I say again all after “Why dont they…” Speak, I repeat, speak English like decent people. Over.
Previewing is my friend. I just don’t like proof reading very much.
On second thought, the Romans did spear a fair number of Brits. A point in their favor, maxims notwithstanding.
I just got it. [strikes self on forehead with open hand] Liek? Liek, as in onion. The national vegie of the Welsh, the last surviving pre-Roman Brittans. Very amusing indeed.
Well ya’ll know where my loyalties lay…
(Xgemina which is short for: Legio X Gemina)
I agree with Rav Yehuda.
I’m pretty upset about the Archimedes incident.
They never pick up after themselves.
The Mediterranean was all nice and neat before they came along and now look at! Almost two thousand years later and we’re still finding pieces just laying around where anyone could trip over them and break their neck!
I don’t know about you, but in our household we have some firm rules. The kids can build their empires if they want, but they better well have them cleaned up and put away by supper time if they know what’s good for them!
–sublight.
I dunno. Call me old-fashioned, but the idea of lying back on a couch calling for more wine while young maidens from far-off Nubia lower bunches of grapes into my mouth…
[cartman]
Seems pretty cool to me!
[/cartman]
Shame about the Jewish bit though. They shoulda been friends. I mean, these are two peoples who knew how to do some serious partying.
From the life of Brian:
"REG
All right ... all right ... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order ... what HAVE the Romans done for US?
XERXES
Brought peace!
REG
(very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all)
What!? Oh … (scornfully) Peace, yes … shut up!"
I once had to translate the life of brian into latin for a latin project.
I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called Biggus Dickus!
Hey!
I’m taking all your names and giving them to Cousins Guido and Vinnie!
Slandering my Italian ancestors… :grumble:
Talk about a bunch of ungrateful upstarts.
humph
They established Christianity as an offical religion.
And then fell and left us with it.
And look at all the trouble that’s caused.
Hey, I’m not even saying that to be anti-christian. Maybe I’m just saying that because becoming a state religion was the worst thing to ever happen to Christianity.
This is, of course, off-topic, but the bolded sentence above piqued my interest. Why is it explicitly stated that “Rav Yose remained silent”? Are Rav Yehuda, Rav Yose and Rav Shimon Bar Yohai understood to be symbolic of different viewpoints, such that Rav Yose has no opinion on the Roman Empire? Or are they simply expressing positive, neutral and negative views, respectively? Or is there no symbolism at all? Obviously I know nothing at all about the Talmud, but I’m wondering if the silence of Rav Yose contains greater meaning than is apparent in the surface. curwin?
They invented Roman numerals, thus adding the most boring and pointless chapter imaginable to elementary school math books.
On the other hand, I have got to disagree with missdavis102. Leather miniskirts on guys were definitely one of the ancient Romans’ better ideas. Who do we bribe to bring those back into fashion? 
Well, not really. The Romans had their own gods, and being more than a touch Romano-centric, assumed that everyone else’s gods were just versions of their own. So, for instance, Roman writers say things like “The Gauls all worship Mercury as their chief god.” Which isn’t really true, but Romans decided that Mercury was the closest equivalent. The Romans didn’t just take all the Greek gods and change their names–they decided that Greek Zeus must be the equivalent of their Jupiter, etc.
Now, write that 300 times before dawn or I’ll cut your balls off.
I hate how when I’m trying to figure out whan a movie was made, I have to try to figure out what MCXLQPRRIII means.
That plus, in a roundabout way, they can be blamed for Ricky Martin.
Once at a party, one of my professors talked about his trip to Europe, during which he mentioned that he skipped Venice. We asked him why, and he said, “They’re not getting a dime of my money. Bastards sacked Constantinople.”
Some people can really hold a grudge.
They tormented Philip K. Dick.
Hats off to you, curwin, because I love a thread title that makes me think “Why do I hate the ancient Romans? Wait a minute, do I hate the ancient Romans??” while the thread is opening.
During this time of contemplation, I’ve decided I do not, in fact, hate the ancient Romans. Without them, I could not take up a melodramtic mood when it strikes my fancy, and go about the house uttering such gems as:
“O tempora! O mores!”
“Veni vidi vici!”
And of course, number one on the ancient Roman hit parade:
“Delenda est Carthago!”
(In case you’re wondering why I think all Roman quotes end in an “!” it’s because it freaks the cat out more when I stand on a chair and shout them out. Gotta know your audience, I always say.)
delphica, I enjoy solemnly intoning “Timeo Danais et dona ferentis,” even if it doesn’t include an exclamation point… 
{serious kippah/yarmulke on}
When studying the Talmud there is always a difficulty in determining the motivation for including a text or arranging it in a certain way. It is not a history book, or a book of laws, or a collection of sayings, or a theological text, but all of those. So here, we have a situation where we can’t say with certainty whether Rav Yose’s silence was mentioned simply because it happened that way, and it wouldn’t have been historically accurate to leave it out, or it was mentioned because of some significance on its own.
One important thing in these cases is to look at the bigger picture. This quote leads up to a story where Rav Shimon was persecuted by the Romans for having made that statement. So it could be that Rav Yose was silent to avoid persecution, or it could be that he had no opinion. Perhaps some more Talmudicly-savvy posters than I can suggest an opinion.
Now let’s get back to Rome bashing!
-“Rome wasn’t built in a day”? Why the hell not? This has been an excuse for every contractor since then.
-They took days from February to make August longer? So now we need to memorize that wonderful little ditty about “30 days…”
-They were defeated by Vandals? I mean we all have problems with vandalism, but the whole empire fell because of it?