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-- doesn't seem to be a Reply tab on Guy's post and can't find the OP on this topic. ..BUT-- According to Suetonius-- as Caesar sat down before the assembled Senate, several conspirators approached him as if to pay respects. The lictors were probably behind or off to the side and not positioned to defend Caesar from the attack which began suddenly and unexpectedly. https://www.livius.org/sources/content/suetonius/suetonius-on-the-death-of-caesar/ (ch 82) Maybe the better question is what did they do in the immediate aftermath of the attack? Maybe they just scrammed realizing that they had just failed their mission?

I went to the #LegionExhibition in London last week. As the name suggests, the exhibition is very much focused on the Roman military, and specifically during the Principate (spanning 27 BC - AD 284). There were some terrific artefacts on show - my favourite being the crocodile armour! But the smartest thing about the exhibition, in my opinion, was how they threaded it all together using the career records of an Egyptian legionary named Claudius Terentianus. A papyrus archive found at Karanis, Egypt, contained several letters Claudius had written and sent home to his family. They reveal how he tried and failed to join the legions in AD 110, thanks to a lack of satisfactory references. So, he instead joined the marines - a less prestigious and lucrative career path. His duties would have included building roads and guarding the grain fleet harbours as well as long and hazardous sea voyages. The letters tell of very practical and human things - his struggles to fit in with his marine colleagues, his need for new shoes and socks, and of his injuries sustained when fighting to supress a revolt. He was deployed in the east for a time, likely in Emperor Trajan's war against Rome's rival superpower, Parthia. Having proved himself he finally achieved his goal and was permitted to join the legions! Here's a couple of photos (of Augustus, and of the Dura Europos shield!) Full gallery with commentary is on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GordonDohertyAuthor/posts/pfbid02AqWchBNFauQHLTcK3QSCTLCxziY67inptoe68vHwr1jPAzA9jHXNALNh8ZXW2C6gl

https://www.thebyzantinelegacy.com/ven-byzantine- sez (embolded by me): I am a Venice fanatic but not so much the Byz angle (St Mark etc) so may be a contra-indicator for you. I found Murano and Torcello islands painfully blah. Pay attention to ferry schedule for Torcello; you may have to commit to a very short or long wait for the return. Stopover in Burano which is super cute, if well over the top. They have/had coin bathrooms with no change made at the time. Mosto and Turchi facades go by fast on a waterbus, so maybe look for viewpoints from other side of canal. One is a hotel and the other a zoolog museum, so visiting may have complications. I normally love museums, but in Venice I only find the huge Maritime museum inspiring. Nobody visits there, and the staff tries to herd everyone out way before the 1:30 closing, but you may find Byz cannons or whatever. Consider a quick excursion to Padua for mosaics, etc. The charming neighborhoods in Venice are Dorsoduro (SW) and Castello (NE). The famous walk of train station - Rialto bridge - San Marco is a cattle drive horror show punctuated by pigeon poop. To get from west to east walk the alternate route of bus station - Academy bridge and onward; that's what Italian commuters do. Venice has the worst food in Italy since it has negligible Italian customers. Instead of tourist gelato which tastes like shaving cream with food coloring, get sorbetto tailored to more refined taste. Instead of stockpiled wet cardboard pizza slices, order a whole pie with gourmet ingredients they have to prepare for you. Above all, wander around at dawn and night when daytripper hordes are gone.

Sensationalism sells. "locked in?"- they don't mention a collapsed roof. Maybe they just haven't uncovered a door yet. There must have been a way to bring in food, fodder and to evacuate manure, not to mention the finished bread. How did they get the men & animals in there in the first place? How many modern bakeries have windows to provide a view for workers?... Did the skeletons have chains on the limbs? Were donkey skeltons found? Blindfolds or just blinders like modern working equines use? Hollywood has given us a false impression of the life of ancient slaves. Slaves were in all likelihood treated more like we today treat our working animals- horses, hunting or sled dogs, etc--- We may not let them sleep in our beds like Zza Zza and her lap dog, but we feed them well and don't mistreat them either. But the excavations at Pompeii give us such a fortuitous opportunity to gain insight into the daily life two millennia ago. With the exception of powered machinery, practically everything we have and do today had its counterpart in ancient Rome.

Here is a walkthru of Pontius Pilates pilgrim's road, which has been excavated horizontally for over a third of a mile 50 feet under Jerusalem. I gather it is nearing being opened to tourists, altho excavation is still in progress as you can see by the host disturbingly yanking artifacts out of a wall of dirt. It was super expensive and high tech to dig without disturbing the surface:

A Roman knife handle was found depicting a (left-handed) secutor gladiator in a river near the Roman town of Corbridge near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England. https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/romans/rare-gladiator-shaped-knife-handle-discovered-by-hadrians-wall Roman Corbridge:

The DNA studies on the victims found at Pompeii have shown some surprising results: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1063333? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03576-y

I asked a professor of Classics. He said the translation is good. "No problem on the translation. What your friend has is accurate in vocabulary, grammar and word order. Ready for a tattoo or motto! Signifer Sancte Michael, illumina viam meam" guy

Optime!......Hoc verum est.....although an ancient Roman may have used the dative of possession- mihi- instead of meam.

Amazing......There are rare examples of other ancient seeds able to have been germinated after thousands of years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed. Apparently it's an often repeated myth that grain seeds from the Pyramids have been germinated. Somewhat related, Moses' original Burning Bush is supposedly still alive and doing well at St Catherine's monastery in Sinai. The monastery is only 1700 y/o, so the bush was already 1600y/o when the place was built. I wonder if they have have to pay extra for fire insurance? https://madainproject.com/burning_bush_of_saint_catherine_monastery#google_vignette

-- brings to mind some American sports history.....In college (American) football, Harvard and Yale have their annual "big game,' a rivalry dating back a century (a long time here)....Around 1965, Yale had an unusually good, undefeated team and Harvard an unusually bad team. Harvard had little hope of making a good showing, but, miraculously achieved a tie score at the end of the game, ruining Yale's shot at a perfect season....The next morning, the head lines in the Harvard daily newspaper read "Harvard Wins 0 - 0!

Very interesting. We tend to underestimate the extent & sophistication of trade routes in those days. That lion isn't the only thing fishy at St Mark's......Maybe that isn't even St Mark in the cathedral, but someone else https://www.thecollector.com/alexander-saint-marks-tomb-venice/

Crikey, that's one exposed site. I can just imagine a centurion gritting his teeth as soldiers moaned about the cold wind.

Or Circus Moderatus? The famous one in Rome is 2,037 ft by 387 ft and there was for a while an even bigger one near the present central train station. The well preserved Circus of Maxentius on via Appia of Rome has a spina barrier alone of exactly 1000 Roman feet: P.S. for those concerned about unprecedented tourist crowds in Rome, I have only ever seen at most a couple of visitors at this atmospheric site. One in a cluster of many undervisited sites.

Please remember the text below: Here is an article discussing a series of books documenting the ancient Roman frontier network. The project began with efforts to have the limes in Upper Germany recognized as a World Heritage Site. This required more thorough documentation of the 550 km-long Roman frontier. This initial effort was the first of twenty books written over a span of twenty years to comprehensively document the entire Roman frontier. https://the-past.com/feature/encircling-the-empire-how-romes-frontier-network-was-chronicled/

So limes means frontiers. Those Roman frontier books as well as many other archeo ones are available on free (slow) pdf downloads at https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Open-Access/Open-Access . Some have great photography; I will post a few examples:

Sherlock was always deducing occupations by observing anatomical changes induced by repetitive actions. We call it Over-use Syndrome these days. There was an anthropological report published in the med lit 30y/a about the high number of vertebral compression fractures found in ancient skeletal remains of indigenous people of the Pacific NW, presumably from the stresses of driving dog sleds-- a rate comparable today of that seen only among rodeo riders.

I had listened to his much longer recent podcast on the subject, but I'm not sure it's for everyone (thus he uses his alternate channel):

I stumbled across this video that takes a look at an oddity in Britain, the Fosse Way. For those who don't know of it, it's a Roman era route from SW to NE England - but incredibly straight. Yes, I know, Roman roads are supposed to be straight aren't they? Yes, but only between settlements. The Fosse Way is simply a line on the map, and perhaps it's a sign of something we've forgotten?

Hello everyone, I have a deep passion for Ancient Rome and have worked as a licensed tour guide in Rome there for over 10 years. I'm excited to engage with this community and learn from like-minded individuals.

Excavations continue in the Regio IX area of Pompeii (see post below). Recently, the discovery of a painted blue room was announced. Along with the frescoes painted on the walls, intact amphorae were uncovered. Numerous oyster shells were also unearthed. These shells were thought to have been used as part of the plaster or mortar mixture. https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/04/science/blue-sacrarium-pompeii-excavation-scli-intl-scn/index.html

Childlike graffiti depicting gladiatorial imagery has been found in Pompeii. One drawing that outlines a small hand (see picture below) suggests that it was the work of a child between 6 and 7 years of age. https://www.heritagedaily.com/2024/05/graffiti-depicting-gladiators-found-during-pompeii-excavations/152088

Time Team regular Guy de la Bédoyère outlines the disturbing fate of most artifacts and even basic archeo site info after the initial headlines. Site reports are either not written or pulped; computer formats go obsolete. Museums put stuff in irretrievable storage, uncataloged. This in the most well meaning of places such as UK, he maps out the inevitable incentives leading to this. Even in the headlines, unwarranted claims are typically made such as ownership of villas or ID of sculptures. He has made great efforts to counter this with no joy:

Amazing....After two thousand yrs, had the fish sauce gone bad?.....How could they tell?...I bet there weren't very many fat Romans. Very interesting discussion of the evolution of the terms & products garum and liquamen. Thanks for the references.

A bit of light relief - I came across this cartoon on the SPQR Facebook page. So true!

Ditto caldrail.

The story behind the images by Goldsworthy:

Timgad: idyllic retirement village on African frontier... P.S. don't miss my previous posted video, a mere 2.5 minute atmospheric gem.

More of a 'hello again' rather than a new introduction. I joined the forum back in 2006 and sort of drifted out of the orbit around 2012, although sporadically sending the odd contribution since. New interests, several house moves, currently living in France after moving there from England in 2017, lots of guitar and double bass playing in Jazz, country and Rockabilly bands. Recently my Dad died and helping my daughter sort out all the house contents, I rescued a good amount of history books, and rediscovered my mums old photos of archaeological sites from when she was at university. My interest in Rome was rekindled! Although like the Empire itself it never technically died as I shifted my interest to the Byzantine, or rather Eastern Roman Empire. Work has, of course, resumed at HOMVNCVLVM, the tiny Roman Colonia in the North of England, of which I am the governor. As well as focusing on astronomy, and developing a new interest in Black Powder firearms and shooting. Hello again! I wonder how many of the old bunch are still here?

The geography of the Med gives the following ferocious seasonal winds, usually oriented to push sailors away from sheltering shores. Except for the boot of Italy which may be placid to a fault (promoting Roman development?).

This mini series begins tomorrow night, April 2nd, at 9pm, on our PBS station. According to this link, it was made in 2023. Perhaps others have watched it already. Looks like it might be interesting. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30272530/

The road discovered is thought to be a crossroads with the Via Domitia, which was the Roman road that linked Italy with Hispania through Southern France. The remains were discovered between the two roads: In Ancient Rome the cemeteries were traditionally located outside of the religious boundaries (pomerium) of towns and cities. Tombs and elaborate burial monuments lined the roadsides. Burial graves and monuments along the Appian Way near Rome

I think phase 2 will be a spectacular win, linking the under visited Circus Maximus to under visited Baths of Caracalla to u. v. Via Appia. I think we discussed the Darya video on how the isolated new Map museum and sculpture garden is included too. Nobody but me makes the horrible walk between these relatively adjacent sites due to multi-lane fast roads, industrial vibe where you can hardly buy a hydrating drink, and poor signage/sidewalks/crosswalks. I hate the logistics and loss of context using wheeled travel instead. Phase 1 could turn out intrusive, but I think taps into the less busy side of the coliseum towards the weird grassy hill east side of the Forum. Not many go there since you can't see what's ahead and whether it is worth the climb; I stumbled around there only because of the new Nero dining room excavation, which I found practically deserted. It would be a plus even relieving pressure on the coliseum by offering alternative strolls. Crossing thru the Palace area to the racetrack could be intrusive, but folks need a little guidance there anyway because it isn't obvious you can get thru the palaces to the racetrack. It is such a maze that on my first visit back when the forum was free, I found myself walking on an exquisite decorated floor all wavy and fragile with poor options to avoid it or back off. It's not clear where the route will go due to the articles having paywalls, etc but I think phase 1 generally doesn't intrude except to give guidence in areas where there is a lot of random congestion and confusion. I include a picture that falsely looks intrusive, but depicts almost no change to the recent practice of closing off the horrible road Mussolini plowed thru the Forum. I would rather Via dei Fori Imperiali be torn out and excavated, but shutting out vehicle traffic with a few niceties seems fine: Other anecdotes: Now you can be walking quite close to the massive Baths of Caracalla and not see it. I made a rare exception and asked directions which just confused things since I accented the wrong syllable into gibberish. I looked for a street sign for a major road branching off another major one to shortcut to Via Appia, with absolutely none in sight in the industrial wasteland deprived of pedestrians. Another shortcut was super narrow and twisty with fast traffic barely scraping brick walls and each other with side mirrors. I was like a hunted animal who couldn't see when to creep thru the rubble safely. The only foot traffic was a couple stunning blondes walking with just wisps of clothing and cheap flip flops. Unlike me, they could obliviously walk in traffic lanes because the drivers stopped on a dime to stare. Ah, so much more I could pass on...

It looks like modern biker chicks descended from Scythian women....Tattoos were of course a customary practice from the earliest times. Otzti the Bolzano Ice Man had them 5000 yrs ago....Internalizing a vanquished foe by drinking his blood or eating his heart also is more ancient than the Scythians. It was a practice still in vogue among the Amerindians when first encountered by Europeans. We moderns should avoid judging the ancients by our own standards of morals and conduct.

Hi, new here, I am interested in the Aeneid, Punic wars and Latin language.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, publishing just a few years before Livy, gives a much more detailed, academic version of the founding of Rome than does Livy. He states variations of the story presented by various authors, and gives a thoughtful analysis of them, admitting the difficulty in separating facts from myths about such remote times. One gets the impression from Livy that the famous wolf cared for the babies for quite a while before Faustulus discovered them, but Dion- makes it sound like Faust- & the wolf came upon them at almost the same time.... Both authors admit the story of The Wolf (Lupa in Latin) probably is more of a reference to the social behavior of Faustulus' wife Laurentia, who wound up raising the kids as her own...Cf- our use of the "B" word or more recently the term "Cougar" to describe certain women. But it does make for a nice story and a good excuse to sell cheap trinkets as souvenirs. I wonder if that brooch was made in China?

Right, Guy. Solar installations require extensive concrete foundations, access roads and continuing traffic for cleaning & maintenance. They essentially "pave over" acres & acres of natural habitat, irreparably disrupting the ecosystem. The mining & processing of the raw materials are done in countries without environmental regulations and devastate the countryside & ecosystems in those countries. Wind & solar installations have only a 20 yr useful lifespan and disposal of the materials is an environmental nightmare....The wind mills chop up birds & insects while the solar panels fry them.... We will politely ignore the social concerns of using poorly paid children and slaves to do the mining of the raw materials in China & The Congo. ..To make it worse, they do nothing at all good for the environment. Co2 is a minor factor in the planet's energy balance at the concentrations we see now- and getting less important as levels go up-- please educate yourself as to the concept of "Extinction of Absorption" and the exponential effects of absorption.... We should want to raise co2 levels. Higher co2 levels are a factor in the greening of the planet, serving as "air fertilizer." Greenhouse growers add co2 (to a level of 2000ppm vs 420ppm in the ambient atmosphere) to increase photosynthetic productivity. BTW- to get his back to Roman history-- Around 250 BC, Hannibal lost half his men and all but one of his elephants thanks to the cold weather in The Alps. Two hundred years later, Caesar, an astute observer & describer of natural history in his Commentaries, never once mentions ice or snow despite having crossed back & forth from Cisalpine Gaul to Transalpine Gaul several times during that period....With Alpine glaciers now receding, they are leaving uncovered trees dating from Caesar's time. These obviously grew in much warmer times than the present climate conditions. It's all natural and there's nothing we can do about it. Ask King Canute.

In this short, Max describes the difference between modern pepper and Roman pepper

Oh, I just meant the principle of an elevated viewpoint to any tall vertical (or horizontal) surface . Actually that column is supposed to be viewed as almost a wall. Scholars say you don't follow the spiral but view narrative from the bottom to top from 2 nearly opposed sides. Maybe that is why I found the unraveled spiral casts at the EUR museum unsatisfying. Anyway new answers and questions from:

This complex is found built right up to the water's edge-- Pliny's villa or the world's first Sandals Resort? Minor point- the article states that Pliny died of "asphyxiation", but more likely it was from status asthmaticus induced by breathing the powdery pumice filling the air. Others around him would have died too had it really been from breathing 'poisonous air."...Pliny the Younger says his uncle was prone to frequent episodes of "closure of the windpipe" (sounds like asthma), that he was already suffering, asking for cold water supplied by others who were not suffering, and that before dying suddenly, he was being supported by two slaves as they tried to escape along the beach.... "...semel atque iterum frigidam aquam poposcit hausitque. Deinde flammae flammarumque praenuntius odor sulpuris alios in fugam vertunt, excitant illum. [19] Innitens servolis duobus assurrexit et statim concidit, ut ego colligo, crassiore caligine spiritu obstructo, clausoque stomacho qui illi natura invalidus et angustus et frequenter aestuans erat." https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Ep.+6.16&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0139 "...he repeatedly asked for cold water to drink. Then the flames and smell of sulphur which gave warning of the approaching fire drove the others to take flight and roused him to stand up. He stood leaning on two slaves and then suddenly collapsed, I imagine because the dense fumes choked his breathing by blocking his windpipe which was constitutionally weak and narrow and often inflamed." https://www.u.arizona.edu/~afutrell/404b/web rdgs/pliny on vesuvius.htm Here's a fairly good summary of Pliny the Younger's letter to Tacitus, the primary source describing the Vesuvius eruption & The Elder's death at Misenum. https://www.thecollector.com/pliny-the-elder-death/

There have been many previous posts on Garum (see below), the famous fermented fish sauce of the ancient world. Max Miller has attempted to recreate (again) this unusual dish:

Suprising results from archeologists who found a thriving town from a period of crisis.... Archaeological discovery upends what we thought we knew about fall of Roman empire (msn.com)

A fragment of Roman amphora found in Spain was found to have an inscription of Virgil’s Georgics, which dealt with rural and agricultural themes. The amphora shard was initially found seven years ago, but only recently was it translated. The full passage reads: https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2023/jun/21/virgil-quote-found-on-fragment-of-roman-jar-unearthed-in-spain https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/virgil-quote-roman-jar-180982426/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-roman-archaeology/article/las-georgicas-de-virgilio-in-figlinis-a-proposito-de-un-grafito-ante-cocturam-sobre-un-anfora-olearia-betica/742CDE20EED6987767C896C2A1F01739

Thank you for reading my post. I must disagree, however, with some of your points. I agree, for example, that only a small population in the ancient world had any level of literacy. Among the literate (not exclusively the ruling class elite), the knowledge and familiarity of the great Latin and Greek texts was essential. Historian and numismatist Guy de la Bédoyère mentions that even soldiers were frequently at least familiar with these texts. In fact, the military character in Roman comedies was distinguished by the way he would recite quotations (see 11:30 of the video below). As you mentioned, only a few could read. The fact that the writing was on the bottom of the amphora and not easily visible means that it was probably not meant for either the merchants or consumers. Maybe the text was copied for only the amusement of the amphora manufacturer or perhaps it was written by someone to practice and perfect his Latin. Guy de la Bédoyère has done some interesting and insightful work on deciphering an inscription on the reverse of a medallion of Carausius found in the 1930s. (Carausius was the usurper who ruled Britain and Northern Gaul, coming to power in AD 286.) On the reverse of Carausius medals was “RSP” and “INPCDA.” These inscriptions were left without an adequate translation for more than a half century. In 1997 Bédoyère was able to translate the significance of this inscription through his familiarity with Virgil’s “Ecologue.” (Virgil was the Roman Augustan poet who published “Eclogues” or “Bucolics” around 39-38 BCE, more than two centuries before Carausius.) “RSR” was seen to represent as “Redeunt Saturnia Regna;’ “INPCDA” was “Iam Nova Progenies Caelo Demittitur Alto.” This passage is found in Virgil’s “Ecolgues” and means “The Saturnian kingdoms return (or The Golden Age returns), now a new generation is let down from heaven above.” (See page 189 of the article below.) Bédoyère notes that fluency and understanding of Latin and Greek were much more common even in more recent years than today. In fact, he states, “A 1689 medallion of William and Mary issued to commemorate the restoration of the church carries the reverse legend ‘Caelo delabitur alto (he comes down from the heaven above)’ a direct allusion to [Ecolgues] IV, 7.” In conclusion, our lack of familiarity with poetry little more than a century old should not cause us to underestimate the ancient appreciation of poetry several centuries old, even if only superficially. Thanks, again, for reading my post. Bedoyere_2005.pdf (mom.fr)

Hiya, Folks...Searching for something about Rome, your excellent site popped up...I've been interested in Roman history since studying Latin in school, fascinated that our modern western society is not so much based on Roman, but really a direct extension of it. Being of Italian ancestry, I take a certain pride in that. About 50 y/a, I had the opprotunity to spend some time in Italy. Many of my friends back in Chicago were recent Italian Immigrants, and while over there, I met up with one of them visitng his family in Genzano- about 25 km SE of Rome on the Appian Way. I wanted him to take me in to see The Forum...Observing the ruins in silent amazement, we stopped about half way down the Sacra Via. "Sandro," I said, "Your ancestors built this place over two thousand years ago. We're walking on the very stones that Julius Caesar walked on...The oldest thing we have in Chicago is The Water Tower, and it's barely 100 years old."...Sandro looked around pensively, soaking it up as if he'd never seen it before...."Yea," he replied. "We work slow here, but we work good."

Although this is an older article, it is an interesting finding. This Egyptian document possibly bears what is thought to be Cleopatra’s only known hand writing. Below is thought to be Cleopatra's signature on an official document written by an Egyptian official. https://greekreporter.com/2023/09/20/cleopatra-handwriting-greek-word/ https://archive.archaeology.org/0101/newsbriefs/cleopatra.html

There isn't much evidence for military protocol in the Roman legions. Legionaries weren't called 'soldiers' before Augustus (they were referred to as 'Brothers'). Specific ranks would be a little tedious so broad categories are likely, Centurion, Tribune, Legate. What you will have to become aware of is that the Romans may well have not used analogous behaviour to modern armies (a typical Hollywood or literary ploy). Saluting has been debated for a lo/ng time and most people feel comfortable with a modernesque protocol, but the sources do not mention saluting outside of honouring a commander as opposed to recognising his superior rank as we do. What this means is that ordinary salutes may not have happened, but that soldiers who approved of their commanders may have deliberately or spontaneously saluted them as something. Incidentially using the word 'Domine' might well have been seen as 'licking the backside'. In fact, such language does exist in letters recovered from Vindolanda. It does not refer to rank, but names the recipient as 'Master'. That's a very subordinate form of phrasing because it infers that you are indentured to the recipient in some way. Legionaries swore an oath of obedience - this was necessary because obedience to another man is the same as slavery, and Roman soldiers would not tolerate such associations. They were free citizens, soldiers or not. The upshot of this is that I am thinking in terms of names being more contextual than actual rank titles in many cases. Remember that in the legions, loyalty is fixed toward individuals rather than offices.

Whilst I was on holiday I saw a television broadcast of a dramatised documentary about Boudicca's rebellion against Rome in AD60. Entertaining stuff, however biased toward the Roman account, which is admittedly our only source and written back in the day to conform to their readers expectations of an interesting and dramatic anecdote. But as I watched, I realised the presenter was making fundamental errors about Rome's provincial policies. In short, I hereby examine three statements made during the program. 1 - That Rome ruled by violence and oppression 2 - That Rome relied on the invincibility of her army 3 - That the rebellion illustrates the truth of what life was like under Roman rule. 1 - Rome ruled by violence and oppression This is a common conception. Rome is seen as a monolithic nation state that assimilates populations to produce indentikit citizens with a generation or two. This was simply not so. Rome was at heart a city state with influence over a network of territories of varying status and native populations owing them loyalty and taxes. it is true that many regions were brought into the empire via conquest of one sort or another, but let's not forget that the realm of Iceni was a client state that Rome expected to inherit. Tacitus tells us that... The imperial agent Caisu Decianus, horrified by the catastrophe and his unpopularity, withdrew to Gaul. It was his rapacity which had driven the province to war Annals (Tacitus) Imperial agent? So Decianus was there at the orders of Nero to make sure the man the Senate had sent to make sure the province was doing fine, was doing fine. Whilst the habit of being rapacious, greedy, clumsy, and brutal was an unfortunate tendency of senior Romans in Provincial assignment, clearly not all of them were. Therefore violence and oppression was a policy pursued by individual Romans at their discretion rather than any tyrannical regime the Romans had foisted upon the unfortunate Britons. But then, the Romans didn't like tyrants all that much, never mind the Britons. 2 - Rome relied on the invincibility of her army Rome's legions were not invincible and they knew it. The sources contain many references to utter defeats and indeed, some describe one legion or another as barely resembling a military unit at all. But let's read what Tacitus says about a military mission to relieve the sack of Camulodunum. The Ninth Roman legion, commanded by Quintus Perilius Cerialus Caesius Rufus, attempted to relieve the town, but was stopped by the victorious Britons and routed. its entire infantry force were massacred, while the commander escaped to his camp with his cavalry and sheltered behind its defenses. Annals (Tacitus) Oh dear. The commander ran away with his horsemen, perhaps two or three percent of a full strength legion. How invincible was that? 3 - That the rebellion illustrates the truth of what life was like under Roman rule. The 'savage' Britons ran riot, attacking Londinium, Veralumium, and eventually meeting another legionary force under the senatorial governor Suetonius, at the Battle of Watling Street. Tacitus kindly gives us the speech made by Boudicca - which is clearly invented since no-one would have recorded it for the benefit of a Roman historian. The Britons lose, and Boudicca is said to have poisoned herself - a standard Roman style fate. Nero sends replacements for the casualties suffered by the Ninth Legion. And hot off the boat is Decianus' replacement. Still the savage British tribesmen were disinclined for peace, especially as the newly arrived Imperial Agent Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus, successor to Caius Decianus, was on bad terms with Suetonius, and allowed his personal animosities to damage the national interests. Annals (Tacitus) Should have all been sorted. Calmly, confidently, and decisively. But as happens in these anecdotes of Roman disorder, personality is the flaw rather than politics. Nero senses things aren't working out, and sends his freedman Polyclitus to investigate, who travelled with a seriously large entourage that stretched the patience of Italy and Gaul. it even intimidated the Roman legions. The Britons were, by all accounts, quite amused. But all this was toned down in Polyclitus' reports to the emperor. Retained as governor, Suetonius lost a few ships and their crews on the shore, and was then superseded for not terminating the war. His successor, the recent consul Publius Petronius Turpilianus, neither provoking the enemy nor provoked, called this ignoble inactivity peace with honour. Annals (Tacitus) One imperial agent ran away, his replacement pursued intrigue rather than the rebels.. The senatorial governor got the sack, his replacement did nothing until the leaderless rebels gave up. Conclusion The television presenter stopped at the defeat of Boudicca, describing Rome as a tyranny that trampled rebellions with violence and oppression. What Tacitus describes is a catalogue of folly. Greed, cowardice, intrigue, indecisiveness, and clumsiness. The war is not won, merely left to fizzle out. Violence and oppression? Truth was the Romans were too busy making mistakes.

Dating Methods One of the absolutely most important corners in the work of a historian or an archaeologist is the possibility to date their work. It’s such a natural feature of a museum, article or book that most common people don’t even thing about it. It’s just that way it is, the archaeologist knows when. Done. In all honestly though, dating is critical for all historical knowledge and research, it’s the frame on which we build all of our past. It is however not even close to as easy as it may seem, dating objects are a very complex work. There are even two primary dating systems, an important fact missed by most people; the absolute dating and the relative dating. This article is therefore meant as a base for you to consider what the dates you will get bombarded with really mean and to make it possible for you to draw your own conclusions on how reliable they are. Another very important thing to keep in mind when talking about any dating is the time scale. Remember that not all cultures use the same timescale and the western world and not even we use the same scale at all times. The most commonly used are however BC/AD (Before and after Christ) and BP as Before Present where present is set to 1950 AD. This is mainly used for prehistoric periods before 8000-10000 BC, but it may of course be used for any other date too. Relative Dating: In theory it’s very easy to make out the difference between absolute and relative dating, I will start with explaining the relative dating and how it is used. As the name suggests it’s made up of relations between objects, a typological sequence where you can see how an object is changing its shape slowly through time. A classic archaeological example would be stone axes in the north or Athenian pottery in southern Europe. Even easier to see today is the changes in how a car looks . If you find pictures of an old horse cab and then get more and more pictures as it’s developed into the first automobiles and then modern cars you will see how certain features hangs on for a while to later disappear. The resemblances between a horse cab and a modern car may be virtually none, but if you have all the steps it will all unfold. This is exactly what relative dating is about, making a chain of objects that resembles each other and you can now say that this object is older than that object, you have a relative dating line. You will however, unless you can date one of the objects absolutely, have any idea about how old they are. The important part here is what objects to compare, it’s not enough that they are from roughly the same time frame, and they need to be from the same geographical area. Its often trickier then expected. Absolute Dating: To place an object exact in time you will need to use the other method, absolute dating and this is compared to relative dating a rather new phenomenon except or written sources. Before the emergence of modern physics and science the only absolute dating we had was from this kind of material. Absolute dating is the methods used to fix an object to a specific place in time. The scientific methods to do this are quite many and I will only mention the most important to save you a very long reading. For what are the different methods used? I am now to go through a number of relative and absolute dating methods and examples. Stratigraphy: This is probably the most common way to use relative dating today. When using stratigraphy you are practically digging a whole in the ground with very straight edges. What you’ll soon notice is how the difference earth layers will have different colours and content. In theory it’s really this easy, what’s in the higher layers are newer then the lower layers, and everything in the same layer belong to the same time. In practice there are a great deal of problems. First of all, these dig shafts obviously cuts away one part of the stratigraphy and shows another, in practice you can miss a whole layer like this if it ends in your shaft. Secondly it’s very rare to find a completely undisturbed stratification. In almost all cases it has either been disturbed by humans, as in when a new house is built on top of an older one and the founding are dug down, or by animals. This disturbance is called formation processes and it’s crucial for all archaeologists who are working with stratigraphy to recognize what process have affected what object . There are two main types Cultural and Natural formations where cultural are human made and natural basically everything nature have done to the object. Are the cut marks on a stick made by a stone knife of a beaver? These are important questions for the interpretation of an object. These stratigraphy layers may also be very deep, well over 10 meters in cities from the medieval times and even thicker in older cities. In the Middle East there is a phenomena called tells (Tel Aviv as an example) city mounds that may be very high since cities have been in the same place for thousands and thousands of years. Now if you can date one object absolutely in a layer you know roughly from what time frame all objects in that layer are (Considering the above problems of course). The last thing to have in mind when doing this is that the date you get is the last used date not a date for when the object was originally made. Lots of objects can circulate for tens or even hundreds of years before it is finally lost or buried. In effect we know when the object was buried not when it was made or used and object of different age can therefore be mixed. Radiocarbon dating: The absolutely most well known absolute dating method is the radiocarbon dating method also known as the 14C method, which was invented by the American Williard Libby during the 1940’s. The method was an unexpected result of the intense atomic research of the day. In earth’s atmosphere is a most unusual substance called coal-14 (One coal atom out of 1012) created when nitrogen (14N) is bombarded by neutrons from space in the form of background radiation. This gives 14N + n -> 14C + 1H, in other words the nitrogen and the neutron is transformed into this highly unusual coal-14 and hydrogen. During its life all living mater consume a small amount of 14C. After its death the consuming is done for and the coal-14 already in the object or animal is slowly falling apart, this because the 14C atom is unstable and is constantly trying to revert back to it’s more stable 12C state. Now we know how a 14C atom looks and by taking a sample we can know how much of the original atoms that are left and reverse calculate how long ago the object died, presented as BP, Before Present as in before 1950. However the method is far from perfect and rather complicated to use. The basis for the calculations for how old the object is are made by an estimated half life of 14C set by Libby to 5568 years, but since then a new more accurate half life have been calculated to 5730 years. Laboratories however still use the older less accurate number though since there are more problems to overcome before the dating can be used. One of those problems is that all dates are estimated, not exact. It’s accepted that the number has a 95% chance to be in about the range of 2.5-5% to the real date. This may seem as very little but for most objects before about the 1st millennia BC a relative dating is more exact, especially in the Greek and Roman world. The next problem is that when the first dates were coming out in 1949 they were all slightly off and too old. This was because the 14C have not always been constant and further calibration was needed. This is mainly done by dendrochronology (Tree ring dating). Ice cores and sea bottom cores have also been used in calibration. Further on wasn’t the first method to calculate the number of intact 14C atoms as accurate as those today and newer methods keep coming. There is also the problem of modern contamination, as soon as an object is taken up from the dig and comes into contact with modern organic material the coal-14 balance is changed. Very many objects are therefore impossible to date in this manner. The last and maybe most problematic issue for prehistorians is the fact that the 14C method only allow us to date up to 40.000-50.000 years back, after that the number of 14C atoms are so low that it cannot be measured accurately and modern contamination is overwhelming compared to the original 14C. Dendrochronology: Another important method is dendrochronology. This is classed as an absolute dating method but it’s clearly an offspring of relative dating. The principle behind it is (as in most other dating methods) easy. Each year a tree grows a certain amount very much depending on how the weather have been. In the spring and summer the rings are thick and bright, then they get very thin and dark over the winter. This is constant to all trees in a regional area. If you can find a number of samples from different periods it’ll be possible to puzzle those together into a chronology. From this you may later date wooden objects. This method also has a lot of problems to consider though. The largest is that it does only work in temperate zones where the years have seasons, therefore it’s not possible to use in all jungle areas. Even in temperate zones it does only work for the same species as the one you have a chronology for. Some trees cannot even be used at all. The method is also highly regional, about 250 km in diameter very much depending on the climate and natural conditions and therefore very troublesome some to make. However can most places in Europe and Northern American be dated with dendrochronology up to 8000 BC. Beside dating of wooden objects is the absolutely most important use of this method to calibrate 14C and therefore making it more reliable. Thermoluminicense: Cheramics have been a problem since it cannot be dated with either coal-14 or tree ring dating (Unless the finder is in luck and a grain or piece of wood is stuck in the object). There is one method however called thermoluminicense that can date ceramics. The theory is that it’s possible to measure how much radiation the crystal structure have received since it was last burned. When heated up to more then 500 degrees C this radioactivity is released and the thermoluminicent clock is reset. What you do is that you take a sample and heat it up to 500 degrees C and it will release a faint light that can be measured. The stronger the light is the older the object is. Here the largest problem is that the margin for error is large, +/-10% that in all historic times is far too much to be of any use and almost never exact enough for any other pottery either. Therefore the largest use has been to identify fakes from real objects. Closing thoughts: All methods are problematic in one or another manner and must therefore be used with caution. Beside all methods individual problems there is one general point that must be taken very seriously. When an object is found you need to exactly understand what you are dating. It’s a common error to take a coal-14 test of an object and then say this is how old it is. This is wrong. That is how long ago the object consumed it’s last coal-14. Imagine a house dated in this manner. A house can be at the same place for several hundreds of years and be rebuilt any number of times. Therefore I want to finish this with; be critical to the dating you see, stop up for a second and think about what it is that is dated and I promise you, you will have a much greater understanding of the object that you are observing. Sources: Gr