Frank Miller's 300

Off Topic
101

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
mrman wrote:

I saw recently a document (can’t remember it’s name) where they stated that according to new ‘evidence’ greeks and romans had many weapons that were previously thought to been invented much later.

In fact they had gatling-guns (shooting small arrows of high velocity), flamethrowers (greek fire) etc.

There was also some evidence of black powder, but that was still debatable.

I knew the Byzantines had napalm as of about the 7th century AD, which is about the same time gunpowder was first being used in China, but I’ve never heard of any pre-Christian uses of explosives, in Greece or elsewhere. If you remember the name of the document, please pass it on![/quote]

I did a bit of googling around and here is the link of the producing company: http://www.wild-dream.com/

The program was called Ancient discoveries, first of which focused on weapons.

102

[quote]TQB wrote:

Thanks, I love how Herodotus can get the quotes right from a battle where the witnesses presumably perished. Give me Thukydides any day…
No bull…

TQB[/quote]

The Trachian to whom Dienekes spoke was a trader, and therefore not involved in the battle, having left the battlefield before the Persians arrived.

I like Thukydides myself. My favorite quote of his should have a place of honor in the Strong Words column:

“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

103

[quote]mrman wrote:
The program was called Ancient discoveries, first of which focused on weapons.
[/quote]

Thanks! I’ll check it out !

104

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
NeoSpartan wrote:

Good to see someone knows history pretty good.

Well, I try. :slight_smile:

Man, that is a seriously cool picture of a Spartiate king you’ve got as your avatar. What’s that from? Have you got a larger version of the image?[/quote]

Glad you liked it too. It was my fav. pic since I saw it almost a year ago.

I got it from this site:
http://hegemonia.byethost4.com

its the home site of a historical modification of a PC game called Rome Total War, Barbarian Invasion. They are still working on it.

I just copied and pasted it as a *bit and just cropped it from there.

U can also go to http://forums.totalwar.org/...splay.php?f=119

and click on all the Hegemonia: City States previews. They have some really good Hoplite models for the many ancient greek cities. Also, a few of the modders have a banner similar to my Avatar I used the banner for my avatar on another site.

105

If the link didn’t work use this one.

http://hegemonia.byethost4.com/

106

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
There would have been no “Dark Ages”, so by extension no Renaissance, but rather an unbroken succession and evolution of Greek thought.[/quote]

That image sent shivers through my spine.
We would have colonies on Mars by now if that scenario came true.

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
florin wrote:

Very true, but they did not have an intellectual revolution, like the one in the West, the Age of Reason.

Wrong. The Muslims had their Age of Reason, which lasted from the year 750 to 1258 AD.[/quote]

I’ve heard that before, but I think there’s no comparison. The western Age of Reason jumpstarted a continuous progress curve that changed the world in profound and irreversible ways. The brief muslim episode sort of fizzled out and it would have been entirely fruitless without the europeans taking over some of the results.

I don’t know, maybe it was too early, maybe something else happened.

OK, how about this: the strong point of the western Age of Reason is that it really brought this new force, Reason, down to the social structures and everyday life. It changed society entirely. It enabled the very concept of democracy.
I don’t think the same thing happened in the muslim world.

107

[quote]florin wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
There would have been no “Dark Ages”, so by extension no Renaissance, but rather an unbroken succession and evolution of Greek thought.

That image sent shivers through my spine.
We would have colonies on Mars by now if that scenario came true.[/quote]

Except, of course, that we would call the planet Ares.

Yeah, I actually got kind of sad after writing that, because there really is no way to go back twenty-five hundred years and influence events to make it happen.

108

[quote]NeoSpartan wrote:
If the link didn’t work use this one.[/quote]

Thanks, NeoSpartan.

Don’t worry, I’m perfectly happy with my avatar (my hoplite has a machine gun), so I’m not about to nick yours. But here is our Lakedaemonian hegemon, complete from crest to sandals. Pretty fucking cool.

109

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Don’t worry, I’m perfectly happy with my avatar (my hoplite has a machine gun)…[/quote]

Varq, is that from Miller’s Hell and Back?

110

[quote]CC wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Don’t worry, I’m perfectly happy with my avatar (my hoplite has a machine gun)…

Varq, is that from Miller’s Hell and Back?

[/quote]

It sure is.

111

Thats like my favorite Spartan pic. Its just… POWERFULL

ok moving on…

[quote]florin wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
There would have been no “Dark Ages”, so by extension no Renaissance, but rather an unbroken succession and evolution of Greek thought.

That image sent shivers through my spine.
We would have colonies on Mars by now if that scenario came true.

Varqanir wrote:
florin wrote:

Very true, but they did not have an intellectual revolution, like the one in the West, the Age of Reason.

Wrong. The Muslims had their Age of Reason, which lasted from the year 750 to 1258 AD.

I’ve heard that before, but I think there’s no comparison. The western Age of Reason jumpstarted a continuous progress curve that changed the world in profound and irreversible ways. The brief muslim episode sort of fizzled out and it would have been entirely fruitless without the europeans taking over some of the results.

I don’t know, maybe it was too early, maybe something else happened.

OK, how about this: the strong point of the western Age of Reason is that it really brought this new force, Reason, down to the social structures and everyday life. It changed society entirely. It enabled the very concept of democracy.
I don’t think the same thing happened in the muslim world.[/quote]

The thing that REALLY set Western Europe to dominate the entire world was the “Industrial Revolution” (following the Age of Enlightenment). Once that took off there was no other civilization on Earth that could stop the growing Western European influence.

Interetingly, the Japanese got smart after seeing what happened to China, and in less than 50 years they became an industrialized nation.

112

[quote]NeoSpartan wrote:
Interetingly, the Japanese got smart after seeing what happened to China, and in less than 50 years they became an industrialized nation.
[/quote]

Very true, and a good point: Japan went from being a feudal, agrarian society, about as technologically advanced as Western Europe in the 14th or 15th centuries, to being a major sea power, with an empire spanning the Pacific, in a little over sixty years. And they NEVER had an “intellectual revolution” like the European or Islamic “Age of Reason”.

Holy shit… can you imagine if the Greeks had figured out how to harness steam power to run machinery?

I guess that along with the recipe for black powder and plans for the gatling gun, I would need to bring plans for a Bessemer converter and a steam engine with me in the time machine to show to Leonidas. I wouldn’t show everything all at once, but release a new technology every couple months or so, just to keep the old boy on his toes.

113

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Very true, and a good point: Japan went from being a feudal, agrarian society, about as technologically advanced as Western Europe in the 14th or 15th centuries, to being a major sea power, with an empire spanning the Pacific, in a little over sixty years. And they NEVER had an “intellectual revolution” like the European or Islamic “Age of Reason”.[/quote]

They didn’t have to. They simply borrowed the results. Western Europe did all the heavy lifting for them, a few centuries before.

And to give an answer to a previous post:
Of course technology was what carried the western empires across oceans and enabled them to conquer the whole world. But I would argue that technology was not the prime cause. Itself, was a result of huge changes in thinking, the fall of superstition and the rise of Reason that transformed the social landscape in Europe and made possible everything else.

Heron of Alexandria almost did it, but that was later, when the Romans were running the show:

Too early, probably.
James Watt built his stuff in a world that was advancing quickly towards a true democracy, a stable society that encouraged rational thinking and progress. All that did not exist, or was only an embryo, in ancient Rome or Greece.

See if Tim can sponsor you with a crate full of Alpha Male and Spike for Leonidas and his warriors. Not that they needed it, but it would have been interesting to turbocharge the spartan troops a little, then set them loose.