DecimusCaesar

Since I first posted this thread in 2007, I decided to check up on the development of 0 AD. Surprisingly it's still in development, and it's now in the open Alpha phase, so you can download an unfinished copy of the game to test it out. I haven't done so yet, but I may do in the future. The link I posted in 2007 is also broken, as the site has moved. Here's the new link: http://play0ad.com/

I was completely worng about there being another faction update on Friday, sorry. But I bet you're right about the next two factions being either Parthia or Egypt.

There does seem to be a strong bond between the men within their conturberium. Often when a soldier died his friends might help fund money for the 'funeral club'. But how often this happened is difficult to say. I suppose if you spend several years with other legionaries, you build up a friendship with them that becomes very strong, especially when you fight alongside them in battle, and thus your life is dependent on them. As for 'hazing' or bullying, it almost certainly happened. In civilian life as Jerry Toner points out in Popular Culture in Ancient Rome, bullying was a normal everyday event, verbally (sometimes physically) for some Romans. Cursive tablets calling upon the gods to avenge a person's tormentors is proof of this. If it happened in Civilian life, it is bound to be even more common in the army, where aggression is admired.

For those who are interested, the Creative Assembly have released information about the next faction, a Germanic tribe called the Suebi. There are now two unknown playable factions left. The next faction will be announced tomorrow I believe. I wonder what faction it will be? Perhaps Egypt, Parthia, Armenia, Pontus, Sparta...

An excellent list. I hope Legio XX update their things to avoid list, as a huge number of bad Roman equipment has flooded the market since the page was erected, some of which is mentioned on a few of their other pages, but hasn't been included on the avoid list. The horrible Roman Trooper helmets are still as popular as ever, as a quick glance of ebay could show you.

I like the new look, glad to see the site return to something that resembles its old format.

The connection between Jerusalem and the Jewish religion pre-dates the Roman era by many centuries, if not more than a millennium. I think Josephus may have exaggerated the destruction of the city somewhat, but the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed almost totally. Hadrian's later demolition of the city happened after Josephus's time, but Jerusalem is still located in the same place as it always has been. I very much doubt that the Romans were responsible with the current connection between the city and the three Abrahamic religions. For instance the Temple of Jerusalem predates the Roman era, while the Dome of the Rock is post-Roman.

I was going to say just call him Macrinus, although that may cause some confusion with the Emperor of the same name. Perhaps you could use his full name once, and then just use the cognomen for the rest of the lecture?

This one is quite easy, largely because of the lyre he's holding. But if you had to go on a bust alone, could you identify this god?

It's fasccinating to see the accumilation of so many centuries of graffiti, all in one place. A poignant reminder of the vast time that seperates us from Ancient Rome, but also of the many people over the centuries that have been fascinated by the Romans.

I haven't been paying much attention to ROME 2 updates lately, and as a result I've missed out on lots of cool new developments. It now seems as if the Creative Aseembly have added three new factions to the roster - Macedon, Iceni and the Arverni. I find it interesting that we have Iceni and Arverni instead of Britons and Gauls, a sure sign that Rome 2 is moving towards greater historical accuracy. You can Read up on the latest Factions - as well as see their respective screenshots, here: Rome 2 Faction List The new screenshots look very impressive. I can't wait till its release. The Iceni Painted Warriors: Macedonian Phalanx: Arvernian Noblemen:

To be honest though, the ballista chariots were more a feature of the Barbarian Invasion expansion pack rather than the original Rome. Historical accuracy declined considerably between 'Rome' and 'Barbarian Invasion' - with the ballista chariots just being one feature of it. I can't decide whether the berserker-like Hounds of Culann was the worst, what with their superhuman strength, and their ability to send a dozen soldiers flying 20 feet in the air with the one swipe of their war clubs.

Good interview, I enjoyed reading it. I've got to say I disagree with you on the Later Roman Empire , but to be honest my interest in Rome has swerved towards the earlier periods such as the Late Republic and Early Principate in recent years, although when I joined the site about 8 years ago my main interest was the Later Roman Empire.

I think you are both right. There isn't much in the way of direct evidence for masks worn by infantrymen, but it is not entirely outside the scope of possibility. I think most Roman inftantrymen favoured sensory abilities over protection, as the Greeks did before them. The Pileus helmet was favoured by most Greeks during the Peloponnesian War, but the Corinthian types, which favoured protecting the face and ears over the ability of the wearer to see and hear properly, was still used. The same could be said for Medieval Knights who wore helmets that often restricted their vision and hearing considerably. * edited: changed Pylos helmet to Pileus helmet.

I remember an United States Senator a few years back used the story of Emperor Valens and the defeat of the Roman army at Adrianople as an example of the dangers of uncontrolled borders. The decline and fall of Rome has long been used as a guide, by people on all sides of the political spectrum as to the dangers of everything from corrupt politicians to disease. People in the past were also much more familiar with characters from Greek and Roman history and mythology. When studiyng the Second World War in school I was amazed at the amount of sources, such as political cartoons, that referenced Classical history or Mythology. Everything from Gladiators to Roman gods were displayed. These days pop culture such as Star Wars and the Wizard of Oz have come to replace them. If a modern day politican was to referrence the Gracchi brothers, most people wouldn't get the referrence.

I hope you are right about the modding tools. The MODs improved the original Rome Total War by expanding the map, creating historically accurate re-skins, adding factions, removing the 4 Roman factions and giving you total control over the Republic and so on. About 90% of my time playing RTW was spent on mods. Unfortunately since Empire Total War in 2009, the Creative Assembly have been very reluctant about adding modding tools as it disrupts their sales of DLC packs, considering they are now working directly through STEAM. As a reult it's unlikely we will see any substantial modding tools until a long time after release. Shogun 2 has finally recieved limited modding tools on STEAM almost 2 years after release. The good news though is that Rome 2 appears much more historically accurate than the old one. One of many reasons I used Mods in the original RTW was to avoid all the ahistorical content such as head hurlers and ballista mounted chariots.

Well if you count my garden as 'average' when I dug a test pit in it a few years back there was a smattering of pottery sherds dating back to the 13/14th century....and half a chicken skeleton (I seem to remember the left half). Last year I managed to find some items in a local field not far from my house, including bits of a 17th century plate, late medieval pottery and even a prehistoric spindle whorl. It's amazing what lies beneath our feet in the most ordinary places.

I remember a tounge in cheek comment in an old copy of British Archaeology magazine which stated that whenever an archaeologist doesn't understand something, he/she puts it down to religion or ritual. I suppose there is some truth in this. Still, it can be difficult to put an object into context. Think of the ongoing debate about culture in archaeological circles, and whether some forms of pottery or art constitute the presence of a group of people. Once it was considered that the unique presence of 'beaker' pottery in British graves was a sign that Beaker peoples from the continent had invaded or migrated to Britain in the Bronze Age. Now archaeologists are not so sure, and are reluctant to use such labels. Unfortunately because of this reluctance they over complicate the past. Archaeology books are now filled with almost 'post-modernist' sections about which terms and names are acceptable to use when describing ancient cultures or peoples, which can only confuse and over complicate the subject. As long as they are able to agree that some terms such as 'Beaker people' is a broad scientific construct then there should be no problem.

I find it incredible that such an amazing treasure hoard could be discovered in such an unremarkable field. It makes you think what else lies beneath the grass of the average field or garden in Britain.

I find the idea interesting, considering it fits into the hypothesis developed by the English Archaeologist Andrew Sherratt from a few years ago. He also proposed the controversial idea that Celtic language(s) were being spoken in Britain as far back as the Neolithic period around 6,000 years ago, before Indo-European langauges were said to have arrived in north-western Europe. That idea might be harder to accept. As for Indo-European originating in Anatolia, it's a fascinating idea when you consider that the oldest written examples of an Indo-European language is Hittite, which is also from the very same area. It's believed that the Hittites originated in eastern Europe and migrated/invaded Anatolia, displacing or absorbing into the native Hattian culture. In light of the new discoveries perhaps the 'Hittite' language was developed by the native Hattians (who may have spoken an indo-European language) and the Hittites adopted their language instead of the other way round? Then again by the hayday of Hittites in the second millennium BC, the Indo-European langauges had developed and flourished long enough for the Hittite language to have been brought from eastern Europe.

I've been wondering the same thing recently. Imdb has it listed for release in 2013, but they are notorious for changing the release dates. Sadly I haven't seen much news since 2011, which might be a sign that the series has stalled and isn't going to be made, much like the movie version of Rome, despite Bruno Heller's insistence that it was well on the way a few years back. After a string of critical and box office flops like the Last Legion and Centurion, I think TV and film producers have gone cold on the Romans. The last time that happened was in the early sixties, and as a result the Romans disappeared from the silver screen up until the success of Gladiator in 2000. Hopefully the same thing won't happen again.

I've been fascinated for a while now by the controversial idea by Italian archaeologist Raffaele D'Amato that face masks recovered in Roman military contexts, such as forts etc, are not simply parade items or for use in the Hippika Gymnasia, but were worn for battle too, perhaps by the infantry as well as the cavalry. His arguement seems to be that so many have been discovered in forts, and even in contexts such as battles (the famous mask uncovered in Teutobergerwald being a famous example)would put it beyond use by only the cavalry units - who were small in number compared to the infantry. Also in Arrian's description of the Cavalry Sports in AD 136 he mentions that only the most distinguished men wore decorated helmets, and not all of them had face masks. This would again limit their use, but too many masks have been recovered from military sites to put it down to just use in cavalry sports. Could it be that the infantry wore masks too, perhaps to terrify the enemy as the cavalry were known to do?

I've been somewhat at a loss to understand how the shieldwall actually functioned at times. Whenever I've seen re-enactor's recreate it, the entire formation falls apart within minutes and everyone's dropped their spears and switched to fighting with their swords, man to man. But according to accounts of the battle of Hastings the English held the formation for most of the day until they were tricked into chasing the Normans during their false retreat at the end of the battle. I could understand how the shieldwall was effective at repelling the Norman cavalry, but surely the infantry and archers would have smashed holes in the formation, breaking it apart? Perhaps one of the biggest differences with re-enactment is that the scale is much smaller - usually there are only enough men to fill the first rank - while the real thing was many men deep, enough to fill in the gaps shoudl some soldiers fall in battle.

He has some fascinating ideas even though I don't agree with most of them. They don't really seem to fit into the Roman worldview, but are heavily influenced by modern day views and opinions. It also doesn't make sense to make comparisons between the agrarian pre-capitalist and pre-industrialist Roman plebeians and the post 19th century urban working class. Their conditions are quite different and not really interchangeable. Still, I find Parenti's view interesting and I hope to get his book for my birthday. The only thing I found cringeworthy in the video was how the interviewer quized Parenti for details on Caesar's life and Parenti struggled to remember the names of his wives or certain dates and so forth.

Sounds like it blows apart some myths, but I think sometimes that attempts to deconstruct the past too much ends up creating a new set of myths in their place. I wonder what evidence she has to prove that Trajan's Market wasn't really a market at all. It'd be interesting to find out, although I doubt I have the cash to spare on this book. Anyone here at UNRV read it and could give us an opinion on Trajan's market?