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On 1/6/2018 at 2:12 PM, Clueless Northman said:

The thing to keep in mind is that Procopius had also been the pretty much official historian of Justinian's reign, writing blushingly about his glorious conquests. The sycophantic nature of the job probably was too much for him and he eventually caved in and spilled his loathing for the guy on paper. After having licked his boots for so long, he clearly was bitter.

As for restoring the Empire, Justinian overstretched it. It was already obvious during the Gothic War, Belisarius and co were always undermanned and outnumbered. Conquest was only possible because the generals were awesome. The Justinian plague definitively buried any hope of reconquering the rest of the Empire, though. Had Justinian been less greedy, he could've strenghened the newly conquered provinces and the Empire might have had a more solid grip on Central Mediterranean, before a successor Basileus pushed West - or the next Emperors would've had an easier time resisting Sassanids and then the Arabs, because Byzantium's manpower wouldn't be so stretched and depleted.

 

Well, ancient historians were quite clear on the nature of the conquest: out of 6 mio Gauls, 1 mio had been killed and 1 mio had been taken into slavery to Italy.

Actually, Cato the Younger - though also a political opponent boosted by their mutual hatred - was so appalled that Caesar basically exterminated a whole 300K tribe in Belgium that he proposed to the Senate to hand Caesar over to the survivors, so that they could deal with him :D

 

 Julius Caesar was perhaps one the worst calamities ever befall  the Roman Republic and human civilization.   

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4 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

 Julius Caesar was perhaps one the worst calamities ever befall  the Roman Republic and human civilization.   

Oh, go jump in a lake!

It wasn't him who bought all the land and put slaves to work on vast unmanaged estates to no one's benefit.

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16 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Oh, go jump in a lake!

It wasn't him who bought all the land and put slaves to work on vast unmanaged estates to no one's benefit.

Sorry the local lake is frozen.

 You are aware that when he burned Ptolemy's fleet at Alexandria that   he damaged  the Library at Alexandria, a number of scrolls were burned and lost. The consequences of his little stunt was that the set back human progress 1000 years. His actions and choices  set into motion events that would bring out the down fall of Rome centuries later.  He was a ruthless self-serving egotistical tyrant. 

 

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19 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 You are aware that when he burned Ptolemy's fleet at Alexandria that   he damaged  the Library at Alexandria, a number of scrolls were burned and lost. The consequences of his little stunt was that the set back human progress 1000 years.

Which, of course, you have no credible source or evidence of. Yeah, some building that was part of the Library was burned down. We're not even sure what it was, from what it looks like, the main Library wasn't there, and some suspect it was the place where books "borrowed" from the passing ships were copied, or some secondary storage place for doubles.

As for his actions in Rome, the Republic was in such a sorry state that it would've been overthrown or massively changed in the next decades. Hard to guess what would've happened then. On the one hand, a lot of capable people were purged by Augustus and co, so having some of them surviving and ruling might have been interesting. On the other hand, it also means a Rome that wouldn't be ruled by Augustus for 45 years, with the huge boost to stability of the whole State and empire (that's one of the key reasons why the Empire was so successful and lasted for so long, there would be no splitting up or major contestation against the regime after such a long reign, as opposed to what happened, for instance, to Alexander's empire).

Or you can just keep babbling 5th grade history book nonsense.

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If Julius had taken better care in the distribution of his political power the Empire might never have come about, I'll give you that. But the tools at his disposal were perilously inappropriate to the tasks he needed them to perform. Mark Antony was a very capable military commander (almost as fun in real life as in some of the more outlandish portrayals) but as a state actor he was positively repugnant. If not for his weird cult connections I don't think Caesar would have ever mentioned the man when in Gaul. We can argue all day about whether or not Antony and fellow Caesarean loyalists were altogether fit to lead Rome in the wake of Caesar's death, but the fact is that they were never really put in a situation to succeed by their leader.

For a man who generally showed an impressive level of foresight and ability to process the big picture, ole' Julius was shockingly naive about his own mortality and how to ensure the continued existence of the Republic.

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28 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Which, of course, you have no credible source or evidence of. Yeah, some building that was part of the Library was burned down. We're not even sure what it was, from what it looks like, the main Library wasn't there, and some suspect it was the place where books "borrowed" from the passing ships were copied, or some secondary storage place for doubles.

As for his actions in Rome, the Republic was in such a sorry state that it would've been overthrown or massively changed in the next decades. Hard to guess what would've happened then. On the one hand, a lot of capable people were purged by Augustus and co, so having some of them surviving and ruling might have been interesting. On the other hand, it also means a Rome that wouldn't be ruled by Augustus for 45 years, with the huge boost to stability of the whole State and empire (that's one of the key reasons why the Empire was so successful and lasted for so long, there would be no splitting up or major contestation against the regime after such a long reign, as opposed to what happened, for instance, to Alexander's empire).

Or you can just keep babbling 5th grade history book nonsense.

Thank you Clueless for enlightening me    

Yes I know the empire lasted a  quite while.  In the west  The Western Empire endured to 476 .  The Eastern empire endured till 1453   both had periods of stability and periods of instability.  AndI do concerted that all likelihood the Republics  would not  have lasted quite that long 

Actually Pompey not Ptolemy so my mistake there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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36 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

If Julius had taken better care in the distribution of his political power the Empire might never have come about, I'll give you that. But the tools at his disposal were perilously inappropriate to the tasks he needed them to perform. Mark Antony was a very capable military commander (almost as fun in real life as in some of the more outlandish portrayals) but as a state actor he was positively repugnant. If not for his weird cult connections I don't think Caesar would have ever mentioned the man when in Gaul. We can argue all day about whether or not Antony and fellow Caesarean loyalists were altogether fit to lead Rome in the wake of Caesar's death, but the fact is that they were never really put in a situation to succeed by their leader.

For a man who generally showed an impressive level of foresight and ability to process the big picture, ole' Julius was shockingly naive about his own mortality and how to ensure the continued existence of the Republic.

Haha. HBO's Rome?

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1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

If Julius had taken better care in the distribution of his political power the Empire might never have come about, I'll give you that. But the tools at his disposal were perilously inappropriate to the tasks he needed them to perform. Mark Antony was a very capable military commander (almost as fun in real life as in some of the more outlandish portrayals) but as a state actor he was positively repugnant. If not for his weird cult connections I don't think Caesar would have ever mentioned the man when in Gaul. We can argue all day about whether or not Antony and fellow Caesarean loyalists were altogether fit to lead Rome in the wake of Caesar's death, but the fact is that they were never really put in a situation to succeed by their leader.

For a man who generally showed an impressive level of foresight and ability to process the big picture, ole' Julius was shockingly naive about his own mortality and how to ensure the continued existence of the Republic.

Consul for life  and then  Dictator of Rome , Caesar was not too keen to share power with anyone.

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He'd been planning to take power since before his Time In Gaul .  His book The Conquest of Gaul. which covered his exploits from 58 to 51 BC became quite a  bestseller in Rome . From a Pr standpoint , It made him quite the hero in Rome.  Interesting thing about that book is that he talks about him self in the third person.:mellow:

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Just now, GAROVORKIN said:

He'd been planning take power since before his Time In Gaul .  His book The Conquest of Gaul. which covered his exploits from 58 to 51 BC became quite a  bestseller in Rome . From a Pr standpoint , It made him quite hero in Rome.  Interesting thing about that book is that he talks about him self in the third person.:mellow:

Goddamn right he does! Wouldn't catch Jace committing genocide in the first person, Dummy!

Everybody knows that when you liquidating peasants you got to get that liquid capitol, 'cause capitol is the letter in Caesar!

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12 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

There was nothing extra legal about being Dictator.

Although Consul for life is pretty anti-democracy.

In the time of the Republic. A Dictator was  appointed in time of crisis , But it was  intended to be temporary.

Being consul for life apparently wasn't enough for Julius Ceasar.

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5 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

In the time of the Republic. A Dictator was  appointed in time of crisis , But it was  intended to be temporary.

Being consul for life apparently wasn't enough for Julius Ceasar.

You shut your mouth, he was the hero of the popularii!

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

What would the world look like today if General MacArthur had his way and was allowed to drop 50 A-bombs on China?

Turtledove is currently writing a series about it. According to him a fair bit of the West Coast ends up radioactive.

Edit: Apparently aforementioned series was finished last July.

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17 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

There was nothing extra legal about being Dictator.

Although Consul for life is pretty anti-democracy.

As Garavorkin said, there is something extra legal when you overstep your duties and length of office. Dictator is at most a 6-months long tenure. And usually shorter, a dictator supposedly resigning once the crisis he's supposed to deal with is over. Some lasted a few weeks, if I remember my Livy correctly.
Still, Caesar wasn't the first dictator to stay in office longer than legally allowed. Sulla was supposedly and extra-legally granted no term limit, but he eventually resigned dictatorship - and eventually all powers - and didn't keep that position outrageously longer than expected. Of course, Caesar never had any intention to resign and him being proposed as wannabe-king wasn't a mere accident, he definitely wanted to be the autocrat for life - something some of his backers possibly didn't expect.

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On 06/01/2018 at 7:12 PM, Clueless Northman said:

The thing to keep in mind is that Procopius had also been the pretty much official historian of Justinian's reign, writing blushingly about his glorious conquests. The sycophantic nature of the job probably was too much for him and he eventually caved in and spilled his loathing for the guy on paper. After having licked his boots for so long, he clearly was bitter.

As for restoring the Empire, Justinian overstretched it. It was already obvious during the Gothic War, Belisarius and co were always undermanned and outnumbered. Conquest was only possible because the generals were awesome. The Justinian plague definitively buried any hope of reconquering the rest of the Empire, though. Had Justinian been less greedy, he could've strenghened the newly conquered provinces and the Empire might have had a more solid grip on Central Mediterranean, before a successor Basileus pushed West - or the next Emperors would've had an easier time resisting Sassanids and then the Arabs, because Byzantium's manpower wouldn't be so stretched and depleted.

Perhaps, but Justinian’s reconquests ensured that the Mediterranean was a Roman sea again, and sea power gave the Romans a major advantage over their great rivals, the Persians. Until the coming of the railroad being able to link your empire together by sea was a source of great strength. It ensured the Romans had strong internal lines of communication and trade which the Sassanians, a land power, did not possess. The Eastern Roman Empire was more powerful than the Persian, in economic and military terms, in no small part because of this fact. Driving the Vandals out of North Africa, and the Ostrogoths out of Italy could be thus said to have strengthened the Empire by once again making Rome dominant in the Mediterranean.

There are signs that the two empires recognised how much Rome benefited from its control of the seas. During Justinian’s reign the Persians attached a great deal of importance to getting a toehold in the western Caucasus, in Lazica (now western Georgia). Fighting actually continued there after the Romans and Persians made a truce across most of the border between their two empires. The reason appears to have been that securing the seaboard there would have allowed the Persians to build a fleet in the Black Sea and menace Constantinople and the northern flank of Anatolia. Enormous Roman resources were thrown into this theatre to prevent this from happening.   

The downfall of the ERE probably has little to do with Justinian or the great plague. It came about because of the slow escalation of hostilities between the ERE and the Persians culminating in the unusually long and destructive final Roman-Persian war of 602-628, combined with the fortuitous timing of Muhammand's endeavours in Arabia. 

Rome and Persia were actually at peace (more or less) for over a hundred years, from the defeat of Julian the Apostate in Mesopotamia in 363 AD until the Sixth Century. However, beginning in 502, or thereabouts, hostilities commenced again, and the Sixth Century saw four major Roman-Persian wars. The final Roman-Persian war lasted a quarter of a century, and began at the start of the Seventh-Century, in 602. During the course of this conflict something happened which had not happened previously, and the Empire was gripped by a major civil war while embroiled with the Persians. The reigning Emperor, Phocas, was opposed by Heraclius, the son of the governor of Africa, and the disorder this caused seems to have prevented the Empire from mounting a strong defence. By the time Heraclius deposed Phocas and took the offensive against the Persians, Khosrau II had made substantial gains in Mesopotamia and Heraclius initially met with disaster trying to throw him back.

Unlike his predecessors, Khosrau II also seems to have taken the prospect of reviving the old Achaemenid Empire very seriously, and wanted to continue the war long after he could have probably extracted humiliating terms from the Romans (as previous Persian kings might have done). The inability of the Romans to oppose him effectively seems to have spurred him on, and the war ended up lasting 25 years, with the ERE close to destruction. It appears that Khosrau II overreached though, and Heraclius, supported by Turkish allies, eventually invaded Mesopotamia while Persian forces were practically at the gates of Constantinople, inspiring a palace coup in Ctesiphon. Remarkably, after a war lasting a quarter of a century, and which almost saw the ERE destroyed, the two empires reverted to status quo ante. 

All of this ensured that Rome and Persia were both exhausted and denuded of revenue and martial vigour. The war of 602-628 was considerably longer and bloodier than any previous conflict. In particular, it had brought the ERE almost to the brink of annihilation, something which had never happened before. And it just so happened that Muhammad had chosen this moment to decide he was the seal of the prophets and unite Arabia under what was likely an apocalyptic cult. Neither Rome or Persia proved able to resist the early Muslims and this was surely because of Muhammad’s remarkable timing. It is likely there was never a moment when both major powers of the Near East were so weak as they were in 632-640, and their populations so dispirited. 

Given how utterly the Muslim conquest of the Near East reshaped the history of the world, the 602-628 war, the final Roman-Persian war, ought to be recognised as just as momentous and epoch-ending a conflict as WWII.

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4 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Poor Heraclius, he broke that Persian threat so bad that he lost Egypt to the followers of Muhammed.

Yeah, although things seemed to get a lot worse after Heraclius took over before they got better. The Romans suffered a major defeat in Cilicia, under Heraclius's leadership, in 613/14 and after that the massive territorial losses started rolling in; Jerusalem in 614, Egypt in 618/19 and Constantinople was besieged in 626. Phocas was executed in 610 and it is a bit murky from extant sources how bad things had gotten by that point. 

Personally, I think there is a good case to have Heraclius, or his son, Constans, as the last Roman Emperor (as opposed to Romulus Augustulus and Constantine XI). It is hard to regard the rump state that survived the Muslim conquests as the Roman Empire, so that's when I start calling it Byzantium. 

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