Andrew Dalby

It's a good question. As the Western Empire actually dissolved, I think you might say that Italy went before Gaul (though it's rather a question of definition as to when a territory was totally lost). Gaul was in many ways a centre of Roman culture in the 5th century, and if it was also the bit of the empire that held on longest, perhaps that's not just a coincidence -- they really tried to keep things going there.

My comment is a negative one -- sorry not to be more helpful -- I read the old Penguin prose translation by Mary Innes and found it useful but unexciting. I don't know if it's the same one that Penguin still publish: if so, I would avoid it.

Isn't that the same Julia who was eventually exiled by Augustus for her ungovernable sexual appetites? Perhaps 'mirth' was the nearest Mrs Grieve felt she should go towards 'nymphomania'. I have noted that elecampane root is one of the products that sells particularly well at the big herbal store at Athens central market. As for me, I've always wondered whether I suffer from passions of the hucklebone.

"Why would a god speak with such worthless scum?" It's a challenging point, but I can't think of evidence that ancient people reacted with words like those! It sounds a very modern reaction to me. If you read ancient historical writers -- the ones who actually report omens, divine messages, and what not, as many do -- you'll find that some seem to believe it, some don't, but they don't generally say "that's the wrong kind of person to receive the message". Slaves and prostitutes and other widely-despised groups could worship, sacrifice etc., and no one told them not to. It was indeed sometimes the very lowly people (sons of carpenters, would that be another example?!) who got the most important messages.

I believe the mosque was built in the 12th century, under the Komnenoi. The main reason was that there was a large Muslim trading community in Constantinople by that time -- it is true, also, that a few areas which were formerly Muslim had been recaptured by the Byzantines. There was probably considerable interchange in the highlands of Anatolia between Christians and Muslims, and the borders kept shifting. The Greek epic of Digenis Akritas, which might have originated roughly in the same period, tells of Muslim-Christian battles but also love affairs and intermarriage -- very much like similar epics from medieval France and Spain. No, the Pechenegs were not Muslim. Turkish peoples originated in southern and eastern Siberia (where some still live). Those who migrated south-west, towards central Asia and Persia and eventually Turkey, gradually adopted the Muslim religion. Those who took a northerly route (including the Pechenegs, and also I think the Chuvash of modern Russia) were never reached by Muslim culture.

If reenactors go around smelling of lavender, I'm sure that's all to the good. As a practical panacea, however, I, like you, would tend to choose Calvados. But even Jack Daniel's, although distilled somewhere on the other side of Atlantis, has been known to have a salutary effect.

I suspect it's a false identification ... but I am always happy to be proved wrong! What's the source for this lavender water, do we know? According to the German nun Hildegard of Bingen who lived from 1098-1179, lavender "water", a decoction of vodka, gin, or brandy mixed with lavender, is great for migraine headaches. Have a look at this site about the history of Lavender http://www.lavenderfarm.com/history.htm They have gone in for the confusion of lavender with spikenard. On the whole, you can't trust people who aim to sell herbs to teach you real history. Vodka, gin and brandy -- and all alcoholic spirits -- were not available to Hildegard of Bingen, so that can't be right. Sorry to be negative -- it's a nice site!

I suspect it's a false identification ... but I am always happy to be proved wrong! What's the source for this lavender water, do we know? :notworthy: Bothy? http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ Even French bothies take a deal of heating, I can tell you. It was minus 8 when we were chopping wood yesterday. But thank goodness our landscape is a little less 'Spartan' than those illustrated in the link. Tomatoes do nicely here in summer -- they wouldn't in the Scottish Highlands, I suspect.

It sounds worse than the pink linctus they used to make me have when I was ill. They claimed it was strawberry-flavoured, but I knew better.

Very sorry, everybody, peradventure I was out hunting. No, not literally. Actually I was gathering winter fuel. All right, back to work. Some moderns, especially French moderns, make a confusion between ancient spica and modern Lavender (and admittedly one species does have the scientific name Lavandula spica, 'spike-lavender'). They are wrong (says AD). In this case the scientific name is no guide to ancient usage. Ancient spica was spica nardi, 'the spike (or shoot) of nard', and that meant the true spikenard from the Himalaya. Spikenard is Nardostachys Jatamansi (not actually an Inula). It is still obtainable. Because it was damned expensive in the Mediterranean, the search was on for substitutes. Originally, I guess, substitutes that had some similar smell. Hence the urge to experiment with Valeriana, which must have had the right qualities. And I think it turned out that some Valeriana species had better medicinal qualities than real spikenard did, hence, probably, real spikenard eventually lost market share (in late Roman times). For whatever reason, lavender doesn't seem to have interested Greeks or Romans very much. It appears to be iphyon in Greek, also mentioned once in Pliny, but just as a flower. The word lavandula doesn't occur in ancient or early medieval Latin -- I don't know, straight off, when it first does occur. Is that any help? My attention is fully focused now ...

Apologies for asking for the link you had already provided! OK, these are not Arabian. If I am looking at the right coins, they are from the Artuqid (or Ortoqid) dynasty of northern Iraq-eastern Anatolia. It is, and was, a mainly Kurdish-speaking region, but the dynasty is Turkic and the language of the coins is no doubt Arabic (I leave it to others to read them!) I have not enough knowledge of coins of that region in that period to say in advance whether, somewhere in the area, there was the ability to strike such coins -- but it seems not unlikely, if it had in the past been under Byzantine and Persian control, and if it included cities such as Mosul, where coins might well have been struck over a long period. They don't look like restrikes to me -- they look like imitations, and it is indeed curious and very interesting that so many different styles are being imitated. A melting-pot of culture, it appears. Thanks very much for the link.

Sorry. You didn't say that before! But my impression of this thread is that you are making assumptions and asking others to explain them. It may also help if you question your assumptions! As GO says, some Muslim rulers have produced portrait coins and still do, so, clearly, the rule is not applied in the same way by all. And I don't know on what grounds you tell us that the people you're talking about couldn't mint coins of the quality you describe. But it may be true, and it is also possible for coins to be restruck. Can you perhaps put up a link to pictures of the coins or to some fuller report of them?

The last time I read about the "Byzantines" they call themselves "Romaioi"/"Romei" . I believe that your fellow Greek is very very very Patriotic and that his argument is based on that (you know about the endless debate about Alexander III as a Greek...) . And yes , Ellinas = Greek/s . You're right, they didn't call themselves Byzantines (though I don't see why your friend shouldn't call them that if he wants!) They did call themselves Romei (spelt Romaioi), and that word was still used by Greek people up until the early 20th century at least. They were also perfectly well aware that they spoke the same language as the ancient Greeks (Elines, spelt Hellenes) and so if you asked a Greek-speaking subject of the Byzantine Empire whether he was an Elin (spelt Hellen) he would probably have said yes.

Ah, but they weren't Muslims. There were no Muslims before Muhammad, who lived in the 7th century AD.

What a nightmare! I wish you the very best of luck with reconstructing things ...

There are fascinating examples all through history of coin types that become accepted, or even "compulsory", far beyond their original territory. Imitations of Philip tetradrachms in Iron Age Gaul and Britain; imitation Byzantine and Arabic coins in Anglo-Saxon England; Maria Theresa talers circulating in Ethiopia. I believe that imitation Athenian "owls" (5th or 4th century BC) were also struck in Arabia.

Now if you had said "construction unearths Roman railway in Germany" that would really have been front page news ...

By the end of the empire the Irish were indeed troublesome -- Gildas fingers them, if I'm not mistaken.

Perplexity and disbelief are necessary preconditions for pursuing Roman history. At least on this particular thread ...

So how will we recognise you? You'll be wearing ancient armour, showing signs of a recent stab wound, and carrying a copy of the Times?

You could always provide him with grant money to help the process along ... Nice idea, Doc! I'll write anything for money. Which will eventually, of course, provide more and better vino.

I read it as 'Tiuisco' (i.e. 'to Tiviscum'). Agreed, it occurs twice. In view of the way the Peutinger table is designed, I don't find that too surprising -- in fact, I believe I have seen the same thing happen elsewhere on the map, but I can't remember where, so I can't prove it! Since everything works in horizontal lines, there has to be a lot of stretching-to-fit. In this case, maybe, the designer failed to notice at the right moment that the Viminacum-Tiviscum road had to be stretched to meet up with the other one -- hence they don't meet, and 'Tiuisco' appears twice. Or, of course, we have to think of what the designer himself knew. He hadn't travelled the whole Empire himself, so maybe he never realised that these two places were in fact one place. The 19th century idea that you mention -- that there really is another place not far off with the same name -- is also possible, since Tibiscus is the name of the river too, so 'Tiuisco' might also mean 'to the Tibiscus river'. My guess (not knowing the archaeology, but looking at the Tabula Imperii Romani sheet L 34) is that the 19th century idea was abandoned because the road from Viminacum to Tibiscum has now been traced on the ground, proving that it really does meet the other road at the place called Tibiscum. As for the distance, yes, I think there are quite a few copying errors of this kind. It's easy for a scribe to make such mistakes. It might be XII, or XIII, or whatever -- and it depends where you think Aizizis is!

Thank heaven I'm not beautiful.

Old Frank must have been a relative of Vlad ('the Impaler') Incensestain, I take it. I'm told it was very unwise to turn your back on Vlad, especially at full moon.

Good point. Even if you can't get across the "fact" that you're noble, pious, charitable, a good parent, a fine citizen, during your lifetime, at least (with the stonecutter's help) you can make the point after your death. And with reasonable luck the "fact" will be on record for two thousand years or more.