Julius Caesar battlefield unearthed in southern Netherlands

Post by guh_me » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #30

guh_me wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting. Would you recommend any other book?

For the period, or on the subject? Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a massive six volume beast that covers ~1400 years. The prose is very readable and narratively engaging, but the information is pretty dense, and it's easy to get sidetracked following a citation for the full version of a particular story or anecdote. It took me eight months to read, and I am a pretty quick reader. For the breadth and depth, I…

Thanks a lot for the recommendations - I like both classical antiquity and the subject, therefore all recommendations are welcome. By the way, good remarks; I wish I had more knowledge to continue the discussion! ;)

Post by SEJeff » Mon, Dec 21, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #16

erdewit wrote: post #4

According to Caesar he made 430000 casualties, while historians now estimate it were about 160000. Among these were women an children. On the Roman side there were zero casualties so it was more a genocide than a battle.

> On the Roman side there were zero casualties so it was more a genocide than a battle. While it's certainly true that it meets the definition of a genocide, it's rather anachronistic to call it that. Ancient peoples did not possess our norms and values. To the Romans, the Germanic and Celtic peoples represented an existential threat. And they were correct in that analysis. Periodically, for hundreds of years, German…

Regarding your comments on tribe and ethnicity being an absolute bedrock of the people's identities, much of the middle east is the exact same way. I made the mistake of calling my turkish translator an Iraqi, even though he was born and raised in Iraq, as was his family. It took the better part of 20 minutes to calm him down and make sure he understand I meant no insult by calling him an Iraqi. The western concept of nationalism is very foreign to much of the current middle east even today... in 2015 :/

Re: Julius Caesar battlefield unearthed in southern Netherlands

Re: Julius Caesar battlefield unearthed in southern Netherlands