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

  1. That guy is not an academic. He had been the curator of various divisional and regimental museums of the US Army (more collections 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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  2.  @Vlad_Tepes_III  Tunic. Toga, though derived from a sheperd's carpet wrapped around the body, like the Scottish tartan, was a formal attire. Like suit and tie of their days.
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  3. Actually "representation" in superhero comics leads to terrible characters. Characters that are created to represent a group can't have defects, because those would be the defects of the group. They can't evolve, because that would mean that the group needs to evolve. They can't be taught, because that mean the group needs to take lessons. Their probemls can only be the fault of someone else, etc... etc. There's no way to obtain a relatable character with those premises. Logan was a representation of short Canadian smokers? Batman of orfaned billionaires? Deadpool of disfigured loudmouths? Really beloved characters had not been created to represent anyone.
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  4. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? Everything flows. You'll never hear the same Metatron speaking two times.
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  5.  @torvamessorem6686  And 90 pounds is barely above the minimum requirement of what's usable in war. Real historical war longbows were probably in the 150 lbs draw weight range as average.
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  6.  @SuperKratosgamer  None advised them that the surface of this planet is 2/3 water, and it rains too.
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  7. The difference with the others is that the Romans asked themself those questions. The Romans had been the ones that, more than any other classical civilization, tried to adopt the point of view of their enemies. They did for Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Vercingetorix, Arminius... the Romans had been the first to say "those people had their reasons".
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  8. 13th century castles were the peak of castle's engineering before the introduction of gunpowder. In western Europe there were tens of thousands of fortresses whose garrisons were capable to resist for weeks or months against far larger armies, and dividing the horde in multiple small columns to attack many fortresses at the same time was a bad idea. Already in the first invasion, it had been noticed that Europeans tended to win small scale engagements. The real difference was the Mongol chain of command, capable to effectively cohordinate tens of thousands of men in pitched battles, while European commanders still led from the front, so knew what was happening only close to them. In the subsequent attempts of nvasion, Hungarians and Poles exploited that advantage. They built more fortresses, increased the number of mounted units, and divided the campaign into multiple small engagements instead of seeking big pitched battles.
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  9. It had never been that great. Norses tried to export there their way of life, but with enourmous difficulties. Arable land was scarce, and it eroded rapidly. They tried to breed cattle, but they had to feed them with seaweed, that the cattle hated, because there was not enough grass. As a result, they had the smallest cows ever seen. From Isotopic analysis, in 14th century 50% to 80% of the diet was provided by sea sources.
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  10. The difference with the others is that the Romans asked themself those questions. The Romans had been the ones that, more than any other classical civilization, tried to adopt the point of view of their enemies. They did for Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Vercingetorix, Arminius... the Romans had been the first to say "those people had their reasons".
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  11. Moreover, the "Vesuvius" we know, the central cone visible at 2:18, didn't exist back then. What existed, and the Romans called "Vesuvius" was the semi-circular ridge of Mt. Somma (also visible in the picture. It was there that, for example found refuge the rebels of Spartacus, and it was its internal, very steep, slope (while the external slope was covered in vineyards) that they descended using vine branches as ropes. That of 79 AC had precisely been the last of a series of explosions, thousands of years apart, that destroyed the old vulcanic edifice of Mt. Somma. The Romans didn't, and couldn't, recognize the Vesuvius as a Volcano. Because it had nor the shape, nor the activities they could attribute to a volcano. The current central cone formed in the subsequent two millennia of effusive eruptions, and infact it was lower than the ridge of Mt. Somma still in 18th century depictions. See R. Cioni, R. Santacroce e A. Sbrana, "Pyroclastic deposits as a guide for reconstructing the multi-stage evolution of the Somma-Vesuvius Caldera".
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  12. Cabral first landed in Brazil in the Year 1500. Columbus landed in the Paria peninsula, Venezuela, in the year 1498, during his third voyage, and recognised that land as a continent, since the Orinoco river was too big to be sustained by an island.
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  13. "there was absolutely no reason for him go conquer whole gaul. " Yes, but,when he was at it, why not? It's not like, when the Gauls expanded their territories at the expense of the Etruscans, some century before, they asked for permission.
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  14.  @sauromatae9728  Genetic analysis found that Etruscans have something in common with Anatolians, but the division happened during neolithic.
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  15. No, we have the coinage, made by themselves, of his father and his brother.
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  16. To say that fluting strenghten the armor is, unfortunately, an oversemplification. 1) For the same area covered and the same thickness, a fluted plate is heavier. 2) For the same area covered and the same weight (that's the real limitation of what a man can carry) a fluted plate is thinner. 3) For the same area covered and the same weight, a flat, or almost flat, fluted plate, is stiffer, less prone to be bent, so is a better protection against blunt weapons. 4) For the same area covered and the same weight, a flat, or almost flat, fluted plate is more prone to be pierced, cause is thinner, and cause the flutes are less likely to deflect the blows, and more likely to offer them an orthogonal surface where they can have the maximum effect, so is a worst protection against piercing weapons. 5) the stiffening effect of fluting decreases as long as the curvature of the plate increase (infact the section of a sphere is naturally resistant to be bent, think of the helmet, or the pauldron), until, for a certain curvature, the effect is reversed, and flutes actually makes the plate less stiff.
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  17. They also explored the Nile river up until the Victoria falls.
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  18. At the end of the second Punic war, the Roman armies easily slaughtered any army that was sent against them in the eastern Mediterranean, even fighting in great numerical inferiority. Had they superior weapons? No, they were veterans of 19 years of war vs some ot the best generals of their time. Compared to them, the others were amateurs. At the end of the Sengoku era, the Samurais were pretty good too.
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  19. He wasn't black. He was north-African at best, but more probably the descendant of Greek colonists. Byzantine Emperors were Greek.
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  20. Alexander The Great Of Greece The persians invaded Greece until the Isthmus of Corinth, sacking Athens too. The invasion ultimately failed.
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  21. 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. Several Roman sources said of one or another Gaul or Germanic population, that they were very tall, but often the Romans first seen the warrior elite. People that eat very well since childhood, and so were taller than the average.
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  22. The most effective had obviously been the legions of the traditional Italic allies of Rome, that fought Vs. the Romans in the social war. Those were not really "imitation legions" but the real thing, that fought alongside the Romans for centuries, and completely absorbed the tactics and weaponry. Not by chance, Roman generals that won in the east with ridicolous ease, struggled in the social war, and it had been the only war where, thus winning, the Romans granted to the former enemies all of their requests shorlty after.
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  23.  @edi9892  The most famous example is ancient Greek. They had two separate words for light and dark blue (glaukos and kuáneos), but the same words meant light and dark green and light and dark grey. Infact, over the centuries there had been a lot of debate over what was the real colour of the eyes of the Goddess Athena (glaukiao or glaukopis)
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  24. Shit happens. There is nothing like a perfect protection. Armors are always a compromise between protection, weight, comfort and mobility.
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  25. Several Roman sources said of one or another Gaul or Germanic population, that they were very tall, but often the Romans first seen the warrior elite. People that eat very well since childhood, and so were taller than the average. Skeletal evidences doesn't suggest Gauls and Germanics to be that tall.
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  26. I really wonder what you intend as "effectiveness". With the training weapons they use, almost none of those martial arts is really effective. If you instead put in the practitioners' hands the weapon their usual tools are meant to represent, in unarmored combat, then the olympic epee fencer armed with a dueling sword, or the olympic sabre fencer armed with a dueling sabre will make short work of positions 2 to 8 90% of the times, and of the hema practitioner 60% to 70% of the times. Parries are part of the training of the fencer, even if in matches he is obvioulsy more willing to take a double hit than he will be in real life, due to the absence of real danger (and that's EXACTLY what happens in HEMA), and the reflexes and speed of those guys are insane. BTW "olympic fencing"was practice for life and death real duels at least until the beginning of 20th century. https://www.unifimagazine.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/3.-duello-Savigliano-391x580.jpg
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  27. Yeah, but he replaced it with a rabbit.
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  28. +elgemin Pretty much that. The Centurion came from the rank of the legionaries, needed to have direct fighting skills, and fought alongside his men, that makes him similar to a Sergeant, but he had to have the qualities of an officer too, and the number of men under his direct command is that of a modern day Company.
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  29. The reaction of the eastern European powers to the battle of Legnica and Mohi, that ultimately led to the repulsion of the Mongol attempts to invade Europe, was that to increase the number of heavy knights and crossbowmen in the army and decrease that of light cavalry and foot soldiers, precisely cause the heavy cavalry and the crossbowmen, despite teir small number, proved to be very effective at Mohi. The mounted archers infact seems to be a higly flexible force, but really have many limitations. They need a lot of space to be effective (infact a mounted archer, to fight a knight, has to throw the arrows while retreating), and are mostly useless in night battles, while a formation of heavy cavalry need only 100m of plain ground to launch a charge, and crossbowmen can be shielded from arrows and be lethal for the horses. Another innovation was to not be involved in huge pitched battles, where the superior coordination of the Mongols would have given them the high ground over the undisciplinated European nobles, but to fight them in smaller skirmishes, where a big coordination was not needed.
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  30. It was just a misunderstanding, they settled it in front of a beer.
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  31. In the 1 vs 1 situation, especially if you remove the scutum, you should probably give the gladium to a gladiator. A warrior much more used to 1 vs 1 fights. For the formation fight, it would be important to know the samurai to legionaries ratio. Infact you are right saying that legionaries were comparable to elite units, and that's precisely the matter. Romans could field a huge number of trained soldiers. Samurais instead were elite units, while the bulk of a Japanese army was composed of armed peasants, the kind of infantry the legionaries loved to tear apart.
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  32. Boucicaut, Marshall of France, that died at Poitiers, was known for being able to do feats like making somersaults and swim in full armor.
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  33. To be a samurai was an honour, but it came with MANY duties (even that of dying for the lord). To be in Nobunaga's inner circle WITHOUT being a samurai would have given him more freedom.
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  34.  @youtubevoice1050  The Macedonian phalanx did. It had been the end of the hoplities, and the difference was a longer spear and a smaller shield.
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  35. No. Completely different languages. Not only Etruscan is different to classical Greek, but even to Mycenean Greek. Etruscan language is not even Indo-European
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  36. 1 . Can you show me when did he classified him as "white"? BTW, "most nobles would have been mixed" is a statement that have to be demonstrated. Nobles tend to be jealous of their bloodline, and do not easily intermix with lower subjects. See the depictions that his father and his brother made about THEMSELVES. 2. "erase Carthage from history books"? Exactly from what documents do you know about Carthage? 3. Since when we consider Semitic people es as black?
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  37.  @carebear8762  I know. That's the reason of my post.
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  38. ​ @royalregalremnant_144khope6  Again, Septimius Severus wasn't what a modern day person, or a classic time person for that matter, would call black. He was north-African at best, but more probably the descendant of Greek colonists. Byzantine Emperors were Greek.
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  39. At Teutoburg the Romans were basically led by the enemy commander, an unicum in history. Other times the Romans won while being inferior in numbers.
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  40. To me also it had been debunked. It's based on childbirth, where there's no comparison possible, and he talked about temperature, that's tolerance to illness, not to pain. When the pain level is comparable, like in kidney stones, women tend to use more painkillers than men, even if the environmental factor (men are educated to be "strong" and "don't whine") should be taken into account, so there's no conclusive evidence for a sex t be more tolerant to pain than another.
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  41. Ser Zippy Already at the time of the conquest of Britain, Normans were completely Frenchified. They spoke French (of the time), were vassals of the King of Franks (that was not a given, IE neighbour Brittany was still an indipendent duchy) had completely adopted the French feudal system and style of combat (Ironically, after two centuries of struggle, the Saxons had completely absorbed the Norse style of combat instead. For a modern witness would have been difficult to discern the two sides at the Battle of Stamford Bridge by their equipment, or style of combat).
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  42. I too disagree on Leonidas and Attila also. The first only did a last stand, not really different from dozens other in history. Attila lost the ony real battle he fought, not a sign to be a tactical genius. for great generals not included in the list I would add Themistocles (the winner of Salamis, and the real winner of the second persian war, I would take him over ten Leonidas) Marius, Sulla and Sertorius (very overlooked general that, with inferior forces, kept in check the best Roman commanders for eight years).
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  43. Other than complete adaptations, also representations of the original material get a sort of free pass. It's obvious that Shakespeare's Julius Caesar played in a theatre of Kinshasa will likely have a black cast, that the Turandot represented in Europe will probably have an European princess Turandot, or that the Madame Butterfly played in Japan will have a Japanese Captain Pinkerton.
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  44. Late-republican / early imperial Roman armies lost to Germans only when they were at a great numerical disadvantage. We remember the scarce Roman defeats, because the Romans described them, but the legions massacrated entire German populations without problems. Legionaries were professionals, and to fight warriors with different equipments and fighting styles (and among those Celts and Germans) was their daily bread.
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  45. It was a completely different attitude towards war. In late middle age there was someone whose job was to fight. Romans already industrialized warfare. To build miles over miles of fortifications and field traps was not a smart move, was the ABC.
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  46. Their wine was very different from ours. It was very "thick", and probably very bitter from concentrated tannins.
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  47. Another proof of the liner is simple biometrics. A Montefortino helmet worn without a liner would completely cover the eyes.
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  48. "I'm agent septimus Septimus". "Shouldn't it be agent septuagesimo septimo?" "No, I'm agent septimus, and my name is Septimus."
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  49. There were differencies depending on period. Mind that originally a samurai was not a swordsman. It was a mounted archer that carried the tachi as a secondary weapon. The katana was just a sort of "civilian version" of the tachi. More suited to be worn while on foot. There was no particular symbolism tied to it. All the mysticism of the katana as the "soul of the samurai" started in the Edo period, AFTER tha sengoku period, when the samurai transitioned from a warrior class to a bureocratic class that only trained in dojos. In the sengoku era, it was VERY common to carry a sword. As a sign of recognition of their status, only the Samurai can carry the daisho, the long/short (katana and wakizashi) couple. During the Edo period laws were established to restrict sword ownership by class, limiting the classes lower than samurai to short swords (wakizashi).
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  50.  @jonyhyder6506  History has little to do with petty nationalism or sour grapes.
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