Avt Ivlivs Cæsar avt Vercingetorix?

[Dogmudgeon]

Poll question: Avt Ivlivs Cæsar avt Vercingetorix?

Ivlivs Cæsar: Imperator and Dictator of Rome, one-time escaped slave; revered and feared by men high and low, beloved of Cleopatra Ptolemy, dispatched by the Senate of Rome.

Vercingetorix: Leader of the federated tribes of Celts known as Gauls, "King of the Infantrymen", master guerilla tactician and eventual role-model for Asterix and Obelix.

Friends, Romans, DUers, lend me your votes (after all, this isn't Diebold).

--p!

[MissHoneychurch]

1. you know Asterix and Obelix?

WOW

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

4. I know about them too :)

Learned about them in 10th grade French class . Watched the movies while in Germany .

[MissHoneychurch]

6. well, you lived in Germany

nobody can live in Europe and not know about Asterix and Obelix ... LOL

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

7. But I knew about them WAAYYYYYYY before I even thought

about stepping foot out of the states . This was like 5 years before I touched down ;)

[MissHoneychurch]

10. I am even more impressed now

:D
I guess learning French does that to you :)

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. I'm not sure this is right but

I seem to recall that the word Celt comes from the Greek "Keltoi" and that Gaul comes from the Roman "Gallus". Both words refer to the same people who inhabited the area from the British Isles down to Northern Italy.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Right you are

We (in English) call them "Celts", either with an initial K sound (proper) or S sound (common); the ancient Greeks called them "Keltoi", and the Romans called them by any number of names based on the radix *G(Vd)al-.

Galatians, Galicians, Gauls, Gaels, Goedels and Gales (pronounced GAH-les) are all names of Celtic groups in different areas during different times. Any of the words was like calling the peoples "Celts", but "the Celts who live near us".

That's what I heard, anyway :)

--p!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

11. In fact, I believe the name of Wales must be derived from the same

Roman word Gallus. In French, they call Wales "pays de Galles" with a hard "G". And there's the Gaelic tongue spoken in Ireland and the names of towns such as Gallway in Ireland which is similar to the word "Gaul".

[Bossy Monkey]

12. 'Tis. It's Cymru in Welsh. Hence the border area called Cumberland. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Vercingetorix...

but where's Arminius? (I know he didn't fight Caesar, but he still whipped the Romans...)

[Dogmudgeon]

8. This guy?

Hermann der Cherusker or "Herman the German"?

Teutonic; also, his victory was not nearly as destructive to Rome as Vercingetorix' defeat was to the tribes of Gaul. Cool, none the less, but JC vs. V was the celebrity death match of the era.

It's difficult to find him on Google; I think a gun was named after him.

--p!

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Yeah, Hermann the Cherusker...

Romans called him "Arminius"...and I've seen more than one historian credit his victory in the Teutoburger Wald with being the beginning of the decline of Roman power (although more because of ROman overstretch than his actions alone, admittedly...shades of the current American Empire, eh?)

[Bossy Monkey]

14. Herman ze German? Wasn't he the drummer for The Scorpions?

(If only there was a Trivial Pursuit game show for big money.)

[Bossy Monkey]

13. Escaped slave? He was an aristocrat from birth.

You aren't thinking of Spartacus, are you?

[Dogmudgeon]

15. Caesar was kidnapped by pirates who held him as a slave

He was still fairly young when this happened, and had only held one or two posts in the Roman cursus (political court) by that time. The pirates' captain found him amusing, and let him spend his free time writing and delivering speeches to the pirates who were interested in hearing them. They held Caesar for a few months, and treated him fairly well. He was eventually ransomed, and promised to kill them mercifully when (not if) he was the emperor of Rome.

Several years later, after becoming the emperor, he tracked them down and crucified them, but slit their throats so they would die quickly (death by crucifixion could take as long as a week).

IIRC, out of the same perverse sense of honor and respect, he also had Vercingetorix strangled in his cell rather than to face public execution and humiliation.

--p!