What got you into the period?

[Tancredii]

And I don't mean the first time you had sex with a women during her curse........

My dad (God rest his soul) bought me the Peter Connolly book "Greek Armies". Since then I have been captured by this period of history. I think it was a little light on history but had great pictures which I still see crop up in later books.

[Horst Nordfink]

My primary school teacher bought me a history book that had a good bit about Ancient Greeks and Romans when I left for secondary school. She was probably my biggest influence academically.

[Ibrahim]

I'm just curious about the world (other interests: dinosaurs, S.y.war, religion, astronomy, chemistry, etc)

the world is one rich place; vbest to explore as much of it before I kick the bucket.

[amyntas]

My brother showed me a map of the late Roman Empire one day. I was just a kid back then, but instantly got interested in how this empire came to be. The more I read about Rome, the more I wanted to know what was going on with all the other peoples...so it was kind of self-evolving

[Tiberius Nero]

Study of Greek and Latin; eventually to understand the languages better one has to familiarize one's self with the general cultural background.

[Uticensis]

In middle school I got Warry's "Warfare in the Classical World", and from there I was hooked, on just on warfare, but everything ancient.

[Long lost Caesar]

Horrible Histories. That series probably started me off

[skuzzy]

It happens monthly. I have absolutely no control over it but I have come to accept it.

[Megas Pyrrhos]

My 7th grade teacher. In order to illustrate ancient Greek cities/government/politics, he had our class break up into groups..forget how many...one was Corinth, one was Athens, and one was Sparta (my group). After we had a competition to see which group could make the best toga's, Sparta went on to achieve victory in other competitions over the rest of the cities. I even made a model of a triere/trireme for that class. Fun.

[anubis88]

First time i played RTW

[Tancredii]

I dont suppose any of you have found out how to stop being interested in the EB period and not lose hours of your lives conquering and slaughtering (oh okay and building benign civilisations)??

[Ibrahim]

yeah I did-but she isn't around anymore

[Korlon]

I've always been interested, but what really got me into it was this mod. Prior to that, I, though I wanted to learn, just somehow couldn't. Now, in the previous four months I've had the mod, know just about a thousand times more information about than era than I did before.

[Respenus]

The Origins of the Ultimate Knowledge have long been encased in the impenetrable Mist of Ignorance. Long has been my quest to try and reach it and thought the years long gone, I have gained a great deal of Knowledge from many, many fields, which includes History as well. She has been a good mistress and she has given me many and hour of well used Time. Since then, she has not left my side, nor did I forget her, even though I I'm now much closer to the Origins as I was before.

I apologise, I don't know what got over me. What I wanted to say, is that I can't remember. I do know that when my parents bought me a children encyclopedia, the first thing I did was check Ancient cultures. I liked how it was shown and since, I have become even more interested. I must admit though, it has only been in this last year, that I have taken a greater interest in Antiquity.

OT: Does anyone know any good pre-Greek books. Iron, bronze age cultures? I'm interested in this part of history right now, before the creating of the first great states we know today.

[DaCrAzYmOfO]

Well I got interested mostly by an animated series of Greek Myths on CBS when I was a kid. Gosh I loved that thing, and then there were other things, mostly video games and stuff. Since then I just cant have enough of it, and when I have to choose either ancient or moder, ancient always seems so much more interesting.

[Ayce]

Simple, it followed the interest in EB (which was determined by the fact that you could play a good Getai game).

So the answer is: EB

[Ibrahim]

*all bow down before the mighty and big EB sign*

[Gebeleisis]

it first started when RTW came out,ihad a fancy for greek mythologu from beyond the game dough

[delablake]

I am Roman by birth...

[General Appo]

Well, I am not certain, but my interest was probably first awoke actually when I first played RTW. I didn´t become a real hardcore antiquity fan until I started reading Goldsworthy´s books though, which I don´t even remember how I got. Might have been as a gift, might have bought it myself.

[lobf]

My dad is an American history teacher, which helped my general interest in history. Then in 7th grade I got Age of Empires 2, which got me interested in Medieval history, which simply led to me learning as much as I could about European history. And I discovered that i liked ancient history is much more than Medieval history.

[Dhampir]

I'm not particularly interested in the period, just the game.

My area of professional study is military history with particular emphasis on the 19th Century.

[Pezlu]

Well, apart from EB my interest in the period is somewhat limited.

I'm an avid reader of historical novels (which sometimes contains some influences from fantasy or from myth), my studies have NOTHING to do with history (I'm studying biology), so ancient history is no more than an hobby for me.

However, I'm curious, so I prefer to learn something playing a game that is actually historically accurate rather than vanilla RTW

So, EB rocks!

[Tancredii]

OT: Does anyone know any good pre-Greek books. Iron, bronze age cultures? I'm interested in this part of history right now, before the creating of the first great states we know today.

Yes I do the very first book that got me hooked - greek Armies by Peter Conolly - nice section on heroic era (homer etc). Not sure it is availbale anymore though - although Peter Conolly did also do a soft back Iliad book covering much the same content (was later and may still be available) - good illustrations but a little light if you really are into the period. Failing that Osprey also cover the period well too.

[hoom]

I got into this period from people pointing out innacuracies in RTW eg the beginnings of the EB team.
Before that pretty much my picture of the Rome period was that they had short swords because they didn't know how to make bigger ones, Macedonia was in the middle east, Cleopatra was Egyptian riding a sphinx for a chariot & that Gauls were like Asterix & Obelix. I'd heard of Alexander & Hannibal but had no idea what they'd actually done.

When I started getting a clue to the reality I got fascinated, particularly with Carthage & the Diadochi

[Xurr]

My Father got me interested in ancient Rome. He was a US Marine corp drill instructor and has this tattoo that says "Semper Fidelis". When I asked about it he gave me the whole run down on what it meant and where it came from. From that moment on I was interested in all things Roman.

[Khazar_Dahvos]

I believe my interest for different ancient cultures began when I was in third grade and realized that books had a cornucopia of knowledge to be had. I started with the ancient Mycenae and worked my way up!!!!

[Justinian II]

I'm just curious about the world (other interests: dinosaurs, S.y.war, religion, astronomy, chemistry, etc)

the world is one rich place; vbest to explore as much of it before I kick the bucket.

That's pretty much my identical view; I admit, I was captivated by the cheesy shows about the roman army on the History Channel.

Hey, I was 14. I didn't know any better back then:-P

[Torvus]

First time i played RTW

I second that motion.

[DeathEmperor]

Well when I was growing up I was always into anything related to Greek mythology (Herakles was my favorite hero though I called him Hercules like most people back then ), but it wasn't until I read a chapter about Alexander the Great in my middle school history book that I went over from Greek mythology to Greek history.

I was just drawn into learning more about Alexander when I saw the similarities between myself and him (tense, to the say the least, relationship between his parents, close relationship with his mother etc.), and it was the desire to learn more about him that eventually led me to learn more about Greek history and that of the Ancient World.

So in short: Megas Alexandros