Tobias

Certainly the Byzantines were good at manipulation. Heaven knows they had enough practice in their own palaces places of government in political intriguing. But Alexius Comnenus and some of his descendants were strong enough to force the Crusaders to keep their word, continue to acknowledge the Byzantine Emperor as their ruler and cede territory. Again, i can only reiterate how unfortunate it is that the Byzantines could not have experienced a long sort of "Pax Byzantia" in which the Empire could rebuild under capable rulers. The Empire and it's government seemed to attract greed, corruption and power hungry lunatics, and had done so since the fall of the west and before that.

Hmm, considering you live in America, i can't say i have But i have ribs fairly often out here on our farm down under, and they're from home grown sheep and of a home made recipe

I haven't heard of Roma Victor either, but it is interesting to learn how much UNRV has evolved from a website devoted to a game to (as mentioned above) one of the leading Roman information resources on the web.

Agreed. The Romans would have flashed silver around like they had an infinite supply to gain information, and information would undoubtably come in; after all, if you were a small tribe or a small nomad group or even a single lowly labourer who gained information that would benefit the most powerful force in the known world at the time, why not tell them the information? It would most definetly mean rewarding if it was accurate, and good will from the Romans in later times.

Thank you for your replies; i have yet to find another site that can satiate my curiosity as quickly as this one:) When i was thinking about unionism, i thought about the various crossroads colleges in Rome, and wondered if they'd have much influence. Although, as mentioned above, apparently they didn't, which surprised me a bit, as i would have thought they did have more influence then that.

Certainly i believe that unlucky series of circumstances have hit the Byzantines almost throughout their entire history; they had had several major defeats and losses of much of their territory, yet they still managed to recover again and again. I believe that should the Byzantines have managed to gain allies in the west, they would gain in the Balkans, and thus have more leeway to concentrate in the disintegrating turks. yes disintegrating; one emir (called Suleiman i believe) restored several territories to the Byzantines in the balkans in order to gain the support of a Byzantine Emperor in his (unsuccessful) bid to become sole roler of the Ottoman Empire, which gives an idea of the amount of distrust amoung the Turks. However, it was not to be, and certainly, in my opinion, the Byzantines would never had allied themselves to Timur the Lame, nor would Timur have allied himself to the Byzantines (except perhaps as a deception to gain access to Constantinople and sack it). So, no alliance between the Nomad General and the Emperor of the "Romans", and extreme distrust and threats from both sides of what remained of the Byzantines ensured that they would soon fall.

I think that Caesar would have won. Crassus, although exceedingly rich, could not buy a master general's skills, and thus he ignored the terrain and advice given to him; and was thus slaughtered by the Parthians. Caesar, however, learned his foe's minds. He put this knowledge together with the terrain, the enemy's tactics, his own forces and their limits and come up with a viable and more then effective strategy more often then not. He would have beaten the Parthians. The question is; could the Romans have held the empire after Caesar? One has to remember that because Caesar survived, the entire face of the ancient world is changed. Well, this has been discussed exhaustingly in other subjects; i might look for them and find answers

G'day All 1402 A.D: the Ottomans had conquered almost all of Anatolia, and the majority of the Balkans. The Byzantine Empire was reduced in territory to Constantinople and Morea (the southernmost area of Greece). The survival of the Empire seemed to be limited to months, not years. Then all of a sudden it had a respite: the last great nomad warrior, Timur the lame, routed the Ottoman army at Ankara. The Ottoman Sultanate fell into warring factions, with Europe under the control of Suleiman. Although Timur the Lame died in 1404, the Ottoman Empire (united under one Sultan again from 1413) took a long time to reconquer its territory in Europe, and much longer in Anatolia. Why was this the case? How could one nomad warrior inflict so much damage, and the resistance of the Byzantines slow things down in the Balkans for one of the fastest growing and strongest nations of the time? And would it have been at all possible (in theory) for Timur to ally himself to the Byzantines? If this occurred, could Byzantium have risen again? What are your opinions?

So their are only 9 Plebeians? Gee, i thought there'd be more than that.

Just a quick question; how would one say "For Strength and Security" in latin?

G'day All After watching the union action all over Australia for the past days, this question hit me; did Roman labourers, civil servants, soldiers etc. have unions (or their ancient equivalents) to ensure their "rights" in their chosen occupations? Did the ideals of stopping work for better rights exist back then? I'd be glad to hear your opinions on the subject

I've had a couple of teeth removed a few years ago; they were throwing my bite out as well. Unfortunately, my experience wasn't particularly pleasant; the damned things fragmented and had to be pulled out piece by piece. The Nitrous Oxide and anasthetic they gave me during the op finally hit me about 10 minutes after the operation and after i left the dentist's, so you can imagine how my op went But then, australia's dental system is not terrific; you should have a better time of it then me. Good Luck with it.

A thought that reached me the other day that may be slightly irrelevant to the topic, but relevant to Britain's ability to defend itself in past days is the current size of her navy; how big is it now? From what research i've done, nowhere near the size of the glory days, but then larger then average for a nation of it's size.

Lucullus is rather indicative of the times that theses romans lived in. By the time of Sulla and Marius and later Pompey and Caesar, the republican system was clearly breaking down as the rival generals sought more power, and unscrupulous individuals such as Pompey had no problem in taking as much credit as they could from individuals such as Lucullus. It's true that most knew that Lucullus did all the hard work, but a lot of people amoung the general populance may have believed in Pompey's greatness all the same; a slightly artificial image.

Constantine, luckily, was strong enough to gain and hold his throne once he usurped the Tetrarchy. Whilst it's true that the tetrarchy by this stage had not been and was not working, it would have been good to see an able emperor gain the throne through legal means for a change Anyway, Constantine had the willpower and intelligence to hold his throne; not as many Roman and later Byzantine Usurpers were so able to hold or even gain the throne without constant civil war.

One that i don't think i could forget was a certain variant of flaying alive; The victim was tied down, and not drugged in anyway. A person with a sharp blade then proceeded to shave all the skin off the flesh; every single sliver of flesh off the body whilst keeping the person conscious. It became exceedingly popular in the middle ages onwards. Eventually, the victim would be a pile of flesh with no skin on any part of his body, and still alive. Not pleasant, i'm afraid.

Yes, and from me as well! That's the difficulty in living in different time zones, you can't wish your fellows happy birthday occassionally until it's a bit belated! So, a very happy birthday to you too Lacertus! I picked it up from my favourite author, Patrick O'Brian. One of his characters justified it as "new things being of a bad nature"

I've read about an oriental punishment in which the person being tortured was stretched out on a rack-type device. The rack was usually positioned over growing bamboo shoots. The person was left there and kept alive as the bamboo shoots grew. Eventually, the shoots would reach the victim's back, and slowly but surely grow into the victim's back. Not pleasant eh? As well, the good old water drip torture was rather effective; a person was tied up and left underneath a dripping pipe or something else, and the person was positioned so as to have the drips falling on the forehead. Go and try it, it's rather unpleasant. It usually drove the person insane, as they were left there for a long time. These are two of the tamer tortures though, i'm afraid...

Indicative of the times i'm afraid. Did the huns not attack the romans when they were in churchs? Did not Mehmet II murder christians in the Saint Sophia Cathedral when he conquered the city? All the strong rulers of the times had no hesitation of taking advantage of peoples if they weren't prepared for war. The plague Justinian faced was a multi-edged problem. Apart from robbing the empire of revenue, it was seen as a punishment by god by the christians, and a retribution of the gods by pagans, and this didn't help Justinian's cause at all.

Er, Trajen777, you seem to have merely quoted DanM and a quote of myself, what is the point of that post?

Happy birthday Pertinax! May no new thing arise

I like the changes very much as well, we're becoming more romanised every day I don't know if i'm imagining things, but it seems that those that were of member and then plebeian status have become slaves! What's going on there?

Those are very nice looking marbles, in all honesty. Look, i can't say anything that hasn't already been said, so i merely agree with what has been said. Britain has a better ability to look after them, so they should be allowed to look after them. Although i must say that Britain has trouble returning things that don't belong to them. A few years ago, we aussies had to petition to the Marylebone Cricket Club to make them let the Ashes trophy come to Australia, even after we won it fair and square

Yep Germanicus, as one of Australia's beer commercials says "we'll chuck our national animal on the barby". It is very good, although it can be inclined to be a bit tough and stringy.

Ah ok, i guess that's why one doesn't see who is banned