WotWotius

Yes, have a good one!!! Hopefully your advanced age will make you wise, rather than senile.

...and effectively turned his house on the Palatine into a brothel - That if we are to believe what is written.

Am I going to have to take that as a no?

I have had a go on the beta version, and the campaign mode is brilliant; you can actually play as the Catuvellauni (just the other day, I successfully sacked my home Civitas, Ratae). Units are much more expensive than in RTR, so if you playing as a small nation (e.g. early Republican Roman), units have to be disbanded after a campaign. The initial game is economy based: wars are expensive (as they were in antiquity), and therefore you need to choose your foes wisely.

You decide.

It seemed to have collapsed in Britain at a fast rate, according to the Archaelogical record there was no trace of Romano-British existance by AD 600, showing that a collapse had occured within few years of Honorius's letter to the Britons. A lot of it had to do with the decline of Roman towns which had already been sealed up even during the Roman period itself. With the Empire cutting off links with the island the people must have abandoned the towns rapidly and returned to a agricultural existance. Archaeology has proven that certain bath houses, and villas were still being utilised in Britain up until 700AD: though the later structures were indeed much more basic than their earlier predecessors.

As with most accounts of early Rome and the area surrounding her, Dionysious of Alicarnassus' histories were either based on family histories (which promote, or create plain heroic falsehoods about certain geneses), or on even older historical texts which existing archaeological evidence, even that available in his time, has proven to have been a fabrication. So his view that the Samnites were in fact descendants from Spartan migrants is, most probably, a far-fetched foundation myth.

The following information vaguely relates to Roman profanities: Natives of Pairs refer to urinals as vespasiennes; the name derived from Emperor Vespasian, who famously imposed a tax on urine. According to Suetonius, Titus protested against his father's actions on the grounds of public decency. To this, Vespasian subsequently responded with: 'money does not smell'. My question is, were latrines given the endearing nickname of vespasiennes during Roman times, or was that just something the Parisians mustered up?

What support did the scholar give to this theory other than a preceived 'logical' presumption? I have never, ever come accross an ancient author hint at that type of sacrifice to Hermes. Time of the Seleucids you say? One could also make a conclusive leap that it was a Persian tradition carried over from the period of occupation because there is written evidence of Persian veneration of the canine... Various coins depicting Hermes have been found on the site. However, on these coins, his image was shown with an eagle, not a dog. Therefore, the basis of his theory was predominantly 'logical' presumption. He also speculated that the bones may just have easily have been associated with the city's two major deities: Cybelle, and Artemis.

Indeed. The reason why I posted this information is because I had to sit through an hour-long lecture (given by a visiting scholar) which, in extremely visceral detail, explored the topic of religious sacrifices in Lydia.

There is also an astounding amount of archaeological evidence that suggests that residents of Sardis (in Ancient Lydia), sacrificed puppies to a deity: various dog carcasses, dating from the time of the Seleucids, have been found in a mutilated state inside sacrificial urns dotted around the city walls. The deity they were sacrificed to was most probably Hermes. Though also the god of thieves, Hermes was hypocritically the god of theft protection. Sacrificing a dog may well symbolise a guard dog, or another a life form associated with household security.

Do you have a source for this?

During Ancient times, a lot of the region (modern day Kuwait) was under water.

Do you think battles such as Mutina, and the siege of Perguia will be shown? I think it is essential to depict the latter in as much visceral detail as possible; it will give a great insight into the sheer ruthlessness of Octavian's ambition, as well as serving as a good example of Octavian's 'little-man syndrome': committing violent atrocities to compensate for physical failings. Dio gives great example of both these attributes in action: '...three hundred knights and many senators, among them Tiberius Cannutius, who previously during his tribuneship had assembled the populace for Caesar Octavianus. Of the people of Perusia and the others who were captured there the majority lost their lives, and the city itself, except the temple of Vulcan and the statue of Juno, was entirely destroyed by fire.' Dio, chapter 15, Book XLVIII.

I was wandering if anybody would be tempted to use Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) as the site of a future forum meet; the place radiates just as much antiquity as Eboricum, and during the summer, when almost half the town's population migrate home, there are plenty of former student dwellings available.

I see they use Imperial Roman legions as well, very nice. I think I may give this game a wirl.

Does anybody know of any reputable books on the Ancient Minoans? As for the original question: the best book that I have read on the life of Alexander was Robert Lane Fox's Alexander.

Excellent! The original Rome: total war is finally being used for something that vaguely relates to History. I particularly like the used of Hans Zimmer's score from Gladiator.

As some of you may already know, I have been experiencing the embryonic stages of university life in Exeter, and I think now would be a good time to write an entry. I will firstly give you an idea of what the city itself is like. Obviously Exeter is a historical city

Polish is a nice language, but I could do with a few more vowels. I imagine Polish countdown is a lot more tedious than in the UK: 'I'll have a consonant please Carol, another please, and another, one more...'

There is no such thing as a full circle rainbow...where else would leprechauns place their pots of gold?

Damn it! I missed it

I would only add to this: what is it that you're describing? For example, when I describe to my students the history of the Romance languages, there is a massive break between 'Latin' and 'Romance', and that this corresponds to the fall of Rome (and, say, the 3 or so centuries after that, when we have little recorded that isn't an attempt at Latin) and then the start of the feudal European states. This latter time refers to when we have written documents where the writers no longer try to emulate Latin, but the vernacular that is spoken; depending on the area you're talking about, that could be 9th-11th century. The 'limbo' in between, well, is just that; I often call it 'purgatorio' (Dante would love me!), since we have very little in the way of written documents. We have some jarchas from Iberia, but they haven't been fully translated yet. During the Moorish conquest and occupation of Iberia, the Moors and Mozarabes (Iberians who 'converted' to the Moorish way of life), along with the Jewish Iberians, wrote songs and poetry in their Semitic languages...except the last 2 stanzas were always written in 'Romance', but with Arabic/Hebrew writing; these are the jarchas. That I know of, we don't have much else--apart from occasional 'glosses' in the margins--before the Oath of Strassburg. So, for me, there's 3 'periods': 'antiquity' (until the fall of the Empire, or there abouts), 'limbo', and 'modern' (roughly the 9th-11th century). It's not a great division, but it's as close as I can get for my (linguistic) purposes. This is effectively my view point:

No, I am merely saying that the barbarian incursions of the 5th-9th Centuries, which subsequently destroyed the Rome Empire, were a greater influence in the development of modern day France than the Roman Empire itself.

The section on Poland is the best. The Daily Mail page is another good one.