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

  1. "It's over Pharnapates! I have the high ground!"
    956
  2. Infact it was likely the "posca" (50% water and vinegar) the legionaries usually drunk, and that he probably had in his canteen.
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  3. "It's over Pharnapates! I have the high ground!"
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  4. Emperor: "So, for a start, what's your name?" Dionysios1: "Dionysios, son of Dionysios." Emperor: "And your?" Dionysios2: "Dionysios, son of Dionysios." Emperor: "... Ok, behead them."
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  5. About the utility of chariots as "battle taxi" there is a revealing passage in the Iliad where Aenea questions the renowed archer Pandarus (an ally of the Trojans) why he wasn't targeting Diomedes that was salughtering the Trojan first line. Pandarus answered that he hit Diomedes from afar, with no effect, and complained that, having left his chariots and horses home when he departed for Troy, fearing for them to starve in a siege, he couldn't get close to fight him, and so he felt to be useless. In a warfare based on personal duels between heavily armoured and perfectly armed heroes (while infantrymen just had a shield and a one-anded spear, or a mace), not having a chariot was a huge disadvantage. You had to run, in a heavy armor, to reach your target, only to see him carried somewere else, and without possibility to escape if things got bad. An hero with a chariot instead could dictate the time of the battle, since he could decide to fight when, and where, he thought to have an advantage.
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  6. Tyrian purple, made with sea snails, was incredibly expensive, but it was not like Romans didn't know how to mix red and blue to make a substitute. It was only less bright.
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  7.  @2cents-w3m  You seem pretty upset. Something not going your way?
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  8. The first Illyrian emperor came to power only in 268 AD, more than 250 years after the end of the revolt.
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  9. Sometimes Caesar got lucky. Scipio was a genius that played with the minds of allies and enemies. Marius an hardcore soldier that knew exactly what his men could do. But Tiberius campaings had the inevitability of continental drift. For the enemies, he was perhaps the scariest of them all. He gave them time to comtemplate the futility of fighting back.
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  10. That's true for Chinese reports also. We often make the mistake of considering them an accurate and continuous collection of facts dating back to several millennia. In reality they are really sketchy and incomplete.
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  11. Even during the third century crisis, in a period of weakness, Rome repeatedly beaten the Germans, and the same Goths that would mark its end in fiftht century had been easily beaten by the rather obscure Emperor Claudius II. It had not been the enemies...
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  12.  @danpeterson114  Sorry Dan, but you have not the academic credentials to call yourself "a real historian". Having published a book on a historical subject doesn't make you so (many journalists did). Nor having been the curator of divisional and regimental "museums" of the Army. You are as much an hobbyist as the youtoubers you criticise.
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  13.  @SusCalvin  There were no hoplites in bronze age. They were an iron-age classical Greek thing.
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  14. Rome had no silk, but they had several dyes China didn't had. Raw silk coming from China was often dyed in western colours, and then exported back in China, so fuelling the mith that Rome produced its own silk.
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  15. Moreover, since it was a legal obligation, if a slave already wanted to talk it was applied quite leniently.
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  16. Tourist: "Where for Sparta?" Spartan: "THIS IS SPARTAAAA!" Tourist: "Ok, thanks."
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  17.  @BonaparteBardithion  Octavian, like the first emperor, means "eighth". Septimius (like Septimius Severus) "seventh". Quintus (like Quintus Fabius Maximus) "fifth". It was extremely common.
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  18. To be defeated by Septimius Odaenatus just after.
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  19. Romans faced perfect "not Roman" legions during the social war. Those were the allies that traditionally provided half of the "Roman" army in the previous wars, so they used the same equipment, formations, logistics, command structure and tactics. Not by chance, famous Roman generals that won in the east with ridicolus ease, struggled in the social war, and it had been the only time when, shortly after having narrowly won, Rome granted to the former enemies all of their requests.
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  20. Numeric names were very common among males too. Octavian "eighth", Septimius "seventh". Quintus "fifth" ecc...
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  21. Romans defeated them several times. It was enough to not fight in the terrain most favourable to them and use ranged weapons as well and/or ambush them. The horses of the mounted archers were not armoured, and so were vulnerable not only to the various balistas, but to simple slingshots too. Mind that war horses were valuable items. It required a lot of time to breed and train them, so the losses of a single battle were hard to replenish.
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  22.  @withastickangrywhiteman2822  "At Rome's time?" Rome's time had been almost a millennium. Of what century are you talking of? We have plenty of dyed silk of Han dinasty period.
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  23. Mind also that, for tribesmen, long campaigns were costly. Winter was coming and the warriors besieging the Romans were not preparing for it.
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  24. Wool cloaks are great in keeping you dry and warm under rain.
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  25. It's actually the general scientific consensus.
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  26. You mean like the heir of the Parthian throne, Pacorus? The Roman Empire wasn't the Emperor. During the crisis of the III century, 60 men claimed the title of Emperor in 50 years. Temporarily lost to the Palmyrene Empire, until Aurelian got rid of it. Crassus could have been captured, but the Empire had not been shaked as a political entity. The defeath of Pacorus instead led to the death of Orodes II and much of the Parthian high class with him, that eroded the military strenght of the Empire, since they were the very same cataphracts knights. Not that winning for the Parthians was so sure either, seeing at the fate of Surena.
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  27. How "enslaving of all the enemy population" sounds?
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  28. And was immediately avenged as Septimius Odanatus recaptured all the provinces, the royal harem, pursued Shapur I until Ctesiphon, sieged the city and sacked the nearby territory.
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  29. Criminalis mentes.
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  30. ps. not in the slightest. It's the general scientific consensus. Only that the modern humans came out of Africa in a single wave around 60.000 years ago had been debunked. Different human groups came out of Africa in different waves prior than 60.000 years ago. They settled in different parts of the world and slightly differentiated. Then there had ben a limited interbreed when the subsequent wave of humans came out of Africa and occupied the lands the previous one had settled before.
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  31. IE Vegetius "It is universally known the ancients employed slingers in all their engagements. There is the greater reason for instructing all troops, without exception, in this exercise, as the sling cannot be reckoned any incumbrance, and often is of the greatest service, especially when they are obliged to engage in stony places, to defend a mountain or an eminence, or to repulse an enemy at the attack of a castle or city" "Let them be exercised in the use of the bow, in throwing missile weapons and stones, both with the hand and sling, and with the wooden sword at the post; let all this be continually repeated and let them be often kept under arms till they are tired." In several ancient battles the use of slings by the Romans had been reported to be decisive (IE at Magnesia) and in ancient Roman encampments and battle sites sling bolts are often found.
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  32. "every guest will receive the 'earth and water' gift pack".
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  33. And mind that one of the favorite tactics of Caesar, to surprise his enemies, was the forced march, that doubled the usual daily travel of a legion.
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  34. Romans had an inclusive concept of citizenship, and took for granted that a citizen would have acted as one. Flavius Stilicho was a Vandal by blood, and still a "true Roman". The brother of Arminius served as a Centurion in the Legion, and none thought he was any less reliable only because his brother was leading the anti-Roman revolt.
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  35. They weren't locked in a struggle with Germania. For much of the Empire, Germania had been occasionally a nuisance. Still in late 4th Century, Emperor Julian, after having beaten the Alamanni at Argentorarum, decided to campaign in Persia. Until the battle of Adrianople, the Romans didn't consider the Germanics a real treat.
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  36.  @BonaparteBardithion  Infact there were a lot of nicknames. Actually the cognomen started as nicknames but, when someone became famous in his life, the nickname started to be transfered to his descendants, so gradually the cognomen became family branch names and another nickname (so a fourth name) was adopted, Ad es Quintus Fabius Maximus "Verrucosus".
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  37.  @yulusleonard985  Romans infact faced perfect "not Roman" legions during the social war. Those were the allies that traditionally provided half of the "Roman" army in the previous wars, so they used the same equipment, formations, logistics, command structure and tactics. Not by chance, famous Roman generals that won in the east with ridicolus ease, struggled in the social war, and it had been the only time when, shortly after having narrowly won, Rome granted to the former enemies all of their requests.
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  38.  @Ugly_German_Truths  Four times, and there are even divine interventions. In the Chanson de Roland, Roland tries to break his sword hitting a rock with it, but he breaks the rock instead. That's not how a high medieval sword worked. To say that in Homer there is a realistic depiction of how chariots were used, IT DOESN'T NEED THE ENTIRE POEM TO BE REALISTIC. It's pretty likely that the truth of the bronze age warfare had been mantained in the depiction of a normal moment in a normal battle, while, in the depiction of the final duel, there is much more of poetic licence. It had been long estabilished that in Homer real elements of bronze age armors, weapons and tactics are mixed with the ones contemporary to the writing of the poem. Exactly because the chariots are not contemporary to the poet, it's likely that the accounts on how they have been used are realistic, because they had not been contaminated with what the writer personally knew about them.
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  39. @UCNRTuuaI0-mH8WsLmOtzHtQ Please, I never stated that only real historians should talk about history. Otherwise I shouldn't either. Nor that "real historians" are always right and "hobbysts" are always wrong. But, since Dan presented himself as "a real historian", exactly as if someone presents himself as "a real physician", to examine his credentials is due. The result is that Dan Peterson is not "a real historian". He's an amateur.
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  40.  @danpeterson114  "Misidentified"? Are you sure? Apart for the fact that, as several people already told you, Invicta never said those were Roman soldiers, several REAL archeologists did. The first one Giuseppe Volpi. Then Jacques Barthelemy, that dated the mosaic to second century, depicting Emperor Adrian's travel to Egypt. Than Carlo Fea, that dated the mosaic to first century, depicting Octavian's conquest of Egypt.
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  41. Mind that the investigator in this story was a plebeian himself. In first century BC the distinction had already became quite pointless.
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  42. Since the testimony of a slave could be legally considered in a trial only if torture had been used, when slaves already wanted to talk this legal obligation was enforced quite leniently. A pair of hits with a rod, and you could consider yourself tortured.
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  43. The biggest archaeological source of Roman silverware is actually Denmank. They reached it at the time of Augustus, and remained in friendly terms with the tribes there.
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  44. There were many ironic epitaphs as well. Moslty the ones that someone wrote for himself first to die.
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  45. It's actually the importance of Teutoburg that had been greatly exagerated by German nationalists a pair of millennia later. Tiberius had been stopped while he was steamrolling through Germania because all Augustus cared was the safety of the limes. Germanicus fought a private war for personal promotion. The Empire didn't care that much about Germania.
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  46. One thing to mind of the early republican classes system is that between the velites, astati/princeps and triarii, there were often two or even three generations of the same family on the battlefield. The last duty of the triarii when the battle was irremedialby lost was to be slaughtered while slowing down the enemies' pursue, to allow the younger soldiers to escape, . And they did it, because that way they were saving their own sons.
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  47. Mind that Hannibal troops were seasoned mercenaries, while the Romans were mostly freshmen, so more subject to fall for simple tricks, and hannibal knew that.
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  48. The area is now a fertile plain due to artificial irrigation. Move a little south east where the battle had been really fought, and it's still a barren land.
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  49. Actually Rome experienced only a big pestilence, in 2th century, probably of smallpox, so not really related to hygiene. Outbreaks of diseases became common in Europe only since 14th century.
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  50.  @aaronjefferson279  There were Roman commercial outposts in southern India. Don't mistake warships with commercial ships.
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  51. What counted for the Romans was if you were citizen or not. A Roman citizen was worth of faith for that alone, regardless where he was born. See for example Arminius' brother, Flavus. Being he a Roman citizen, there was no reason to doubt of his loyalty, regardless what his brother had done.
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  52. It had never been proven wrong, and it becomes more likely at any new discovery actually.
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  53. There were many pro-Roman tribes in Germania. The Cherusci were one of them, until Arminius took power (and still there were a strong pro-Roman faction in the tribe, that will prevail in the end, killing Arminius and asking the Romans for a client king). Arminius was a Roman citizen, an Equites, and a commander of the Roman army, in charge of the scouting cavalry at Teutoburg, so a traitor, even for modern standards. His own brother Flavus remained loyal to the Empire, and fought in the legions of Germanicus against him.
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  54.  @nathanaelsallhageriksson1719  Your is a 20th-21th century point of view. "Arminius, savior of the Germanics" is '30s narrative. A 1st century Germanic didn't reason like that. For him there was his family, then his clan, then his tribe and that was all. There was not a Germanic word to indicate Germanic people. It had been the Romans that classified them like that. For the Western Germanics it was a question of who they had to become tributaries to. The Romans or the Svebian confederation, east of the Elbe. That's why there were pro-Roman and anti-Roman (that were pro-Svebian) factions among them. As already said, among the Same Cherusci the pro-Roman faction will prevail in the end, and they'll end up aiding the Romans, and being aided by them, vs. other Germanic tribes. They dind't prefer the Svebi to the Romans because the Svebi were Germanics. That distinction had no sense for them. In the same Svebian confederation there were the Semnones, that were Celts. "Justification" and Excuse" are words you used now. I've not to justify or excusing anything, and the Romans hadn't to. Those that decided to destroy three legions made their bet, bringing to the table their life and those of all their fellow tribesmen.
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  55. Parthian composite bows had not a particularly high draw weight. Their charateristic was to be small enough to be used on horseback while still having a good draw weight. They weren't able to pierce through shields or armors. The struggle went on for so long exactly because they weren't able to pierce through shileds. Roman losses infact had been limited until the attempt to retreat.
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  56. With genocide. He would have simply starved the rebel tribes to death, one after the other, if they didn't bow. Estabilishing forts in their territory and burning the crops.
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  57.  @revinaque1342  According to the tradition, when the envoys of the Senate reached Cincinnatus, to tell him he had been elected Dictator, he was plowing his field, so obviously he was dressed ligtly. As the first thing the envoys (and Cincinnatus' own son was among them) told him to wear the toga, since they had to give him an official message.
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  58.  Nom Anor  You can check the video "Huns: The Origin" of Kings and Generals. The Huns that invaded the Roman Empire (and had been defeated by an already dying Empire in the end) had little in common with the ones that attacked Han China.
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  59. At that time every legionary had a slingshot (it was cheap and light to carry). They had been very effective vs cavalry and chariots other times, and they could have been very effective this time too, but probably they had not trained enough.
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  60. Not really. Romans often had inferior cavalry in respect to the enemy, but it wasn't really expected from them to win the cavalry clash, it was enough for them to keep the enemy cavalry occupied, so that it couldn't regroup and launch a coordinated attack on the back of the Roman infantry. Roman cavalry often is given little credit, but almost always succeded to perform this duty even having inferior numbers.
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  61.  @karatejoe6332  Actually they had commercial outposts in southern India and very likely traveled to Indochina quite regularly.
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  62. A legionary: "that was the idea infact"
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  63. Yeah. In the events of the first decade of the millennium the Great Illirian Revolt is the main course, Teutoburg is the side dish. Here they treated them like the revolt was just a test for Teutoburg. Severus, at Cibalae, thus leading the minor one of the two Roman armies involved, had more men, and more eperienced, than Varus at Teutoburg.
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  64. At the beginning of the Republic, plebeians were not even full citizens. They didn't fought wars, and they didn't vote. The story of the Republican institutions, is the story of how the poors managed to be more and more represented over time. With the opening of the comitia to plebeians, and with the institutions of the Tribunum Plebis and the Plebiscitum.
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  65. The Romans were more like: "I hope you like your gods, because you are about to know them!"
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  66. They had "four horned" saddles, that gave them more stability than a modern day saddle without stirrups, but less than real stirrups.
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  67. Simply the guide guide translated as that. At the time it was common to accomunate gods with similar charateristics. It was not like they had a creed to recite, or a liturgy to follow.
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  68.  @ciarandolan7695  Minor niusances infact. Territories not worth to conquer. The barbarians inhabiting them caused some problems at decades distance, and were beaten when they did.
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  69. They were a form of diplomacy. Mind that those practices were developed when Rome was one of the city-states of Latium. To resort to the priest embassy was the way to say to the neighbour "we are serious on that matter. We involved gods. If nothing changes, it will be war in 33 days".
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  70. "panis ac perna", ham sandwich. There were several recipies. IE the bread was flavored with must, and the ham cooked in dried fig water.
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  71.  @nathanaelsallhageriksson1719  It seems you are convincing yourself. You need an "instigator". A villain and a victim that successfully fights back. That's Hollywood, not history. Many of the Germanics didn't see any invasion, oppression or forcing to change cultural practices. Actually there were many pro-Roman tribes in Germania. The Cherusci were one of them, until Arminius took power (and still there were a strong pro-Roman faction in the tribe, that will prevail in the end, killing Arminius and asking the Romans for a client king). Arminius was a Roman citizen, an Equites, and a commander of the Roman army, in charge of the scouting cavalry at Teutoburg, so a traitor, even for modern standards. Him leading an anti-Roman coalition that treacherously exterminated three legions was obviously going to cause an harsh retaliation. Those that decided to destroy those legions made their bet, bringing to the table their life and those of all their fellow tribesmen. Unfortunately the arguments stands now like they stood the first time. You like it or not.
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  72. So they made it wrong. It happens. There are historical accounts of scutii hit by over a hundred arrows, and still functioning.
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  73.  @cm275  Aemilianus didn't laugh. While burning the city, he commented that could be the fate of Rome.
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  74. What's usually forgotten is that those stories had been handed down by the Roman writers exactly because they were considered extreme, not the norm.
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  75. Mark Antony did what had been offered to Crassus, but it didn't go that well either. The later Roman successful invasions of Mesopotamia simply descended the course of Euphrates.
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  76. Schooling rates were extremely high among Romans, and we know this from the very high number of street inscriptions they left, often obscene jokes, or advertisements. It's evident that it was not considered a thing of the elite, and everyone was expected to be capable to read.
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  77.  @albinpacolli5192  It was a joke. "Who is the best illyrian general?" "Bato."
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  78.  @odesstern199  Hannibal used 2000 oxen with flaming bundles tied to the horns to escape the trap Fabius put him at the Ager Falernus.
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  79. Tyrian purple, made with sea snails, was incredibly expensive, but it was not like Romans didn't know how to mix red and blue to make a substitute. It was only less bright. The toga praetexta was universally used. It was a symbol and a protection, since a child wearing it was considered inviolable.
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  80. Embarassing? The Colosseum had been built, hadn't it?
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  81. Carthageneans were Phoenicians, so middle easterns.
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  82.  @kodor1146  Already Augustus gave up with the idea of conquering Germania, he only cared about the limes being safe, and Tiberius didn't conquer anything in his 20 years of reign. According to the contemporaries, thus having been one of the most efficient generals Rome ever had, as an Emperor he didn't seek conquests at all and preferred diplomacy. Had he wanted to conquer Germania, he would have done it himself, using the same tactics he used in Pannonia and had started to use in Germania before being recalled. His conquests were as inevitable as the continental drift. But he treated Germania as Germanicus' private playground, where the young general was even using legions he payed himself.
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  83.  @saeedvazirian  Sorry, but historically Septimius Odenatus recaptured all the provinces, the royal harem of Shapur I, pursued him I until Ctesiphon (do you prefer to call it a "strategic rethreat after having lost the Royal harem"?), sieged the city and sacked the nearby territory.
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  84. Roman legonaries needed space to manuver the gladium. For that reason their formation was less tight than that of the Hoplites. From the accounts, the Romans were so packed that it became almost impossible to breathe. Also mind that half of the trapped men were not Romans. Most of the allies used the same formation, but others didn't, and that made even more difficult to regroup and try to fight coordinately.
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  85. The Chartagenean betrayed Massinissa, that was fighting for them and earned them several victories, by siding with his enemy Syphax. They lost their numidian cavalry because, in the end, Syphax was not Massinissa, and had it annihilated, first with the burning of his camp at Utica, and then in the battle of the Great Plains.
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  86. There is a revealing passage in the Iliad where Aenea questions the renowed archer Pandarus (an ally of the Trojans) why he wasn't targeting Diomedes that was salughtering the Trojan first line. Pandarus answered that he hit Diomedes from afar, with no effect, and complained that, having left his chariots and horses home when he departed for Troy, fearing for them to starve in a siege, he couldn't get close to fight him, and so he felt to be useless. In a warfare based on personal duels between heavily armoured and perfectly armed heroes (while infantrymen just had a shield and a one-anded spear, or a mace), not having a chariot was a huge disadvantage. You had to run, in a heavy armor, to reach your target, only to see him carried somewere else, and without possibility to escape if things got bad.
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  87. The battle had been fought around a day of march south east of Carrhae (modern day Harran). That area seems pretty desert actually.
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  88. Copy the legions historically didn't went well. Only the Italic allies in the social war managed to fight the Romans effectively using the same formations, because that had also been their military organization for generations. It needs the right mindset for a man to function as a legionary.
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  89.  @caesaraugustus5558  First of all, sorry for the tone, we know NOTHING of the live of Arminius until Teutoburg. We only know he was a Roman citizen and an equites. That he had been an hostage is '30s propaganda. He can very well had NEVER seen Rome in his entire life. Of Flavus, we at least know he participated to Tiberius' campaign in Pannonia. Of Arminius, not even that. Second, yes, he surely knew how the Roman Army worked, but it's not enough to say to tribesmen how a legion worked to turn them into legionaries. Those were warriors anyway. They knew THEIR OWN style of fight and were fine with that. Even had he wanted, Arminius had no way to force them.
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  90. Germanicus was leading a campaing for personal promotion. He wanted victories. Nothing else. It's difficult to grasp it now, since we know how it ended, but for the Romans, Until near the end of the western empire, Germania was a minor affair. Still Julian, after having beaten the Alamanni at Strasbourg, in 357, focused on the conquest of Mesopotamia. Until Adrianople (378), the Germanics were people annoying at times, but that could be dealed with without much effort.
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  91.  @ciarandolan7695  That's a 21st century point of view. In the first four centuries there wasn't any generational war going on. There weren't the "Germanics". That was an umbrella term that the Romans invented for those that lived east of the Rhine, but it didn't exist a Germanic word to indicate the Germanics. There were the Alemanni, there were the Bructeri, there were the Alani, there were the Marcomanni and so on. Many of them were allied of the Romans, even ruled by client kings. Once every twenty or thirty years, one of those tribes raided some territory into the limes (often because they had been expelled out of their own territory by another tribe). Four or five legions were sent, and the invaders were destroyed or repulsed beyond the limes (where they often starved to death, because they no more had a territory east of the Rhine). The situation on the eastern border seemed MUCH more serious, because there were organised enemies there, and four or five legions may not be sufficient to solve the situation. Western Empire fell due to internal problems, not due to hordes of invincible invaders. Still Emperor Majorian, in three years from 458 to 461, defeated the Burgundians, the Visigoths and the Suevi, reconquering most of Gallia and Hispania, and practically bringing back the Empire to the borders it had under Augustus.
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  92.  @ciarandolan7695  Simply a warband or a desperate tribe trying to enter the limes every 20 or 30 years, that could be dealed with four or five legions, was not considered a threat.
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  93. It was debated even at their time. For most of their history they had been nothing special. The Thermopilae had been a great propaganda coup for them, and they mostly built their warrior mith from there, bur their allies complained that, in the end, they always chose the easiest side of the formation, leaving to them the elite enemy units.
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  94. Arminius saviour of the Germanics is '30s narrative. A first century Germanic didn't think like that. For him, his world was his family, then his clan, then his tribe, and that's all. There's no a Germanic word to indicate the Germanics. It had been the Romans that classified them as such. The Cherusci were a pro-Roman tribe (one of many) where there was a strong anti-Roman faction. Arminius valued there was enough discontent in the Cherusci and in the nearby tribes to lead the anti-Roman faction and take power, if he could serve them a victory and, being in charge of the Roman scouting cavalry at Teutoburg, so effectively leading the army he wanted to destroy, he could obtain it. In the end, the pro-Roman faction took power back among the Cherusci, killed Arminius, and asked the Romans for a client king.
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  95.  @stirpenova97  Every single action changes something. You defined Arminius "a winner" for that action. But a winner is someone who achieves something he was seeking for. Not someone that obtains some random changes, that's pointless for him, or even contrary to what he was trying to obtain. None is a winner because he obtains some result he doesn't care about.
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  96. Add that anyone could see the ingredients and the way you prepared them. There were no secrets.
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  97. They had, especially for the dinner (Rome could be dangerous after sunset). However it was no apt to make anything elaborate, just to heat the food, or roast some fish.
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  98. No "Roman civil right" was granted to Illyria. It remained a province like any other. Tribes were split to prevent further rebellions and tribesmen sold as slaves.
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  99. "panis ac perna", ham sandwich. There were several recipies. IE the bread was flavored with must, and the ham cooked in dried fig water.
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  100.  @Alex.HFA1  Panis ac perna was made like that. Bread, toppings, bread.
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  101. Probably because the guide translated as that. At the time it was common to accomunate gods with similar charateristics.
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  102. Do not forget the story of Odaenathus of Palmyra. Savior of the Roman Empire in one of its lowest moments (his wife, not so much).
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  103. Cerberus' name derived from an indo-european root that means "the spotted one". So yes. Even Hades, the king of the afterlife, named his three headed monster-dog "Spot".
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  104. Practically what the tribes did to each other.
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  105. In ancient times guerilla worked only up to a certain point, because you couldn't hide your crops and, once they had been burned, your people could only starve through winter. That's why many times you see the allied commanders pressing for a battle when they should have known better. Not only. Arminius coalition was in good terms with some tribe in the east that didn't participate to the battle, but could have helped the collegates during winter, but obviously they would have been a lot less willing to feed someone that didn't fight.
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  106.  @RagingDong  The Roman "ideal" battle deployment in republican times was with half of the army provided by Rome and Roman colonies and half by the Italic allies. That's why the social war had been a hard struggle for Rome. They were fighting vs. the same tactics and equipment.
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  107. "Air!" From the accounts, they were so packed that it became hard to breathe.
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  108. Mark Antony accepted the same offer, and it didn't go that well either. In the later successful invasions of Mesopotamia, the Romans simply descended the course of Euphrates, that's what Crassus should have done.
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  109. He could have use them to chase the Parthian supply lines. The Parthians needed a lot of things to fight. Water for the horses, arrows... Surena prepared his supply lines carefully, but they were not invulnerable. This would have given him the initiative, since it would have forced the Parthians to play defensively. Even during the retreat. Several times Roman armies retreated in square formations, so protecting themself from the enemy cavalry. Mounted archers could inflict losses almost without risk, but they were slow in doing it, and the city was only a day of march distant. With the perspective of not acieving a decisive victory, the cataphracts would have been tempted to charge the Romans, so giving them an enemy they could fight in close combat. Mind that the cataphracts were nobles, so their loss was hard to replace.
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  110.  @mirrownak5772  It was actually Tiberius that had the best chances. He was steamrolling through Germania with his usual style, "slow and inevitable as the continental drift" when he had been recalled by Augustus. Germanicus was mainly leading a private campaign for personal promotion.
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  111. So there is a nation called "Illyria" somewere? Or, to you, there are no people whose ancestors were Romans?
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  112. Add that anyone could see the ingredients and the way you prepared them. There were no secrets.
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  113. Only full citizens could fight in the army, and to be a full citizen you must have a certain income. The Spartan laws on inheritage were bound to reduce the full citizens (Spartiates), and so the army since: 1) Spartans could only own land, not commerce. 2) inheritance had to be equally divided among sons. 3) Spartiates had to sit in a Syssitia, and each member was required to contribute monthly with 77 litres of barley, 39 litres of wine, three kilograms of cheese, 1.5 kilograms of figs, and ten Aegina obols, so you had to be pretty rich to sit in one. This way, families with many sons (that could have contributed to the army) became too poor to be full citizens, while the wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer families with few sons.
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  114. "panis ac perna", ham sandwich. There were several recipies. IE the bread was flavored with must, and the ham cooked in dried fig water.
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  115.  @Woodsie_Lord  So you don't konw what an argument is. Being "Arminius, savior of the Germanics" '30s narrative, is an argument. The Germanics not identyfing themself as such, is an argument. Teutoburg being the apex of a struggle between Pro-Roman and Anti-Roman factions between western Germanics (that went on well past Teutoburg), is an argument. You are talking about "genocide", not me. I don't have to defend anything.
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  116. Illiria was a province that revolted. It had to be conquered back at any cost. Germania was not a province and was not worth such an effort to create one.
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  117. Republican Rome was an oligarchy and the empire was basically a south American dictatorship.
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  118. Those are not books, those are waxed tablets with some sheet of papyrus above. However books would have been anachronistic, but not of that much. They had been invented in I century BC and rapidly spreaded. The poet Martial was amazed on how small the Aeneid was in book format.
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  119. Elhanan, son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite, killed Goliath (Sam. 21-19)
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  120. The TV series "Rome".
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  121. Since slaves were required to obey to their masters, and even lying for them, the testimony of a slave could be considered in a trial only if torture had been used. Since it was a legal obligation, when a slave already wanted to talk, it was enforced quite leniently. A pair of hits with a rod, and you could consider yourself tortured. As for the "stomach", the "cursus honorum" of a high class Roman started with ten years as military tribune. As such, he probably ordered harsher punishments on his own legionaries.
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  122. Not her wole life, but until her father (and husband in some case, since there were several degrees of marriage in rome) was alive. Since women could inherit, and tended to be younger, in case of the upper classes even much younger, that their husbands, Rome was full of rich widows that could do everything they wanted.
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  123. Who is the best illyrian general?
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  124. The 10th was raised personally by Caesar, so it was Caesar that had to pay for it.
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  125.  @SaunKrystian  Romans were not known for their compromises. Soldiers were subject to the autority of their commander to the point that he could decide to decimate them. They were ciizens after the discharge.
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  126.  @Argos-xb8ek  Fact is that we know nothing of Carthaginian slaves, and that was literally the story of a Roman slave. We have hundreds of accounts of similar stories for ancient Rome. In the electolar lists of Herculaneum 44.5% of the names were of "liberti" (freed slaves).
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  127. In the migration era, those were mass migrations of entire populations. Federations of tribes that gathered togheter exactly because the Romans could field tens of thousands of professional soldiers, so you needed hundreds of thousands of tribal warriors to beat them. For the pre-migration era armies, the difference is logistic. The ancient world was much more interconnected than the medieval one. That means that you could feed those tens of thousands of men by mining gold in iberia and using it to buy grain in Egypt. In middle age, apart for few merchants, trade was limited to the immediate neighborood.
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  128. At the peak of its westward expansion, the Han dinasty occupied the Tarim basin, while at the peak of its eastward expansion Rome touched the shores of the Caspian sea. At that point the two cultures were separated "only" by about 1600-1700 km of land (plus the width of the Caspian sea), thats a long distance, but not incredibly long (is practically the lenght of nowadays Turkey), and that distance was north of the Parthian Empire. At that point, had they known each-other better, there could have been a mutual goal to cut the middleman out.
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  129. Rome abandoned the idea of conquering Germania when Augustus recalled Tiberius while he was steamrolling through it. Germanicus led a campaign for personal promotion. He needed victories, not to conquer anything. Tiberius recalled him when he retained he had promoted himself enough.
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  130.  @Dayrahl  41.9028° N, 12.4964° E The "Franks" speak a Romance language. Christianity is a Roman religion. There are not many worshippers of Wothan around, are they?
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  131. It was a form of diplomacy. Mind that those practices were developed when Rome was one of the city-states of Latium. To resort to the priest embassy was the way to say to the involved neighbour "we are serious on that matter. We involved gods. If nothing changes, it will be war in 33 days". At the same time, it reassured the other city states that Rome didn't attack without warning (a thing that could have persuaded the others to start a prehemptive war without warning).
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  132.  @concernedcitizen6313  He's not an academic. He's an hobbyst.
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  133.  @potato88872  As said, there were at least two stable Roman commercial outposts in southern India, and Roman coinage had been found in Indochina.
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  134. He invaded their lands and divided part of them among their neighbours, weakening them further. So yeah, badass answer, but not really a victory.
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  135. In reality the battle of Teutoburg is more similar to the loss of almost two legions led by Cotta and Sabinus at the hands of Ambiorix in 53BC. What had been decisive in both the battles is that Both Ambiorix and Arminius had the luxury of leading the Romans into the trap they prepared. Ambiorix because Cotta and Sabinus foolishly trusted him, Arminius because, since he was the leader of the Roman scouting cavalry, he was effectively in command of the Roman column he wanted to destroy.
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  136. By killing them all. Destroying the crops and letting them starve to death. That's why guerrilla in antiquity worked only up to a certain point.
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  137. That later became the king of the Cherusci, when the pro-Roman faction got rid of Arminius.
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  138. The gear was personal property. Legionaries paid for it (the cost of their gear was detracted from their salary), but probably, at the end of the service, they could choose to keep it or sell it back to the legion.
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  139. The losses for the Romans were very light. In ancient battles losses happened mainly after the formation broke, during the subsequent chasing of the fugitives, and the Roman formation had not even be close to be broken in any phase of the battle. From what happened in other similar battles we can say, the Romans didn't lose 1000 men at Idistaviso. It had been an one-sided slaughter.
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  140.  @marcquestenberg8385  And what a battle fought more than a century later has to do with Idistaviso? (probably) in 167, a force of 20.000 Romans had been defeated in the Battle of Carnuntum. So they experienced heavy casualties. At Idistaviso the Romans won the battle, so the losses for the Romans were very light. In ancient battles losses happened mainly after the formation broke, during the subsequent chasing of the fugitives, and the Roman formation had not even be close to be broken in any phase of the battle. From what happened in other similar battles we can say, the Romans didn't lose 1000 men at Idistaviso. It had been an one-sided slaughter. Sorry, pretended and fantasy battles doesn't count as real history, nor what you think should have happened to fit your taste.
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  141.  @marcquestenberg8385  Pretended sources and fantasies doesn't count. Had you know a real source reporting 20-30.000 legionaries lost, you would have already quoted it. You didn't because you know it's bullshit.
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  142.  @marcquestenberg8385  I've not to search for other people's delusions. Is who claim that has the burden of the proof. Pretended historians and fantasies doesn't count. Had you know a real historian reporting 20-30.000 legionaries lost at Idistaviso, you would have already quoted him. You didn't because you know it's bullshit.
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  143.  @marcquestenberg8385  "search the net for" stand for "Marc Questenberg can't justify the load of bullshit he just said. He can't provide any source or any name for his childish delusions. So he's trying to make me lose time searching for something that doesn't exist out of his head". I've not to search for your fantasies. Is who claim that has the burden of the proof. Had you known ANYTHING talking 20-30.000 legionaries lost at Idistaviso, you would have long quoted it. You didn't because you know that anything you said is bullshit. In case your limited mind had not yet understood it. You didn't provide any source for your bullshit. You didnt'provide any historian backing your bullshit. You had not been able to quote any historical work backing your bullshit. So all you said is bullshit.
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  144.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  Tacitus, Annales, Book 2-18 Magna ea victoria neque cruenta nobis fuit. quinta ab hora diei ad noctem caesi hostes decem milia passuum cadaveribus atque armis opplevere, repertis inter spolia eorum catenis quas in Romanos ut non dubio eventu portaverant. miles in loco proelii Tiberium imperatorem salutavit struxitque aggerem et in modum tropaeorum arma subscriptis victarum gentium nominibus imposuit. It was a great victory and without bloodshed to us. From nine in the morning to nightfall the enemy were slaughtered, and ten miles were covered with arms and dead bodies, while there were found amid the plunder the chains which the Germans had brought with them for the Romans, as though the issue were certain. The soldiers on the battle field hailed Tiberius as Imperator, and raised a mound on which arms were piled in the style of a trophy, with the names of the conquered tribes inscribed beneath them.
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  145.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  Apart from the fact that, having I done you the favor of answering to your question, you could even have thanked. Have you some better source? Or are you here just to write some bullshit like Marc above?
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  146.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  That's evidently not all you are doing since, after I made you the favor of answering your question and provided a source, you asked me "Nothing from the Bible?" So I'm now asking you. Have you something better? Or are you here just to write bullshit like Marc above?
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  147.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  I never said I tried hard or made any effort. I made you the favor of answering your question and provided a source. Then you asked me "Nothing from the Bible?" Because dismissing the others' sources without being able to provide anything better is the favourite way for ignoramus like you to pretend to seem intelligent without doing any effort to really learn something.
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  148.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  I'm not mad. I only recognised you are an ignoramus pretending to know something.
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  149. Caracalla extended Roman citizenship to all the inhabitants of the Empire in 212AD. A barbarian in 3rd century was someone that was not born in the Empire.
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  150. 28 legions of professional soldiers permanently paid and equipped at the expense of the State. During the 2nd Punic war, the legionaries were every Roman citizen that could afford the equipment. Think of the size of conscript armies in respect to that of professional armies.
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  151. 1) The first historian to write about the battle had not been Livy, but Polybius, that wote about it when many direct witnesses were still alive, that's an almost idyllic situation as far as sources on ancient battles are considered. 2) because at Utica there had not really been a pitched battle, since the Romans simply burned the Numidian camp at night and slaughtered the Numidians trying to escape and the Carthagenean trying to help. Maybe there were elephants, maybe not. Surely the Carthageneans would have not led them into a fire. 3) actually there are no archaeological evidences of the vast majority of ancient battles, nor we know their exact location. Applying the very same logic, maybe Cannae never happened. 4) due to the dating of some wood? Yeah, we know that wood existed After Zama. Actually that simply gives credit to the Roman envoys to Carthage in 153, that reported they had seen quantities of wood stored for building a war fleet (we know that Carthagenean warships were prefabricated and could be assembled when needed).
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  152. "Jews" (Descendants of the jews that inhabited Israel in 1st century AD) are as alive as "Romans" (Descendants of Roman Citizens in 1st century AD).
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  153. I suspect that the Inhabitants of the region of Israel in 1ST century are long dead by now. Those that live in today Israel are as related to them as those that live in today Rome (And Italy, Europe, etc.) are related to 1st century Romans.
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  154. The Battle of Frigidus had been the last one in the west where the Romans fought using mainly professional legionaries. Later western Roman armies were formed mainly by mercenaries recruited for just one campaign.
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  155. Carthaginian society was far less inclusive than Roman one. We see that in Carthage the political and military power remained in the hands of an handful of families for centuries. In Rome a freed slave was a citizen (44.5% of the electoral lists of Herculaneum were composed of liberti, freed slaves) and not only originally second-class citizens like the Plebeians, but also non-originally-Roman families could rise to prominence (IE Pompey the Great and Gaius Marius were not of Roman origin).
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  156. It was a form of diplomacy too. Mind that those practices were developed when Rome was one of the city-states of Latium. To resort to the priest embassy was the way to say to the neighbour "we are serious on that matter. We involved gods already. If nothing changes, it will be war in 33 days".
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  157.  @ciarandolan7695  If I keep on repeating the same thing is because a "generational war" between Romans and Germanics is a modern point of view that arised looking at how the western Empire ended. It was not how contemporaries, romans and Germanics saw that. Unrelated or scarcely related warbands that tried to pass the limes at 20-30 years distance and could be dealt with limited use of troops was not a "war". Nor the 3rd century crisis was due to any state of war with Germania. The very same existence of the "Gallic Roman Empire" from 260 to 274 AD, when a series of Roman military leaders and aristocrats declared themselves emperors and took control of Gaul and adjacent provinces, meant that they felt the limes with Germania to be safe. Even controlling a limited territory with limited resources in respect to the whole Empire, they didn't fear the Germanics.
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  158.  @stirpenova97  Rome conquered and lost many territories. Several, simply leaving them, because they weren't worth the effort.
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  159.  @stirpenova97  A winner is someone that obtains what he's seeking. Not someone that is considered great 2000 years later for having achieved a thing that seems important for them, but it's pointless for him and he wasn't looking for, not for himself and neither for his tribe.
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  160.  @stirpenova97  So Charles the Bold is a winner. He caused his own death and the end of his own dukedom.
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  161.  @stirpenova97  Again. Arminius saviour of the Germanics is '30s narrative. A first century Germanic didn't think like that. For him, his world was his family, then his clan, then his tribe, and that's all. There's no a Germanic word to indicate the Germanics. It had been the Romans that classified them as such. Arminius seeked personal power among his tribe, and the neighbour ones, by leading the anti-Roman faction. He obtained his personal demise and that his own tribe became a client of the Romans until its end.
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  162.  @stirpenova97  Because Germanics didn't think about themself as "Germanics". There's no a Germanic word to indicate the Germanics. Their definitions about themself end with the tribe. In the Svebian confederation there were Celts as well as Germanics. They didn't give a damn about being Germanic instead of Celts or italics. And Infact, among the western Germanics, before and after Teutoburg there were Pro-Roman tribes, (that, IE, helped the Romans vs. other Germanic tribes, like the Cherusci did after the death of Arminius), and Pro-Roman factions.
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  163. They had a calendar. Do you remember the date of your birthday?
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  164. Beans, and other legumes, existed in Europe first than the discovery of America. Pre-colombian American populations knew different varieties of beans than the Europeans.
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  165. Actually all we know of Arminius is that he spoke latin, served in the Roman army, and was made Roman citizen and Equites. We know absolutely nothing of how or where he had been raised. He can very well have joyned the legion as an auxiliary only as a young adult.
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  166.  @christopherg2347  So it's a guess. Maybe he had been taken hostage, maybe not. He can very well have joyned the legion as an auxiliary only as a young adult.
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  167.  @christopherg2347  I'm using the only sources available. All we know of Arminius is that he spoke latin, served in the Roman army, and was made Roman citizen and Equites. That's what the sources state. Arminius being "taken and educated roman" is a fanfiction.
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  168.  @christopherg2347  There is no evidence that Arminius had ever been an hostage. It's only a wild guess.
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  169.  @christopherg2347  "we know" who? There is not a single source stating Arminius had been an hostage in any moment of his life. I'm the kind of people capable to read sources.
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  170. Second, third, etc., male son of a little farmer. Land can't be divided under self-sufficiency threshold.
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  171. We know that, in the Roman army, there were legionaries that were exempt from other duties, because they were good at doing something useful (accountants, engineers...). Likely, among them, there were barbers too. Instead of building roads, or foraging, they shaved the others. A single maniple (200 men) was enough to keep a barber's hands full all day long. It worked like that in WWI. Those that were barbers in civilian life, kept on shaving in the trenches.
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  172. The toga praetexta was universal among Roman citizens. It was a tradiction and a protection, since a child wearing one was considered inviolable.
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  173. His brother Flavus too. He was still fighting in Illiria at the time of Arminius' rebellion, and then fought for Rome against it.
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  174. So Normans had been kicked out of Britain at a certain point? Franks from France?
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  175. At that time the Han dinasty controlled all the Tarim basin. That's why they fought a battle in todays western Kyrgyzstan. To give a comparison, Chinese western outposts were as close to the Caspian Sea (and on the other shore there was Armenia, a Roman client state) as the lenght of modern day Turkey.
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  176. @Razenity Nope.
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  177.  @dl6704  Nope aswell.
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  178.  @Mizzurani  No.
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  179. It's not even certain Arminius served in Illyria actually. His brother, Flavus, surely did (and he remained pro-Roman).
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  180. In respect to the Illirian Revolt, all the others had been child play, yet the Romans in the end crushed that too. For them there were no other options.
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  181. "panis ac perna", ham sandwich. There were several recipies. IE the bread was flavored with must, and the ham cooked in dried fig water.
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  182. Mind that in Teotoburg Forest Varus' legions were effectively led by Arminius, so the ambush was pretty easy.
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  183. It was more of his fault to proceed with the usual Roman show of strenght of marching in German territory having only three legions left of eleven that were usually stationed in the area. He should have played it more defensively that year. About the faith, mind that Arminius was a Roman citizen, and, for the Roman mindset, that condition was absolute. He was as trustworthy as a direct descendant of Romulus would have been. The story of Arminius' brother, Flavus, is revealing. He too was a Roman citizen, serving in the Legion as a legatus, and, after Arminius' revolt, he continued to do so under Tiberius and Germanuicus. He was even granted a private talking with his brother Arminius just before the Battle of the Weser river (the two had to be separated by the legionaries after Arminius made fun of the awards Flavus earned in exchange of his service). None ever tought of him as an untrustworthy person only because his brother was leading the German revolt.
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  184. There's not a Germanic word that means "Germanic". The Romans identified them. To the Germanics, the tribes were foreign each-other no less than the Romans were. There were pro-Roman and anti-Roman tribes, and pro-Roman and anti-Roman factions among the tribes.
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  185. The first Illyrian emperor came to power only in 268 AD, more than 250 years after the end of the revolt. Simply the Romans would have laughed at your precious concepts of nationality and etnicity. They ad no meaning for them. All that counted was if you were a Roman citizen or not.
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  186. At that time Syracuse was the largest city in the Greek world. The Sicilian Expedition of Athens to subjugate Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War had been described by Isocrates as "a pure act of madness" whose failure turned the tide of a war that the Atheneans were winning until then, and led to their ultimate defeat.
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  187. Arminius was a Roman citizen, an equites and a commander in the Roman army. He chose to be all of those things. None forced the Roman citizenship nor the equites dignitate on him, nor forced him to lead Roman soldiers. He didn't renounce to any of those things and, while being a Roman citizen and a commander of the Roman army, he led his comrades, men and fellow citizens in a trap he prepared. A traitor by any means. Any person doing the same things now would be considered a traitor. Arminius' own brother, Flavus, was also a Roman citizen and a legionary in the Illyrian revolt. He then fought alongside Germanicus against Arminius. The respect the Romans had for Roman citizenship was so that, before the battle of Idistaviso, Germanicus granted a private chat between Arminius and Flavus (the two had to be separated by the legionaries, after Arminius mocked the decorations Flavus gained in Illyria).
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  188.  @Shadowhunterbg  No. Arminius was the son of a pro-Roman chieftain. MAYBE (the thing is absolutely not clear) that Arminius had been a hostage (that, at that time, meant "honored guest") as a child, but he CHOSE to be a Roman citizen, CHOSE to be an equites and he CHOSE to be a commander of the Roman army. NONE OF THOSE THINGS HAD BEEN FORCED ON HIM. At the time of Teutoburg, he was a Roman that led other Romans. HE DIDN'T RENOUNCE TO ANY OF THOSE THINGS. While he was a Roman citizen, an Equites and a commander of the Roman army, he led his comrades, men and fellow citizens in a trap he prepared. Any man doing the same thing now, or in any time, would have been considered a traitor. Arminius' position was not shared by all the Germanics, nor by all the Cherusci AND NOT EVEN BY HIS FAMILY. (Arminius' family was pro-Roman, and pro-Roman was his father-in-law Segeste). Later the Cherusci asked to the Romans to send them Flavus' son, Italicus, to make him their king. Italicus' son was still the pro-Roman king of the Cherusci in their last appearance in the annals. The rest (luxury? In a military camp in Pannonia?) is a fairy tale you chose to believe.
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  189.  @Shadowhunterbg  "The video said"? You know trhat the video is made by amateurs, right? One thing is a video on youtube, another thing are actual sources. So, again, MAYBE (the thing is absolutely not clear) that Arminius had been a hostage (that, at that time, meant "honored guest") as a child, and nothing else. Sorry. The meant was NOT to "make them Romans", even if to expose them to Roman culture was a bonus. "Roman citizen" is a definite thing and a difficult to obtain one. Not all the hostages became Roman citizens. Most of them simply returned to their tribe, or kingdom, when grown up. Arminius could have done the same, but he CHOSE to be a Roman citizen, CHOSE to be an Equites (the highest class of not Patrician born. As an Equites he belonged to the Roman Senatorial rank) and he CHOSE to be a commander of the Roman army. He did all those things because he wanted to. Sorry, any soldier of any army is bound to serve it. Even more if he's an officer. To purposedly lead the man you are in charge of to be slaughtered in a trap you prepared is worse than the treason of a simple private. Legions were mostly deployed in the provinces. Arminius was in Germania because he was a soldier and there were three legions there (and he knew the territory and the language, obviously). His brother was in Illyria at the same time. Arminius was in charge of the scouting cavalry because he was a Roman citizen. Roman officers were in charge of the auxiliares. You spoke about his family. I'm sorry if reality offend you. Pro-Roman is a political stance. It means that he considered to be ally of the Romans more useful than to be against them. What he loved is inconsequential. Arminius was so loved that his own tribesmen killed him. Arminius had never been kidnapped, and none forced him to became a Roman citizen, an Equites, and to join the army. He chose to do all of those things. Sorry, mental fictions don't count. Treason is defined by actions.
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  190.  @Shadowhunterbg  It seems there are countless wrong things you are sure of. So, you are GUESSING. The authors of the video, and some actual historian, did that too. The difference is that actual historians when they are guessing, SAY that they are guessing. They guessed that Arminius and Flavus had been hostages (that, at that time meant an "honored guest) because that was a common practice at the time, not only among Romans. But, while for many historical characters (Pyrrhus, Aetius...) there are sources stating they had been hostages at some point, there is none for Arminius and Flavus. So, again, MAYBE (the thing is absolutely not clear) that Arminius had been a hostage (that, at that time, meant "honored guest") as a child, and nothing else. Judging by your emotional comments on ancient societies, I don't think you had studied any history. Actually to have high-class foreigners to study in Rome was pretty common, and we still have some bi-lingual textbook (obviously those were for students that already knew to read in their own language) used to teach them to read Latin. Culture was more priced than you think but, hear hear WE DON'T KNOW IF ARMINIUS HAD EVER BEEN IN ROME. There is not a single piece of historical evidence that Arminius ever in his life visited Rome. Let alone that he was taken there as a hostage and grew up in the capital of the Roman empire. These are just legends. Had he been an hostage or not in his childhood, that surely ended WAY BEFORE Teutoburg. At that time, instead of simply returning to his tribe. Arminius CHOSE to be a Roman citizen, CHOSE to be an Equites (the highest class of not Patrician born. As an Equites he belonged to the Roman Senatorial rank) and he CHOSE to be a commander of the Roman army. None of those things had been forced on him. He did all those things because he wanted to. Arminius was a Roman citizen and that meant that, for the Romans, he was one of their own. As trustworthy as if he was born into the city. What he was doing in the army was actually the first step of the "cursus honorum", as expected by a young equites. Mind, again, that his own brother didn't suffer any consequence for Arminius' treason. Flavus was a Roman citizen, and so he was trustworthy, it didn't matter what his brother had done. Actually Caesar normally used Gaulish cavalry in his Gaulish wars 8and those were not even Roman citizens). That was common practice at the time, not only among the Romans. Gauls, like Germans, normally fought among them and allied with foreigners to do so. Again, your emotions are inconsequential here. Treason is defined by actions, not by your emotions, (that, again, were not shared by all the Germanics, nor by all the Cherusci and not even by Arminius' own family). Any person doing the same things, now or in any historical period, would be considered a traitor.
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  191. Roman citizen, Equites, and commander of the Roman Army, led his fellow citizens and comrades to be slaughtered in a trap he prepared. Anyone doing the same in any time would have been called a traitor.
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  192.  @xedaslopes3975  He chose to be a Roman citizen, an Equites and a commander in a Roman army. None of those things had been forced upon him. He didn't renounce to any of those things and, while being a Roman citizen, an Equites and a commander of a Roman Army, he led his fellow citizens and comrades to be slaughtered in a trap he prepared. Anyone doing the same in any time would have been called a traitor.
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  193.  @xedaslopes3975  There is not a single source stating Arminius had ever been kidnapped, taken as a hostage, indoctrinated or has left Germania in any moment of his life. All we know of his life before Teutoburg is that he fought for the Romans, learned Latin and gained Roman citizenship and Equites dignitate. He can very well have joined the legion, as a young adult, as an auxiliary. They were not the same the Germanics. the Germanics that saked Rome destroyed the Germanics that fought atTeutoburg (the ones remained after the Roman reprisal) well before saking Rome.
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  194.  @xedaslopes3975  No. Rome wanted to make a province of the territory between the Rhine and the Elbe river. All the tribes that became of a certain importance during the migration age were east of th Elbe at that time. The Goths were still north of the Black Sea. The rebellion marked the end of the indipendence for the Cherusci (that first became a pawn of the power struggle between Svebian factions, then returned to be tributaries of the Empire, asking the Romans for a client king). In general all the tribes that lived in that area had been crushed, and disappeared from history, well before the end of the western Empire. Arminius was so much an hero for his people that they killed him and asked the Romans to have Flavus's son, Italicus, as their king. Arminius was a Roman citizen, Equites, and commander of the Roman Army, led his fellow citizens and comrades to be slaughtered in a trap he prepared. Anyone doing the same in any time would have been called a traitor.
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  195.  @xedaslopes3975  The origin of the Franks is disputed, but all seems to indicate that their main group was composed of Germanics that already lived into the Empire (IE the Batavi).
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  196.  @xedaslopes3975  Or be enslaved by other tribes and disappear from the records.
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  197.  @xedaslopes3975  Because Germanics didn't practice it? They did.
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  198.  @xedaslopes3975  Scale is only given by the relative dimensions. A single Roman was no more likely to own a slave than a single Germanic. Slaves produce the surplus, don't need the surplus. They are not pets that have to be fed, nor priests or warriiros, that are not employed in productive activities. Slavery in Rome had nothing to do with etnicity. Regain Freedom in Roman world was pretty easy, and that's reflected by the dozen of ways it could be done (IE, if a pater familias let a slave to eat with him, he freed him) and by the huge number of liberti. A liberto could acquire full citizenship, and citizens "de jure" were their sons. IE the poet Horace was the son of a former slave that subsequently became very rich.
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  199.  @xedaslopes3975  Yeah. There were dangerous jobs. Being a slave sucked. But it was not that it sucked less anywere else.
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  200. While meals were cheap, fat (oil, fat meat, cheese, butter) wasn't, so it wasn't easy to become obese.
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  201. And who were those "muslims"? "Romans" means a political entity, "Muslims" doesn't. The Turks, that ultimately conquered Costantinopole (not that big deal at that point. Crusaders already did it two times) and put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire, kicked a lot of Muslim asses too.
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  202. For who whants to know what's the rithm of the carmina triumphalia. The capital, undescored letters (four for every line) must be stressed. GA̲lliA̲s caesA̲r subE̲git, NI̲comE̲des CA̲esarE̲m: E̲cce CA̲esar nU̲nc triU̲mphat quI̲ subE̲git gA̲lliA̲s, NI̲comE̲des nO̲n triU̲mphat quI̲ subE̲git CA̲esarE̲m U̲rbanI̲, servA̲te uxO̲res: moE̲chum cA̲lv(um) addU̲cimU̲s. A̲ur(um) in GA̲llia effU̲tuI̲sti, hI̲c sumpsI̲sti mU̲tuU̲m. the (um) was not pronounced, so the line sounded "moE̲chum cA̲lv'addU̲cimU̲s." and "A̲ur'in GA̲llia effU̲tuI̲sti"
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  203. Rome was the start of representative democracy. They had not previous examples to learn from, so they had to try and make mistakes.
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  204. Arminius was a Roman citizen, an equites and a commander in the Roman army. He chose to be all of those things. None forced the Roman citizenship nor the equites dignitate on him, nor forced him to lead Roman soldiers. He didn't renounce to any of those things and, while being a Roman citizen and a commander of the Roman army, he led his comrades, men and fellow citizens in a trap he prepared. A traitor by any means. Any person doing the same things, now or in any period of history, would be considered a traitor.
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  205. WRITE BACK TO POLION, FOR HERCULES!
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  206. Illyrians left no written documents.
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  207.  Adelo Adelo  According to some theory Messapic is loosely tied to Illyrian. Is like saying that Italian and French are the same language. Etruscan is not "easily read" in any modern language. It's not even indo-european.
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  208.  Adelo Adelo  Nico Stillo is not a scientist. He has no scientific credibility.
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  209.  Adelo Adelo  And so? It doesn't mean that the Albanians know etruscan. Greeks have an history even without infering they understand Japanese.
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  210.  Adelo Adelo  See "example". Most of the populations have an history without infering they know an unrelated language.
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  211.  Adelo Adelo  It doesn't matter if I know it or not. I've not to know how to build the Hubble telescope to know what it did. 1) Illyrians left no written documents. 2) According to some theory Messapic is loosely tied to Illyrian. they were not the same language. It's like saying that Italian and French are the same language. It's actually very difficult to say, because THE ILLYRIANS LEFT NO WRITTEN DOCUMENTS. 3) No serious scientist adfirm Albanians can read Etruscan. I've not to demonstrate that those languages were not linked, like I've not to demonstrate that the ancient Albanians didn't have three heads and four penises. THE BURDEN OF THE PROOF IS ON THE ONE THAT ADFIRM, NOT ON THE ONE THAT DENIES. So YOU have to provide actual proofs.
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  212.  Adelo Adelo  So you have not real arguments. Folks like you just choose to believe in fairy tales.
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  213.  Adelo Adelo  No proofs = no argument, sorry. You are only telling tales you like.
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  214.  Adelo Adelo  So still no argument. Just fairy tales.
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  215.  Adelo Adelo  You already said that. In what way that means that Albanians knew Etruscan? That's a delusion, not an argument. Why not Swahili at that point?
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  216.  Adelo Adelo  Niko Stilo is not a scientist and has not scientific credibility. Aristeidis Kollias is a lawyer and has not scientific credibility.
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  217. It was considered a trait specifically of the Germans to live only of milk, cheese and meat (the typical dietary habit of nomadic, not agricultural, people). It was not a common trait of the barbarians, nor were considered cheese and milk foods that only barbarians could eat. Plinius described many kinds of cheese popular in Rome.
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  218. As soon as the artillery was invented, the say became, when in a battle you didn't know where to go any more, to "march to the sound of the guns". Desaix won the day for Napoleon at Marengo by doing so. Grouchy lost it at Waterloo by not doing so.
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  219. Actually Britannia flourished in Imperial time, with its population quadrupling.
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  220. There is plenty of evidences. Pangaea started breaking around 230 millions years ago, at the start of the Triassic period and well before humanity, or modern mammals for that matter. White Europeans and "someone from Africa" are more genetically similar than the members of a single group of Bonobo apes.
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  221. The Roman/Gallic cavalry charged an enemy superior in numbers without a clear aim and on a flat terrain, so giving it the choice of when and where counterattack, and all the time in the world to do it. With those premises, the outcome was decided from the start. The supplies instead were a clear objective, and so the parthians would have not had all the advantages. They should have beaten the Roman cavalry first that it reached the supplies. But the heavily armored Cataphracts were slow, while the mounted archers were agile, but required time to disrupt an enemy formation. Likely the Roman cavalry would have had heavy losses, but it would have inflicted substantial damages too. Light cavaly (and the Roman/Gauls were light cavaly in respect to the cataphracts) revived in early modern age exactly using those kind of tacticts.
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  222. Replace "patriarchy" with an ethnic group, religion or sexual orientation at will, and you'll know how those rant really sound like.
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  223. Human childs are bigger, in respect to the mother, than any other mammal. That's why human childbirth, firs than modern day medicine, was the most dangerous of all. Agricultural societies members lived in close contact with other species (farm animals), so were more subject to diseases that passed from a species to another. That took a high toll on children, that had still to grow their natural defenses.
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  224.  @Nortrix87  Hard to say. Some of the tribes that participated to the attack had been erased form the map, and Rome governed Germania (included the same Cherusci) for centuries through client kings.
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  225.  @Nortrix87  That's modern day "patriotic" narrative. It has nothing to do with 1th century mentality. "Germanic land" is a modern concept. It has nothing to do with how a 1st century Germanic tribesman reasoned. His world was his family, his clan, his tribe. Where that tribe was located, was pretty much indifferent. The "goal" was a struggle of power between Germanic factions. Arminius managed to gain power by leading the anti-Roman faction (represented by some tribe, but there were divisions internal to the same tribes, IE among the same Cherusci) and was briefly able to form the coalition. Following Tiberius and Germanicus campaigns, the anti-Roman faction had been crushed. The pro-Roman faction prevailed among the same Cherusci. Arminius was killed and the Cherusci asked to the Romans to send them Italicus, son of Flavus (Arminius' brother, that remained loyal ro Rome) as king. The son of Italicus was still king of the Cherusci and allied to the Romans in the last recorded appearance of the Cherusci in the annals. The anti-Roman faction gained something from the attack? Hard to say. Some of the tribes that participated to the attack had been erased form the map (and no, their goal was not "we'll all gladly die for the freedom of the Germanics!". The Marsi didn't give a damn for the freedom of the Langobardi. Had they knew the consequences, they would have not participated). Other had been enslaved by other Germanic tribes and faded long before the fall of the Empire. Rome governed Germania (included the same Cherusci) for centuries through client kings.
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  226.  @Nortrix87  It was unpopular for someone, popular for someone else. It was a struggle for power between factions. The anti-Roman faction wanted to gain something form the attack. Something else than simply defeat some Roman legion and then gloriously die with all of their relatives in the retaliation. They wanted to gain preeminence. Some of them gained to be erased form existence, some to be governed by Roman client kings, some to be enslaved by other tribes. Ironically the Germanics that gained more form the revolt were not directly menaced by the Romans at all. Those east of the Elbe river, that gained power, lands and Germanic slaves, due to the weakening of the western Germanics.
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  227.  @ygnihteci00  Contrary to the Empire, the "Germanics" were not a single entity with a single goal. The Goths, that "conquer Rome and its territories" more than four centuries later, were still north of the Black Sea in first century. They had nothing to do with Teutoburg.
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  228.  @ygnihteci00  There were three times that many tribes only near enough to the border to be in direct contact to the Romans, and more unknown to them that didn't knew anything related to Teutoburg. The Lombards infact were not part of the confederation of Arminius, and were part of those that gained from not having been part of it. They subsequently became subject to the Saxons, a tribe from east of the Elbe and that, being est of the Elbe, gained more from the weakening of the western Germanics tribes subsequent to Teutoburg. Then the Lombards migrated east of the Elbe, had been defeated by the Huns, probably become their subject for some time, then, with the fading of the Huns, turned south, contended Pannonia to teh Gepids (another Gothic tribe), in mid 6th century, and entred Italy, at the end of 6th century. Goths did it a century before. There is really not that much that the Lombards did to the Roman Empire. Genetic tests were not available in 1st century, and none cared about them.
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  229.  @ygnihteci00  Some took part and the vast majority didn't. Most of the tribes that took part were long gone before the end of the Western Roman Empire. it doesn't Seem that participating gave any advantage to the participants. it surely advantaged those that didn't participate. Have you seen the theme of the clip before posting? The statements were "Ironically the Germanics that gained more form the revolt were not directly menaced by the Romans at all. Those east of the Elbe river, that gained power, lands and Germanic slaves, due to the weakening of the western Germanics." and "The Goths, that "conquered Rome and its territories" more than four centuries later, were still north of the Black Sea in first century. They had nothing to do with Teutoburg." Those statements are completely true. Your attempt at denegating them is baseless and quite childish. The Lombards didn't conquer the Empire. They conquered a land that had been conquered by the Goths a century before. Your attempt to state them conquering the Empire is baseless, quite childish, and plainly a lie. Modern DNA testing were not available in 1st century and none cared about them or about DNA. The Germanics that fought at Teutoburg and had been whiped out in the subsequent retaliation didn't care at all about the Goths or what DNA they had. Are you really that idiot? (yes, you are)
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  230.  @ygnihteci00  You are evidently too ignorant to even be a troll, or know what a book is, but you are probably already under psychiatric treatment, if not, you should be, given your evident issues. "Wrong, most of them continued to exist and the others simply integrated into or where absorbed by other Germanic Tribes in the area." No, and "being absorbed" is part of being gone, especially when, that's what happened much of the times, the "absorption" was in a condition of subordination. "For like the third time, i never claimed they did, please learn to read properly" Again, you should check the theme of the clip and reading the posts you are answering before listening to the voices in your head. "I never said that the Lombards where the only ones responsible" My statements were "Ironically the Germanics that gained more form the revolt were not directly menaced by the Romans at all. Those east of the Elbe river, that gained power, lands and Germanic slaves, due to the weakening of the western Germanics." and "The Goths, that "conquered Rome and its territories" more than four centuries later, were still north of the Black Sea in first century. They had nothing to do with Teutoburg." At that point you listened to the voices in your head and talked about the Lombards as a rebuttal of the statements, but the Lombards didn't participate in Teutoburg, nor conquered the Empire. They conquered a land that had been conquered by the Goths a century before. The Lombards never seriously clashed with the Empire. I understand your serious mental issues, but you should learn what a book is and read some of them before listening to the voices in your head. "You are again trying to say all of them where wiped out during the scenarios following Teutobourg" No. I'm saying that "The Germanics that fought at Teutoburg and had been whiped out in the subsequent retaliation didn't care at all about the Goths or what DNA they had". You don't need to invent what I'm saying. You talked about genetic tests and German DNA as something relevant in first century, not me. I understand your serious mental issues, but you should read the posts you are answering before listening to the voices in your head.
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  231.  @Nortrix87  And so?
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  232.  @Nortrix87  Yeah. At Tacitus time, that's end of first century, beginning of the second, the Romans still had clashes with some Germanic tribe, and they will have well after Tacitus (mind that the "Germans took advantage of our dissensions and civil wars to storm the quarters of the legions and make a bid for possession of Gaul. This attempt ended in another defeat for them..." was actually the revolt of a Roman general, Lucius Antoninus Saturninus, that had been scarcely aided in his revolt by the Chatti, that Domitian had defeated some year before, with the help of the Cherusci, longtime clients of the empire).Problem is that they were not the same Germanics of Teutoburg, nor the same of the Cimbrian war for that matter (it's actually debated if the Cimbrians were Germanics at all. At best they were a confederation of Germanics and Celts). Contrary to the Empire, the "Germanics" were not a single entity with a single goal. The Goths, that will end the Western Empire, were still north of the Black Sea in first century. They had nothing to do with Teutoburg. Those that had something to do with Teutoburg, generally didn't gain anything from it. Some of the tribes that participated to the attack had been erased form the map (and no, their goal was not "we'll all gladly die for the freedom of the Germanics!". The Marsi didn't give a damn for the freedom of the Langobardi. Had they knew the consequences, they would have not participated). Other had been enslaved by other Germanic tribes and faded long before the fall of the Empire. Rome governed Germania (included the same Cherusci) for centuries through client kings. The Germanics never named themself as a group. There's not a Germanic word to indicate the Germanics. It had been the Romans that classified them as such.
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  233.  @Nortrix87  There was a "Cimbrian" tribe in Jutland, it had been discovered by the Romans at the time of Augustus, and remained in good terms with the Romans, with route trade estabilished, for centuries, but many doubt even they were the same Cimbrians (like there still is a totally unrelated "Cimbrian" ethnic minority in Italy). The etimology of "Cimbri" can lead to many very common words. If they had been the original nucleus of the migration, it's most likely that many other tribes added to it in a snowball effect, until the most renown "Cimbrian" leader has a name that not only sounds Celtic, but literally means "King of the Boii" (a Celtic tribe). In 2nd century BC, western and central Germania was far from a ethnically uniform land. both Celtic and Germanic people inhabitated it, and they still did in 1st century AD, at the time of Teutoburg (when the Celtic Senones still inhabitated Germania). The Celts started to dwindle because, with the Roman conquest of Gallia, they lost deepness of field. Field speech of military commanders are not exactly treaties on ethnology. As said, the Germanics never referred to themself as a separated group. It had been the Romans that classified them. There's not a Germanic word to describe Germanics.
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  234.  @Nortrix87  Also the Gauls were described as tall and blond. Nothing new here. On the contrary. The fact that Strabo's account told of several clashes with the Boii makes more probable that the formation that finally invaded Noricum in 113 AC was composed by many Boii, and supports the fact that a "king of the Boii" was among the main "Cimbrian" commanders, if not the most prominent at all. Romans knew the celtic language, and the only reason to transliterate a name in something with a definite meaning was if that name had that meaning. Another hint are the names "Lugius" and "Claodicus". Lugius can have a German origin, but, in this case, those two names, like the modern "Louis" and "Clovis" (Luigi and Clodoveo in modern Italian) have the same root (hlōd-wīg, famous warrior). In a single German language, those would have been the same name. If they had been transliterated differently, is because there were at least two different German languages involved, with completely different pronunciations. Plutarch wrote more than two centuries after the facts. The fact that a tribe joined the Cimbri doesn't make less probable that others did exactly the same thing, but more probable. Fact is that the Romans knew the Helveti much better than the other tribes of the "Cimbrian" confederation, so they didn't add them to the pile.
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  235.  @Nortrix87  Polyaenus wrote more than 260 years after the facts, and he was not writing a treaty on ethnology, but on the stratagems of war. Actually the account is higly unlikely, since the Teutones, for one, never penetrated into Italy, they had been defeated by Marius at Aquae Sextiae, in modern day Provence, before he turned on the Cimbri. The previous accounts on Marius tactics were pretty different, and much more credible. Having to lead an army of newbies vs. hardened veterans, he first fought a defensive battle, only defending his camp. Then, when the Teutones gave up trying to overrun the camp, he searched for an easy victory over the isolated Ambrones, then, once his men were veterans of two battles, he faced the Teutones in pitched battle and a one-sided slaughter ensued. After Aquae Sextiae the legionaries were on the roll, and the result of the battle of Vercellae vs. the Cimbri had never really been in doubt. Augustus mentioned the homeland of the Cimbri in Denmark because at that time the Romans found in Denmark a tribe that named themself "Cimbri", and remained in good terms with the Romans, with route trade estabilished, for centuries, but many doubt even they were the same Cimbri (like there still is a totally unrelated "Cimbri" ethnic minority in Italy). The etimology of "Cimbri" can lead to many very common words. If they had been the original nucleus of the migration, it's most likely that many other tribes added to it in a snowball effect, until the most renown "Cimbrian" leader has a name that not only sounds Celtic, but literally means "King of the Boii" (a Celtic tribe). In 2nd century BC, western and central Germania was far from a ethnically uniform land. Both Celtic and Germanic people inhabitated it, and they still did in 1st century AD, at the time of Teutoburg (when the Celtic Senones still inhabitated Germania). The Celts started to dwindle because, with the Roman conquest of Gallia, they lost deepness of field. It was Ercolaneum, not Pompeii, and they were a not really statistically significative group, since it was restricted geographicallly, and much of that group was composed of slaves. The average height of Italian males in Roman period had been estimated between 164.2 and 165.4 cm by several studies on skeletons, and legionaries were not "average Italian males", there was a minumum height to be a legionary, so the average legionary war higher. There was an obvious difference with Gauls and Germanics, and infact the Roman historians reported it, but nothing to write home about. Mind that, at that time, height was higly dependent on feeding. Riches and nobles were normally higher than commoners, because they eat better, and riches and nobles composed the first lines among Celts and Germanics, so the impression was for them to be higher than they were in reality on average. Both the Teutones and the Cimbrians had been slaughtered en mass. There had been very few survivors, and much of them didn't survive for long since there were many families that expected a revenge for Arausium. 100 AC Romans were not interested of the precise name of the several tribes they piled up calling them "Cimbri".
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  236.  @Nortrix87  Actually the conglomeration hypotesys is by far the most accepted by the scientific community. Bye
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  237. Arminius was a Roman citizen, an equites and a commander in the Roman army. He chose to be all of those things. None forced the Roman citizenship nor the equites dignitate on him, nor forced him to lead Roman soldiers. He didn't renounce to any of those things and, while being a Roman citizen and a commander of the Roman army, he led his comrades, men and fellow citizens in a trap he prepared. A traitor by any means. Any person doing the same things now would be considered a traitor. Arminius' own brother, Flavus, was also a Roman citizen and a legionary in the Illyrian revolt. He then fought alongside Germanicus against Arminius. The respect the Romans had for Roman citizenship was so that, before the battle of Idistaviso, Germanicus granted a private chat between Arminius and Flavus (the two had to be separated by the legionaries, after Arminius mocked the decorations Flavus gained in Illyria).
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  238. Don't forget that Roman commanders, differently form the hellenistic ones, were supposed to lead from the rear, where they could have a better view of what was happening and take more rational decisions. That was extremely clear to the men. For them, to see the commander forced to take the weapons and fight himself was a source of shame.
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  239. The translation of the Bible into latin was from the original Greek, and made it far more accessible for western folk than the previous version.
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  240. He could have use his cavalry to chase the Parthian supply lines. The Parthians needed a lot of things to fight. Water for the horses, arrows... Surena prepared his supply lines carefully, but they were not invulnerable. This would have given him the initiative, since it would have forced the Parthians to play defensively. Even during the retreat. Several times Roman armies retreated in square formations, so protecting themself from the enemy cavalry. Mounted archers could inflict losses almost without risk, but they were slow in doing it, and the city was only a day of march distant. With the perspective of not acieving a decisive victory, the cataphracts would have been tempted to charge the Romans, so giving them an enemy they could fight in close combat. Mind that the cataphracts were nobles, so their loss was hard to replace.
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  241. The battle had been fought on a flat terrain. The camels carrying water and arrows for the Parthians were not out of view, unless they were so distant to not be of any use. None said that it would have been easy, but it could have been done with some chance of success. Instead the chances of being annihilated remaining still were 100%. The Roman/Gallic cavalry charged an enemy superior in numbers without a clear aim and on a flat terrain, so giving it the choice of when and where counterattack, and all the time in the world to do it, while the infantry did nothing during the engagement. With those premises, the outcome was decided from the start. The supplies instead were a clear objective, and so the parthians would have not had all the advantages. They should have beaten the Roman cavalry first that it reached the supplies. But the heavily armored Cataphracts were slow, while the mounted archers were agile, but required time to disrupt an enemy formation. Likely the Roman cavalry would have had heavy losses, but it would have inflicted substantial damages too. Light cavaly (and the Roman/Gauls were light cavaly in respect to the cataphracts) revived in early modern age exactly using those kind of tacticts.
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  242. Have been you? Speculation is to affirm they had goals not reported by sources or in plain contrast with them. The sources affirm Publius directly charged the enemy cavalry, so he purposedly engaged a superior enemy (that means to not have a clear aim) not the supplies. It seems that you had never been on a flat terrain. Something as big as a single camel is perfectly visible at three km, and even at two it would have been too far from the battlefield to be of much use. The supplies are not teleported on the battlefield after the battle had been engaged as you seem to belive, they had to be caried there, and so they can be hit.
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  243. Rome was still there last time i checked.
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  244.  @brandon9327  Is like saying that China had been taken over by Chinese. How is the Chinese Empire going? Is the Emperor in good shape?
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  245.  @brandon9327  Checking the genetics, the populations of the Roman Empire are the same nowadays that they were during the Empire. Regardless of the alleged "intelligence" (people that state themself to be intelligent actually always sound quite stupid BTW) is well known that the Roman Empire had not been invaded by "Persians".
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  246.  @Woodsie_Lord  That's your "argument"? LOL!
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  247.  @Woodsie_Lord  Then you have also problems in comprehending simple texts. The thread was about supposedly invading a foreign people, opressing them taking their wealth while forcing them to change their cultural practices, and when they fight back, successfully, seeking vengeance. Actually there were many pro-Roman tribes in Germania. The Cherusci were one of them, until Arminius took power (and still there were a strong pro-Roman faction in the tribe, that will prevail in the end, killing Arminius and asking the Romans for a client king). Arminius was a Roman citizen, an Equites, and a commander of the Roman army, in charge of the scouting cavalry at Teutoburg, so a traitor, even for modern standards. His own brother Flavus remained loyal to the Empire, and fought in the legions of Germanicus against him. "Arminius, savior of the Germanics" from the invaders that were oppressing and forcing is '30s narrative. A 1st century Germanic didn't reason like that. For him there was his family, then his clan, then his tribe and that was all. There was not a Germanic word to indicate Germanic people. It had been the Romans that classified them like that. For the Western Germanics, at that time, it was a question of who they had to become tributaries to. The Romans or the Svebian confederation, east of the Elbe. That's why there were pro-Roman and anti-Roman (that were pro-Svebian) factions among them. As already said, among the Same Cherusci the pro-Roman faction will prevail in the end, and they'll end up aiding the Romans, and being aided by them, vs. other Germanic tribes. They dind't prefer the Svebi to the Romans because the Svebi were Germanics. That distinction had no sense for them. In the same Svebian confederation there were the Semnones, that were Celts.
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  248. The horse that native american was mounting was an higly complex weapon that needed millennia of selecting breed to be created. A native american using it was like a Sirian rebel using a TOW missile. He's effective, but his equipment had been made by someone else.
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  249. Why you think Nubians were not mixed or white?
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  250.  @Niani23455  Oh, the great plot to turn N. Africa white...
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  251.  @Niani23455  What statement? Your personal theory that N. Afirca "turned" something? The burden of the proof is in the one who adfirm. So come on. Prove it.
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  252.  @Niani23455  So "the big plot to turn N. Africa white". What was I dodging? That's exactly what you believe. BTW, Cheikh Anta Diop died before DNA testing was available, so he couldn't have proved anything, and anyone going into Egypt and then asking to perform tests on ancient mummies would be taken as a nut. That's not how science works. You have to submit your detailed research plan to the autorities and having it accepted BEFORE moving.
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  253. That was the pace they kept when there was no hurry. Mind that they first had to dismount the camp, then march, then build a new fortified camp.
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  254. Tourists: "Where for Sparta?" Spartan: "THIS IS SPARTAAAA!" Tourist: "Ok, thanks."
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  255. Any Roman citizen that would have raised one from the floor, would have legally adopted him.
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  256. Scissors (the ancient kind).
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  257. "panis ac perna", ham sandwich. There were several recipies. IE the bread was flavored with must, and the ham cooked in dried fig water.
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  258. Papyrus.
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  259.  @animatedawesome5550  Err... no. There were seveal kind of marriage in Rome. The only one where the husband had the same kind of power than a father had over his sons, was the mariage "cum mano". It progressively fell into disuse during the Republic, and in 1st century BC was already a relic of past times. Roman husbands had generally less power over their wives than 19th century westerners had.
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  260. The elevated stepping stones on the streets are due not that much to human but to animal crap. You know, horses do shit A LOT. It was stil a HUGE problem in big cities like New York or London in 19th century.
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  261. There were public toilets.
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  262. The Great Illirian Revolt is a topic by itself. To treat it as a test for Teutoburg (that, in respect, was a rather minor affair) seems way biased.
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  263. There were. But the customs didn't differ that much, because they were all Roman Citizens. The lower classes tried to adhere to the traditions and to follow the example of the notable ones as much as they could.
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  264. The Sicarii committed many atrocities towards the other Jews. None wanted to fight for them.
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  265. Rather strange, given the atrocieties the Sicarii already committed vs the Jews they considered not enough anti-Romans, or were simply in their way.
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  266. There is at least another mycenaean big conflict where chariots had been mentioned, that of the seven against Thebes. In the mith, after having failed his assault, Amphiaraus was fleeing whit his chariot from Periclymenus, when Zeus threw his thunderbolt, and the earth opened to swallow Amphiaraus together with his chariot. The chariot of Adrastus is mentioned too.
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  267. Fresh vegetables don't last. They were probably acquired while on march where available, as part of the non-rations food.
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  268. There were several kinds of marriages. In the marriage "cum manu" it was impossible for the woman to leave the husband if she wanted, while he could repudiate her. However the marriage "cum manu" became increasingly rare, and was only a relic in 1st century BC. In the other forms of marriage, men and women could decide to leave at will and without much ceremonies.
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  269. Chalking the toga... (yeah, "Candidatus" means "whitened", because the candidates worn togas that were made extra-white with chalk)
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  270. Box chariots were protective, but heavy. Quadrant chariots exchanged a little protection for a little lightness. Egyptian chariots were superlight and fast, but fragile, (apt for an archer to rapidly get in and out shooting range). Mycenean rail chariots weren't protective at all, but the railing made really easy to get up and down it (that's why it's believable that they were a "battle taxi" like described by Homer).
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  271. It's really difficult to estimate the number of inhabitants of ancient cities, I've seen estimates ranging from 150.000 to 500.000. It depends also if you consider only the city, or the entire state (many inhabitants were peasants that lived outside the city). It's known that, at that time, Syracuse was the largest city in the Greek world.
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  272.  @ennui9745  Yeah. How a reply on when the Illyrian emperors came to power is relevant to a post on illyrian emperors? Let's see...
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  273. Siege warfare and open field warfare were two completely different things. In the best logistic conditions possible, near to his base, having a clear numerical advantage and with plenty of allies, it took Hannibal six months to conquer the small city of Saguntum. Rome was way bigger. The Romans had more soldiers in the city than those Hannibal had to siege it (and more were in Spain, south Italy and Sicily) and, once he had deployed his army them around the city to siege it, Hannibal would have lost the possibility to manuver, or to quickly group in case a sector was attacked. The Romans instead would have had the choice of what sector to raid, always having the numerical superiority and the surprise.
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  274.  Nom Anor  Actually the Huns had been defeated by an already dying Roman Empire and ceased to exist, they didn't defeat it. In reality China paid tributes to the Xiongnu for 70 years, Much more than the Eastern Roman Empire did to the Huns. What's sure is that more than three centuries had passed since the Han fought someone with a similar name. The Romans defeated many Germanics before the Goths managed to invade the Empire. The Goths were not stronger than those than had been defeated before, It was the Empire that was weaker. Times changes.
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  275. Yeah, absolutely. The pre-Thermopilae agoge was nothing so dramatic. Spartans were rich loafers that, in the Olympyc games, shined only in the chariot race (the competition of the rich loafers). After the Thermopylae, they begun to build the mith of the "tough warriors", hardening the agoge and trying to live up to the mith. In Roman times they took that to the extremes.
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  276. I think you are projecting. Try to listen real leftists sometimes.
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  277. "In dubio pro reo" (if there are doubts, then the defendant must prevail).
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  278. Later Roman armies successfully fended off cavalry charges. They knew the "squares of pikemen" tactic. But those were raw troops.
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  279. The first Illyrian emperor came to power only in 268 AD, more than 250 years after the end of the revolt. Simply the Romans would have laughed at your precious concepts of nationality and etnicity. They ad no meaning for them. All that counted was if you were a Roman citizen or not.
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  280. That's what the ones we call Byzantines did for centuries. They were the Romans, westerners were the Latins.
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  281. 1) Carthaginians were Phoenicians. Middle eastern semitic people. 2) North Africans were generally not black at that time. They were as "brown" as they are today. There was some enclave (described by the ancient sources) where people were mostly black, but those were exceptions to the rule.
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  282.  @andrelove9634  Sorry, what you call "mith" is actual history. What you say you have "studied" are fairy tales. As already said: 'North Africans were generally not black at that time. They were as "brown" as they are today.' "around what time in North Africa the people begin to become brown skin people,as they are today?" is a question without any sense, since there is no evidence people in North Africa having ever had another skin colour.
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  283.  @andrelove9634  Sorry, but the things you call "facts" are fairy tales you like to believe. You have never really studied anything on the matter and obviously you don't know how to study. You only believe what you like more. 1) several waves of "homini" originated from sub saharian Africa, and some of them returned to Africa. That's why, IE, even Africans have a percentage of Nehandertal DNA, when Nehandertals never inhabitated Africa. 2) You don't know what skin colour the homo sapiens had when first expanded in North Africa and out of Africa. Skin colour is more a question of sexual preference than adaptation to climate (see for example the different skin colour among the inhabitants of different islands of Polynesia, that have all pretty much the same insulation and climate) and it's not uniform among sub Saharian Africans. The skin colour and physical traits that you mistake for "human original" are those specific of the Bantu, an ethnic group that originated in west Africa and expanded from there to occupy almost all the sub saharian Africa starting around 1000BC.
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  284.  @andrelove9634  what you call "facts" are fairy tales, because, as you clearly stated, you refuse to follow science. You follow your fantasies. Africans got a percentage of Neanderthal DNA because modern humans that get out of Africa and intermixed with Neanderthals then returned to Africa. As said, several waves of "homini" originated from sub saharian Africa, and some of them returned to Africa.
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  285.  @andrelove9634  Yeah, there had been a study on the percentage of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA on the various populations of the world. Subsaharian African have a percentage of Neanderthal DNA, inferior to that of people out of Africa, but present. Since Neanderthals never inhabitated Africa (they are an evolution of the Homo Heidelbergensis that happened outside Africa), the explanation is that migrations in prehistoric times not only happened from Africa to outside Africa, but from outside Africa to Africa as well. What I write is pretty clear. It's quite evident you are not studying at all.
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  286.  @andrelove9634  What emerged 2 million years ago was the Homo Abilis. We are Homo Sapiens, that emerged 300.000 years ago, so there is 1.7 million years evolution between monkeys and mdern humans, more than enough to change skin colour, provided you are right about the colour of the monkeys' skin. But you are wrong, there is some sample with dark skin, but Chimpanzee (our closest relative) skin colour, if not tanned by the sun, is generally light. Researchers generally think that our early australopithecine ancestors in Africa probably had light skin beneath hairy pelts. “If you shave a chimpanzee, its skin is light. If you have body hair, you don’t need dark skin to protect you from ultraviolet radiation.” (evolutionary geneticist Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania). Hope this helps you realize you had studied nothing and need start doing that before speaking about this topic.
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  287.  @andrelove9634  What you told me had never been said by any scientist. Or who said it to you wasn't a scientist, or you didn't understand him. You don't know, and didn't report here any fact. What you call "facts" are faiy tales. Science works by general consensus. So scientists "generally think". "Sarah Tiskoff" is a scientist (evolutionary geneticist of the University of Pennsylvania). Scientists are a source of mine. Fairy tales are a source of your. You can google at how many images of hairless chimpanzee you want, and see that they generally have light skin. You need to start studying this topic before speaking about it.
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  288.  @andrelove9634  The fact that what you call "facts" are not backed by any scientific evidence.
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  289. landowning yes, wealthy not that much. If you could afford the basic equipment, you had the duty to join the Legion.
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  290.  Afrodisiac  Chariot race was one of the competitions in Olympic games.
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  291.  @rayne_brown  Spartan army in Philip's time was not large at all. That had been precisely the problem that led to the fall of the Spartan power. There were very few citizens that had the right to fight in the army. At Mantinea the entire Spartan army was composed of 3584 men. As for "well trained", they could be marginally better trained than the other Greek formations Philip crushed, but they were still oplites (and very conservative ones). The Macedonian phalanx was a change of paradigm.
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  292. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history.
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  293. Think of easy of transport too. In medieval time to move an Army from Germany to Northern Italy was a big thing. In Roman times they moved them from Spain to Anatolia like nothing.
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  294. It was common, but not a norm.
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  295.  @shapurthegreat8314  If you don't like history, it's not my problem.
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  296. There was fresh water available obviously (Roman acueducts). Wine required preparation (ancient wine was very thick, and had to be diluted) and was served in the tabernae. Posca (50% water and vinegar) was the favoured drink of the legionaries (the vinegar prevented the water to spoil, so it could be carried for long time in barrels and canteens).
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  297.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  Oh, yeah. To pretend to seem intelligent ignoramus like you say to know anything, AFTER. Dismissing the OTHERS' (plural) SOURCES (plural) without being able to provide anything better is the favourite way for ignoramus like you to pretend to seem intelligent. Someone that's not an ignoramus like you would have noticed I was referring to what ignoramus like you usually do. And that demonstrates you know nothing abot logic too (how could it have been otherwise?). YOU are the ignoramus that asked for a source. YOU are the ignoramus that dismissed it without being able to provide ANYTHING better (so who would have appealed to authority?). You did it because that's what ignoramus like you do to pretend to seem intelligent without doing any effort to really learn something, and you appealed to logical fallacies whthout being able to understand them because that's what ignoramus like you do to pretend to seem intelligent without doing any effort to really learn something.
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  298.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  I recognised you as an ignoramus pretending to know something because dismissing the others' sources, without being able to provide anything better, is the favourite way for ignoramus like you to pretend to seem intelligent without doing any effort to really learn something. You pretending to indicate logical fallacies without being able to understand them is a further confirmation. Also stating the others being "mad" is another way ignoramus like you use to pretend to be able to dismiss the others' statements without having to do any effort to really learn something.
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  299.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  I made you the favor of answering your question and provided a source, but you are still dismissing it, WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO PROVIDE ANYTHING BETTER OBVIOUSLY (are you a little closer to understand the terms of the question now?), because that's the favourite way for ignoramus like you to pretend to seem intelligent without doing any effort to really learn something. Also stating the others being "fanboys" is another way ignoramus like you use to pretend to be able to dismiss the others' statements without having to do any effort to really learn something. The matter is not Tacitus being good or bad, but you mocking who made you a favour while, at the same time, you wouldn't be able to provide a better source to save your life. Since you then even pretended to indicate logical fallacies without being able to understand them (because, in your fantasy, to casually name a logical fallacy makes you seem intelligent), nor had contributed to the discussion with anything other than the smug that, in your fantasy, made you seem oh so much intelligent, any statement of you being aware of something is not believable, sorry. Had you not been an ignoramus, maybe you would have recognised the surce of my nickname being a novel (I changed it a little).
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  300.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  So you first asked for a source, and then whined because it was copied and pasted. You thought a "source" had to be an original work written on the spot. You are even more an ignoramus than I previously thought. You don't even know the meaning of the term "source". Like for the logical fallacies, you randomly use the term because you think it makes you seem intelligent.
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  301.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  Stating the others being "mad" is another way ignoramus like you use to pretend to be able to dismiss the others' statements without having to do any effort to really learn something. The matter obviously is not Tacitus being good or bad, but you mocking who made you a favour while, at the same time, you wouldn't be able to provide a better source to save your life.
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  302.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  None cares about your impressions. You asked for a source and, despite you not knowing the meaning of the term "source", Tacitus is one. You could have thanked. It had been a courtesy to answer you. None was obliged. Or you could have simply kept your mouth shut. It would have been a good idea to at least not show to know nothing about anything. Instead you chose to mock the source, despite you wouldn't be able to find a better one to save your life. Because you think that mocking the things the others provide you out of courtesy is a way, for someone that knows nothing, to seem knowledgeable. You can't expect an ignoramus like you to behave rationally, cleverly, or even politely I guess.
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  303.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  You asked for a source and, despite you not knowing the meaning of the term "source", Tacitus, Annales, Book 2-18 is a source. Quoting it instead of sending you to search it was another courtesy. You could have thanked. It had been a courtesy to answer you. None was obliged. Or you could have simply kept your mouth shut. It would have been a good idea to at least not show to know nothing about anything. Instead you chose to mock the source, despite you wouldn't be able to find a better one to save your life. Because you think that mocking the things the others provide you out of courtesy is a way, for someone that knows nothing, to seem knowledgeable. You can't expect an ignoramus like you to behave rationally, cleverly, or even politely I guess.
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  304.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  So, with how you treat who makes you the courtesy to answer you, you think you deserve even more than one, and whine if it doesn't arrive? For someone uncapable to find a source to save his life and unable to discern sources from religious books. You really have an high opinion of yourself and your needs. The matter obviously is not Tacitus being good or bad, but you mocking who made you a favour while, at the same time, you wouldn't be able to provide a better source to save your life. You asked for a source and, despite you not knowing the meaning of the term "source" (infact you mistake them for religious books), Tacitus, Annales, Book 2-18 is a source. You could have thanked. It had been a courtesy to answer you. None was obliged. Or you could have simply kept your mouth shut. It would have been a good idea to at least not show to know nothing about anything. Instead you chose to mock the source, despite you wouldn't be able to find a better one to save your life. Because you think that mocking the things the others provide you out of courtesy is a way, for someone that knows nothing, to seem knowledgeable. You can't expect an ignoramus like you to behave rationally, cleverly, or even politely I guess.
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  305.  @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  "delusional" is another word you throw around without knowing the meaning of, pretending to seem intelligent, otherwise you would have known that delusional is somene that, like you, throws around words he doesn't know the meaning of, pretending to seem intelligent. You don't make yourself a favour by describing yourself. You can't expect an ignoramus like you to behave rationally, cleverly, or even politely I guess.
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  306. ​ @dittmannrudolfrohr2149  "Sufficient" for what? You asked for a source, not for something your ignorance considers "sufficient". You asked for a source and, despite you not knowing the meaning of the term "source" (infact you mistake them for something you consider "sufficient"), Tacitus, Annales, Book 2-18 is a source. You could have thanked. It had been a courtesy to answer you. None was obliged. Or you could have simply kept your mouth shut. It would have been a good idea to at least not show to know nothing about anything.
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  307. I'll not be surprised if, after the Marian reform, some legion decided to adopt an uniform color (not really uniform decorations) for their shields, but no sources confirms or denies that.
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  308. The Spartan laws on inheritage were bound to reduce the full citizens (Spartiates), and so the army since: 1) Spartans could only own land, not commerce. 2) inheritance had to be equally divided among sons. 3) Spartiates had to sit in a Syssitia, and each member was required to contribute monthly with 77 litres of barley, 39 litres of wine, three kilograms of cheese, 1.5 kilograms of figs, and ten Aegina obols, so you had to be pretty rich to sit in one. This way, families with many sons (that could have contributed to the army) became too poor to be full citizens, while the wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer families with few sons.
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  309. Rome's weaknes was that eight legions had been transferred from Germania to Illyria to sedate the revolt. Severus, at Cibalae, thus leading the minor one of the two Roman armies involved, had more men, and more experienced, than Varus at Teutoburg.
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