On Wed, 25 Apr 2018 08:22:27 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/24/2018 7:58 PM, Andre Jute wrote:
On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 1:14:01 AM UTC+1, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:51:23 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2018-04-23 17:48, John B. wrote:

[...]

The Roman Legions apparently marched for about 2/3rds of a day
carrying their gear and weapons - a Century did have several mule
carts assigned for carrying tents and other gear - and then built a
camp before "falling out" for the night. According to Caesar's reports
from Gaul this went on for days at a time.


You believe Caesar's writers? I never did. Whenever they got beaten the
snot out of them they wrote "the winds were unfavorable" or whatever. If
they wrote the truth they'd likely have "disappeared".

Caesar was essentially a politician and wrote his reports specifically
to keep his name before both the population and the rulers of Rome
while he was absent from the city (I believe that he paid to have them
read publicly) and thus they were always complementary. However other
evidence does show that he generally did accomplish when he claimed to
have done.

For example, he claimed to have sold some 53,000 Adualeui into slavery
and independent sources show that the price of slaves in the
Mediterranean area dropped to all time lows in the same period, which
would tend to demonstrate that there was a large influx of slaves,
from somewhere, during this period.
--
Cheers,

John B.

Since you're interested in the period, John B., perhaps you'd like to answer this riddle:
The Romans imported enormous amountseeee of wheat from Egypt. What did they export in return in sufficient amounts to pay for all this grain?

Andre Jute
One of the disadvantages of a classical education is the sheer number of unanswered questions


Not only. Grain in large amounts from across North Africa
and Asia Minor ( imperium oriens) too. My understanding is
that the tax was paid in grain so, as with taxes right here
right now, taxpayer gets nothing. OK, maybe lack of
persecution, which has value. If you discover more on this,
I'm interested; write me.

The Roman Empire, from the earliest days, depended largely on
conquering territories and exploiting them. (which was one of the
reasons for it's ultimate failure) Under the Roman scheme tax payers,
or perhaps more accurately conquered peoples, were placed on earth to
pay taxes. The idea that tax payers should benefit from the taxes
paid, other in a very broad sense, that Rome would station troops in
the taxed territory to protect it from "foreign" invasion, and of
course enforce Roman laws and see that the tax was paid in a timely
manner.

In fact, I suspect that the idea that a tax payer should benefit from
the taxes paid is a relatively modern idea. Certainly in the 1700's
the taxes that the Colonies were paying did not benefit them greatly,
at least in their opinion. The English argued that part of the reason
for the taxes was to support English troops in the colonies which
protected the English colonies from the French and Indians. The
Colonies argued that the war was over. :-)


--
Cheers,

John B.