DecimusCaesar

As Ursus has pointed out, Diocletian was not exactly a perfect ruler, but neither were Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius. But in retrospect he virtually saved the Roman Empire, dragging it out of the vicious circle of Civil Wars and assassinations that had plagued it in the third century. His and Constantine's military reforms helped put a check on the rise of Sassanid Persia, and it also made it that more difficult for army commander's to rise up in rebellion. That said his social reforms did make the Empire much more authoritarian and bueraucratic. But by that point it was probably necessary in order to keep the Roman Empire from collapsing. His reforms did have many flaws, but ultimately it saved the Roman Empire from an early collapse.

I would love to go see this. I've read it was a great success and that many critics were gushing over it. There were also great big queues to go see the exhibition. Mary Beard wrote about it recently in her blog, pointing out the many errors made by the press on Hadrian's life. Hadrian - Some Myths Busted

I also heard a similar story about how Romans would give 'electric shock therapy' to patients by making them put their feet in a tub of water with a young electric eel in it. Wouldn't that have killed them? Interesting story anyway.

There is an interesting section about this in Barry Cunliffe's The Celts. He discusses the journey of Pytheas and the origin of the word Britain. It is interesting to note that it could originate from a word used to describe painted people. It also reminds me of how the Greek traders claimed that the word Keltoi meant 'hidden people'. The question is, how did anyone know what those words meant. We don't have conclusive proof either way. Did Pytheas have translators at hand when he discussed these matters? Apparently he learnt this information from Iberian traders who had traded with the Britons or Prittani. Interestingly the Welsh word for Britain to this day is 'Prydain'. By the way it is worth noting that Barry Cunliffe wrote a much praised book on Pytheas the Greek. Sadly though it is out of print.

Same here. There is a lot of debate on the matter, but like the collapse of the Minoans, most archaeologists can agree that a combination of natural disasters and warfare killed off their civilisation. Still it is worth noting that Maya cities weren't abandoned all at once. In some examples there are several centuries between the collapse of one city and another. For instance, Tikal collapsed in around c. 900 AD. Chichen Itza on the other hand was abandoned after a rebellion broke out in the fifteenth century AD. This documentary claims that the Classical Maya collapse was brought about by the worst drought in several thousand years: Ancient Apocalypse - The Maya Collapse

Can you please elaborate on what kind of offenses were punshed by throwing the offending woman into a river? It was a common punishment for women in SriLanka even in the 18th Century A.D although I don't know when the practice started. During the Kandyan kingdom which fell in 1815 women (generally noble women) who had incurred the displeasure of the king by commiting a crime or whose family members had (though not always in the latter case) were given the option of either drowning in a river or joining the lowest of the low castes, the "rhodis" who lived in perpetual ostracism Here is one example: 108: If a [woman wine-seller] does not accept [grain] according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water. By water, the text means the Euphrates river. According to the link, this practice was similar to that meted out on European women in the Seventeenth century. There are many more examples in this link below, which is a section from the Code of Hammurabi: Code of Hammurabi

Finding a balance is important. I've read that many of us here at UNRV first became interested in ancient Rome after watching some old Hollywood epic like Spartacus or Ben Hur, and I think that if those two films had been completely realistic they would have ended up alienating and boring their audience. Only the most knowledgeable Classicist would have had the dedication to watch a truly realistic Roman movie. Interested kids who wanted to see a good Roman adventure might have been so put off they might have never picked up a book on the subject. Let's face it Zack Snyder's '300' piqued more interest in all things Ancient Greece among teenagers than Oliver Stone's 'Alexander'. The program that Caldrail mentioned is an exception considering it's a drama-documentary. Those have an obligation to stick to the truth a lot closer, considering the program's aim is to educate. The other problem is drifting too far to the other side. You often find a film or tv show that strays so far from the truth you can't help but wonder why they didn't bother to make it into a fantasy picture.

I was thinking of getting a cheap copy of this a few days ago when it was recommended to me. Although having read some of the criticisms here I think I might pass on it.

Thank you for posting these laws, I had heard that some of these were bizarre, and having read them that does seem the case. I once read a few excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi. That was a bit wiser than the Hittite laws, but there were still some odd stuff in there, including numerous punishments where an offending women is thrown into a river.

I was watching a documentary about the Hittites recently when I realised I knew very little about them. I thought it was a fact for instance that the Hittite Empire was destroyed by the Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC. The experts on the program on the other hand pointed out that the Hittites destroyed their own capital, Hattusa, during a civil war before vanishing from the history books. The documentary also pointed out that the name 'Hittite' is a convenient term used by archaeologists. The actual real Hittites were a completely unrelated people from the Bible, and the name for the people we call the Hittites was the 'People of the land of Hatti'. The documentary got me thinking about my own ignorance of the ancient world. Despite having read lots of books on the Romans, I still know very little about the other cultures of ancient history like the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, The Hittites, Phoenicians etc. I would genuinely like to know more about them, especially the Babylonians. All I seem to know about the Babylonians is that they were great mathematicians and astronomers, and that they had a code of laws written by Hammurabi, and that they had built the Hanging Gardens. I know next to nothing about their daily lives, religion, military or culture. Do you lack knowledge on some of the important cultures of the ancient world? Which culture would you like to know more about? On another note, here's the documentary I watched from Google Videos: Dark Lords of Hattusha

I enjoyed Heather's style immensely. I had nothing to do with the Late Empire until he came along. It was very well written. I thought his ideas about the fall of the Roman Empire were very plausible. They also contradicted Edward Gibbon in many ways, especially his claims about Rome's decline, which as Heather points out have been over stressed by many historians. Bryan Ward-Perkins book 'The Fall of Rome' would make a good follow up to Heather's 'Fall'. He gives us an archaeological perspective on the Empire's fall, showing how the quality of life declined in the Dark Ages.

Great article, I recently got into reading about the Maya after getting my hands on a copy of Linda Schele's brilliant 'A Forest of Kings: The Untold History of the Ancient Maya' . I've also had a look at Michael D. Coe's seminal work, The Maya, which has had to be republished seven times in the last few decades due to the massive strides made in Maya archaeology. The Maya certainly are one of the greatest civilisations of the classical world (although their classical period spanned AD 200 to 900) and I wouldn't be surprised if Maya cities were occupied earlier in history. After all, since the 1960's most historians have had to completely re-write their works on the Maya people. The PreClassic Maya do date back as far as 2000 BC, it's just that the Maya city states weren't founded till much later.

It's a real shame. I always have fond memories of George Carlin as Rufus from the Bill and Ted movies when I was younger. When I got older I loved his comic routines. RIP.

Cosmos by Carl Sagan. It was one of the most fascinating science books I've read. It also had some interesting sections on the Ancient World , including Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Greek Philosophy and the Great Library of Alexandria. It's basically a wonderul and well-rounded look at the history of science and the importance of the scientific method.

I don't find it that hard to believe that something like a solar eclipse could be remembered as a folk memory, especially if it is well timed with a famous event. Then again, we can never be sure if Odysseus ever existed, and it's also worth taking account of how many eclipses took place within Homer's lifetime. If others had told him about an event like that, he could have easily incorporated it into his poems.

I can see 1. Aristotle 2. Bill Clinton 3. Hitler 4. Ramses the Great 5. Emperor Shi Huangdi ( I assume its him) 6. Genghis Khan 7. Bruce Lee 8. Peter the Great 9. Charles De Gaulle 10. Margaret Thatcher 11. Saddam Hussein 12. Beethoven 13. Audrey Hepburn 14. Mao Tse Tung 15. Charlie Chaplin 16. Sigmund Freud 17. Vladimir Putin 18. Mike Tyson 19. Carl Von Clausewitz ( I assume its him) 20. Winston Churchill 21. Stalin 22. Socrates 23. Elizabeth II 24. Karl Marx 25. Friedrich Nietzsche 26. Shakespeare 27. Mozart 28. Picasso 29. Abraham Lincoln 39. Elvis 40. Machiavelli 41. Moses ( I assume) 42. Napoleon 43. Che Guevara 44. Fidel Castro 45. Marlon Brando 46. Confucius ( I assume) 47. Albert Einstein 48. Yasser Arafat 49. Julius Caesar 50. Mahatma Ghandi 51. Vincent Van Goch 52. Michael Jordan 53. Petrarch (up in the bushes ) 54. Bin Laden 55. Prince Charles 56. David Ben Gurion (I think) 57. Mother Theresa 58. Otto von Bismarck ( I think) 59. Thomas Jefferson (?) 60. Kofi Annan (with a flute?) 61. Archimedes (?) 62. Admiral Yi (?) 63. Lenin

A brilliant review of one of the best primary accounts from Ancient Rome. Suetonius's work ought to have a spot on the shelf of any dedicated Romanophile.

A brilliant article. I was thinking about this same subject not long ago, about how much of our so-called ancient traditions and conceptions are heavily based on Enlightenment and Victorian period interpretations of the past. For instance we love to imagine Classical Rome as being full of men in togas among gleaming marble buildings. Most of those images come from 18th-19th century paintings rather than modern archaeology. The faked clothes of Hadrian show how the mistaken Victorians re-interpreted the past to fit their own vision of Classical Rome. The thing is, we probably do the same today.

Hadn't the language of the eastern half of the Roman Empire always ben Greek to an extent? But it wasn't made officially Greek until the seventh century though. By the way those Byzantium 1200 links were brilliant. Thank you Ludovicus.

Nice to see you are back here with us DF!

The Mongols by Stephen Turnbull. I've been a big fan of Stephen Turnbull ever since I'd read his books on Medieval Knights and Japanese Samurai ( He is the leading expert on Japanese feudal warfare outside of Japan), and The Mongols did not disappoint. It's basically a very short overview of Mongol campaigns, from battles against Khwarazim Empire, to China, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Iraq, Vietnam etc It gives you a great appreciation of how powerful the Mongol War Machine must have been in its heyday, allowing Genghis and his descendants to conquer the largest land empire in history.

Fluency in latin didn't stop Brutus and Cassius stabbing Caesar!

Some are of a better quality than others. The first few books on the subject were published in the 1970s and they are a bit old fashioned eg. 'The Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan'. Others such as 'Late Roman Infantryman' have a few errors here and there. The 'Gladiators' title is often considered to be the worst of the bunch (although it does have some nice illustrations). Ross Cowan's books on the other hand are very well writen and informative - they also cover subjects that aren't usually discussed such as the Severan Field Army. If you want one title with plenty of Osprey Illustrations then I recommend 'Rome and her Enemies' by Jane Penrose. The text is simplistic (it's for beginners in Roman history), but it contains plenty of colour plates and illustrations from a dozen Osprey titles on ancient warfare.