I remember reading they didn't do it either though there was another reason given with mine. Simply that they could not be arsed, the Romans had better things to do with their time.
History questions not worth their own thread
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I remember reading they didn't do it either though there was another reason given with mine. Simply that they could not be arsed, the Romans had better things to do with their time.
GinandTonic
Saphire w/ Schweps + Lime
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I thought a symbolic patch of ground was ploughed with salt, though on the grander scale they had to stick with the tried and tested burn-stuff-and-poison-the-wells strategy.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
They certainly tried to grow things later since they founded a colony there, so sewing the ground with salt would be counter productive.
This is what I was led to believe also. It symbolised that Carthage would never rise again and was not meant to actually stop anything from growing.
While salt obviously was an important commodity of some worth, I doubt it could be called "rare" - hardly more so than fish or olives for example. After all, Mediterranean is quite salty and Rome itself was built amidst friggin' salt marshes.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
I haven't studied this issue in depth, but was the French intervention in Mexico an overall terrible idea? I can't imagine how, even if the initial invasion were successful, that Maximilian could've held the throne for long.
ParkCungHee
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Overall terrible idea is about the size of it. However, Maximillian did seem to have some initial support, mainly amongst the clergy and landholders of course, but pretty much everyone who was hoping he'd bring some tranquility to Mexico. He of course, totally botched that, and then NOBODY wanted him on the Throne.
AFAIK the Latin salt marshes developed after Rome's ascension vs the Latin League (after which Latium went into decline). Salt was a highly valued spice. (Salt continued to be used to preserve foods until the spread of refrigerators.) For comparison, copper was a valuable metal until it was replaced by iron; iron weapons could be afforded by many more than bronze weapons.
(Wikipedia salt quote: )
Aside from being a contributing factor in the development of civilization, salt was also used in the military practice of salting the earth by various peoples, beginning with the Assyrians.
It is commonly believed that Roman soldiers were at certain times paid with salt.[1] [2] This, however, is a misconception: 'salary' derives from the Latin word salārium, meaning money given to soldiers so they could buy salt.[3] The Roman Republic and Empire controlled the price of salt, increasing it to raise money for wars, or lowering it to be sure that the poorest citizens could easily afford this important part of the diet.
It was also of high value to the Hebrews, Greeks, the Chinese and other peoples of antiquity.
Already in the early years of the Roman Republic, with the growth of the city of Rome, roads were built to make transportation of salt to the capital city easier. An example was the Via Salaria (originally a Sabine trail), leading from Rome to the Adriatic Sea. The Adriatic Sea, having a high salinity due to its shallow depth, had more productive solar ponds compared with those of the Tyrrhenian Sea, much closer to Rome.
During the late Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages salt was a precious commodity carried along the salt roads into the heartland of the Germanic tribes. Caravans consisting of as many as forty thousand camels traversed four hundred miles of the Sahara bearing salt to inland markets in the Sahel, sometimes trading salt for slaves: Timbuktu was a huge salt and slave market.
In the Old Testament, Mosaic law called for salt to be added to all burnt animal sacrifices (Lev. 2:13).
The Book of Ezra (550 BC to 450 BC) associated accepting salt from a person with being in that person's service. In Ezra 4:14
, the servants of Artaxerxes I of Persia explain their loyalty to the King. When translated, it is either stated literally as "because we have eaten the salt of the palace" or more figuratively as "because we have maintenance from the king." In the New Testament, Matthew 5:13 Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." He added that if the salt loses its flavor, it is good for nothing but to be trampled. Jesus said this in order to show his disciples how valuable they were and this saying is commonly used today to describe someone who is of particular value to society[original research?]. In addition, the preservative quality of salt is in view here to show how the disciples were called to preserve the society and the world around them from moral decay. On another occasion according to the Gospels, Jesus commanded his followers to "have salt within them".
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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They were perhaps gambling on a different outcome for the civil war in the USA?
Anyway, it wasn't a big investment for France, and on the unlikely chance that the civil war ended in a draw I guess that having an "ally" in Mexico placed France in a very good position to make a grab for the pacific coast lands of the current USA. This may have weighted when the plan was made.
ParkCungHee
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The only part the American Civil war played in the plan was the fact that the Civil War meant the the United States could do vitrually nothing to oppose them, while normally America would have done anything in it's power to stop them. They hoped they could consolidate their hold on Mexico by the time it ended, regardless of the outcome, to consolidate their grip on Mexico and present the Americans with little choice but to accept it.
Mad Man
Your lord and master
How much of the outside world did Ancient Rome know about?
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
so they went as far as china. not surprising considering a Byzantine Emperor requested help from Song China. about what i don't know.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
You've heard of the silk road I assume?
Huayna Capac357
Deity
About what? The Turks/Arabs/Mongols!
Mathalamus
Emperor of Mathalia
probably the first two. china was getting owned by the mongols.
Quackers
The Frog
Anybody around here remember the Cold War?
What was the general "feeling" towards the Soviet Union - a massive superpower had nukes pointed at all your cities and that a nuclear war could happen at any minute. What did it feel like that a totalitarian one-party state had the most advanced nuclear weaponry in the world?
I'd be bricking it tbh.
What was the general "feeling" towards the Soviet Union - a massive superpower had nukes pointed at all your cities and that a nuclear war could happen at any minute. What did it feel like that a totalitarian one-party state had the most advanced nuclear weaponry in the world?
I'd be bricking it tbh.
civver_764
Deity
Who was the first European monarch to visit the New World and when?
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Maria I of Portugal and the entire House of Braganza transferred their court to Brazil in 1808, which would be the first instance of a monarchy being established in the New World. As far as I know, she was also the first monarch to come to the New World whatsoever, though I'm unsure about that.
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