The Glory That Was Rome: Difference between revisions

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The expression goes "all roads lead to Rome"; in fact, the opposite is true. All roads lead ''from'' Rome and some people happen to walk on them the wrong way. The roads were built by the army on their way to conquest. Further, their every stop for the night was accompanied by building a fortified camp. In the morning, it was dismantled so that enemies couldn't use it. They had no fear of using earthworks and engineering in combat, and on at least one occasion they literally altered the face of the Earth.

Alexander the Great is known to have turned an island into a peninsula because the inhabitants made him angry. Not be topped by some pansy Greek, the Legion built a mountain. Why? Because on another mountain there were some rebellious Israelites, and Rome doesn't like rebels. More accurately, the rebels hid on top of a mountain, creating for themselves an incredibly secure fortification. In order to root them out, the Legion built a ramp from ground level all the way to the top of the mountain. Then they killed the rebels (or would have, if they ~~didn~~'t all ~~commit~~ suicide). If the mountain came to Mohammed, it may be because Rome brought it to him.

Alexander the Great is known to have turned an island into a peninsula because the inhabitants made him angry. Not be topped by some pansy Greek, the Legion built a mountain. Why? Because on another mountain there were some rebellious Israelites, and Rome doesn't like rebels. More accurately, the rebels hid on top of a mountain, creating for themselves an incredibly secure fortification. In order to root them out, the Legion built a ramp from ground level all the way to the top of the mountain. Then they killed the rebels (or would have, if they hadn't all committed suicide). If the mountain came to Mohammed, it may be because Rome brought it to him.

In terms of arms and armament, each legionary carried a gladius, and two pila. The gladius was the Roman short sword, intended more for thrusting than for slashing. The pilum was a short javelin with a wooden haft and a long iron point. The javelin could and did kill, but it was also very useful in disabling enemy shields. After sticking in the shield, the soft iron would bend, making it difficult to remove (the barbed head also helped) meaning that the enemy's shield would be burdened with an extra ten pounds of off-balance iron.

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* [[Badass Army]]

* [[Boot Camp Episode]] : The Romans didn't invent boot camp but they might as well have.

* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] : Your typical centurion. In particular, a centurion would carry a stick called a ''vitis'', as a sign of seniority, that he would use to beat his legionaries with regularly. The ''true'' [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]], however, was the centurion ~~known only as~~ ''Cedo Alteram'', which means "Give me another," named so because when he'd beaten a soldier so hard his ''vitis'' broke, he'd ask for another ''vitis'' in order to continue the beating. {{spoiler|(And not quite unlike [[Full Metal Jacket|Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's]] eventual fate, his soldiers partook in a mutiny and killed him.}}

* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] : Your typical centurion. In particular, a centurion would carry a stick called a ''vitis'', as a sign of seniority, that he would use to beat his legionaries with regularly. The ''true'' [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]], however, was the centurion nicknamed ''Cedo Alteram'', which means "Give me another," named so because when he'd beaten a soldier so hard his ''vitis'' broke, he'd ask for another ''vitis'' in order to continue the beating. {{spoiler|(And not quite unlike [[Full Metal Jacket|Gunnery Sergeant Hartman's]] eventual fate, his soldiers partook in a mutiny and killed him.}}

* [[The Engineer]] : The Roman Army was noted for its skill in engineering. When it wasn't busy fighting it spent a lot of its time as a work crew.

** The famed Roman road network was, in fact, built expressly by and for the legions.

** One episode of the [[BBC]] history program ''Timewatch'' discussed Trajan's Column and the campaign it portrays. The show pointed out that the legionaries are the ones shown constructing a fortified camp, while the auxiliaries stand guard -- this was because engineering was something '''Romans''' did rather than leaving it to subordinates.

* [[I Like Swords|I Like Gladii]]

* [[Lost Roman Legion]]: For all their glory and prowess, the Roman legions weren't invincible, and their losses tended to be disastrous. The most famous lost legions are probably the three destroyed in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest].