sylla

The unpopularity of this battle is probably better explained by the utter unreliability of our available sources (all of them seem to have ultimately come from Hirtius); the persistent pretension of presenting Caesar as unnecessarily facing on an unfavorable almost 2:1 ratio a consistently defeated, cornered and residual enemy, all of this after having unopposedly ruled over most of the Roman world and their human and material resources for more than four years, just to report us at the end a customary 30:1 casualty figure, could hardly be perceived as anything else than absurd lavish propaganda. Otherwise, we would be forced to admit that Caesar must have been not only a poor general, but a rather idiotic too (needless to say, against virtually all our available evidence).

Just for the record, by "Bible" you mean "Christian Bible".

Nope, like some amateurs (eg, you or me) tend to do. Historians back their theories and statements with evidence, and that's what we should at least try to do. Fortunately, there's nothing like the "last word" in History.Believe it not, I can't care less in browbeating anyone; I reserve macho displays for the Pub. Your point is valid, and we can only hope that many more UNRV members were as little "silent" as you are; please don't desist of it. However, just stubbornly repeating the same points without actually discussing them, ignoring all available evidence or, even worse, pretending to deny your own thinking process, is hardly going to contribute to this fora in any meningful way. Again, in this is not just another bad joke, I simply have no idea which thread have you been reading. Not even in this very post have you quoted any primary source. As I said, pretending to deny your own thinking process... Nobody can "discredit" your contributions; that's entirely up to you.And if you check on your own previous post , you will verify (as anyone else) that your previous definition of the Fabian Strategy was ... "doing nothing" !; which BTW has nothing to do with this article of Wikipedia. On hearing that Lucius Caecilius Metellus and other politicians were at the point of surrender, Scipio gathered with his followers and stormed into the meeting, where at sword-point he forced all present to swear that they would continue in faithful service to Rome. Fortunately, the Roman Senate was of like mind and refused to entertain thoughts of peace despite the great losses Rome had taken in the war

My best guess is that Prof. Ovcharov is stating here that the V-VII century pious Christians that introduced such human remains to the smaller cross did it so because they considered such remains as the relics of an unidentified Saint.

We essentially agree.The military proficiency of the Roman Republic, as any other system, obviously varied across time; however, please note that their impressive military record left little room for great quality fluctuations. This was especially noteworthy, given the nature of the Roman constitutional system; as Caldrail pointed, a far poorer performance would have been normally expected. As Polybius duly noted, the checks and balances of the Republican constitution were developed to the extreme, to an almost paranoid degree. All their regular magistratures (military or civil) presented an always increasing collegiality, and most of them were constantly (annually) recycled. In fact, their Military Tribunes were democratically elected since 311 BC. Most countries and armies (ancient or modern) would find such system unbearable. Just think that for a conflict as difficult and complex as the II Samnite War (late IV century BC) the Romans recycled their magistrates, officials and soldiers more than twenty times! Just imagine how would it have been for the US to fight WWII with multiple presidents and commanders, while rotating with all their soldiers for each and every year! The contributions of both brilliant and poor generals were then diluted. For example, the Dictator Fabius Cunctator applied with impressive success his eponymous Fabian strategy against Hannibal's army after Trasimene; such experience was immediately forgotten after the end of his six months, new consuls came ... and Cannae happened. Therefore, the really amazing fact was not so much that the Romans frequently performed brilliantly against their enemies, but instead that the Romans never ever performed badly enough for losing absolutely any war. Such unparalelled military record for so many centuries cannot be explained by the mere chance appearance of a chain of competent generals; a Cunctator and an Africanus now and then were clearly not enough. For that unique overall performance, the permanent access to the best soldiers, the best officials and the best logistics system of their World and Era was not an option; it was an absolute requirement. For the fulfillment of these requirements, an outstanding high-quality average personal military performance was absolutely indispensable. Rome must have trusted that any of their soldiers (effectively meaning each and any Roman citizen) and any of their commanders (effectively meaning each and any Roman noble and some occasional new men) were at least up to the job. Otherwise, the mixture of democratic and meritocratic elements present in their military personnel selection would have been fundamentally incompatible with their national military record.

By "historical accuracy" do you mean the decapitating wall? Is it in your version? I have watched a couple of versions; as far as I can tell, the primary intention of any version of this movie is always sexual excitement. The Roman context, accurate or not, just gives the exotic atmosphere; for that, a spatial station or a submarine can equally (and have indeed) been used. Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with sexual gory scenes and I enjoy good *or* as much as the next guy. This movie has some merits, including of course the cast; I'm actually a big fan of the 4 stars you mentioned above; but a bad movie with excellent actors is still a bad movie. Rome and I, Claudius have their own share of 'scenes of an adult nature', but there's no way I can consider sexual excitement as the primary goal of any of them. My point is still that if some scenes (in fact, the most representative) seem, sound, smell and taste like sexual excitement, this movie can safely be called *or*; and not great *or*, for that matter.

My reading of the same passage is a little different; judge by yourself:" The college of Vesta had 18 members, though 6 were considered actual Vestal Virgins at any given time" Not being my area, and irrespectively of the previous passage, I understand that, at least in historical times, the Vestals must always have been six (the priests' job, BTW); they simply couldn't ever have been either less or more. There were just six positions; my idea is that as in any other Roman magistrature, no one would have been able to get in as long as there were no vacancies, no matter how much time was required for that. PS.- For the record, are you writing a novel or something like that?

Alternatively, Polybius might just have been most lavishly and unshamefully praising his patronus' clan and nation, even at the expense of his own conquered motherland, as any bona fide Quisling would have done. Thanks, of course it helps. As stated, my quotation on the LoCascio figures was basically a reductio ad absurdum for the indeed incredibly persistent and preposterous idea (maybe even "romantic") that the "unprofessional" pre-Marian Roman Citizen army (militia, if you want) was a bunch of untrained unpaid "amateur" voluntaries; they were, au contraire, an utterly-organized well-payed compulsoryly-recruited highly-expert army, and if we ought to repeat it, plainly the best of their Era, at the very least for winning absolutely all their wars for many centuries without any single year of real peace. (I simply have no clue on why a statement so axiomatic as the last one is so difficult to understand for some people here). And we may add, an intensively trained army (given his record, this was hardly surprising); as Polybius told us (your quotation) and as the most elementary maths can show us, essentially ALL eligible Roman citizens (17-45 years old) were drafted and served in the front for many years, the infantrymen always under a strict manipular system. In plain English, virtually ALL the Roman citizens of the time were active legionaries at some point. BTW, the selection of military tribunes, centurions and officials, analogous to the other magistrates, was fundamentally a mixture of democratic and meritocratic procedures. Needless to say, their impressive military record is the best possible evidence for the extreme degree of high-quality uniformity reached by the Pre-Marian army, regarding either their soldiers or their officials.

My sincere apology if you find it harsh, but as you can see here and all along this thread, it's just a factual description, not a value judgment.Any argument is as strong as it sources; your argument simply lacks any source; period. Please don't take it personal; it isn't. It's nonsense not only because your logical process is flawed at multiple points, but mainly because you're just explaining your own personal guesses, absolutely ignoring virtually all available evidence.Your sources (actually I still can't even imagine which they may be) are still hidden; they are not mentioned in your last post, and in fact we can scarcely find a couple of instances when you actually even vaguely quoted any sources all along this long thread. Neither first principles nor conventional opinion are nowhere to be found. We shall; comfortably sit, it's perfectly obvious that you have no idea on what on Earth the Fabian strategy may be; for that, even the Wkipeadia article should be more than enough. Perhaps you should inform Polybius and Livy about your hidden sources, because the account of both of them (and Appian, and Dio ... and briefly, any available source) was entirely different from what you have already exposed.OK, instead of imagined analogies, let's try some real life examples, shall we? Please don't tell Mr. Washington the "first principles" of the Fabian strategy, because last time I checked, he was still trying to kick Lord Cornwallis' butt out from America with exactly that strategy. Please don't tell Mr. Kutuzov, because he was still trying to kick Monsieur Napoleon's butt out from Russia with that same strategy. Please don't tell Mr. Stalin, because he was still trying to kick Herr Hitler's butt out from Russia with (yes, right!) the Fabian strategy. Uhhh, sorry... forget that; I have just updated my Databank. Please excuse me, but this is pure gold; wihich bring us to the fact that your "sword point" anecdote is simply unhistorical! Just pure unpolluted fantasy!!!If by any chance you actually care on what Fabius, Scipio and the whole Senate stated on the effectiveness of the Fabian strategy in Punic War II, Livy's book 28 is a good place to begin with. Yesss! Incidentally, that's pure gold too. Honestly, I would have been more than grateful if you had actually shown us any of your hidden sources (my original request; do you remember?).In any case, I should assume that such lack of cooperation was not due to any personal animosity, but just to the undeniable fact that such sources simply don't exist. Now, a little comment on my own: Contrary to diamonds, expert soldiers are not eternal... Archaeological research let us know that the attrition rate for the Roman legionaries at the time was at least 5% annual. By any estimation, the attrition rate for Hannibal's army was far greater. In plain English, more than 95% of Hannibal's original veterans (Boii and Insubres included) had died out by the time the Punic army retreated from Italy. Now consider that in spite of a couple of significant land reinforcements (not just one, as you suggested) and some minor naval contact, Hannibal's army remained essentially isolated in Italy for 17 years. Absolutely all our sources left that fact perfectly clear. Another consistently verified fact in our available sources is that the vast majority of soldiers that Hannibal brought back from Italy to Zama were recent (and despised) Bruttian recruits... Still confused? Crystal clear: the Fabian strategy not only defeated the selected Punic army of Hannibal; the Fabian strategy annihilated it.

You may both be talking about Caligula: Divine Carnage: Atrocities of the Roman Emperors by Stephen Barber (2006) .

The movie was simply called "Caligula" and was released in 1979. It was not actually considered *or*, having even been, I believe, released at the Cannes festival, but it was definately smutty. Caligula - The Movie. Definitions of "pornography" vary, but the (SIC) "depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement" (Merriam-Webster) is presumably quite representative of the modern consensus. There were multiple versions of the 1979 Brass/Lui/Guccione film; the 156 to 160 minutes unrated uncut versions are probably the closest we can get to an "original" Caligula; their explicit content includes plenty of massive orgies, lesbianism, transvestism, masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, urination, anal fisting, sibling incest, rape, decapitation (by a giant moving wall!), infanticide, mutilation, and castration. If we agree with MW operational definition above, and irrespectively of the merits of this movie, Caligula is as *or* as it can get. And it was hardly the only *or* movie projected at Cannes (actually a 210 minutes edited version was used). This movie is frequently considered nowadays as some kind of Urban Legend, but it was actually a big failure in its own time; pretending to combine *or* and history, it became too explicit for historians and too pretentious for *or* fans.

The line between natural national pride and fanatic chauvinism is frequently rather tenuous.Like any other passion, chauvinism shows the natural tendency of becoming irrational, and this is especially detrimental for historical research, because chauvinism regularly imposes at least two complementary primordial myths: - Manichaeism: our ancestors (and only them) were the good guys; - Pedigree

Arguably, the speeches (like one third of the third of his Histories that is available to us) were the core argument of his opera magna; it's there where he was sending his main lessons for his expected lectors (Alexander Severus and the Imperial aristocracy). The rest of the narrative would have been essentially required for getting the right context.

The 1964 Bronston's film was indeed an interesting piece of work (and a nice moment for Sophia Loren, BTW).In many ways, it was indeed one of the inspirations behind Gladiator. However, its script was far more interesting, fundamentally because grossly inaccurate as it was, Bronston's film was honestly actually trying to give an historically plausible explanation for the decline of the Roman Empire; the influence of Gibbon was evident.

I tend to agree with DJ Breeze; the main incentive for the Roman Emperors for conquering territory seems to have been military prestige, more than any other strategic or economic consideration. Even after Teutoburg, Augustus still boasted from having subdued Germania in his Res Gestae. By the time he acceded to the throne, Tiberius was already by far the most military prestigious Emperor until Trajan, with enough glory for sharing it with his nephew Germanicus; therefore, there was no incentive for new conquests. Caius (aka Caligula) and later Claudius diverted their territorial ambitions from Germania to the British alternative. Domitian and Trajan eventually did the same, this time at the expense of Dacia.

I

An understandable complain; Cicero shows a significant tendency for insomnia... Seriously, I can't understand why Mr. Cawthorne avoided references on primary sources in his book (out of pure laziness, I mean); after all, XXX material is hardly lacking from any major historian depicting the Early Principate; Suetonius, Dio, even Tacitus.

Paradoxically, so many social baths might have eventually become a huge epidemiological risk for the City. Greek and Roman doctors usually recommended frequent bathing for many common health conditions, by itself in general terms an excellent advice. The problem was that they essentially lacked our modern concept of infection, so they saw no problem in making both healthy and diseased people bath together.

Actually, I can't ignore my gender. I has always liked Pollux, as the ideal partner of the famous Castor, a gladiator so famous in the early Principate that Cassius Dio could use him as a reference a century after his time. In fact, from the Olympic twins, Pollux was the one who bested in wrestling; Castor was reportedly an expert in horses.

I really, really, really would love to check on any of your hidden evidence, at least for this last commentary. Because as far as I can tell, it seems like simply unpolluted nonsense, from its first to its last word. Thanks in advance.

Both historians were contemporary, and from their own lifetime the gossipy biographer seems to have been far more popular than the philosophic annalist. In fact, that may very well have been the main reason on why the XII Caesars were far better preserved than any Tacitean work.

Mr. Nigel Cawthorne (the living sex writer) should probably be distinguished from Mr. Nigel Hawthorne (the deceased gay actor). There's apparently no relation between them.

If the general idea is that the massive onslaught of the Roman Army in the first years of Punic War II was a depuration of suboptimal elements and a chance for "experienced veterans", I don't think we may be able to find evidence to support that; in fact, the available evidence points in the opposite direction. As in most wars, the "experienced veterans" were the first who fell; they were massively massacred with those same senators and military tribunes. After Cannae, Rome was forced to recruit even slaves, hardly professional material. I don't understand why do you insist in considering the legionaries and commanders that fell in Trebbia, Trasimene and Cannae as suboptimal military men; in the years previous to Punic War II, they had quite efficiently fought against the Illyrians of Teuta, Sardinians, Corsicans, Ligurians and especially the Gauls, notably the fearsome Boii and Insubres; the colossal battle of Telamon was not a picnic day by any measure (Polybius Book 2). In fact, some of those same Gauls eventually became the larger portion of Hannibal's army; it was the Insubrian Ducarius the one who killed the consul Flaminius in Trasimene. It was in those same campaigns where Fabius Cunctator got his triumph and Marcellus his famous Spolia opima (the second in all Roman history after Romulus himself). If those soldiers were defeated by the Punic army, it was just because they were facing the selected troops of one of the best generals in all Universal History. As far as I know, the selection of Roman commanders was made in essentially the same way before and after Cannae. Scipio Africanus Major was for many reasons an extraordinary case, including the evidently heavy bias in his favor from our available sources ; his story could hardly be considered as representative of the average cursus honorum for that period. Finally, please remember that Hannibal lost the war in Italy long before Zama without having personally lost any single battle yet, a case more or less analogous to Napoleon in Russia in 1812, three years before Waterloo. Both Waterloo and Zama were just the Coup de Gr

The Herd? You mean us, the poor defenseless mob waiting for a rescuing Messiah? That sounds like a pretty primitive way of analyzing history, don't you think? That