dnewhous

His soldiers, however, probably didn't understand Greek, right?

Counterintuitive. The closer to Rome you lived, the more likely you were to be on the beneficial end of the Empire. I suppose it's a lot like today where the more wealthy you are the more likely you are to protest the military and the less likely to serve... Which is why I think, incidentally, George Lucas is on to something with the droid and clone army ideas. As a society gets less and less willing to volunteer for military service and technology advances, I find his ideas quite plausible.

Talking about the worst defeats in history, didn't the Persians lose 200,000 men invading Greece?

In the days of the late republic the Roman legions were truly intimidating, very well trained and well disciplined in the Spartan tradition. They formed their shields in a wall and clanged their swords against them in unison. But Hannibal showed tactics and technology (elephants) could overcome that. It is not simply the ability to levy troops. The empire had far more resources at its command at the time of the battle of Adrianople than they did during the late republic, yet they couldn't recover from the defeat at the hand of the Goths. Hannibal's army was eventually defeated, though that was after he was forced to retreat to defend Carthage - I wonder if in his haste he had to give up some of his advantage (elephants). What I have been told is, that during the days of the republic, the people actually were willing to die for the republic and not so for the empire. The empire had become very exploitive economically. There was always slavery. Serfdom started when people sold themselves to patricians to protect them from the Roman tax collectors, and Rome issued edicts that a man had to follow the same profession as his father; I forget what institagated it, but Rome had regulated several professions into impofitability. The Roman legacy of strangling centralized regulation is with Europe today. I'm really curious how much of the nobility of dark age Europe was descended from Roman patricians. The social stratification of "knight" is an obvious Roman holdover. Was the Republic conquered, or did it fragment? Local prefects mustering what was left of the Roman military and becoming petty kings?

I just thought - where was Pontius Pilate born, raised, and educated? I have seen one web site that claims he was Scottish but the more conventional history is that he was Italian I think. This will tell us what Pilate's primary language was.

A defeat might have done Roman history a lot of good. Wasn't it Caesar's decision (as Governor of Gaul) to conquer Gaul? Didn't the senate kind of not like the idea? Only this is a time in history when going out and conquering people just because you can made you very popular with the masses, at least the masses in your home country. Losing 45000 men might have set the Romans back for a long time in Europe but it wouldn't have devastated them. It wasn't like the waning years of the empire when losing 20000 men to the Goths left the empire defenseless.

What about Romanized "barbarians"? How was their standard of living?

Primuspilus, I am not sure how exactly to interpret your terminology. One possible reading of what you have said is that Roman citizenship was given only to people living in the city and that people living in the countryside merely had "Latin" status, which was an important distinction in the days of the late Republic (from what I've read) but I don't really know if the distinction means anything in the empire. Also, how was sanitation in urban centers outside of Rome? Did any other city have a sewage system?

I had some thoughts last night or this morning that I think are intriguing. What was life like in the Roman Empire for the common man? Now, in Italy, Greece, and northern Egypt I have the impression life was amazingly civilized. Life for a middle class person in Republic or Imperial Rome probably wasn't equaled until the 19th or even 20th century from my loose impressions. What percent of the population (even in wealthy urban centers) constituted "middle class" is another question. It must be pointed out that much of the wealth of Rome was based on a horrible system of slave labor. Every wealthy Roman home had catacombs below where the slaves slept. The biggest fact that gives me an impression of such a high standard of living is the fact Rome had a working sewage system, and it wasn't until the 19th century the European cities had any. Like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail "He must be a king." "What makes you say that?" "Well, he hasn't got ***** all over him." or as one 19th century English parliamentarian put it (I don't remember the exact quote) "It began to dawn on the upper classes of England, that most of the nation's people were living in *****." But I haven't got to my main point yet. I have the impression that the vast majority of the Roman Empire was very much like "flyover country" in the United States today, only more so. I don't think that most Roman peasants had a standard of living much past neolithic standards, and I think commerce and wealth in the provinces were very sparse compared to Rome. The dark ages had the bright side of decentralizing power so much that many independent commercial centers were able to develop in Europe. This is why Europe was able to develop into the dominant continent in the 19th century, whilst more developed civilizations (China) were stifled by centralized, self interested bureacracy. I am wondering, about what century did life for a majority of people in Europe become as good as it was during the Pax Romana? I know it's hard to answer such an open ended question.

The word "Arthur" was never used as a person's name until the late 6th century. It is most likely a twisting of some word (I forget which language) for Lion which is something like "Arturus" which would have been used to describe someone who is militarily successful. It might have been a Legionary rank? My memory is fuzzy. What is more interesting than Arthur is the whole mythological concoction generated to make him the son of Uther Pendragon (who really did exist). Uther was the relative of a genuine Roman statemen (from Brittany) and for Arthur to seam more noble to the English the myth forced a relationship to the man who was the last vestige of Rome in Britain. People of the 5th and 6th centuries (before being displaced by the Anglo Saxons) still considered themselves to be Roman.

The way you describe it, it seams as though auxillaries were not organized or funded by Rome? That makes their loyalty seam rather questionable to me.

Rather than try to debate whether there really was a king Arthur and who he was I though we might discuss what facts are known about the disolution of the Empire in England. I remember something about the Roman citizens moving to Wales as a refuge and building a wall between Wales and England. Technologically speaking, I have read enough to see there really were castles in England as early as the 5th century. When did castle making start? Were they just using old Roman fortifications? Also, when the legions were withdrawn at the end of the 4th century the auxillaries would have been left behind, correct?

Before I read the end of the thread I had supposed that the legions would be Latin speakers. But Pontius Pilate himself, might he have preferred to speak Greek?

If the official title of the emperor was "Augustus" then why do we remember it as "Caesar?"

Why don't we make this question more sophisticated. What were the names of Rome's 25 legions? And how about the auxillaries, did any of those units have names? Also, concerning citizenship status. I believe the two types of citizenship were Roman citizenship and Latin status, correct? Roman citizenship gave you the right to vote. I believe you had to be a Roman citizen to join the legions, right? Did you have to have Latin status to join the auxillaries or could any ambitious barbarian sign on board? Also, did the citizenship qualifications get more lenient as time wore on? I have the impression that Rome's military shrank something awful near the end. In particular Rome was essentially helpless after losing an army of only 20000 men to the Goths. Pathetic. They lost more men than that in some battles against Carthage!

How did Augustus eliminate Octavian? And how did Octavian become Julius's heir? And I read a little bit of a book (not enough time for the whole thing) on the Roman emperors that makes Sulla look completely different than how he was portrayed in the TNT special. He was a general that usurped power but voluntarily gave it up and went back to being a farmer after 2 years. Apparently Julius mocked him for being such a wimp as to voluntarily give up power. The TNT special made Sulla look like a completely ruthless dictator who died of a hear attack when Pompeii refused an order. The book also pointed out that Mark Anthony (Julius's chief lieutenant) wanted to be Julius's heir but he didn't have anywhere near the same talent level.

Now that you bring up Egypt, how exactly did it become part of the Empire? I remember something about Ptolemy leaving Egypt to Rome in his will but Rome wasn't interested at the time? From the TNT special "Julius Ceasar" (I know, don't look there for real history) there was something about Cleopatra's power being usurped by nefarious locals. What the special did bring up that was really curious, which may or may not have really happened, is Cleopatra seducing Julius Caesar and bearing him a child and this is what finally sent Brutus over the edge because he feared a heriditary monarchy.

Reading a review of the Passion of Christ I read a criticism that has me intrigued. The criticism was that Pontius Pilate should be speaking Greek, not Latin. This made some memories resurface in my mind. I think I remember learning that the Romans considered it more cultured to speak Greek rather than Latin, and if I'm not mistaken by the time of the Byzantine Empire Greek had replaced Latin as the language of the empire. It is certainly true that the earliest manuscripts of the bible were in Greek, not Latin. I am wondering what information is available on the use of the two languages in the empire.