fathers. A couple of good sites: http://www.ambrosii.com/names.html http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/roman_names.html

My view largely summed up in a series of 4 short articles Christianity History

Exploratores acted as military scouts while Speculatores provided other espionage related functions in a less military capacity. There were also the Frumentarii, the Agentes in Rebus. An excellent article on Roman Espionage The Arcani are attested to only once in a short notation by Ammianus Marcellinus and they acted as foreign spies. He indicates that they were in existence under Constans but that they had been 'established in early times'. By the late 4th century Theodosius) they seem to have become unreliable and were disbanded.

No worries Gajus... we have members here from all over the world. We try not to attack anyone for small English problems

I'm afraid I can't think of any other fictional sources including Marcus Aurelius in any prominent role. Surprising considering his eventful reign really. He appears as a child in this story of Hadrian... Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar Island of Ghosts, by Gillian Bradshaw (involving moving Sarmatian units to Britian) is set during his reign, but I can't recall MA in any major role. (I haven't read it in years, but I remember it being an excellent read, at any rate) I'm sure I'm missing something but my memory is failing me

LOL

First off... what type of stone is it. It has the appearance of marble but its definately hard to tell in a photograph?

This may sound odd... but except for the irrational megalomaniacal behavior regarding the games and such things as renaming the months, the city of Rome, etc. Commodus wasn't such a bad guy. There was almost universal peace after decades of war under his father along with Lucius Verus and their predecessors , the legions were mostly happy, the people were relatively at peace, the plague had passed, etc. He probably purged the treasury but was able to replenish by confiscating it from various senators (his hand was more cruel than some before him, but not much different really) Assuredly he denigrated the position of 'Princeps' but other than that he had 12 years of relatively stable reign. That's more than can be said of many others. Unfortunately, he left the empire without a viable candidate for heir. (Yes I am being somewhat facetious here, but Rome recovered from the craziness of Caligula, the eccentricities of Nero and the so-called terror of Domitian, why does poor old Commodus take the heat?)

To sum it up if you don't want to read the whole thing... I don't believe that Tiberius had Germanicus killed and there is no real evidence to support it.

A rather lengthy discussion regarding this very issue Death of Germanicus (Note: the thread got little heated and it was cleaned up a bit)

More info on the Firefox theme... From the NY Times As of today, Tuesday 8/16/05, its still not available for download and I did not see any banner ads on the NYT web site. I didn't go to Salon.com for personal reasons =P.

Yes, absolutely, I didn't even consider the possibility, but that make perfect sense. I am truly encouraged by what I've seen so far... and the good news (assuming everything goes well) is that HBO has this clearly labelled as season 1. Providing there is some success, we should be looking at a continuing series.

Yes I've seen 'The making of' and for the most part I was quite impressed. There are a few details that seemed strange (Caesar's face painted red) but I don't know the context of what they were trying to show. For the most part I am quite looking forward to this. The description of the set and costuming alone is worth the price of admission

I also suspect some 'hoaxing' because keeping it secret is ridiculous... still some of the other finds are interesting nonetheless.