DecimusCaesar

A great idea! Like GPM I won't be entering this competition myself but I will be looking forward to reading the stories. I'm sure Skarr will be ready to write a good one, and I'm sure that many other forum members will be impressing us with their tales.

Some of Alexander the Great's battles were won with amazing tactics and timing. I would also have to go with MP Cato and say that the Battle of Cannae was an extrodianry victory for the Carthaginians and their allies. Hannibal's tactics were even replicated by the Coalition forces during the First Gulf War in 1991. Outside of the Classical world there have been many several other 'famous last stands' and amazing victories. What about the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942? Perhaps the largest battle in world History (if not the bloodiest, perhaps 2 million killed?) Battle of Stalingrad at Wikipedia What about the defence of Constantinople in 1453, where the Byzantines fought heroically to defend their city against the Ottomans? It surely rates as one of the greatest last stands in history. Fall of Constantinople at Wikipedia There are several other ones as well. In Britain we have our very own 'Thermopylae' in which the men of the Kingdom of Gododdin sent 300 of their greatest warriors to capture Catterick from the Saxons, c. AD 600. They were considered to be among the greatest warriors on the island, and they spent a year training for the battle. Yet, all but one of them survived to tell the tale, after having fought to the death. The survivor of thr battle was Aneurin, the British poet who recounted the tale. The story does have many similarities with the Battle of Thermopylae, including the "Heroic " defeat: Y Gododdin at Wikipedia

Yes, I 've seen those ones as well. They had much higher production values than your average documentary. In a way thery were a Docudrama, especially the Pompeii one which followed the fictional lives of some of the people killed by Vesuvius... A sort of 'What if?' The Colosseum one would have linked up with one of the episodes from Ancient Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire; the Vespasian and Titus one. Afterall it shows the lengths that Titus went to building the Colosseum, as well as the story of one of the Gladiators that participated on its opening day. It was great to see the cast speaking in Latin. I'm glad that UKTV history has dedicated a day to the Classical World. It's the only historical channel that I have, and lately the historical content has been pretty low, what with an emphasis on Wildlife documentaries (which are good...but hardly historical) and far too many Second World War docs (which again, aren't that bad...but how many times do they have to show that same episode of 'Gladiators of World War Two' ?) Let's hope they'll have more variety in the future.

Chimps are probably much more intelligent than we give them credit for. Still it is curious that only some groups show any signs of using tools while other do not. Bonobos are much smarter than chimpanzees though. Are biologists and anthropolagists still debating if Chimps are sentient or not? Are they actually intelligent or are we over interpretating their actions?

Strangely enough that was the same tactic Alexander used at Gaugamela to defeat King Darius' chariots. As for elephants in battle, the Romans showed that they were easy to counter, which led to them becoming obsolete. Even so, Claudius brought elephants with him on the campaign in Britain in AD 43. So they were still good at terrifying peoples who had never encountered them.

Perhaps she should have gone to India! Afterall they were practicing plastic surgery in that country in the first century AD. I think Michael Grant discusses Cleopatra's looks in his book. Then again it's hard to say, seeing as some busts show her looking rather demure, while others are more stylized and reflect a New Kingdom type look.

I believe that the Emperor would have been Claudius II (214-270) he died of a plague at Smyrna. From what I've read in a short synopsis of his life there is no mention of St. Valentine.

Sorry that I'm late in replying, Gaius. Quoted from Archaeology: Theory, Methods and Practice: "Cognitive archaeology - the study of past ways of thought from Material remains - is in many respects one of the newer branches of modern Archaeology." It's an attempt at finding out what ancient peoples thought and how they would have approached different subjects such as Religion, Writing, technology etc. Afterall, their attitudes and beliefs would have been very different to ours in many ways, and similar in others. Cognitive Archaeology has come under criticism from New wave Archaeologists who emphasise scientific methods and logic. They say you can't possibly know what ancient peoples were thinking, and cognitive methods are unprovable. Even so, it can be useful in some circumstances, especially when dealing with prehistoric peoples.

I'm curious about mine: dfadyd svnea

I believe that Umayyad tax policy played a part in converting some people. When the Arabs/Muslims had settled into their territories they began taxing the 'People of the Book' (Christians/Jews) much more heavily than they had done in the past. This caused many Christians in Muslim territories to convert to Islam in order to recieve less taxes. So it worked rather well.

I have heard that a large percentage of Asia's population claim to be descended from Genghis Khan. Is there aby truth in this, seeing as I've seen it cited several times. Come to think of it, I believe that there was one man in Britain who was in the same DNA group, and could therefore claim descendance from Genghis.

I believe Caliph Umar was lucky that the Persians were so weakend. Afterall, he had launched a two-pronged attack against both the Persian and Roman Empires. The Sassanids were defeated easily considering the damage that Heraclius and his armies had caused them. This gave Umar's second army the chance to head back from Mesopotamia and join up with Umar's main force. Heraclius mistake was to stake everything on a single battle, that of Yarmuk in 636, where the entire Byzantine army he had assembled was destroyed. As for the taxes, I believe that in the newly conquered provinces the native inhabitants had to pay less tax than they had under the Romans. One of the main reasons for this was that they were now supporting Nomad warriors instead of a professional army. I believe when Caliph Umar was presented with the tax money, his advisors had to explain to him what 500,000 gold coins were, since he had no concept of such a high number. The administrators at Medina had never encountered such wealth before. Another reason the Muslims managed to pacify their new holdings was that they put a stop to the fighting between the Christian groups (Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites) which came as relief to many, considering that whichever group was the most dominant would persecute the others.

Thanks everyone! Yes, I had a bit of but not enough to leave me completely knocked out!!! :drunk:

The gates of Pompeii as listed by Peter Connelly are: 1. Herculaneum gate 2. Vesuvius gate 3. Capuan gate 4. Nolan gate 5. Sarno gate 6. Nucerian gate 7. Stabian gate 8. Marine gate So you are correct, there are eight gates to the city.

It's good to see The Roman empire.net is still up and running. I remember having some problems with it a few months back.

Check out the bibliography on the Fectio site. It has plenty of links to Late Roman sources as well as Early Dark age ones. I believe I posted the link on this website a few months ago. It should be in the links folder.

I've had a similar problem with 'Europa Barbarorum' I tried downloading it about 6 or 7 months ago and it just wouldn't work. I haven't bothered playing computer games since then to be honest. Although I did hear they are creating a new Ancient strategy game called 0 AD or Year Zero or something. It looks to be in the same mould as Age of Empires rather than Rome: Total War. Still looks good though!

It is similar to what occured in the markets of Constantinople during Byzantine times, when Christian and Muslim scholars would meet to discuss subjects such as philosophy etc. I have no doubt that Aristotle would have featured in these discussions. But then again, these discussions weren't that serious in nature, and the real reason for attending was to buy some books. Later on of course, relations would have become strained, what with the increase of hostilities between The Byzantines and the Ottomans. What became of the meetings at Toledo? After all, this was taking place not long after the Crusades.

Archaeologists excavating Kalkriese in Germany discovered the segements from a lorica segmentata armour. The armour dated to around the Battle of Teutoburg AD 9, which took place in the region. This shows that lorica segmentata was being manufactured much earlier than originally supposed. Then again it might not have been made in high quantaties. As for it being worse quality, I am not sure. The armour is difficult to manufacture, and it can be rough around the neck area; even so I believe it affords much better protection to arrows and missile weapons than lorica hamata. As for Europa Barbarorum, there is a thread discussing the mod somewhere on the Colosseum board.

The Samnite influence makes much more sense, considering that they were dominant in southern Italy. The Etruscan held territory did not stretch as far as Pompeii, I wouldn't have thought. Even so, their trade influence certainly reached as far as the south, considering the trade links between them and the Greeks.

When Frederick Barbarossa died some of his followers, who were now stranded in the Middle East, turned towards service with the Muslim armies. Perhaps others of the Teutonic order marched back into Byzantine territory and settled in those areas. According to the sources most packed up and left for Europe while a group of others took his body for burial in Syria.

I missed FC's birthday, so I'd like to say Happy Birthday to him as well. Best wishes!!

It's very interesting. A similar story was featured in 'The Truth about History' published by Readers Digest. They also discuss the Crassus Legions/China link.