You can keep your civil war re-enactments

Civil War re-enactments are fairly lame. For starters, once the shooting starts, you can't see anything with all the smoke. This annual re-enactment of a Dacian / Roman battle from 101-106 and detailed on Trajan's Column leaves nothing to the imagination. Well, ok, blood, guts, smashed noggins & severed limbs…
But other than that, it looks pretty fun.
Dunno what anybody is saying but the Romans had a heckuva time getting across the Danube River (Ister) to get on with the invasion in the first place. For months the Dacians & Romans just walked up & down the river shouting obscenities at one another. That might be a fun re-enactment for Romanians & Bulgarians, too.

Romanian Insider article here

Reflecting on Imia
Thousands of Greeks rallied to remember the deaths of 3 Greek soldiers who died in a border dispute on 2/2/96. More bloodshed was averted when the US stepped in and negotiated a truce based on the standing that nothing had changed. The land in question was a rock out in the sea called Imia.Or Kardak, it depends on which side of the border you're on. Or which side of the border the island is on…..Battling over a couple barren hunks of rock might seem silly to folks in the US but you have to draw a border somewhere. It's just that the borders in that area have changed and the bosses have changed so many times in the thousands of years people have lived in the area. That border isn't as benign as the Ohio - Michigan border either. It represents a significant ethnic & cultural border as well with religious differences preceding Christianity & Islam.Americans have no real cultural or ethnic purity. We might be European but that's about as pure as it gets and our history? At best, 500 years, The Turkish capitol of Istanbul, once a Roman city, was founded about 2,700 years ago as the Greek city of Byzantium. it's all just history of a land thousands of miles away for us but it's home turf for these guys.
I'm babbling now, but, can a nation with such a historically shallow culture as the US even be 'conservative'?

A Serious Wang Dang Doodle
On a late afternoon on the infelicitous day of August 24, 410, 300 slaves, young men recently granted to the patriarchs of Rome by Alaric, sneaked out of their masters' homes murdered the guards at the Slarian gate and let in hundreds of Alaric's Visigoth soldiers who began a sack of The Eternal City that would last 3 days and, although Rome was no longer the capitol of the Western Roman Empire, it would be regarded as the death knell for the Empire.
The bad thing was, Alaric was in league with the Roman empire. But Alaric knew he would conquer the eternal city eventually because it had been prophesied. well, ok then
He was also a good Christian so he told his soldiers to leave any churches & their inhabitants alone. Religious artifacts that were Christian in nature were off limits, too.
Alaric had high hopes & ambitions but shortly after this rather momentous act, he got sick & died. The Visigoths were never quite the same again.

More here

Fun in the 2nd Century
After inspecting the wall at Carlisle, as Severus returned to the nearest guest house not only as victor over die Caledonians but also having established a permanent peace treaty, he wondered what omen would present itself. Just then, a black soldier, who was a well-known buffoon and regarded himself as a bit of a joker, came up to him with a wreath of cypress. When Severus, thoroughly disturbed at being presented with a funeral garland and by someone of the colour associated with death, angrily ordered him to be removed from his sight, the man jocularly remarked, "You have been everything. You have conquered everything, now may the conqueror be a god." When Severus subsequently reached town, and wanted to perform a sacrifice, owing to a mistake on the part of a local soothsayer, he was first taken to the temple of the goddess of war, and then supplied with sacrificial animals that were black. He abandoned the sacrifice in disgust and retired to the local imperial residence, only to find himself, through the negligence of the temple attendants, pursued right to the door by the herd of black cows.

Historia Augusta Severus XXII. 4-7