The Imperial Post
Responses to Our Readers' Email

Over the years, we have received an abondance of email from visitors to our site. Most of our visitors have a question to ask or are seeking information to help them complete a homework assignment. Others have some knowledge to add or are requesting more information on some particular topic. Still others write to point out some error in our articles or simply to express disagreememt with the author's point of view or the particular treatment he gives to certain events or groups of people in his writing. Just as the fine Roman road system carried the Imperial post rapidly throughout the Roman Empire, the author wishes to use the World Wide Web, a new modern electronic medium of communication to transmit the valuable contributions of our visitors throughout the cyber world to assist those who are looking for information about Roman history.

Although the author cannot respond to every email he receives, and some questions can only be satisfactorily answered by devoting one's self to a lifetime of research on the subject, he has tried to respond to as many as he has the time and resources for. We have reproduced many of these emails here and the author's responses. We have taken steps to respect the privacy of those who email us, especially since many of our visitors are young people in the elementary through high school grades. We never identify anybody by more than a first name, and even some of these have been changed when the author feels it is necessary to protect someone's privacy.

When we sorted through all the past emails and answers, we decided to divide the questions and comments up into categories to make it easier for each visitor to sort through them to find his or her own area of interest. Each of the links below will take you to a corresponding table of contents listing each of the comments or questions and the author's response.

Some questions are of such an all - encompassing or academically controversial nature that it would take several entire books to address them. Two favorite reader questions seem to be: "If Julius Caesar hadn't born or hadn't been killed when he was or had been a different kind of leader, what impact would that have had on Roman history?" and "What fundamental factors caused the downfall of the Roman Empire?" C'mon, folks! If the sections of even my modest library containing books addressing either of these topics were to fall over on me, they's crush me to death:-) Give me a few years (or centuries) and I might feel qualified to venture to offer my opinions on these two questions. All kidding aside, we do plan to write articles devoted to both of these qquestions at some time in the future in order to help the students visiting our site to get started on their homework projects.

The author enjoys reading email from visitors to the site, so, be you Latin or Etruscan, Greek, Gaul, Egyptian, or Syrian, Goth, Vandal, Scythian, or Alan, or, even one of those strange new bararians that live across the Western Ocean in the place the soothsayers tell us will someday be called the New World and America, we extend an invitation to you, our readers, our most valuable asset, to continue to email us with your questions and comments.

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The Imperial Post - Roman Literature and the Arts
The Imperial Post - Rome and Early Christianity
The Imperial Post - Roman Coins and Coin Collecting
The Imperial Post - The Life of Women in the Roman World
The Imperial Post - The Roman Army and Military Topics


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