Virgil61

Am I the only degenerate on this forum following Stern's new show?

It would take a particularly biased person to not concede that Caesar was perhaps the greatest military leader of men in the ancient world, a seperate but just as important a skill as that of tactictian or strategist. Alexander was arguably a greater tactician on the battlefield but Caesar probably gets the edge as a leader who men would follow into hell (Alexander was no slouch in this aspect either). Whatever one thinks of the motives or legality his campaigns in Gaul were almost brilliant. His battles in northern Gaul including the reconnaissance over the Rhine complete with that amazing bridge, securing his flank from harrassment by incursions into Britain and the siege of Alesia, all done while outnumbered and with great speed, show a mind that grasped the operational and strategic concepts of warfare. This doesn't even begin to address his actions in the Civil War where he was faced with armies of equal skill and background or his understanding of supply and logistics. Caesar had some near misses and a few bad days but in overall leadership, determination and energy he never found his match. My gut feeling is the Parthians would have had an unpleasant surprise.

How do you americans cope with all those tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes.... it is all about statistics, i guess... cheers viggen I remember the first hurricane I ever had to ride through when I moved to the (American) South. I thought it couldn't be that bad, I mean really. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 changed my opinion, it can be that bad and although North Carolina gets a bad one only ever three or four years there's nothing like seeing the carnage a one can bring. No power for days, trees fallen across roads, power lines down, houses damaged, etc. They're a mess and I don't miss them.

You're being disingenuous. You posted opinion on contemporary American politics obviously meant in a negative fashion including a somewhat naive questioning of why the U.S. government doesn't acquiesce to U.N. rule. The mods and regs here aren't ahistorical yokels, we're very aware of analogies to contemporary society. Rather than throwing back on them an accusation of sensitivity you ought to keep in mind that they've seen this before a dozen times and it degenerates into argument over contemporary American policies and politics.

I have to second this site, it's an excellent resource on Trajan's column. I'll have to check Thayer's site out.

Great flick. Pierce Brosnan, aka ex-James Bond, plays an emotionally dysfunctional assassin-for-hire and Greg Kinnear plays an average American business consultant in Mexico City. It's sort of a warped buddy movie and Brosnan plays his role to the hilt. He ain't Bond or even Remington Steele, he's their unshaven, drunk and decaying opposite lacking a ounce of their class, lusting after underage Mexican girls and blurting out inappropriate comments at the wrong time. Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis are very good as the average American couple with a sad secret. It's shot in a hip colorful style with quite a decent soundtrack moving the picture along. I really enjoyed it and especially seeing Brosnan play against type, he's really excellent.

You certainly didn't offend me, I appreciate both the original post and your honesty on this one. Your original post was a bit stark though.

Arrian's Array offers an incredible insight to the mind of a Roman commander of the 2nd century. Far from a legion/infantry-only mind-state it shows just how tactically flexible a good--not even a great--commander could be. It's quite a resource that's sadly overlooked when discussing Roman military topics.

That's a cynical, condescending and almost misanthropic point of view isn't it Skarr? I'm not really a believer, yet I still attend mass, and I don't consider myself a hypocrite believe it or not. I'm an Italian-American and for me Catholicism is a tie-in to what it means to be Italian, as a reminder of my family roots and to the culture that my family lived in for 2,000 years. I'm not alone in this, one of my closest friends has two Phds and conducts cancer researc in NC. She's Russian, an atheist, and yet she's baptized her children and raised them in the orthodox church for similar reasons to mine--a cultural connection to their heritage. Your criticism of Popes, common ritual and son on falls somewhat off the mark in that much of the construct of Christianity, certainly Catholicism, was inherited in large part from its pagan predecessors. Religion played no less of a role in the Republic or the Empire both as symbols of political power and community as well as individual yearnings. I don't believe religion is an artificial construct grafted upon societies for political reasons. No one will ever convince me there isn't a very strong evolutionary-biological component to it that supplies much of its drive. And Ursus' point is correct, the world doesn't seem to be getting less religious but more so, especially the developing world. It's precisely the lack of involvement and growth in mainline Protestantism and Catholicism which he's pointed out, which have made a sort of peace with secularism, and the trend towards fundamentalist sects that concern me. I detest utterly the involvement of organized religion in American politics, the imposition of their biblical morality on the rest of us, but I'm not about to throw labels 'ignorant' and 'less strong minded' out at everyone who chooses to practice. Especially if that leaves nothing in the vacuum but a cold, nihilisitc view of the world, one that can be just as destructive in its own way. Although I see the point that religion should be personal, there's strong communal aspect to it as well. I'm not sure what the answers are, I'm a strong proponent of the sciences, but they fail abysmally in answering the spiritual aspects of life.

No way, I love what a bunch of nasty crims they are. Adriana was begging to be whacked - talking to the Feds behind Christophers back ? I would like to avoid any more Tony Soprano sex scenes though....uuurrggghhh Aren't you in Australia? Didn't realize the Sopranos was big there, interesting. I'm sure all the Guido's love it.

Probably a toss up between transparency and enforcement, but I think the decline of civic mores is probably worse than the lack of those three above. I think transparency in corporate governance has increased by leaps and bounds as the Russian economy has sought some foreign investment and WTO ascension--wary investors want to see the books. But when you lose a certain degree of civic mores, when average people get the idea that if they don't bend the rules they'll miss out and look like fools then your society has a problem. I wonder if there's a correlation between that and the influx of wealth into the Republic during its expansion, the absence of much of the citizenry sent overseas for military service, citizens sent out to colonize, loss of small farms etc., leading to a decline in Roman civic mores. Just a thought.

I'd say! Did you pick up that expression in NC? I never heard it until I lived i TN for a couple of years. I don't recall, having lived there for over 15 years it's probably where I got it. I'm originally from Oregon and in the early nineties I was jokingly accused by an NC girlfriend of having a "TV" accent, now I'm accused by my family of having a mild southern one. True enough. But killing your own girl??? That's really low. I guess in spite of the soap-opera family-life angle of the Sopranos underneath it all lies the ruthless reality of being a mobster. For all the PR on them I've only known scary types from the Army that made the grade. They aren't well thought of by other government agencies from what I've seen.

She was dumb as a fence-post though. Revealing the fact she'd been 'turned' to Christopher wasn't the smartest move and after what happened to Big P*ssy I wasn't suprised at what happened. I don't know what the end-state will be with Tony. Maybe he'll turn, but I can't see that. I don't see him getting arrested so much as I see him getting capped and maybe Christopher taking over 'the family'. The FBI guys aren't always the sharpest tacks, they're much like some FBI agents I've met in real life. I miss Big P*ssy and Ritchie.

March is season 6, can't wait. Damn if I'm not hooked on this show.

I don't think all humans are inherently corrupt enough to render a state inoperative, but I do agree that there are enough humans are in all societies that there have to be safeguards to prevent the most potentially corrupt people from ruining their government. At least I think this is the lesson from reform efforts in modern "banana republics"--perhaps Virgil might be able to comment on this with more authority. I'll share my take on corruption in Russia. A lot of individuals I met who we suspected of being involved in some shady operations were personally honest. They'd never steal anything from you or I and they surprisingly understood the effects of corruption on their society. The bottom line was they know that if they don't play hard and fast with the rules then someone else will and will receive the benefits of doing so. The lack of strong institutions and codes; courts, laws, enforcement authorities, corporate governance, transparency, etc. and the erosion of civic mores played a big role in the looting of '90s Russia. There's probably a lesson there applicable to any civilization from the Republic on.

That's just preposterous. I encourage you to read up on military tactics and not limit it to the Roman era. Disciplined infantry stops cavalry as a rule of thumb.

Apparently it didn't, after Carrhae/Antony the Romans dealt with the Parthians, usually having the upper-hand and sacking their capital Cstiphon several times from Trajan to Septimius Severus. That leads to several possibilities; the compound bow wasn't as superior as some think, the Romans may have just had their auxiliaries copy the damn thing (a very Roman thing to do), the simple fact their archers (Numidians, Cretans, etc) were no slouches either or that the Sagittarii (their own mounted archers) were beefed up and/or armed with the Parthian bow. Missiles weren't the only addition either, the Romans also started adopting heavy cavalry themselves in the east.

Well, yes, I think that was the point of having a substantial missile-mix; deny or neutralize one of your enemies major weapons systems. If you can negate the mounted archers then they're left with cataphracts vs Roman infantry and cavalry support, not good odds for the Parthians.

I don't agree with the premise that infantry remains highly vulnerable with archers (and other missiles) attached to them. I've posted this before but again let's remember that after the licking at Carrhae they did successfully fight against the Parthians who employed mounted archers and heavy cavalry (cataphracts). I don't think that dismounted archers can be discounted in harassing mounted versions. Dismounted archers are all that saved Antony's army from complete annihilation during its retreat. Add to dismounted archers slingers, the variety of ballista, from around one manuballista per century to larger versions, and you've got a decent combat arms mix to respond with. Here's an extract from Arrian's array against the Alans circa 135 AD--heavy cavalry that I believe weren't big on mounted archers--but with the legions being in Cappadocia it's not much of a stretch that they'd had operating procedures in place which reflected combat tactics with Parthians who's empire was close-by and who Trajan had invaded two decades before. Once thus arrayed there should be silence until the enemies come within missile range; when in range the loudest and most intimidating war cry must be raised by the whole lot, and bolts and stones must be fired from the artillery pieces and arrows from the bows, and javelins by both light armed and shield bearing javelinmen. Stones must also be thrown at the enemies by the allied force on the overwatch position, and the whole missile rain must be coming from all sides to make it concentrated enough to panick the horses and destroy the enemies... An interesting aspect is evidence that axes were used by Roman cavalry to fight against heavily armored cavalry (cataphracts). Yes I think the Romans fought effectively against both heavy-cavalry and mounted-archer combinations.

Here it is, the real reason for your views. May I ask how young you are and why you hold such contempt for humanity? It's naive to think only Americans take little interest in the outside world. When in overseas I'm always surprised at how misinformed people there are or to put it bluntly, how willing they are to believe anything negative about the US over anything positive and how silly conspiracy theories are believed. Much as I hate to defend Bush, your views on the "defrauded" election and Cheney/Rumsfeld are the perfect example.

A representative republic is a form of democracy. Some media nut-jobs have recently taken it upon themselves to try and distance the term republic from democracy. That's nothing more than cynical manipulation.

I've never bought into the cavalry argument. As someone mentioned disciplined infantry has always stopped cavalry, although an infantry only army against a combined infantry/cavarly army is at a great disadvantage. The Romans had always depended on auxiliaries to supply the most of the cavalry arm although I think they may have expanded their own version as well by the late empire. And remember that Germans supplied a lot of the Roman cavalry arm, not only during this period but even as far back as Carrhae. If anything, by this time the Germans were possibly integral to the make-up of an average Roman army.

When I listen to it, knowing Russian, I certainly hear a strong slavic influence on the language. Perhaps the slavic roots stand out in my mind, but they're seem strong to me at least. Yes, it's sad how the Brits are losing their ability to speak proper English. Today you'll find a disproportionate number of Italian language schools in the Tuscan region. I believe, and if anyone knows different please correct me, that Tuscan is the dialect closest to standard Italian. I'm a bit lucky in that while from Abruzzo I developed my Italian during part of my childhood spent in Tuscany (Livorno/Pisa). I no longer speak it very well, but Italians I've spoken with think my pronounciation is excellent, probably due to where I learned most of the language.

That's a very good point. The effect of expansion's influence on internal Roman political dynamics is a big factor on subsequent events. Are there any relevant studies on this that come to mind?

Of course it is. It's one of those arguments that seem pretty self-evident. The ability of citizens to achieve (or more precisely try to achieve) their vision of what a society should be, while at the same time allowing for protection of the minority's rights (as in political) and allowing individual freedoms--speech, religion, press, etc., seems to me to be the best final form of human government. Warts and all. You speak like compromise is a bad thing, when did consensus get such a bad name? We make personal choices everyday many of which are wrong, which we know are wrong yet no one argues we shouldn't be allowed to make them they're a part of how we evolve as individuals. The problem isn't those masses you so distrust, it's that a functioning democracy should have an educated populace and institutions that mean something in order to achieve some sort of stability. It was democratic in many ways or at least had democratic tendencies, I'm not sure why you don't think so. It wasn't pretty and was pre-loaded in the sense it favored one group over another allowing them a more manipulative role, I agree with that. And it was frought with struggle between groups. It wasn't democracy that did the Republic in but the end of compromise and consensus that was reflected in it's earlier era. I'm not sure where this distrust of democracy over other forms of government comes from. After having been a few places where democracy was just a dream or where it's recently taken root (albeit fragile) after decades of "benevolent" and not so benevolent government to see people so untrusting of it in the 21st century especially on a history board is just plain heartbreaking.