Onasander

I'm at 7:32 on a video called Mezzogiorno Sicily: About Greeks, Romans, and a Carthagenian General. It's doing a guided tour of the island, showing the viewer around the mosaics and guest rooms, then it shows.... I'm not making this up, the "Rape Room". "This bedroom was used for raping of women captured in wars. The reason of this barbaric practice was that the population was depleted by men and by this act they were trying to procreate future fighters for the empire". It's available in amazon prime for free if you have a kindle. The guy has a creepy italian accent. I can't imagine the reaction of women being walked through this tour, showed all the pretty ruins, then told this.... then continuing the tour like nothing odd was said. So.... did Roman architecture regularly include a "rape room" for the procreation of new armies? Am I missing something? Was it in a set location? If I was stepping into a Senators house, would it be generally ahead of me, to my left, or rightdown the hall? How did Roman daughters react to hearing the screams arising from the rape room at night? Many little girls have a hard time with monsters under the bed or in the closet, I can't imagine one growing up in a house with a rape room. I can't imagine how the archeologists decided on this one. It's like Borat is giving a tour of this place.

I'm hampered by the unexpected reality that there are very few books on atargatis for sale on amazon that are not hippy reinventions of the religion. The problem began a while back, a "stoic" and a "priestess of Isis" living in the UK started publishing universalist rubbish years back , synthesizing every female goddess into Isis, and the theory only makes sense if your.... heavily intoxicated from drugs. The few books left on.sale, I surprisingly already read. I can say, Atargatis and Nuwa share traits. Both are females, sometimes fish. Both married to essential lead Gods of the panthenon. Nuwa had some fire (perhaps zoroastrian) elements to her story. She transformed her servants into attractive female seductress. atargatis and Nuwa (via her husband) hold to a falling egg story. Both linked to fertility. I'm not sure if atargatis is even linked to Zoroastrianism. It just seems logical to me, given location, and the ability (or attempts, evidence the icon of Enki in the link above) to bring in older religions into it's framework. I'm less convinced there is a Dualistic aspect to the chinese goddess.... it seems a bad hunch. I'm going to start nit picking aspects of the collapse pf the shang, and supposed collapse of the assyrians. My main goal in researching the two goddesses was to establish there was cultural interaction between Chou China and the Mesopotamian region. I can say with great confidence yes, but to what extent, and how many middle men, and rapidity and accuracy of message, I'm in no position to say. The sources from this era are either unaccessible in Chinese, or just simply lost in the west. All I know is, we had a legend, that has hugh parallels to the Shang collapse, infiltrate the western world in antiquity, which is something no one, especially me, expected. We learned some surprising facts about the kind of books one could expect to find in the persian royal archives, and it shows how tightly bonded and far traveled ideas could spread and mutate. Also may give us unexpected glimpses and understandings into Dea Syria, now that we know have a contemporary goddess to compare her to. After all, they adopted the story, likelydue to similarities between the two goddesses. I should also point out, naturally, alot of differences between the two cults also exist. But both sem to agree in odd places.... both goddesses used red light for example.... why red?

http://www.crystalinks.com/zfishseal.jpg I was not expecting to find this Image, Zoroaster handing out over Enki! http://www.crystalinks.com/amphibiousgods.html I still haven't checked to see if those two gods related to NUWA, the creater gods, are (proto) Zoroastrian. I did see her cult was associated with certain inventions, which parallel the MES, like baskets. If it is the same cult, or religion, then it easily explains how the stories went east to west and west and east, and why the persians so readily accepted a fake history, cause the priesthood insisted. Break over.... back to work.

I've been finding alot of links between Atargatis, the syrian goddess, and Nuwa, who King Zhou of Shang angered. It included eggs falling from the sky, and snake theriamorphs (human headed snakes, often occurs in mesopotamian literature.... I have a background in it), and Cauduces of twin snakes: I gotta go to work here now, but here is a interesting link: Another story says that Derketo was hatched from an egg that fell from heaven; it landed in the Euphrates river, where some fish nudged it to shore. There it was found by a dove, who incubated it. Later, to show Her gratitude, Derketo persuaded Zeus to put an image of the fish in the stars, which He did, creating the constellation Pisces. The daughter Derketo bore was Semiramis, (who built the Hanging Gardens), the famous Assyrian Queen of Legend, and who was worshipped in Her own right as a Goddess in nearby Charchemish. http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/atargatis.html I think I saw evidence of a dualistic struggle between two creator gods.... I gotta look into it if it looks like Zoroastrianism. Likewise, some parallels to the Enki cult. This all popped up while googling wine pools and meat forests.... Iwas trying to figure out id Dea Syria had a tradition of wine pools.... which is a negative, but I definately have the beginning basis for a shared route of transmission and retention that goes both ways between China and Mesopotamia. I'm guessing this is the context the story of King Zhou became preserved in persia, then the west. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Anonymous-Fuxi_and_N%C3%BCwa.jpg/330px-Anonymous-Fuxi_and_N%C3%BCwa.jpg

Ummm... this guy actually served under these "mafia chief administers".... and said.... absolute monarchy. That's not rubbish, that's a legally qualified opinion acceptable in a court of law.

http://www.drbachinese.org/vbs/publish/339/vbs339p015.htm http://books.google.com/books?id=dcz4PwKvpoIC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=king+zhou+shang+tall+tower&source=bl&ots=CrIfGL4mSr&sig=O8wJpVB6sLlMLUo_PkIZVJjaOIs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-7tyVPzZEoqbyQSm6oK4Ag&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA I can't help but notice the similarities between Zaixing Tower (The Star Plucking Tower)... linked to King Zhou and his elitist attitude, looking down on the suffering of others as a Eudamonia Loving tyrant, and the tower of Babylon. It's making me wonder....Ctesias in his Persian History was using the Persian Royal Archives.... I'm guessing it wasn't organized via the Dewey Decimal System. The Persians obviously adapted this work from a work extant on the fall of Shang Dynasty, not merely translated by adapted to Assyria.... but it obviously would of contradicted other sources available. Was the library listed by topics (Tower of Babylon), by each Nation (Assyria, Media, Greece), or just rambled and he read them all?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_Terrace_Pavilion The actual sequence of the battle doesn't line up, but the story had several hundred years and a few translations to mutate.

Here is the western version, from Diodorus Siculus, about to become the most studied greek text in China: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/2A*.html#2323 1 Sardanapallus, the thirtieth in succession from Ninus, who founded the empire, and the last king of the Assyrians, outdid all his predecessors in luxury and sluggishness.51 For not to mention the fact that he was not seen by any man residing outside the palace, he lived the life of a woman, and spending his days p427in the company of his concubines and spinning purple garments and working the softest of wool, he had assumed the feminine garb and so covered his face and indeed his entire body with whitening cosmetics and the other unguents used by courtesans, that he rendered it more delicate than that of any luxury-loving woman. 2 He also took care to make even his voice to be like a woman's, and at his carousals not only to indulge regularly in those drinks and viands which could offer the greatest pleasure, but also to pursue the delights of love with men as well as women; for he practised sexual indulgence of both kinds without restraint, showing not the least concern for the disgrace attending such conduct. 3 To such an excess did he go of luxury and of the most shameless sensual pleasure and in temperance, that he composed a funeral dirge for himself and commanded his successors upon the throne to inscribe it upon his tomb after his death; it was composed by him in a foreign language but was afterwards translated by a Greek as follows: Knowing full well that thou wert mortal born, Thy heart lift up, take thy delight in feast; When dead no pleasure more is thine. Thus I, Who once o'er mighty Ninus ruled, am naught But dust. Yet these are mine which gave me joy In life — the food I ate, my wantonness, And love's delights. But all those other things Men deem felicities are left behind. 4 Because he was a man of this character, not only did he end his own life in a disgraceful manner, but he p429caused the total destruction of the Assyrian Empire, which had endured longer than any other known to history. 24 1 The facts are these:52 A certain Arbaces, a Mede by race, and conspicuous for his bravery and nobility of spirit, was the general of the contingent of Medes which was sent each year to Ninus. And having made the acquaintance during this service of the general of the Babylonians, he was urged by him to overthrow the empire of the Assyrians. 2 Now this man's name was Belesys, and he was the most distinguished of those priests whom the Babylonians call Chaldaeans. And since as a consequence he had the fullest experience of astrology and divination, he was wont to foretell the future unerringly to the people in general; therefore, being greatly admired for this gift, he also predicted to the general of the Medes, who was his friend, that it was certainly fated for him to be king over all the territory which was then held by Sardanapallus. 3 Arbaces, commending the man, promised to give him the satrapy of Babylonia when the affair should be consummated, and for his part, like a man elated by a message from some god, both entered into a league with the commanders of the other nations and assiduously invited them all to banquets and social gatherings, establishing thereby a friendship with each of them. 4 He was resolved also to see the king face to face and to observe his whole manner of life. Consequently he gave one of the eunuchs a golden p431bowl as a present and gained admittance to Sardanapallus; and when he had observed at close hand both his luxuriousness and his love of effeminate pursuits and practices, he despised the king as worthy of no consideration and was led all the more to cling to the hopes which had been held out to him by the Chaldaean. 5 And the conclusion of the matter was that he formed a conspiracy with Belesys, whereby he should himself move the Medes and Persians to revolt while the latter should persuade the Babylonians to join the undertaking and should secure the help of the commander of the Arabs, who was his friend, for the attempt to secure the supreme control. 6 When the year's time of their service in the king's army53 had passed and, another force having arrived to replace them, the relieved men had been dismissed as usual to their homes, thereupon Arbaces persuaded the Medes to attack the Assyrian kingdom and the Persians to join in the conspiracy, on the condition of receiving their freedom.54 Belesys too in similar fashion both persuaded the Babylonians to strike for their freedom, and sending an embassy to Arabia, won over the commander of the people of that country, a friend of his who exchanged hospitality with him, to join in the attack. 7 And after a year's time all these leaders gathered a multitude of soldiers and came with all their forces to Ninus, ostensibly bringing up replacements, as was the custom, but in fact with the intention of destroying the empire of the Assyrians. 8 Now when these four nations had gathered into one place the whole number of them amounted to four hundred thousand p433men, and when they had assembled into one camp they took counsel together concerning the best plan to pursue. 25 1 As for Sardanapallus, so soon as he became aware of the revolt, he led forth against the rebels the contingents which had come from the rest of the nations. And at first, when battle was joined on the plain, those who were making the revolt were defeated, and after heavy losses were pursued to a mountain which was seventy stades distant from Ninus; 2 but afterwards, when they came down again into the plain and were preparing for battle, Sardanapallus marshalled his army against them and despatched heralds to the camp of the enemy to make this proclamation: "Sardanapallus will give two hundred talents of gold to anyone who slays Arbaces the Mede, and will make a present of twice that amount to anyone who delivers him up alive and will also appoint him governor over Media." 3 Likewise he promised to reward any who would either slay Belesys the Babylonian or take him alive. But since no man paid any attention to the proclamation, he joined battle, slew many of the rebels, and pursued the remainder of the multitude into their encampment in the mountains. 4 Arbaces, having lost heart because of these defeats, now convened a meeting of his friends and called upon them to consider what should be done. 5 Now the majority said that they should retire to their respective countries, seize strong positions, and so far as possible prepare there whatever else would be p435useful for the war; but Belesys the Babylonian, by maintaining that the gods were promising them by signs that with labours and hardship they would bring their enterprise to a successful end, and encouraging them in every other way as much as he could, persuaded them all to remain to face further perils. 6 So there was a third battle, and again the king was victorious, captured the camp of the rebels, and pursued the defeated foe as far as the boundaries of Babylonia; and it also happened that Arbaces himself, who had fought most brilliantly and had slain many Assyrians, was wounded. 7 And now that the rebels had suffered defeats so decisive following one upon the other, their commanders, abandoning all hope of victory, were preparing to disperse each to his own country. 8 But Belesys, who had passed a sleepless night in the open and had devoted himself to the observation of the stars, said to those who had lost hope in their cause, "If you will wait five days help will come of its own accord, and there will be a mighty change to the opposite in the whole situation; for from my long study of the stars I see the gods foretelling this to us." And he appealed to them to wait that many days and test his own skill and the good will of the gods. 26 1 So after they had all been called back and had waited the stipulated time, there came a messenger with the news that a force which had been despatched from Bactriana to the king was near at hand, advancing with all speed. 2 Arbaces, accordingly, decided to go to meet their generals by the shortest route, p437taking along the best and most agile of his troops, so that, in case they should be unable to persuade the Bactrians by arguments to join in the revolt, they might resort to arms to force them to share with them in the same hopes. 3 But the outcome was that the new-comers gladly listened to the call to freedom, first the commanders and then the entire force, and they all encamped in the same place. 4 It happened at this very time that the king of the Assyrians, who was unaware of the defection of the Bactrians and had become elated over his past successes, turned to indulgence and divided among his soldiers for a feast animals and great quantities of both wine and all other provisions. Consequently, since the whole army was carousing, Arbaces, learning from some deserters of the relaxation and drunkenness in the camp of the enemy, made his attack upon it unexpectedly in the night. 5 And as it was an assault of organized men upon disorganized and of ready men upon unprepared, they won possession of the camp, and after slaying many of the soldiers pursued the rest of them as far as the city. 6 After this the king named for the chief command Galaemenes, his wife's brother, and gave his own attention to the affairs within the city. But the rebels, drawing up their forces in the plain before the city, overcame the Assyrians in two battles, and they not only slew Galaemenes, but of the opposing forces they cut down some in their flight, while others, who had been shut out from entering the city and forced to leap into p439the Euphrates river, they destroyed almost to a man. 7 So great was the multitude of the slain that the water of the stream, mingled with the blood, was changed in colour over a considerable distance. Furthermore, now that the king was shut up in the city and besieged there, many of the nations revolted, going over in each case to the side of liberty. 8 Sardanapallus, realizing that his entire kingdom was in the greatest danger, sent his three sons and two daughters together with much of his treasure to Paphlagonia to the governor Cotta, who was the most loyal of his subjects, while he himself, despatching letter-carriers to all his subjects, summoned forces and made preparations for the siege. 9 Now there was a prophecy which had come down to him from his ancestors: "No enemy will ever take Ninus by storm unless the river shall first become the city's enemy." Assuming, therefore, that this would never be, he held out in hope, his thought being to endure the siege and await the troops which would be sent from his subjects. 27 1 The rebels, elated at their successes, pressed the siege, but because of the strength of the walls they were unable to do any harm to the men in the city; for neither engines for throwing stones, nor shelters for sappers,55 nor battering-rams devised to overthrow walls had as yet been invented at that time. Moreover, p441the inhabitants of the city had a great abundance of all provisions, since the king had taken thought on that score. Consequently the siege dragged on, and for two years they pressed their attack, making assaults on the walls and preventing inhabitants of the city from going out into the country; but in the third year, after there had been heavy and continuous rains, it came to pass that the Euphrates, running very full, both inundated a portion of the city and broke down the walls for a distance of twenty stades. 2 At this the king, believing that the oracle had been fulfilled and that the river had plainly become the city's enemy, abandoned hope of saving himself. And in order that he might not fall into the hands of the enemy, he built an enormous pyre56 in his palace, heaped upon it all his gold and silver as well as every article of the royal wardrobe, and then, shutting his concubines and eunuchs in the room which had been built in the middle of the pyre, he consigned both them and himself and his palace to the flames. 3 The rebels, on learning of the death of Sardanapallus, took the city by forcing an entrance where the wall had fallen, and clothing Arbaces in the royal garb saluted him as king and put in his hands the supreme authority. 28 1 Thereupon, after the new king had distributed among the generals who had aided him in the struggle gifts corresponding to their several deserts, and as he was appointing satraps over the nations, Belesys the Babylonian, who had foretold to Arbaces that he would be king of Asia, coming to him, reminded him p443of his good services, and asked that he be given the governorship of Babylonia, as had been promised at the outset. 2 He also explained that when their cause was endangered he had made a vow to Belus that, if Sardanapallus were defeated and his palace went up in flames, he would bring its ashes to Babylon, and depositing them near the river and the sacred precinct of the god he would construct a mound which, for all who sailed down the Euphrates, would stand as an eternal memorial of the man who had overthrown the rule of the Assyrians. 3 This request he made because he had learned from a certain eunuch, who had made his escape and come to Belesys and was kept hidden by him, of the facts regarding the silver and gold. 4 Now since Arbaces knew nothing of this, by reason of the fact that all the inmates of the palace had been burned along with the king, he allowed him both to carry the ashes away and to hold be able without the payment of tribute. Thereupon Belesys procured boats and at once sent off to Babylon along with the ashes practically all the silver and gold; and the king, having been informed of the act which Belesys had been caught perpetrating, appointed as judges the generals who had served with him in the war. 5 And when the accused acknowledged his guilt, the court sentenced him to death, but the king, being a magnanimous man and wishing to make his rule at the outset known for clemency, both freed Belesys from the danger threatening him and allowed him to keep the silver and gold which he had carried off; likewise, he did not even take from him the governorship over Babylon which had originally p445been given to him, saying that his former services were greater than his subsequent misdeeds. 6 When this act of clemency was noised about, he won no ordinary loyalty on the part of his subjects as well as renown among the nations, all judging that a man who had conducted himself in this wise towards wrongdoers was worthy of the kingship. 7 Arbaces, however, showing clemency towards the inhabitants of the city, settled them in villages and returned to each man his personal possessions, but the city he levelled to the ground. Then the silver and gold, amounting to many talents, which had been left in the pyre, he collected and took off to Ecbatana in Media. 8 So the empire of the Assyrians, which had endured from the time of Ninus through thirty generations, for more than one thousand three hundred years, was destroyed by the Medes in the manner described above

http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php?deity=ZHOU-WANG Chinese God of Sodomy Emperor Zhao, last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, was much given to cruelty and debauchery. His favorite pastime was forcing slaves to swim naked in a wine-filled lake. (Which doesn’t actually sound too bad to us. Maybe it was a bad vintage.) I'm guessing this influenced the myth about Tiberius and his "little minnows". Don't make it untrue, he might of gotten the idea from it, or it could of just been a story floating around Seutonius picked up on.... or Sejanus more likely, with access to the three libraries in Rome. Notice the many, many similarities that keep popping up? The deer tower was a heavily ornimayed treasure house.... Shang Dynasty practiced elaborate human sacrifices. The "Assyrian Story" has a pyre big enough to not just burn a man, but also multiple slaves, and a treasury... both upon a conquest by angry pissed off states. Both next towater.

From wikipedia page on sardanapalus: Diodorus says that Sardanapalus exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and luxury. He spent his whole life in self-indulgence. He dressed in women's clothes and wore make-up. He had many concubines, female and male. He wrote his own epitaph, which stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life. His lifestyle caused dissatisfaction within the Assyrian empire, allowing a conspiracy against him to develop led by "Arbaces". An alliance of Medes, Persians and Babylonians challenged the Assyrians. Sardanapalus stirred himself to action and routed the rebels several times in battle, but failed to crush them. Believing he had defeated the rebels, Sardanapalus returned to his decadent lifestyle, ordering sacrifices and celebrations. But the rebels were reinforced by new troops from Bactria. Sardanapalus's troops were surprised during their partying, and were routed. Sardanapalus returned to Nineveh to defend his capital, while his army was placed under the command of his brother-in-law, who was soon defeated and killed. Having sent his family to safety, Sardanapalus prepared to hold Nineveh. He managed to withstand a long siege, but eventually heavy rains caused the Tigris to overflow, leading to the collapse of one of the defensive walls. To avoid falling into the hand of his enemies, Sardanapalus had a huge funeral pyre created for himself on which were piled "all his gold, silver and royal apparel". He had his eunuchs and concubines boxed in inside the pyre, burning himself and them to death.

Here is a link from Encyclopedia Britannica that describes his death: "To please his concubine, Daji, Zhou is said to have built a lake of wine around which naked men and women were forced to chase one another. His cruelty was such that the nearby forests were strung with human flesh. Moreover, he provoked the resentment of the people by levying taxes to build, over the course of seven years, the elaborate Deer Tower Palace. It was supposed to have been 600 feet (180 metres) high and a half mile (1 km) in circuit, with doors and chambers constructed of precious stones. When Wuwang, founder of the succeeding Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bc), overthrew the Shang (or Yin, as the late part of the dynasty is also called), Zhou set fire to his palace and committed suicide by leaping into the flames." http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/114673/Zhou

I would presume Jiang Ziya was... Arbaces? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Ziya http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbaces Though I'm fairly confident, given the hugh parallels in the two stories, I can't be certain. It could of been Jiang or King Wu. The greeks claimed to of learned of the four horse chariots from the Libyans.... Persians had chariots from.... who knows when. They might of gotten this story via what would later become Bactria, or via the sea.... There is a very important military text associated with this collapse, one of the military classics of ancient china. Wouldn't it be amazing if the persians adopted the chariot focused teaching of "The Six Secret Teachings", and manuals evolved from such? I got much larger reservations about this. The propaganda of the colapse of the zhou dynasty would of been a irresistible story to tell, but this military manual making it... wishful thinking, it's likely a state secret not willingly shared.

This History of Zonaras is proving very profitable to me, it has so many weird sources.... I gotta google a name or text every few minutes. I think I just solved a big historical problem involving a myth the Romans held true, but no historical or archeological information supports. On page 40, it mentions during Alexander Severus (first christian emperor) Ulpian corrected many of Sardanapalus' deeds. The name Sardanapalus looked familiar.... I had done alot of work tracking down Proto-Cynic works from Assyria in the past.... but couldn't quite place it. So... I whipped out my phone, and Googled it.... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardanapalus I read it, and got one hell of a surprise.... At first, I thought it was just a Cynic-Stoic Myth, playing on luxury, decadence, and nihilism. The rape of Lucretia popped in my mind.... until I saw how he died.... invaded by subject states around Assyria, he was a bisexual hendonist, and put all his material wealth in a spot, and burned himself alive in the collapse.... I've read this exact scenario before, it's the collapse of the Shang Dynasty, Lord Zhou, when the state of Chou overthrew the Shang Empire.... Lord Shang was very ostentatious, sexually perverse (was deified the god of Sodomy), and burned himself alive in the Deer Tower, with all his treasure. Somehow.... King Zhou mutated to Sardanapalus.... a improbably paralleled story, and it influenced Aristotle, and the name (thus the story) of Sardanapalus was rememvered for countless generations. The Romans, I'm guessing the Cynics and Stoics besides the obvious peripatetics given the warnings against luxury, likely were heavily influenced by this myth. Syria had a cross dressing fish cult, that still has some... annoying lingering effects along the Euphrates river in Iskandariya, Iraq despite the commands of Islam.... it's along trade routes to the Mediterranean. It would have a obvious sticking capacity to such a population, who would identify the Chou Dynasty founding myth (like The Rape of Lucretia for the Roman Republic), but in the opposite direction, counter intuitively seeing him as a national hero. The Roman and Chou Dynasty thus held the same originating myth, though it mutated into a variant by time it reached Greece and Rome, via the Silk Road.... and the stupid Syrians completely missed the obvious point of the denigrating rhetoric and turned him into a national hero.... cause that's what Syrians do. They think ISIS is a good deal after all. A good source to learn of Zhou, would be The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, translated by Ralph Sawyer. Congratulations..... if your reading this, your among the very first to learn of this, I just put it together.

Falcidian portion of that sum shall be reserved.... This part of the text refers to a law that stipulates at the very least, 1/4 of a inheritance has to go to a heir, without regard to legacy issues, which I presume to be debts.... Is this table used to calculate when the heir is expected to die, so when the tax collector is next expected to show up, statistically assuming your dead, then he taxes his taxes, records the life expectancy pf the new heirs, and inform the that statistical science decrees they should be dead by this date.... and will show up to take their stuff again, so you better be dead by then? I wonder if the Romans tried to pursue Jesus for tax fraud for resurrecting. How would the Falcidian Law be applied the the cannibalism scene in the Satyricon, giving the inheritors were also the loaners? Did each have to eat more than 25% of the corpse, given they were inheritors, but also had additional debts to collect... I wonder if the government stil got it's 5% in the deal?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulpian%27s_life_table I'm having trouble with this one. I'm assuming this is Augustan era, taxing at 5% the income derived from the financial holdings.... of a deceased person, taken before being given to.... an inheritor? Am I right so far? So this would target liquid assets.... if my kinsman Bob died, and he had 100 pieces of Gold, 100 slaves, 100 manuscripts, One Hundred Plates, One Hundred rows of fruit trees, a tax collector would cope, with a clipboard with a scroll attached in the middle, flopping on the ground on either side, this text.... and he would say "Augustus gets 5 of everything that belong to the Centurion Bob". The he would drag his finger down the chart, finding my age, or Bob's age.... I'm assuming Bob, and his age.... I don't quite get this. Was it multiplied, or divided? If I have 100 of everything, and it's a five percent tax, is he taxing more or less than 5? I admit I'm completely lost here. I can't figure out life expectancy, or be horrified by the results like everyone else apparently is. I can't even figure out how this related to a 5 percent tax. I'm completely lost. All I know is, Augustus will take away at least 5 rows of trees, 5 slaves, five gold coins, and half a finger from me, and I apparently don't have much longer to live anyway, so they will soon be back for more trees and slaves, and someone else's finger....

This is a excerpt from Zonares, he was a late roman historian in the eastern roman empire, his work contains may lost works from the collapse of Rome now otherwise lost, and he servered directly underneath Emperors, and as a government official and historian knew of the senate from direct experience within the palace. "Because the history had taken note of Romans and of Rome,I thought it necessary for me to write about these, to, and to hand down whence and from what the people of the Romans had its beginning; by whom the region of Italy was previously inhabited; whence Romulus, the man who became the founder of Rome, was brought forth to the light of day; gow Remus, his brother, was killed and then, too, how the former disappeared; how the city itself was first ruled; what manners and customs it employed; how Tarquinius Superabus, after he had changed the sovereignty to a tyranny, was deposed; how many and what sort of wars Rome waged as a result of his disposition; how conditions for Romans were changed to Aristocracy to Democracy, with consuls and distatores, then tribunes too, performing the administration of public affairs, what the consulship was was in olden days, what the dictatorship was, and what the work of the censors was; what term was assigned to each of these offices; what a triumph was like amongst them and whence it's name was introduced; what sort of things-even if not everything- through lack of books detailing such things- happened in the times of the consuls; how, from these, rule for the Romans later changed to monarchy; how, even if not clearly, Gaius Julius Caesar first pretended to this, then, after he had been killed upon the speakers platform by those who clung to liberty, Augustus Octavius Caesar, who was a nephew of the slain Caesar and who had been given to him in adoption, pursued the killers of his adoptive father, having Anthony, too, participating with him in the work, and how, after he had afterwards quarreled also with him, he had been victorious at the battle off Actium, and then, when he had overtaken him after he had fled to Alexandria with Cleopatra, he brought the man to such a degree of necessity that he killed even himself; the extent of Roman losses in these civil wars, first when Octavius and Anthony took the field against Brutus, Cassius, and Caesars other killers, and how these men battled against one another; how Cleopatra, Egypt's queen, a descendant of the Ptolemies, was taken alive how she, too, killed herself, so it was concluded, by the bite of an asp; and that thus, after he had returned to rome with brilliant victory celebrations, Octaviys pursued absolute rule and transformed the leadership of the Romans into a genuine monarchy..... ----- That was one long sentence, but it grasps the essentials of my argument.... the Kyklos Cycle, how Rome switched from a republic to a monarchy, and how being a dynastic emperor differed from elected consuls. Written by a Roman historian who served under a emperor, with access to sources we don't even have anymore. Page 28-29 of "The History of Zonatas" translated by Francis Hagan

I'm not going to argue against the navy idea, it was a bad one, but did pop up a few times in my head. Your right. ______ Local commands were given to troops manning the security zone. Overall commands came out of the legionary forts to the south, where the reposne armies were stationed, and where the local governor had a connection with. Orders via the Channel? Not realistic. Too slow and too vulnerable to weather. _____ In one of the links above, they had soldiers arriving from what was assumed Germany, not marching from York to London. Secondly, the wall was very clearly built WRONG, with the front defensive ditch in the rear and not the front, only place in the empire to do this, and a local governor in Britain would know better. It means the unified command for the wall the soldiers responded to was on the east coast, and the idiot didn't go out and inspect the walls prior or during. The command and exact orders were followed, without question... in the rear, suggesting the Grand Fubars authority was quite high.... if the local commanders had independence of authority, one would of been bound to of dug the ditch on the north. I'm guessing the work detail began on this REMF Ditch east to west, as the wall did, using local legions as it went along. Why? Because that is the supply fort, as well as where the historians hypothesized the wall was first built. Hence the beginning of the military road. Orders went east west, not south fanning north from the governor. When the east wall was eventually extended, they knew the folly, and got rid of the REMF Ditch, approved the wall being thinned out.... but it still didn't go all the way. I'm presuming it's because that's where HQ was and he had plenty of reinforcements. Plus quick access south to call on more troops (as it would be on any point on that wall), but far quicker access to calling for help from continental europe. Think, at least in the beginning, HQ was at Walls End, not York or London. It was someone with enough authority to tap work details across the walk, every unit.... felt secure enough in the east, but insecure in the west... hence overdoing the defensive line there.... work details started with him. But if it was on the east coast, it could of just as easily been a higher echelon in Europe directing this. The earlier Gask Ridge shows the Romans had a specific knowledge of lications and routes their enemy would take. Thier forts in the north of scotland narrows down the trouble area considerably.... but Hadrian decided defensive lines, and gave up on the romanization of local tribes, pulled back, and built for a unspecific threat. He was in York.... east coast. Certainly departed east coast. York eventually became a local capital, legionary soldiers stationed there under big names like Constatine.... but the authors I read assumed reinforcements came from europe to the tyne, not from york first. It appears the chief authority for the wall was at the mouth of the Tyne, where Hadrian likely left him to build the stupid wall, and technical superiors to the south, but Europe sent alot to them directly bypassing York and London. Means those two locations were not always in the loop, but east end of the wall always was.... and the people who ran the operation did so without checking out and inspecting the work till finished. So someone of high rank, not originally of a military background.... digging ditches on the wrong side, saying "lets plaster the thing".... not keeping a eye on the work details, or listening to local commanders sending WTF notices to him. Everyone more or less let this moron make this happen, being powerless parts of the whole, and he.... didn't care to check up regularly. I smell a political appointment here.... a worthless aristocrat. So this raises the question, where was his villa? Isn't that what they usually did, build villas on agriculture land near fortifications?

I don't think anyone ever did a systematic survey on the concept of rewards and punishments across various civilizations... the rewards and punishment centers in the Thalamus, SMA, and Basal Ganglia have been largely mapped out, we know roughly what they do.... but I don't think anyone tried to apply it to all known excepts such as this, and tried to make a matrix of assumptions each society had, seeing where the similarity, contradictions, and unique understandings popped up. It seems rather obvious seeing the Chinese separating, having much more experience drafting new armies, would advance quicker in this area. And I just answered a mystery I had growing last night, as to why some parts of Scotland and Ireland show no Roman Artifacts, just native, while others, especially in southeast ireland, show Roman.... Romans liked to use native auxiliary, and not draft homogeneous armies from scratch, using their ethnic bonds to keep them together.... like with Denmark after the Romans lost their legion.... several tribes allied as Auxiliary, Romans pursued a different course and never knew how to build a good system from a rotten system, like other countries, including Hannibal, had to. They would Romanize they to a extent by being auxiliaries, and ignored them otherwise, especially if they lacked anything of apparent value economically when not warring.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Scotland The Romans' part in the clearances of the once extensive Caledonian forest remains a matter of debate.[97] That these forests were once considerably more extensive than they are now is not in dispute, but the timing and causes of the reduction are. The 16th-century writer Hector Boece believed that the woods in Roman times stretched north from Stirling into Atholl and Lochaber and was inhabited by white bulls with "crisp and curland mane, like feirs lionis".[98] Later historians such as P. F. Tytler and W. F. Skene followed suit as did the 20th-century naturalist Frank Fraser Darling. Modern techniques, including palynology and dendrochronology suggest a more complex picture. Changing post-glacial climates may have allowed for a maximum forest cover between 4000 and 3000 BC and deforestation of the Southern uplands, caused both climatically and anthropogenically, was well underway by the time the legions arrived.[99] Extensive analyses of Black Loch in Fife suggest that arable land spread at the expense of forest from about 2000 BC until the 1st-century AD Roman advance. Thereafter, there was re-growth of birch, oak and hazel for a period of five centuries, suggesting the invasions had a very negative impact on the native population.[100] The situation outwith the Roman-held areas is harder to assess, but the long-term influence of Rome may not have been substantial

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchtuthill http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gask_Ridge

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/news/north-east-news/roman-treasure-pulls-visitors-arbeia-7535813 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons_Aelius http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segedunum This focuses on the eastern wall, and the roman debarking point.... I can't find any solid evidence of a Naval Detachment here. I went looking east, after noticing the west had 26 miles of additional fortifications stretching southwest along the coast after you expect the wall, if incompetently built, to end. It was indeed extended, knowing the northerners knew how to paddle. Apparently no western navy, just fixed defensive points for the Romans. In the east.... odd. The wall stops prior to the east coast, along the Tyne River. If Hadrians wall was built in the supposed lost of the Ninth Legion, which is linked to York dead south of here, wouldn't you put the strongest forts here? Secondly.... York is well South of Hadrians Wall. Why would a empire, so scared of unmanageable forces capable of destroying a legion, go that far up north and fortify? Likewise, why would a army march so far south to attack, then afterwards retreat north again, giving the Romans the confidence to enclose them south of Hadrians wall? I'm assuming the Navy had a coastal or river capacity here that negated the need to further the Limes south along the east coast. The question to ponder is, did the mouth of the Tyne have a naval detachment or fort prior to the ninth getting whooped at York? Was the defenses thought good enough, and the Hadrian Line built not touching it west of here, and only later extended east, minus that useless inner ditch? Likewise, if the 9th was found in the Netherlands, as the tile evidence supposes, they would of left via this naval port. It could be they effectively WERE the navy as well as the Army (doubtful) or occupied both locations, relying on strongholds prior to Hadrian of a insufficient number.... enough to hold the forts but not the countryside, and lacked the funds to buy foodstuffs, and so tried to get it from the locals anotherway.... and it backfired in a minor revolt, detachments from York got ambushed.... rest stayed in Fort till Hadrian showed up, yelled at thesoldiers for being idiots, repaired local hurt feelings, enough to the point of building further north. My assumption of food supply issues.... the two stone grain silos.... the region likely produced LESS FOOD than was needed once the wall was built, and it needed good protection from looters. Then again, could of been export grain leaving. Another possibility is, the Romans experienced Irish excursions into Scotland, and the domino effect ended up on.... the east coast. I doubt this.

The inner ditch makes no sense as a internal boundary for civilians to know to go away.... you could just turn around and say "Hey, get away". Throw a rock at them.... wack them with a stick.... That wiki theory just is... bad.

I got some used picture books today I found.... the castle I mocked was Vindolanda Fort.... I've also identified a absurd formation I still can't make sense of, the vallum: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallum_%28Hadrian%27s_Wall%29 Apparently, the idiots (proper nomenclature in English for people who do this sorta thing).... AFTER Hadrians Wall was built, dug a ditch SOUTH of the wall.... South. Defenses pointed north, they dug.... south. It was later on filled in at numerous points.... cause it was a stupid nuisance. This shows the wall had a unified command.... and this command, was the most backwards line defence command in history. I thought maybe they were afraid of getting attacked from the south.... but that's.... a worthless defense.... worst than nothing, as it would merely give cover and concealment to any such attacker from the south. Likewise, doesn't make much sense as a fallback line if the wall is overwhelmed.... if you get overwhelmed off that wall, that ditch isn't a place for a last stand, it's a annoying hurdle in tour way on that long run south your taking, away from that silly wall. I wonder, given the wall was apparently built east to west, if the ultimate command authority for the wall.... came from a HQ based in Europe, and read the map for the wall, originally surveyed North Looking South, upside down, and thought they were digging the ditches to the North of the wall... a local based commander, or English based governor would of quickly grasped the issue at hand. So I presume orders didn't go through London, or even the wall.... but across the channel, and was delivered directly and instituted by someone unwilling to countermand such a retarded order. A Governor would intercede, a middle rank commander, perhaps not. That, or everyone just misread the orders. I can't find any proposed population demographics for scotland at this time. Nor can I find evidence the Romans had command of the sea... they are behaving like a landlocked force only pushing north headstrong, and not a force that could randonly land and fortify whatever they liked, as the English much lateron did to wales.

You shouldn't immediately pair off rewards and punishments when dealing with large formations of largely untrained men. It's better to dissociate the two, and offer rewards of prize and rank to the first to seek after a announced task and completes it competently. You'll get your most ambitious and excited men early on, and you use them to corral via eliciting excitement, and create uniformity. Who flocks around such men offer one way of thinking, a natural esprite of association arises. These men can be counted on to do duties and tasks... The other portion, you train and retrain, and use discipline sparingly, if at all, using novel tasks.... such as river crossings or repelling down ravines.... and you award them merit accommodations for their training, and encourage them to talk shit to guys not trained in their specialties. The best specialist holders become your second corps of leaders, and they should be the ones who discipline. Discipline should come late to a unruly unit, after awards and after challenging them to work together and learn together under duress. I think only selecting a two thousand man special forces like taskforce is stupid if it results in alienating the rest of the men, and doesn't fix the underlining ideology that allowed such training to occur. The Ought/Is variable shouldn't too early override the sense of self, and sense of the group too early, and you want to avoid early defection, AWOLs, and discontent. All eyes should be focused on figuring out what crazy task the commander next has for them up his sleeve, as success and learning to overcome, and the shared recognition afterwards, can turn the negative contradictions into loyalty. However, if you start off with rewards and punishments from the beginning, or just punishments, the men will only mechanically respond at best, will hate one another, wil view it's immediate supervisors between them and the commander as yes men and sycophants, and will snap under stress as a group, which will require a scapegoat in training, or goading and limited formations in combat. Such units only give the impression of discipline, but will snap in ingenious circumstances far too often and will fail to adapt. Only the very best trained of units can overcome this phenomena when pressured. I'm guessing the Romans, unlike in Asia who regularly would draft armies in mass, never had to figure out the composite attitudes, and how to separate them into useful parts and train them. Rome more or less, save for it's distant earliest era, had largely educated drafted armies who understood the needs of the state, or professional armies. They kept their auxiliaries near but separate, hoping for emulation. Don't think the Romans had to deal too often with this problem though.

I'm surprised by the Lucian Nietzsche link.... I've been listening and debating Nietzscheans for years now.... I was the first who discovered Nietzsche's Ecco Homo was heavily derived from Jerome Cardans "The Book of My Life".... but never heard of this link before, but it makes sense from seeing his other works. I primarily knew of him from his dealings with Demonax and his True History, which Lexx in Season 3 played on some of it's themes.