HISTORICUS

Hello, Would love to watch this CD and send it out to the next person. Please let me know what I need to do. Not sure what "PM" is. Thanks, Eric

This is a VERY good point. Are you thinking of doing separate tours? Or one tour including all of the places you mentioned? ETA: You also need to consider cost. I'm not sure what "audience" you are going for here, but I'm assuming you want this to be easily accessible. Instead of adding more time to one tour (making it far more expensive I would imagine) you might want to consider doing multiple smaller tours (one just in Rome, for instance. You could go to all of the landmarks in Rome and maybe a few of those close by.) Thank you so much Maladict for your kind suggestions. Lost Warrior, because our tour is also targeted to the American public, we need to spend enough time in Europe to make it worth the cost of airfare, so a length of 12 days is probably an optimum, being as it is a week between two weekends. In the past, I have run a WW2 tour starting in London and ending in Berlin in 13 days, and it went very well. I will post the itinerary in the near future and will be open to any suggestions as to locations to visit, etc. Incidentally, I've been looking for a restaurant that serves Roman food, is anyone familiar with such a place? Thanks

Hello Historicus, thanks for your post here, this could be interesting; Shall we focus on Rome first? How many days will this tour be? How many stops (locations) are there planned on this tour? Is this just for people in the US or could people from say Europe skip the flight and jump right on the starting point of the tour? cheers viggen Hello, The tour will be open to all interested people who understand english, as this is the language in which it will be conducted. I'm thinking of a duration of 11-13 days, and I'm hesitating between starting and ending in Rome and cover only Italy, or starting for example in Lyon, then go down to Provence (there's a lot of interesting Roman sites there) and continue to Italy. At first I was even considering starting in London, but it might make the tour too expensive because of transportation. Your thoughts are welcome.

Ave, I'm a tour operator based in New Orleans who specializes in special interest tours. I'm putting together a series of Ancient History Tours with 4 itineraries: Rome, Greece, Egypt and Ancient Israel. The first tours will start in the fall of 2008. I would like to receive some input from forum members regarding the itinerary and also seek help finding tour guide / lecturers and people who could help me market the tours. The tours are intended for the general educated public with a interest in history. Thank you.

In reality it was the other way around: The Roman Divus Iulius was hijacked by Judaizing him, by way of adding all the quotations from the books of the Jews to the original gospel (especially in Matthew). This was done after the Jewish war in order to make Jesus the awaited messiah of the Jews, in order to integrate them into the empire. "Jesus'" original followers were the Roman people and especially his veterans, most of them being settled in the East in exactly those places whence later Christianity emerged. You certainly have not read 'Jesus was Caesar'. It provides an abundance of evidence that the historical Jesus was Gaius Julius Caesar. Hello You're right, I haven't read "Jesus was Caesar", but am very interested in alternative history and will try to get my hands on it. However, the discussion was about St. Paul, not Jesus, and whether you or I are right about Jesus we both seem to agree that St. Paul created a new religion by amalgamizing some tenets of monotheism with hellenistic mystery cult ideas.

Hello I'm not sure this forum is still going, but I will add my two cents anyway. In order to understand the ancient Greeks and Roman one need only go to places that have not experience the monotheistic repression. A good example is Japan. Japan's original religion, Shinto, is very similar to the polytheistic religions of the Ancient World. Shinto believe in the existence of a multitude of divinities called Kami. Some Kami are elemental, for example trees (similar to the fauns, satyrs and other divinities of the forests), other are more complex (rivers, mountains, etc.), some have independant existence and assume a variety of shapes (O-Inari-San: the faxes, etc.) and lastly some assume a national importance (Japan, the Emperor). Some of these deities just exist, and can give you something if you simply offer them something they want (sacrifices), other require that you follow a moral code. What's bewildering to the organized religious mind of someone who grew up in a monotheistic society is that there's no order in this, no authority as to which mythological story is right or wrong, no better or worse, just to each his or her own. Of course, one would not be wise to insult the local or national deity in its locality, so don't go and denigrate Japan in a Shinto shrine anymore than curse Jupiter at the Forum Romanum, but that's not by intolerance, simply by respect of the gods. The result is a remarkable acceptance of all things spiritual, whether they make sense or not, and a complete lack of religious intolerance. In this matter, a Japanese might celebrate Christman, then offer a prayer to his local Kami at the Shinto shrine and then bury his or her relative in a Buddhist ceremony. Very infuriating to the monotheists, of course. Try to get Bin Laden, or the Pope, to pray at the altar of Jupiter, Ammon Ra or offering sacrifices to the spirits of the forest...

How important was Paul to the Christian church? in a word, he created the Christian church. No one knows for sure if Jesus even existed, but if he did he was simply another one of the many rabbis that came out of the Jewish religion. His teachings are fairly standard, similar to Rabbi Akiva and others. It appears that his followers (the Church of Jerusalem) were a branch of Judaism, not unlike the Hassidic Jews of today and their rabbis. Paul is the one who took the basic monotheistic idea, added a mystery cult type of savior and went out to convert non-Jews (Gentiles). The Jewish mainstream as well as the original followers of Jesus saw clearly Paul as a charlatan and refused to admit him as a speaker on their behalf. The luck of Paul and of Christianity is the disaster that befell the Jewish people of the war against the Romans and the utter destruction of the original church in the process. He was now able to hijack Jesus into his Hellenistic religion with no opposition from Jesus' original followers. The result is well known: a powerful religious movement that fused the intolerance of the monotheists with the attraction of the mystery cults. It was just a matter of time before this small club (Christianity) and its fanatic members would win the critical mass enabling them to viciously dispose of its enemies, whom, as far as they were concerned, were perfectly happy to let the Christians do their things and worship whoever they wanted to.

Essentially, all religious holidays have polytheistic origins. Outside of more recent dates that can be verified (and those tend to be national holidays, like the 4th of July), all holidays have always been constant with humans, the only thing changing being their names and supposed reason for existence. For example, Passover, a Jewish holidays supposed to celebrate the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, is simply a celebration of spring, draped in Jewish clothes. The same Passover became Easter, again, same holiday, different explanation. One possible reason is simply the desire of newer religion to counter the older religions' celebrations. So, in order to make sure a Christian doesn't celebrate Passover it was necessary to have a holiday on the same date. Incidentally, the term "pagan" is a derogatory expression invented by the Christians to denigrate the believers of the many gods. Or else, there's a lot of "pagans" around today, just go to Japan or India, it's full of "pagans"...

Sorry to disagree, but there's a multitude of things common to the US and Rome, which simply don't exist with Carthage. From the political system to world dominance to the very motto and ensigna of the republic.

The way I see it the biggest problem of the republic was it imbalance regarding the executive branch. While constitutional history might seem like the most boring of subject, nations live and die by their constitution, written or unwritten. The problem in a nutshell was that due to their fear of a tyrant, the Romans created a weak executive that resulted in the very thing they were afraid of. In order to manage Rome's affairs, a strong, efficient executive branch with a sufficient term of office was needed. Sulla could have created this position by simply removing the second consul and extending the terms of office to 4-8 years, similar to a modern executive. He himself used the position, indeed couldn't do without, however under the concept of dictator, which indicated that it would be temporary. As it happened, he only made cosmetic changes which combined with the murder and exile of his opponents calmed the situation for a short while.

Hello. I would like to start a debate about the similarities and differences between the Roman and the American republics. When I write "Roman Republic" I include the period of the empire, seeing that officially Rome was always a republic. I think there could be more to it than the pure intellectual stimulation of the debate. I read somewhere in the forum a question as to why are people so fascinated with the Romans. One of the answers I could give that person is that by learning how the Roman republic evolved, we can avoid making the same mistakes. For example, I personally believe that by understanding the under-handed evolution from republic to empire (or dictatorship) we can learn how to avoid the same situation in our own republic. Another idea I would like to propose is that today's post cold war world is more similar to the days of Rome than to the 19th century struggles between nations, contrary to many pundits' opinions. In this world, America plays the role Rome played, and it doesn't mean that Rome never lost a battle or a war, just that it was the overwhelming power that everybody had to take into account. More to come.