On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:59 PM Alan Grayson <agrayson2...@gmail.com> wrote:
*> I believe the Roman army was well paid, had a prestigious status in > society, and had superior tactics in battle, using superior weapons, and > perhaps most important was able to fight as a unit. But as Rome expanded it > didn't do a great job in assimilating "the barbarians". Over time they > became incorporated in the Roman army, acquired its weapons, and perhaps > most important learned its tactical methods for fighting as a unit. Thus, > over time, the Roman army lost its advantage, which led to the demise of > the Empire. How correct is my thesis?* > Maybe, but it's not obvious that a barbarian born man couldn't learn Roman battle tactics as well as a Roman born man. So maybe after a century or so of relative peace they lost experience and were no longer battle hardened. Or maybe the Romans didn't get weaker at all and instead the barbarians just got stronger. Or maybe the answer is not even in sociology but in chemistry. The Romans used lead piping extensively for their drinking water and baths, and they used a salt of lead, Lead acetate (Pb(CH3COO)2), to sweeten their wine. Because it was rather expensive only the elite used Sugar Of Lead as it was called, and it's not good for a society if your leadership suffers from lead poisoning because it tends to make people stupid and sluggish. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv29BM9iE_5_Z8Zj4jP6CH8rjCyiKjL1yztvktFJtSNh0g%40mail.gmail.com.
