Virgil61

Nice clarifications Onasander, it sure beats "all historians suck". Well thought out. Having said that, I'd agree that quite a few do. I hope someday you get a chance to take a historiography class at a decent college. Sorry 'bout the negative rep vote, I was in a crotchety mood that day, I'll fix that when the board allows it.

Nothing personal, but if someone is going to cruise a history board and make sweeping statements against historians they should be challenged to present specific facts. For every marxist there are about a dozen professional non-marxist historians who've written on a topic. Even fewer marxists have written on the topic of Roman history for that matter, although I own at least one study of crowds in the Republic done by a marxist-ish historian I've yet to read.

I was responding to part of the comment on this thread that deals with the relevance of historians and trying to pin the guy down with something a little more definite. How does Imperialism in a general sense relate to "Ethics and Morals of Roman Society"? Or jobs in Bangladesh [to qoute you]. It's a discussion group.

What book by what historian caused what war that wasn't influenced by economic or social factors? Rather than vague generalities please show an issue, name a historian and point out what "strains of logic" were denied from coming into existence. And while you're at it explain how Polybius, Josephus or name-your-ancient-writer don't view their own history through an 'ideological lens' of sorts related to their own era. Take a graduate historiography course and you'll find that determining a historian's 'filter' is a common theme. And do you actually think it always discounts a point of view completely? Read "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" by a marxist named Michael Parenti. It has a lot of problems, but anyone who can't see that he makes some excellent points about the Senate using the Roman constitution as a fig-leaf to cover it's unwillingess to share economic or political power than or that his pointing out the bias of the Roman commentaters has some credibility is blind. Read "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy, a flawed book that still makes some brilliant observations showing the link between technological innovation, economic strength and political/military power from the 17th century to the 20th. Combining military, economic and political history, he moves the imperialism debate into a higher level. You're giving a politically motivated lash-out at the left-wing, leaving right-wingers like Paul Johnson or even worse, holocaust revisionists free to ply their trade. So when a historian talks about six million Jews killed in the holocaust they are wrong when they make judgments? Or when a historian talks about Jefferson and Washington, whose personal writings make clear they knew the contradictions between slavery and holding the values of the Consitution, personally kept their own slaves then that historian is wrong to point out that contradiction? Or is a historian's POV only valid when talking about the leftist evils of the Soviet Gulag?

The revolt of Spartacus isn't related to the incursions of Barbarian tribes centuries later. I google the quote, it's from a review of the movie Spartacus, sounds like the reviewer needs a history lesson. You might want to do a search for previous threads on why the Roman Empire fell, there've been several.

Interesting site, thanks. Not particularly convincing arguments, look at his definition of Rome. But he's put a lot of effort into it. But talk about missing the point and relegating the definition of Rome to a legalistic interpretation of "who's got the mandate". At least the Byzantine Empire can be defended as Roman with some semblence of logical argument but the Holy Roman Empire?

It is true, and some put the numbers at 60,000. Polybius states that this consular army was not well-trained which is one reason why the consul Paullus, declined to engage Hannibal. His co-consul Varro thought otherwise and led the Romans to disaster against his advice. The Romans got sucked into a pocket by Hannibal, who'd put his worst troops in the front-middle knowing they'd fall back. He'd gotten the Romans bunched up and fighting on three sides. His cavalry routed the Roman cavalry , returned and completed the encirclement. Encirclement is a tough-nut to crack by a disciplined veteran army, for a less-experienced one it's fatal.

That's part of our old area of operations. I spent a lot of time in those towns.

I had experience with the Dutch in Iraq. One of the cities in our area of operation was Samawa. The Marines and one of my detachments located there did a great job of keeping the peace, cooperating with the people of that city including helping them start a newspaper, getting water flowing, electricity etc. The Dutch battalion came in to take the city to take control. Six months later, back in the U.S. I started reading a number of stories about how the Dutch had been so successful in Samawa and how it was a comparitively quiet city because of their efforts. The newspapers gave them credit for everything the Marines and my soldiers did! But they seemed a decent bunch, they received a peaceful city and kept it that way. I can't say that about the Spanish who took over Najaf. They screwed it up royally by staying in their garrison and not venturing out, allowing elements of a radical Shia group from Baghdad to infiltrate a peaceful and successfully run city [thanks to the Marines and my soldiers], hence the combat in Najaf months later. The Italian Caribinieri who took over Nasiriyah were surprisingly impressive, they ran a tight ship, that was just before the bombing of their site in the middle of the city. The Ukrainians in Al Kut were a joke and had to be supported by NG MPs when we were leaving. The Poles, and there were a lot of them, seemed happy to be there. They should've been, they got to Al Hillah after a whole section of barracks, showers and chow hall were put in for them by Halliburton, complete with A/C. We later heard they were getting paid $1000 a month extra as well. A funny story about the Germans, they had a chemical company in Doha, Kuwait before the war, flown in by the US Air Force on C5s. Germany then opted out of the invasion but hadn't made provisions or didn't have the airlift to get them and their equipment home. The USAF wouldn't give them space to get out, so they sat in their tiny compound flying the German flag for weeks.

I remember when we were in Eastern Baghdad and made the nasty trip over to the Airport to see our counterparts in 3 ID. The rumour in the MARDIV was that Lynch's unit was sent down the path to Nasiriyah by some Marine route guides by mistake. As a 1SG supply in Iraq was a sore issue. When movement started we went with what we had and everything else could just catch up. Since I was at division HQ and my detachments were sliced out to the Regiments I tried like hell to bargain and deal for anything- we actually had some goodies to give out- and then transport it out to the my elements. With the Marines you just signed and carried. Tires always remained a headache. You reminded me of what a headache maintenance and supplies are with the Army. One of the shocking things we found was that Marine mechanics work their tails off, don't ask for paperwork [and don't care]; if they've got it they'll fix it. Coming from the Army and remembering Mondays in the Motor Pool during active duty I can't say enough great things about Marine mechanics. Because we were attached to the MARDIV we had to depend on them for everything supply-wise. Luckily we had an alternate Army channel through Doha. After the invasion when we settled in Al Hillah and my guys were spread over the south I leveraged Doha and the MARDIV for supplies. Getting mail to my guys was one of the biggest headaches after the war. Marines get their mail sorted on ship then forwarded. Getting mail for an Army unit from their system took literally months [not to mention getting packages that had "Army Sucks" scribbled on them]. We finally found an Army postal unit at Tallil that worked well.

If I was discussing a new wargaming scenario I wouldn't care much about culture [Victor Hanson might disagree]. But if I'm discussing history in with a serious eye I'd never deny culture a central focal point, it has a major role in determining the civilization being addressed. Some would say it is the civilization. [Read what I'd written earlier about the Classical and Cosmopolitan types of Romans.] If you want a strictly legalistic definition of 'Roman', then the Eastern Empire was technically and legally the inheritor of the Empire. I have no problem with it in that sense. But if you want really want to understand history you've got to look at everthing, including the underlying culture and institutions. The truth is that it was the legal and legitimate inheritor of the word 'Roman', but in spite of Roman rule, assimilation of some Romans, etc., the Eastern Empire/Byzantium was for all intents and purposes a Greek-speaking people who'd been under Roman rule. They were Cosmopolitan Romans [per my earlier distinction] who by virtue of geographical defensibility hosted the later Eastern capital, inherited the legal mantle and institutions of Rome and who's Greek populace gradually took over; but they weren't the descendents of Cincinnatus or Augustus. You can call them Roman, but if you're a serious student I don't think you can ignore this. Anyway, I think I've got to the point where I'm repeating myself in posts.

I picked India because it had a long cultural legacy and occupied by Britain; Brazil had no similar cultural legacy, the Greeks did [surprisingly the CIA factbook states the 2001 census of Great Britain shows an Indian population of only 1.8%]. My purpose was to show the adoption of certain civic values by one culture and the melding of them with indigenous ones and point out how in a similar fashion those in the East- and finally- the Greek speaking populace adopted Roman civic values. Certainly there were Romans in the East, but they assimilated into the culture. Barbarian influence did change the culture of the Italy and the rest of the West as well; that legacy is the Middle Ages. Cicero's family is Italian, and I wouldn't restrict 'Roman' to just those living in the City, but also those in Italy who by virtue of proximity and sometimes shared heritage succumbed almost totally to Roman culture to become culturally Roman in the way the Greeks of the East didn't. He was a Roman enough to be accepted in the Senate years before the first non-Roman was given the honor.

My company spent 2003 in Iraq with the 1st MARDIV during the invasion and consolidation. Quite an eye opener for someone who's spent his time on Bragg. They are a much different animal than the RM. I'd put the RM more along the lines of Rangers, with the Marines closer to the 82nd ABN [the Marines would hate this comparison]. Decent enough people really, good NCOs and officers with dirtbags like anywhere else. They took extra care of my company and we were extremely loyal to them. General Mattis called us "his Army". We even received the right to wear the 1st MARDIV patch as a combat patch- straight from Dept of the Army. The first time since Army units attached to the Marines in the Pacific in WWII. They're different, but at the same time closer to the Army then they realize or would ever admit. The USMCs strong point is in their Rifle companies, hands down. They aren't afraid to throw infantry into combat where the Army would rather send in Bradley's or arty. Part of the problem is they had limited arty anyway and nothing like a Bradley so maybe that dictated their approach. Their recon was friggin' insane. We'd send in Kiowas and Apaches followed by Bradley Scouts. Not the Marines, they go full bore with LAVs and little air recon. They paid the price for that several times during the invasion by getting ambushed. The 3d ID LNO and I would just shake our heads, but the Marines, they didn't give a damn. That was the price of doing business. One of the things about being with them is you learn what the Army does right. They're the worst, absolute worst planners I've ever seen. Division OPORDs looked like something an Army company might have made, and that's being kind. I never, ever, saw courses of action being discussed at the division COC [Marine version of TOC]. During movement the line units do fine, but the support and command units are a soup sandwich. I was with 2d ACR during the first Gulf War. A much different unit than the current 2d ACR. They had come right off the Czech border at the end of the Soviet Union into the Gulf. Squared away and every unit, from line to support moved tactically and pulled into a defensive lager with fields of fire set up by the senior NCO and so on. The Marines, being jack of all trades rather than exclusively Mech, didn't quite have the grasp security at the stop that Army Mech units have. And the Army knows armor warfare a couple magnitudes more than the Marines ever will. I remember the whole division had a battalion or two of tanks and used them more as infantry support than massed. Maybe the situation dictated it, but I'm not so sure. No question, in an armor battle go with the Army, with a light infantry fight go with the Marines.

The Byzantines were Romans based on a political inheritance, they weren't related to the Rome of Cicero with the similar cultural and ethnic continuity that connects Tony Blair's United Kingdom to Henry VIII's England. The English remained English in geographic, literary, linguistic, genetic and cultural terms and are core of Britain even today. The Greeks of Constantinople and Anatolia were influenced by Roman civic and political culture and inherited the mantle. They were administratively Roman and they were Romanized, but they weren't the Romans of Cincinnatus or Augustus. I hate getting sucked down 'analogy-alley', but what you see in the Byzantine Empire would be reflected in the fall of the island of Gr. Britain, the setting up of a Parliament and Kingdom in India [a commonwealth country], then having that kingdom call itself the U.K. Technically speaking it is; An anglicized India that could call themselves "British". But any sensible historian would see, label it and study it as a somewhat different entity; the essence of being a "Brit" would be a substantially different. In this context Henry VIII's and Tony Blair's kingdoms have a more self-contained relationship in the same manner that ethnic Romans vis-a-vis the Republic and Principate. But I agree with you that there is a spectrum along the line that this is happening with no definite dates marking the periods. The Classical Romans of Caesar/Augustus spread Roman civilization across the Mediterranean, other cultures acquired aspects of the culture and became Romanized as opposed to Roman. Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople by virtue of location and defense. The Greek speaking peoples of the Aegean/Anatolia were able to continue the administrative departments and political rule of the Romans. Of course the Byzantines called themselves Romans, and others did as well; the Western Empire had fell, Constantinople held a valid political claim to the title and the era was a time of turmoil. To not understand the importance of the allure of the title of "Roman" and the symbolism that went with it is to not quite understand the tempo of those times; see also Charlemagnes Empire, The Czar [Caesar in Russian], the Holy Roman Empire or even Mehmed II who called himself Caesar after the conquest of Constantinople in the 15th century. The historical evidence in fact gives strong support to the claim that the Later Eastern Roman Empire was a political continuation but an ethnological and cultural hybrid of Greek speaking peoples inheriting Roman political trappings rather than a simple continuation of Rome. The answer might be a two-tier definition of a Roman. The first a "classical Roman", ethnically and culturally related to those Romans of the plebes and patricians. Those latin speakers and holders of that peculiar familial and social structure who spread out throughout the Mediterranean. The second definition is the Cosmopolitan Roman, those who made their first appearance when the first Gallic tribe received the right to have a Senator, who took to certain aspects of Roman civic culture and who's numbers spread until Caracalla gave full citizenship in the 3rd century. The Eastern Romans fall into this second definition, combining the Greek culture of the Aegean/Anatolia with Roman civic values of the later Empire. It may be a difficult concept or even unromantic concept for those of us who are drawn to Roman civilization, but I think most people get the gist of it if looked at dispassionately. You may not agree, but they're strong arguments. A historian's task is to get to the truth of the matter whether economic, linguistic, military, religious, political, etc., even if it goes in the face of notions he'd rather have come true. The Byzantines look like a [Roman] duck, but walk and squawk like something slightly different.

I worked with the SAS in Turkey during a NATO exercise but I'm not sure if they were active-duty or Reservists. An uncommonly arrogant bunch for Brits, they shared a section of rooms with us- USASOC [special Ops Command] laisons- during the exercise. The SAS cordoned off one room, put a bunch of commo equipment in there and put "UK eyes only" on the door, barring us from entry. The Special Forces laisons, reservists from Alabama, then set up a coffee pot and microwave in the room next to it and put "US eyes only" on the entrance. Pretty funny at the time, some of the SAS thought it was fair play while a couple got bent out of shape about it. I worked with Royal Marine reservists who were attached to our unit for a short-time on Ft. Bragg in the mid-90's [the RM being more like U.S. Rangers rather than USMC.]. Pretty decent guys and I've remained friends with one of them- I always have a place for him to crash on when he comes to the US. The quality of National Guard SF units I've seen isn't that bad. Most have had active-duty SF time, receive the same training and just carry on in the NG.

Reread the analogy, it stated that a portion of the U.S. would remain. I should of wrote more clearly using "while the U.S. as we know it ceased to exist" although it was obvious by the context of the sentence that was the case. I'm sorry you had difficulty with it. It didn't quite rise to the level of Chinese historians on the Moon I'll admit. Of course people of the time wouldn't always recognize their history. Part of the pupose of history is to shine an analytical light on what occurred after the fact. The Industrial Revolution wasn't understood in context until a hundred years later. The average person of the late 19th century wouldn't have understood the essence of capital formation and that occurred that allowed investment to take place. The victims of the Black Plague wouldn't have understood the nature of the virus that caused the devastation. An Anglo-Saxon of the 11th century wouldn't have understood the linguistic and social after effects of the Norman invasions which are key to understanding the development of England. Start a new thread on the end of the Roman Empire, this one's about over I think. Someone needs to tell Tacitus, Livey, Cassius Dio and Polybius.

I was speaking mostly of my time during active-duty in the 90's. Jumps just took up so much time and always at the worst times.

You completely missed my point. I don't know what "your argument is stacked" means; it was a clear analogy to what had happened at the end of the Roman Empire and the continuation of the Eastern, later Byzantine. The secret to argument by analogy, by the way, is to use them sparingly and keep them short. They have effective but limited value as tools of argument. The point is that by the time of Justinian the Eastern Empire, while Roman on some levels, had effectively changed enough to deserve the application Byzantine rather than Roman. It was becoming a predominately Greek culture with vestiges of Roman political trappings. Now you're getting close to the answer; by intermarrying, building colonies etc. the nature of Roman-ness began to change. This forum is primarily concerned with the Republic and the Principate not the Byzantine Empire. Those are the eras when ethnic Roman-ness was the predominant driving culture behind what was Rome. As the Principate developed and citizenship was granted this began to change. By the time of the Tetrarchy and Dominate the political culture had changed so that many of the political institutions of classical Rome were discarded. By the time of the fall of the Western Empire, the home of the classical Romans with their culture, language, et al., the Eastern had retained vestiges of what was Roman- the name and trappings which had quite an allure- but for all intents and purposes Rome was dead. N is for knowledge. You don't have to like or even agree with historians, but to just make a blanket, dismissive and anti-intellectual statement like you've done about them is pretty ignorant. Apparently you dismiss other historians like Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Livy and Polybius as well. Think rationally. It's a question setting Rome along a spectrum of ancient and early medieval history, and then including the archeological evidence, military history, art history, architectural changes, changes in the political system, in demographic makeup, culture, linguistics, et al., and then making relationships between the respective eras. Fairly basic stuff for the amateur history buff or professional historian.

Believe it or not the only non-Regular Army SF units are in the National Guard. It's been that way since around 1990 or so when a great realignment happened. There are two National Guard SF Groups; 19th and 20th. A lot of SWAT guys in them if I remember correctly. http://www.groups.sfahq.com/19th/ http://alguard.state.al.us/20thSFG.htm

You're confusing being influenced by Greek culture with being Greek. Rome was an Italian and a Latin culture with influence from the Greeks but not "more Greek" than Italian. In it's language it was latin and in it's ethnic affinity it was a member of the Italic tribes. During the later Republic and Principate Greek was used as the language of the learned, but that didn't make them Greek any more than an English gentleman speaking and writing in Latin in the 15th century was Roman. Although influenced by the cities of Maegna Grecia, especially in religion, early Roman culture was as strongly shaped by their common origins with the Latins and the odd culture of the neighboring Etruscans [which itself was influenced by Greek culture]. The real era of Greek influence really come into fruition in the 2d century BC during the Punic Wars when the Romans began to become involved politically and militarily with Greece and Macedonia. But Greek culture influenced everyone, from the Egyptians under the Ptolemies, to the Parthians and the Persians, all of whom borrowed freely, in one degree or other from the Greeks. That's when Cato's famous backlash against Greek cultural influence happened. As important, the people of the Eastern Empire weren't biologically related to the Romans although they still retained influence. That's why historians call them Byzantine or Eastern Roman; to highlight and focus the differences. Sending a telegram to inform an Emperor he isn't Roman isn't the issue; it's dissecting and analyzing Roman civilization as a historian, anthropologist or archeologist would and segmenting it according to cultural, linguistic, ethnographic and other classifications. While your analogy isn't bad a better analogy to this issue is this; the U.S. ceases to exist one day, a portion of the Southeast or Florida that is Spanish-speaking remains viable and still calls itself the United States. While technically a continuation, a future political scientist or historian in addressing U.S. history would apply to it a different label or additional label to it than just the "United States" to seperate it in relation to the U.S. of the first 225 years. Your argument is with the majority of generations of historians who've made the logical distinction between the Republic, the Principate, the Tetrachy of the 4d-5th centuries and the later Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. To get back to the original comment, I think the guist of this board and more specifically, this thread of the Greatest Roman General is of the Republic and Principate or Classical Rome, not the Rome of later Antiquity or Byzantium. Notice the forum reserved for discussion of the post-Roman history such as that of the Byzantine Empire.

I think the differences between the Republic/Principate and the Eastern Empire are of a greater magnitude. The Romans were, well, roman. Their origins were in Italy, their culture was Italian, their language was latin they were tied to Rome and Italy by this. The Eastern Romans were to a large extent Greek who spoke that language rather than latin, who's main population base in Asia Minor and Greece was Greek speaking with little cultural connection with Roman culture and while they maintained an adherence of sorts to their Roman legacy they were arguably a different entity by Belisarius' time. This is a much greater difference than the one between Revolutionary War generals and contemporary ones.

There's nothing like being airborne, the quality of the people and the espirit de corps. My only complaint is that jumps took up a hell of a lot of time and sometimes it's more about jumping than other training. Let's face it, airborne's just a way of getting to point B. I was in two leg companies, I have to admit there are some good people there as well with maybe a few more duds than in an airborne unit. The Reserves on the other hand are a mish-mash of some great people with really spotty quality among officers and senior NCOs.

I recently ETS'd after a year in Iraq as a 1SG. I was airborne on Bragg for ten years, got out into the Reserves and stayed airborne for five more then on to a leg unit.

I don't think he's "undisputibly" as much a Roman general in the same sense. There are major differences between the Romans of the Republic or the Principate and the Eastern Roman Empire that would argue he shouldn't be included in this particular list.

Thanks. Nice stuff, ain't exactly cheap though.