I believe during this time Romans were will exempt from taxation, being more fuel on that fire

I think you underestimate the technology and structure of ancient cities

While I agree is best to be skeptical about army numbers, given what historians project as the entire population of pre Roman Gaul (being around 5 million people) those numbers are fairly reasonable

I'm more confused with their idea about "blooming" because from what I can tell it's clearly an early smelting technique involving heating the ore to purify it while smashing it

What exactly is the Roman Era they're referring to? Are they saying that romans invented Iron smelting?

I'd direct your research if you're willing towards ancient India and China. From my cursory investigation they were smelting iron before the founding Rome.

Edit- It also seems the person arguing that "blooming isn't really smelting" is arguing semantics. Since blooming is in fact a method of smelting

I think it shows that from even their own origin myth the romans adopt Greek history/myth.

There's plenty of things showing romans were Greek fanboys, the most apparent being tutored by Greeks (as apparently you're no a true civilized Roman aristocrat if you don't own/pay for an expensive Greek tutor)

I'll concede that they probably didn't REALLY consider themselves Greek, that was just a poor exaggeration on my part

It makes sense from the context that Byzantium was a small Roman city that Constantine turned into the cultural center of the eastern empire. At least from a chronological evaluation of the empire

I've seen a few passionate people hating the term "Byzantine" but never offering a better name

True, they even claimed to be descendants of Anaeas. Romans were just grecophiles with a superiority complex

100% on the historical aspect, the fact that I can read the thoughts of a man that ran an empire, or of a man that was the tutor of many great men is astounding, and putting into perspective how people of the time thought. I'm screenshotting your comment so I remember to look into your recommendations

Ever since picking up Aristotle and subsequently Marcus Aurelius' Meditations I've been a philosophy nut. I wish I found it earlier in life since it's definitely opened up my perspectives on quite literally everything

Yeah, I learned everything stemmed from philosophy when I first cracked open a book of Aristotles teachings. I've respected philosophy a lot more because of that

Well, since only the very wealthy were able to be educated, people like Alexander for example were tutored by famous historians/philosophers/mathematicians.

Everyone who wasn't the richest kid around would most likely have been tutored by students of these famous philosophers. (Pretty much anyone inclined in the scientific arts was a philosopher, as in the ancient eras all sciences were rooted in philosophy)

The Allies were quick to snatch up as many Nazis as they could after the war.

That's your bad for assuming redditors have competent reading skills

Yeah, I agree. That was a pretty uninformed take