patrickwyman Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
After Rome Fell, Europe's Barbarians Had To Figure Out How To Be Kings
Political structures and institutions—the bedrock of the systems that underpin our world and society—aren’t a given. They can and do evolve and strengthen, or, alternatively, crumble into nothingness. That’s one of many reasons the fall of the Roman Empire is a valuable example for us to bear in min...
The End Of José Aldo
In championship-level combat sports, as with generations of inbred European royalty, there’s never really an interregnum. The end of one reign is simultaneously the beginning of another. The moment the new champion’s hand is raised and the belt fitted around his waist, we’re officially living in a n...
At UFC 212, Can José Aldo Hang Onto Greatness One More Time?<em></em>
Every once in a while, a fight comes along that offers the promise not just of sheer bloody violence, but of it being delivered with the utmost technical skill....
Rome's Fall Left Britain A Violent, Cityless Hellscape
In the year 350 AD, to paraphrase the historian Robin Fleming, Britain was as Roman a place as anywhere in the Empire. It had a dense network of roads and ports, luxurious villas with mosaic floors and private bathhouses, a profusion of small, prosperous towns that served as markets for regional tra...
Joanna Jędrzejczyk Is The Greatest Female Fighter Ever
Joanna Jędrzejczyk fucking rules....
Rome's Collapse Turned Petty Kings, Strongmen, And Warlords Into The French
Decades before Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 AD and the Western Roman Empire officially went out of business, the provinces of northern Gaul (roughly the area between Paris and the lower Rhine in what’s now the Netherlands and northwest Germany) had long since slipped from the grasp of the a...
The UFC Heavyweight Title Is On The Line Saturday Night. Does Anybody Care?<em></em>
There’s nothing wrong with Saturday night’s UFC heavyweight championship fight....
Theoderic The Great Was A Barbarian General Cloaked In The Language And Political Concepts Of The Past
As the central institutions of the Roman Empire in the west crumbled and the provinces splintered off and went their own way over the course of the fifth century, new kingdoms popped up to take their place. Today, we tend to identify these new political units with specific barbarian groups: the Visi...
After The Visigoths Sacked Rome, They Established A Full-Blown Kingdom
When last we met the Goths, they had just sacked the city of Rome in 410 CE, the act for which this barbarian people is both famous and infamous. They were, after all, the first group in 800 years to pillage the Eternal City, and that kind of action is going to leave a mark in the history books. The...
The Roman Empire Was Brought Down By Structural Rot
One way of telling the story of the fall of the Roman Empire is to examine the lives and personalities at the very top of the political spectrum, the emperors, generals, court officials, and kings at the center of power who made the life-and-death decisions that reverberated throughout the Roman wor...
The Roman Empire Accidentally Killed Itself
It took just 80 years for the Roman Empire to fall apart as a political unit....
Georges St-Pierre Is Back Because The UFC Is Out Of Ideas
The retirement of Georges St-Pierre, the longtime UFC welterweight champion and something like a consensus pick for the greatest fighter of all time, was as close as the sport of MMA gets to a happy ending....
As The Roman Empire Fell, Its People Stopped Talking To One Another
Rome was more than just an empire, an agglomeration of provinces ruled by the emperor and administered through a central bureaucracy and a collection of appointed governors and officials. The Roman world, beyond the political structures that sustained the empire, went much deeper than that: It was a...
What Happened To Normal People When The Roman Economy Fell Apart?
The sophistication and scale of the Roman economy was a marvel that powered all of its other achievements, from monumental buildings on three continents to its famed and feared professional army. Although it was an agrarian economy focused around agricultural production, it was surprisingly complex,...
The Roman Economy Was A Powerhouse
We remember the Roman Empire for a great many things. Gladiators are always popular, and the army runs a close second, but the most striking thing about Rome is the monumental landscape of buildings it left behind. The Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, ornate palaces and villas, aqueducts that reach to...
The Late Roman Empire Army Was A Changing, But Still Massive, Force
If there’s one piece of the Roman Empire that has managed to weave its way into popular culture, it’s the army. Every decade or so, we get a new movie featuring the heroics of a Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Clive Owen (King Arthur), or Michael Fassbender (Centurion, which is an awesome action flick), ...
Attila The Hun Did Far More Than Just Leave Charred Bones In His Wake
Nearly 16 centuries after he lived and died, the name of Attila the Hun still carries overtones of wanton destruction and senseless slaughter. The Huns, unlike the Franks or the Anglo-Saxons or the Goths, have no modern politicians claiming them as glorious ancestors for a shot of cheap nationalism;...
When The Vandals Took North Africa, They Had Their Way With The Roman Empire
North Africa was one of the heartlands of the Roman Empire. It produced most of the grain that fed Rome, the olive oil that burned in lamps from Sicily to Spain, the pottery that sat on every dinner table from Britain to Greece, and the tax revenue that kept the Roman government flush....
When Rome Fell, Some Barely Noticed And Some Were Murdered By Rampaging Hordes
The fall of the Roman Empire can mean a lot of different things, depending on precisely where you’re talking about. In some cases, it meant rampaging, marauding barbarians tearing down city walls and running off with the accumulated wealth of generations of prosperous Romans. In other areas, it mean...
What In The Hell Happened To Roman Britain?
Part of our shared culture is a basic, generally unspoken assumption that things are supposed to get better. Oppressed groups will have more rights in a few years than they have now. The economy overall will grow, even if an individual’s share might not. We’ll have cooler and more useful gadgets as ...