ASCLEPIADES

Salve, guys! Strabo agrees with you (Book V, ch. 3 sec. 7): "...the city, although it has grown to such an extent, holds out in the way it does, not only in respect to food, but also in respect to timber and stones for the building of houses, which goes on unceasingly in consequence of the collapses and fires and repeated sales (these last, too, going on unceasingly); and indeed the sales are intentional collapses, as it were, since the purchasers keep on tearing down the houses and build new ones, one after another, to suit their wishes. ...Now Augustus Caesar concerned himself about such impairments of the city, organising for protection against fires a militia composed of freedmen, whose duty it was to render assistance, and also to provide against collapses, reducing the heights of the new buildings and forbidding that any structure on the public streets should rise as high as seventy feet; but still his constructive measures would have failed by now were it not that the mines and the timber and the easy means of transportation by water still hold out." This Augustean law was one of the few that restricted any construction practice in ancient Rome; the curious relationship between the buildings height and the risk of fire is explained by the use of wooden partitions (also illegal, as you can see) to subdivide the rooms in the upper storeys where the poorest lived in order to increase the number of families that could be crammed there.

Salve, guys! And for those interested, here is the first part of the video , centered in the battle of the Mylvian Bridge, and with a more general profile, both of them from the Utube site. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, DF! Salve, guys! BTW, if you like to check the previous thread about this topic, IT'S HERE. CHEERS AND GOOD LUCK! PS: I re-upload the link in my last post that goes to the Scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming article of Wikipedia.

Salve, DF! Thank you for giving us this extensive material about a hotly debated topic, everywhere in general and in UNVR in particular. Speaking only for me, this video must be welcomed, as it gives us a good chance for a nice academic exercise, comparing pro and contras of some scientific theories. Make no mistake, until now I don't see reasons to doubt of most postulates of the Global Warming theoretical background. But this is no religion and I don't pray to Greenpeace before going to sleep. I pretend to be open to any rational argumentation. Science and politics have always made a bad mixture for both of them, but we would have to be extremely naive to believe that stuff like this won't have extensive political and economical consequences. In fact, a political discussion of these consequences would have great merit by itself. With 95.5 minutes, it is a long video and I haven't been able to see all of it and much less to analyze it. Anyway, by giving its conclusions before the discussion and the political arguments before the scientific ones, It doesn't seem particularly trustful. A complot explanation is also a bad sign, because it is basically unfalsifiable. This is hardly the only voice against the Global Warming. Here is A LITTLE LIST. The position of the authors of this video would be that: 1) Global warming is happening but its mechanism is totally natural (not human related), and 2) Global warming may be beneficial. I'm sure we are going to read several positions on both sides for the next days. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, S! Not knowing how all of this got us to "feministic propaganda", I don't know how to answer. (BTW, chauvinistic and feministic are not antonyms). I decline to continue this exchange of ideas, as I prefer to wait for some more palatable topics to go to the Arena. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, S! I don't know if someone can possibly confound two such different battles; almost only thing in common is that the figures of most accounts of both battles are crudely exaggerated chauvinistic propaganda, some of them simply absurd. Before Marathon, the same "Eastern Barbarians" of the same Persian fleet had successfully attacked and sacked Eretria and Naxos, two small cities even by Hellenic standard. After their respective defeats and for Centuries later, both cities were still Hellenic and free of "Eastern tyranny".

Salve, guys! More or less one in five humans is Muslim. Almost a hundred nations have Muslim communities bigger than that of Brunei (officially and predominantly Islamic). Check it HERE Currently, the biggest community is Indonesian. India has the 3rd one. Egypt (biggest Arab country) the 5th. Turkey the 6th, Nigeria the 8th, China the 10th, Uzbekistan the 17th, Russia the 21st, US the 37th, France the 62nd and UK the 69th .

Nope, only oldies are appearing under the sun. The bionic-eye baby is currently dated back some 4800 years.

Salve, guys & Ladies! I

Salve, guys! As far as I know, the first unquestioned account of lead toxicity appears in the Alexipharmaca (I, 600) (this beautiful illustration comes from a Byzantine edition) of Nicander of Colofon (circa 130 BC) where he described in Greek hexameters the signs and symptoms arising from the ingestion of litharge and cerusse, including colic, constipation, palsy and a pallor which he fancifully likened to the dull colour of lead. Anyway, here is a much older possible account of endemic saturnism ("frequent and dangerous disorders affecting the belly") from Hippocrates (Epidemics , Book III): "... Painful colic and malignant flatulent colic also occurred; in these going to stool did not relieve the pains, the stools being such that much remained within the bowel after attempted evacuation. This condition responded only with difficulty to medicine, and in most cases purgatives did additional harm. Many of those with this complaint perished soon; others lasted rather longer.'"

Salve, guys! I posted here because the first thread is locked. Until now, Costantino il grande (1962) is the only one I have been able to find. Surely, there should be other depictions of this character in the big screen Cheers and good luck!

Salve, S! Marathon didn't save even Athenian world; Eretria and Naxos were still there after the Persian sack. Marathon was one giant leap for Athens, one small step back for the Empire.

Salve, K! Ancient Artificial Eye Unearthed in Iran Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News ANOTHER GOOD CANDIDATE FOR THE OLDEST PROTHESIS.

Salve, guys! The famous graffito of Dura-Europos depicts a Parthian cataphract. The cataphract is from Persia and the Romans took from there the idea. In fact, the Roman's first met this heavy cavalry at the disastrous defeat of the seven legions of M. Crassus against the smaller Parthian corps of the spadpat (general) Surena at Carrhae in 53 BC. It's understandable that the Roman Army felt a great respect for them. Parthian & Sasanian Cataphracts 1. Top: Sasanian Standard-Bearer 2. Middle: Parthian Cataphract, CE 3rd C. 3. Bottom: Early Sasanian Cataphract, CE 3rd C.

Salve, V & S! Let me try...

Salve, guys and Ladies! The French link of S (F.N.L.J. = Front de Lib

'Nuff said.

Salve, K! Sorry about the pics and links, hope they are right now. I consider that there is a basic sadistic pleasure of variable degree in a sizable proportion of subjects (males specially) in most (if not all) societies, susceptible of huge potentiation in massive groups. Up to there, I think both of us basically agree. The disagreement would come when we try to compare modern societies with the Roman people. As any comparison with historical groups is always largely subjective, and as I don't like this topic enough to get us to the Arena, I would prefer to wait for a more palatable topic, if you don't mind. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, MPC! "The fact is that after eight years, feeding like a wolf on the blood of Gauls..." Did Cato really use that phrase?

Salve, guys! As Khaddafi, Attila probably got back after a huge ransom, which very well could have been their main goal in the first place. Legends about the Pope Leo or Sarkozy would have been creative public relations.

Salve, MPC! Were Cicero's last days and death compatible with the stoic philpsophy?

Salve, guys! I didn't find the Wikipedia article, it may have been edited. The number of the chapter of Pliny's quote is wrong (it should say Book IV Ch. 27), the quotation itself is basically right, although there have always been problems with the translation of the last words, that had open the way to really wild fantasies, even of the kind of "Atlantis" and stuff like that (editors frequently place a note of caution). It is commonly believed that the islands with the naval base referred by Admiral Pliny are the East Frisian Islands (Borkum -the bigger-, Juist, Norderney, Baltrum, Langeoog, Spiekeroog and Wangerooge), off the coast of Lower Saxony, Germany in the North sea, near the mouth of the Ems river and today's border with Netherlands. They must have been one of the extremes of the Roman expansion. There's a lot of ongoing archaeological work in Denmark. As far as I know, the only Roman findings had been coins and stuff of that kind. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, K. Of course, you're right. Salve, guys and Ladies! Silence is more eloquent than a thousand words. This baby is GORTYN in Crete, Greece. I leave the place to anyone who has a good pic to upload. Cheers and good luck.

Salve, guys and Ladies! By the name "Byzantium, the lost empire" you find in YouTube two quite pretty art videos with a total length of little more than eight minutes. The audio has only two songs: "A Girl Sang" and "All the Churches were Chanting", both performed by Early Music Workshop. I'm sure you will enjoy them. Cheers and good luck!

Salve, Lady N! Glad you like it. Sorry, the original pic is of the same length. I think it would be easier if you first download this chart and then you enlarge it; that worked perfectly for me. Let me know if you have any problem with this procedure. Cheers and good luck!