sylla

And why do you think did the Soviets lack hot water? To put it simplistically, because they were "finantially down".

That's an excellent point that should still be valid today.

I think you simplified the matter, all Romans understand that Greek culture is superior to their own and some did become Hellenophilic but some like Cato the Elder had a more ambivalent view, on the one hand as I say he appreciate the Greek culture but on the other hand he hated the contemporary Greek and thought that if Rome would absorb too much of the Greeks it's would hurt the Mos Maiorum and in the end led to the weaken of the Roman state. Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret. Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta

Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret. Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta

Thanks, Maty!!!!! This material is not only fascinating, but also quite relevant to the ongoing Cannae thread. In fact, it may be better for us to carry that specific discussion on mercenaries here.

In any currency, under the "please select the least expensive option" heading.

Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret. Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta

While Caesar wasn't a Princeps some ancient authors like Suetonius saw his as the founder the imperial power in Rome. Arguably, this misconception came from no lesser authority than Suetonius himself.

As far as I remember Jospehus doesn't mention Gallio. The Oxford Classical dictionary give a reference to a Greek inscription (Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 3 2. 801) mentioning Gallio governorship in Achae.Josephus never mentioned Gallio because he was not related to Judea. M. (or L.?) Annaeus Seneca Novatus, aka L. Junius Annaeus (or Annaeanus?) Gallio, was consistently attested by Tacitus, Cassius Dio and some poets within the imperial court of the last Julio-Claudians, but the Delphian inscription quoted by Ingsoc is the only extrabiblical evidence for his proconsulship of Achaia. SIG 3 2 801 D is a fragmented but complete inscription directed from the emperor Claudius to an unnamed successor of Gallius, related to the veneration of the Pythian Apollo; Gallio is retrospectively mentioned in third person as a former proconsul and a "friend of the Emperor". As it referred Claudius' 26th Imperial acclamation, it has been dated to 52 AD; the terminus pot quem of Gallius' proconsulship would be 49 AD (the date of his brother's rehabilitation by Claudius). As Gallius is the name of the Roman Proconsul depicted in Acts 18, this inscription is the better attested independent external anchor for the Pauline chronology; understandably, its research has been the object of considerable stress and debate.

The available financial maths simply don't support the previous statement.

Obviously; however, that hardly means their officers and soldiers were simply passive objects. And it was performed by thousands of men, not just by a personal combat of Hannibal vs. Varro. Not all the battle events could have been predicted in advance; the officers' initiative was evidently often required. In your own immortal words, that's nonsense. As described by the available sources, Cannae can't be understood without a rather active communication between at least the Punic units. For example, the long Punic center (the Gaulish-Iberian infantry) couldn't have known in advance when to stop their retreat; such maneuver must have been exquisitely synchronized with the encirclement of the Roman rear by Hasdrubal's cavalry (just check out one of my previous posts).

I think that this is actually a very important observation. We are afflicted, in Europe, with a post colonial self hatred that leads to such ludicrous revisions of history. It also leads to insidious cultural relativism and moral equivalence where we dare not criticise the questionable aspects of former subject peoples. When talking about the Roman gladiatorial fights the tone used is often as not one of :

Also do I; it was the last one, isn't it?

In some way a thread on Cannae has mostly derived into an analysis of what Polybius meant by Punic "mercenaries". That may seem a little weird to us, but it probably wouldn't have been so to Polybius himself; after all, his panegyric on the Roman constitution, army and population came immediately after the account of Cannae (in the books related with Italian issues); he was trying to prove that, even after such debacle, his Roman patrons were inherently superior to the already disappeared Carthaginians. After WWII, at least some of us tend to take with a grain of salt most supremacist asseverations. All I can say is that circa August 2, 216 BC something like 30,000 non-hired Gauls, 15,000 non-citizen Punic subjects and a fistful of degenerated Punic citizens made at least 70,000 Roman and Italian

I don't really want to argue against here, your main point is valid, but I believe that glory actually is an investment. A proud and happy people with confidence is an investment. Not saying that there ain't cheaper ways to achieve that Anyway I've always been for the idea of putting a base on the moon (or Mars for that sake), at least on a theoretical level since I can't ignore the costs. Neither do I, as we essentially entirely agree.

No. He considered foreign levies as 'mercenaries'... Just for the record, above we are both saying exactly the same thing In fact , in your whole last post we don't disagree (ergo, it seems we may agree) because your definition of "mercenary" is definitely not what I dispute from Polybius. Have a nice day.

Military money is also an investment; "glory" is not. It seems that the military value of the outer space is currently restricted to the orbits around the Earth. For the Soviet Union the space race was clearly a catastrophic investment. If China wants to waste some billions of Yuans in the cosmic void, that might be good news for any of their competitors.

For now, free market doesn't care.

No problem at all, my friend. My evidence has been extensively commented in my previous post. My source? Mostly Polybius. Thanks for the reference; but we don't have to rely on Wikipaedia when we can check on the primary source itself: Polybius 1, 65-88; actually, any other available account on this war (ie, Livy, Diodorus and Appian) came essentially from him. As you can see, your argumentation is circular to begin with; it's not an independent source's statement but our same old Scipione client with the same old chauvinistic agenda on the intrinsic superiority of the Romans over the Punics. Nevertheless, Polybius was a notable historian and we can't ignore his account, no matter how biased it might have been. Writing almost a century after the facts, he called this conflict both Mercenary and Libyan war, and there was a reason for the last name; most of the rebels were Libyans and Numidians, ie local population. In fact, the massive rebellion of the local civil population is also described, both urban and rural (a little strange, considering that the "mercenaries" were supposedly so alien that they weren't even able to fluently communicate among themselves, isn't it?). Even more strange; the families of the "mercenaries" are described as hostages from the Carthaginians. Don't you find it a little atypical that the mercenaries travelled with their families to serve as hostages when they were hired? Unsurprisingly, that doesn't seem to be the case for the true mercenaries (ie, Greek) elsewhere. That the delayed payment contributed to detonate the rebellion is neither a big surprise nor enough evidence for the mercenary condition of the rebels; it has been a contributory factor too all along History for countless rebellions of indisputedly citizen soldiers in many countries, Rome included. An enlightening passage (73,1): "the Carthaginians ... next busied themselves with enrolling mercenaries and arming the citizens of military age". That is, any levied soldier that was not a citizen was automatically considered a "mercenary" by Polybius. Admittedly, there's evidence of some true mercenaries, especially Gauls and Campanians. Polybius gave us no hint of their relative number; that's not critical for our argument. I don't dispute Carthage used mercenaries more than once, as almost any other nation of the era. I dispute Polybius' statement that almost all the Punic army was formed by soldiers-for-hire, which was pivotal for his supremacist agenda. Textual evidence? Polybius himself: Carthage would have been the only Classical power that hired exclusively (or almost exclusively) his own subjects as mercenaries entirely for domestic consumption, instead of simply levying them as essentially any other country in History. A special consideration for the Libyan syndicate? If that's not enough, you can additionally consider that the Romans stopped calling "mercenaries" those same soldiers and units just by coming under Roman command; they were now "auxiliaries". Anything else? Oh, yes; the hostages... Many ancient (and modern!) countries pragmatically used their own soldier's families as hostages. Why would a hired soldier require such additional incentive? Even more important; how would you control your soldiers' families if they were not your subjects? A family travel from Gaul or Campania? Highly unlikely.

Neither do I. No problem with the allies (ie, Gauls). You have undoubtedly already read my point and it stands; there's no evidence as far as I know that the Punic non-citizen troops (ie Africans, Lybians and Iberians) were really soldiers-for-hire, ie bona fide mercenaries. With the possible exception of some Celtiberian tribes, there's no evidence that any of them were regularly hired for fighting out of the Punic empire, not even the famous Balearic slingers; when Syracuse required to hire slingers, they had to go as far as Rhodes. They were all Punic subjects (ie, not foreigners) and there's no reason to doubt they were levied by Carthage as any other regular army. In fact, at least during the Punic Wars, there's no evidence that Carthage had any true foreign mercenary units from beyond their own borders (ie, Greeks or Thracians) as was indeed the case for Syracuse and many other contemporary Greek cities. Conversely, no one of those Greek cities hired subjects from within their borders (why would they?; it's just absurd!): they simply levied such subjects as required. Even worse: Polybius and Livy simply called the very same groups "mercenaries" when they fought under Punic command and "allies" or "auxiliaries" when they fought under Roman command (ie, Masinissa, Syphax and their Numidians). Polybius and other pro-Roman sources in all likelihood simply stated that fact as a deliberate chauvinistic hostile propaganda (please read the extract from Book 6 in my previous post). You're more than welcome to provide any textual or archaeological evidence that supports the purported hired nature of the Punic non-citizen soldiers. BTW, the fact that something is written in our sources doesn't mean that we cannot critically analyze it, within its historical context.

This must be my favorite: TO THE VOMITORIUM OF MILETUS

Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret. Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta

Heres another: 'The Romans invented the Arch'. EDIT: It woulkd be nice to refer to a direct source if possible to substantiate your example. I would like to give the Walls of Miletus as an example of the arch used in a Greek/Hellenistic context. Over to you, folks! Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret. Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta

No, I haven't. I know that Primus Pilus went through a veritable circus trying to get his own stuff removed from Wikipedia for a long time. If you know whom to contact and if you'd care to PM me the info, I'd be most appreciative. -- Nephele No, sorry. I just clicked on some of the Wikipaedia's hotlinks. PP will surely be able to guide you within these issues. My guess would be that, even if legal actions were not a practical option, you can always create an account for editing the relevant article(s) and/or to link them to UNRV (but again, this is only a guess). I think this is a most interesting topic for many of us that may well deserve its own thread, so we may be able to check on the contributions of other UNRV members.

Wikipaedia explicitly states that (SIC) "Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted" and that they considered themselves ruled by the regulations on copyrights of the state of Florida. Have you tried to contact the "Wikipaedia folks"?