On the next season of Ancient Rome Refocused what would you like to see?  Take the following survey and tell us what you think.

I started pontificating on facebook and some of my fellow history buffs joined in.  Your invited to join in as well. 

Rob Cain:

The other day I was thinking of the end of the Roman Empire. A strange as it sounds…I get depressed when thinking of Rome falling. It then occurred to me, what about a podcast that talks about Rome Falling and a comparison of what it would be like for the U.S.? Don’t get me wrong…if you listen closely to my podcasts… I believe we are due for America’s GOLDEN AGE (like the Greeks), but what an interesting discussion it would make. Can we learn lessons of Rome’s fall for our own that may or may not come?

Joey Hill: 

 I think that like all things, whether we are heading for a Golden Age or not, America will reach its apex and fall, if not to rise again and again, much like the Western and Eastern Roman empire did before us. I too get depressed when think…ing of the fall of the Roman Empire and thinking of what it would be like for us as a country to go through that. I think we have a different mentality than the Romans under imperial rule at this time, but who knows what the future holds. Definiately a great podcast topic however. Love the most recent one, especially the speech given by the commander to his troops before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was wise, well thought out and truly moving to listen to. A wise commander indeed.

Rob Cain

If you really thnk about it, I mean REALLY think about it…we were not always on top. For much of our history the British took the lead and the U.S. turned out to be a pretty good place to live in just the same. I think the so called ‘fall’…if it comes or as you say ‘when’…the payment we will pay as a people is what scares me most. The question that would make a good podcast is what KIND of payment.

Joey Hill

Maybe loss of pride, loss of identity, loss of work ethic, you name it. Unless the payment is made over time to the point when we won’t even notice that our “fall” has even happened. I don’t know yet but I’ll have to chew on it I suppose. It’s depressing!

Bradley Holland

The fall will be soft and you wont know its happening or you wont be in a position where you have time to care. energeticly, the Franks, Saxons, and Germans carved out great Empires using the framework established by the Romans.

The West fell because of plague, depopulation and economic reasons. There were people waiting to fill the vacuum and they did so…

More recently the British Empire faded away….

The British empire still exists in spirit and culture with US inheriting its position but owing its origins to Britain as the founders of the United States did not spring forth from the soil like myrmidons but haled from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the main.

The laws and institutions of the US were moulded by people of British descent and the energy and ingenuity the American people were sparked by people emigrating from the British Empire looking to better themselves.

The US is Imperial in every sense of the word it has invaded and annexed it has maintained hegemony and client states it has colonised and expressed a manifest destiny.

The U.S. is the current inheritor to Rome’s legacy but time changes everything, and the torch will move on and a new region will take up the mantle.

Then again maybe you will have your Aurelian, so don’t write your selves off so early into your existence.

Rob Cain

 Being the son of a English immigrant and a family that traces their family to the Isle of wight, with branches coming from Ireland, more than once growing up I felt the ‘touch’ of British Empire. My mother even came over when she was 15 (1930s) managed to retain a pro-empire attitude in her view of the world. You can translate this as pro-british if you want. I have visited Britian twice in my life, and my father was there in World War II. I still look to Britian with awe, admiration, sometimes guidance, and would in a ‘New York minute’ visit it again if given half the chance. I wonder upon that in some future time after the fall…there might be some post fall ‘yankee’ talking about the good old days under the ‘American Influence’ and visiting New York to walk the streets and remember when.

OK, a little dramatic.

 Bradley Holland

Pax …Britannia was roughly 200 years long 1700ish to 1918ish. Before that it was the Spanish and Portuguese.

I will start to worry about the decline of the US in 150 years time.

That is why I don’t think the Western Empire went away entirely. Enough of its culture and tradition was preserved to enhance or burden the nations of Europe and later Europe’s colonies as they have adopted and adapted the “idea of Rome” and succeeded spectacularly like the US has or failed with unfathomable cost like Germany’s twice contested imperial dreams.

I’m Australian and no matter how different we claim we are from the British – our traditions and laws are British, they have just been shaped by our location and our environment. That is probably why you will find us the Canadians an the New Zealanders always willing to stand beside the US and the UK in a scrap or just being able to cooperate and get along, because we have a common shared heritage and a similar out look on the world.

My first podcast titled: “What have the Roman’s ever done for us?” has reached 145,000 downloads.  I am overwhelmed, and suspicious that its success is more to the fact that the title is a popular Monty Python comedy skit, then an interest in my pontification on Ancient Rome.  Either way, it has given me the opportunity to introduce Ancient Rome Refocused to the pod-o-sphere.   

I just wished I started the podcast with: “And now for something completely different…”  

I think I delivered on that. 

Do you like a good thriller?  Everybody likes a little excitement right?  Such books as Marathon Man, Rear Window, and John Grisham’s 1991 book THE FIRM are just a few that can be classfied in this genre.  If you’re a fan of thrillers, everything from 007 to a good Hitchcock story you might find it interesting what was rated number one and two by the International Writers Organization in the recent book: Thrillers, 100 Must Reads, edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner.  

THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR (1500 B.C.)

The story of Theseus and the Minotaur is over 3,500 years old.  Synopsis: Athens and Crete have a truce, held together by Athens sending young men and women to be sacrificed to the Minotaur (halve man and bull).  The hero volunteers to be its victim, seduces the daughter of the enemy King, and is provided a ball of string to find his way out from the maze where the Minotaur kills its victims.    

and

Homer’s THE ILLIAD and THE ODYSSEY (7th Century B.C.)

The Illiad tells the tale of the anger of Achillies.  The story provides us passages like:

 Dazzling was the sheen of their gleaming helmets, their

fresh-burnished breastplates, and glittering shields as they

joined battle with one another. Iron indeed must be his courage

who could take pleasure in the sight of such a turmoil, and look

on it without being dismayed.

…and within the pages of the Odyssey we have tales of the Cyclops, the enchantress Cerce, and the nymph Calypso, with a room full of suitors being picked off by Odysseus. 

The arrow struck Antinous in the throat, and the point went clean through his neck, so that he fell over and the cup dropped from his hand, while a thick stream of blood gushed from his nostrils. He kicked the table from him and upset the things on it, so that the bread and roasted meats were all soiled as they fell over on to the ground. The suitors were in an uproar…

Now THAT is a thriller if there ever was one. 

Can you guess what was third on the list?