Primus Pilus

SHHHHH, I added them without running it by my fellow triumvirs first. Beware the Ides!

Cato sent me a vastly enhanced list of Republican Statesmen. Thanks Cato!

My wife is a member of the Paperbackswap and CD Swap sites. She's been exchanging books for some time and it's all completely free (except postage). (the CD site just went public and I assume a DVD site will be coming soon). Apparantly you have to create a wish list, and if someone has the book, they will send it to you., provided you have enough points. You earn points by offering up books to swap and sending it to others who have it on their own wish lists. I haven't really browsed it much because I prefer to keep my books in my personal library, but it may be something of great benefit to some. I'm not sure how many history related books are available, but who knows.

Campaigns against the Nubians were attempted in the reign of Augustus by Cornelius Gallus and Gaius Petronius. The Gallus campaign was ill fated while Petronius sacked Napata. Either way, it was a logistical nightmare to hold and as Favonius suggested earlier, there really was no apparant good reason to do so.

I'm sorry everyone... but what would a discussion of rapture be without an appropriately bad musical interlude? Blondie--Rapture

Obviously Caesar was only running up the body count in Gaul for the sake of his triumph. He killed and enslaved on a scale was completely unnecessary for tactical reasons, and even by Roman standards, his carnage was unprecedented. So, I'd say in some sense the Empire does owe its very existence to a parade of vanity. Well it was also an attempt to prevent granting triumphs for every Consul and Praetor from requesting a triumph for every minor victory. 5,000 deaths as a factor may be a rather morbid detail, but at least its understandable. While I am not denying that some generals may have been a bit more brutal than they might have been without this requirement, Caesar hardly qualifies as a good example since he killed some 200 times as many as were required.

Pretty much everything else that is or isn't covered by the dmoz directory. http://www.teacheroz.com/romans.htm

Caesar IV will probably be the dominant game of the citybuilding types. I believe its due to be released next month. There was also a CivCity Rome slated for release... not sure if its available yet or not.

Plutarch sums it up rather concisely, though he doesn't necessarily suggest that Crassus actually started any fires. Plutarch Life of Crassus From Chapter 2

While there are so many compelling statements within, I think I find this the most interesting.. The entire document sets up the rationale for instituting proscriptions, but this brief statement gives a convenient excuse for those who may be sitting on the fence. I translate it essentially as... "Look everyone, even if we wanted to try and negotiate through peaceful, diplomatic means, the army isn't going to have it. Better let them have this bit of vengeance or who knows what insanity may be unleashed, on friend, foe and neutral bystander alike!" Whether right or wrong, just or not, everyone from major political players to common citizen to slaves can easily understand the implications. Truly an excellent use of threat to create general conformity.

Sorry but when I googled "renacotrs" there were no results. However, here's a rather lengthy list of reenactment groups that may or may not have photos.

Our own gallery guru Pertinax has a large collection of photos in his re-enactment gallery. I'm not sure how how many (if any) are detailed close combat, but hopefully something is useful.

Absolutely in the imperial era, and legions originally recruited in Italia (as an example) could quite possibly also replace some Italian retirees with locally recruited troops. With that in mind, the makeup would definately change over time. Clearly there is no question that a legion serving in Judaea at this time was probably a diverse group of possible languages and cultures. They would most likely learn some basic communication skills from the people they were in contact with. However, I contend that if the bulk of the main body speaks a single main language, then new recruits would already know, or learn that language in order to communicate with the larger group. While its quite possible that locally recruited (Judaea or other eastern provinces) replacements knew of, or were aware of Aramaic or any other language, its most likely that they would try to conform to the most common denominator. I can't imagine a centurion would be very happy if every time he was giving commands in Latin, the Aramaic speaking recruits looked around and shrugged their shoulders. On the other hand, a centurion who spoke Greek (a replacement in this case) but had an overwhelming force of original Latin speakers would probably attempt to conform. It's also quite possible that a legion originally recruited in Italia or Gallia (X Fretensis for instance) but served in Syria and Judaea for the better part of at least 3 centuries probably would've dropped the Latin at some point as more and more local languages came to penetrate the ranks. At AD 30 though, I am sticking by the notion that Latin was still dominant.

I don't know Gibson's motivations, nor do I care. Regardless I've pointed out several times in this thread that Roman legionaries in Judaea in the early 1st century AD were largely from Italia and Cisalpine Gaul. If it was legionaries and not auxilia that beat Jesus (as depicted in the film) than it is quite appropriate that they would be depicted speaking Latin. Whether there are alterior motives or not, the speaking of Latin by mostly Italian and Gallic legionaries makes perfect sense.

I'm under the impression that he is just having the same domain renewal issues that we experienced earlier in the year. Will probably just take a few days to get straightened out.

Despite all the other completely unrelated stuff being spewed about (look guys I don't care if you hate Bush... I don't like him either), nobody has yet to offer me a semblence of a legitimate reason for why the British intelligence would deliberately invent this stuff and how it would help anyone in the administration of the United States.

I don't care who told who, or when, as long as they were arrested prior to killing people, I'm all for it. However, I personally have a much higher opinion of British sovereignty. For what purpose and for how long... a few days? What does this accomplish? Nothing. Bush is not running again and he does not need a temporary popularity boost. And quite frankly, based on much of his behavior, it seems very doubtful that the guy is very worried about his lasting popular legacy. The guy may be a jackass on many issues, but one must admit he is rather steadfast even in the face of heavy criticism. He hardly displays the actions of someone trying to be popular. The revelation of this plot is even far too early to seriously impact US mid term elections. In fact, it's so early the opposition party has plenty of opportunity to spin the entire incident against whomever they wish (much to the willing glee of the leftist media) before the voting even takes place. I'm sure the Republican powers that be are partying in the streets thanks to this 3 to 4 day respite from continuous media scrutiny. [edit] Seems a good time to send this puppy to the arena :boxing:

Whatever political conditions may or may not exist... many seem to be missing the fact that Islamic radicals have a fairly long standing tradition of trying to kill westerners. The list includes the July 05 murder of civilians in the London subway system. This was a British intelligence victory and seemingly had little or nothing to do with US involvement. There are no major elections in the UK in the near future (at least that I am aware of) and I see no reason why British intelligence agents would care in the slightest about the US mid term elections which will have miniscule if any effect on Britain. Assuming that the government of the UK (and all the regular agents who are not dependent on political conditions to keep their jobs) would help invent an elaborate plot to kill Americans in order to somehow benefit their own position doesn't make any sense. I understand that people dislike Bush, Cheney and the current US administration. While we obviously shouldn't be blind followers of some of the idiocy that comes out of that camp (nor should we the left either), we shouldn't be so jaded that we forget that there are real people who are quite willing to kill in the name of religion and plots large and small are probably being hatched quite regularly.

Pullarius Is the pullarius a title for an augur who is keeping the chickians, or is a pullarius an altogeather different position outside the augur college? I believe he is the keeper of the sacred chickens which are used by the augurs, but I don't think the pullarius himself was the augur.

Pullarius

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Thank you Scotland Yard.

Back in the weapons page. Thanks.. fixed. [EDIT] I've removed those posts (including my own) that were not directly related to correcting errors (spelling, grammar, or points of factual contention) in the static history pages of the site.

The Praetorians were not armed inside the city and were in fact generally in civilian dress. There were also urban cohorts and vigiles which could act as law enforcement within the city walls, but generally speaking the law was enforced in more traditional manners involving citizen intervention. Of course Lictors still existed in the imperial period for magistrates and were still a symbol of a magistrates ability to enforce the law.

Trust me, I am hardly shouting my position from the mountaintop on this particular issue. My contention in support of William is simply his inclusionary system of law and feudalism that broke down many factional allegiances and separations. Perhaps this would've developed anyway, and William receives too much credit (and yes I have seen this argument made effectively in other times and places), but I can't help but wonder how the continued influence of foreign factions would've played out without the invasion.