Virgil61

Real sad news. I always liked him and he certainly meant well, but he always seemed to push the danger envelope. I was impressed by how much of his own wealth he put back into conserving natural habitat. The man died doing what he loved which is more than most can say.

That's the popular image, I doubt any long time members here would subscribe to it. Remember the Roman advantages are relative to their contemporaries. Training is a perishable commodity, good training during a campaign five years ago isn't much good if you've been sitting fat and happy since. For all the advantages of the Roman system there's also evidence that it wasn't always at the same level of quality across the board for every legion in every posting. Leadership decisions is among the most crucile variable as well. The imagined steamroller is a product of more popular imagination not of a serious student of military history. I'm not sure whose fantasy you're describing, but you've presented a negative one-dimensional view of the Roman legions who spanned an era from citizen call-ups to late antiquity. Any group of male soldiers--Roman, American, Brit, you name it--not kept busy with work, training and other tasks will descend into less desirable or plain careless activities. Discipline and punishment are a narrow set of tools for leaders to effectively prepare soldiers for war. The Romans thought so as well which is why they utilized rewards as well. Again, there was no Army IG who inspected and maintained all Roman legions to a certain standard so quality varied. I guess it was part of the equation for success. Give a unit all the bread and wine they can eat and drink, if they aren't drilled, trained and led to a standard it really won't matter. All you'll have is well-fed slaves for the enemy.

That's not common. My aunts, uncles and cousins are in Italy as well. They live well but I'd never say they were better off then their US relatives. Taxes are high as hell and the price of food and fuel are incredible in Italy although they have a family farm that supplies a lot of goodies. Using per capita income as a guide wages in the US are around 35% higher than Italian. I'm not certain about the Israel portion but the portion I've left in is a common theme in US political discourse.

I use FF customized with my search bars in the upper right hand corner as well as a few extensions like bug-me-not a majority of the time. I keep IE and Opera on my system as well. I'd use Opera if FF didn't fulfill my needs.

Why is propaganda ever important? Convince the non-convinced, the borderline supporters, those who might need a justification and, with the Roman sense of the past, convince history perhaps. Even mass-murder needs righteous justification for some psychological reason. Octavius, cold-blooded manipulator that he was, has his fingerprints all over the document.

Here's a obscure nit-pick or more likely a debatable question; I think the plural of dwellers on the island of Rhodes is "Rhodians" and not these guys.

It's simple, translated; "We've spent several years dragging thousands of troops through the Roman world to fight a vicious civil war. It's over, we won and now they're expecting their demobilization reward. Sorry you backed the wrong horse (or no horse at all). It's your a** or ours at the hands of disgruntled troops. Just as important, we can now even a few personal scores as well before turning on each other."

Sorry but I don't tolerate lectures and moral high ground from Europeans who have enough blood, racism and hypocrisy on their own hands to make any American blush without responding. Did someone on this thread say WWII was a 'dirty war"? Sorry, I must have missed it. To take you back a few days, the Soviets were 'our' comrades during WWII. The guerrelas of all stripes were invaluable to the allies in the march to Germany in WWII. The quote marks indicate sarcasm in response to the previous post. Thanks for the mini-lecture on Soviet participation in WWII, a field I'm well versed in. It has nothing to do with the immediate issue of the liberation of Italy which in spite of partisan movements of socialist, communist and other anti-fascist forces was predominately won through the efforts of American and British men and materiel. As a footnote, large numbers of those heroic Soviet partisans were destined for labor camps in the Soviet Union after the war in spite of their achievements. Oh, irony.

Americans and Brits, not the communists, liberated Italy from facists--including my mother and her family in Guilianova. That was one of the things we did in our ''dirty wars'. You're welcome. The 'Russians' did some bad things? You mean the Soviets, and 'some bad things' amounst to a possible extermination of 20-40 million human beings. But hey, it's political Euro-chic to hate America. God knows Italians want to be in on the latest, greatest chic. Our 'dirty games' were partially a response to avoid the fate of the Kulaks your Soviet comrades were so gentle with. Sorry but I don't tolerate lectures and moral high ground from Europeans who have enough blood, racism and hypocrisy on their own hands to make any American blush without responding.

A communist government forcing prisoners to work at factories producing products sold outside China isn't capitalism. Americans aren't lazy. The statistics are out there, American workers average more hours of work per week than Japanese or EU workers including Germans. American workers still have the highest productivity measurements in the world as well. In other words they are measured as being the most efficient in putting out their work product. That's not me talking, that comes from the economic data of the EU and the US. What's the point of making clothes? It's a low tech and low skill sector. Be thankful we don't and can on average afford to work at higher paying more skilled jobs in sectors like telecom, software, etc. And Cubans live in squalor. Their famous healthcare 'doctors' aren't docs like we have, they're given two years of training and the equivalent to advanced medics. Their number of actual MDs is much smaller. Your concept of service occupations misses a whole range of issues. It includes financial instruments, healthcare, legal services, consulting firms as well as retail outlets. A large service sector is an indication of a large amount of disposable income (wealth) available to utilize it. Our agrarian principles haven't been around since the late 19th century when the industrial sector began to rival and then dominate the economy. In large part as a result of the industrial revolution America hasn't crumbled but instead risen to become the dominant power. No they aren't they are the ways of implementing industrial capacity without knowledge of how it can damage the ecology. Most of the first world has implemented environmental standards, which decrease effeciency a bit and are more expensive but doable. It's now the third world 'catching up' and doing it on the cheap that is becoming the problem. It has only a part to do with capitalism but more about modes of industrialization. Apparently you haven't visited the former communist nations of Eastern Europe to see the ecological devastation communist industry spawned. I'd like to see proof that Rome ceased being an agrarian economy. You may mean that the old standard of sturdy Roman farms and farmers ceased being and developed into large slave plantations in Italy driving populations of non-slaves into Rome. Economics is a tough road, there's so much bs and misinformation out there you really need to get a few years of college Econ to cut through the crap and get a good understanding of the field.

Here's a 400 page treatment on Rome up to the first Punic War that seems to have garnered a few good reviews and is now on my wish list--The Beginnings of Rome. Using Amazon's search function the table of contents looks like it might be a good overview.

Good review. I remember reading 'Julian' twenty or so years ago, Vidal's an excellent writier, worth a read by anyone interested in the Late Empire.

I doubt Attila would have changed the basic structure of Western society in any measurable way. By Chalons a large percentage of his army wasn't even of Hunnic origin and Attila had been involved in political affairs of both the Western and Eastern empires. After Chalons his forces invaded Italy anyway where Pope Leo's famous meeting with him was said to convince Attila to leave Rome alone. If successful he was intelligent enough to have understood the symbolism of Rome and it's a good bet he'd have co-opted it to further his own power.

I sort of like Plutarch's mention that his charge was a creation of Pompey's followers, but in the end who really knows. Whatever the answer, I get the sense he wanted to be a big 'player' but got in way over his head.

Past sins without mentioning cures like the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, et al--the current 4th ammendment issues on searches excepted--function as your rationale for the justification of a dictatorship ? I eagerly await your essay defending Stalin's liquidation of a few million Ukranians in the early 30's because there were Jim Crow laws in the US and, after all, he did increase literacy and made health care available to all. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. So Castro is better than Batista and at least he's made the 'trains run on time'. Sounds like a wife arguing her new husband is a treasure because he only 'slaps her around a little' while the old one beat her constantly. Previously Cubans lived in hovels and homes, many were illiterate and denied health care. Now everyone is literate, gets minimal health care and live in the same friggin' hovels--they're all miserable together! Progress I suppose. Pity about those political prisoners and the million plus refugees fleeing.

I don't think that anyone is antagonistic to the "idea of democracy'. Quite the contrary. The subject here originally was Cuba. Threads drift. The post MPC was replying to was clearly, if not antagonistic, certainly ambivalent to the idea. While not commenting on their respective arguments I will point out that the relationship between democracy and a capitalist economy has been written about for decades by people like Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, Frederick Hayek and Milton Friedman. There's even a school of economic's called the Austrian School, with Nobel Prize winners like Hayek, that for the most part takes their interrelationship as gospel. For me at least the issue is between the acceptability of authoritarian versus democratic models.

I generally agree with you on this MPC. Frankly I'm rather stunned at the level of antagonism given to the idea of democracy, especially liberal democracy, on this forum. I find nothing romantic about the notion of dictatorship, even a benevolent one. Making the trains 'run on time' is a poor argument for the loss of individual freedom. Even 'dictatorships of the proletariat' have been no such thing and have ended up substituting one small elite for another--hence the human nature of politics has remained the same. Not allowing a pluralism in the field of political ideas or an individual's right to freedom of expression is repugnant to me and while an interest in a historical era is one thing, espousing a belief in the efficacy of their political structure as some sort of success to be emulated or even admired as an alternative is quiet another.

Yes Fuller wrote "Scipio Aficanus: Greater than Napoleon". Itself an excellent work. I don't think Fuller was trying to say the Scipio WAS the greatest, but he was saying to his contemporaries, "Look here, you talk about and study Napoleon, while here in Scipio we have someone who is not only a great tactician and strategist, but accomplished more against greater odds". Liddell Hart--easily confused with Fuller--wrote it.

Exploritorium: Ancient Writings Revealed "Using state of the art scientific tools, once hidden writings by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes will be uncovered..." The scans will be conducted today, August 4th, and will be transmitted to the website and a live webcast will be available.

Cannae was a necessary school for Rome. It showed its true character immediately after the battle and, succesfully adapted its political and millitary system to persevere. Without Cannae there'd be no Rome as we know it. I think there's an argument that it wasn't quite such a necessary school for Rome but just a poor tactical decision and reinforced what a few Romans already knew was a better strategy against Hannibal. You are of course right. Fabius' tactics were working fine in confining Hannibal, his freedom of movement was severely restricted. The 'Bomb the Bastards' lobby were the cause of Cannae, and the Fabian method was reverted to afterwards, along with a balance of Marcellan pitbull tactics. Not really, he spent the 13 years relatively bottled up, and suffered atleast as many defeats as victories, a testament to his skill that none of his defeats was decisive, also, a testament to roman skill at not letting any of his victories be decisive... Bottled up is fine I guess possibly more descriptive, but my main point was that Cannae occurred very early on in Hannibal's Italian campaign and it's result was for Rome to revert back to the already well-known and previously unpopular Fabian strategy.

Cannae was a necessary school for Rome. It showed its true character immediately after the battle and, succesfully adapted its political and millitary system to persevere. Without Cannae there'd be no Rome as we know it. I think there's an argument that it wasn't quite such a necessary school for Rome but just a poor tactical decision and reinforced what a few Romans already knew was a better strategy against Hannibal. Cannae occured in 216 BC, the war continued for the next 14 years and Zama wasn't until 202 BC. At Cannae Hannibal had only been in Italy two years or so and still destined to spend the next 13 years tearing up the place. Fabian Paullus and Minucius (the hard way) understood Hannibal's tactical expertise on the battlefield and the necessity of not fighting him on his own terms due to his defeats of Roman armies before Cannae. After Cannae for more than a decade Rome re-adopted the Fabian strategy in Italy with a vengeance rarely ventured out to give Hannibal the pitched battles he probably wanted. If anything, Cannae was the proverbial 2x4 needed to smack the stubborn Roman donkey upside the head and let them know this guy was no walkover to be dealt with by glory seeking politicians in a consular role. You're probably right in that it forced the Republic to adapt to this new threat and dig deeply into that well of civic virtue. I'd put a wager down that Scipio's rise which started with giving him command of the Spanish theater was as much an act of desperation as anything else. For what it's worth I remember hearing Prof Rufus Fears give this lecture on him basically stating that no one else wanted the friggin job. I think Cannae's legacy and influence lies as a textbook example of the double envelopment as much as a milestone in Roman history. Even Norman Schwartzkoff described it as an influential model during the Gulf War. Edited to add that I agree only the Republic had the fortitude, institutions and civic virtue that could have dealt with such a defeat or series of defeats.

I think the Italians were certainly aware of their shared classical culture, it certainly influenced Michelangelo and Dante to name two but of course they were loyal to their city-states rather than a larger Italy. The history of the Germans is an interesting parrallel to Italy during this time in that respect. Even Italy wasn't homogenous in it's make-up. The north had a healthy number of Gauls while the south was filled with Greeks, as I've said before so much so there are still a few towns where an ancient form of Greek is still the primary language today. Even the central portion contained a number of tribes although many of them spoke related languages and may have shared common origins. That was a nice feature of the Empire but remember they were lavish with favors but damn stingy with granting that 'citizen' label during the Republic. It took the Social War to even get them grant it to long-time allies many of whom shared related languages like Oscan and who'd fought alongside them even remaining loyal during Hannibal's 16 year trek through Italy. When JC decided to grant the first Gaul a senate seat it wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms by many Romans. I've had to listen to 15 or more years of North Carolinians waxing poetic about ancestors in the Civil War and still mumbling about those people 'in the mountains' staying loyal to the Union. Don't begrudge me (or Lex) of the daydream that maybe a some obnoxious old Roman soldier from ancient Abruzzo who came back to retire in his native province was a distant relative! But seriously, I think it's just human nature for people or peoples to wax on about their pasts. Even that damn 'Hermann' got a statue by 'those' people proud of his exploits.

Morale isn't just esprit de corps. That results from a sense of belonging, which requires an organisation with traditions. Morale is the mental state of your men. This can be affected by a number of factors. Faith in your leadership, discipline, availabiltiy of food and water, enviromental hardship, rewards of victory, punishments of defeat or cowardice, allied support... all sorts of things. If one factor goes awry then perhaps you can compensate. If too many factors are involved then eventually the men will get depressed or angry. Caesar - Its time to make that rousing speech I think. I'd have to agree with this in general. Once combat operations start--road marches, actual combat, building fortifications, siegework, etc another factor comes in to morale I think and that's training. To put MPC's comment in another way; nothing builds morale more in a hostile environment than soldiers confident in their ability to defeat an enemy due to their awareness of their own skills (and of course also in their leadership). Once some of those other factors go awry--and they always seem to--you can bank on training to compensate to a large extent. Scipio essentially did what most leaders still do when taking over a dispirited and under-performing unit; he reinstituted tough standards and met them himself as well. I can imagine that while some younger or more inexperienced soldiers may have grumbled initially there were a few old-timers among the centurians and ranks who nodded in appreciation of what he was doing.

I'm not sure if it's really outdated so much as a large part of his opinions, especially on the influence of Christianity, isn't really shared today. It's still excellent and Gibbon isn't always shy about where he stands. It is also one of the most important and influential histories ever written and essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in Rome. You'd make a good choice to read it I'd say.

Happy B-day Spurius!