Tobias

I'm a bit late to reply to this, but i will anyway Mate, i am 16 years old; all the knowledge i have of the Roman History is gained from reading and taking in the opinions of all people i respect on this website. From the knowledge i have, i have come the conclusion myself, without college training, that the Oligarchy, the Boni, the Optimiates, (whatever you wish to call them) of Caesar's time were the worst thing that happened to the Republic. Staunchly opposed to any reform that threatened them or sometimes that didn't, they were far worse then Caesar, as they were preventing people of intelligence from helping the Republic move forward. Yes Caesar may have been extremely ambitious, but what distinguished person in history wasn't ambitious at some point in their life? I can only quote Antony from Shakespeare in saying "Yet Brutus said he (Caesar) was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man" With that reasoning, one could say that the many fathers of independence or advancement of nations (i.e. George Washington, Henry Parkes etc etc, can't honestly think of any more right now ) were bad men. Cato, it is perhaps obvious on who's side you would have been back in the ancient Republic

To All Repliers- thanks very much mates I'm taking action right now as i type this post; i want this spyware out of my system. To answer a few questions; i already had AdAware SE installed, and have recently installed Spybot. Unfortunately, the system is still infected. I am now converting to firefox though, and i can only hope that all will end well, because until now i never realised how much a part of my life UNRV had become Alea Iacta est!

That's the quandry. I know that most of things you have to buy are made by those who actually make the spyware, and it's hard to decide what to do. In conjunction with this problem, if any posts appear on this site that don't seem like they're by me (i.e. abusive, ill spelt etc.) please pm me, as it probably means that this confounded chap with the Spyware has got the password to my UNRV account.

Congratulations Germanicus; now i'll be able to get quick answers from a moderator if the others are asleep Seriously though, you deserve it greatly, so Ave Germanicus

G'day All Yes it's the old story; My computer has been invaded by Spyware. Now my Windows Security Centre won't leave me alone, and i can barely access UNRV. I wonder if anyone can help me in any way; with links to anti spyware downloads etc. I'd appreciate it greatly, as this is a brand new computer, and it's already almost unusuable

Virgil61, the voice of good sense in this argument I agree with your point that Cato was really the downfall of the Republic. As i and you mentioned before, he was stubborn, possessed an unreasonable and blind hatred and jealousy of Julius Caesar because he showed that you didn't have to be born from a rich ruling class family to be great.

We get a fair bit of stuff from the BBC; Australia's ABC works pretty closely with the BBC.

"In June 1158, Frederick set out upon his second Italian expedition, accompanied by Henry the Lion and his fearsome Saxons, which resulted in the establishment of imperial officers in the cities of northern Italy, the revolt and capture of Milan, and the beginning of the long struggle with Pope Alexander III, which resulted in the excommunication of the emperor in 1160. In response, Frederick declared his support for Antipope Victor IV."-Via Wikipedia Babarossa pretty much wanted the wholehearted support of the Papacy (i.e. a puppet pope) to justify his actions to the Christians of Italy and his other territories. When Alexander III refused to do so, Babarossa became annoyed an installed his own pope. Both popes of course promptly excommunicated each other , and this caused further disruption for Babarossa.

G'day All As i'm certain many people know, During the reign of Basil II "Bulgaroktonos" (The Bulgar Slayer), a chap named Vladimir of Kiev further strengthened the ties between the Byzantine Empire and the developing Rus dominions by marrying Basil's sister Anna, ceding a former Byzantine base back to the empire and supplying warriors, which became known as the Varangian Guard of the Emperor. As can be recognized in some of the art and architecture in Russia today, the Russians gained a lot of culture from the Byzantines. They sought to become like the Byzantines in many ways. My question is; Should there have been a closer alliance between the Rus warriors and the Byzantines, could the empire have been saved? Could some of these northern peoples perhaps submitted to the Byzantine Emperor and fight for him? Could a closer alliance with these peoples brought more money, more soldiers and more power to the region? As always, i value all opinions in helping to sate curiosity .....

The 10th legion? Hmm, i always thought that it was the ninth legion that mutinied, that's what it said in Colleen McCullough's "Caesar"....

Also with the centurion; his armour was silvered, his gladius and dagger were worn on the opposite sides to those of the legionary, and as Lost Warrior said, they wore a red crest turned sideways across the head. As for those who were Leopard-Skinned, i believe that may have had to do with the region that the legion was established i.e. Africa, Syria etc.

M Porcius Cato: You're lucky that Germanicus got to your post first I cannot add much else to his argument except to say that Caesar was forced into unlawful war by the actions of the Optimates; such as their unreasoning, blind jealous hatred of Caesar (who's only crime was to show them how pathetic they really were and burst their inflated egos). The Republic was already gone; it was disfunctional, corrupt and rotting before Caesar began his quest for power. I'm positive that Caesar had next to no bearing on the fall of the Empire.

I would tend to agree. Scale amour is composed of a large amount of overlapping smaller plates, whereas normal plate armour is obviously plates which fit to the body. The plate does sound lighter.

I agree with what Tiberius Sylvestius said, and would add that the debasement of coin (i.e. the reduction of the content of gold or silver in a coin) for a dominion meant serious trouble. The Byzantines lost their trade because they could not afford a gold coin of a high gold content, which led Venice to mint their own gold coin, which led to even more financial instablity, which led to the fall

Paranthesis: Please excuse my ignorance for this comment. A good mate of mine, my history teacher, is constantly telling me about the HBO episodes he's watched via the web. Even though our town is 105 kms from the nearest major town, it still has access to Broadband internet, and he could download the episodes with reasonable celerity. I, however, live on a farm just outside our local provider's ADSL internet range, and have to put up with a slow dial-up connection, which would of course signify that it would take me a few days to a week to download HBO Episodes. Now my question; will HBO Rome come to Australia? My friend says it's so good that it surely will, but it'd be good to get a confirmation from someone

Out of interest, when does that start Germanicus? Is it only being broadcasted in certain areas of the country, or will we out here in the bush get to see it? If it's as bad as everyone says, then i probably wont be interested in it for long, but as was mentioned above, it may be interesting to view intially, if only because of the inaccuracy.

lol, i got here just after the Spartacus debarcle i believe. That's probably why i only know of him as a Damnatio, because i got to read a lot of his posts before they were removed.

Hmm. I went to a Catholic School for my Primary and Tertiary Education, and there was never any option to learn Latin. I guess it's felt that we don't need it in the outback

I looked up an answer myself http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/2204.html That shows the ships at Britain's Command. I daresay the American Government has it's own website for it's Navy as well

Ah thanks, i already found out where they were, but thanks for the reply at any rate

Of course, i forgot to say that Uruguay played a brilliant game, and fought gallantly until the very last, and only went down thanks to some personal brilliance from the Australian side. So congratulations to the gallant Uruguayans as well. But the night belonged to Australia

I can only agree with Favonius; if it was Caesar that caused the downfall of the Empire, it took a fair while to occur (in the nature of many hundreds of years). One must not make the mistake that it was distrust in popular generals alone that caused the downfall of the Empire. The lack of funds coming into the Empire caused the debasement of the coins again and again, and several reigns of inept emperors as well as successive barbarian invasions had more impact on the fall, coupled with execution of popular generals. If Caesar hadn't hastened the end of the Republic then it would have had a far more ignominious end, perhaps even a conquest by another general. The Republican system was outworn, corrupted and abused. It was bound to fall. By the time of the deposition of Romulus and the conquest of Constantinople, the Empires had existed perhaps beyond their use-by dates. The West only survived as long as it did thanks to Aetius, and the East because it was always the richer and better organised half. I don't believe Caesar caused the eventual downfall of the Empires.

Australia's international soccer team, ranked 54 th in the world, defeated Uruguay, ranked 17th in the world, last night in Sydney. The match went to a penalty shoot-out, and thanks to two amazing saves by Australia's goalie, Shwarzer, and some marvellous goal shooting, Australia defeated Uruguay and has entered the World Cup series for the first time in 32 years. Awaken the sleeping giant, Australia, to the soccer world! GO AUSTRALIA

It's very interesting though, to think that as late as the 19th century Byzantine Royals still existed. I suppose you can't just conquer 1790 years of tradition (for those who believe that the Byzantines were a genuine successor empire to the Romans) without a few people still lingering on in the ancient ways and of ancient bloodlines.