DecimusCaesar

I have always wanted to start collecting Roman coins. I was planning on getting a coin of the British usurper Allectus, but I can never be sure if they are real or not. The last thing I want to do is purchase a rather expensive set of coins only to realise that they are all fakes. I wish there was a way of finding out if a coin is real or not.

Strange thing indeed. On another note, I didn't know the Pope was that well versed in Byzantine history.

Perhaps one of the first monasteries was founded in Egypt, run by a mysterious man called Paul the Hermit of Thebes. Not much is known about this, but St. Jerome wrote that it was his teachings that influenced many to join the monasteries in the third century. Others claim it was St. Antony who started the monasteries (as his life is better documented than that of Peter's). A man named Pachomius later organized these little communities around Egypt into centers with about 7,000 Monks and Nuns. His ideas later reached Palestine and before long they had reached the west. The Monasteries would have a big effect on Roman society, for instance it was they who often organized for the Barbarian tribes to be converted to Christianity and as has been already mentioned, they also made many copies of latin literature. Unfortunately after Saint Leo's so-called saviour of Rome from Attila, the christian church began to see this as a victory over the old way and many works of literature were destroyed or altered by the Monks to fit into the new church doctrine. The Monasteries also caused a lot of damage to Roman society as many of the best and brightest people left work in the government or army to join the monasteries, therefore leaving the empire much weaker (and if we agree with Gibbon) this contributed to its downfall.

...might I add 'Cool!'. We could search the web Caesar style. I use Internet Explorer, by the way.

That's one of the reasons why this theory is so flawed, you can use Professor James definitions to call a whole number of groups exsistance to be false. Yet in a number of other ways his theory is correct there are a number of things absent between the the Celts on the continent and the one's on Britain. But weren't they different in the beginning? There was a lot of differance between a Celt from Iberia, one from Northern Italy and another from Northern Gaul. Should we be using a very narrow definition of what is Celtic and what is not?

That book sounds fantastic Ludovicus, I will have to buy it eventually, even if I never get a chance to go to Rome.

Around the begininng of this decade, Professor Simon James wrote a book about the Atlantic Celts. In this book he made the startling claim that the 'Ancient Celts' did not exist in Britain. Since then many other Professors such as Barry Cunliffe have come agree with him saying that the people who lived in Britain during the Iron Age were not Celts, claiming that there is no satisfactory evidence to prove that they lived here. In subsequent years I have seen many books, articles and documentaries stop referring to the Celts and have since started to refer to them as 'Iron Age Tribes' or whatever name the tribe living in a particular area called themselves (eg Veneti, Brigantes etc) . These historians say that because there were no one calling themselves Celtic before 1700 in Britain and because there was a lack of evidence about Celtic DNA (since when were Celts a race and not a linguistic group?) that there were no Celts. Others have criticized their theories claiming it has not much to do with ancient history and more to do with modern politics, Simon James for instance refers to the dangerous rise of nationalism in Celtic countries that might break apart the UK. Now Prof. Christian Goudineau in France has claimed that there were no Continental Celts either and many others have agreed with him. Others such as Peter Berresford Ellis have decided to support the old idea that the Celts did exist, claiming that if we took Prof. James interpretation we could also claim that many other groups of people or nations did not exist (Vikings, Anglo-Saxons etc) What is your opinion on this debate? Are they right to claim that the Celts did not exist? If so does that mean a change in the interpretation of other Ancient tribal peoples (the Germans perhaps?) Have there been further developments in this theory? Do more or less historians or groups agree with Professor Simon James?

Congratulations Plautus!

What size are those heads, are they big or have you taken a close up phot? As for Museums, I got a chance to visit the Turks and the Persian exhibitions in London. The Turks one was very well set up, the displays were high enough so you could see them, the rooms were well lit and spacious and there were plenty of diverse stuff on display. The Persian one I found a disappointment, the room was small and too badly lit...too many plaster casts instead of real displays (including props from the set of the 'Alexander' film) and the displays were far too close to the ground making it impossible to see them as everyone gathered around them, all i got to see were other people's backs instead of the treasures of ancient Persia.

So there was a surge of intrest in paintigs during the this period, whcih images would have been popular? I think there was more of a increase of paintings of people, especially the occupants later on but would Gladiator displays or various paintings of myths or stories (the Trojan wars for example) have been equally popular in Roman houses?

Interesting discovery! Am I mistaken or have the BBC reporters saying that the Olmec writings pre-date Western writings by 400 years. They then say it dates to the early first millennium BC. Didn't the Minoans have a system of writing (linear A, Linear B ?) that predates this era...going to the back to the Second Millennium BC and before the Trojan wars.

Interesting discovery, the Neanderthals were obviously more resilient than we originally thought. This discovery reminds me of archaeologists who discovered a body of a female Neanderthal (who had died very young) in a cave in Spain, she supposedly had many bones that had more in common with Homo Sapiens rather than Neanderthals. The Paleontolagists were confused about it and some even suggested there might have been breeding between the species despite a lack of DNA evidence.

Additionally, the principate established by Augustus, while politically altered from previous eras, was still a veiled Republic as far as institutions and magisterial offices, etc. are concerned. This is what makes the early principate so different from the Dominate, as Augustus and 'some' other subsequent Emperor's made an attempt to keep the traditions of the senate alive, it was the Emperor's of the Dominate period that did their best to assert their authority and do away with most of the 'show' with the senate. You can therefore see the VERY long process of how the Republic of the First Century BC became the despotism of the Emperors of the third Century AD.

I think the illustration is rather specalutive. Nicholas Sekunda says that there is no 100% confirmed evidence of the type of swords used by hastati and Triarii during the Punic wars, but he does mention that they probably used the 'Spanish sword' which is no doubt the early type Gladius.

Reading the discussion board on Amazon I think that there are a few glitches with the demo, one woman says it barely runs on her 6 month old computer. This looks pretty bad to anyone with an old computer. i haven't played the demo yet, has anyone here done it?

Though I do think that some of the WWII epics (some more accurate than others) did quite well at the box office. True, the epics set in more modern times (20th century) and at least attempt to be historically accurate do make a lot of money at the boxoffice, and if epics set in the ancient world would find a balance between action and historical accuracy, they might do very well. I have always thought that some WWII epics seem to drive for historical accuracy, while those set in the ancient/medieval era ignore the historical facts we know, and concentrate more on the drama. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is because there are a lot of people who are still alive that fought in the second world war and some directors (I think Spielberg for one) said that it might insult their legacy if they do not attempt to make the films as accurate as possible. In one interview Spielberg said that he didn't mind the historical inaccuracies in 'Lawrence of Arabia' but he would 'protest' against any film that would not attempt to portray the holocaust accurately, but when it comes to films like 'Lawrence' it is okay to skip over the accuracy because it's history that..."most people, certainly most Americans, know nothing about" (quoted from Spielberg's interview). I don't know about the 'Americans' part (Spielberg was talking about the movie's impact in the US not in the rest of the world) but most modern people do not know about history, especially ancient/medieval history, which is seen as increasingly irrelevant. I think it was the historian/BBC brodcaster Michael Wood who said, when talking about 'Alexander', that it would have been great to see some of the social attitudes of the people of the ancient world in films - as they are very different to ours in someways. Thinking about it, this would know doubt put off a lot of modern viewers as a lot of their 'modern sensibilites' would be put off by the strange and often barbaric ways that people acted during this period. I think most of them when going to see a Roman epic would just like to see a guy in Roman costume, but has 21st century views on war, family, love etc. Perhaps only HBO's Rome and Oliver Stone's 'Alexander' have succesfully managed to give some portrayal of the attitudes of those times. WotWotius, could you please be able to provide some of those links you mentioned? I would like to read up more on the subject.

There's an illustration of it in the book 'The Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine' by Michael Simkins, it's a reconstruction as the one in the museum is in extremly poor quality (it had been broken in half) - Here is a picture of the sword, have archaeologists found other similar type of swords since the book's publication in 1979? Bangor Museum 'Pompeii' Gladius Note the very short handle...Simkins says it is very difficult to handle and even more difficult to weild in battle.

How could I have forgotten about Alexandria, it must have been very impressive with its Library, Pharos, it's many unique inventions, from automatic sliding doors to automatons that had advertisments and even the little stuff like slot machines. Even in the first century BC it made Rome look like a dump in comparison. Like Cicero once said "I have always dreamed of seeing Alexandria..."

Having the ability to take a 3D tour of the buildings would be fantastic, very good work Decimus!

Reading the link I noticed the author says: "Spartan phalanxes met and defeated a force of raiding Visigoths in battle. That was the last noteworthy Spartan victory. Laconia was subsequently overrun by the Goths and the Huns." is there a source for this? I never knew that the phalanx was still in use at this time. Would the Spartans have fought the battle themselves as a phalanx? I would have thought that the Roman garrisons of Limitanei in the country would have played part in the city's defence and not Spartan citizens engaging the Visigoths with 'old school' tactics. If it is real then thay is a very interesting anecdote and it goes to show how the Spartans still managed to retain their old ways despite centuries of living under Roman domination.

Yes, so i've read, I think somebody described them as the Corleone's of the 16th Century and there is constant refernces to the mafia when people talk of the Pizzaro family.