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The attitude of Romans toward Christianity was largely one of ignorance. I don't think we can blame tactius and Dio for that alone. The Romans saw a monotheistic faith that deliberately excluded other spiritual beliefs, something that their superstitious mindset found diifficult to appreciate. For instance - To the Romans, a river was more than just a flow of excess water. It was also the manifestation of a spirit of some kind, either one of their own or a local being. If you upset that being, the river would claim you. Now I'm sure there were Romans who paid lip service or scorn to such ideas, there always is, but that was a prevailing opinion. What the Christians were saying was that this river spirit did not exist or was not worthy of consideration. Therefore, this was an insult to the being concerned, and so making river crossing a much riskier affair. Of course we also know that gossip about christian practice made things difficult. They heard of cannabalistic and vampiric rites that were very un-Roman. Worse still, the Christians refused to accept the divinity of the Emperors cult. That, above all else, was tantamount to sedition. I'd have to say that the pagans probably did ignore the books that would later make up the New Testament. Christianity was not a unified sect and one that held meetings in secret. Their writings were not common knowledge, and since there were occaisional persecutions, I hardly think they were going to shout about their books. Once we reach the reign of Constantine there is a drive to unify the church. With the Emperors support, the Christians are creating links and Ammianus Marcellinus tells us that "The roads were filled with galloping bishops". Although Constantine had made religion free of suppression by the Edict of Milan, under his reign the politicisation of religion he sponsored would lead to factional rivalry. I suspect then there were many versions of christian texts floating around (even after the Council of Nicaea which was supposed to thrash out what was or wasn't christian). After all, Ulfilas, a gothic convert and missionary, founded his own sect and may have assisted the Arian heretic Emperor Valens to spread Arianism to the Tervingi north of the Danube, part of the peace settlement for the three year war won by Valens against the Goths of Athanaric. Ulfilas wrote his own bible and translated it into Gothic, and this was something done (40 years?) after the Council of Nicaea. I would say then, that there might have been many books with minor distribution, hence the pagans may not have stressed them.

I imagine Pilate, with no easy way to excuse an unruly mob, might well give in to them temporarily. The problem with enforcing decisions upon a native people is that they don't like it, and Judaea was certainly no exception. Hadrian, for instance, had promised to rebuild Jerusalem (in ruins after the jewish revolt). What he actuallt did was make plans to build Aelia Capitolina on the site instead, and sparked off another revolt. You can hate someone but be unable to do anything against them, and a politician hoping to make an impression in the provinces doesn't want to risk his reputation. Tiberius wasn't going to be impressed by a governor who shows he can't control a populace without resorting to violence at the drop of a hat. I see plenty of anomalies, and I can assure you, I am anything but fundamentalist christian. The point is though that I also recognise the need for public image amongst Roman politicians. The Romans were powerful in military terms, but they weren't all powerful in occupation. If Tiberius sensed Pilate was weak or a poor decision maker - he was out of a job.

Picture the world in prehistory. No television, computer games, or cars. In between hunting wild beasts I guess they had a lot time on their hands. So bored was one ancestor of humanity that he discovered rubbing wooden sticks together made things catch fire.. Can you imagine how excited he was to discover that? Later, when voluminous wigs were fashionable, Newton discovered that sitting under apple trees was not only painful, but seriously enlightening. Sometime later, Einstein discovered that mathematics alone could prove how difficult the universe was to understand. Not really mad scientist stuff was it? Where's the drama? Newton decided that gravity constantly attracted things, Einstein discovered there was a universal constant. Sigh... Science is definitely getting duller with each generation. If you think that's wrong, consider the Big Bang. That's the first thing that ever happened and what an explosion! Everything, literally everything, compressed into a space smaller than my chances of getting a job. Then it blew up. No warning whatsoever. Some people say we're made of stars. I say most of us are made of shrapnel. The reason I write this is that I've just watched a tv documentary on the Big Bang. It's just so incredible. Like a lot of television programs, it was all Flash Bang Wallop! Fast paced, lots of fancy computer graphics, and the same message repeated thirty seven times. The first second of the universe was the most important. Okay, okay, I got that. Can we move on to something else now? Eventually they did. They showed a lot of interior shots of that big underground hadron collider in Europe, and told us that this device will open up new vistas of reality we can only dream of. You mean, there's going to be a sequel to this documentary? I can't wait, especially since the only thing I can remember from the voiceover about the hadron collider was that they broke it. Technology of the Week Mind control is here. I've just watched an orchestra play instruments electronically with sensors wrapped around their skulls. Is that a good thing? Part of the joy of playing musical instruments is that moment when your dexterity does what you want without having to think about it. So what's the point of mind control when we've had it built-in for millions of years?

Hmmm.... Think you might have heard a different Beatles album from me

Oh? Why? Do you imagine two opposing phalanxes 'pushing pikes' in a sort of military rugby scrum? That may have occured, but generally that wasn't how the phalanx fought. It was a remorseless advance by weight of numbers employing a wall of sharp points to persuade the enemy to go away. The front ranks can't stop because they've met the enemy pikes. The weight of men behind them will push them onward. You therefore might have seen a phase where both sides are impaling the other, and if both sides continue (by no means a sure thing) then the ranks might reach the stage of being inside the enemies reach (but the enemy is also inside theirs) at which point the push of pikes results in the vague stalemate you infer. However, the previous contact phase is actually very crucial and there's no guarantee a phalanx won't collapse into disorder. Not entirely true. The Romans were pragmatic about warfare and concluded peace settlements just like anyone else if it suited their purposes. Caledonia for instance. Had Domitiain allowed Agricola to finish the conquest of the British Isles the victory may have been clear, but the threat from the north remained in place throughout the Roman occupation. Only Antoninus Pius authorised another territorial campaign and that may have only been to establish miltiary credibility of his reign.

Not so. One of the duties of a provincial governor was to uphold law and the native legal system wasn't replaced - the Romans merely added their own laws to the mix. The result was a difficult and sometimes delicate balancing act between needs of the occupying state and those of the culturally diverse natives. Remember that the Romans didn't want revolts. One means of achieving this acceptance of their presence was to accept the native legal system. It was after all important to bring the natives on-side as Roman clients, a fundamental part of their political policies. The Romans did not supplant the native systems, merely persuaded their leaders to join the Roman side. It is simply wrong to assume that provincials were automatically romanised, even if they did enjoy some of the benefits of Roman rule.

What both Horace and Juvenal (who are both incidentally satirical writers not historians) indicate is that crucifixion was the normal method of putting slaves to death. No one denies that. Roman citizens were normally beheaded, not crucified. Neither writer specify political or non-political reasons for crucifixion. There were a number of punishments depending on the crime. A citizen might be sentenced to fight animals in the arena, or be forced to fight another criminal for the crowds edification and delight. Some were thrown from the Tarpian Rock, or ritually strangled, or simply bumped off quietly. Beheading is mentioned but I believe that was a punishment from the later period of Roman history? In the early Byzantine period, one unfortunate fellow was accused of plotting against the Emperor. They blinded him, cut out his tongue, cut off his arms and legs, paraded him around town then set him adrift on a boat... Which they thoughtfully set fire to.

Right then. Time to to meet my contractual obligations and earn my benefit payments. So its off to the office and another session of the training programme. Seeing as I'm officially famous and a genuine unemployed person, I think today I really must make the effort and dress in typically grungie fashion. Cue Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees and lots of silly dancing in front of mirrors. Having dressed the part it's down the stairs and out into the big wide world. There's no stopping me today... Hello?... Who's that in next doors front yard?... A little old lady about four feet tall is busy pulling up weeds and putting them in her supermarket organic produce bag. Yes... Well.... Think I'll leave her to it. She;'s happy. I suspect her customers are too even if they don't know where these mystical potions are coming from. Session of the Week "Can I help you?" Asked the woman at the office. I pointed out I was there for my afternoon session and she relaxed a bit. "Come with me please." Sigh. It's a pokey little office and I already know I'm going to be in the back room. But she's happy, so I follow behind and smile gratefully when she beckons me toward the door. The guys inside told me to choose a PC and get right on it. The job search I mean, not the computer. At least I think that's what he meant. Oh no. I've forgotten my memory stick and I don't have my CV with me. So I'll have to type it out all over again... Boredom Level One.... De Ja Vu. I've got a great list of websites to work through which means I have to register for every search engine on it one after the other.... Boredom Level Two.... Losing the ability to move facial muscles. The man in charge says we can go home five minutes early because we've been good little boys and girls. I've worked very hard these last two sessions and currently the entire civilised world has access to my CV. So far I've had one email asking me why I want to work for their client... This is a joke, right?... Guess not, so I'll have to invent a clever answer... Boredom Level Three... Irreversible brain damage. Now the man in charge tells me that having uploaded my CV to every planet with intelligent life (there's a huge number of advanced civilisations out there according to statistical studies) I'll have to do that every again every two weeks because otherwise these super intelligent space aliens get bored and won't read my CV. I know. I'll offer them my Self Marketing Voucher. Yep. Us long term unemployed can now can now present a voucher from the government saying "Employ me and get cash, free". It's a bit like tuning your radio to the frequencies used by Alpha Centauri and saying "Hey guys, abduct me please? We'll throw in a free cow."

There was a time, before the BBC discovered computerised special effects, that we used to see those fifties 'B' movies. You know the ones? A terrible threat to mankind emerges from its hiding place and lays waste to the nearest big city before mankind finds a way to destroy it. Good wholesome family viewing. All these films followed a familiar pattern. Whether the threat came from space aliens, nuclear radiation, meteorites, or chemicals, it all started with an innocent small town slowly becoming aware of a lurking menace. When the threat is realised, the good reverend clutches his bible to his chest, and advances toward the monster safe in the knowledge that a leather bound book is all he needs to protect himself from the terrible fate that inevitably gets him anyway. Then the army turn up and fire everything they've got. It turns out of course that bullets and shells bounce off the creature but the army fights to the last scream of agony. High Command, realising that London and Paris are also being stomped and eaten, decide to drop a nuclear bomb, which does no more than daze the monster for five seconds before it remorselessly continues doing what the writer intended it to. The end is always a suprise. At the very last moment we discover the monster was vulnerable to something very ordinary and we see the closing credits as the choir sings in the background, announcing that the world is safe until the next feature release. A few days ago, two policemen turned from our street into the alleyway and were never seen again. Hmmm... Strange.... Well I thought no more of it until I bought yesterdays newspaper intent on finding a job advert. Lo and behold, pest exterminators are warning of a new danger in Swindon. Our cute, loveable local sewer rat has mutated into a big nasty indestructible Giant Super-Rat. No, really, they mean it. The monster rodents are unaffected by poison and traps are the only answer. So serious is the threat that BBC Radio One is holding their Big Weekend at Lydiard Park to lure them out, and the government are recalling troops from Iraq. Mark my words - There will be loads of screaming women before this is over... They've Arrived! It was past midnight when I heard the lorry out the back of the house. We don't usually get a lot of traffic in the back streets at that hour. The odd mobile night club with a fat exhaust or a sprinting motorbike usually. Out of curiosity I opened the back window and observed a large lorry backing up the road to a property further up the hill. Deliveries? At this hour? The driver saw me leaning out the window (his eyesight is pretty good), and hurled an incoherent reminder for me to mind my own business. Suit yourself mate. I was going to warn you about the Giant Super-Rats prowling the area, but....

The internal disagreement was the reason for the Council of Nicaea in ad325 - to sort out what was considered 'christian'. The Nicene Creed was based pretty much on Pauls work but Paul himself, as such, didn't create a unified christianity as the sects of his time were all independent. I doubt the earlier bishops cared much for unity either, since they were on a good earner and didn't want too much attention. It was however the politicisation of religion in the 4th century that changed that. After the Edict of Milan, Constantine had created a regime in which religions could flourish. He then supported and encouraged Christianity. Mithraism persisted on the frontiers but withered nonetheless. In fact, Christians complained that Mithras worshippers were copying their rituals. Religion was becoming an important issue now that state support could be had. The Christians did recognise this and the political nature of their faith emerges very quickly from this period. They weren't alone of course. Arianism was a popular sect (declared a heresy in ad325). Julian tried to restore paganism. Valens tried to restore Arianism. Theodosius restored Christianity. The impression I get is a hotbed of religious factions vying for political support and suffering the consequences if they didn't get it. I don't mean persecution, that was effectively a thing of the past, but the leading priests of the losing faction were gotten rid of every time the power changed hands.

An arian? Now that's the first time I've heard that, but then I suppose Constantine is 'christian property' if you understand what I mean. You did? Really? I hereby make you an honourary citizen of the Independent Peanut Republic of Rushey Platt. Well done that man.

Last night I strolled up the hill to get a bag of chips. Yes, it's true, I did. Sometimes my spirit of adventure gets the better of me. Anyhow, this was during the twilight. On the horizon, the last angry embers were fading out. The sky was that deep blue you get shortly before dark. As I looked up, dark grey clouds were wafting silently past. I've always thought how strange it is that clouds move at dusk without any wind. Even stranger is that spell the moon casts on you. There it is, a pale silvery glow lighting up the thin cloud from behind. You can't help but admire it. It seems to turn the darkening sky into a dull grey, making pale shadows of the passing cloud and lighting their edges with that pastel glow, and away from the moons soft ambience, the lights of Swindon paint the cloud a different shade of brown. For full effect, a full moon is required, but this three-quarter moon is making all the right colours. Later on I paused for a moment, looking out the back window at the sky, watching the moon play between the clouds. Then I spotted movement. Our local cat? Nope, the legs are too short, more like... A Badger? In this part of town? There he goes, trotting up the back road without a care in the world. Enjoy your night out, little fella. Checkout Event of the Week Earlier yesterday I queued at the supermarket checkout and dropped all my shopping on the rubber conveyor ready for the bored assistant to pass them over her scanner. Another woman joined the queue behind me. In a mood of politeness, I reached out for a plastic barrier to seperate her shopping from mine. As expected, she began piling her shopping on the conveyor too. Until, that is, she grabbed her banana. It slid out of her hand and flew across everyones groceries. Banana skins really are slippery, aren't they? Don't worry, we caught the banana and returned it to the grateful owner alive and well, before the badger spotted it.

Which all kind of misses the point. Art is elitist because a minority want to be seen as superior in status. Thats nothing to do with aesthetics at all, it's simply social behaviour and if I were honest, not really the best side of it, since these people show little respect for common opinion. However, what drives the genre is money. Experts earn a living by describing and judging nuances, critics earn a living by praising or denouncing work, dealers earn a living by cashing in on reputations, artists earn a living by selling their creations. We're surrounded by the natural world. The randomness and fractal properties of the small scale lead to interactions of form and colour that the artifical and contrived works of the limited imaginations of many modern artists simply don't match. Modern art is, quite frankly, bland and pretentious. That would be ok if the people in the genre didn't keep on claiming all this significance. Art does not change the world. How could it? Art is only an expression of the artist and therefore very revealing of their own personalities. Since the artist isn't changing the world but simply making an artistic expression of it, then clearly art has no force for change. What does change is fashion. One artist is popular for a while (or perhaps longer) then the emphasis moves on. Is my unmade bed art? No, it isn't. Not in any way whatsoever. It's simply moving a mundane object into pubklic scrutiny and the artistic skill and flair involved is essentially zero. Anyone trying something like that deserves to be tarred and feathered as a fraud. Art is a creative genre. If there is no creative aspect, neither can we ascribe artisitc value to it. An unmade bed is simply a natural consequence of the interaction of physical objects and my nightly slumber. If I take a photograph, or paint a picture, or perhaps carve a sculpture to create an impression of that scene - that is art. Something creative has occured. If I simply roll my unmade bed into a public gallery, I've done nothing more than furniture removal. As for cracks in the ground, the gas pipe fitters made much more interesting shapes outside my home than Kapoors oval, which was actuallly a rather dull and uninspired piece for he'll no doubt be feted and paid his own weight in gold for. But then.... He did persuade people that his work was worthy. Which makes him on par with a car salesman as I said originally.

It sounds very organised doesn't it? Caesar also mentions his efforts to keep men in the line. Officers routinely positioned themselves behind fighting units to exhort them to greater effort, or more likely, to stop them running away. Twice he describes confronting a frightened standard bearer. One man threatened Caesar with the sharp end of his standard to get past, the other simply thrust the pole into Caesars hands and ran. In fact, Caesar was sometimes found fighting in the front rank to inspire his men. Clearly he was unable to direct the battle whilst doing so.

Mallory's work was a later version of the Arthurian story and yet it often gets the credit for being the source. In fact, many Arthurian tales were originally derived from either celtic legend or Geoffery of Monmouths 'interesting' history of Britain. Sadly, Marion Zimmer Bradley must be consigned to the ranks of derivative works.

I've found an obscure reference to the point about nakedness... The Sicilians, having shot up in prosperity and acquired great wealth, began to purchase a vast number of slaves, to whose bodies, as they were brought in droves from the slave markets, they at once applied marks and brands. The young men they used as cowherds, the others in such ways as they happened to be useful. But they treated them with a heavy hand in their service, and granted them the most meagre care, the bare minimum for food and clothing. ... ...And because of the despiteful punishments received from them both, the slaves were filled with rage against their masters, and conceiving that they could encounter nothing worse than their present misfortunes began to form conspiracies to revolt and to murder their masters. On one occasion when approached by a group of naked domestics with a request for clothing, Damophilus of Enna impatiently refused to listen. "What!" he said, "do those who travel through the country go naked? Do they not offer a ready source of supply for anyone who needs garments?" Having said this, he ordered them bound to pillars, piled blows on them, and arrogantly dismissed them. Books 34/35 (?) by Diodorus Siculus

It is important to realise that Christianity is an offshoot of judaism. It's also a personality cult, one that supports the idea that Jesus was the son of God. Since the Romans were deeply enmeshed in personality cults of their own, the importance of dealing with them is clear, especially in a population you rightly describe as troublesome.

I wasn't expecting this to be so contentious Modern art is an attempt to remove the natural world from the composition. It's the same as taking melodies from music and arriving at Rap, which for some is interesting and for others nothing short of musical excrement. Can modern art succeed? Actually, yes, it can. The trick is to be aesthetically pleasing but the problem there is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Also, since we are social animals, every so often an individual breaks ranks and creates a new tribe. This has happened in art with these modern styles. Also, since individuals like to jostle for status, the work they complete becomes symbolic of their own importance, thus we see gross works and some very inflated ideas of the significance of it. Shock value also gets someone attention. If you want to grab an audience, make something that challenges current thinking. This happens in music too. In art, we see people going so far as putting real body parts in their compositions. Is that art, or just an excess of ego, or simply a crass attempt to get attention? On the subject of art, people will fall into whichever camp they prefer. Do they want the naturalistic and traditional form, or the brash artificial style? You choose, but in no way does opinion over art reflect ignorance. Nor does it require psychiatric treatment

That work was one of the major stepping stones of the current arthurian mythos, although there were many different versions of the same tale written by different authors. If I remember correctly, the original was by Chretien De Troyes which was never finished. He died before he completed it and the real secret of the Grail was never revealed, but the story was taken up by a variety of different authors who wrote their own endings.

or more accurately, the active brutality of one man upon another as opposed to the passive brutality of watching someone else suffer.

The Roman invincibility and unbreakable discipline is a myth. As for counselling, that's a modern idea, no Roman officer would mollycoddle his men in that manner and I would have thought a soldier, being basically a scumbag, would be astonished at that level of attention. What the Roman officers did was apply Leadership 101. Centurions were the driving force behind that since that was their prime responsibility. Remember that Roman methods were harsh and uncompromising. They considered that necessary, to ensure men were fit and ready to fight. That does not ensure obedience however, so that's why we see such penalties as being excluded from a camp for sleeping on guard duty (which was common practice amongst the men anyway despite the threat of discovery) Any group of men can suffer from poor morale according to circumstance and quality of leadership. The Romans were no different. The mood of a group is infectious and that's why military commanders jump on these trends as soon as they see them.

It's true, they were forbidden. During the empire however it was common practice for legions to be stationed in one place for extended periods and unofficially these relationships went on. Septimius Severus decided to make these unions acceptable since by that time hardly anyone took any notice anyway, and since the male offspring of soldiers were considered as suitable recruits, there was a beneficial side to allowing it.

I wasn't aware of that. However, it doesn't change anything. If the Romans had seen these early christians as a political threat they would have been flushed out and dealt with with en masse. What the Romans actually did then is treat these individuals as undesirable radicals, and given the zealousy we often find in judaic cults, may well have shown no sign of repentance. I do also feel that Pilate was concerned not to ruin his reputation by having a revolt in his province. Instead, if a leader was identified as a threat, arrest him and deal with him quietly. As with all movements, the early christians relied on charismatic individuals for the vitality of their cause; the Romans understood that. I wonder then if the spread of the remaining leaders was more to do with personal danger than religious zeal. The spread of christianity in the early days can't be ignored though. I see that the first ecumenical council was held in Jerusalem in ad50, on the subject of how to treat gentile converts.

What is art? that's a very philosophical question at first sight but a very important one if you intend earning your living from it. For most people, art is either pretty, pretty horrendous, or pretty well mystifying how someone got paid megabucks for a pile of oversized kiddies building blocks. There have been some incredible attempts at labelling mundane objects as art. There was that display in the Tate Gallery of a cube of unmortared bricks that earned the creator two million pounds. Most builders only get court summons and angry house-buyers. The reason I mention this is because of a new display that hit the news last night. Arnish Kapoor is one of those elite artists much in demand, and judging from his interview on tv, a consumate salesman. He likes the massive work, the shape, colour, and position (good grief, he's got me doing it now). His latest offering is an oval hole in a concrete floor with all the cutaway surfaces painted bright red. Yes... But what does it mean? Mundane art is so understandable. A still-life might be static and ordinary, but the skill is in the impression of motion, of depth, of character. Landscapes and seascapes speak for themselves. Impressions of mother nature are off to a good start anyway. But how do relate the world, or any sense of relevance, to a variety of garish blocks? It's a bit like buying a Hummer 4x4 because the salesman told you it encapsulated the misery and danger of twenty-first century soldiers. What car salesmam ever sold a car like that? The truth is, the artistry of the car you cast an approving eye on is the one that has balance and character of its own. It is, in other words, a visible sales point in it's own right. It doesn't need selling on artistry if that is what it has. So as far as I'm concerned, an artist that needs to explain a work has failed. Just admit it, Kapoor, you're in the wrong job. You were born to sell bright red cars. Art of the Week Here in Blighty we have a long running tv show that isn't exactly trendy. It's called Antiques Roadshow, a program in which locals bring out their dusty bric-a-brac for experts to appraise. Actually, whilst the program bores you to death with intricate details of the manufacture of victorian tableware and such, the faces of the owners when they discover the horrible old junk they wanted to throw away is actually worth hundreds of pounds is hilarious. This afternoon, whilst waiting to pop up the hill for my job course, I watched Antiques Roadshow in a state of bored stupor. They showed this dull ordinary painting of a river scene. Mostly beige, poorly conceived, and of no great artistic merit as far as I could see. Not according to the expert. It's woth at least

But then it wasn't the movement they were after was it? There must have been other religious cults in Judaea at the time. It seems Jesus was a victim of his own behaviour. Now the Bible (naturally) glosses over that, but there are some clues that he wasn't the saintly character he's usually decribed as. That is the problem with the Bible - it's not a history book at all, nor is the NT an objective account of Jesus