Tobias

Slightly off topic i know, but are you suggesting that after Alexander and before Pompey and Caesar there were no able generals? If that's what you're saying, then you're dismissing a multitude of great generals, such as the Scipios Africanus and Aemilianus, Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, to name but a few.

Now that is particularly impressive. It's always useful and interesting to see the territorial extents of the most influential empires of history, and seeing them put side by side with each other over the years is also very amazing to see. Whoever it was that put that map together is particularly clever.

I've always felt that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon sound and look like the greatest wonder of the ancient world; to so adeptly combine human architecture with natural wonders is an art that it Humans seem to take great pleasure in doing, and that i find highly admirable. However, the hitch with this is, according to several sites i looked at, it is hard to prove without a doubt that the gardens actually existed. According to wikipedia, (not an infallible source i admit) there is no Babylonian record that the Hanging gardens actually existed, and it is possible that these gardens were confused in history with those of Nineveh. However, imagination is a wonderful thing, and to imagine entering a place containing palaces covered with shelfs of overhanging plants and natural surroundings easily convinces me that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (if they existed) were the greatest of the ancient wonders. I do however, like the connotations of the Alexandrian Lighthouse. As for the pyramids; well, i am sure that they must have been hugely impressive when they were originally built, but, pardon the pun, they just don't stack up to other things. Pyramids built by the Central and South American civilisations (who didn't have the benefit of the wheel) seem to me to be that bit more impressive than the Egyptian pyramids. And, there are a fair share of South American Pyramids that are aligned to the sun and stars, i believe...

G'day All I'm sure all those who have seen HBO's Rome will be familiar with Centurion Lucius Vorenus and Legionary Titus Pullo of Caesar's 13th legion. Now, i was sure that i had seen the names elsewhere before; i remembered that i had read them in the book Caesar by Colleen McCullough. In this book, they are members of Caesar's 9th legion, and they are both centurions, and they are both considerable rivals. After a bit of research, i discovered that they were mentioned in Caesar's De Bello Gallico as centurions in Caesar's 11th legion, and again as considerable rivals. It would appear that Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo have entered the eyes of literature as a pair of useful characters; the question is, who were they really? Obviously, Caesar's account in De Bello Gallico would be the most accurate record of who they were, but is there any other record of their existence? Why have these two men out of thousands of Roman soldiers stayed in the minds of history buffs? I'd be interested in your opinions on these men.

Precisely. That is why there were peoples in Greece well into the 20th century who still called themselves "Rhomaioi", and possibly the reason why the Roman Empire lasted as long as it did. The people considered themselves part of the best culture in the world, and although the Empire was plagued by disaster for many years, they still kept the Roman ideal alive.

They made it as far as the Po River in Italy, where Pope Leo I met him. For some reason, what Leo said to Attila made him turn around, and he died some time later.

I voted for Nova Roma, Constantinople. A beautiful city, situated in one of the most strategic positions in Europe, well designed and layed out and a city that could be defended far better then the original Rome could. What was Massilia like during Rome's heyday?

Australian wildlife conservation has lost a great, great champion. Steve Irwin was a genuine, bona fide hero. I have seen few people in the world who have done so much for the animal world as Steve Irwin has. To those who think he was a grandstander, who only jumped on crocs for publicity, i'd like to see you try and subdue a huge, powerful reptile such as a crocodile in any other way without causing it serious harm. Rest in Peace Steve, and may your work be long continued and world acclaimed! The news gets worse, however. Australia has lost it's second icon in two days; the King of the Mountain, Peter Brock. He died on a notorious stretch of road in a race, smashing into a tree. He was renowned as one of the champions of Australian car racing, and a hero for Holden fans world wide. He has gained 3 ATCC titles, 9 "bathurst 1000" wins, many rally driving titles and countless other accolades. Luckily, his co-driver survived. But another Australian icon has been lost. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a sad time for Australia right now. By the way, if Germaine Greer sets one foot it Australia, she will be torn apart for her greed motivated malicious comments. So say the great Australian public

I would also add that Rome was an ideal...originally based around the worship of a sort of godhead/place which was the city and spirit of Rome. By moving the capital to Nova Roma, one could say that this was transferring the ideal to Constantinople. What's that book Ursus? I might look out for it...

Sure, Brutus was a great chap! If you were around in those times, however, you knew not too borrow money off him, not to let him near a province (Just ask Cilicia and Cicero about Brutus) and to not give him anything more than enough rope to hang himself, lest he turn and stab you for your trouble. What a load of codswallop. Brutus and the conspirators achieved NOTHING in killing Caesar. They plunged Rome into yet another civil war, when the political reform that was desperately required (rather than an oligarchy acting deliberately obstructive for the sake of being obstructive) was being installed. Before Caesar, the great Roman Republic was being dominated by the "Good Men" who, if Rome started crumbling around them, would simply call it part of the mos maiorum to stand still and be squashed flat by a falling pillar (to quote a great author). Caesar tried long and hard to gain a peaceful solution to or agreement with the Boni, but was forced to march on Rome not just to defend his dignitas, but to remove from power (yes power, for the Boni dressed up their own tyranny in "legality") the good men. Instead of remaining loyal to Rome the city and place, these "good men" soiled themselves and shot out of Rome like arrows from bows! Once Caesar had stabilised the Roman world, he settled down to tend to the injured place that was Rome herself. What did he get for his toil? He was murdered by jealous scum who thought they would restore the republic merely by killing Caesar. They intended to inspire the people with their deeds, but instead, after killing Caesar, fled the scene as fast as their cowardly legs could carry them! How loyal to the republic were these people? I cannot sit back and witness the cowardly, pathetic and jealousy motivated actions of Brutus and the conspirators dressed up in the light of liberation from tyranny.

How about Lucius Cornelius Sulla? Roman general, politician and dictator, and the one who essentially put Rome back on her feet after the Social War, the wars against Mithridates and the years of chaos revolving around he and Marius' struggle against each other.

Hmm, Gibbon isn't exactly the best or most unbiased source for the history of the Eastern Roman Empire, unfortunately...

I was an Internet Explorer user, but after two successive computers (complete with antivirus software and the works) were almost completely ruined by Internet Explorer and it's lack of protection from the "evils of the net", i switched to firefox. Actually, i believe it was the members of this site who recommended Firefox to me a fair while ago. I keep Internet Explorer on my system, but it is tied up in so much antivirus stuff that it can't move, and it can't access the net unless i allow it to. I'm taking no chances

This is a site i found a fair while ago that i found extremely interesting, and put the Roman Empires into perspective for me: http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~s285238/Roman/RomanEmpire.html I hope that is of use to you - the maps are really useful.

I would have to agree that the Battle of Britain was the most significant battle in/around Britain. Culloden was an interesting point in history though; it was the last battle fought on British soil, and the conclusive defeat of poor old Bonnie Prince Charlie

Chalons is one of those interesting battles one occassionally sees throughout history. It's generally excepted that it was physically and numerically a rather phyrric victory for Aetius; yet, it had the sort of mental effect that one tends to see in battles here and there; the restoration of belief in themselves, and the moral boost in proving that Attila was not invincible. I know that it did virtually nothing to help the Western Roman Empire save delay the inevitable, but for one moment, just one moment, I'm sure that the Romans under Aetius believed that they had at last saved their Empire. It was no mean feat of Aetius either to unite the Gothic tribes with his forces. The theory that Aetius held back from routing the Huns so as to establish a balance of power between the Huns and the Goths is an interesting one; this theory is that Aetius may have believed that if he decisively defeated the Huns, the Goths would no longer need the Romans, and Rome would face yet another barbarian invasion. If Attila had won the Battle of Chalons? It's difficult to say. The Huns weren't necessarily the sort of people to settle down and set up a government like Rome's. Perhaps they would have been driven out by the Gothic tribes; perhaps they would have annihilated them and settled. It is most likely, as has been said above, that they would have been eventually indoctrined to the remnants of Romanisation. It's all very hypothetical however. Too big an IF, i think...

I don't want to look like i'm nitpicking, but the Rumeli Hissar was built on a hill on the European side of the Bosporus, north of the "Bebek" district at Constantinople. The Hellespont was somewhat to the southwest of Constantinople and the Bosporus. Sorry, i'm a stickler for detail sometimes, back on topic...

That's very interesting; i'm a physics student, so this sort of stuff is quite mind boggling I'll show that article to my physics teacher; she might find it interesting. When are the spaceships capable of reaching lightspeed going to be built lol

Well done mate. It's great to see our forum members becoming prominent in things such as the Wall Street Journal. Keep up the good work!

Fair enough, my mistake!

Greek fire was the shock weapon of the Byzantines; it was almost a weapon of mass destruction. Greek fire can be said to have contributed directly to the survival of the Byzantines for so long; it is not surprising that the Byzantine Emperors kept it so secret that the formula disappeared. Their survival and longevity depended on it.

I don't know about a flamethrower in ancient greece, but this technology was applied in Rome; but when it was applied was in the later Eastern (Byzantine) Empire. Greek fire was a particularly horrific weapon; it could burn on and under water, and could not be extinguished easily. Water actually helped to fuel the flame. Greek fire is said to have been invented by a Syrian Christian refugee named Kallinikos of Heliopolis, around roughly 673 AD. It is also said that he gained the knowledge from the alchemists of Alexandria about its composition. It is not much of a surprise, then, that Greek fire was used to great effect by the Byzantine Navy; a notable battle when it was used extremely effectively was the Battle of Syllaeum. The formula of Greek Fire was of course a secret carefully guarded by the Byzantines; speculators believe some ingredients might be naptha, niter, sulfur, petroleum, quicklime, phosphorus and saltpeter.

Mithraism was a pretty prominent one; it revolved around the worship of the god Mithras, and was an offshoot from the Persian and Indic god Mithra and other Zoroastrian deities. It was practiced in the Roman Empire from the first century B.C. and reached its height around about the third and fourth centuries A.D, when it was a very popular religion among Roman soldiers. Mithraism declined after Theodosius' decree in 391 A.D. prohibited all pagan rites, and it appears to have become extinct after a while.

Precisely. I was taking to a physics student the other day, and i'm not sure how we got onto it, but we starting talking about humans ever being able to travel at light speed (we must have been talking about a sci fi movie of some kind ) . Anyway, this fellow starting haranguing sci fi creators, saying that according to his education, humans will never be able to travel at light speed. According to him, it is downright impossible, now and forever. That gave me a good laugh; all these scientists etc think they know how the universe works, but as you said Skarr, it's all a guess...just the current accepted theories that we humans use to help our brains encompass the universe.

There are a few battles here and there; there was the Battle of Tenedos, in 86 B.C. in the 1st Mithridatic War. A Roman fleet, commanded by Lucius Licinius Lucullus defeated a Pontic fleet off the island of Tenedos in the Aegean. In Caesar's "De Bello Gallico", he gives an account of his campaigns against the Veneti, which involved some rather interesting sea battles. We also have the Battle of Naulochus, in the time of the civil war between the Second Triumvirate and the remaining Pompeians, in 36 B.C. The battle was between the fleets of Sextus Pompeius and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, off Cape Naulochus in Sicily. Agrippa won the battle, and Pompeian resistance effectively died. Another civil war sea battle I found was fought quite a while after the above; it was the Battle of the Hellespont; a battle between Flavius Julius Crispus, son of Constantine the Great, and Flavius Galerius Valerius Licinianus Licinius in 324 A.D . Despite Crispus' fleet being quite outnumbered by Licinius' fleet, Crispus defeated Licinius, and Licinius was forced to flee to Anatolia, where he was defeated and captured by Constantine. After the Punic Wars, there were no real sea powers capable of resisting Rome's naval power for a long time; thus the majority of significant sea battles were during civil wars.