Who wants to know about ancient Greece or Rome?

[PoBoy321]

WTF, I'll jump on the bandwagon.

[adsman]

Dear PoBoy,

Thankyou for offering your services. Which of these two ancient empires should I play on CIV4?

[PoBoy321]

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Dear PoBoy,

Thankyou for offering your services. Which of these two ancient empires should I play on CIV4?

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends. Athens was the leader in democratic governance and intellectualism in the ancient world. Sparta was a military powerhouse. Rome is probably your best choice since they had an effective democracy up until the civil war, had intellectual hot spots all over the world, but primarily in Alexandria, Egypt, and of course pretty much conquered the whole world, although they did crumble after a long line of crazy emperors.

Just to add, I've never played Civ4, but I'm going to guess that Rome is the right choice.

[adsman]

Also, in your opinion which was the craziest emperor and why?
I think Marcus Aurilius would have been a cool cat to hang out with.

[Ed Miller]

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Just to add, I've never played Civ4, but I'm going to guess that Rome is the right choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm impressed. You care to guess tomorrow's NCAA winners?

[Blarg]

The Romans basically got their pantheon of gods from the Greeks, simply changing their names. But were there Greek Gods or religious storylines they found unacceptable and did not adopt, or changed substantially?

[PoBoy321]

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Also, in your opinion which was the craziest emperor and why?
I think Marcus Aurilius would have been a cool cat to hang out with.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that it's kind of cliche, but Nero. He didn't have a chance of not being crazy from the getgo. His uncle was the emperor Caligula who was having incestual sex with his 3 sisters, including Nero's mom, Agrippina. Agrippina poisoned her brother and Nero took the throne at 17, although his mother was the effective leader for much of his early reign. Oh, and they were screwing too. Eventually, Nero started [censored] some other girl, his mom got pissed, so he killed his mom and for good measure, his aunt.

Nero was also just kind of weird in his own way. He fancied himself an artist, namely a poet and musician, although most people who wrote about him truthfully said he was absolutely godawful, but he was too self-obsessed to care.

Then, of course, there was the great fire and the Christian persecutions. The Great Fire was in 64 AD when a huge fired tore through some of the poorer areas of Rome which Nero apparently had a hand in orchestrating because he had some grand ideas of what Rome should look like, but he needed to clear some space. The legend is that while Rome burned, Nero watched and played his lyre, singing the whole time.

Of course, he couldn't actually take the blame for it, so he blamed a small sect of Judaism, then known only as The Way, but now known as Christianity, and rounded up as many as he could and executed them. Some were crucified, some were fed to lions or dogs and some were burned alive. The irony is that Christians, because of their belief in heaven, didn't show any fear in the face of death which won them respect and converts among the Roman people.

Anyway, long story short, Nero realizes that no one supports him, everyone was conspiring against him and he killed himself. After his death, there was a power vacuum and Rome had 3 emperors in one year.

[cambraceres]

Marcus Aurelius was not one of the crazy emperors, he was tame in comparsion with Caligula, Nero, amd Caracalla. I really can't chose, they were all off their rocker.

[PoBoy321]

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The Romans basically got their pantheon of gods from the Greeks, simply changing their names. But were there Greek Gods or religious storylines they found unacceptable and did not adopt, or changed substantially?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. Romans really adopted their religion directly from the Greeks and believed that their gods were more or less the same as the Greek gods, just with different names. There are some influences from some non-Roman groups in Italy at the time, but Rome believed themselves to be the foundation of the new Troy and accepted the pantheon written about by Homer in the Illiad and Odyssey.

[PoBoy321]

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I'm impressed. You care to guess tomorrow's NCAA winners?

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UConn, Georg Mason, Nova and Georgetown.