Onasander

Could I get some of those horrible abstract, mathematical unit formations Asclepciodotus wrote about? http://www.loebclassics.com/view/asclepiodotus-tactics/1928/pb_LCL156.323.xml We can have ourselves some stunned gameplay when some of these formations take the field and start trying to move about.

That is 1010 meat eating carnevors. Your right. I can't even imagine shipping the elephants by sea. Taking the cats in groups across could make it manageable, if the hunter groups bringing them in also sent teams out for meat to feed them in port, and enough for shipping (if fed, I really don't know the port/ports they left by, or the actual travel time). Must of been harder in the ports. Not a unknown site to see exotic creatures dragged in cages along Italy towards Rome. Multiple routes (not just Rome's main port) would ease the buying up the local meat supply at any one location, but once these creatures started converging upon Rome for the event, that's a lot of food required all at once. I can't imagine where they would be kept other than a farm (or farms) outside the city, as I certainly hope this many would cause a storage overload of more traditional holdings for game animals. Faster access to food as well, can by directly from local farmers needed meat, live at that. I guess these holding areas close to the colusseum would of doubled as Zoos, where locals would of been encouraged to gawk and screw around with the animals. Doubt there was no "Don't feed the animals" signs up.... feel free to I suppose given the nature of the operation. Some sunburnt, dehydrated, poorly fed creatures scared and lethargic being lead half the night into the colusseum for the games.... growing and scaring kids trying to sleep. A few cages kept outside the colusseum until the last minute to encourage crowds to enter. I don't want to imagine the psychological state of the slaves operating these mechanisms, seeing animals and people off to their deaths. Must of made them feel quite expendable, next to nothing. Not a job you want to get a work related injury on, your employer will toss you to the sands. I personally find it disturbing to kill elephants, they are useful military animals, not to mention obviously intelligent. Its a poor allocation of resources.

You say it's variable, yet also at the same time you identify a extroverted sensing vs introversion polarity guiding this behavior. Thus, the variability is behaviorally sequential and not random, based on how our brains process group behavior. I accept the attempt, and won't push too hard here against it, other than asking you to qualify how the timeline of Stoneage to Ironage works in this regard. Also.... I'm sure you didn't imply it, but your not accusing the Romans or Celts of cannabalistically defleshing people, right? It happens even today, so I wouldn't be surprised if a rare bone pops up that suggests this, but was of the general understanding both Romans and Celts at this point, while still engaging in human sacrifice and in some cults ritualistic mutilation, they didn't eat people. I know the Aztecs were fond of human sacrifice, but would starve to death prior to eating human flesh. However, Shang and Zhou China both sacrificed humans, and integrated cannibalism into their rites. Yet, the Chinese overlap the late Paleolithic to bronze age. How would you integrated these differences into a stable axiomatic axis of sequential diffraction using your cognitive analysis?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4666930,00.html

Hey... you asked for ideas.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ancient-roman-harbor-to-reappear-in-urla-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=83668&NewsCatID=375 I find this to be a impressive undertaking. I'm just a little stumped as to why they have cannons being built next to the wooden gears. Am I the only one assuming, besides the invasion of Syracuse and the fall of Constantinople, the Romans really didn't have much experience with canons, and always were on the receiving end those extreme few times they did? Next thing I'll find out is Saladin used Cruise Missiles, or Pompey had his own tank corps. I like the effort none the less. I think that first ship might be the Kon-Tiki.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Tipus-armoury-will-roll-across-to-new-location/articleshow/47579945.cms It was moved for legitimate reasons, they needed to unreserved rail capacity between two cities (passengers rely heavily on this). Seems pretty good, and the underlining site won't be damaged too much, I've seen railroad tracks laid and removed,as long as your not blasting through a hillside, it's minimally invasive, and allows for the possibility of distant future digs once the line is decommissioned.

I had gotten another copy of Medieval 2 a month or so back, and already beat every campaign. I gotta admit, there is a Hugh discrepancy between historic military tactics, and what I actually do to win. I'm very disappointed in the AI, it can't do basic flanks. They clusterfuck in hugh columns, converging on a single point, bringing their units together, and it's a pain in the ass to get them to march in parallel columns so one unit can collide and the one parallel can flank. They get.... retardedly slow when trying to do this, and my Calvary insists on moving at a snail's pace unless it is allowed to plow face first into likes.... instead of the side or rear. It's a remarkably simple operation, and they consistently screw up. I gotta oblique attack way out of the side from an absurd tangent to pull it off. So I've more or less said fuck it, and just run armies down with forces almost completely composed of heavy Calvary acting in tandem with two light infantry armies, using night attacks and buying mercenaries to replenish ranks, and choose campaign corridors that allow for logistical reinforcement quick enough to fill the void in my rear, and equip secondary forces to follow. It's sad, but I get more realistic flanking on the turn based campaign map than in the battles. I really do wish there was a function for Pugnae Simularcrum..... mock battles, where you could take unit types at tech levels you currently possess, and practice maneuvers outside the campaign map. If you achieve the success in showing how to do a field maneuver with a particular kind of unit against a mock unit, those two units remember how to do it as long as that unit type exists. Examples, close quarter flanking, or using infantry in the rear in support of Calvary. If you successfully pull this off, the AI will merit all units of this type with this AI upgrade. I know what you'll say..... AI isn't designed to be like that, or software limitations, but I don't believe so. There are options for individual historic battles. This can be adjusted to register when a unit achieves a certain historic success in fending off or nearly using a historic technique (such as using Infantry and Calvary in parallel to fend off a enemy's Calvary attack in the rear). If the AI detects a enemy unit flanking and hitting the rear, and being sent fleeing, in the normal campaigns, when your Calvary and infantry are near one another, they get the special ability to merge together as on unit, same speed, mutually supporting one another. Also the ability to break off and form two units. Or if you train them to send a infantry unit up a steep hill to take a pass, they be home winded.... if your general rides behind them blowing his horn like crazy to spur them, they should be able in normal battles as light infantry to rapidly surmount hills and mountain passes in order to hold the pass. Essentially, you would update the special abilities per unit, upon historical standards Romans were known to train their forces, from Scipio to Heraclius. If you achieve a good enough standard in these training matches (Roman vs Roman) your AI roster for that kind of unit gets upgraded, which I assume means from a programmers' perspective, the old kind of unit is switched out for the new, but would look similar to players. After the mock battle, they go back into the campaign maps, and if they succeeded, they get smarter units. Also, add as a special character, such as priest or diplomat, a gladiator or another kind of veteran trainer to join up with armies to make them smarter. I don't mean as part of a characteristic of a general, but as a actual character trained from its own facility, that unlocks these mock battle possibilities. In Medieval 2, There are options for daily, monthly, yearly races..... Romans used a rather lame synchronized dance of Calvary and infantry forces for display in festivals to show off their Coordination and prepare them for battle maneuvers. This should be a mandatory option in large cities, in doing so increases public order, and lowers maintenance costs, and upgrades after several peaceful cycles units armor.... Romans liked the dance of the bumblebee sort of thing.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesphorus_%28mythology%29 Honestly didn't know this, the Romans had a midget god. Little dwarf.

http://images1.ynet.co.il/PicServer4/2015/06/07/6096350/6096349099093640360no.jpg Not going to bother you with the story, as the picture says it all. Yes, that is Hitler on Icecream. As distasteful as this is, what really confuses me is where it says "For Industrial Use Only". I worked for a gelato shop making it on a industrial scale in Hawaii. As far as I know, there isn't anything Icecream packaged into individual containers like this can do in a industrial setting. Such a hypothetical industrial use would buy it in much larger containers. I can't imagine what for though.

You notice there was never any mentions of Monkies in these battles.... I smell a Damnation of Memory coverup from the time a pack of scared and angry monkies popped up and refused to cooperate, instead leaping up and over into the crowds, causing a panic and stampede. People getting bitten and mauled. Monkies hiding in the rafters for a week, unwilling to come down, legionnaires called in and constantly missing them. Cats disappearing off the street, street vendors having food snatched up. Likely ruined quite a few careers.

Easier and often wrong. I'm fairly certain the US government can match this hand weighing and visual inspection, as we make our own coinage. However, if the coins are fake, it will become quickly apparent upon getting melted down. Merchants traveling to Turkey, Shia Iraq, Iran, Jordan, and Egypt will have to melt most of the coins down with a gold buyer present.... once it becomes increasingly obvious ISIS merchants aren't in much of a position to check the coins over, future business between the two groups will become strained. You can't trade for long internationally by threats and IOU's. How much is a promisary note worth to a distant merchant if he can't reasonably collect upon it? Like I said earlier, such notes would guarantee what? More questionable gold or silver that the merchants won't touch back home, or guarantees for barrels of oil and grain? 10 Donnies? You can only go so far with Hamid agreeing to swap with Muhammed to balance accounts with Larry and Sediq across geographical barriers and difficult to equate goods like a P2P network, especially when really good coalition spies are listening to everything. Their economy will tank. They are a landlocked force. Their long term ability to even feed themselves is questionable. They can't handle problems like this well. It will have a severe impact on their ability to further recruit, much less retain, their military and civil corps. They wanted to go to a gold and silver standard, fine.... but there are severe repercussions very classical noted that come with this that modern states can easily exploit with little harm in return.

A lot of stuff has been traced to him, I won't begin to excuse him or ISIS, Turkey and Qatar's hand in this, or Obama's neglect. And yeah, all those leaders would qualify for war crimes. Feel free to submit your case to the ICC. There are Tongs in Asia (China) that mass produce fake coins. Its not hard.... and yes, the elements are potentially expensive unless bought in bulk, which a government can do. We aren't looking for 'financial returns' but rather to significantly disrupt ISIS' economy. Its like letting a enemy bleed to death.... they will eventually implode. I do congratulate the coalition for bombing ISIS refineries from day one the air campaign started, but your not undermining the economy itself by doing this as far as ISIS recruiting is concerned. Obama did figure out ISIS was maintaining itself from mass troop enlistment, with real wage payments, but his plan to just "hire" half of Syria to break ISIS is retarded for realistic reasons. However, this would fill the gap. Your essentially giving one segment (the people on the fence on joining ISIS out of economic incentive) free cash that they can try to use, and ruining (or at least complicating) ISIS dependents from supporting a family in making their money look worthless, and each coin carefully investigated in market. And yes.... several devices are used to judge the authenticity of a coin. Weight, thickness, design, etc. Each requires a different instrument, as well as standardized official guides for each coin. This is multiple checks per coin. Imagine trying to pull off your shopping list going through all that. Or trying to buy something more substantial. In order for ISIS to guarantee a vital import, they would have to ensure in advance merchants they can know in advance trust them, and have secure enough, select/freshly minted coins. They will get safe returns on this. Everything else in the economy would quickly go to hell. People would realize there was good coins the elites used, and the questionable stuff they have, if IRS real or not, might not be accepted, despite the labor they put into getting said coinage. Like I said, the counterfeit US bills more or less act as a local currency. You should of converted a portion of your currency over into the local currency first, prior to even going.

Eh.... I should point out a parallel local phenomena about when I was 12 or 14 here, I used to do a lot of long distant hiking, sometimes more than one day straight. Once in a while, I would come across down by the rail road tracks deer, without evidence of being shot or stabbed, lying back to back, and their necks arching back and heads touching, the inner roof of their mouths and snout somehow teisted.... blood dribbling out of their mouths and anus, but never that much blood. They must of tied being tortured in that absurd, disturbing way, and their bodies dumped, which is odd given you would assume they would be harvested for their flesh (large hunting community here). People.... there are some very suck people out there. You can't always assume just because a few people are doing something, everyone is involved in it. There was a ritual component to it obviously, but wouldn't bust out the cultural anthropology insights just yet. You may just have evidence of bored, young sick men, or even just a single man doing the Roman version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I also recall the fort across the river here.... they recovered decapitated dogs thrown into a trench. No signs of their flesh being eaten.... it was a federal fort, land surveying mission mapping Ohio, and they had plenty of resupply less than three miles away by canoe. Nobody ever figured it out. We also had a guy farther down river a generation or so afterwards get falsely convicted in place of his father, and was whipped. This drove him insane, and he went on a frontier killing frenzy, and impaled a head on a stake. Now let's say you took these odd little deer remains, the decapitated head on a spike, and mystery dogs who were decapitated for who knows what reason, and some archeologist looked at this 2000 years ago. Would he be correct in stating there had been this cultural affinity with skull torture and decapitation? Would children's books show people on Sunday drives, lopping heads off of pedestrians as they go by, everyone including the flying head smiling, accepting the situation? Psychopaths exist today, and likely existed back then. You might just be seeing isolated cases of this. Taiwan and Papua New Guinea had a very sophisticated head hunting culture.... skulls were hoarded in Taiwan especially. We would have a lot more evidence of the Romans doing this, people would of found skull pits or hoards somewhere.

Assad is a actual war criminal, he repeatedly barrled bombed civilians with his helicopters, sometimes with chemical weapons. He will never be able to redeem himself. Its not just me you gotta convince, but the international community. He has become a pariah for this. Reason why Turkey kept Constantinople (the Greeks had it for about a year) is because the Greek forces during/after WW1 got a little too enthusiastic trying to reclaim Asia Minor, and it caused the Turks to snap, and they launched a counterstrike against the Greeks. The Greeks couldn't defend their class, resorted to scorch earth tactics in delaying. Several hundreds of thousands were butchered in the final retreat out of Smyrna/Izmir, as well as into Syria. Much of the Greek population locally here are survivors of that campaign, I have a pretty good knowledge of the layout of Smyrna from back then. It was hard to even get the Alliance ships to take in and ferry the Greek refugees swimming around the boat in the harbors. Ironically, it was the Japanese (allies during WW1) who threatened to fire on other ally ships unless they start letting the survivors on board. Its why the slums around Athens have a different plan and architecture.... Asia Minor Greeks. Only 10,000 Greeks now live in Constantinople. They have a legend that there is a room in Constantinople, held in secret since the city's fall, in which there is a statue of ArchAngel Michael holding a sword. Every year, the sword up down a little, and the eyes open. Supposedly when both are up, the end times are supposed to begin. It was also common practice among the Russians flowing through the Dardennrls to have the Greek flags on display in the captain's room, in case they ever had the opportunity to sieze the city. Obvious issue is, Russians tried to take the city back, and failed. The Greeks HAD the city back, and failed. Allies after WW1 had no intention to loose even more men fighting for Greek claims, or risk further upsetting the Turns, thus jeopardising their middle eastern claims. US simply never declared war on Turkey period (we have never been at war with them). And duh.... You have to use different atomic weights. I said this repeatedly. Either use a heavier core (but not something insane like uranium) or alloys. And your grasp on cost here isn't reflective of actual market costs to produce this. Like I said, we bust guys doing this all the time, we only figure out something went wrong when you melt the gold down. Its clearly economic and worthwhile for the counterfeiters to do so, and we have a century and a half of technical files and actual examples on file. Your cost analysis is absurd. We can't get our missiles into their central treasury (doubt they have such a thing), so next best think is to pollute their money supply and significantly degrade it. As to you having half fake bills.... sucks to be you. I'm assuming your European. Congress has been trying to figure out his to get all the legit paper money we traded to Europe back, as we still recognize it as currency. Just if a bank teller is looking at it suspicious, it is unlikely going to be taken by us. Hence my point, counterfeiting bills really doesn't hurt said country, as the money behaves more like a foreign currency instead of the targeted countries currency. Your better off using that money locally, its like musical chairs, whoever gets it last is stuck with the prize. I recommend heading to Greece ASAP and opening a account with it, I doubt they will look it over much, as its getting snatched up and sent to Germany immediately. The ECB would then transfer it to their reserves, until that time they can trade it in for new bills, or another currency via massive stacks of bills that weigh more than you. In the end, the US Treasury will just count it at its face value, then destroy real and fake alike, assigning new modern bills to replace them. You might get a financial return on that deposit someday down the road if you keep your receipts. Just expect not to see much of that, or to see it converted into Drachmas, which would still be worth more than nothing. Here is a article on how complicated it is to detect fake coins:http://www.coinweek.com/world-coins/canadian-coins/avoid-becoming-victim-fake-gold-coin/ Yiy built a absurd, undereducated labyrinth of impossibilities in regard to producing these coins, when in reality it happens quite often, and it obviously works. Large transactions would be a Hassel for ISIS, as merchants would want to check each coin, and if forced to accept them at face value, would operate at a lost and hold a grudge, which hurts ISIS if you rely on them to maintain your black market links. Furthermore, the higher quality gold and silver coins would in greater quantities be sent to more important personnel. Their lives will get frustrating fast experiencing this skepticism and time delaying, if not out right rejection of their money. They would have to counter it by declaring it a Fiat Currency, which causes obvious issues, or seek to strengthen their anti counterfeiting operations, which we would adjust the next airdrop. Hard to get villagers to sign up to die for $500 a month when they just got airdropped $2000. ISIS would also have to dip into its foreign currency reserves, or try counterfeiting a currency, such as the Euro or Dollar, but this would be costly for them, as simply paper fascimilies disintegrate fast, and no bank will accept them. Familial problems. The merchants will quickly abandon them in mass. Start paying people with barrels of oil and grain rations? Or better yet, promisary notes for this.... and load up a truck with these notes and give it to a trader in the Sinai..... he would start cursing out the other merchant, and even if by force of arms to accept the trade, would not return for a repeat, as ISIS promisary notes for barter items are worthless.

http://m.france24.com/en/20150601-syria-islamic-state-isis-ancient-palmyra-site-unesco-pr ISIS claims it won't break the monuments at Palmyra, just the pagan statues, but Assad moved most of the statues out prior.... The article has a picture of the ISIS banner above the amphitheater.... as it is the most important site, I guess from a purely historical perspective, in terms of conservation, not much happened. I haven't constructed a death toll tally of various reports yet, as the battle went on for weeks, and the Iranians report Assad forces killed more than I can believe, and I simply put can't get reliable civilian and Syrian military deaths beyond what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights release.... as a result I can't plot their course of battle in terms of fronts. Needless to say, the Roman castle likely got shot up and mortared, but its a fort, not the Mona Lisa, I'm not losing any sleep over a ancient fort finding renewed life.... just no pics yet to confirm this. No word yet if they rotisseried those endangered birds yet either. http://www.albawaba.com

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/museums-draw-up-red-list-to-help-spot-stolen-iraqi-antiquities-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=83355&NewsCatID=375

I just realized I never posted my response to your depleted uranamium answer.... The atomic weight of uranium is well higher than that of gold, so it wouldn't pass muster sizewise, and in the US there are only a handful of mills qualified to handle it (one about ten miles from here, submarine hulls). Conterfiet gold occurs often enough, and its a major pain for gold sellers, as a variety of techniques are needed to detect it, a major swiss bank had a scandle a few months ago for falling for it. Its illegal for US citizens to engadge in counterfeiting a foreign currency, and it is considered fraud to fake gold for sale as the real thing.... but it would be quite easy to pull off several varieties. The goal is to more or less hold up and choke merchants who would have to test it, to see if the good and silver is legit. A number of techniques historically rose.... weighing and cutting into it.... ways around both. It is in fact harder to collapse a paper, national currency..... North Korea tried it, and more or less failed. They printed out billions via Office 108, and distributed it across Southeast Asia via their restaurant chain. Most paper US dollars there are fraudulent, but had an unexpected effect in propping up the banking system in those countries..... the money can't be given to international banks, who simply won't take it in transfers, so the lower local banks suck it up, and it bounces around mafias and small business owners, giving the local population unexpected liquidity during a global depression. Ironically, while Kim Jung Il was doing this, was about when Bush and especially Obama started taking out massive trillion dollar debts via loans (loans from China which simply didn't have any money to lend). In the end, North Korea merely eased what the US government was trying to do..... increase the global money supply, and it all happened via their labor. It was funny as hell, I still laugh from it. Meanwhile, their internal currency manipulation backfired horribly. Currency if reflective on national/bloc banks. Russia ties its central bank directly into its oil exports and foreign diplomatic efforts. US simply seeks to ensure a proper healthy balance between currencies. Countries like Chiba and Denmark set it to permanently reflect the dips and rises of its trade partners (Smart for Denmark, not too smart for China). Simply put, the goal is to significantly disrupt ISIS capacity to field and feed its army, and its civil service corps. Once we start getting it to react, we can train it, get it to do what we want, and eventually collapse it.... or transfer it to a new government even.... though I wouldn't recommend the wisdom of any government in modern times sticking to an exclusive coin currency monetary policy.

If you choose to feel relieved, it up to you. This is about as close to supporting the arts as ISIS will get. Turkey is worth far more even as a dysfunctional ally than cutting ties with it. Reason why is many: 1) It gas territory in Europe as well as Asia Minor, and sits along the oath of NATO wide force projection avenues. 2) They have the second largest military in NATO, and its already compatible with other western militaries. If they got put out into the cold, any coalition or bloc they would join would have a massive technological gain, and would very quickly gain the ability to do competent ground maneuvers. 3) A hundred years ago, Turkey lead armor units deep into central Asia in a effort to forestall the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Their territory is a essential launching point for sustainable strikes deep into Russia's back yard. An example being, in the current Ukraine crisis, we would do a pincher movement from Turkey and Central Europe, not just Europe if we decided to take the Russians out. 4) They gave a lot of coalition muscle, being a Islamic majority country, and have ethnic ties with the Caucasus diaspora, as a lot of refugees flooded their territory last century. As of late, Turkey has been systematically exploiting the monetary and cultural influence of its new minorities on their home countries in the same way the US uses its multiculturalism and ethnic minorities to bond and influence our home countries. This us going to be essential later on in this century as Russia further collapses, there will be potential for expansion into former Russian Federation Territories as the Russian Birth Rate continues to plumet and they start to lose outlying territories more and more. Yes.... I'm looking that far ahead. 5) By losing Turkey, which intact DOES have the second largest military in NATO, and one well practised and to a degree battle hardened, we would be moving the EU defense parameter to Greece and Bulgaria/Romania. We lose control of the sealane between the Med and the Black Sea. We would have to substantially increase our Naval and military presence in Southern Europe, and many worthless (far more worthless than Turkey) worthless NATO countries would find themselves much closer to the frobtlines, at a time when Europe is intellectually and ethically disintegrating. There are natural ebbs and flows to every civilization, and European civilization is doing the kicking chicken dance right now every time it comes into contact with the needs for increased Federalism. Its been getting rather backwards and assinine there, so we can savely say its an ebb. They aren't exactly at their intellectual best, and thrusting new identity issues and external pressures on them is a bad idea. Furthermore, Turkey.... if it allies with Russia, has a lot of South-East European pull with discontent populations who notice they aren't benefiting nearly as much from the EU/Euro mess as much as Belgium or Germany, or likely will within the next few generations. I can point out many reasons more why we should keep Turkey around. Yes, they can be shitheads, bug they are our sgitheads, and they do a lot more than it appears at face value. They likely will have a coup here soon against Erdogan anyway eventually, he is by many behavioral measures a paranoid schitzophrenic a little too in love with power. He assumes Pennsylvania, but more than likely its going to be the guys just down the hall. This happens in Turkey. We really can't ally with Assad,as he is a war criminal. He has killed hundreds of thousands, used chlorine barrel bombs dropped from helicopters, etc. So his dynasty is more or less screwed. But, this doesn't mean another faction or splinter group holding a regional territory won't approach Erdogan and say it wants to open up talks for an alliance. If this happens, the rest of the Syrian government will chuck Assad very fast, once they see a light at the end of the tunnel. Turkey and Iran already are on talking terms, and Turkey doesn't feel as threatened by them, as Iran couldn't realistically do much to it, but Turkey could seriously fracture Iran (Persians as a ethnic group only stand at under a quarter of the Iranian population). Iran therefore has a limited projection of force, and always to the south of Turkey. In other words, Turkey can compromise, with Iran and even a new Syrian president replacing Assad, but not Assad itself. Too boot, neither can the US much live with Assad at this point. Were more or less stuck letting nature take its course.... Assad might survive with a rump kingdom around Damascus, but just as likely not. When setting up international alliances, you have to pay attention to the threat matrix each player in the theater is looking at the world in. I've made posts about the Rajamandala on this site, it is a tool to calculate generally in any given system which states will ally or war with. It was developed by the ancient Indian philosopher Chanakya, who lived during and fought against Alexander the Great. A very intelligent man. If we Ally with Assad, we would lose in the greater scope- most sunni nations would be infuriated. ISIS would rapidly expand to those states on propaganda grounds alone, even if we patch up Syria. The Shia power base we would ally with, as well as the Russian, would remain antagonistic, and would crumble via natural decline over the next three generatiins. Essentially, worthless allies. Its better to allign the current matrix of international players involved in this so we maximinize our long term strategic needs, in solidifying our current alliances, expanding to include key crucial States that will act as buffers to current allies, and demilitarizing and making more friendly neutral and hostile countries. When you do this, there is a much smaller chance of a world war breaking out. Look at Russia, its ability to project force into Hungary is gone.... It could pull that off easy two generations ago. I doubt it could hold up to a two front war today. Two generations from now, certainly not. I like old enemies going away. I like new allies. I'm a very simple person, such things make me happy. It makes a world war much less likely to happen, and if it somehow did none the less, we would unlikely be on the losing end. Were just dealing with some inherited, very old problems in the middle east. They had to be dealt with eventually. If we play it wrong here, we will have to watch hundreds, if not millions more surfer over the next few generations. So at the very least, we should look for forcing certain positive changes that improves the long term chances for success on all sides, over just impulsive short term reasoning and gains. This is a good time for problem solving. We can make more peaceful civilizations arise from this. Productive societies, who's kids are less oppressed and better educated and nourished. I like that idea.... a lot.

Ctrl C copies CTRL V pastes In order to copy, you have to have all the text highlighted first. Then click in the messaging area here, and do the CTRL V thing. It should all pop up. If your just doing a long post, don't worry about spelling mistakes, just post what is on your mind.

Your paper is tangential in its timescale. You can't put forth evidence of Neo-Pythagorean and Christian philosophical discourse during the imperial era as evidence for a pre-republican reform. Second point I need to point out is, the high mortality rate in the citizenry, juniors will always outnumber seniors (at least we should hope so). It would be very useful to juxtaposition this ratio against other known statistics for similar, premodern armies. Your not looking for voting blocs, but rather the sustainability of having older men in the field in active physical duress, the high cost of having them ignore economic and administrative enterprise while off doing young men's work. You haven't given convincing evidence at this juncture that they did this voluntarily. Biology might of forced the issue. Just how did Rome differ from other societies, and what frictions did the Romans have to suppress to intentionally force this system to hold its mold even when actual population demographics didn't favor it? As to the larger ratios, in regard to the cosmic standards.... why are they so few? Even if your correct, you give remarkably little insight into this "reform" in concrete terms, or even hypotheticals, for the era we are actually considering. How much was intentional, how much was accidental and a consequence of Roman Empericism, having discern proper troop ratios from actual tactical needs from the viewpoint of command and control against enemy forces? Your asking us to suppose Rome at this point turned to abstract thinking in what a military unit OUGHT to be, and not the orthodox IS gained from Empericism, tradition, and reaction to and study of neighboring systems they could realistically expect to face. Furthermore, given the interrelation between Religion and the Military, you would assume if the Romans adopted it on this lever (their constitutional voting blocs), they would of saturated the rest of their society with Pythagorean concepts. So.... how is Rome more of a Pythagorean City than say, any other city? How is this reflected more in their religious rites and architecture? I don't see much evidence of this. I've always presumed Pythagoras had a effect on the Romans, but their elites have a limited at best acceptance. Voluntary vegetarianism is largely unheard of. I presume their number theory is effected, as well as geometry, but never saw much that suggested this early on other than giving me gut feelings. Lastly, you'd think Pythagoras would of settled in Rome, if the Romans were this enthusiastic about his ideas. This doesn't rule out the Romans were influenced by him, or even had contact with his disciples, but seriously.... why wouldn't Pythagoras just move to Rome, if he was having this sort of effect? Now, looking to later eras (you push your assumptions well past Cicero) the Romans were willing to adjust their calendars and size and function of their military units as they saw fit, no evidence of a larger, progressive theme here. The actual number of Neo-Pythagorean philosophers were few, we only have evidence they had one temple/maouselum, and their philosophers from the Principate on don't mention any of this. Vegetius seems remarkably unaware of this system as an ideal for his military reforms. You haven't proved anything. However, unlike a few other theories presented to this site, you did indeed research, and appear to of stumbled upon a interesting hypothetical idea that may suggest the origins of Veterancy and the Strategic Reserve may (and it's currently just a may) of had its origins in the Pythagorean system. If you tackle this a little bit more in depth, isolate your era a bit more, you may produce a attractive theory. It's just not quite there yet. I do admire your intuition however, and don't think your unworthy of a serious, future revisit if you enlarge this idea with more evidence. The supporting evidence may be out there, I just don't see it anywhere yet.

http://mapmistress.blog.com/files/2014/04/kinaroslevitha1680.jpg Found at: http://mapmistress.blog.com http://mapmistress.blog.com That last link is the topography of the island during that era. This was from a bronze map etched in the 1600s!

First off, Jews CONTINUE to be banned from contracting debt under the same usury rules, just they had no choice but yo engadge in usuary and merely got used to the idea earlier than Christians. Secondly, interest isn't the only way to run a bank, or to loan. Notice Muslims have similar rules, and they are strictly enforced in Dubai and Qatar, with international banking in force, just they don't collect interest. You pay as you can pay. And you've misinterpreted the Jesus in front of the temple story. Jesus was pissed off as the sacrifice wasn't kosher unless it was your own choice, cherished lambs. The kosher system tied the Jews to the pastural lifestyle in Judea. The idea you could conveniently just walk up, buy a sacrificial lamb, or other such commodities on sacred ground for a meaningful sacrifice was sacriligeous in the extreme. Early Christianity had a massive impact on economic thought, and I know of at least one internationally respected philosopher and historian who has tackled this, Giorgio agamben. Furthermore, Romans did pool their resources in temple treasuries. To what degree this practice paralleled modern banking, I do not know. But I know they did standardize their gold and silver supply of money, and could systematically distribute it, and could synchronize merchants to parallel and coordinate with military operations. Quite frankly, if your operating off a monetary standard that is coin driven, your better off NOT using interest rates, especially for debt that doesn't legally expire. It can cause unexpected breakdowns in the money supply, forcing debasement of currency at rates far faster than the currencies of neighboring states. Gold had a tendency in the ancient world of migrating away, or becoming hidden as less worthy coins shaved down or of a weaker alloy circulated. In other words, there was a damn good reason why such a morality regarding lending and hording wealth so it remained useless was systematically discouraged in several cultures in the ancient world. And you shouldn't blame Christianity as much as Cynicism, as they were the ones criticising and defacing the currency. Christians were encouraged to give up wealth, or to invest it wisely so it would be productive wealth. The latter is an aspect modern banks are well acquainted with. I'm absolutely amazed at the willing misconceptions pagans and atheists have, despite all the evidence otherwise. Should I go about making up babble that all pagans secretly desire han sacrifice, just because it was known to happen in certain eras? Or should I point out neurological deficiencies and logical lapses in a few famous atheists and slam them as a group universally? It be rather lame to do so. Both groups hurt themselves enough on their own, I don't need to make stuff up. Neither should you two engadge in this nonsense. Even in the hypothetical complete void of information, you should grasp the inherent ignorance of your statements. Loans can be made, you have seven years for them to be paid off, no interest. If its not possible to pay it off due to crippling debt, your released of your debt. However, the loaner could bring you to court if he could provide evidence you intentional defrauded him. When Constantine gave Bishops the right to receive judicial appeals, this would of been the primary biblical legal theory they would of considered, IF anyone bothered to appeal to them. St. Ambrose has a legal text examining then current imperial laws, and Mosaic laws, De Legs (something something).... I just never found the work myself, been searching for it. It could have better insights. Oh year..... Roman economy already went to crap prior to Christianity..... so obviously endless interest rates were not enough to hold back fuedslism (the colonia already were being tied to the land), and neither Feudalism nor Christianity stopped medieval banking from arising WITHIN the monastic tradition itself to fund the crusades. So obviously something is a tad bit off in your collective logic. Do we want to attack the Mandaeans and the Manicheans, the Zoroastrians and the Muslims for policies that upset the narrow minded sensibilities of a few modern, confused discontents while were at it as well? How about independent pagan cults too? We can go on a triads against Dea Syria on the spread of STDs next time someone brings up a basic question on ancient medicine, especially if there are Syrians posting on the forum. Rip to shreds the Chaldeans for their useless astrological emphasis on medicine that slowed the ancient world down. Laugh at the Assyrians attempts to integrate empiricism into their diagnostic logic. Everyone in the ancient world were vectors for diseases who barely knew how to wipe their butts, if they even bothered. You can point negatively at just about every culture 2000 years ago for substantial faults. However, you won't always get your assumptions right, as the modern understanding of things had their roots in this era, and you'll find many groups well outstripped your expectations for enlightened thinking as well. What really caused the ancient world to fold up was so very, very few were educated, and merit mattered for so very little. Passing plagues and periodic recessions could more or less wipe out the local intelligences, and they simply wouldn't recover for several generations. Books wouldn't get copied, political offices devolved or were combined into others, expertise general diminished. We had the first era of civilizations touching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Artuc to the Sahara..... and all that interaction produced a lot of chaos in the order every civilization produced, and every civilization declined and collapsed several times over as a result. There was nothing that particularly special about the Roman Pagans, they worshiped Indo-European gods. A lot of those societies collapsed, and Christianity had jack to do with them. Notice those civilizations never landed anyone on the moon. They never navigated the oceans of the world. No one did anything particularly special other than build a few monuments, and impressively killed one another. Everyone more or less just sucked. That's our universal heritage. Pagans, Christians, everyone. Have you seen their toilets?

Hey, I'm the only one around here allowed to have his foot in his mouth, as that's my function. You two stop trying to steal my thunder. I'm both a philosopher (actual philosopher) of the Cynic/Stoic tradition and have a extensive background in military texts from around the world. My user name more or less gives that away. I'm currently busy doing research on Onasander's use of monoamine sequencing in his military text, came to the conclusion he was using a modified version of Aristotle's outlook on emotions. He seems to of had a better grasp of the neurological cascade than many modern theorists in neurology. No one noticed this, given everyone thinks he is a Platonic philosopher. My mixed background allows me to see things others can't. If you PM me a draft of your larger thesis, I can break it down and offer a proper reply, the kind academics aren't remotely trained or experienced to offer. Their opinion doesn't matter as much as they like to think it does, they tend to lack that intuitive spark that allows you to sniff greater things out. Universities seem determined to stamp it out of people.

I can report the Amphitheater is still intact and in use, ISIS just executed 20 people in it.