Alternate History options
loua...@yahoo.com
for a time traveler to change normal history:
1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
2) Massive dose of antibiotics (or other modern medical treatment) to
Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's son who lived for two months,
such that he lived to grow up.
2a. as an alternative, TB treatment given to either Arthur Prince of
Wales (Henry VIII's older brother) or Henry' son Edward.
Louann, working from something of the "great man" school of history.
Will in New Haven
> Of these two, what do you think would be the more interesting point
> for a time traveler to change normal history:
>
> 1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
> stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
> them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
Awfully hard to field all the butterflies but it _might_ mean a big
military advantage for the Romans at a time when they were already
hell on wheels. I don't know that it beats the Germans on their own
ground, generations later, given the terrain etc but it probably keeps
them out of the Empire. But none of that would withstand the political
and economic problems that led to the weakness and dividion of the
late Empire. Probably.
>
> 2) Massive dose of antibiotics (or other modern medical treatment) to
> Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's son who lived for two months,
> such that he lived to grow up.
> 2a. as an alternative, TB treatment given to either Arthur Prince of
> Wales (Henry VIII's older brother) or Henry' son Edward.
These are tough also. I always believed that the whole "rightful king"
business didn't matter much and, if I were going to do alternate
kings, I would have gone back to Harold and have him beat the bastard
or have him sell William on the idea of King Harold ruling England
under the Norman Empire. Talk about <Man who Sold the Moon>
Will in New Haven
--
David Loewe, Jr.
I think it would be interesting to save Henry V of England from
dysentery in 1422.
--
"It's raining soup and we haven't built any soup bowls."
Dr. Jerry Pournelle
David Johnston
<bill....@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote:
>On Aug 15, 8:15 am, "louan...@yahoo.com" <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Of these two, what do you think would be the more interesting point
>> for a time traveler to change normal history:
>>
>> 1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
>> stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
>> them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
>
>Awfully hard to field all the butterflies but it _might_ mean a big
>military advantage for the Romans at a time when they were already
>hell on wheels. I don't know that it beats the Germans on their own
>ground, generations later, given the terrain etc but it probably keeps
>them out of the Empire. But none of that would withstand the political
>and economic problems that led to the weakness and dividion of the
>late Empire. Probably.
The Romans aren't fighting anyone with heavy enough armour that it
makes a difference. Caesar dismisses you as a nut.
Joseph T Major
"David Johnston" <da...@block.net> wrote in message
news:fr96c39o7oaligdej...@4ax.com...
Caesar thinks of the Parthians. Caesar turns to Antonius. "If you can
keep out of my niece's bed long enough to get a dozen of these made and
tried out."
Butterflies frighten Brutus, Cassius, & co. away. Ten years later,
Caesar is in Ctesiphon, saying "Alexander who?"
Joseph T Major
--
Who, with great forebearance, has avoided mentioning Lucius Vorenus, much
less Xena.
David M. Silver
But, assuming the butterflies, not because of stirrups, Joe. See, for
some technical tactical points:
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=36456
Caesar might of seen the possibilities stirrups held out for horse
archers; but he didn't need a great or even significant advancement in
cavalry to defeat Parthian heavy cavalry. All he needed was time enough.
Note the comment in the thread above:
If I remember correctly, at Pharsalus, Caesar had heavy cavalry
opposition from the Republicans, under his old cavalry commander
Titus Labienus.
He allowed them to get round behind him, where they expected to run
amok. Caesar had planned for this, and had equipped his rear ranks
with 10 foot long spears - and wiped the floor with them.
The most significant difference (there were other differences as well,
mainly exhaustion of the troops under Crassus--whose fault it was)
between Caesar at Pharsalus and Crassus at Carrhae was leadership.
Caesar was vastly more experienced, knowledgeable, and brilliant in both
tactics and strategy.
The biggest in-joke in Latin is the beginning of _De Bello Gallico_:
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.
HE then proceeded to so divide them and divide them yet further and
defeat them in detail. Not tactics, strategy.
--
David M. Silver
http://www.heinleinsociety.org
"The Lieutenant expects your names to shine!"
Robert Anson Heinlein, USNA '29
Lt.(jg), USN, R'td
Mike Schilling
"David M. Silver" <ag.pl...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:ag.plusone-CCFBD...@individual.net...
> Caesar might of seen the possibilities stirrups held out for horse
> archers; but he didn't need a great or even significant advancement in
> cavalry to defeat Parthian heavy cavalry. All he needed was time enough.
That is, a suit of mithril armor he could wear under his toga.
Lee Modesitt
> for a time traveler to change normal history:
>
> 2) Massive dose of antibiotics (or other modern medical treatment) to
Sounds like the game of blood and dust.
Howard Brazee
>1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
>stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
>them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
The trouble with this is that a cavalry doesn't fit the Roman culture.
It was about roads and being able to fight a more disciplined style
than its enemies could.
Stirrups will give a temporary advantage to whomever gets them first,
but they are easily duplicated.
veritas
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 05:15:22 -0700, "louan...@yahoo.com"
>
> <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
> >stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
> >them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
>
> The trouble with this is that a cavalry doesn't fit the Roman culture.
> It was about roads and being able to fight a more disciplined style
> than its enemies could.
>
> Stirrups will give a temporary advantage to whomever gets them first,
> but they are easily duplicated.
It reminds me of the cartoon of the King striding out of his tent
drawing his sword and saying to his attendent, "SALESMAN? I don't
have time to see a salesman, I've got a battle to fight, send him
away!" Standing around the side of the tent is a man with a 50 cal
machine gun on a tripod. Caesar probably would have looked at it and
said, "Interesting, but do you see all these dense forests?" I
thought 2a was nice, and TB was and is so awful, I'm assuming that if
they got treatment, others would as well. Or maybe not. Ken
Jack Tingle
I pick 3) ride down any author who writes alternate history novels
about any period of history already covered by more than two previous
authors (using stirrups, of course), and withold modern medical care
from the resulting tattered, battered wretch.
Have I mentioned recently that I consider alternate history one of the
most abused sub-genre's ever concieved? Oh, I have?
Sorry,
Jack Tingle
Gene Ward Smith
news:abd7c3hhj4hqo79od...@4ax.com:
> Have I mentioned recently that I consider alternate history one of the
> most abused sub-genre's ever concieved? Oh, I have?
>
And we should care because ...?
--
"I barf on you all." © Gene Ward Smith, 2007. All rights reserved.
Mike Stone
"Joseph T Major" <jtm...@iglou.com> wrote in message
news:46c32b8c$0$22483$d94e...@news.iglou.com...
>
>
> Butterflies frighten Brutus, Cassius, & co.
away. Ten years later,
> Caesar is in Ctesiphon, saying "Alexander who?"
>
> Joseph T Major
>
No problem getting to Ctesiphon, but _staying_
here - - - ?
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
My father rode a camel.
I drive a Rolls-Royce.
My son flies a jet aircraft.
My grandson will ride a camel.
Saudi Arabian proverb.
loua...@yahoo.com
> Jack Tingle <wjtin...@hotmail.com> wrote innews:abd7c3hhj4hqo79od...@4ax.com:
>
> > Have I mentioned recently that I consider alternate history one of the
> > most abused sub-genre's ever concieved? Oh, I have?
>
> And we should care because ...?
Because if Usenet wasn't all about people giving their own opinions
(while ignoring or disagreeing with the opinions of others as their
fancy takes them) there wouldn't be a "from:" line in the headers.
Tux Wonder-Dog
> Of these two, what do you think would be the more interesting point
> for a time traveler to change normal history:
>
> 1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
> stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
> them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
And that helps Caesar against the Britannic charioteers how?
The British chariot was the cross between light artillery and heavy armour,
with all the manoeuverability of light armoured cars.
I think Caesar would have dismissed it out of hand. A man on horse-back
with stirrups keeping him up there, isn't going to be of much use against
the fortress at Gergovia; nor is it going to be that much use against a
British charioteer on terrain the charioteer knows like the back of his
hand.
>
> 2) Massive dose of antibiotics (or other modern medical treatment) to
> Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's son who lived for two months,
> such that he lived to grow up.
I think this would open up the possibility for the time traveller either to
gain immensely in wealth and influence and eventually become a power in the
land equal to the king; or to be suspected of trafficking with the unseen
powers of darkness. Either way, the resultant history would be so
different it would not bear any resemblance whatsoever to the prior
history.
> 2a. as an alternative, TB treatment given to either Arthur Prince of
> Wales (Henry VIII's older brother) or Henry' son Edward.
>
> Louann, working from something of the "great man" school of history.
Wesley Parish
loua...@yahoo.com
> I think it would be interesting to save Henry V of England from
> dysentery in 1422.
He was a strong, youngish man; probably if some herb-wife had given
him watered wine enough to keep him hydrated he'd have gotten better
on his own. No out-of-time antibiotics and such needed.
loua...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> "David M. Silver" <ag.plus...@verizon.net> wrote in messagenews:ag.plusone-CCFBD...@individual.net...
>
> > Caesar might of seen the possibilities stirrups held out for horse
> > archers; but he didn't need a great or even significant advancement in
> > cavalry to defeat Parthian heavy cavalry. All he needed was time enough.
>
> That is, a suit of mithril armor he could wear under his toga.
I'm not interested in saving Caesar as such. I mentioned him because
he was smart and mentally flexible, ergo more likely to pick up on a
new idea.
IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture* they'd
have loved it. Mention, along with the recipe, that washing with it
after handling blood or open wounds or feces or such really cuts down
on the spread of disease. Then you'd have something.
Louann
*stop snickering.
William George Ferguson
Or you could use modern medicines on the son of Henry VIII and Elizabeth
Blount, but that would have pretty disastrous results on a modern Canadian
SF writer :)
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Dorothy J Heydt
Depends. When Martin Padway fell back to the sixth century in
_Lest Darkness Fall_, he found that soap had been invented. (And
de Camp did an admirable amount of research: remember the sign in
the tavern, "No Religious Arguments Allowed"? but the patrons
get into one anyway and chairs and heads get broken.)
While we're at it, I suppose everyone has read C. J. Cherryh /
Leslie Fish, _A Dirge for Sabis_? It's the first of a fantasy
trilogy, which pretty clearly started out as an idea in Cherryh's
mind, "What if the Romans had invented gunpowder and cannon, would
that have saved the Empire from falling?" and quickly mutated (I'm
not entirely sure why, maybe it would've taken too much research)
into "So you have an empire sort of like Rome, it's being invaded
by barbarians, would the recent invention of gunpowder and cannon
save it? Oh yeah, they've got magic too..."
Well, the answer is, No, gunpowder and cannon don't save [Rome],
but the people who just invented them manage to escape the fall
of the city and set up somewhere else.
The other two books in the trilogy are framework by Cherryh /
writing by people other than Fish, and they're impossible. But
the first one is pretty good.
I still wish they'd taken it straight, though, with the fall of
Rome.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Michael S. Schiffer
news:1187282926.6...@a39g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:
>...
> IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture*
> they'd have loved it. Mention, along with the recipe, that
> washing with it after handling blood or open wounds or feces or
> such really cuts down on the spread of disease. Then you'd have
> something.
Would it help? In the 19th century, Semmelweiss had major trouble
convincing *doctors* of that, despite much greater familiarity with
both soap and disease. (And even now, when the germ theory of
disease and the utility of sanitation is well-established, there
are regular reports that doctors and other health-care workers
skimp on washing, leading to significant in-hospital infection
rates.) How likely is it that the Romans would a) be convinced
that soap was better than their oil-and-strigil method of bathing
and b) be persuaded to extend its use to outside the bathhouse
where it might have some effect on disease rates? Especially given
that the effect is mostly statistical and long-term, rather than
immediate and personal like a charm worn against disease.
(While I can't find anything particularly authoritative, Googling
indicates that soap was known to the Romans as of the 1st century
BC and recommended for washing by Galen a couple of centuries
later.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
John M. Gamble
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <1187282926.6...@a39g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
>loua...@yahoo.com <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>On Aug 15, 2:13 pm, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill...@hotmail.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>>he was smart and mentally flexible, ergo more likely to pick up on a
>>new idea.
>>
>>IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture* they'd
>>have loved it. Mention, along with the recipe, that washing with it
>>after handling blood or open wounds or feces or such really cuts down
>>on the spread of disease. Then you'd have something.
>>
>>*stop snickering.
>
>Depends. When Martin Padway fell back to the sixth century in
>_Lest Darkness Fall_, he found that soap had been invented. (And
>de Camp did an admirable amount of research: remember the sign in
>the tavern, "No Religious Arguments Allowed"? but the patrons
>get into one anyway and chairs and heads get broken.)
>
You don't actually say: did such a sign exist? Was it found in
an archeological dig?
--
-john
February 28 1997: Last day libraries could order catalogue cards
from the Library of Congress.
David Loewe, Jr.
It's still some level of intervention.
--
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."
- Thomas Jefferson
David Loewe, Jr.
<msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>"loua...@yahoo.com" <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>...
>> IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture*
>> they'd have loved it. Mention, along with the recipe, that
>> washing with it after handling blood or open wounds or feces or
>> such really cuts down on the spread of disease. Then you'd have
>> something.
>
>Would it help? In the 19th century, Semmelweiss had major trouble
>convincing *doctors* of that, despite much greater familiarity with
>both soap and disease. (And even now, when the germ theory of
>disease and the utility of sanitation is well-established, there
>are regular reports that doctors and other health-care workers
>skimp on washing, leading to significant in-hospital infection
>rates.) How likely is it that the Romans would a) be convinced
>that soap was better than their oil-and-strigil method of bathing
>and b) be persuaded to extend its use to outside the bathhouse
>where it might have some effect on disease rates? Especially given
>that the effect is mostly statistical and long-term, rather than
>immediate and personal like a charm worn against disease.
>
>(While I can't find anything particularly authoritative, Googling
>indicates that soap was known to the Romans as of the 1st century
>BC and recommended for washing by Galen a couple of centuries
>later.)
You could always use something along the lines of Jerry Pournelle's
idea from Janissaries (voiced by Private. Warner, IIRC) - telling the
people that blessed soap and boiled holy water would help fight off
the demons that caused sickness.
--
"I think between us, Bill Clinton and I have settled any lingering myths about the
brilliance of Rhodes scholars."
Kris Kristofferson
loua...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> Or you could use modern medicines on the son of Henry VIII and Elizabeth
> Blount, but that would have pretty disastrous results on a modern Canadian
> SF writer :)
He's having so much fun with all the elf sex, I hate to ruin it for
him.
http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743471563/0743471563.htm?blurb
Howard
>
>
> While we're at it, I suppose everyone has read C. J. Cherryh /
> Leslie Fish, _A Dirge for Sabis_? It's the first of a fantasy
> trilogy, which pretty clearly started out as an idea in Cherryh's
> mind, "What if the Romans had invented gunpowder and cannon, would
> that have saved the Empire from falling?" and quickly mutated (I'm
> not entirely sure why, maybe it would've taken too much research)
> into "So you have an empire sort of like Rome, it's being invaded
> by barbarians, would the recent invention of gunpowder and cannon
> save it? Oh yeah, they've got magic too..."
>
> Well, the answer is, No, gunpowder and cannon don't save [Rome],
> but the people who just invented them manage to escape the fall
> of the city and set up somewhere else.
>
> The other two books in the trilogy are framework by Cherryh /
> writing by people other than Fish, and they're impossible. But
> the first one is pretty good.
>
> I still wish they'd taken it straight, though, with the fall of
> Rome.
>
Yah, this was one of my first disappointments with Cherryh. I liked
the first book a lot, and remember almost nothing about the 2nd and
3rd. I wish she played it straight, with no magic.
Dave Empey
>
> IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture* they'd
> have loved it. Mention, along with the recipe, that washing with it
> after handling blood or open wounds or feces or such really cuts down
> on the spread of disease. Then you'd have something.
>
> Louann
>
> *stop snickering.
>
The 'net seems to think they had some kind of soap or soap-like stuff,
but used it as hair pomade and for cleaning fabrics; one suggestion
is that early soaps were too smelly to be attractive as a body cleaner.
Apparently in the 2nd century CE Galen mentioned washing the body
with soap, so the idea was around.
--
Dave Empey
Remember, if you're doing any major experiments in stellar
dynamics, always mount a scratch star first! --Richard Todd
Michael S. Schiffer
news:3e59c3de1cjbt7nia...@4ax.com:
Sure, but then it's competing with a hundred other charms. During
the 17th century, there was a fad for the "weapon salve": treating a
wound by putting a salve on the weapon that caused it, while doing
little to the wound itself other than keeping it clean and dry.
Unsurprisingly, this did as well or better than other current
treatments. But not enough obviously better that it was prevented
from falling out of fashion-- probably in part because the presumed
important part didn't actually require that the wound be kept clean,
which would tend to obscure the already noisy data.
Likewise, if the soldiers are using soap and boiled water because
they're blessed, then surely in a pinch you could bless stream water
or standing water, or use kitchen grease instead of soap, as long as
you kept the prayer the same. (And when people wind up dying of
infections, anyway, there's no obvious reason not to switch to
carrying an icon or drinking a tea of four-leaf clovers instead.)
It's demonstrably possible, within limits, to do public health
campaigns that persuade people without modern educations to take
simple steps to prevent disease. (They'll do it imperfectly-- with
our without modern educations-- but still often enough to make a
difference.) I just suspect it's tougher than having the
Connecticut Yankee show off his future wonders to the local leader
or trying to con people into using it. Though a more realistic
process may not make all that good a story.
Dorothy J Heydt
Dorothy J Heydt
I could even deal with the magic, since Fish handled it rather
nicely. A lot of it was chemistry in a clever plastic disguise,
and the rest was music.
I think the difference between the first volume and the other
three was the difference between Fish and the other two writers,
whose names I cannot even remember.
Default User
> IIRC Romans didn't have soap. With their bathhouse culture* they'd
> have loved it.
One of the Crawford Killian "Chronoplane Wars" novels featured Rome
circa 100 AD taken over by fundamentalist Christians. One of their
changes was to introduce soap into the bath houses, not always to
everyone's liking.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Richard R. Hershberger
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 05:15:22 -0700, "louan...@yahoo.com"
>
> <louan...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
> >stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
> >them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
>
> The trouble with this is that a cavalry doesn't fit the Roman culture.
> It was about roads and being able to fight a more disciplined style
> than its enemies could.
I recently read Adrian Goldsworthy's biography of Caesar and am
currently finishing his history of the Punic Wars. The Romans most
definitely had cavalry. There is a reason that one social class in
Rome was called the equestrian order. The Roman army was infantry
with cavalry support, but the cavalry was an necessary component.
> Stirrups will give a temporary advantage to whomever gets them first,
> but they are easily duplicated.
This is a good point. The other point is that it isn't clear to me
how much of an advantage stirrups would be. The Romans had saddles,
and I gather quite effective ones. They may not have been up to the
task of medieval-style lance charges, but in the greater scheme of
world military history medieval-style lance charges are pretty
uncommon regardless of stirrup technology, and only effective under
limited circumstances.
Richard R. Hershberger
Howard Brazee
>The 'net seems to think they had some kind of soap or soap-like stuff,
>but used it as hair pomade and for cleaning fabrics; one suggestion
>is that early soaps were too smelly to be attractive as a body cleaner.
>
>Apparently in the 2nd century CE Galen mentioned washing the body
>with soap, so the idea was around.
I did enjoy Turtledove and Tarr's _Household Gods_, with them covering
themselves with oil, and scraping it off. He's a historian though.
I'm not thinking of any other F&SF showing primitive ablutions in a
new (to me) light.
Howard Brazee
by L. Sprague de Camp - and that's the telegraph.
philos...@yahoo.com
Nancy Asire (Book 2, Wizard Spawn) and Mercedes Lackey (Book 3, Reap
the Whirlwind)
Rebecca
Dorothy J Heydt
I know I read that one. I really did. I remember nothing about
it.
and Mercedes Lackey (Book 3, Reap
>the Whirlwind)
Oh heck. No wonder.
Tux Wonder-Dog
> What Caesar would have found to be very useful has already been done -
> by L. Sprague de Camp - and that's the telegraph.
amen to that! Mind you, that would've impacted the political situation in
Rome quite substantially, as well. I can't work out all the details just
at the moment, but if his opponents had gotten control of it ...
ppint. at IMT
how...@brazee.net "Howard Brazee" objected:
> "loua...@yahoo.com" <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
>>stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
>>them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
>
>The trouble with this is that a cavalry doesn't fit the Roman culture.
>It was about roads and being able to fight a more disciplined style
>than its enemies could.
- i would say that it _would_ fit well into both the roman
culture - patrician youth was quite familiar with the horse,
and loved to avail itself of any opportunity to look dashing
(especially if it brought with it the chance to land skull-
crushing blows upon enemies), and country-raised kids of the
lower classes would mostly've learned to ride *something* -
and into military strategy & tactics, too - the roman ala,
or cavalry wing, was an important part of any roman army in
the field, though in later times larger bodies of horse were
liable to've been drawn from roman clients & allies, rather
than have been shipped out with the foot.
and later yet again, the army was divided into relatively
low grade foot defending strong points on and near the border,
the praetorians, who dominated the capital city and imposed
the emperor's will - often as not, after having imposed him -
upon the populace, and a smallish number of mobile striking
armies, for whom being mounted upon horses, and having wagon
train-type supplies and "tail" (including the pay-chests) was
essential.
- all the decent roman generals were well aware of the desir-
ability of surrounding their enemy if at all possible - and,
failing that, at least flanking them - and then driving them
onto "the meat-mincer", the heavy legionnaires with shield,
plate, helm, pilum & gladius; step forward, thrust, twist to
disengage sword from body, step forward (over body), thrust,
twist to disengage sword from body, step forward (over body),
thrust...
if you could not surround or flank your enemy, nor pin them
against some obstacle they could not or would not leave un-
defended, when losing they could and would flee successfully
if they were mounted and you were not; and if _they_ were
also roman legionnaires, unsurrounded and unflanked, then you
were in for a long, hard and very punishing slog of a battle
that would cost you about as many casualties as you inflicted:
*not* a prospect that appealed to many generals - or their men.
- i believe the eastern roman empire's cataphracts did adopt
the stirrup, though not necessarily a forged metal one; i've
not read up on this since seeing some early report of leather
stirrups, though, so i'm definitely not up to date on it.
i suspect that it was rather the absence of the bloody long
lance that reduced the effectiveness of the cataphract in a
direct charge: could this have been due to the absence of any
long, straight & strong timber in the mediterranean littoral?
(- "roman decline due to lack of pine", anyone? *g*)
>
>Stirrups will give a temporary advantage to whomever gets them first,
>but they are easily duplicated.
>
- not if there are no survivors.
- love, ppint.
[the address from which this was posted bounces e-mail;
please change the "f" to a "g" and drop the "v" if you
wish to cc. or e-mail me.]
--
"only two groups of people in society actually behave
in a completely logical, self-interested way: one of
these is economists themselves; the other is psychopaths."
- "the trap" - bbc2 18/3/07 [3/18/07 for merkins] 21:55 GMT
Howard Brazee
("ppint. at IMT") wrote:
>>Stirrups will give a temporary advantage to whomever gets them first,
>>but they are easily duplicated.
>>
> - not if there are no survivors.
There's always an enemy.
The Roman empire survived so long because the most effective army of
the time was one that required an expensive discipline - sort of the
way the British Navy was later.
Give them a new technology can allow them to conquer more *now*, but
if it makes war easier, the empire won't last as long, as its
comparative advantage won't last.
Matthias Warkus
> On 16 Aug 2007 18:54:57 GMT, Dave Empey <dem...@cruzio.com> wrote:
>
>> The 'net seems to think they had some kind of soap or soap-like stuff,
>> but used it as hair pomade and for cleaning fabrics; one suggestion
>> is that early soaps were too smelly to be attractive as a body cleaner.
>>
>> Apparently in the 2nd century CE Galen mentioned washing the body
>> with soap, so the idea was around.
>
> I did enjoy Turtledove and Tarr's _Household Gods_, with them covering
> themselves with oil, and scraping it off.
Which works surprisingly well, by the way - did you ever notice how,
when you massage someone using lots of oil, after some time it dislodges
all kinds of crunchy black stuff from their pores? This works even with
a person who just showered, so apparently it cleans out stuff that soap
doesn't. (It works especially well on the back, which most people don't
scrub very vigorously when showering.)
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Joy Beeson
<War...@students.uni-marburg.de> wrote:
> Howard Brazee schrieb:
[snip]
> > I did enjoy Turtledove and Tarr's _Household Gods_, with them covering
> > themselves with oil, and scraping it off.
>
> Which works surprisingly well, by the way - . . .
It's the *only* way to get chain grease off your hands -- I carry a
small container of industrial-strength hand cream and a few paper
towels for that purpose. I used to carry olive oil -- but after
cleaning up a leak, I switched to semi-solid.
Grease is also the least-painful way to get paint off your skin. Thick
grease is best, because you can put it on thick and let it soak for a
while.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Alexey Romanov
> Of these two, what do you think would be the more interesting point
> for a time traveler to change normal history:
>
> 1) Take Julius Caesar aside for ten minutes and show him a saddle with
> stirrups, including the way a cavalryman with stirrups can stand in
> them and strike with the full momentum of the horse behind it.
Give him a very very close acquaintance with it.
--
Alexey Romanov
"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many
for appointment by the corrupt few."
- George Bernard Shaw