Maty

"The problem the infantry have is that besides the frightening aspect of facing oncoming horses (and I can confirm personally, it can be seriously hair-raising), the constant need to raise a shield high to defend themselves is tiring, thus we can see a major advantage of being on a horse provided the infantry is on the defensive and not sticking spears at them. Add to that the problems of secure footing on a field, possibly muddy or slippery with blood, strewn with discarded articles and bodies. The cavalry have a real possibility of breaking into a formation and causing havoc if the infantry don't stay firm." While not disagreeing with any of the above, I'd like to point to the experience of Hortensius at the battle of Charonea, when his cohorts tried to charge a Pontic cavalry unit in the flank. Sadly they had underestimated the discipline of the Pontics who wheeled and counter-charged. What appears to have happened is that the Romans, though not formed into a coherent formation, still had the sense to stop in mid-charge and form small, tight spiky groups which the Pontic cavalry were unable to penetrate. The cavalry milled among them for a while, and eventually found more urgent business to occupy them and departed before anyone got hurt. The caveat is that these were experienced Roman legionaries in mid-season form. Had the Pontics hit almost anyone else in the same circumstances it would probably have been a massacre. As a further aside, I'm told by re-enactors that if you have a greave, you can rest the bottom of your shield comfortably on that, and with a large enough shield, still crouch behind it at need.

There's also the book by Claudius mentioned here - (Life by Suetonius 41) 'Besides this he invented three new letters and added them to the alphabet, maintaining that they were greatly needed; he published a book on their theory when he was still in private life, and when he became emperor had no difficulty in bringing about their general use. These characters may still be seen in numerous books, in the daily gazette, and in inscriptions on public buildings.' This book of his may have been the original source. We see from the rest of the quote that the letters lasted until the time that Suetonius was writing, so well beyond the reign of Nero.

An excellent link! By the way, concerning your last post, have you found anyone to help you/take over your site one day? I would very much not like to see it go down, I use it more or less daily. It's the same for me. I don't know where I'd be without it! Ian Know exactly what you mean - my IP number was on the site's banned list for some reason. (I dun nuffink, I swear guv'nor) I never realized how often I use that site until I couldn't. Fortunately some grovelling to the site techs got me restored.Do you know how hard it is to search a book copy of a text? Indexes don't hack it these days.

An interesting and informative discussion this. However, I'm not sure how easy it is to separate the religious and political intentions of the Macabees. For a start, if you believe that your state has been divinely decreed, you can be both a religious and a nationalist extremist without any conflict between the two viewpoints. I'd suspect that the Macabees and their supporters included both secular and religious extremists, and which motivation dominated depended on the individuals in each case. Anyhow, Antiochus managed to offend both the religious and secular factions, so arguing which group took umbrage first excludes the possibility that the two were sometimes in fact, one. Also, as I recall, was not the big revolt of the 60s sparked by Greeks in Judaea ostentatiously celebrating an imperial ruling in their favour about the use of a synagogue? (Which again united nationalists and religious types, insofar as they were ever divided.)

IIRC that happened when Hannibal's army appeared outside Rome's walls, or possibly after Cannae. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please Actually I think this was 114 BC - the Romans being somewhat exercised at the time by the hordes of Cimbri and Teutones who had appeared in the north. Thenabouts they also sacrificed a vestal virgin or three on a charge of infidelity. The burial was in the forum boariarum BTW

One problem here is you're based on a geographical misconception (keep reading). Simply put, the main problem here is that nobody told it so to most Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Theodosius, which systematically stubbornly placed more soldiers in the East most of the time; amazingly enough, the whole empire survived for five centuries. As Asia Minor was almost never a border zone, that was essentially irrelevant; in any case, Parthians, Sassanides and Arabs found all their way through Anatolia when they required so. Not sure where to start with this... But a couple of observations. firstly, the distribution of armies was a much to do with the internal political situation as the external threat. More so, if you accept the argument in e.g. Hughes' Stilicho and Goldsworthy's Fall of the West. Secondly, Asia minor is important as it was a relatively stable heartland, and significant precisely because it did not have barbarian armies rampaging through its farmlands and infrastructure. Thirdly, with Macedonia, just because you can go one way, it does not mean you can go the other. It's like saying because you can easily leave a fortress others can as easily walk in. Think secured mountain passes. Finally, the point of the desert is not that its a barrier to an army but to a supply chain. The Persian/Parthian attacks were basically huge raids, because they lacked Roman logistical skill to support an army across these distances. And that the Danube is in the eastern empire is largely irrelevant. Because Constantinople sits like a cork in a bottle guarding the eastern empire, invaders crossing the Danube tended to go west. As in deed did the Goths once they had had a look at Constantinople. I'll address the other issues later I hope, but meanwhile let's not assume it's all based on misconceptions, eh?

Maty, what is your opinion on the author's treatment of the title character? I'm planning to get this book for Christmas, and will be able to comment on it further then - even a review should you wish. I have written to the author congratulating her on the publication, as she was kind enough to get in touch with me a few months ago. So far I've only read the review, and this has raised a few questions I'd like to follow up. I'm sure we will disagree on some issues - in fact I do hope that we do, as there wouldn't be much to talk about otherwise. So watch this space!

I'm inclining to the difference coming down to geography. Simply put, you needed a much larger army to defend the western empire than you did the east. Asia Minor is almost an island, in that where it is not isolated by sea, mountains do a pretty good job (in fact north and south, you have both). Macedonia is almost inaccessible from the north, and can't be reached from the west unless you go through Greece - as the Romans eventually did when they conquered the place - and the Middle East and Egypt have the desert. The west on the other hand has only the Rhine and Danube between it and the barbarian hordes. It's easier for the barbarians to get in and stay in, and when the empire exerts too much pressure its easier to get out and stay out until -as inevitably happens - the empire is distracted by another emergency. So because the west needed more soldiers, the loss of a field army at Adrianople inevitably hurt them more. The strain of getting and supplying replacements fell disproportionately on the west because the east could afford to do so more gradually, and where replacements could not be found to hold the line, the danger and long-term damage was not as severe.

Just to add something else to the mix. The Res Publica was not the only kind of 'Res' the Romans knew. There was also Res Mancipa, which were items of personal property such as land which had a special legal status, and Res Nullius, which was something which no-one owned. So in its loosest meaning, Res Publica was literally 'the public thing' with the sense of 'public property'

Well, I'm going to be taking a look at the Poison King, but then I'm very familiar with the Indomitable Enemy, and can tell you that book is mainly about the campaigns Mithridates fought against Roman armies over the decades. I hope the new book does justice to its subject - though he may have been a monster, Mithridates had charisma in sackfuls, and his is a story that deserves to be much better known.

Did they differ? The first question is Greek when and Roman when? Are we comparing fifth century Athens with imperial Rome? If so we may be looking at differences of evolution rather than culture. Let's also see what counts as public space. I'm assuming the question refers to urban space, though one might consider the agri publici as public space as well. For most Roman public spaces there is a Greek equivalent. Comitium = pnyx(or whatever) forum = agora, taverns and inns were more or less the same, and temples were temples, though the Romans cared less how they were oriented. Roman theatres were as in Greece, because they were Greek theatres. The differences - well, amphitheatres were Roman though the Greeks were quick to adopt them. Only the Romans went in for triumphal arches as far as I know, and the baths were distinct from Greek gymnasia. I'd say that another difference with Roman public space is that there was a heck of a lot of it - at least 40% of all of Rome was public space of some kind. Finally the use of these spaces - well the Greeks liked processions more than the Romans did, and I don't recall a lot of politics happening in the agora, while the forum was very political. 'Proper' Greek women appeared less in public spaces, and the Romans did not like armed soldiers in theirs. That's about all I can contribute off -hand. I'll be interested in what others can add.

I was watching a documentary on the Great Lakes, and was interested by the comment that they were created by a huge flood in pre-historic times. The story of this flood was preserved in native American legend. In fact their legends said that there was a waterfall even greater than Niagara that was submerged by the rising waters. A geologist went looking on the lake bed for aforesaid waterfall using ground mapping radar - and found it pretty much where it was supposed to be. Now the point is that this flood happened 14,000 years back. It may be that the waterfall was a co-incidence, or that the documentary over-egged things a bit (I've found nothing else on this so far). But if it is true it shows that an oral tradition can carry basic facts for almost 1.5 millenna. And yet many people doubt that the Romans had any idea what happened at their city's foundation just 350 years or so before written records - i.e. for a period forty times shorter.

Um ... can you let us know the purpose of your investigation, as this would probably help with the focus of any replies? Roman heads of state were not particularly enthusiastic legislators as the system did not work that way. For example there were only two or three years where Pompey might be considered (usually joint) ruler of Rome, and his contribution to Roman law in that time was negligible. Julius Caesar did contribute, but mainly to the constitution of Roman colonies. Most Roman law was civil and criminal and this was done by the urban praetor, who every year posted a list of which of the rulings of his predecessors he would follow. Eventually this was collected into a comprehensive list under the emperor Justinian, and this list is still the basis of much of modern European law. Where the big boys were concerned, their relatively few contributions were in the area of constitutional law, and here you should be looking at the following Serviius Tullius Appius Claudius Decemvir The Gracchi Augustus Constantine Justinian

For the last few days I've been unable to access this site -it gives me a '403 forbidden' Error 'Apache/1.3.41 Server at penelope.uchicago.edu Port 80' - which basically means that apache - the webserver software - is not taking any HTML requests. Since this is one of the major repositories of original Latin Texts on the net, its absence is a major problem. I've even been forced to use Perseus on occasion! Does anyone know what the issue is here?

Yup, that would be like Greece asking for the Elgin Marbles, or Israel for the Holocaust cultural artifacts, or Guatemala for the Mayan codices, or Poland for its stolen art in Norway, or China for all those artifacts all around the world, or Romania for ... (Any candidates???) Or Romanian for the Ukrainian provinces it says were always its.. Indeed, the British museum and the Louvre, just to name a few would be sadly depleted if they had to hand back all that was er, extracted, from countries that fell under the power of Britain or France. I know the Italians would rather like the Mona Lisa back, and actually have a saying 'Tutti Francesi sono ladri. O non tutti, ma la bouna parte' - 'All French are thieves - or not all, but a good part [or Bonaparte, which is said the same way]'.

Good to see this series is off to a flying start - mine is still en route with Amazon. Look for another around the end of the month in the same series - Roman Conquests: Greece and Macedon which basically does the Macedonian wars while trying to integrate the feuds of the contemporary Greek city-states and confederations. Mostly written from the viewpoint of Philip V and Rome's generals, it addresses the basic question - how do you get a Roman army into Macedonia? (And what to do if there is a phalanx or two in the way) Pics are by Johnny Shumate, with whom readers of ancient warfare Magazine will be familiar.

A few years ago I did a count of Caligula's victims. As far as we know for sure he had 27 people killed which, as these things go is not a lot. (Augustus, for example, racked up a score in the low thousands and even Claudius managed about 500 or so). I'm sure that Caligula managed more than the 27, but the reports of his wanton killings are terribly unspecific. The thing is, Caligula was an enemy of the Roman senate, and Romans could say some cruel and hurtful things about their enemies. Look at what Cicero had to say about his. It's not as if Caligula's ghost was going to sue for libel.

(Involuntary?) irony? Heh! I could have put that better, I agree. What I meant is that there is nothing intrinsically improbable about Hadrian composing this verse. From what we know about the man it is just the sort of thing he would have done. So had the source been more reliable, there would not even be an issue. It is not as if we had a dodgy source reporting Sulla as having a taste for needlework and flower arranging, for example.

There's no reason to doubt that this poem is by Hadrian, apart from the fact that it comes from an unreliable source. Of course, Hadrian sees himself as this soul, and is wondering where he will go once dead. The idea that the soul is diminished on its departure from the body is standard belief among the ancients, at least from Homer onwards. And given his understanding of philosophy - Hadrian was a highly intelligent individual - Hadrian's poem shows his awareness that it was the 'clay' of his physical self that was emperor. Once dead, he was just another soul. As to the death (or murder!) of Antinous, speculation has been lurid and unchecked for almost 2000 years. However, as Hadrian's taste in lovers seems to have been for pubescent boys, Antinous was well aware he was becoming unattractively mature. And while Romans tolerated boy lovers they frowned on an emperor who had a homosexual partnership with an adult. Times change

This is a discussion of the Classical Compendium on Irish radio http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/ancientjokes.html

It's an interesting idea, though it would have needed some lateral thinking on Hannibal's part. Certainly there's no reason why he would not have known of the battle, but remember that the Greeks were attacking bowmen and going for an envelopment with a surprise charge under the first volley. The Carthaginians were defending against heavy infantry and going for envelopment which involved a considerable cavalry element. So the same effect was achieved, but by different means. It is more probable that Hannibal got the idea from the Trebbia, where the legions steamed through his centre, and observing that the rest of the battle was lost, kept right on going. If I were Hannibal musing on that battle, my musings would have been something like 'damn, if only I had some infantry to hit them in the flank as they went by ....'

I'm also not sure what the museums can actually do about it. For a start, many of their exhibits exist as pictures that are in the public domain, so the museum would have to prove that you took the picture. Also, even if they can put you in the museum as the photographer, they might be able to get you for breaking the T&Cs but they can't claim copyright on the pics. Only occasionally have I been stopped photographing in Italian museums - generally, as long as one does not use flash they seem pretty cool with it. One French place wanted

And of course, the Spartans leaving their newborns halfway up Mt Tagetus to see if they made it through the night gives us a non-mythological example of ancient Greek post-natal care. Perhaps we could also have the young Dionysus being torn apart by giants and rebuilt by Athena as an example of previously unsuspected sophistication in classical Greek reconstructive surgery? And now we know. Ovid's Metamorphoses are actually an allegory based on ancient gene-replacement techniques. In short, I'm not buying this story either.

Slightly off topic, but here's a temple that became a church - the Maison Carrie in Nimes. It's a great example of Roman architecture, and demonstrates once again that official Roman buildings tend to stay up until some barbarian knocks them down.

Not that easy to add pics ...!