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

  1. "It's over Pharnapates! I have the high ground!"
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  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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