Quintus Artemis Sertorius

heh, Big freakin sand fort.

yeah, at one time gladiatorial games were put on in order to celebrate a funeral, but at least in the late republican times they weren't being killed. i just wanted to know when the practice of having gladiators, or prisoners acting like gladiators were forced to fight to the death.

What makes a Legion strong (or weak for that matter)? I want to discuss what made the legions effective. this is really a two part question.. 1) what in general most greatly contributed to the success of the legion? i.e. tactics, logistics, leadership, etc... 2) Who took the strongest role in making the legions successful? is it a specific person (marius, Ceasar, etc.) or a position within the legion (legate, centurion, praefectus fabrum,etc.) ? my vote goes to logistics making the legions so effective, and the praefectus fabrum (guy who coordinates the logistics for the army) since they go hand in hand. however, the centurion had to have been the most important person when it comes to overall success of the legion. ceasar himself knew that to lose all your legates and tribunes is bad, but to lose a few centurions is absolutely horrible. besides, all of us viri militaris know that the backbone of the army is the NCO.

Augustus tried to influence the morals of the Empire though. he passed into law various rules about the proper moral attitudes and practices. he attempted to strengthen marriage and discourage adultery, extravagence, and luxury. granted, these laws didn't neccesarily apply to the emperor, thats why it's good to be king. and we all know that later these laws were not even paid lip service to. augustus also started the trend of building massive public buildings in rome. i think he set the standard for the later construction of the colloseum, the pantheon, and all the other great basillicas. other emperors could look at the works of augustus and they have something to compete against. didn't he say something along the lines of "I came to a city made of brick and wood, and left it a city shethed in marble and stone"? besides that, the romans liked to give truly great ment he title of founder of rome. the first was romulus who actually founded the origional 7 hill city. the second is marcus furius camillus who captured veii, defeated the volsci, and annexed tarentum, which greatly expanded the territory of eraly rome, and subdued rome's closest enemies. he also is given credit for forcing the patricians to give some concessions to the plebians, thereby defusing the class struggle for a time. finally you have gaius marius who defeated the invading german army, which was a huge looming threat to romans that still could remember, and see in some places easily see, the effects of the gaulish invasion and sack of rome. i think Augustus deserves the title, since for the first time in many many years there was no civil wars raging in the roman world.

from what i've read, the numen were scrupulously attended to. to break a "contract" with the imported pantheon was one thing, but to do the same to the numen was tantamount to an invitation for destruction. once read something about if a roman shouted the secret name of roma out loud, then the numen called Quirinus would actually destroy the city and every citizen in it. of course there were probably those who didn't really put a whole lot of stock in this, but even the unbelievers were careful about making the numen mad. the numen are supposed to be much older than the pantheonic gods.

oh yeah, anyone know about when they started making the gladiatores kill eachother in the ring? i know that during the republic they rarely actually died in the ring. most of them took on the noteriety of modern day sports idols, and they were owned by private gladiator schools that would rent them out for important occasions, but when did the shift from good sport to butchery happen?

Thracians of the Republic are my favorite. they had to be smarter than their Gaul opponents because they were a little more encumbered with the big greaves they wore. Those little rat like Gauls could run and dodge anywhere they wanted to.

Ouch, i know the feeling about almost flooding. Good luck getting out, and best wishes.

I think the Romans did practice a limited kind of genocide in Gaul. Genocide is any kind of killing due to the victims membership in a group. There have been a couple of genocides in history with the object not of killing off a group, but eliminating that groups ability to resist the new power. initially, the spaniards weren't intent on killing off all the Amerindians they found. they wanted to break the power of the Aztecs and Incas, but they wanted to save the population to use as a labor base. the same goes for the Khemer Rouge in the late 70's. they didn't want to kill everyone in their country, just those that would not bow down. i think the romans had much the same idea.

I think a big reason may have been the general attitude fo the late romans. they got a little too sure of themselves, they got too greedy, and they got too fat. i mean this in the loose metaphorical sense. when your priorities shift too much from the good of the state/empire/religion/family/whatever to the good of yourself, your particular class and your bank account you lose sight of what is important. i honestly think many romans lost touch with the real world because life got too easy for them. compare some of the prevaling attitudes of the early republic to the late empire. you can see an obvious shift from hard work and pragmatism to gluttony in every sense of the word. this isn't to say that the early days of the republic didn't have their share of gluttony and greed, but i think it hit a much grander level later on. in the end, the biggest baddest lion on the block got fat from eating too much, and everyone knows that there are no fat wild lions out there.

What is a nummi? I've never heard of that before. Most of what i have studied and concentrated on is the period from Gracchus to Ceasar and i'v never heard of a nummi.

I think a big part of it also had to do with the very high number of non roman soldiers in the later empire. when a big chunk of your army is spanish and german and sarmatians who are fighting to protect something that is not theirs, they will probably lose faith. i think all the guys with the big guns that knew how to use them kinda got fed up with it and decided to basically quit.

There's a couple of big feminine forces you could look up. Magna Mater being one, also the Cybelline cults, and the strictly female Bona Dea rite of the Romans. Also the pagan/Celtic Gaia spirit. The Catholic church did alot of capitalizing on these "heretic" beliefs and might be a major reason that many modern latins hold the Madonna to such high regard.

Actually the sesterces was what was mostly talked about and used. the denarius was used, but most amounts were often described in terms of sesterces. And the ownership of land was most definitely the largest chunk of wealth. There were many instances during the Civil Wars (take your pick of which one, the same is true for them all) where there really wasn't any cash money available, so the deeds to various pieces of land, or houses, or buisnesses were traded for food and other products.

When you are talking about roman religion and gods, i think you have to clarify which gods you mean. are we speaking of the imported gods most people are familiar with? for instance jupiter apollo, saturn, venus..magna mater, etc. these are all gods that the romans adopted from outside. or are you talking about the real roman spirits like the lares and the numen. the gods without a face or body or even a name. from what i have seen, the romans may take an almost flippant attitude towards the imported gods, but when it came to the numen, the romans were dead serious, as these were the gods responsible for the proper functioning of all objects, the health and wealth of the family, and the very essence of Rome.