Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Metatron" channel.

  1. At Agincourt a lot of dismounted knights had been killed by english longbowmen, whose usual hand to hand weapons were a falchion, and a roundel dagger. Really not better to cope with plate armors than a pilum, a shield, a gladium and a pugio. Almogavars repeatedly beaten French knights, and their weapons were a pair of javelins, a short spear and a knife. No armor covered all the body. More, many knights at Agincourt literally died of fatigue. You can fight well in full armor, but you can't fight for long. Switching lines, Roman legionaries could fight for hours.
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  2. It's a small-scale relief attack. Mind that, while the two did that, the Romans, in that very same sector, were in a very dire situation. The fortification they built around Alesia was hard pressured by the Gauls arrived to to aid Vercingetorix, and on the verge of collapse. The rationale of such a move, apart the personal feud, was that, if the soldier is in front of the fortification, for the time he is there, the fortification is not under pressure, and those moments of relative quiet are very important for the defenders. It gives them the time to think, help the wounded ones, better dispose themselves, replenish the stock of projectiles, chek the fortifications and the armors, and be ready for when the enemies will renew the assault, AND is a morale boost for the common legionary to see that, in any case, a Roman soldier could stand in front of many enemies and kill them without retaliation. Assuming the story was real, probably Pullo saw that his men were scared, tired, and increasingly simply mechanically reacting to the attacks instead of acting to anticipate them, and so they needed that boost, while the Gauls needed to know that it would have not been easy.
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  3. Nazi party was right wing.
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  4.  @zombiedoggie2732  It was not uncommon for a Jew to have long hair. "naziroi" specifically made a vow to not cut hair and beard.
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  5. Never heard of the "lost legion" of Crassus, that reched China and settled there? (I'm jocking. It's almost certainly a modern forgery).
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  6. At Teutoburg the problem for the Romans was not that they couldn't fight 1 vs. 1, but that they had to march anyway, so they were deployed in a long, thin, line, while the Germans could group and decide where to attack, so gaining a strong local numerical superiority.
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  7. @boygriffin5764 Like it or not, they historically did. "They make a desert and call it peace" had been written by a Roman (a Roman historian and a Senator). Not a Greek in Roman time. That had been written by a Roman for a Roman public.
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  8. He never said it was the only reason.
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  9. Actually there were a lot of respected scientists, even members of the Royal Society, searching for Troy in that region when Schliemann had been persuaded by Frank Calvert (that had no more funds to continue the excavations by himself), that Hisarlik hill was the right location.
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  10.  @THESPATHARIOS  a little overlapping spares you to carry a lot of weight if it allows you to not wear the mail.
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  11. Italian males have currently an average height of 176.5cm (measured 2004), they are taller than American and English males, (175.3 for both, measured 2012- 2014), French (175,6, measured 2004) and Germans (175.4cm, measured 2007). Is difficult to find datas for Germanic people of Roman times, but Viking males, form skeletons found (usually we find burial of high-class people, so the average height is probably overestimated, since in ancient times they tended to eat better and so be taller than the average peasant) had an average height of 172cm. We already talked about legionaries but, from skeletons, the average male population of Herculaneum (and there are no class differencies there, since they all perished in a natural disaster) was of 169cm, so the Germanic people were probably on average taller than the Romans, but nothing so dramatic.
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  12. Roman legionaries actually trained a lot in 1v1 combat. Their formations were not as tight as oplite ones, so their style of fight was much more mobile and they had to cope with the fact that an enemy could come from the flanks.
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  13.  @thoughtheglass  Yeah. Tin can be mirror polished after application.
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  14. It's well known that Tom had terrible eyesight. He was actually aiming for the groin.
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  15. That guy is not an academic. He had been the curator of various divisional and regimental museums of the US Army (more collection of memorabilia than real museums), wrote a book on Roman military history, is active in reenactment and writes articles on newspapers, but has not academic credentials apart from an Associate of Arts Degree by the University of Maryland, European Campus. Exactly like the youtubers he criticises, he's an hobbyist, not a scientist.
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  16. Usually spears go in the hand luggage.
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  17. Actual Italians, yeah, they are on average taller than Brits, American, French and Germans, and Greeks are even taller. So much for the mediterranean populations being short.
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  18. Cleopatra didn't rule a country "populated by black people". Egyptians didn't depict themself as black in first place (with the specific exception of the rulers of the 25th dinasty, that were Kushites, and is telling that them, being black, wanted to be depicted differently from the previous rulers). At the time of Cleopatra they had been governed by a Greek dinasty for almost three centuries and, after them they'll be governed by Romans. Cleopatra wasn't "steeped in the habits of African culture". Ptolemaics remained proudly Greeks to the bone. They adopted only Greek names, ruled over Egypt from a city of Greek culture, founded by a Greek, speaking Greek, and their greatest achievement had been a Greek library. There are no depictions of Jesus made while he was alive. There are many depictions of Cleopatra made when she was alive, and they had not been made by "those who whised she was white". They had been made by her subjects by her order. There are no excavations of Cleopatra's relatives at all. Not even one. If you are referring to the pretended tomb of Arsinoe, she can be anyone. Given the circumstances of her death, it was most unlikely for Arsinoe to have a mausoleum. The body died at the wrong age, and her race had not been determined, her DNA cannot be examined, the head is missing, and craniometry to determine race is a scam even when is not based on old pictures.
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  19. Moreover, the legion was commanded from the rear, with the commander that had a clear vision of what was going on on all the front and that could tactically move his formations. Medieval armies were commanded from the front, with the commander that could'nt see what was happening more than few steps away. Medieval battles, from a Roman point of view, were just big brawls.
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  20. It had not been the first nor the last encounter, but the only one where the Romans were led by the commander of the Germans.
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  21. At Teutoburg the main cause of the defeat was that they were really led by the commander of the enemies (Arminius was in charge of the Roman scouts).
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  22. Actually there was a minumum height to join the Legion (170 cm), and Vikings were not that tall (the skeletons found are 172cm on average) . The average legionary was easily taller than the average Viking.
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  23. From skeletal evidences (That Pompeii and Ercolanum provided plenty) The average Roman male was 165 cm tall, not 150, so only 7 cm shorter than the average Viking. Romans had actually the same average height than medieval British, and were taller than much northern European populations during the industrial revolution (when the quality of food decreased for much of the working class).
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  24. Actually they were a lot more able than modern day replica makers are. They didn't make the thickness consistent, but made the metal more thick where it was needed and more thin where the thickness was less important. Modern day reproductions with the same grade of protection are always heavier. It's the same with agricultural tools, (pitchforks, sickles...) handmade ones of two or three generations ago are a lot lighter in the hand than modern-day mass-made ones.
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  25. He has to be VERY good, at 70, to play the part of someone that was not even 30 when the war begun.
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  26. The pilum was intended primarly to penetrate the shield. If it failed at it, to impede the shield was a secondary bouns.
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  27. We have not historical accounts of Emperor Caligula written during his life. And he was an Emperor, not an obscure preacher in a backward angle of the Empire.
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  28. ALL of Cleopatra ancestors, maternal and paternal, up to Ptolemy I, founder of the dinasty, were not only Greek, but Macedons. Mostly of the same, inbred, family. We KNOW her entire family tree. Had ALL ot your ancestors been Chinese, not only your grandmother, it wouldn't have counted where you were born, you would have looked 100% Chinese.
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  29. No law in italy prevent buying and wearing a bulletproof vest anywere. It's only forbidden to wear the specific models used by the armed forces.
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  30. That's not really true. Until 14th century (see 14th century crisis, or crisis of the late middle age) farming land was abundant and there was no shortage or forestry goods. So the workload was rather light, nothing comparable, for example, with that of a worker during industrial revolution. things changed with 14th century because, due to population rise, farmland started to become scarce, so may people, had to employ themself as day laborers, the price of food rised, and more work hours were needed just to earn enough to survive.
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  31. You've already been defined "white adjacent".
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  32.  @joeampolo42  Not really. Apart from the ones that voluntereed, even slave Gladiators were VERY precious (they had an high-level training that required MUCH time and resources) and VERY famous. They were like todays sport stars.
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  33.  @joeampolo42  Usually horses and bulls have not a row of girls waiting for them (the successes of gladiators among women were well known) and are not paid. For a strong gladiator was not that difficult to earn enough to pay for his own freedom (but strong gladiators often decided to keep on fighting anyway) and usually the owners of gladiator schools were former gladiators.
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  34.  @joeampolo42  But women are no cows, and both bulls and cows have no choice. Gladiators and their admirers had.
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  35. There's not a single industrial product designed in the US in the last 60 years that had been designed in imperial units. All is designed in metric, and then "translated" for the general public, that doesn't understand metric.
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  36. Actually Romans raided the Parthian capital twice and made it a client state.
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  37. Parthian capital was occupied by Trajan in 113, and rided under Marcus Aurelius in 165 and Septimius Severus in 197 (sorry, it was trice, not twice). the Romans installed Parthamaspates of Parthia as a client king.
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  38. Trajan made Mesopotamia a Roman Province, Adrian judged that the Empire was overstretched, and retird from Mesopotamia and Armenia. Later Parthia become the emperor's favourite punching ball, because they liked to be called "parthicus". Shapur's adventures are very late (during the so called "crisis of third century" for the Roman Empire) and still, thus having captured Valeriano, he was thoroughly beaten by the governor of Syria Septimius Odenathus, that restored all the Roman possessions and stopped his pursue only in front of the walls of the Parthian capital (again) . Odenatus' wife, Zenobia, had been much more a threat for the Empire than Parthia ever was.
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  39. Sorry, itì's history. Unfortunately the very fact that you keep on calling "persian empire" different political entities demonstrates that you have a "football fan" view of it. The Parthian Empire ceased to exist in 224 AD, replaced by the Sassanid one, that itself was defeated and incorporated in the Arab one in 7th century.
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  40. Err... no. Parthian empire was not an "iranian kingdom" like Roman Empire was not an "Italian kingdom" or Visigoth kingdom was not a "Spanish kingdom". Iran didn't exist back then. Seeing at history from the perspective of the modern inhabitant that has to support his ancestors vs the ones of someone other is exactly seeing history like a football fan.
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  41.  @PharaohTukashet  Scipio was frowned upon in Rome exactly because of his dedication to diplomacy (Roman diplomacy at the time was completely unrefined) and for his proximity and personal friendship with kings (when the Romans of the time despised kings). But that avoided him to end like his father and uncle in Spain, betrayed by suposed allies, and gained him the decisive support of Massinissa. In general, he seemed to have an exceptional understanding of how the mind of the people (allied and enemies) worked (see for example the battle of Ilipa, where he exploited to his own advantage the fact that his enemies knew the tactic Hannibal used at Canne), and that gave him a decisive advantage over Hannibal, unmatched tactic, but not able to fully foresee the consequences of his own victories.
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  42. It was designed to penetrate shields and mail armor. Plate armors are rather impervious to anything that could be throw by hand (not only the pilum, but arrows, sling bullets, hand held crossbows...) But the Romans could use them as spears, and use the rather small tip to aim for the gates between the plates (estocks and spetums were used the same way, and were rather effective).
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  43. To give some chronology, the earliest traces of iron smelting (so no hammering of meteoric iron) date back to 2200-2000 BC Anatolia. From Hittite documents, Iron items were common, altough extremely expensive around 1800 BC. From around the same age we have some small iron jewels, likely smelted. Given the fact that Iron is a crappy material for jewelry (harder to form in complex shapes than gold, silver, or copper alloys, and prone to rust) it was evidently the fact that, for some reason, it was extremely hard to obtain that justified its use. The situation was still the same around 1325 BC. We don't know if Tutankhamun's iron dagger was meteoric or smelted, but, due to the fact that it was evidently not made for its Egyptian-made handle, it was almost surely imported and, form it's original position, it was probably the most prized item of his funerary equipment. More than his gold dagger, or any other golden object. Hittite documents point to the fact that instead, around 1200 BC, iron had become common and cheap. From this period is the most ancient big and complex iron item we have, an Hittite iron sword, surely smelted. In Ugarith had been found an iron sword bearing the name of Pharaon Merneptah (died 1203 BC), so Egyptians had access to the same tecnology. So, there had been some technological improvement, between 1325 BC and 1200 BC, that made iron cheap and available in good quantities. While the technology remained practically unchanged in the eight previous centuries.
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  44. There had never been a reign of Solomon. At the age it allegedly existed, Gerusalem was no more than a small village.
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  45.  @nnenaagnes4610  Bible is no more historical than a collection of fairy tales. I can say there was no reing of Solomon Because at the time that reign allegedly existed (10th century BC), there was not ANY reign of Israel. Gerusalem was a small village of few hundreds inhabitants without walls. No temple had been built there. That's what archaeology found.
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  46. No law in Italy prevent to buy and wear a bulletproof vest in any occasion. It's only banned for a civilian to use the specific models issued to the armed forces.
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  47.  @htomerif  Yeah. In reality the ban on military calibers remained only for 9mm Parabellum (that's replaced by the nearly identical 9X21mm IMI). You can own weapons in 5.56mm NATO or 7.62mm NATO. Infact Army surplus rifles are sold in Italy.
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  48.  @htomerif  Italy's gun laws are among the most relaxed in Europe. Yes, you need a licence, but it's easier to take than a driving licence. The reason behind the ban of military cartridges for civilians (and the reason why it only remains for 9mm Luger), contrary to popular belief, is not to "control population" (it would be ridicolous, if they can legally own handguns in 10mm auto) but to control security forces. What the State want to prevent is for a Policemen to privately purchase ammos for his service weapon. You can own a night visor. You can't hunt with it. Unfortunately many people think weapon and self defense laws to be more restrictive than they really are.
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  49. Actually Columbus never called the Native Americans "Indians". When he reached the Caribbeans, he believed to have reached a group of islands east of Japan (because in his map there was no space for a continent at that latitude), so it would have been silly to call the inhabitants "indians". When, in his third voyage, he reached South America, he immediately recognised it was a continent (because the rivers were too big to came from an island) and a new one, (because at that latitude he couldn't still have reached east Asia), and called it "Paria". The name stood on European maps for decades, before being replaced by "America". Today it only indicates the Gulf of Paria, where he landed. So, had the Native Americans been called after Columbus, they would be called "Parians".
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  50. In effect, in a foot fight the legionary still has the choice between a pair of pila (javelins) or a telum (heavy, combat spear, used by the triarii). Maybe he'll be able to keep the knight at bay until the heavier armor, the heat and the difficulty of breathing into the greathelm will take their toll.
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