Julius Caesar Greatest man in history.

I really don't get why Caesar has so much press in the west. So what? He defeated a couple of native tribes with tin swords (if they actually had them) and who paint themselves blue. Big deal.

pinguin wrote: The more important man in history is Jesus, followed by Columbus.

Pinguin, everything is relative in this question. If Jesus was not there, there might not been a conservative Christian church denying the earth is round, which means that someone way before Colombus might have found the Americas. You get my point...

Al Jassas wrote: I really don't get why Caesar has so much press in the west. So what? He defeated a couple of native tribes with tin swords (if they actually had them) and who paint themselves blue. Big deal.

"Big deal", indeed.

Very interesting, doc. And revealing.

Reginmund wrote: Al Jassas wrote: I really don't get why Caesar has so much press in the west. So what? He defeated a couple of native tribes with tin swords (if they actually had them) and who paint themselves blue. Big deal.     The Gallic Wars were a huge deal, but I'm guessing you're in tavern mode here.

Yeah the Gauls and Romans were at war for hundreds of years. To get a better idea of caesar I immediatly went to my library during school and took out Suetonius's book "The lives of the caesars" so this will give me a better idea and then I was a second away from taking out a collection of ovids books also. I almost wanted to learn latin lol. I figure most college students won't take out a book on Ovid so i'm pretty much good that it'll still be there in a month. So far this translation about Caesar in a chapter called the "Deified Julius" its weird cause it almost starts off mid of his life and the way he works through events is odd and it seems to skip from event to event; like the book mentions Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and then ransomed off and apparently "Caesar made a joke about how he was going to kill them" and then it never happens. All it says is then Caesar sends his ship to do what he promises almost like a story or something or maybe the translators latin is lacking but I do not know. Though it seemed to leave out what he did or maybe I read over it. Maybe its one of those things like the author had to re word it to be readable. I'm getting to the part where Caesar is doing things and its mentions in the consuleship of "Julius and Caesar" instead of "Hibilius and Caesar" Whoever the hell Hibilius was; so i'm almost to the part Caesar goes and kicks the guals asses cause its already mentioned "Caesar saw the gaulic regions as a way to get rich and powerful."


Edited by Joe - 05 Feb 2011 at 13:57

Constantine XI wrote: Read through Caesar's own commentary of the war. While it is certainly propaganda, it does contain a lot of authentic and informative information. Anyone who knows anything about the ancient world knows that the Romans adopted iron weapons from the Gauls after the Gauls crushed the Romans in the 4th century. Rome may have had a more advanced urban culture, but the Gauls had formidable soldiers and were not primitively armed. The tin swords comment made me laugh, as it is as backwards an understanding of Romans vs Gauls as one can get.

I do want to get that cause I wanna get Vegetius's books also. I feel vegetius's books will give me a better idea about how the Roman military thought. I think I'm going to reread the first chapter of "lives of the Caesars" cause it was "In the Consuleship of Julius and Caesar" instead of "In the consuleship of Bibulus and Caesar."


Edited by Joe - 05 Feb 2011 at 14:02

Sorry Al, but the Gauls were the premiere ironsmiths of their time and even the development of chain mail derived from their iron mongers. True this latter was the trait of their "upper crust" (we will not go into the sense of valor implied by the "naked" in battle aspect of the Celtic culture, but even there formidable shields were no novelty) hence the demeaning of the achievement of Gaius Julius by the dismissal of the Celtic warrior requires some tremendous legerdemain.

Edited by drgonzaga - 06 Feb 2011 at 05:59

drgonzaga wrote:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiQCofKrYAI

Why the hell is there a black guy in that trailer?

Joe wrote: drgonzaga wrote:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiQCofKrYAI Why the hell is there a black guy in that trailer?

Well one could just chalk it up to the impact of the EEOC on even Hollywood (despite a filming on European shores) or be quite sanguine on the topic and acknowledge that by 117 AD Rome reached down into Nubia and the legions were open to enlistment by men wherever found in the Empire. Then there is the iconographic represesantion of the 4th century Saint Maurice of the Theban legion, where he is represented as Black man! We are not discussing "Rasta" history here or the claims that Septimus Severus was a "black" African. The BBC did a piece a while back on the presence of "Africans" along Hadrian's Wall, not that such did not raise some polemical distinctions...

Edited by drgonzaga - 06 Feb 2011 at 07:18

Joe wrote: drgonzaga wrote:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiQCofKrYAI Why the hell is there a black guy in that trailer?

Because movies trade unions force directors to include them, no matter it is not accurate to despict subsaharans in Britian in those historical times. An Egyptian or Ethiopian could be, actually, but the Yoruba, Mandinga and other West Africans were unknown at the time.

By the way, the same unions force directors to despict upper class Romans like Anglosaxon and Scandinavian people, which they weren't. Even more, in the same movie the Celt are despicted a lot more blond that they probably were. Remember that the Scandinavian and Germanic invasions of Britain changed the make up of that country.


Edited by pinguin - 06 Feb 2011 at 08:56

drgonzaga wrote: Joe wrote: I assumed it would be a racial thing that they wouldn't be "full legions" rather as spearman or bow men or something. I thought only men from "italy" proper were allowed to enlist and then later on the mixing began like in the late 300s early 400s with the Foederatus.   No that chronology would be incorrect. While originally under the early Republic. recruitment was limited to the five upper classes of the Roman Republic, by the end of the Social War (87 BC), recruitment was open to all of the free men (not to be confused with freedmen) of Italy (including Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul). Already, in the closing years of the Republic the provincial governors were enlisting freemen from the provinces under their control without any authorization from the Consuls since the privileges of citizenship had been granted to significant numbers of non-Italians. This process had expanded further under the Empire so that by the times of Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla (AD 169-217) recruitment came from the entire Roman World.   Now if one is going to quibble about Hollywood taking "liberties" with history or that in entertainment one must faithfully reflect the past then you might as well forego theatrical events altogether! For if you are going to have Romans speaking English, yet quibble over non-Latin looking legionnaires, one enters the realm of the loonie! Just recall all the ranting Mel Gibson received when he had his Mayans in Apocalypso speaking in Ch'ol , the closest proximate to Classic Maya.

Having an All Latin movie would be amazing. I mean the closest thing to the then language is the catholic church leaders whom still speak fluent latin but thats transformed over the years. I don't care if a movie is "historically inaccurate" as long as its not just BS and completely untrue. Like Gladiator completely awesome movie and I love it. The historical inaccuracies are not a problem. I mean when Russel Crowe takes off that mask and gives the little speech is epic as hell and worth the entire movie.

Another note though how cool would it be to bring latin back as a spoken language. I wanna learn the language and then attempt to hand in papers at my college in all latin; it'd be pretty awesome to learn it enough where you speak it as a second language. It'd probably be more worth it than to learn spanish I think.


Edited by Joe - 06 Feb 2011 at 10:22

Joe wrote: .... Having an All Latin movie would be amazing. I mean the closest thing to the then language is the catholic church leaders whom still speak fluent latin but thats transformed over the years. I don't care if a movie is "historically inaccurate" as long as its not just BS and completely untrue. Like Gladiator completely awesome movie and I love it. The historical inaccuracies are not a problem. I mean when Russel Crowe takes off that mask and gives the little speech is epic as hell and worth the entire movie. Another note though how cool would it be to bring latin back as a spoken language. I wanna learn the language and then attempt to hand in papers at my college in all latin; it'd be pretty awesome to learn it enough where you speak it as a second language. It'd probably be more worth it than to learn spanish I think.

Forms of Latin are still alive outside the Catholic church. Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Romanian are derivations of vulgar Latin (Latin of the soldiers and merchants). Spanish and Italian, in particular, are close enough to the original Latin "sound" to introduce you to Latin with relative easy.


Edited by pinguin - 06 Feb 2011 at 10:42

And we all know how tedious films with subtitles really are particularly if one is fluent in the language requiring captions. Every minute one has to mutter to one's self "that's not what they are saying"!  As for Gibson and his bit on Aramaic and Latin (with members of the Sanhedrin and Pilate no less communicating with each other thus) well such is more than improbable given the fact that the language for communication in that setting was Koine Greek! Or has everyone forgotten that the Sanhedrin was the forum for the Hellenized Jew.

while we are off topic on hellenization of christianity and cinemas dealing with roman-christian relations, i actually enjoyed David Bowie as Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ.  Harvey Keitel as the militant Judas was interesting too.  Of course, Kazantzakis' book was much better.  the movie was banned in Korea, so i had to wait until i moved to u.s.   rather silly now i think about it.

Julius Caesar was great in part bc the traditions of Rome did not impose a patriarchal god as a foundation for civilization.