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The world of ancient Romans abounded in a number of amazing curiosities and information. The source of knowledge about the life of the Romans are mainly works left to us by ancient writers or discoveries. The Romans left behind a lot of strange information and facts that are sometimes hard to believe.
In 67 BCE Lucius Licinius Lucullus was recalled to Rome, and Pompey the Great became the commander of the Roman armies fighting in the east. Lucullus was disliked by the soldiers for being stingy and for limiting their ability to plunder. Most of all, however, he was hated by the Fimbrian legionnaires – veterans with more than 20 years of service behind them.
Dacians and Getae were related barbarian tribes that had rivalled the Romans many times throughout history. They inhabited the territory of present-day Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and even Ukraine. Their greatest advantage was sudden raids on Roman territories, which used the element of surprise, including extremely effective cavalry.
Roman legion (or individual legion units) when defending, when things went too far and the enemy was gaining the upper hand, they adopted defensive formations like orbis – a circle or agmen quadratum – a quadrilateral. Vegetius (4th century CE) also mentions aciesquadrata, i.e. an empty quadrilateral.
Romans were able to build great defensive structures. High walls and mighty towers were mainly of psychological importance, because the barbarians with whom the Romans fought often had no idea at all about the art of besieging fortresses, and the sight of such fortifications aroused fear and respect in them.
As Seneca the Younger once said: “Wherever the Roman conquers, there he dwells”1. The conquests of the Roman Republic resulted, to a large extent, mainly from the need to acquire land and increase crops.
Slave revolts in ancient Rome were not uncommon. However, a more interesting event is certainly the slave uprising in Campania in 104 BCE, which was started by a Roman citizen and equestrian – a certain Titus Vettius.
Kingdom of Kush, which was located in what is now Sudan, was a country similar in culture and religion to ancient Egypt.
Ancient Romans adopted the names of many animals for their military equipment, including: eagles (aquilae) for the legionary mark; the ram (aries) for the ram; “pig’s head” (caput porci) for wedge formation; raven (corvus) for the boarding bridge; cuniculus (“tunnel” derived from the word rabbit – coniglio, thus “rabbit hole”); wolf (lupus) for a defensive tool used to push siege ladders away from walls; or “Marius’s mules” (muli Mariani) to describe Roman legionaries after reform of Gaius Marius.
