Some interesting facts: The Greeks used professional human runners as messengers rather than horses; the "Marathon" runner probably perished from wounds or dehydration rather than the 26 mile run, as Greek messengers typically ran more than 26 miles _every day_. As was (re)discovered in the late 1800's, humans can outrun horses, if the distances are long enough. I have a (Dover) translation of Vitruvius, who was a Roman architect in around 100 A.D. time frame, and he mentions Eratosthenes's calculations of the circumference of the Earth, so the spherical nature of the Earth was well-known, at least among the educated Romans & Greeks. The U.S. Navy has apparently discovered a whole host of intact wrecks from the Greek & Roman period on the bottom of the Mediterranean & Black seas. We are on the verge of learning a whole lot more about shipping in ancient times. There's even a scientist who is trying to extract ancient sounds from clay pots that were made on a potter's wheel. His theory is that the sounds modulated the surface of the clay during spinning, so it may be possible to play them back like a record. At 09:39 PM 10/28/03 -0600, mcintosh@servidor.unam.mx wrote:
Some things I would like to know: Was Alexander's "conquest" of the world a leisurely stroll, of did he have to work at it? Is Iraq bigger than California? How long did a sea voyage from Rome to Alexandria take? Is it really true that nobody knows how big a cubit was?
- hvm