Onasander

https://books.google.com/books?id=niA7AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=black+sand+desert+river+ger&source=bl&ots=LPWDigeJft&sig=z4tXx34sSevI2aJS_aK-nKIEEw0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TgK0VJO9Aov5yQT3zoDACQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBg Lower portion deals with this puzzle.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v_Cvtya7o5E/T_q-ob0S-hI/AAAAAAAACuM/I2GtwK5Skjo/s280/canarii.jpg Map listing site of the canarii

http://www.historiaviva.org/canarias/canarii_ing.shtml I can't right now figure out, qithin the four Atlas Mountain chains, which mount would be mount atlas. Internet is silent.

I've quickly figured out there is no site that tried to trace his African Expedition, I'm going to try to find correspondence between modern sites with similar terrain and features with this description below. I encourage a critique, as I can get this wrong. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauretania_Tingitana Pliny the Elder described in some detail the area south of the Atlas Mountains, when Gaius Suetonius Paulinus undertook a military expedition in 41: Suetonius Paulinus, whom we have seen Consul in our own time, was the first Roman general who advanced a distance of some miles beyond Mount Atlas. He has given us the same information as we have received from other sources with reference to the extraordinary height of this mountain, and at the same time he has stated that all the lower parts about the foot of it are covered with dense and lofty forests composed of trees of species hitherto unknown. The height of these trees, he says, is remarkable; the trunks are without knots, and of a smooth and glossy surface; the foliage is like that of the cypress, and besides sending forth a powerful odour, they are covered with a flossy down, from which, by the aid of art, a fine cloth might easily be manufactured, similar to the textures made from the produce of the silk-worm. He informs us that the summit of this mountain is covered with snow even in summer, and says that having arrived there after a march of ten days, he proceeded some distance beyond it as far as a river which bears the name of Ger (a northern affluent of the Niger river?); the road being through deserts covered with a black sand, from which rocks that bore the appearance of having been exposed to the action of fire, projected every here and there; localities rendered quite uninhabitable by the intensity of the heat, as he himself experienced, although it was in the winter season that he visited them.[5]

When did this happen? I must of missed it. I'm always the last to know.

Links: Aneran (what they used to call Non-Erans (Non-Iranians). http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniran Šahrestānīhā ī Ērānšahr (Book on Geography) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ahrest%C4%81n%C4%ABh%C4%81_%C4%AB_%C4%92r%C4%81n%C5%A1ahr A site that includes a description of the Romans (includes the full text): http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%27ba-ye_Zartosht I was a bit surprised the Parthians didn't consider the Roman territories that Rome controlled of the old Persian Empire as "Eran", but rather "Aneran", non Iranian, even when they ruled them. The last link does show they expanded their fire temples into even Antioch, but this wasn't enough to change it's status. I just assumed they held that earlier absurd belief of the Persians that any and all lands once belonging to them was rightfully still Persian Lands. That's the propaganda at least. I'm starting to wonder how sincerely they felt about that now.

http://www.iraqinews.com/arab-world-news/urgent-assad-builds-nuclear-complex-underground-guarded-hezbollah/ Like, last time this happened was in 2007, upriver from me (I was in Iskandariya, on the Euphrates, this site was then stated to be in Syria on the Euphrates, but this article just claims eastern desert. Was fun showering back then). Syria is sorta reliving The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but now with Dirty Bombs (ISIS claims it has 40 kilos from the university of Mosul), and Assad really, really wants Nuclear Weapons.... and had that sort of track record that suggests a complete disregard for life (dropping barrel bombs on civilians) that you know he would do it. Either ISIS, Assad, or Nursa (which not to long ago stopped fighting one another once the U.S. started it's airway on both of them) is responsible for setting off chemical attacks, hard to give credit to anyone, and I have done the guessing game / Sherlock Holmes critical analysis in the past.... it leads nowhere. Then you have the Kurds..... likely the only faction in the whole filthy war we trust (as Americans), but their not the same Kurds in Iraq, but a old communist faction left over from the cold war that rightly or wrongly (I'm leaning more rightly) antagonize the living daylights out of Turkey, our NATO ally. The leader of Turkey is.... more than likely a paranoid schizophrenic. I'm not exaggerating here, he believes there is a parallel Turkish state operating in Turkey, via the media and closeted government workers, and their all up in secret squirrel stuff, taking orders from Pennslyvania. Yes, I said Pennslyvania. He recently built the largest presidential palace on the planet, despite the Turkish Supreme Court saying no. This isn't going anywhere good. Add Israel and Iran.... a NATO ally who is lead by a mentally ill leader who is paranoid.... nukes involved....

It was one of his own generals who recorded the incest dream.... I can't recall his name, but have a thread on him, the general built that same latin-greek library, and stayed neutral in the Octavian-Anthony War, and hosted Augustus little literary and dinner party escapades. The name will pop in my head later. Ceasar wasn't that good, he had a decade to train his men in Gaul to carry heavy loads, while overcomming leg dominance. The main factor that determines the regular movement of infantry unit isn't a stable cadence in march, but evening out the dominant leg to the weaker leg. I did this as a teenager, I had right leg dominance. I took even strides on even railroad tracks, and counted my footsteps in relationship to the evenly spaced wooden poles holding up curbs on the side of the road while running uphill in West Virginia. After I got out of the military, I could barely walk, leg severly atropied (right leg) and two years later I got to the point I could walk about two miles a day.... I adopted the Cynic Lifestyle, and carried heavy weights.... without much cartlidge left in my knee. I walk with a much shorter stride, but can carry weight again.... it's the even stride that matters, speed results from gait. His army did this. He was a decent infantry commander in this regard. However, not great. He usually outnumbered his enemies, especialy the Guals, and fought defensively even on the offense (which I don't disrespect) and relied on allies. He really wasn't at risk in Gaul, and he and he alone started (restarted) the Civil War. He got lucky Pompey fell for it. Yet for his role in destroying the sovereignty of the Roman Senate, starting imperial worship of the emperor, the mass flatters (flatters should be punished), and himself as the start of a dynastic monarchy, he is easily Rome's greatest enemy and Greatest traitor. His death, at the hands of the Senate, says it all. Death to Tyrants.

Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome I was about to have an epileptic seizure when I saw this title, thinking it was some San Francisco Linguist Philosopher who decided sex was all language based, and it was okay to sex any object or person, be it voluntary or involuntary.... be it a polar bear or a mousetrap, but apparently this work deals with the latin and greek practice of giving wrong sexes to animals or inanimate objects. He apparently claims it had a logical, dualistic order at some point, but then Latin lost it, and now it's fossilized in a state that doesn't make much sense. I might read this, if for nothing else to find out why the ancients got the blantantly obvious so very wrong. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman except in certain medical freak cases. And they are freak, by default. Duh. Harsh language, but it's the blantant reality. I wouldn't tolerate someone trying to tell me all fish were male or female as a category. One is male, the other is female in each species, unless you can prove the are unisex in reproduction. I'll accept some confusion regarding trees, or the above mentioned hermaphrodite, but not to the point of changing the entire structure of the language. It makes no sense to me.

Caesar is overrated, it terms of Generals. If we were to make a top ten thread about greatest threats to Rome, Caesar would be Number 1 for Conquering it, Mark Anthony 2 perhaps, With the other conquerors of Rome like the Visigoths, Turks, Lombards, Goths, Carthage.... But Caesar had a major advantage in being that sickly, incestuous enemy from within (he had a dream of sleeping with his mother the night before the rubicon crossing). He violated a deep strata of taboo and the Roman Military System simply wasn't designed to handle it's response. This isn't an example of genius, but of mediocre intelligence in a era that wasn't introspective or geared towards educating itself for or responding to unorthodox threats. Honestly, even the most bumbling of monarchies in Caesar's era would of figured out and eliminated Caesar fast had they been in the Roman Senate's Place. And Caesar's final victory was luck in having a opponent who didn't recognize his main strength was naval. Pompey could of ripped Caesar to bits, forcing his to the hinterlands to try to recruit barbarians from increasingly limited spoils, fortify Rome and major cities, collect taxes to infinity.... Caesar was mediocre in a very stupid era, in the land of the blind, a one eyed man is king. He knew how to exploit a taboo, but not in overcoming and replacing it. He started a dynastic monarchy, built himself a temple (which was not the norm), and was stabbed to death rightfully for it in the end. Caesar got flanked by his own stupidity. If your going to take over a political system, and morph it to another ideology.... such as Hitler, Sun Yat-Sen, Obama, George Washington, Napoleon, Robespierre.... you gotta get the underlining strata that survives to come over, switch it's values and outlooks, it's hopes and expectations, or it will backfire. The Roman Republican faction rising up and stabbing his to death is fantastic evidence that Caesar hadn't done a very good job. He was a failure. His system, as it survived, really sucked. It produced some highlights.... Caesar's desire for a greek and latin library post-humorously came to be, so 2000 years ago we got some decent literature out of it. Some architecture, but had the republic continued, it would of produced architecture too, so hard to judge that. We certainly don't look back and marvel at the streamlined genius of his dynastic successors in how they structured the state and administered. When's the last time a politician suggested we should look back to Caesar, Caligula, or Nero for guidance in enacting political reforms? They'd get impeached on the spot. The armies look fancy and tough, metal shoulders and heads, cross dressing skirts.... march up roads, stand in place, hide behind shields and disproportionate amounts of enemies die at a quarter of the effort the Romans did.... admittedly attractive. Yeah.... shiny Hugo Boss troops with respectable kill ratios, and some decent ancient literature. Not like the Republic wouldn't of made literature or more streamlined armies itself had Caesar not conquered the Romans. Not really a big fan of the incestuous old fool, he failed admirably. I doubt his last thoughts was his relief he was passing on a good legacy. Even Augustus marriage laws and emphasis on philosophy are derided today increasingly. His dynasty is about to be absolutely repudiated in the modern world by our own outlook and accepted customs. They have increasingly less and less to do with us, almost as if we're intentionally cleansing them from history.

stigmergy... I just learned of this word just now, but have essentially been arguing it for years. What I'm trying to say (and have been for at least five years) is alot of communication is non-verbal, and even when verbalized, is held together as much by mores, conduct, situation, and eponymous forces in the environment effecting the motivation and understanding of language as much as say, syntax and depth of known vocabulary to retrieve and order for expression. In the case of a sex obsessed, very social species like homo sapiens, a kind of Sexual Stigmergy arises among the population, that streamlines the underlining range of complexity inherent in complex communities that would otherwise die off or fall apart if left to mate select and reproduce only via select, announced social rules. We tend to follow such rules only when it suites us, and this suiting isn't always healthy or altogether rational in hindsight. In Stigmergy, mistakes can happen, and subcultures can pop up around these mistakes and precariously maintain themselves even for a time prior to busting via natural introspective rejections insular to the individuals or lifestyle, or by outsiders or reformists who snap out of it and systematically pronounce against it on a logical basis (one can argue this logic isn't always very logical). Sexual Stigmergy bucks and literally fucks over even the cleverest constructed ideologies, in that it's closer to the native root of our communicative approach to sex.... which definitely is not linguistic or large government oriented.... Bonobos lack both, yet we readily figure our what is going on in documentries.... the commentary of primateologists is largely unnecessary as were still very much primates and quickly grasp what is going on. If it was the otherway around, language and text oriented historians would of evolved first, THEN sexual divisions in life, and then multicellularism..... ect. The question that arises, when contronted by the odd sexual myth that stands out, like this one of Zues sucking a guy off, or Egyptians swapping and chucking cum, and wearing it on their heads, is the underlining conditions that allowed such a myth to be accepted in the first place by a larger breeding community. It's nit hard to imagine the attractiveness of such myths to the male dominated male priesthood.... there is bound to be a insular temple out there that will adopt homosexuality, or other form of sexuality.... but getting the larger breeding population to accept it, even take it as natural? It takes massive cohersive force at times, especially if the words identifying the outlook/act are stigmatised and used as profanity. One case I recall is the "Mother Fucker" phenomena arising from Fruedian Psychosexuality. He presumed gay guys secretly desired to have sex with their moms. Perhaps iin a few cases, but today we seriously doubt this. It was still being used back in the 80s in a conference debating the psychology of sex..... verbal rationalized pronouncements on how society is/ought to be, under the guise of science, but really no different from debates by the Stoics or Peripatetic philosophers, other than a historically evolved scope. A big protest of homosexuals broke into the conference, screaming "mither fuckers" hysterically, using strong emotional display to collapse the conference. Ever since, in the west, any meaningful advances in sexology have been extremely stimmied due to a reverse-puritanical taboo placed on any and all investigations of sexual acts, assuming any paraphilia, save rape, pedophilia, and cannibalism is spontaneous and okay and actually the norm, and that everyone else is either wrong or unusual, and that there are no accepted norms for a society to accept. This is a reaction based less on science than fear and desire to avoid confrontation and lose status, and several sexoligists have pointed out the consensus since the "Mother Fucker Riot" wasn't achieved via credible scientific exchange and debate, it was politics. I fully expect this sort of thing to occur. Roman historians know Arius Didymus and Augustus had a very hard time promoting stable family structured households where at least the wife was monogamous (Augustus himself wasn't very good at this). They had alot of success, but it took some time for the whire houses and orgies in Pompeii to close down. VDs like Herpes, Sterility.... it was a big problem, especially for a society transitioning to Monarchy where stable lineage was of vital necessity for advancement of families. But the people of Pompeii didn't immediately listen. It took a long time and Christianity even longer to produce a reliably reproducing population who's needs were directed and answered by a well directed central government. We seemed to of figured thus one out just in time for the dark ages when plagued and invading armies became rampant. Other societies, like China with the Confucian Five Relations, which was codified during a similar age if pipulation increase, more centralised goverment, civil war and social instability achieved much the same thing. In very high population densities, we tend to formalize and structure human sexuality in ways that allow the concept of society as a Duo Entity, family level and city level, the most direct connection and mutual reinforcement. This was even more the case when guilds (composed of self regulating family units in a closed shop enviroment) ruled over individual employees working for modern industry. Yet every system of stigmergy has it's hidden logic, and it tells details of where it's going, not merely by obvious trends that we can pronounce upon and legalize in a rational system, but also hiw it's dialectic is likely to reject a reaction after long digestion. West Africa, for example, was hit hard by AIDS, and became aware of it's poverty at about the same time it started making economic advances and had access to outside information. Christianity pushes monogamy, family values.... and it's american variants put a strong emphasis on education, economic endeavor, democracy. It was very invigorating for west africa, and George Bush in consequence gave mass free AIDS medication on the merger of those principles, believing the culmination of those options (not christianity persay, but the positive effects listed) woukd be achievable and reinforcing if the population had a better sense of it's survival. The irony is, AIDS has recently been traced back to 1920s Kinasha, a boom town (niw capital) of the belgian congo, in a environment of free loving sexual institutions, such as whore houses and open prostitution, and drug access like in several modern cities, SF in particular, where the individual and not the family was the emphasis. AIDS coincidentally broke out there as well. Best indicator for when prescribed sexual mores won't be accepted by society for long is in my opinion, the "stupid teenage girl". It sounds demeaning, but let's be honest.... they are both ignorant and the quickest to get knocked up, and they have the most kids, and seem largely indifferent to the intellectual arguments of the left or right. It's because they don't have to be. They are the root crux of any society, in that they.... and not priests or government officials, have the ultimate last say on the acceptability of sexual relations (though it seems both groups are now saturating their soap operas with their ideology). I hear them running amok in my neighborhoid all the time, gangs of them hang out at fight and talk overly loud to one another. They don't accept either the church or liberal outlooks on sex. They don't appear to be accepting of gay girls, but accept gay guys. I kniw this as it's a consent element of their discussions outside as I try to sleep. They are the ones who reproduce, the primary caregiver in society, and do alit to reorient mens outward opinions. It's why so many liberal government struggle so very hard to present them as pro women, pro feminist. The second wome, these women in particular, realize such policies are bull, it will die. If it doesn't directly interfere with their limited sexual ambitions, they care, but only enough to gossip and socially isolate and stigmatise. I'll give you another example, about as remote as you can get from the "stupid teenage girl" as you can get. The homeless transexual population in San Francisco. When I was a security guard there, my two biggest threats were mass asian rushes into my store to steal everything in under a minute, and sewage smelling transexuals trying to steal (oddly enough by acting inconspicuous, which fails horribly when your 7 feet tall, wearing furs and a skirt, and haven't bathed in a very long time). They achieved a semblance or political power congruent to the gay community in SF, in achieving special protections, to the piint of being specifically listed as a group NOT to be discriminated against in the work place, in a category removed from homosexuals. This backfired horribly.... in hindsight for normal(ish) dressing gay guys trying to get promotions over, or being in charge of and firing a cross dresser, especially in the fashion industry where looks are scrutinized. The end result is, many companies, though accepting of hiring the landed elite gay males, are terrified of hiring transexuals as it's absolutely impossible to get rid of them, or even demote them, or write them up for anything, as they can claim discrimination, with a pretty aggressive legal response. So instead, you have alot of homeless tranies in a city supposedly accepting of sexual diversity. They experience the reality.... as the legal trend points one way, reality and actual acceptance points another, suggesting society won't ling accept thus revision, as it's being associated with the social dregs of society, aspects prone to be made illegal, as there is nothing society hates mire than poverty. Ask any Cynic. Now when you completely rationalize it, like the Church of Sweden (not to be confused with Christianity, they are a failed offshoot) did in dressing up the 12 apostles at the last supper a trannies as a social insight into comparing who are the mdern day martyrs and oppressed, deserving of pity or X emotion.... you realize how far they fail in presentation. Only 2 percent of Swedes even go to that state church, many don't bother with church marriages via it anymore, and non married couples break up prior to children reaching maturity mire and more. The amount of jobs are decreasing in Sweden, and it's facing increased military threats, facism, islamic fundamentalism.... all while the government cleverally restricts kinds of free speech. It's all a perfect recipe for the "teenage stupid girl" aspect in time to dominate. And it will, it always does in the end. Reason why, is the Dumbest Common Denominator in society is the one the breeds the most in times of ease. All humans are prone to interpret their paraphilia via conditioned response, associate special concepts with their innate drive to associate with others. But when push comes to shove, they are essentially the invisible hand of society. Young males listen to them. Their understandings are crude, but they understand their biological needs and rough goals in life..... have kids, live a generically acceptable life, die as painless of a death as late as possible, see kids at least equally successful, if not more. When it comes to Ancient Greece, highly stratified ancient greece, where you could only marry one woman at a time, but could have many sex slaves and prostitues as you care for, where your civic status - your ancestry, could determine life and death, property or poverty.... of course they obviously had a diverse range of linguistic categories for various sexual acts. Imagine being a greek couple trying to marry their daughter off. The number of bachelors are small in the city, yet a few guys always seem perpetually single, always hangung out with one another.... in a very happy way. Do you marry her off to one if them? What's the probability of them accepting her without laughing at the offer in this magical world that lacks a concept for the word gay. Let's say for whatever reason, you convince one of these guys to marry your daughter. She is your only heir, so her husband is your son. They never have a baby, and she admits he never touches her sexually, and if she ever gets pregnant, so be it, but it won't be by him. Pragmatically, the parents and daughter would collectively shrug shoulders and just encourage her to have a one night stand to get the job done.... but the greeks had laws stripping citizen rights to those who knowingly let themselves be cuckolded. The rationalization of the greek city sexually closely followed expected stigmergetic expectations and nailed them as unacceptable in advance. This isn't evidence of a society that lacked a concept of gay or homosexual, but rather one that understood it's nuiances very well, perhaps even better than us, and systematically ordered society in just a way to ensure citizens reproduced and had a means to support themselves while encouraging whatever advantages could be gleamed from homosexuality to the larger needs of the body politick. I honestly can't trace every aspect.... they may of very well of had a more advance conception than we do, as our Sexologists today practice science less and tread non threatening waters, asserting political niceties and farces instead. We had the reactionary movement, but not the Thermiadorian Reaction yet to see where we actually, in total honestly, where we actually stand. The greeks and egyptians did both. The Syrians brought it to a unparalleled level with castrated transexual priests and divine prostitutes. How this happens, not completely certain. That's stigmergy for you. But it does. I can't accept a Modern revision of society, however.... in assuming a seeming lack of evidence from a philological perspective for a word translates as a lack of evidence for such a concept. I'm not Vico, not Cottonwood, not Wittgenstein. I know better, as they clearly had a word for it. Does anything ever complete translate from one language to another? Completely, no.... because additional rationalizations and ideology attach themselves to concepts, as concepts are formulaic, networking with non linguistic aspects of the mind. Only a subset of personality types are built around language, that narrative voice in your head. 40% of the population can't even hear it, it's a secondary function at best.... not the primary for most. It's been recently theorized that our capacity for language grew out of increased time constraints selective grooming of individuals in a group. Humans talk to one another as much as primates groom one another, and it triggers similar neurochemical responses. Anything having to do with sex, especially hooking up and getting it on, comes naturally. Doesn't mean there isn't a learning curve, like clueless middle eastern couples trying to conceive via fellatio,but even the failed attempts show we get it close. It needs to be easy to grasp, or we would quickly die off. Every human society has to grapple with this issue. Sex is never a exclusively private sphere affair, as it effects potentially everyone. Free love is just as much the object of study as strict, rigorous rules for sex and relations.... economics, climate, history, basic concepts of structuralism will dominate for a society choosing which way to go, not early 21st century liberal British propaganda who's root cause isn't nearly as liberal or rational as it suggests, but deeply rooted in controversies and problems that never were effectively solved from the 17th Century on. The overly simplified answer that sex was just carefree sex, and we can just blame christians doesn't cut it. It's a hedonistic impulse that passes the buck, hiding behind Occams Razor. We loose alot of details, and potentially hurt future generations who by default must take a inevitable dialectic, mutational stance against our outlook now in order to continue on and survive. Every extreme strikes a balance, nature abhors a void. Concepts build and bifurcate as much as they merge and reinvent the wheel. Our deepest knowledge isn't sourced for a philologist, but rather predates language. And one thing I know from the animal world, some animals are gay. This is very ancient, but obviously prone to encouraging extinction if all members of a species is gay. Life found ways around this.... just as the human race will survive the sexual laissez-faire sexual conventions of the 21st Century, as it survived the strictness of Victorian times. The very fact this dichotomy and yo-yo effect was even possible niw as then is because we clearly have this capacity to assert sexuality on a community as a species trait. It evolved, it's who we are deep down inside. When we try to strip this ordering from ancient societies, one so obviously central to the reproductive human experience, especially in very complex societies that clearly by default dealt with the word, verbally or non verbally in considerable, elaborate detail, then we know were doing something very wrong. I don't expect you to use a 19th century word like "cutter", a particular kind of fast sail ship, and apply it to a fast class of 7century BC ship purely off the quality of fastness. That makes no sense, except within that categorical space in which a uniniated reader wouldn't grasp. But pay attention to deeply rooted phenomena..... sex, homesexuals, violent attacks, good tasting, bad tasting, danger, rain.... these concepts predated our species. You can't have a thriving human society, especially ones that pass property off in some form to biological heirs.... which we've done for a very long time, much less monarchies, without having words for the society that results. Some of the more extreme compounded forms, yeah.... they may never of experienced, but everyone pretty much instantly figure out gay upon first sight. Sometimes aloof, accepting, indifferent, oftentimes violently. This is the obvious range our species evolved to. Once a liberal outlook is emplaced, like early 21st Century England or Sweden, doesn't mean were going to stick to it.... just look at the Maldives, more urbanized than either, going the exact opposite direction. There will someday be, if humans survive, cultures in both countries that swing in both directions.... to more intense stratified rules that seem mean or unnecessary from our perspective today, as well as more liberal. Occasionally odd mixtures. That's just being human. It's our constant, we adjust to the flux that our shortsightedness gets us into. We shouldn't steamroll history with our own sexual prejudices however. It's better to be aware of them and consider how it's possible neurologically we can even think as such, and if people in the past could do so as well? Are we not a product of that past? Are our brains not made of the same cells and structure as theirs? Who has the claim to being more complex? Did they just let their brains atrophy?

So.... how exactly did they operate economically? It seems obvious if Persian and Parthian treasuries pop up in such close proximity to one another, along the silk road, they used it as a obvious central hub along that highway to centralize wealth, as well as to milk the traders going through. Just what do you do with a treasury if your army is a slave army, and your nobility is levied to provide Calvary proportional to wealth? Gold and Silver seems rather nuisanced, beyond buying food, or buying off people/cities. Yet.... they had a treasury, undoubtedly filled with said gold and silver. I'm clearly missing something here. Anyone knows?

Their armour, and that of their horses, is formed of plates, lapping over one another like the feathers of a bird, and covers both man and horse entirely.[5] Of gold and silver, except for adorning their arms, they make no use. http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Parthian.html The Romans knew as little about Istakhr as the Greeks had known about Persepolis—and this despite the fact that for four hundred years the Sassanians maintained relations, friendly or hostile, with the empire. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis Estakhr first appears in history as an Achaemenid city in present-day Fârs Province, Iran. It gained its importance not only from its close association with Persepolis: it also commanded the western end of an ancient caravan-route that ran from the Indus Valley via Kandahar and Sistan to Persia.[1] The city temporarily became the capital of Sassanian Persia during the reign of Ardashir I (224-242) before the capital moved to Ctesiphon. During the Sasanid period (224-651) the royal treasury of the empire, known as ganj ī šāhīgān, is said[by whom?] to have been in Estakhr. In 915-916, Masʿūdī himself saw in a house at Estakhr owned by a Persian noble, "the large and very fine manuscript" of a work copied in 731 from original documents in the royal treasury.[2] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istakhr

Yeah.... I think no. You can't half-half ass Sodomy, you either do it, or you don't, and those who don't do it are of the status of "not gay", while those who indulge even a little are. The Peripatetic and especially Stoic tradition of male oriented pedophilia as a binding principle of love that holds together a civilization is well documented, and also not all that ancient.... it was a philosophical product of the philosophical schools, and I sincerely question, however accepting Aristotle and Theophrastus was to molest the daylights out of each others younger male relatives and disciples, King Phillip of Macedonia brought the duo to Macedonia with the intention of gang raping Alexander next to that waterfall/spring. Clearly the greek brand of homosexual pedophilia had a specific name, who's nomenclature was expressible drawing upon earlier linguistic arrangements already present in the Greek language, yes? Afterall, how else would they of known that they were specifically given the task via a specific nomenclature, by the urging of the philosophers, to molest younger males, if just such concepts, or near equivalents, didn't already exist? Wouldn't people walk out of a lecture by Theophrastus or Zeno, and get confused, and take the moral of the lesson of hierarchical love as men in their thirties and forties needing to go and bang elderly women for the general betterment of society, or goats so that the goats could revolve and attain the merits of Hellenic civilization? There was apparently no confusion on this part. They more or less instantly git the message, and perhaps a few were interested after the discussion to eat the doughnuts on the back table and find out more. Likewise, many guys likely said "F This" and got out fast. Homosexuality could be a very embarrassing act, as I recall Diogenes and the Wrestler. Diogenes became suddenly aroused, and began masturbation, which caused his opponent to flee in shame. Likewise, the greeks were very strict on who could marry who, lineage and civic rights, I don't recall a category for men marrying men. I do however, recall Nero castrating a Slave and marrying him, which if true clearly showed the shock and disapproval of the Romans. The entirity of the traveling duo of Gay Cynics in the Satyricon on their quest for priapus clearly takes the extremes of gay culture in the ancient world as a antithesis of the normal. Only way I can see it being normal and undifferentiated was in the cases of gay phalanx armies, if and when it was practiced, or in my earlier questioning about the practice arising in the dark age when communities were much smaller, fortified on acropolis prior to expansion with a population boom of more hetero-oriented members below. There does seem to be gay friendly early myths out there. Also very unfriendly ones too, like Sardanapullas the ultimate drama queen transvestite lighting himself onfire. Imagine a ancient engadged in gay sex, however acceptable, and imagine there nit being a world for it.... but the guy is also married to a woman. How long do you think it's going to take her and her friends gossiping at the well to come up with a special word that applies to when their husbands have sex with other guys, but not them? I assure you, they will find out a way to bring that word up in conversation when they ask each other how their day went, or if one is stepping out for a bit, or asking why the other just isn't that interested in sex that night. It's not a act of deep philosophising, they will nail that word down fast, and it will have a core component that readily equates to the modern concept of gay. If they had a hard time explaining the new word to a barbarian slave, they would just point at Nick and Phillip oiled down and impactfully wrestlin to the finish, and the slave would very quickly grasp the concept. It's not like trying to explain how a warp drive works to a cavemen. Concepts related to the privates, sex, pooping and farting are low brow because EVERYONE gets them. It's damn near instinctual... our ability to stick our fingers out and requesting them to be pulled, with a resulting fart is what makes us human. Chimps can't do that. So very easy to grasp too. So no more of this "word-concept" conundrum.

High homicide and crime rate, and spontaneous risk the entire city might flood.... it's below sea level.

I think he would of been better off just paying a token tribute via a subordinate and hiring some easy to subsidize Mercenary Calvary.... mocked up some standards and claim he recovered them until he knocked off Octavian. Be a difficult fraud to dispute. People would ask where the troops are that recovered them, he could just say they are still stationed in a far eastern city.... to the few unfortunate traders and adventurers who set out to capitalize on it, oh well. What's best about looking into this, I got to find out the Roman Republic didn't die off during the well known timeline, that the Romans produced a Charles De Gualle: Quintus Labienus. He ultimately lost in the end, unlike De Gualle (unlike America as a ally in liberation against the foul Vichy, the Parthians were not up to the task of fully liberating Rome). He was the last general of the republic, and refused to stand down long after all others gave up hope. From that point on, his death.... true Rome was dead, and in it's place, a endless tormented reign of Jackasses and Synchophants would torment the Romans like a surreal nightmare until the fall, when history would wipe the tears away.

Mark Anthony lost a quarter of his men on this failed campaign, but I can find very little about it on the net, no real notice from Azeri sites either. Anyone know what happened? Any Soviet Archeologists who specialized in this and we just don't know about them because of the Cold War freeze on info passing smoothly? More I learn about this, more Anthony's character grows. This and his later Armenian campaign.... just imagine him like Napoleon with his freezing legion miserable, marching back to Alexandria.... to Cleopatra. Rome is on his mind, but absurdly distant. It's pitting him in a new light for me.

I've never claimed Augustus sought total power, or tgat Julius Caesar had it either; I'm holding to a ancient school of statecraft and sociology in examining the morphology of a state, the "kyklos cycle". In order for it to be a cycle, it means the morphology has to be interchangeable.... organs of state in a resurgent monarchy over a republic that was once a monarchy isn't going to completely erase it's republican institutions anymore than the republican stage completely erased the monarchical. This being said, they did aim for a absolute monarchy. Monarchies tend to have ministers, and many even some sort of expanded court or parliament. The Romans under Caesar and Augustus were just starting down that road. Augustus' only claim to not being a tyrant was he allowed people to be cheeky and offered retorts back himself about his status as a tyrant. Auris..... you just helped me figure out an aspect of the Satyricon that never occurred to me. Hopefully I'll remember to thank you in a essay on it someday. As for Caldrail.... men come with two probable holes.... I think homosex isn't that hard of a concept to figure out.... it's either handjobs, BJs, or Anal. People tend to figure this sorta thing out on their own, like masturbation. I never needed a instruction manual, as I figured that one out on my own (quite literally alone). I think some guy sucking off another guy, whatever the era or cultural norms or deeper esoteric meanings, can still pass off safely as a rather obvious gay act. Even if that culture otherwise didn't have a awareness such a thing coukd be abstractly (which I severely doubt), it becomes rather obvious within seconds of walking in what's going on. It's sorta like that barn scene in season 2 of Deadwood, where the white guy was pants down behind the horse, as the black stable head walked up silently behind thinking it was a thief.... stopping dumbstuck not immediately interpreting the scenerio. Only took a few seconds to register.... he was all weirded out and dead set on the moral imperative of killing him for it, nit fir being criminal but rather too damn strange to be allowed to live. But in societies where these alternative sex acts occur on a more open and higher frequency, the more acceptable and common place, no doubt. But perverted sex acts involving the penis are never that alien to begin with, and I doubt any society would truly draw a blank or have literally NO OPINION about sexual relation outside of heterosexuality. If I recall, even medieval japan mocked male homosexuals, including women doing the mocking, in the story of Genji. Confucians barely tolerated it in China, and the singke tempke in China allowed for Sidomy was dedicated to King Zhou of Shang after the collapse of the Shang Empire, in a retort similar to Seneca in "The Pumpinfication of the Divine Claudius" in a mocking deification of a emperor to a God. Reason why is.... society is literally built around heterosexuality. In every persons place prior to test tube babies, a man and a woman got it on, and made a baby. Whatever the attractions and paraphilia a indivudual or culture adopts, whatever cunning sex cults they developed in ancient times (and they had quite a few) everyone had a awareness of sex. We're not sexless Pandas, were the species clisely related to sex crazed bonobo chimps. We have a nack for figuring out penis politics. It's why the ambiguous "beyond good and evil" arguments Nietzscheans push don't hold.... the dominate Nietzscheans.... the mist famous from Japan to England, had a assortment of odd sexual fetishes, that leaned Sadistic. When I first explored and listed their biographies, it was pointed out to be they just were not perverts, but gad "penis magic" fixations (to borrow a awkward yet perfect phrase from a Bosnian). Human sexuality, the libido, isn't terra incognito until it passes into a dictionary. Were flexible in terms of mores, but hardly infinitely. Only a couple of responses really possible. I think two gay greek guys doing it 2500 years ago isn't unrecognizable from two guys today. You can safely apply the word, and can predictably detect the range of reactions (acceptance and rejection) then as now, just differing in quantity, with each locale putting emphasis on sliding scales of cultural acceptance. In San Francisco, I saw a guy in leather whip another man in the park infront of the house they filmed the TV Show "Full House" in. Was very strange, but I sorta got used to it. Never completely.... but would be shocked to see it happen here in West Virginia. However, despite the likely much harsher reaction likely to occur in West Virginia to witnessing such a event.... nit to mention a leaner vocabulary to expresses it, people here would instantly grasp what is happening as in San Francisco where that happens way too often.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derveni_papyrus Zeus, having "heard oracles from his father", goes to the sanctuary of Night, who tells him "all the oracles which afterwards he was to put into effect." Upon hearing them, Zeus "swallowed the phallus [of the king Uranus] who first had ejaculated the brilliance of heaven."[5] _______ I know some of the Egyptian Gods had a fondness for gay antics, and that the Greek population itself was pretty outright homosexual.... they even had hermaphrodite gods.... but I never once came across a actual homosexual scene, till now. Yet, in earlier works, I don't recall much evidence of the greek gods being gay... thinking of the Illiad. So, was it the Greek Dark Ages that caused social conditions to morph to the point that everyone switched over from hetero to homo? Even in San Francisco, they only get a single neighborhood (Castro) to dominate. I'm kinda suprised society went so far during the dark age as to wholly embrace it to the point of rewriting theology. Closest similar phenomena I can even point to would be the freefall collapse of The Church of England and the Dutch Old Catholics, and the dead Church of Sweden. They have increasingly embraced every stable measure built into stabilizing the family between Aristotle and Augustus, and the early Christians. Not surprisingly, you undercut the religions social and theological tradition, people flee from it like the plague.... which is happening in those countries. In the Greeks case, they exited the dark ages with this outlook still intact apparently. I don't know how advanced a country's statecraft in a purely agriculture and guild society can get.... if the population favors hedonism and homosexuality. You have to actively farm in family units as much land as possible to get agricultural and manpower yields to achieve the resources necessary to levy work for walks, civic building, navies, standing armies.... just doesn't seem a culture built around male homosexuality and it's associated, sterilizing VDs would do much. But then again, most greek cities started from fortified acropolis, right? Slowly build up from a strongpoint, bring in slaves, or attract populations.... a few will take off long enough for homosexuality to remain a rite of the acropolis, but not seriously accepted by the breeding oriented people below. I dunno.... anyone has a say on this? Were looking at early agricultural bronze age societies, not modern suburban service and computer tech counter cultures or far left countries. Obviously, given the right conditions and geography, a modern state can embrace homosexuality and general abandonment of the family for several generations before ill effects start getting noticed, but I think it wpuld get noticed much faster in Bronze Age Societies, given the agricultural emphasis in structuring society. You can blame Christianity, but it's mores would only be a reflective (and successful) offshoot of a wider social understanding of how the ancient world worked. We now live in a era where homosexual gods (minus hawaii) are largely unknown. The greek gods come off as philadering, but not gay. Why?

You been reading d'em Gorean novels, haven't you? The kind very naughty high school students substitute as sources on their Roman history essays just to see if the teacher even notices. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor

http://files1.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_251/2515905/file/brand-gazelle-lion-small-75472.jpg Ghost of Clayton, I've been meaning to mention my background in philosophy also extends not just into classical schools and the military, but also the topic that is all the rage in San Francisco when I was there, Sexology.... which everyone but me was obsessed with (I didn't need to question why I was a heterosexual and liked boobies like all the gay guys who showed up to philosophy discussions did, but I did after a while have to respond to their more outlandish claims) I usually don't have a reason to talk about it beyond the mere mention of The Rape of Lucretia, or Dido here on this site. But since you jumped into it.... your exhibiting some unusual paraphilias that are ordered in such a way that may suggest you may soon become a tour guide/sexual cannibal. This may hurt your business, or perhaps make it grow. People after all like the Spinoffs of Silence of the Lambs.... so who knows. I need to point out, this is much worst than "Swedish Hospitality".... which is the case on unsuspecting surprise on the part of a male victim, a brutal man on hetero man rape that is applauded publicly in Sweden as the epitome of social liberalness and feminist control of society. You managed to incorporate a whole new stage to the sexual dysfunction well beyond this into being eaten in a sexual context, holding within the ordered scope of a well known sexual theory that explains the stages of Courtship Disorder. WTF dude. If you desire to eat someone, don't do it. If you think someone wants to eat you alive, it's time to move, far, far away, away from your country. Even Sweden would be a step up. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtship_disorder According to the courtship disorder hypothesis, there is a species-typical courtship process in humans consisting of four phases.[3][4] These phases are: "(1) looking for and appraising potential sexual partners; (2) pretactile interaction with those partners, such as by smiling at and talking to them; (3) tactile interaction with them, such as by embracing or petting; (4) and then sexual intercourse."[5] The associations between these phases and these paraphilias were first outlined by Kurt Freund,[6][7] the originator of the theory: A disturbance of the search phase of courtship manifests as voyeurism, a disturbance of the pretactile interaction phase manifests as exhibitionism or telephone scatologia, a disturbance of the tactile interaction phase manifests as toucheurism or frotteurism, and the absence of the courtship behavior phases manifests as paraphilic rape (i.e., biastophilia). According to Freund, these paraphilias "can be conceptualized as a preference for a pattern of behavior or erotic fantasy in which one of these four phases of sexual interaction is intensified and distorted to such an extent that it appears to be a caricature of the normal, while the remaining phases are either omitted entirely or are retained only in a vestigial way."[8] Freund noted that troilism (a paraphilia for observing one’s sexual/romantic partner sexually interacting with a third party, usually unbeknownst to the third party)[9] might also be a courtship disorder,[8][10] troilism being a variant of voyeurism. Appropriate behaviors depend on the social and cultural context, including time and place. Some behaviors that are unacceptable under most circumstances, such as public nudity or sexual contact between dancers, may be accepted or even encouraged during celebrations like Carnival or Mardi Gras. Where such cultural festivals alter normative courtship behaviors, the signs of courtship disorder may be masked or altered.

She is very easy on the eyes. Gonna scroll up and look at her again.

What's the reaction then if you combine all three? Tycho Brahe was a tourguide of the stars, was overweight, had a moose (elk). http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/nose.html Lantgrave Wilhelm of Kassel in Germany, with whom Tycho Brahe had an extensive mail correspondence and astronomical discussions, asked Tycho in a letter 1591 about an animal he had heard about called "Rix", which was faster than a deer, but with smaller horns. Tycho replied that such an animal did not exist, but maybe he meant the norwegian animal called reindeer. Tycho wrote that he would check further details about such animals and if he could perhaps send one. He wrote that he had a young moose, that he could send if the Lantgrave would like. The Lantgrave replied that he had owned reindeers before but they had died of the heat, he also had a moose, which was tame and followed him like a dog. He would gladly accept a tame moose from Tycho, and would in such case reward Tycho with a riding horse for the trouble. Tycho replies that he would order additional moose, and he would have sent his tame one, had it not died shortly before. It had been transported to the castle of Landskrona, a city close to Hven, to entertain a nobleman there. But it had happened that during the dinner, the moose had ascended the castle stairs and drunk of the beer in such amounts, that it had fallen down the stairs, and broken a leg. Despite the best care, the moose had died shortly thereafter.

I've been trying to tackle the philosophy of history/history of philosophy issue for a long time. I've been increasingly noting more and more just how deeply influenced we are by the cascade of our emotions in asserting and accepting facts and opinions. Most texts I've seen that are primary sources about the fall of the shang, like the Yizhou Shu, were written during the warring States for the most part, and they "hope" that they contain earlier elements in them.... I dunno. But.... this text is almost certainly earlier, as we know when Ctesias lived, the warring States had only just started, and he was dealing with a work already in a royal archive. The parallels are way too many (much more than I listed).... it's a slam dunk to say much of it is.... but I feel a responsibility to dissect it into it's parts and raise a billion questions and possibilities that could lead to a few centuries of historical griping and wrangling, which I'm okay with. My name will be forgotten, and I won't get the last word on this. But knowing this..... I'm writing in essence for a future historical dialectic of historian trying to outthink the other, I find myself moving away from philosophers, like Vico's school.s In the end, I'm dealing with a end product of a fact, a judgement. I present facts (a fact is never whole, were intelligent beings who manipulate ideas, so a fact is also it's logic and expanse of contradictions and usability) to counter assumptions or understandings.... which are judgments, and I'm categorizing stuff on congruence and respectability.... a sort of artistic aesthetic, of how facts seem most logically consistent, which is a fancy way of saying pleasurable to a mode of thinking. It's essentially a drug. We condition our style to acceptability of information.... A lot of my neural coding of Arius Didymus shows he was focused on the Middle Gyrus (at least in his Stoic Ethics).... In order to bring in a older variant of this work, it will cause a hugh clash with the older Confucian manipulated version.... and I can easily quash it.... 2000+ theories based on this, gone. A major conundrum of Assyriology.... Gone. Axial Theory, gone..... but each of these are a dialectic process. This text I found wasn't obviously the first primary account either (evidence in it suggests some time already passed, think it's Spring and Autumn).... The focus for me shifts to honning my understanding of dialectics to seeing how "acceptability of judgments" resulted in a detectible morphology of approaching history, how each generation of it's civilization had to approach it. The natural way we accept and reject arguments. I have a intuitive instinct for this in debate, but never seen anyone try to structure the morphology except structuralist and Marxist. I'm scratching my head as to a method of presentation.... wrote 40 pages, but it's..... I don't know, it's wanting to give birth to a new approach, and I just don't quite grasp it. I want a history that is aware of judgement, able to explain the phenomenal aspects scientifically, while ending on a more orthodox note of acknowledging the excitement, and the fact I'm presenting judgments myself.... I'm not sure here....

I recall a story about a twentieth century thinker, Wittgenstein, listening to a statement of a female colleague. She said sometimes, when she looks up at the sun, rising and setting, she could understand by seeing it how the ancients could believe the sun revolved around the earth, as that's how it appears to be. Wittgenstein responded with the question "Just how should the sky look if the earth was the one traveling around the sun?" I, a resident of the 21st century, lpoking back, find alot of simularity between such 20th century insights as say, that of the Cynics challenging the knowledge and assumptions of everyday life. I, prior to meeting you, have heard this criticism of mixing eras by fans of literature, but now that I have access to you, a author who focuses on another era.... what exactly do you mean? I seem to grasp it in a sense, but in most senses I'm reaching for I only grasp at contradictions in trying to accept this idea, that personality typology somehow magically changed in some 2000 years. What is it? The underlining hermeneutics for 20th stock characters struggling with existentialist questions in predictable cast iron story formats can't be transplanted to the Roman psuedo-historical literature? Why not? Their brains worked differently? Does knowledge really change personality that much? If Nero knew about space shuttles, microorganisms, and toilets, would he of been any less of a self infatuated wreck? The boy had access to pretty advance technology as it was, as well as moral intellectuals. What really stopped him from being a modern? Nothing. He was. We have guys just like him running amok, shooting people, dying with heroine needles in their arms, dying in panic suicides not thinking stuff through. There is remarkably little between our ages that separate such men. Every age fetishize, specialize in kinds of men, kinds of thinking, but we never stomp out the universal template for other personalities. They always coexist. It's in our neurology. Could the characters of Theophrastus, or the mimes of Publius Syrus, exist in our would? Do you think the Romans would get Seinfeld, the gladiator show about nothing? The interposition of artistic styles and overall formulas might dance between novel and alien at first, and the acceptance of mores, but the audience is still a spectator.... after grasping the mode of presentation, they would grasp the comedy and drama instinctively..... as the rules for that still hasn't changed. Now, if I haven't touched your answer yet, I do ask you, just what you mean? I assume there are different rules for writing about characters in your prefered era over another? Why? Why give more humanity to one era over another? Is it a rule to intentionally dumb down the romans? Are they prescriptions in writing that dictate they musy be emotionally retarded, or less inclined to reason or skepticism, just because we view ourselves as more knowledgeable and enlightened? Are we more enlightened because of superior knowledge, or because of a lack of freedom to act with the range of a Roman, who could choose to be meek like us, or enslave someone, or easily get away with murder? Would someone being raped, enslaved or murder feel differently then from any era? What's the underlining emotion to write about any of it.... excitement? A vision? A telling? I want to know how a twenty first century author can write about a person 2000 years ago, and affirm they differ. Just how should the sun in the sky 2000 years ago of looked? You think their scientist reassured everyone the world was flat and the sun revolved, and someone looked at Arius Didymus and said "You know, looking at the sky, seeing how the shadows shift and the light plays between the solcists, and the phases of the moon, I can grasp how the ancients thought the earth was round and moved around the sun.....