Primus Pilus

With good reason. Ebay is wonderful for many people in many different venues, but it can also be rather problematic in certain fields. The 'regulars' seem to do a decent job of policing such things, but they can't all be stopped. I hope that helps you out at least a bit.

This is surely going to cause me some trouble at some point I think

Thanks to the fun Nepilla is providing... I've added her posts here to the post count and freed her from servility.

For the average collector, its all about trusting a reputable dealer. How you determine the criteria for that is up to you, but there are plenty out there. The best way to get started is to find a brick and mortar shop in your area... walk in, browse around and just talk to the guys to get a feel for everything. (Preferably when the shop isn't busy of course). If you prefer net shopping, try to avoid ebay when you start. There are many reputable dealers on ebay but you might not know who they are for sometime. I personally recommend www.vcoins.com which is a collection of many dealers selling their wares in one huge online catalog. There are ways to have coins authenticated, but it sometimes can be more expensive than the coin itself However, here is a list of professional condition graders and authenticators... http://rg.ancients.info/guide/slabs.html Scroll to the very bottom for ancient coin specific groups. David Sears' service... a prominent numismatic expert and author of many books on the subject, charges $35 for standard service, but it is not an actual guarantee of authenticity in his case.

I am dark and forboding! Beware Horhotep as he listens to the crushing sounds of NILE as he drives home from work today!

Lol thanks. Does that mean I am now officially a member of the anti-Caesarian faction? Now I am much more aptly characterized with angst and dread.

Just a bit of irony there I suppose.

Welcome to the board Nepilla... In order to encourage in depth discussion of the subject matter of the site, some time ago we decided to restrict post count increases to the 'historical' part of the forum. I'm not sure if its had any effect or not, but it certainly hasn't stifled posting in our 'off-topic' areas. The good thing is... it only takes 10 posts to be liberated as a Plebe. Maybe its time to revisit this policy... maybe not.

I ask people to scramble their names for their personal privacy. But since you've already made your name public in your sig, it really doesn't matter. lol. Well, maybe someday I'll do historical Goth (with a capital "G") names. For now, I'll stick to the subcultural goth (distinguished by the lower-case "g"). Do you have a middle name that you can also give me to work with? -- Nepilla Christopher Eugene Heaton (Yes, Eugene... ) What the hell, give me a good Goth name to instill fear in the Romans. Imagine if rather than Theoderic, it was actually "Dark Paragon, Lord of Blackness" who maintained civilization in the 'post' Roman west.

Just out of curiousity... is there a reason the names have to be scrambled? My name is in my sig if you feel like doing it. While you're at it, I'd like a Goth name too, something like Fritigern would be good. (Oh wait, you didn't mean actual historical Goths )

It's not at the moment, unless Viggen has been putting oompa loompas to work without my knowledge.

its been sent via private message.

This is usually not my cup of tea because I prefer not to come across as a defender of Caesar, but this is as much pure speculation as the comments which you criticized me for earlier. The fact is we know that Cato wished to prosecute Caesar. Whether or not Caesar, with his various oratorial and political skills coupled with his popularity, would've been enough to secure a viable future is unknown. I lean towards agreement with your assessment of how it would've played out but there's no way for us to know for sure (nor Caesar for that matter).

Agreed, he is generally a buffoon who certainly doesn't help on the public relations front... but by the same token the Carterian attitude of appeasement didn't help anything either. Is there a viable candidate who understands the middle ground on this? (ie willing to fight the enemy while keeping the rhetoric to a minimum) Probably not considering our vastly polarized political situation. I wonder, does a moderate Republican like McCain appeal to the democrats at all? As I said, since I didn't watch any of it, it's hard for me to comment on it. But personally I blame the sons of bitches that did it, so I am generally equally irritated by the political finger pointing.

No worries Miguel... nothing wrong with making suggestions whether everyone agrees or not. That's what the forum is here for.

Agreed, other than the Carthaginians using Spartan mercenaries, I'm not stumbling across anything specific regarding Roman auxilia either. I'm actually going to email the author of that site and ask him if he knows the specific source for his claim. (Hey why not, I get the same kind of emails from people all the time ) [edit] nevermind, I can't find an email address.

I'll give G-O this... he is clearly the champion user of the emoticon. I'm not quite sure how the afro'd smiley fits into the conversation though. lol.

I made it up to make my article seem tidier. I actually used a variety of websites which discussed Hollywood's inaccuracies. Very nice article WW. I'm not completely sure I agree with the premise that spectacle will always beat accuracy, though. I only say this because there have been so few historical films that we might call accurate or at least semi-accurate, its hard to know if audiences would like them (provided there is some spectacle included of course ). For instance, Alexander could've maintained its reasonably accurate tone while removing some of the boring drivel and replacing it with some of the suggestions you make in the article. Though I do think that some of the WWII epics (some more accurate than others) did quite well at the box office. I hope you received a good mark for it. The presentation is excellent!

Looks like Caesar IV was just released on Sept. 9... for North America anyway. I'm making the assumption based on the series' history that this would probably be the one to get among the Rome city building games.

I particularly like the city scene recreations... helps those of us who are imaginatively challenged. I could've sworn you had many more pictures on your old site, unless I am confusing it with another?

My first thought was a sihouette of a Dr. Seuss character. Seriously. Didn't take too long to realize my error though

Same here. I understand that in battle some members of the line may have been put in a position where they were forced to fight free style. If the Romans were pursuing a fleeing enemy or if the Romans were being routed, it would be completely understandable, but the disengagement from the line happened immediately in the movie. I assume this was for dramatic effect. I can't quite understand why Hollywood doesn't see that watching a unform battle line march on an enemy and engage it as a cohesive unit would be compelling on its own. 'Rome' portrayed it quite well in a much smaller scale. Imagine how impressive the cohesiveness of the Roman legion would've appeared if the opening scene of the series had been as large scale as the opening scene of Gladiator.

It would have interfered with the Legatus' individual cavalry charge through dense forest so he could singlehandedly engage the Germanics in some exciting free style action?

Thankfully... I do remember getting a bit heated in the exchanges.

The Great Wall that we are familiar with today... stone walls with battlements etc., was built between the 14th and 17th centuries and really isn't comparable to the ancient "wonders of the world". There is also much debate about the wall being visible from space. I won't go into all the details here, but wikipedia provides a good introduction. I guess I am more familiar with Chinese history than you. The Great Wall was built in the Qin Dynasty (around 3th century BC). The later parts of the wall was built in 14th century in Ming Dynasty. It was built because there were battles between states so Qin Shi Huangdi built it in order to defend his state from the attack of the others. Is it ancient enough? Yes I am well aware of the wall's history. What I am suggesting is that the original wall, which is no longer visibile (it was essentially a large earthwork rampart), was not nearly as impressive as its more modern counterpart. I hardly find a rammed earth barrier to be equivelant (no matter how long and effective it may have been) to the other 'wonders' in cultural grandness and/or engineering achievement.