The Roman legions had battle standards called aquila which featured carvings of either an eagle, wolf, ox with man's head (wtf?), horse, or boar. Do we know what specific species these are based off of?

Some spin off questions I thought of while writing this:

• Why were these creatures in particular used to represent the legions?

• Who was tasked with crafting these battle standards?

• How would a soldier be selected to carry the standard?

• Why did Caesar retire all the animals but the eagle?

• Did the tradition of using aquila survive into the Byzantine period?

I can't seem to find concrete information on this topic. Thank you!

It's generally accepted that Hannibal was one of the best generals in History because of his victories at Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae among many others. But if he never intended to siege Rome (Assuming we believe Livy's account) how did he plan to actually defeat Rome if he couldn't threaten directly threaten them?

Was he trying to get the Italian allies to turn on Rome? Did he think that if he raided their estates enough the Senate would sue for peace? Or did he just underestimate the power and resolve of Rome?

During Ancient Rome's expansion, why didn't the Romans think about sailing over the Atlantic?

Why did they just focus on expanding in Europe/North Africa and parts of the Middle East? Did they not see potential in going overseas?

Ok, so I'm reading a book called "The history of phisics" by Andrzej Wróblewski and in it he makes a point that (paraphrasing) "Byzantium did not produce a single sholar comperable to that of alexandria". Is this true? Was any signitificant progress made there in terms of mathematics, astronomy etc. ?

He also goes on to say that "science in Europe began it's rebirth from XII century onward, with the estabilishment of first universities and reintruduction of greek text translated from arabic". But i thought those were preserved by the bizantines and italian states?

Since there are some people who specialize in Byzantine history I was wondering whether you could recommend some good books dedicated to this period, with emphasis on Heraclius and the last war plus aftermath (rise of Islam).

Thank you!

These days we use BC and AD when referring to dates, but what would, say the Greek around 300bc, have used when referring to dates in the past?

Did they measure based as one lunar month a year or one season a year etc...?

I wondered this while watching Band of Brothers; they'll be out fighting in mud and blood and then get they'll get leave and be shown in a dress uniform. Where did the dress uniform come from?

I realize this also may be more of an anthropology question, but any insight is appreciated.

I was just watching Life of Brian, and the scene when Brian is selling the outlandish snacks got me wondering. Obviously tomato sauce and gnocchi weren't on the menu, but was Roman cuisine similar to modern Italian in any way? Pasta, basil, soft cheeses, that sort of thing?

Did Alexander control the tiniest details of his army or did he just make an overall broad plan and the chain of command worried about their specific movements?

With Napoleon did he ever directly command any part of the military? Did Eisenhower actually command anyone during Normandy or did he rely on his dudes (smaller generals, idk) to do what he told them?

Also when did "improvisation" become more effective? With radio it's probably easier to relay your movements to your boss but if you can't communicate across the battlefield easily then running off in an random direction would be confusing for everyone.

I was talking with my parents about the pre-Columbus American civilizations (Maya, Aztec, Inca) and my father asked, "How unique is it that these civilizations disappeared?" I argued with him about whether the use of the term "disappeared" was fair - after all, the Spanish showed up and kind of killed everybody, and to me, "disappeared" implies a lack of foreign influence. This started us on a slightly tangential discussion, which goes something like this:

We talk about Indian and Chinese civilization as stretching over thousands of years, including changes of kingdoms and dynasties, successful foreign invasions, etc. Chinese civilization continued despite the Mongol invasion, for example. Is it because the culture, political structure, and language weren't greatly affected? Is that why we can definitively say, "the Incan civilization ended here?" How similar is this to, say, the Islamic conquest of Egypt, which had its own culture, political structure, and language, that was (I assume) absorbed by Islamic culture?

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but basically, are there other cases (and is it valid to say this about the American civilizations) where one civilization is completely deleted, either by someone else or some sort of self-destruction?

The anniversary of the Dakota war upon us and everyone I know is talking about how the Natives 'slaughtered' 400 plus white men while only casually mentioning how they were starving and conned out of their deal with the government. So my question - how many of them starved waiting for the government to enact their promise (before they finally had enough and retaliated). Basically where I live I always hear about how 'awful' the Natives where without the slightest empathy of what happened to the settlers we took the land from.
Every site that I have checked out gives a very vague synopsis (maybe there isn't one?) But I still feel that Natives are getting the short end of the stick even in this day and age - can anyone help me with giving the Native causalities? Just want to present a different side to everything. Thanks!