[Mcflury]

hm, I always thought Navy Seals were like the SF of the marines Ah well, they're bad-ass mofo's, that's for sure

and what do you mean about not heavy losses in Iraq? I mean, I do not want to disrespect the american soldier (or any soldier for that matter) at all, but you cannot say the US didn't have some heavy losses... sure, not as much as back in 'nam (thank god for that) but still some many dudes.

and about the CIA matter... wouldn't the CIA be more of assassin guild in Darujhistan and the Delta Forces be the Claw?

Anyways... I'm wondering here... did the old roman empire have some sort of Claw working for the current emperor?

[Coco with marshmallows]

nah. Assassin's guilds are (barring the actual assassins themselves of course) pretty much an invention of fantasy fiction.

having said that, a number of emperor's and other important figures were assassinated in the course of Roman history, but it was quite often done by a bribed slave/servant/dude wanting personal power. There was no formal guild/group running around enforcing the emperor's will through murder.

[Vengeance]

You mean other then the Praetorian Guard......Of course they would also replace the Emperor if he wasn't popular or if he pissed them off.
Not unlike Surly

[Skywalker]

Cocoreturns;247388 said:

nah. Assassin's guilds are (barring the actual assassins themselves of course) pretty much an invention of fantasy fiction

Nice point, coco... hadn't ever thought about that.

There were no guilds in the Roman world, but the trade of assassination and poisoning was quite well developed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4350755

Quote

By 82BC, poisoning had apparently become so much of a scourge in the Roman Empire that the Roman dictator and constitutional reformer Lucius Cornelius Sulla found it necessary to issue the world's first law against poisoning, called the Lex Cornelia6. A fat lot of good it did. The incidences of poisoning continued to escalate at an alarming rate to their peak in the 1st Century AD, when the Julio-Claudian emperors reigned. Among the emperors who were subsequently murdered by poison were Vitellius, Domitian, Hadrian, Commodus, Caracalla and Alexander Severus.

[Mentalist]

If rrpelled once, the Malazans would retreat, then begin to strike at verious point of the Empire, fomenting civil unrest and rebellion among the conquered peoples.....
Eventually they'd return with a much larger army...
Eventually, Rome would lose.

[Optimus Prime]

If the Romans have their Gods and have "powers" I'll go with Rome.

Why?

Because all you other fools picked the Mezlas

Also...Romans stole everything from the Greeks...and being half-Greek...err...yeah...we rule

[Mcflury]

The old greeks ruled... that I admit... the new ones... well... women and mustaches don't match

But yes, the romans stole alot of the greeks... so that made me wonder when reading one of the earlier posts when someone said the romans didn't have a decent navy until maybe the later ages... I mean, damn, the romans must've for sure stolen the greek fleet too?

And again about the assassination guild: It's not entirely fiction, I mean, certain groups where specialised in assassinations... I'm thinking of the ninja's in Japan... they were all assassins, not really fictional
The Praetorian guard... nice idea of them being the roman claw actually, makes sense in a way... but then the claw would win, since I doubt the praetorian guard was that well trained.

[Mentalist]

not to mention that the name came from a certain Middle Eastern group....

As for the fleets: Romans only got decent fleets following the defeat of Carthage in the Secod Punic War... and even then, it was mostly due to the fact that there just wasn't anyone who could compete... But most of their great victories were still fought on land..

[caladanbrood]

Now the greeks had proper gods. Real hoary old bastards that would run you through with a trident and then chain you to eternal punishment and damnation even after you were dead. Plus they weren't afraid to get involved, unlike the Roman ones. See Troy, for example. A more decietful group of backstabbing schemers you'd be hard put to find. Somewhat like the malazans in fact;)

A spartan-athenian alliance might have beaten the malazans with the help of their gods - if commanded by Alcibiades, which of course would never happen.

[Optimus Prime]

haha...I agree CB.

Plus we'd have Heracles to duke it out with Karsa....

nah..Karsa would still win

[Mentalist]

Now why would Kasa be in the Malazan contingent?

[Mcflury]

because he's always there when a great fight is going on

But I agree... Karsa would definetly win agains Heracles...

And about the gods... greek and roman gods are the same mate, just different names... and idd, in the greek legends they interfere more directly in the world... but the roman legends aren't light either. You gave Troy as an example, so we're talking about the book 'Ilias' written by Homerus... read that book and you see that the gods actually interfere quite alot (this god gives this dude super strength, this god saves this dude from a certain death,...)

[caladanbrood]

I know they're the same, I'm not an idiot

But if you ignore the pieces of mythology that the Romans stole directly from the Greeks, the Roman gods are nowhere near as smiteful

[Mcflury]

perhaps... the most smiteful god in history remains the catholic god of the old testament though Man, that dude was just... pissed off at times

[Coco with marshmallows]

kud13;247564 said:

not to mention that the name came from a certain Middle Eastern group....

hence -

Quote

Cocoreturns - (barring the actual assassins themselves of course)

Mcfulrry -

Quote

I'm thinking of the ninja's in Japan... they were all assassins, not really fictional

the ninja's were VASTLY overrated and mythologised by storytellers both in Japan and overseas. A decent history along the lines of Dr. Stephen Turnbull's is quite an eye opener. Essentially, they were spies, but as assassin's they were damn near non-existent.

[Vengeance]

Mcflury;247508 said:

The old greeks ruled... that I admit... the new ones... well... women and mustaches don't match

But yes, the romans stole alot of the greeks... so that made me wonder when reading one of the earlier posts when someone said the romans didn't have a decent navy until maybe the later ages... I mean, damn, the romans must've for sure stolen the greek fleet too?

And again about the assassination guild: It's not entirely fiction, I mean, certain groups where specialised in assassinations... I'm thinking of the ninja's in Japan... they were all assassins, not really fictional
The Praetorian guard... nice idea of them being the roman claw actually, makes sense in a way... but then the claw would win, since I doubt the praetorian guard was that well trained.

Well actually the Praetorian Guard were considered the top unit of all of the Legions. They were made up of the very best soldiers who had proven themselves in Battle....In fact the first group of Praetorian guards were from Caesars favored 10th Legion....Although the Praetorian Guards were originally trained as soldiers, I am sure that Later Emperiors used them in other capacities....

[Mentalist]

Romans DID have one original god--Janus. But he didn't do much....and, yeah as was said numerous times, Roman Gods didn't do nearly as much stuff as the Greek gods did.