#post-roman-warfare

#post-roman-warfare

Very rare to see this level of tailoring nowadays, even on the wealthy. Even when not attending major sporting events, the king's collars always hug his neck, his lapels are always well-proportioned, the lines of his coat always flow into his trousers, and his four-in-hand always has just the right asymmetry.

Titus Flavius Vespasianus was born in Falacrinae, a rural town northeast of Rome, on 17 November 9 CE. There was nothing in his lineage to suggest that he would one day rule as emperor. Indeed, his ancestors were commoners who did not achieve any kind of prominence until the era of the late Roman Republic, when they came into modest wealth.

While the bone was worn and poorly preserved, archaeologists managed to identify its origin by comparing it with modern elephant and mammoth bones. Despite there not being enough DNA to confirm the exact species, the researchers were able to carbon date a tiny sample of the bone. This places the elephant's death between the late fourth and early third centuries BC - right in the middle of the Second Punic War.

Max Weber famously argued that one of the hallmarks of a modern state was a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a defined territory. Within the compass of the law of war, Weber's insights have been associated with the legal tradition of ius ad bellum. This is the concept that governments retained the exclusive authority to declare legitimate war.