What about the Romans?

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Gandalf13

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Why doesn't anyone here talk about the Romans. In my opinion, they're the greatest civ of all time. Conquered the entire Mediterainian, and added to and passed on the entire Greek achievment.
 
personally
the power of the USA today {or on sept 10th, whatever you prefer} was, IMHO, NOT as powerful as rome at its peak

Rome was Italian, specifically, latin italian. latin italians are more closlet related to southern italians then the northerners. northern italy today is rich, while the south suffers. my father was born in south italy, but had to leave for canada cause people were soo poor. I take great pride in knowing that my people once ruled the world

my name is Nick, and I have 3 middle names, 1 for each grandpa, and a regular one. nick=nichelino in Italian, so from now on, I'm
Nichelino Ferdinando Boragina! the great!!!... well more so the "ok I guess" but hey :)
 
Originally posted by Gandalf13
Why doesn't anyone here talk about the Romans. In my opinion, they're the greatest civ of all time. Conquered the entire Mediterainian, and added to and passed on the entire Greek achievment.

yeah, theyre like the Chinese of the West!

;)
 
Originally posted by Pellaken
my father was born in south italy, but had to leave for canada cause people were soo poor.
Calabria, perchance? My mother's mother is from Potenza. Mostly Italian, but the family name was Norman. My 20xGreat grandfather was one of the Norman fellows who sailed over and conquered southern Italy. Then put your people to work in the fields and impregnated their daughters. ;) Really, much mixing of peoples has gone on since the Romans were around. Cool heritage, in any case!

Rowan, you may be right. :( I luckily have a wife who studied Roman history and a brother in law professor of classics. I still need to read more, tho, as their knowledge just isn't seeping into my skull as quickly as I'd like... Anyway, the brother in law says Gladiator did a good job (for hollywood, anyway).

Has anyone read 'Dinner with Telemachus'? (I think I have the name right) Decadence decadence decadence. Very interesting material about Rome in a whole slew of books. Educational and entertaining!
 
Rome absolutely rules! That'd have to be my favourite Civ in terms of reality. They had the best overall attitude/outlook and culture I've seen. Unfortunately most of the Latins were killed by plague so we don't see anyone around any more who honestly has a large connection via bloodline with the Latins except in isolated regions of Romania and Wales. And there are very few of these people left. Its like the Egyptians. The people there have some connection genetically with the ancients, but they're more related to the Arabs, Berbers, and Nubians. It goes to show how disease has had an inpact on the world.

Like many would say corruption, decadence, barbarian invasion, and the overall unraviling of the Roman infastructure led to its dissolve. But more importantly was disease. Most of the Latins lived in Italy proper with a few more moving to Villas in Britain and Romania. When disease swept through Italy, it had a field day with the more populated regions because of the roads and swift communication of the epidemics, or in some cases, Pandemics. When the diseases killed in these highly populated regions they killed mostly Latins which were the majority there obviously. In c. 200 C.E. smallpox swept through and then aprox. 20 years later a wave of Malaria and Influenza of the Spanish Flu strength swept through killing many more. And then the very final blow came in the 6th century C.E. with Justinian's Plague which was actually the first Pandemic of Yersenia Pestis(Black Plague). This depopulated the German barbarians of North Italy as well as much of Greece and caused an atrocious amount of deaths in Byzantium (hence the name). This is most likely the MAIN reason for Romes downfall as Rome was just as corrupt during the latter part of the Republic and it was militarily weaker. No doubt the Huns did much damage though. This explains how an Empire of Romes magnitude could fall so quickly since most of the less able Rulers(Caligula, Commodus) were just puppet rulers anyway.

Anyway I waffled too much, but I love ancient Rome and it's ideals which are very close to mine. I'm even thinking of getting a tattoo with a wolf with the fasces in its mouth and 'S.P.Q.R.' written underneath to show my respect the Apollonian aspects of western culture.

Heil Rome!
 
Yes, Rome was a great civilization.
You may doubt that decadence and corruption brought about the fall of the Imperium Romanum, but just look at what happened.
After the death of Commodus (180-192 BC), there were four emperors the following year: Pertinax, Didius Iulianus, Niger and Septimius Severus (the latter two proclaimed emperor at the same time). Septimius Severus defeatet Niger, and later, a further rival, Clodius Albinus. He reigned until 211, when his sons Geta and Caracalla succeeded him. Geta was murdered, and the cruel Caracalla reigned until his murder in 217. He was succeeded by Macrinus, Elagabalus, Severius Alexander, and Maximinus. Now we are in the midst of a period between 235 and 284 in which there were several dozens of self-proclaimed emperors struggling against each other. During the same time, foreign aggressions -Goths, Persians, Allamans and Francs to name some- weakened the Roman border because Rome was too much concentrated with itself. During this time, there have been some strong emperors who could have resurrected roman power -Claudius II, Aurelianus- but their lives ended too soon. And when Diocletian finally became emperor in 284, Rome was already so weak that all efforts to resurrect it failed. Diocletians plan failed with Constantine. Constantines empire died with Constantinus (361). It all adds up to each other and all the time, Germanic tribes were gnawing on Rome's border. Rome just didn't counter with strong leaders, and if, they were still unable to prevent the eventual disaster: the coming of the Huns in 375 and the great migrations into the Roman empire. Negotiations failed either because Rome was too stubborn or the emperors were no good diplomats. Diseases, yes, they spread, and they might have added to this as well. But we cannot deny the obvious. Rome fell because it was unable to govern itself in the end. It was too large, perhaps not so in area, but it was too complex! A widespread disease like the black death in the middle ages might even have saved Rome from its fall, because in the end, there were too many people in the empire, too many different people, Rome was a chaos. The efforts of certain emperors to resurrect Rome even hastened the fall because their models left ruins others did not dare to remove or build over, so they built new buildings (in it's own sense) that weren't finished either.
In the end, the fall of Rome was inevitable.
 
quote:
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Originally posted by Gandalf13
Why doesn't anyone here talk about the Romans. In my opinion, they're the greatest civ of all time. Conquered the entire Mediterainian, and added to and passed on the entire Greek achievment.
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Originally posted by cephyn


yeah, theyre like the Chinese of the West!

;)

My thoughts exactly.
 
They are one of the coolest civs ever... Pity they were defeated, in the end in such a shameful way... But at the real end of the roman empire, the fall of constantinople 1000 years later, they at least managed to put up somewhat of a fight.
 
Seriously? there was a need to bump this?

Regardless it helps me make my point, Ancient history is apparantly being rumoured to begin teaching in UK schools at GCSE due to the popularity of historical epics, Alexander, Troy etc (yeah popularity, go figure!).
 
What age is GCSE?

And since there are so many Italo-Americans from the South... any CFCer with roots from Trentino?
 
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