General Discussion & Comments

**Nota'** · January 20, 2012, 03:47 PM

Lol, just spent 10 mins trying to look for a download thread. I will play some of the IB campaigns while tapping my foot impatiently for this one

.

**Diocle** · January 20, 2012, 10:42 PM

Be patient!..........The Gods and Goddesses will reward you!!

**The_Nord** · January 30, 2012, 10:28 AM

Not if we don't persecute those damn christians! The Roman world must be free of them and prosperity will return!

**Nota'** · January 30, 2012, 01:06 PM

I do that every time. Christian generals still spawn from 100% pagan provinces, don't they know how god damned prejudice and itolerant I am?

**Diocle** · January 30, 2012, 06:35 PM

If you are playing SAJ, in my experience, the birth of christian characters is persistent and cannot be avoided!
You should also look at the ancillares attached to the characters, the diplomats, spies and assasins (if they are christians can influence the religion percentage) and the religion of the faction leader. But you could only try to reduce chances of a new christian guy not eliminate them.
I hope that in the incoming RO the situation will be different! I'm waiting to start the Great Persecution as Diocletianus: using arrows, Damnatio ad Bestias (killed by lions, bears and elephants in the circus) and crucifixion o.c.!
I want a truly and totally Pagan Empire! This is the only way to save Rome!

**chaplain118** · February 07, 2012, 08:07 PM

No way man, the different pagan religions were so unconnected from each other, you'd more easily convince them to kill each other than to fight Christianity. If anything, Christianity saved Rome's coherence and gave her that last few hundred years before snuffing out.

**Diocle** · February 08, 2012, 10:18 AM

It was/is their disconnection that was/is better than 1000 years and more of christian monotheistic obscurantism! In the third century there was a great space for the Pagan cults, christians was not the most powerful religion. I repeat, for them in the time of Diocletianus only one solution: 'Ad bestias!'

**M. Licinius Ibeii** · February 09, 2012, 02:04 AM

Originally Posted by chaplain118

No way man, the different pagan religions were so unconnected from each other, you'd more easily convince them to kill each other than to fight Christianity. If anything, Christianity saved Rome's coherence and gave her that last few hundred years before snuffing out.

Err... no...

I hate to impose some historical pedantry into a nice religious slagging match, but Roman paganism was very tolerantly polytheistic. Nobody except the Christians actually cared if you worshipped more than one god - in fact you were considered wierd if you didn't. So instead of killing each other, the pagan religions indulged in what's known as 'syncretism' - merging together to create a combination god that was an amalgam of the pagan faiths which collided.

So you get Zeus-Ammun, Sulis-Minerva, Diana-Epona; and Roman mystery cults like the Cult of Cybele or the Cult of Mithras that were direct imports from the East.

The only reason they persecuted Christianity was a purely political one. True Christians refused to recognise any God but Yahweh, and so the truly fanatical ones refused to make the official sacrifices to the Cult of the Emperor expected of all good citizens. This was like a Moslem refusing to swear allegiance to the American Flag. Diocletian (and Valerian for that matter) didn't persecute the Christians because they had the wrong faith - they persecuted them because they were dangerous pinko subversives practising a direct act of disloyalty to the official symbol of government.

Okay, pedentic point over, now back to the trash talk. Seconds out: round three!

**SeniorBatavianHorse** · February 09, 2012, 02:08 AM

I think you will find it is spelt 'pedantic' - oh, look what I did there . . .

**Diocle** · February 09, 2012, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by M. Licinius Ibeii

Okay, pedentic point over, now back to the trash talk. Seconds out: round three!

No! not trash talk! No war of religion!

You are right, and your observation are not pedantic, you are telling only the truth.

But I like so much the idea of the great christian persecution of Diocletianus and its morally right and useful objective!

.......My problem is that sometime that idea makes me dream!!!

**~~The Kybrothilian~~** · February 13, 2012, 10:54 AM

If the Romans had adopted Mithras instead of Christ as the main religional character, they may have managed to retain their warrior spirits and their empire for a little longer. Maybe the WRE could have survived until the arab conquest. (I wonder how Mithras cult could have competed against islam, if it had survived christianity?)

**Kanaric** · February 13, 2012, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by scutarilegion

If the Romans had adopted Mithras instead of Christ as the main religional character, they may have managed to retain their warrior spirits and their empire for a little longer. Maybe the WRE could have survived until the arab conquest. (I wonder how Mithras cult could have competed against islam, if it had survived christianity?)

The mithras cult wasn't some scifi proud warrior race fanatical murder cult.

**Diocle** · February 13, 2012, 11:25 AM

Well in the III century Mithraism was probably more widespread than christianity, for sure in the Army.
I prefer to dream about the traditional Pantheon of Rome with all the Cults on the same level, Greeks and Roman Gods, Mithra, Isis and any God the various peoples of Empire want to follow. For me this was the real strenght of the Ellenistic Civilization! Not only one God but the freedom to worship all the Gods.

**Gäiten** · February 13, 2012, 01:42 PM

Um, especially the Eastern/Byzantine Empire adopted a very warlike interpretation of Christianity. IMHO it was a main reason for their long survival.

**Diocletianus** · February 13, 2012, 07:11 PM

One god,One empire, ONE emperor !

BBC Rome,Rise and fall of an empire, Constantine

**Diocle** · February 14, 2012, 09:53 AM

And using this silly slogan after having destroied the Tetrarchic system and the basis of the Roman Civilization, Constantinus (UT EUM DII DEAEQUE PERDANT IN AETERNUM), ruled like an Oriental Tyrant for 25 years and the West felt in 476! Mission accomplished! Bravo Constantinus!

**Chelchal** · February 15, 2012, 01:27 AM

I look at it this way. From about Caesar till Theodosius the Romans controlled roughly the same amount of territory across three continents for 450 years. Like any imperial entity, they had to deal with several problems at any given time, whether military, political, social, economic, or natural in origin. And then in the 5th century, there was an unfortunate and rapid confluence of such events and the whole imperial scheme unraveled.

I don't blame Christianity; it rallied the later Empire against the Sassanids and the Muslims after all. I don't blame lack of martial vigor since the extremely low economic productivity of the era meant that the overwhelmingly peasant population of the 70 to 100 million people of the empire strained to raise, equip, feed and maintain a professional standing army of half a million men. I don't blame decadence since the most acute phase of Roman decadence was under the Julio Claudian dynasty and both the later Pagans and Christians had rather severe ideas of personal morality.

There's no point in comparing the offensive civic spirit of the Polybian era Romans with the Principate or Dominate era Romans or the defensive yet miltarized core of the empire that survived after the Muslim conquests. States, like species (or even individuals) alter unrecognizably over time.

**Diocle** · February 15, 2012, 11:41 AM

You are right Chelcal, only a small observation: probably Islam was a defensive/offensive reaction to the East Roman Empire's Monotheistic Christianity, more than the opposite.