Global Politics in the 21st Century, by Robert J. Jackson, repeats the claim that European ships were "drastically inferior to Chinese ships in every respect imaginable even as late as 1800". This seems to be quite a claim.

Moreover, its reference for this is a book called The Genius of China, which doesn't exactly encourage confidence.

China isn't exactly famous for being a naval power, either. I know for certain that at one point they had that exploring / treasure fleet, but aside from that? To say that China's ships were superior in every aspect at the start of the 19th century is just... huh?

In the 18th century, Europe had 200-gun ships-of-the-line, and I've never heard of China having anything even remotely similar.

Please tell me my textbook isn't a complete waste of money.

The only one I've heard (which I've never been able to confirm) is that the Army had the same type of camouflage that the USMC used, but couldn't use it in Europe due to friendly fire incidents when it was confused with Wehrmacht camouflage. I've never seen pictures of soldiers in the Pacific theater wearing it, though.

Also please note that I specified soldiers, not USMC.

Differences that were particular to the African front are also welcome!

[edit] And I'm talking about individual kit.

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They both seem like giant sea serpents, but are there any possible visual differences?

I've heard in (of course) Dan Carlin's podcast that Alexander was a man who was "hated during his time." Dan goes on to mention that Alexander's mass appeal didn't really come about again until the Romans. Supposedly Romans were infatuated with the Legend and Myth of Alexander; Augustus supposedly even went to visit his tomb.

With that in mind, what was the general consensus by Romans about Alexander? Furthermore (and more important to me) who were some more famous Romans who had thoughts about Alexander, and what did they think about him?

Please feel free to add any additional information that you find interesting, as well as some good sources I should look into. Thanks so much!

I am just wondering what God did Julius Caesar worship? I heard that the Julia worshiped Tiberius and or some ancient spear god which I have no knowledge of.

I am legit wondering if any historians can answer that.

It seems like it would have been more economical. There were lower shipping costs. Why wasn't slavery of Native Americans as wide spread?

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I still managed to defeat my enemy, injury would be something like loose an arm or a leg. Around the time when the coliseum was built.

And if they did, what archeological evidence do we have of these? Obviously there were a wide range of cultures over time that probably had divergent lifestyles, but I'm curious as to what we know. We mainly read about them from the Roman perspective, which tends to be a bit...biased.

Found this at an antique store.

This seems like a counter-intuitive idea if you don't know about continental drift. I would assume to find totally different-looking animals across such an expanse of ocean.

Also, what did naturalists think when they found Australia and it didn't house similar species of large fauna?

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I have been reading Adrian Goldworthy's 'Augustus' recently and noted a claim that he makes regarding centurions in the late Republican/early Imperial period. He says that most Centurions were landed aristocrats or promoted directly by their leaders (e.g Julius Caesar) and that it is a popular myth that Centurions were all 'sergeant majors'.

Does anybody have anything to support or contend with this argument? When searching online everyone just seems to say they were regular soldiers who got lucky and rose gradually through the ranks (despite the extreme chances of being killed in just about any battle/skirmish fought) , and I see very little of the other side of the argument that Goldworthy has put forward.

Now that I think of it, an army in the ancient/medieval period having most of it's officer class other than the legate/tribunes comprised entirely of professional (and therefore presumably uneducated/landless) plebians would have been very modern and perhaps unlikely?

Cheers

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