Let's say a twenty year old man who is about 5'8" tall and about 180 pounds on the lower end of 'in-shape' goes back to Rome under Augustus. He's found in a forest in the Apennine Mountains and taken in to a rich household in Rome as an slave. Based on physiology, is this about the average size of a Roman? Could they be able to handle the workload of daily works at an Olive orchard? How about fighting Germanic raiders? Would they be able to win an Arm-wrestling match? What other tasks might he have trouble with besides learning the language?

Graham Hancock's "Fingerprints of the Gods" offer's the theory that there was an advanced human civilization in pre-historic times. Is there enough evidence to merit further examination? Is there any 'slam-dunk' evidence to dismiss his theory entirely?

What made him any more German than other early medieval Franks?

Growing up in the United States, the iconic battles of World War II--the ones that everyone hears about--include the Battle of the Bulge, the Normandy invasion, Midway, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima, among others. I imagine that the mental landscape of people from other Allied countries is populated by a different set of iconic battles--with some overlap, of course. What battles are on other allies' mental maps?

I'm just curious because I recently read about Machiavelli and Leonardo's plan to divert the Arno so I'm wondering if there is any documented interaction (in person or through writing) between Michelangelo and Machiavelli.

Hi all! Just in time for the holidays we've finally brought you our long-planned AMA on the end of the Roman Republic, a period of time roughly covering the careers of the Gracchi in the mid-2nd Century, B.C. to the acension of Augustus as emperor at the very end of the 1st Century, B.C.! As this is possibly the singlemost studied field of Roman antiquity we expect lots of juicy questions from you guys, and we'll do our best to answer them. We were hoping to get this in before the end of the semester, but sadly we've mostly been swamped with work at the tail end of the semester, so that was a no-go. Still, we're here and ready to help! Our panelists specialize in everything from the study of the Roman magistracies, the development of the Roman army (always a favorite on reddit), to epigraphy in the Republic and Empire!

Our panelists, in no particular order:

/u/edXcitizen87539319 studies the (ab)use of magisterial power, particularly during the middle Republic, but also during the period of our interest. In particular he studies the use and abuse of imperium by consuls and praetors sent overseas from around 218 to 133, a time during which the governance of the provinces and the role of provincial imperium was being worked out. His work is highly important as a foundation for understanding the political changes occuring among all levels of society during this period. Additionally, citizen knows a great deal about how the Roman political structure was "supposed" to work, which I think we'll all find instrumental in figuring out what went wrong.

/u/DonaldFDraper, despite his current flair, is also an expert in Roman military history and used to be flaired as such (before he asked it to be changed to reflect his current bent towards French Revolutionary history). He's offered to tackle most of the very specific questions about Roman military history for us. However, he would like to point out to everyone that though Roman military history may be very popular, there's a lot more to Rome than war. As such he considers himself to be mainly supplementary to the rest of our panelists, but of course his addition is wonderful and very useful to all of us!

/u/Astrogator studies epigraphy (which many of you will actually find quite pertinent to some of your questions, as a lot of material on Augustus and many magistrates is recorded purely through inscriptions) and also is going to be helping us out with the "Romanization" of Italy and the tribunate of the younger Drusus

/u/LegalAction more or less does the late Roman Republic in general and is great both with specific instances in time throughout the period and more general overviews as well. Recently he's taught a course on Augustus and the Julio-Claudians, and argues that the ascension of Vespasion is the real end to republican rule and the beginning of Roman totalitarianism, a very interesting novel take

/u/Tiako is my go-to guy for Roman economics. He mostly does economics during the Principate, and specializes in economic relations with India, but of course he's fully capable of tackling lots of questions about the late Republican economy and just has a fantastic knowledge base all around.

/u/Celebreth is pretty well-known around here, answering mainly questions on military history but also tackling social, economic, and political questions during the closing years of the Republic as well.

/u/XenophonTheAthenian is actually a mere lowly undergraduate and is outranked by most of our panelists today. Being as of yet not technically a specialist I can answer pretty general questions, but I particularly have been focusing in coursework, interest, and studies the period from around the Catiliniarian Conspiracies to Caesar's death. I also did some stuff on Augustus a while back as well. I'm especially interested in political history, both the rise of individual statesmen using and abusing the limits of the law, and the conflict between the orders that caused tension to flare up throughout the social sphere

So without further ado, let's get this party started. Reddit, ask us anything.

RIP my inbox...

IMPORTANT EDIT: So a lot of you are asking questions about the Empire, which is fine, but in the interests of this particular AMA we ask you please to restrict your questions to the fall of the Republic, not the Empire. The mods have been working hard to keep us uncluttered from questions that many of us aren't qualified to answer because they're about the Empire, so I figured I'd help them out. I also would like to help out our panelists doing military and economic history by reminding everyone that a great deal of the economic and military history of Rome pertains only to the Empire, not the Republic.

This is probably too vague of a question, but what i am trying to ask is how many people's moves west were all about the gold? And how did these gold diggers survive with no one around? Were there trading posts all along the country or was it a wide open landscape?

Does it predate written history? Are there noticable differences between cultures?

These new TV/movie adaptations (obviously impacted by Hollywood and modern beauty standards) as well as older written accounts (obviously impacted by possibly being retold hundreds of times before written down) often describe powerful generals and skilled warriors having the "most beautiful" female companions in the land. In the age of physical hand-to-hand combat wouldn't it have been more beneficial for them to marry a so called "butcher's daughter" type; a strong, tall, physically almost male-like woman?

If I'm not mistaken people have been breeding horses and cows and other work animals for thousands of years but would the scientists or intellectuals of the time realize the same also applied to humans? Wasn't the general consensus in many ways that humans were different from animals and "above" them?

How about the laymen? In the (obviously fictional) show Game of Thrones there is this big storyline around a dark-haired king having a blonde-haired son. Would something like this have caused controversy among the common folk in the medieval times? How about ancient cultures around 500BC-500AD or even older ones around the world?

It's a rhetoric that I've seen repeated in a number of places, particularly religious texts. Is there any truth to this claim at all, and if so are there any sources that back it up?

IN 1958 my nanna's school would bring all of the girls to the nurses office where the applied an ointment to their nipples and put a square of elastoplast over each one. Then after a period of time they would be removed and then the ointment reapplied etc. She's not sure how long this went on for as it was a fair while ago and she was around 10 years old.

I'm not sure if this is relevant , but around the same time she was sent to a camp due to her being underweight , they would send kids to stay there for 8 weeks and then if they weighed enough they would be sent home. she spent 16 weeks there.

I have tried to find out what it was for but have had no luck and it may be that the information is somewhere in Dutch, which I don't speak.

I know that, especially in the later parts of World War II, the German army would often use StuGs when panzers were in short supply, but were they always intended to be used in this manner?

For such an impressive feat, what gave him the ability to accomplish what he did in his lifetime?

This yellow fog comes up now and again in Sherlock Holmes stories and novels.

What were the differences in training, logistics, and tactics between the Army of Italy under Napoleon and the Revolutionary Army under Washington?