Northern Neil

Hmm, this all sounds a bit revisionist to me, Calders. The Pax Imperium/ Golden age or whatever you want to call it was a period of political stability, peace and artistic flowering whatever way you look at it, and the frontier policy thus initiated kept the Empire together in broadly the same geo - political shape from the days of Augustus, until the 5th century. Far from running itself, the later emperors invested much time and effort on the frontier provinces, and some even died in those places. The Antonine period Emperors shunned the outside world because it had little to offfer in terms of the 'wealthy but weak' adversaries alluded to by Asclepiades, and apart from Parthia/Persia (wealthy but strong) expansion would only add vast areas of steppe, Taiga and desert to the Empire. These new provinces would be military obligations rather than assets, and I believe that abandoning the policy of unlimited growth in recognition of this was part of the political shrewdness which characterised the Roman mind from the Republic to the later Empire. It was undoubtedly a success for many centuries - think of the 'Empires' which expanded without similar limits. Alexander's, Atilla's, the Ummayyad Caliphate, and the Mongol Empire - They all expanded without any sensible limits and became ungovernable due to ther vast sizes and totally disparate cultural groups.

..We, the US and the rest of the League of Nations were also furious with Russia for attacking Finland. It was one of the great moral dilemmas of WW2 that Finland - a parliamentary democracy - had no choice but to side with Hitler, and we had no choice but to declare war on Finland in support of the military dictatorship of the Soviets. Morality is indeed relative - we sided with the fascist entity which was further away from us than the Third Reich, declaring war on a harmless democracy to cement the alliance. However, barely a shot was fired against the Finns by the allies, and little aid given to the Soviets against Finland - at least in the Winter War.* An indication that perhaps morality was very 'relative' indeed vis-a-vis this dilemma. I would be interested if anyone wider read than me could give an ancient example in which war was waged against a friend in order to preserve a treaty with a nastier ally. * I believe Finland's ill - advised 'Continuation War' gained far less sympathy - but the allies treatment of the Finns was still very permissive.

Maybe the EU as a united entity prevents Russia from bullying the Baltic states and Finland as it was inclined to do in earlier times.

I am from Lancashire, but will not deny you your manhood - happy birthday!

Thats OK - I ran with the flow too, on this! But our tangential posts are not entirely irrelevent. WW1 was pointless in many ways. As Edmund Blackadder said in the last episode of Series 4 of the excellent BBC comedy, 'In the end, it was too much trouble NOT to have a war'. WW2 was not entirely pointless, as it put an end to many unsavoury totalitarian regimes. But, to enable this, we had to ally ouselves to one or two as well, and in the process declare war on several harmless democratic states who had no choice but to side with Hitler.

What ASCLEPIADES posted in part of a bigger work, you can read the rest here. This is amazing - my thanks to friends Aescepiades and Ingsoc. My short term future has now been mapped for me! I think a general 'New thread' should be started to inform all our members of this great website.

That is amazing - Where can one get a copy, or is this a short piece found among other works?

Forgive my ignorance, but are the Abkhaz people and the Abasgians the same? I might have misread your post relating to this - the name similarity suggests they are. If that is so, it puzzles me that fellow Caucasaian speakers would maintain independent political trajectories rather than unting against vastly superior numbers of Slavs, Iranians and Turkic peoples.

They do, but there are other considerations. Abkhazians and Georgians are the same ethnically and share a common linguistic heritage (Caucasian group). Today their languages have about the same degree of separation as English from Dutch. Does Abkhazia really want to be swllowed up by a Russia with which it shares few linguistic and cultural links? Do you mean like Kosovo, Serbia and US? Rings any bell? Personally, I agree with Mr. Lennon: Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for But as far as nationalities' rights are there to deal with, we ought to be consistent and use the same rule everywhere. Powers' fights by proxies are as despicable now as they were back in the Cold War years. The cultural differences between the Slavic and orthodox Serbia and the (largely) muslim and Albanian speaking Kosovo are very marked, much more so than the related Georgians and Abasgians. in addition, the Kosovars have always been present in their country, whereas the Russian element in Ossetia is a more recent colonial influx. Mr. Lennon was quite right when he penned that song, but unfortunately it is not a realistic prospect in the short term. Whilst the Georgians have not treated this matter as delicately as they could, I fear the consequences should Russia get its way here. The Baltic states with the exception of Finland each has a large minority of Russian speakers who identify closely with the Motherland. It would be a shame if they used a Georgian precedent to extract territory from these already tiny nations, under the same pretext.

Regarding erosion, I am surprised there is no sign of it even in the impluvia. The 'drop' for the captured water was considerable - in some cases 20 feet plus, and in a downpour there must have been some power by the time the water hit the impluvium. Further, the impluvia are often tesselated, which is quite a fragile construct given the power of the water falling into it. Another thought occurs: the impluvia are quite shallow, about 6 - 12 inches. In a strong downpour, the splash and spray in the atrium must have been considerable.

What joy! The weather is good here, and I have two days off. A camping I will go!!

They do, but there are other considerations. Abkhazians and Georgians are the same ethnically and share a common linguistic heritage (Caucasian group). Today their languages have about the same degree of separation as English from Dutch. Does Abkhazia really want to be swllowed up by a Russia with which it shares few linguistic and cultural links?

Ok - I will stick my neck out. I am going to go onto Amazon and order one of these - it looks GREAT!

That might have happened if, after the cold war, we had been 'Magnanimous in victory' as Churchill said we had been, vis-a-vis Germany and Japan. We weren't and Russia felt humiliated when it was weak in the '90's. No wonder it carries on its own course, and thumbs its nose to the West whenever it can.

It appears that Russia still has a penchant for stirring up trouble with small neighbours, and then declaring a 'just' war to annexe more territory. Seems like a repeat of the Finno-Russian war to me. One hopes that the Georgians render the inevitable Russian victory as a Pyrrhic one, like their 'victory' over the Finns in 1940. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7550804.stm

Luckily I have Rome in Africa - very good indeed, and some good illustrations. Maybe some of our American friends could download these books into a file and email it to their poor cousins? EDIT: I can now download them.

The Battle of Dieppe in 1942 reminds me a bit of the failed attempt to recapture Carthage from the Vandals in the mid-5th century. In both battles, combined forces from two or more states were roundly defeated by Germans at great cost to the allies in terms of men and material.

I wonder how much this was influenced by events in the third and fourth centuries? Decius, Valerian, Julian and Valens all came to sticky ends fighting Rome's enemies. It could even be said that the Quadi 'talked' Valentinian to death!

I believe that the centuries in the first cohort were 'double centuries', so that would suggest that the Primus Pilus was in sole command, but backed up by the other five centurions who were themselves more senior than the rest. As for optio's, I do not know - but I suggest that maybe there were two per double century, and they had no seniority over the rest.

I often feel sorry for Tiberius, and believe that he has been unfairly treated, mainly stemming from Seutonius' portrayal of him. He was a competent general, and paid attention to developing the infrastructure of the Empire and strengthening the frontiers. At worst he could be described as indifferent, at best as 'fairly good'. Seutonius was writing at a time when the position of Emperor had been hereditary and lifelong for quite some time. In Tiberius' day it was still a political office, and he did not really want the job in the first place. I believe that if someone in the Senate had suggested he retire with a pension and hand the job to someone else, he might well have agreed.

Well, I could not resist the temptation I'm afraid - the discussion was nonetheless pertinant to this thread, as the personality of Mohammed was discussed in view of his rightful place in this list. However, trolls posting repeatedly on a single issue, using aspects of religious faith to sound off their views on established scientific theory using mildly vulgar language, need to be challenged. In my view this should be done in as polite a way as possible by longer serving members of the forum, in such a way that attempts to draw them back to the original topic. Talking of which, Darwin of course should be up there too, maybe a bit below mohammed given that in todays world the Koran is influential in the lives of many people.

I have read this already, and also 'The Blind Watchmaker' and 'the God Delusion' by Dawkins. I find 'The Evolution Deceit' unconvincing, albeit eloquently written. Whereas I regard Mohammed as one of the top 100 - even the top 10 most influential people in history, the book he wrote is little more than a re-edition itself, of earlier Jewish and Christian writings, with a little early medieval history of the Arabs thrown in for good measure.

(Sigh) Here we go again. Says who? - everyone with an analytical free - thinking mind, who is able to weigh evidence and come to a logical conclusion. That includes most academics, and also many people who are themselves religious believers. I would be interested in hearing more real evidence for human evolution being 'bull crap' than simply the fact that you and your ancient and much edited and mis translated book disagree with it. If this were the time and place, of course - which it isn't. It is a discussion forum for ancient history in general, and the Roman period in particular. I am far more interested in your views about Tarquinus, Caesar and Constantine than I am about your belief in Adam and Eve. I am more interested about your views on the development of Roman and Greek architecture than I am about your views (totally off topic) on Darwin.