Maty

As you say you are writing a paper, I'll assume you have access to JSTOR. Take a look at this paper: David M. Jacobson Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74 Published by: The American Schools of Oriental Research Here's the abstract "This article critically reexamines the origin of the name Palestine. The earliest occurrence of this name in a Greek text is in the mid-fifth century B. C., Histories of Herodotus, where it is applied to the area of the Levant between Phoenicia and Egypt. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century A. D., explicitly links this name to the land of the Philistines and modern consensus agrees with him. Yet, some 300 years earlier, the translators of the Greek Septuagint version of the Pentateuch chose Philistieim rather than Palaistinoi to describe the Philistines. In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense. A reappraisal of this question has given rise to the proposition that the name Palestine, in its Greek form Palaistinē, was both a transliteration of a word used to describe the land of the Philistines and, at the same time, a literal translation of the name Israel." We know Syria Palestina was a province after the time of Hadrian, and have coins with that name from the time of Aurelius. We also know that Hadrian was very vindictive to the Jews (there's a bas-relief somewhere of him killing one personally) so I think most historians draw the obvious conclusion. However if nothing but the original sources will do, you might also try Eusebius bk 6 there might be something there.

It's actually possible to date age at death pretty accurately. It has to do when certain bone structures are complete and when they start to decalcify. Think wisdom teeth for a very crude idea. Apart from that, we need a link to the original article (I couldn't find it online). Firstly that should tell us some of the missing vital information such as the sample size, dating techniques and grave locations. Crucially, did the Roman era bones show significantly higher malnutrition? If the 'pay lower taxes, eat better' thesis has any merit they should. And the story should have reported this rather essential fact. Of course, those villagers slaughtered by raiders were probably not buried neatly enough for their remains to be discovered later, nor those on the side that came second in a battle. So just as long-lived villa owners skewed the statistics in Roman times, those who lived long enough to die peacefully might skew the stats in the post-Roman era. More probably, given the size of any feasible sample set, two years is well within the margin of stastical error.

Losing a battle means that the other guy was a better general, not that the loser was a bad one, and the scale of the defeat does not mean an equivalent lack of military ability. After all, Napoleon lost at Waterloo. So for a true stinker at matters military, may I promote the claims of one Quintus Marcius Philippus, general during the Third Macedonian war; a man who was actually and undeservedly successful? This is a leader who took his army - including elephants - on a journey through the narrow mountain paths of the Olympus range - a march from which when committed there was no turning back. Philippus eventually brought his men down into Macedonia , exhausted and starving, into a narrow valley with no chance of escape or resupply. The head of the valley could have been blocked by a few hundred men, especially as there was a large defensible temple ideally situated for that purpose. Thus the Roman army was led into a position where it must surrender or starve. As it was a strong, well-equipped army army, it was only put in this position with great difficulty, and the huge self-restraint required to ignore several more militarily feasible options. Had Philip V still being running Macedon, it would have been game over. However, his son Persues decided that the only logical reason that the Romans would have made such a crazily suicidal move was if they had outflanked him elsewhere, so he pulled his army back to defend the capital. So, by literally incredible stupidity, Philippus gave Rome the bridgehead in Macedonia that they needed to win the war. It is yet not too late for his amazing lack of talent to be recognized.

The WSJ article needs a subscription - you might prefer the one here from the NY Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/u-s-returning-ancient-greek-coins-manhattan-da-prosecutes-prominent-collector-article-1.1891090 Apparently only some of the coins he attempted to sell were forgeries. There were real ones there too. Here's an interesting guide to spotting fake ancient coins on eBay http://www.ebay.com/gds/SPOTTING-FAKE-SILVER-ROMAN-COINS-WITH-ACTUAL-PICTURES-/10000000001909753/g.html

'How come couple of thousand years later we still, know, rember and discuss the battle, if it did nothing at all?' Militarily it did something - it gave the Athenians time to complete their withdrawal from Athens which was actually the point of the whole thing. The Spartans were well aware that this was a suicide mission, which is why only men with sons to continue their family name were sent. The objective was not to win but to slow the Persians for as long as possible, and this was done. So militarily the first Thermopylae was a success. It was achieved heroically and at great personal sacrifice, and without Thermopylae Athens might have been knocked out of the war, and the fifth-century intellectual revolution (an important development in human thought) would not have happened. Secondly it was a morale boost becaise it showed that the Spartans - the top military power in Greece - were committed to the anti-Persian cause. It may be remembered that the Spartans had declined to show up at all for the Battle of Marathon, so the fact that they were prepared to fight and die this time around definitely cheered everyone up.

Just deferred my purchase until they get the bugs out. Reloaded RTW original on my new comp where the battles with large units and everything set to max runs splendidly.

My thanks for the support I got from UNRV members when this project was kicking off. I'm not sure if I'd have had the nerve to venture beyond my ancient history comfort zone otherwise. Anyway, my publisher tells me early sales are looking good - what we need now are some reviews. So once you've read the MS, please do post your thoughts here and elsewhere on the net. I've already received one erratum - my hero was born shortly before the death of C. Gracchus, not soon after. Hopefully there's no other such errors! And I may take you up on your offer with the sequel Metella. Editing the text myself was a pain - even though Sonic helped plenty.

A while back UNRV and I dreamed up the idea of doing a novel together. Though the plan did not work out as expected (No plan survives contact with reality ...) the novel did eventually make it to press. At the time we said that once the novel was finished it would first be announced here ... and here it is! It's available on amazon as a paperback or kindle edition. My thanks to those people who contributed opinions and comments on the early chapters. That helped to shape the novel, so now I look forward to your opinion of the rest ... Thanks to all those on UNRV who helped to make this happen Maty You can find out more about the novel here - www.matyszakbooks.com

For the Roman Republic, the definitive book is Crawford's Roman Republican Coinage. However, you'd do better looking for it in a library, as the last copy I saw selling on Amazon was going for somewhere north of $500. I've always found this site a useful resource http://www.romancoins.info/Content.html

Actually the Goldsworthy book has a lot to recommend it. It concentrates of dispelling some of the myths surrounding Antony and Cleopatra - for example I was rather surprised to note that an analysis of Antony's early career shows that he did not actually have much military experience before he became a triumvir. Cleopatra as a feminist 'African' icon does not do well under his scrutiny either.

In my experience the important thing just before going into action is to keep busy. If one is re-checking kit for the thousandth time, or calculating firepoints and angles then it takes one's mind off impending doom. I'd guess that the problem with barbarian screams is they remove the possibility of distracting oneself in this way.

The staff is interesting. Do you know what was on the end? A wizard's staff might just have a knob on the end, but one can learn a lot from the symbol topping off a mythic staff.

Make gestures like that with a genuine toga and the thing would fall off. Don't care though. Want. Want.

I tried your suggestion, but he couldn't Hera thing ...

Right, that does it: you're all in my Black Book. Come the revolution ... :wacko:/> Easy Sonic. We all Apollo-gize.

Apparently NBC have signed diminutive actress Holly Hampstead to play a girl who becomes the Roman corn goddess. It's going to be a mini-Ceres.

If we were to redo Plutarch's Parallel Lives with ancient modern/pairings who would you use? I was given this challenge recently and came up with such lamentable efforts as Julius Caesar/Steve Jobs George Bush jnr/Demetrius Poliorcetes Cicero/Churchill I'm sure the members of this forum can do better.

Just a quick revision of the URL - it should be http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/ (a few extra http's got involved with the original.) I remember the site -they interviewed me for my Classical compendium and I contributed a bit on Pliny and Astronomy.

You might be reading a bit too much into this, Divus. When Plutarch says 'branded with the mark of a horse' this means 'a horse-shaped brand'. (It's clearer in the original Greek.) Secondly, 'ippos' does not interchange with 'beast'. My copy of Liddell and Scott gives dozens of meanings for ippos and extensions for this root, and all of them pertain exclusively to horses. 'Beast' in the sense you mean, and in the koine on the Book of Relevations is 'teras', which Plutarch does not use here. The men you refer to were enslaved prisoners, some of whom managed to escape by pretending to be servants. As was often the case in ancient Greece and Rome, recaptured slaves were branded or tattooed. Finally, there's a difference between being able to buy and sell with the mark of the beast and being brought or sold while branded with a horse image.

To some extent it can be argued that history is demographics and economics. History is simply trying to understand how the interactions between these two played themselves out. To understand that it's also necessary to hold one's nose and wade through the effusions of modern sociology. The modern historian has to be a jack of all trades.

But has the internet brought about a paradigm shift? After all, with the net one can be 'close' to smart people while still on another continent. Just this morning I was discussing parapegma in Ptolemy's Handy Tables with a very smart professor in Oxford while I was in the Monashee mountains, where things have to get a bit more cosmopolitan before they can be described as 'rural'. Perhaps the start of your next paragraph shows why the Harvard prof might have been overtaken by events 'I found an online lecture...'

We've probably got all of the Falco books somewhere in the house I just haven't had the time to seek out and read the latest ones. BTW Before moving a few years back I got rid of a lot of my personal library which was then mainly assorted fiction and stretched to over 3,000 books. Unfortunately it has been building back up again with a heavier emphasis on academic books in various nooks and crannies all over the house. However I don't feel either strong enough or wish to try getting them all together and counting them again just to find out how bad our storage needs now are by numbers - let alone weight. :(/> I suspect however what could be loosely termed 'Roman related' is now around at least 150-200 books if not more :unsure:/> Hmm ... these days what a 'library' consists of is rather flexible. I've probably got a few thousand hardcovers and paperbacks, but the fastest-growing part of my 'library' is .pdf books and academic papers. Sites like downloebables mean that your browser can gulp down books by the dozen, and google offers things like Smith's dictionaries. There's also online magazines like Amphora that I download to brose through during commercial breaks on TV. My iPad is basically a digital library with email capability ...

Ah yes. The 300. It is to the battle of Thermopylae what Clash of the Titans is to Greek myth. Thing is though, the story of the actual battle is a pretty good one. The makers of this movie should have gotten an Oscar in the 'gilding the lily' category.

This is outside my area of expertise, but I've talked with some people who have looked at this question. It's not just a matter of standing off the cavalry - one break in the formation and the whole thing is screwed. Once a rider gets within four feet of a man with an eight-foot pike that man is basically defenceless. This can be done in various ways. Archery fire can be used to drop someone at the strategic moment by concentrating on one corner of the formation. Alternatively, even a head-on charge can be followed through if a badly wounded horse keeps going. I been told - but cannot reference - that seventeenth century Indian cavalry used to train certain horses to run blindfolded. Those poor beasts never knew what had hit them (or what they hit) until it was too late. But if one horse hit a spear formation for whatever reason, it was game over.

If we consider Valerius Maximus 6.1.13 the offended husband could take matters into his own hands. VM cites cases of two men who were castrated as adulterers, and one Cn Furius Brocchus was handed over to the household slaves to be raped.