Favonius Cornelius

Why not? It was strong enough to punish Verres, in spite of all the advantages he enjoyed. Verres was by and large an incompetent fool. Prosecute Caesar and another would have taken his place later. Pompey? Or some other.

You have quite a lot of hope for that thing called 'law' in these ancient times.

Heh, or Pompey: http://nautarch.tamu.edu/class/489-502/Pompey.jpg

Oh brother. But if they had Neanderthal blood would they not battle in tight formations of bear skin clad, bumpy club armed legions? LoL. This reminds me of the lead poisoning theories. All I have to say is, if this was true of the origional Italian legions I guess they were pretty lucky the other regular humans that populated the legions for most of the life of the Empire could hack it.

Really! Name one. The Dutch Republic. Didn't they colonize areas in Africa and Indonesia?

Congrats to all on your gifts! And congrats to Lost Warrior on that coffee-cup diplomacy.

For a few days I assumed it was a Hobbit.

What can I say, I think you have me convinced Jim! I tend to reject and question revisionist theories because there are so many as posed by graduate students and professors looking to make a splash and get that scarce funding, but every once in a while an idea makes it past my gauntlet of doubt.

Was looking through the Religion forum and came across an old thread that goes into detail on the Monophysite take on Christianity by Dan. He has some excellent ideas on it with an additional link from Viggen. http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1070

I imagine that the reasons for the Byzantine Emperor accepting their loyalty as his personal guard are exactly the same as why the Roman Emperors employed Germans into their own personal bodyguards. For one thing the soldiers had no local connections and were beholden to the emperor only. That is a good recipe for loyalty. Additionally they were true northern warriors, probably simpler men not use to the court politics and scheming which turn allies into enemies for a few coin. Their combat ability is beyond question, those northern warriors always being a strong and intimidating stock, just what you need for a personal guard which follows the emperor around but not necessarily filling the lines in a battle. Why did they go? I figure the answer is as common to all opportunistic soldiers; money, easy life, battle and excitement. Who wants to settle down to England when you can fight for the dirty rich and live the high life?

To be quite honest it's highly unlikely as it is Peter Connolly, one of the leading and most published ancient history illustrators and researchers, literally placed by many at the same level as Robinson for his contribution to our understanding of the Roman army over the past 30 years. When he says "I think it was like this" people take a lot of notice. He tends to be quite "exact" about what he publishes and did take advice I believe on the metal used for the pila. Don't forget that he also took a look at the written sources, and found the interpretations that we have come to accept and found major flaws in them, and can prove it as well. In a nutshell, none of the written sources say that pila bent, only a type of hasta, and that's were the first notions of the bendy pilum came from. Cheers, Jim. Ok, sounds like he knows what he is talking about. I'm curious, I seem to remember reading about a wooden pin in the pilum head which would break and this render the pilum useless as well, did he try to replicate this? How often did he try it, a few tosses or a full exploration of scores of tosses? Ancient technology does not work terribly well you know. I wonder also if there are any ancient references to the use of the pilum. If many authors mentioned its functions as a bending head rendering shields and throwback useless, it would be suprising that they could get away with it often seeing as how it was being used during their day.

I encourage everyone to get in on this! I've been interested in this game a long time, so if you wanted some hints on how to get started I could lend a hand.

I hate to ruin the party on the pilum and its ability to bend, but tests just published by Peter Connolly using very accurate reconstructions of many types found have pretty much proven that they didn't bend. It also looks like the literary sources have been misinterpreted all along. His paper can be read in "Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 12/13". Not only did he test them, but he got his brother-in-law who is a heavy farm labourer to repeat the test with the same result. However, most of the tests did see the pila penetrate the scuta, which backs up source descriptions of that aspect, and the only way to get them out was to cut them. Cheers, Jim. Is it possible that the guy did not have the right balance of iron content? If the pilum head was mostly iron for instance and not well tempered, it would bend more easily.

Come on folks...it all begins and ends with the incendiary pigs...

I am not familiar with the particulars of archaeological sites and latifundia, but did not the Gracchi brothers on numbers of occasions mention them by their time? Perhaps in other areas of Italy where non-Roman citizens lived, you have a healthy spread of landed farmers, which as you both point out were not citizens. But the classic areas where Roman citizens use to farm, I would ask do these areas have traces of latifundia? This would be the general Latium area. Hm, but wouldn't it be cheaper to rather than hire free farmers, to own them and be able to use them as you see fit? Also simply the mentality or belief that it was more productive this way would be enough to have it a popular thing to do. I fully agree that there are many other considerations, but I do not agree that the concept of economy was unknown. Perhaps not to the science it is today of course, but as you mention Cato and Varro clearly they are concerned with maximal output, which itself is an expression of economy.

Talk about exciting! Finding writings has to be the ultimate in archaeological discovery. I'd love something from any historian who could fill in the gaps of history we have. Remember, even obscure philosophers might provide a snippet of a previous writer in their work, giving an indirect sampling.

There's greater payment for the biggest crimes by labor for the rest of their lives. I don't think it's unethical nor cruel and unusual for a chain-gang I think.

I had just thought about this while working, I don't know if this has been discussed before but the Princeps Senatus was a subtle statement wasn't he? Old and venerable, he cannot hear well, his mind dulled and his voice raspy and nearly gone...

I'll have you know megalomania is quite rewarding!

Allow me to express my gratitude for the promotion and publishing of the author list! I hope to add more names if I may be so bold over time. There must be a few more out there the people should know about.

The heart and soul of the Roman Republic in so many ways lay in its landed citizen farmers. It was the citizen farmer who supplied the city with the vital food stuff to keep it going, and it was the citizen farmer who took up the spear and shield when the Republic called upon its people to wage war. Each landed citizen farmer can be seen to be a vital political unit which made up a Republic. In an abstract way you could think of these early times as a spread of true absolute power, where each individual did indeed make a difference. Each citizen had a vote, and could choose those magistrates they trusted not to make rash decisions about war and power. After the consolidation of Italy and the second Punic war, Rome witnessed a great influx of wealth that permitted victorious generals to buy out these individual citizen farmers gradually over the course of 200 BC to the time of the Gracchi. The latifundia were born, where you could farm the land more efficiently with slave labor on large scale, handing over handsome dividends to their rich politician owners. Gradually the number of people who were actual landed citizens who could be called to serve in the army dwindled, and when Marius had to deal with the Cimbri, the only final solution was to open the army's ranks to anyone who was willing to fight. Now you have an army which is composed of men who have no stake in life other than their pay check from their general, but yet can still vote. This distorts the system such that rather than having votes and public opinion based on the risk to their own personal property and land, you have votes and public opinion being more based on the ability to make war, gain spoil and support from your benefactor. Thus were born the politician-generals of the late Republic. Though the latifundia could be said to have resulted in greater agricultural output for the Republic as a whole, the cost was her soul.

Nice story. Makes me want to watch Gladiator, then reminds that I lost the DVD and need to buy another.

Heh ya I laughed out loud at work when I heard about that a few weeks ago. What more apt result could you possibly have from that character? I hope it causes a return of Borat...sad HBO ended the series.

Heh, I remember in the recently made movie about Augustus (played by Peter O'Toole), he was wearing one.

That mural is pretty fantastic, I had no idea their art could get so detailed and beautiful. All I have typically seen are the stone works and occasional statues. Interesting in themselves but not exactly something to stur the heart, but that painting is remarkable. Almost has a Japanese quality to it.