A legion in India?

[Jona Lendering]

The Sassanians captured ten of thousands Romans in their battles against them. Especially after the disaster at Edessa in 260AD.
We were told that many of them were used for constructing streets, bridges and more. Why not some fighting for the Sassanian king Shapur I? The Sassanians of used captured warriors for their own puposes, sending them to far borders away from their own cultural background.

Shapur I campaigned after his 3rd Roman campaign agains the Kushans and expanded Sassanian overlordship till India.

It's more than "we are told", actually: two bridges (at Pol-e Dokhtar and Shushtar) and one city (Bishapur) have survived. The story is certainly within the realm of the possible, that's for sure.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

But this is all speculation....surely they would have fallen off the edge of the world if they had gone that far east? :|

[Gäiten]

But this is all speculation....surely they would have fallen off the edge of the world if they had gone that far east? :|

Never!
Due Roman engineering ingenuity they would have built a bridge crossing the edge to the next universe :wink:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Of course!!!! Silly me... :roll: :lol:

[Goffredo]

Some other thread listed common errors about antiquity. Maybe, if it hasn't already been done, we should also add the false myth that ancients believed the earth to be flat. I would guess that almost every educated man after 3rd century BC would think the earth as a sphere! And I don't even think the medievals (the educated ones) believed otherwise. Of course there might be some exceptions but I think that I can claim, without risking major attacks, that the official culture believed in the sphere model. The debate was how big the sphere was (and Columbus was indeed wrong in thinking the earth small enough to make a trip to the far east but lucky enough to bump into an unexpected landmass).

jeff wyss

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

That was a joke actually Jeff.
But was Gallileo not threatened with excommunication for saying the earth was a sphere and revolved around the sun...?
I know the Greeks had knowledge the earth was a sphere and also calculated the circumference quite accurately.

[Jona Lendering]

Some other thread listed common errors about antiquity. Maybe, if it hasn't already been done, we should also add the false myth that ancients believed the earth to be flat.

Done; the list of all errors is here.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Hmmm, I have seen XIIII and XIV......

[Goffredo]

Galielo di NOt get in trouble with saying the earth was a sphere. He got in trouble by saying that the earth really did orbit the sun at the center. Had he just said that copernicus' sun centered theory was only convient model and had he not insisted that the sun really was at the center and the earth really did orbit around the sun then he would not have gotten into trouble. The problem was subtle.

[Jona Lendering]

Galielo di NOt get in trouble with saying the earth was a sphere. He got in trouble by saying that the earth really did orbit the sun at the center. Had he just said that copernicus' sun centered theory was only convient model and had he not insisted that the sun really was at the center and the earth really did orbit around the sun then he would not have gotten into trouble. The problem was subtle.

It's even more subtle. Whether the earth moves around the sun or the other way round is irrelevant to the Church's teachings about salvation. The Vatican astronomer Clavius had, about half a century before Galilei, accepted the Copernican model as a plausible hypothesis. At issue was Galileo's claim that the Aristotelian system was wrong.

Now that was a serious matter, with direct consequences for the Church's teachings about salvation: after all, both Luther and Calvin had objected to the use of Aristotelian terms (e.g., on transsubstantiation). Galileo's criticism was a challenge to the Church's authority, nothing less, and he came dangerously close to apostacy.

Worse, he had no decent arguments. If you want to prove -to stick to the original example- that the earth moves, you must show that stars are visible under different angles in winter and summer (the stellar parallax). This was impossible until Bessel finally did it in 1834. Galileo's other arguments (e.g., the tides), were a lot better.

I am aware that pope John Paul II has apologized for the condemnation of Galileo - but this was a case in which the Vatican did not really have to apologize. It was Galileo who was bluffing: he claimed that he had shown that Aristotle had been wrong. He was right, as we now know, but he had not proved his case, and had given it an over-interpretation that the Inquisition could only interpret as heretical. The judgment -Galileo admitting his error- was not unreasonable, and it was only after 1700, when the Newtonian system had shown its qualities, that Galileo became a "martyr for free science".

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

At issue was Galileo's claim that the Aristotelian system was wrong.

".

Well, now thats a whole other ball game........they should have crucified him for such blasphemy.......
hock:

[Goffredo]

I don't want to quibble with the great Jona. But...

Galileo was on a collision course with Aristole on several things. Dynamics, mutability and imperfection of the celestial spheres and the removal of the earth from the center of the universe. And yet Galileo got in trouble for having insisted Copernicus was right while Artistole wrong about the placement of the earth. Indeed Copernicus never addressed the field of dynamics and, not having a telescope, did not see those horrible scars on the surface of the moon or the ugly spots on the suface of the sun. The scars and spots could be brushed away as imperfections not of the sky but of the telescope. Galileo insisted the spots, scars and innumerable new stars he saw were true while skeptics could say they didn't need to look into the telescope because there was no proof that what one would see was real. But to move the earth WAS a big issue that could't be ignored.

Many thinkers at the time knew what a contradiction was and they would have recongized one when they saw it. It would have been a contradiction to be relaxed about who was moving, the sun or the earth, and yet consider an attack on Aristotle as an attack on the church. Aristole's whole edifice was to be consistent and you just couldn't muck around with the placement of the earth.

[Jona Lendering]

I don't want to quibble with the great Jona.

I can agree to disagree - we're way off topic over here. I should not have digressed.

[Narukami]

Returning to the topic... somewhat...

This from the Press Trust of India:

http://www.ptinews.com/news/198567_Kera ... e-in-state

[size=150:1iphlqcm]Kerala wants Indo-Italian study centre in state
[/size]
STAFF WRITER 16:4 HRS IST
Thiruvananthapuram, July 28 (PTI) Kerala has asked the Centre to set up an Indo-Italian study centre in the state in the wake of recent archaeological findings of ancient commercial ties between the state and the Roman empire dating back to the first century BC.

The excavations at Pattanam near Kodungallur in Thrissur district had proved that the place was once a bustling commercial port that played vital role in Indo-Roman trade, Education Minister M A Baby said.

He was inaugurating a month-long Greek and Latin crash course organised by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) here yesterday to help students and researchers engaged in studies of India-Europe trade ties in the ancient days.

All carbon dating tests of the finds obtained from the site including the wood samples, shards of jars, coconut shells and pieces of ropes reinforced the commercial link, he said.

Perhaps they will discover something interesting.

:wink:

Narukami

[John M McDermott]

For several years I have been fascinated by the fact that gypsies refer to themselves as the Romani people. Current theory has them originating in India in the 11th century and DNA shows they come from the Indian subcontinent. Further theory supposes them to have been an unemployed "army" from some Indian kingdom or other. The word "rom" in the Romani language refers to any Romani man, and the word "gauche" means civilian and refers to any non-Romani. I am probably on thin ice for even mentioning this.