Trivia

[Clearchus of Sparta]

Post your interesting facts about the RTR timeframe here. Anything you want but make it interesting and informative if possible.

Here is my offering.

The word trivia comes from the roman "tri via" meaning three roads. The romans used to pin up local news sheets to a tree at a crossroads for others to read. The news was not necessarily important, hence trivia.

If you liked what someone has posted, found it interesting, informative or just plain amusing, hit the little green button with the "+" sign and give the "postee's" reputation a boost

[Finn]

The Roman emperor Commodus, fought and won 1,031 battles in the gladiatorial arena.

[morteduzionism]

The Roman emperor Commodus, fought and won 1,031 battles in the gladiatorial arena.

Really!? I looked him up, maybe I found the wrong one. The one I found was the son of Marcus Aurelius and was said to be pampered and taught intellectual things foregoing military training...

I'm not doubting you I'm just asking for clarification on the specific emperor.

[Finn]

Really!? I looked him up, maybe I found the wrong one. The one I found was the son of Marcus Aurelius and was said to be pampered and taught intellectual things foregoing military training...

I'm not doubting you I'm just asking for clarification on the specific emperor.

I found the factoid at this site.
http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/romanemp.html#f213


Although wiki has a different figure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiat..._as_gladiators

[Clearchus of Sparta]

Carthage leather money - 450 BC
Leather bags were used as money in the ancient city of Carthage, where the idea was that rather than make all coins of small amounts of silver, they would make the significant majority completely of cheap alloy, and the occasional one of pure silver. The coins - including the duds - were then sealed by the state in a leather bag, granted a face value equivalent to silver, and deemed worthless if the seal on the bag was broken.

The system lasted for about 50 years and fell into disuse at the end of the 5th century BC when the increased military success of the Carthaginians - who had invaded Spain - allowed an increased supply of gold and silver from Spanish mines, which became the practical currency probably because it felt real.

[Companion Cavalry]

Scythed chariots were used in armies up until the last century b.c
where a Seleukid military disaster at magnesia due to panicked chariots retreating back into allied lines ended their use.

Little off-timeframe:
Georgians and Armenians known as mamluks were hired
as generals and governors by a remnant of the fatimid caliphate.
They eventually grew powerful enough to overthrow the muslims
and for a short time, caucasus-originated people ruled mesopotamia,
judae, egypt, and eastern anatolia although they were not allied with
the kingdoms from which they came from.

In around 80 years after the overthrow of the muslims and establishment
of the mamluk kingdom the Ottomans overran judae and egypt, but mesopotamia
held on for several more decades under a handful of georgian mercenary generals

[Preskinn]

Awesome initiative to this thread!
I just finnished watching a documentary esentially about Trivia from the empire.
Here's some that I'll remember.

1. The full length of all roads lain by the romans in the empire, was enough to cirkle the globe two times

2. The dome on the Pantheon was the largest in the world, untill the 19th century.

3. Calligula had two huge ships with luxuries such as hot baths and plumbing. Moreover these ships had ball bearings, traditionaly believed to have been invented for the first time by Leonaro da Vinci. The ships are believed to have been more advanced than any other ships untill the 16th century. The ships were salvaged from the botom of a lake near rome by Mussolini, and later burned as part of a nazi retreat.

[Solaris]

Awesome initiative to this thread!
I just finnished watching a documentary esentially about Trivia from the empire.
Here's some that I'll remember.

3. Calligula had two huge ships with luxuries such as hot baths and plumbing. Moreover these ships had ball bearings, traditionaly believed to have been invented for the first time by Leonaro da Vinci. The ships are believed to have been more advanced than any other ships untill the 16th century. The ships were salvaged from the botom of a lake near rome by Mussolini, and later burned as part of a nazi retreat.

How convenient..

[Preskinn]

How convenient..

Come again friend?

[Solaris]

Mussolini always liked to trump up Rome's greatness and modern Italy's ties with the empire, I think it'd be a good propaganda event for Mussolini to discover that those clever Romans invented something 14 or so centuries before it was next used.

And then those evvvil Germans burnt them before the rest of the world go to see them, darn.

[Simon]

Erm... Those ships did exist. I've seen several documentaries on the subject in the last couple of years.

I also read about those (either Suetonus or Flavius Josephes)... I'd have to double check...

It would be important to add that the ships could not be used for sea navigation and spent all of their time at anchor in the middle of the lake...

[khshayathiya]

Scythed chariots were used in armies up until the last century b.c
where a Seleukid military disaster at magnesia due to panicked chariots retreating back into allied lines ended their use.

Scythed chariots are, indeed, recorded up until the 1st century BC, but the reference to the Magnesia battle is doubly incorrect - it did not take place in the first century BC, but rather in 190 BC and was not the final battle to witness the use of the scythed chariot, which was deployed with various degrees of success by Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus (died 63 BC).

[Companion Cavalry]

Khshayathiya, I may have been confusing in the way I said that. I said correctly that they were used until the last century b.c
I mentioned their end of use in Seleukid armies as the battle of magnesia, the two statements are not directly related; although when I re-read my own post I can see why you thought I said something else

edit: I mentioned a battle at Magnesia as an example of why chariots were eventually abandoned as useless

[khshayathiya]

The ships were thoroughly investigated archaeologically, pictures have been taken, drawings have been made. Bits of lead piping are, as far as I know, still in existence after the fire and are a testimony of the intricate heating devices integrated in the body of the vessels by Roman shipbuilders.

The ships had been discovered long before Mussolini - but he was ambitious enough to put in all the necessary resources to dig them up (which meant draining the lake). To say that the dictator had ideological reasons to put in all the effort is one thing, to insinuate the ships never existed is another.

[Solaris]

Calm down guys, I was joking.

[Preskinn]

Calm down guys, I was joking.

But you might have a valid point to, my only source for this info was the film I saw, even though it was a respectable production, you never know with that little hard proof.

Anyways everyone. This thread could easily become a flamefest just due to the nature of the thread - so everyone should be carefull not to ruin the thread.

[Clearchus of Sparta]

Life Expectancy in Ancient Greece

Skeletal remains have led scientists to conclude that the average woman lived to be 35 and that the average life expectancy for men was 46 years

[Clearchus of Sparta]

History of the Acropolis

Acropolis in Greek literally means “the highest point of the town”. While virtually every city had an Acropolis, like Mycenae and Tyrins, the Athenian citadel became synonymous with the word in the minds of most people during the last two millennia. The Mycenaean civilization established many important centers, one of which was Athens. The first inhabitants we can trace to the Acropolis of Athens were Mycenaean Kings who fortified the rock with massive eight-meter tall walls, and built their palaces there in the 14th century BCE. Very little remains from these buildings today, but the most obvious evidence of this era is still visible at the southwest end of the Acropolis, right behind the later Temple of Athena Nike, next to the Propylaia, in the form of a cyclopean wall that was built as part of the fortifications. According to Dontas, Mycenaean kings built a palace at the north end of the rock “where the Archaic temple of Athena was later built, or a little further east on the summit of the hill” (The Acropolis and its Museum, 6). Besides a fort and a place of royal residence, the Acropolis functioned as a place of worship for the Goddess of fertility and nature, and for her companion male god Erechtheus.

Just like Mycenae and Tyrinis, the Acropolis of Athens had its own underground water supply in the form of a deep well, dug at the north end of the rock, which could be used by the defenders during a siege.

[Clearchus of Sparta]

First Capital of Ancient Egypt

The first capital of ancient Egypt was Memphis, a city whose name can be roughly translated into English as "White Walls." Located in Lower Egypt, just below the Nile Delta, Memphis was founded by Menes, the first king of Egypt, around 3,000 B.C. following his unification of the country. During the First Dynasty, Egypt's center of government was located in Memphis because the city united Upper and Lower Egypt. Memphis is famous for the cemetery at Saqqara. According to legend, it is also the site Osiris descended to the Underworld and became the Judge of the Dead.

[Artax]

Here is a few:

1. In order to deter flies from landing on him, Pepi II of Egypt always kept several naked slaves nearby whose bodies were smeared with honey.

2.The Phoenician navigator Hanno was likely the first to circumnavigate Africa, around 500 B.C. He observed that, at the southern end of Africa, the noonday sun shone in the north. This observation sounded ridiculous to the Greek historian Herodotus, who reported the tale, but this report shows that Hanno likely either did circumnavigate Africa, or or at least made a good attempt to do so. He likely wouldn't have been able to imagine the sun shining in the "wrong" part of the sky if he hadn't seen it.