caldrail

There was a Roman who mentioned that (Cicero?). He said that it demonstrated that even if a slave could die nobly, what then could a Roman do? Besides, he says, it prepares them for battle. Actually, it doesn't achieve that. Certainly people became more brutalised but not everyone was. Seneca shook his head at the pointless nastiness of it all, and ultimately, the increasing brutality of the games did not keep the crowds coming in. In any human society, you find a range of sensibilities and there would always be those who were more humanitarian. Worse still, the vast majority of those audiences would run for cover if a battle started (unless they had experience of fighting or were trained to do so as in the legions). In entertainment, you watch someone else get hurt, not risk your own pain.

It's not about understanding - in fact christian teaching doesn't require or want you to understand, but accept their word. The crucifixion (notice it's called the Crucifixion[/i]) is painted as a martyrdom, a noble death, a self sacrifice. If you you look at the circumstances it clearly wasn't. Jesus upset the Romans and they punished him the same way they'd punish anyone else accused of those infractions. The odd thing though is that the Romans liked to chop undesirable movements down wholesale. Yet only Jesus was crucified - not his disciples - which means only his death was thought sufficient to deal with the problem.

In some ways I'm lucky. I'm just old enough to remember seeing steam locomotives working mainline services on British Rail. Steam engines have this animistic quality which endures despite the nerdy image of those who like them. As for me, I've always had a soft spot for this powerful works of art that belch smoke and hiss and chuff... Well, you know what I mean. The distant sounds of whistles still draw my attention. I remember this forgotten world. All those sounds behind rows of trees, the exquisite paintings in books illustrating locomotives from around the world, or the little Hornby trainset racing around a circle of track on the living room carpet. It's often said that every small boy wanted to be an engine driver. Actually I didn't - I wanted to join International Rescue, launch Fireball XL5 off it's ramp, or plunge to the rescue of Seaville. Oh all right... I admit it... I wanted to be Batman too. Adam West has a lot to answer for. A few days ago I watched a documentary about the railways of Britain during World War Two. That opened my eyes. I once stood on the footplate of a small restored steam locomotive in New Zealand and admired the hard teamwork of the crew as they ran up and down the line. Imagining that but with bombs dropping everywhere is something else. As a small boy, dropping bombs was something on the boxlid of an Airfix kit. I simply had no idea of the real effect a high explosive bomb could do. Probably just as well. The Russians were pointing something even more powerful at my home town during my childhood years. Confrontation of the Week Last night I opened the window at the back of the house and looked out over Swindon. There was a faint residual warmth from the day, but a cold breeze. Along the alleyway the local cat was on patrol, making sure his territory was still safe from other cats. He spotted movement, a bird, about twenty feet away and landing on the branches of a tree growing out of the disused college grounds. The cat immediately followed the bird, looking up intently, patiently waiting for the bird to make a mistake and stop low enough for that fast sprint to a prize to please his owner. So intent was he that he failed to spot the ginger cat waiting in the car park. The tension mounted as the cat jerked to a standstill in suprise. Both cats watched each other from a dangerously close distance, neither keen to give way. For twelve minutes these cats sat there warily until a man walking his dog upset the equilibrium. Both cats wandered away looking behind them. Mark my words - this ain't over yet. The War of the Alleyway has begun.

If you look at the various cultures of the ancient world you soon see a very violent and harsh world. Life was short and cheap. Much is made of Roman brutality but they existed in a brutal world.

That's a modern viewpoint. The idea that Christ rose from the dead was to suggest he was divine in origin. Since Spartacus was a slave a ressurection in Roman eyes would have been offensive to them - why should a slave - a person considered less than human - be granted such a gift? Notice though the ressurection has little practical use. Jesus disappears afterward which to my mind renders the whole exercise suspicious. Why raise someone from the dead and then have them ascend to the afterlife immediately afterward? This is another example of storytelling to create the myth. As Jesus was sentenced by an earthly court to be crucified (there's no hard evidence that actually happened and some circumstantial evidence that Jesus wasn't crucified at all) and was a mortal, his death was very real. In order to provide some meaning to it, some mystery, some religious awe in worshippers, the ressurection was added to justify the description of Jesus as the son of god. Please don't think I'm describing Jesusl by this - I'm not - but there's a parallel with the belief that Hitler didn't die in Berlin in 1945. His 'worshippers' want to believe he was more than the man whose world had collapsed, more than a failed dictator hiding in a bunker whilst his enemies closed around him. So they invent stories of escape and survival in South America even though the evidence from autopsies and eye-witness accounts prove fairly conclusively he shot himself.

Yes that's true but don't forget the christian church at the start of the 4th century was anything but united. That was the whole point of the Council of Nicaea, to thrash out exactly what was or wasn't christian, and even then they weren't unanimous. The Arian heresy remained very popular and once or twice was the preferred religion. What these early conferences did (there were more than one) was create a factional rivalry in which the Emperors support was a key to success, and with successive emperors favouring christianity, arianism, and paganism in turn the situation could easily have turned to civil war - it did affect politics and for instance was one reason (out of several) for the defeat at Adrianople.

According to Stephen Fry on QI (always a source of astonishing ephemera) the bulk of Britons today have genetic roots in Basques from Northern Spain, who crossed into Britain during the Ice Age when the English Channel was only a river valley. His words, not mine, but I also note Tacitus speculated on a spanish origin for the Silures.

Every year the English go one better than spending a weekend parked on a Bank Holiday motorway. They go on their summer hols. I always find it remarkable that the English generally regard the rest of the world as their playground. The most popular playground for many years has been Spain. Now up until now I always thought this was because Spanish hotels were so unfinished that it didn't matter if drunken English tourists wrecked them. We English do like to remind other countries of our victories over them and indeed we did clout the Spanish in 1588. So every year we hold re-enactments in nightclubs all over Spain just to make sure they haven't forgotten. It is interesting that one Roman writer commented on the similarity between the Spanish and some British tribes, especially since it now appears that Basque natives were amongst the first settlers of Britain, crossing the Ice Age river valley that is now the English Channel. So it seems the popularity of our Spanish hols is nothing more than a migration instinct, as the British return home empty handed after their hunting trip and expect to get drunk instead. No wonder fights break out. It also explains the British tea break, that infamous ritual where no-one does anything for twenty minutes, a mutated descendant of the siesta (since the British Isles are never sunny). In fact, is our need to head for half-completed Spanish resorts a deeply rooted instinct for an annual siesta? This half baked theory has been brought to you by the Independent Peanut Republic of Rushey Platt. "Flying the flag for Spanish ex-pats" Pic of the Day Another sunset. We get a lot of those in Swindon. Job Vacancy of the Week Occaisionally I still come across a job vacancy. Despite the best efforts of our current government, some companies still manage to find enough profit to pay someone to work. I was alerted about this one by a telephone service who told me there was a part time warehouse job available. What are the hours? School hours? What's that all about? Anyway I rang the agency who are determined to find someone desperate enough to enslave themselves and asked them. Apparently the job is intended for working mums wanting to earn a few quid while their demonic offspring are someones elses problem. What on earth could possibly interest me in a job working for a warehouse full of bored mothers whose families are somewhere else?

Funny thing is I tend to be the same when travelling. Way back in my college days we were in a minibus heading for some spelunking in Wales. The lecturer, who happened to be sat next to me, prodded me and asked "Are you thinking about the caves?" Eh? What? No, I'm looking out the window.... And even funnier, he turned out to be the one with claustrophobia.

If that's indeed true then it's intended as humiliation surely? I can't think of any other eason for it.

Ok, you spotted the deliberate mistake!

The Eternal Idol (Black Sabbath)

There's no evidence that soldiers were taught to read and write. I don't think that ability was as widespread as some have hinted, especially since many recruits were rural in origin which typically has a lower educational background anyway. Even Vegetius, the most optimistic of commentators on Roman legions, makes no such claim. Recruits were either literate or not. If so, they had an easy life doing the bookkeeping the officers would rather not bother with. If not, they built aqueducts like everyone else. Look at it like this. Any Roman soldier who could read and write had an advantage. His skills gave him a cushy job in a warm office. Why would he reduce his chances of staying there by teaching his rivals the same skills? If the centurion suggested he should, a few coins might change his mind. I also think the record keeping is possibly over emphasised. Yes, there was a lot of it, but remember that the handful of men given the job weren't going to be sat there drinking coffee with their feet up all day. Granted they'd probably do as little as piossible if they could get away with it, but if they ain't busy, there's plenty of aqueduct still unfinished. In the back of my mind I can't help thinking that the record-keeping was done on an as-needed basis, rather than a formal set of bureaucratic obligations, especially since the legion was effectively autonomous and did not ordinarily report much of this information to a higher authority. Therefore, the paperwork requirement had more to do with circumstance and the attitude of officers. In peace-time, I suspect there was more of it. Once on campaign, of what use is a clerk?

Wow Doc, what were you like when you were a kid?

It is interesting to read that a young Roman man madly in love with a woman was pitied - his condition was regarded as emotional slavery. The concept of freedom, with respect of decision making primarily, was deeply imbedded in the Roman psyche. Incidentially, one point I didn't stress earlier was the 'Roman village'. That didn't really exist. Why? Look at Britain before the Romans arrived. Britons lived in a very dispersed pattern, relying on the fortified settlements of dominant leaders as a refuge in times of danger. Small settlements were rare. You did get farmers who fortified their own hilltop farmyard, mostly as a symbol of social status, but I imagine when the chips were down they headed for the hillfort along with everyone else. Safety in numbers. Notably, these hillforts protected resources. The available archaeology suggests that as villages, the hillforts didn't have enough agriculture to suport them indefinitely. For long term subsistence, the population who owed loyalty to the local chief needed to spread out and farm land in the area. Also, the uplands were popular. Lowlands were at that time often forested and boggy. So the village in the sense we usually imagine it wasn't there - one reason why we name communities of Iron-Age Britons as 'settlements' The Romans either developed those communities as towns in their own pattern, built their own colonies, or ignored the celtic ones if they weren't close to Roman activity, or if the settlement had no value or threat in the Roman mind. The villa was a substitute for the hillfort in a sense aside from the lack of defensive value, but then, the Romans weren't going to tolerate unrest. By combining the urban centers of Roman Britain and the villa sites found, you get a good sense of Roman cultural coverage, bearing in mind that the radius of influence isn't huge at all. Roman architecture did spread, as I agreed before, but one important aspect is that although changes were dramatic in the first hundred years of Roman occupation, the pace of 'romanisation' slowed down to a crawl after that. It was as if the issues of who wanted to be Roman and who didn't had already been settled for the most part. There were some major changes later, such as the building of defenses in a troubled province that Jerome described as 'fertile in usurpers', or the rise in fall in the fortunes of one settlement or another, but these were circumstantial as opposed to deliberate policies.

It's Bank Holiday Weekend in Britain again. Those of us not busy demolishing our properties with ideas for home improvement will be heading for the coast, a mass migration of people desperate for fun and sun away from their daily grind. The government have issued a warning to those intending to travel that they can expect long delays on trunk routes. We know. Everyone knows the motorways get jammed up with cars every Bank Holiday Weekend. But then, since the government have made our lives duller by taking money out of our pockets to spend on schemes to identify who we all are, of course we're going to gamble on getting to the coast for a couple of days. Incidentially, I notice that in Swindon, public houses are closing in droves. Before long, the phrase "I'm off down the pub" will have a very different meaning. There is an ironic quality to this. In an attempt to shut the kids up and keep them occupied, parents risk being trapped in a parked vehicle for several hours listening to that perennial favourite "Are we there yet?" You have to wonder though whether the government warnings are going to be noticed. They've not exactly shone as custodians of Britains finances, they've made themselves look mean and stingy over the rights of Ghurka veterans to settle in Britain, and seem more concerned with scrounging money for *or* videos whilst Gordon Brown is away on speech duty. We do seem to be getting a lot of warnings right now anyway. Enviromentalists are warning us the climate is heading for apocalypse. The moslem activists are warning us of rivers of blood. The Russians are warning us that they rather liked the Cold War and can they have another one please? Beyond that, the World Health Organisation have notified us that we are now at Pandemic Phase Five ("Get Ready To Panic") over Swine Flu. The strange thing is though, although such a state of alertness over this apparently virulent disease means that areas should be quarantined to prevent its spread, they say there's no point. So strictly speaking, if the government wanted to stop motorway madness this Bank Holiday, all they need to do is quarantine the towns. It seems they almost have. By making it unaffordable to buy new cars, by making it undesirable to own older ones, by making it impossible to park a car anywhere, by making lots of new road junctions that bypass every single stop, the government are well on the way to achieving their aim of quiet, stationary Bank Holidays. But what's the point of Stationary Britain? Bank Holiday of the Week How shall I spend my weekend? Well... I won't be driving anywhere. I won't be doing any DIY. Instead, I'll be relaxing, taking it easy, and keeping quiet about it in case someone thinks I should be looking for a job instead. Of course I want a job really. How else could I legitimately claim time off to escape the mad rush this weekend?

Mind you, a lot of Romano brit villages, even quite remote from the main Roman centres, were rebuilt with Rectangular buildings and small finds suggest a willingness to enjoy the luxurious material benefits of Roman culture. Naturally. There was a lot to gain from keeping the Roman occupiers happy - they were there, they weren't going away, and anyone who didn't like it received a visit from the military. Tacitus tells us very explicitly in Agricola that... The Britons were seduced with alluring vices: arcades, baths, and sumptuous banquets. In their simplicity they called these novelties 'civilisation' when in reality they were part of their enslavement Now before we get too deeply mired in Roman social status, it's worth understanding what Tacitus actually meant. If you take any time to read the history of Rome by Cassius Dio, you discover that he talks time and time again about slavery. He doesn't mean status, imprisonment, enforced labour, chains, or the usual imagery we associate with such a label. What he does mean is that one person is compliant to anothers will whether he likes it or not. It's a question of freedom in this respect. Rather like a crime boss telling a victim that "I own you", simply because the victim has no way to defy the bosses control without retribution. The Roman policy of settlement in Britain was to encourage to creation of thier own style of facilities and buildings. Tacitus mentions that too - the locals were encouraged either as individuals or communities to build Roman style architecture. Of course they did so. It was in their own interests. That doesn't mean they actually liked the new style, rather that it was the dominant style, the fashionable style, and the style their new masters liked to see, plus they probably got implicit help in building these places too. It might also be said that many Britons found the new styles more comfortable? However, what Tacitus doesn't refer to is the nucleonic nature of Roman culture in Britain. They were concentrated in small areas, and indeed, this was the whole rationale for the urbanisation and spread of urban settlements throughout occupied Britain. All these 'advanced' settlements were a centre for the local area, a colony of romanisation. The countryside villa system plugged into this. The villa owner was a landowner, a patron of rural life, and thus extended Roman influence beyond the walls of the towns. However, we must note that Roman villlas were not uniformly spread throughout Roman Britain. Far from it, the north of England has very few in evidence. The villa owner in Britain wasn't always a senior Roman. More often he was a British landowner who had thrived under the Roman system, and by definition, had adopted enough of its principles to be part of the hierarchy even in a potentially attentuated way. This means there was a local acceptance of that status quo. If the local natives did not accept the landowners social status, the villa would not have thrived. This implies there were many areas where the Roman influence was much less than in towns. Archaeology confirms this. We see celtic settlements in use during the Roman occupation and retaining traditional styles of housing throughout the period. Caves would continue to be inhabited into the later medieval period. The remarkable thing is that there's little evidence of Roman infiltration into these native settlemets. Certainly Roman goods can be found there - these settlements traded with others and artifacts changed hands, but there's no sign of interference in the native lifestyle from the Roman authorities. Only one in six of rural settlements in Roman Britain can be identified as a villa. The concept of the Roman village, similar to a sleepy hamlet of the middle ages, is simply incorrect. The views of Tacitus regarding the Britons and their adoption of luxury is relevant, but not all-encompassing. Many Britons carried on life as they always had. The image of Roman legions marching over the hill, crushing resistance, and leaving behind a Roman village is too simplistic - what we see through archaeological sources is a much more complex situation. Tacitus also mentions the political solutions used to maintain peace. By enlisting the tribal leaders as allies, control of territory is achieved without military occupation. Even in the dark ages, there were at least two celtic tribes whose chiefs retained Roman titles given to them in return for their loyalty. These weren't disenfranchised Romans at all - they were native settlements left to cionduct their business provided they paid tribute and observed Roman law. That was a common situation in Roman Britain, and one the Romans saw as the first step in acceptance of their ownership of the Islands.

Nah... Stonehenge is way myhticaler than that. "The Druids... No-one knows who they were... or... wot they were doin'..." Classic. Shame about the stage set

It isn't possible to decide what the best song in the world is because every songwriter has written one that qualifies. Trust me, I know. Anyway, the Beatles are second rate compared the the musical leviathan that is Britains greatest supergroup, Spinal Tap. She Loves Me Yeah yeah Yeah? Gimme a break. I'll choose Sex Farm Woman every time (unless you have an Aston Martin with machine guns I can drive in which case I lose interest in music immediately

For a few days now cheery weatherpersons have smiled and siad we're all going to get wet. Amber triangles are shown on the screen with Heavy Rain! in bold black lettering. Risk of local flooding. They might be right I suppose. It's just that so far we've only had one day of rain and that was drizzly. I must also confess, that as I write this, I can see the library window splattered with raindrops. I knew I should have brought my canoe with me. The damp conditions now spreading across Swindon mean something else. It's an early death for woodland flowers. The undergrowth absolutely loves wet weather and as I strolled along the alleyway behind my home, the undergrowth was sprouting vigorously. Thornbushes, nettles, and ferns predominate. Young saplings eagerly racing for a patch of sky to call their own. Also, however, horsetails. They look a little bit like primeval ferns, the sort of thing you'd see in a Carboniferous Forest millions of years ago. In fact, that's not far wrong. Horsetails are the only survivor of an entire range of plants, some of whom grew as trees in times past. We have a miniature Jurassic forest right here in Swindon. We also have our fair share of primeval inhabitants too. Yesterday, like any nutcase Englishman, I went out into the midday sun for a spot of fresh air and exercise. On the grassy public spaces a very fashionable youth was walking his pitbull dogs and they ran at me. Not violently (phew!) but it was dodge them or fall over. He of course took no notice. Did he do that on purpose? Worse still, once I had passed and was going about my lawful business, I heard him call me a 'poser'. Is he serious? A walking pimple farm in baseball cap, expensive street cred apparel, and two barely controllable pitbull dogs to inflate his pre-pubescent lumps? Look in the mirror young man. You're a schoolboy. You might be impressing your mates in the school yard, the rest of the world think you're wet behind the ears. It's such a jungle out there... Meanwhile, Back At The Library Is there something wrong with young people in Swindon? Is there some strange cult teaching them to be idiots and morons? I say this because of The Flash. He's the kiddie I mentioned before, the one who seems utterly determined to be the first through the doors. Today he excelled himself. He brushed past the security guard and ran up the stairs with a big grin on his face. Once I followed the herd behind him I spotted him sat down in the rest area, feet up, staring vacantly into space. Meanwhlie, Back In The Real World AM has announced his intention to leave England for foreign shores this year. Oh no... Don't tell me he's actually going to do it? That he means to act decisively and positively to travel to a pre-chosen destination?... Bye. The foreign gentleman who's revealed to us that England is an armpit chuckled. I wonder why? Does he know something about AM's chosen destination that we don't?

Pfah! All I want is an Aston Martin with machine guns. I am such a child....

As Napoleon said "Yes, I'm sure he's a great general, but is he lucky?" There is a tendency to see battles as a game of chess between commanders. This simply isn't so. Battlefield commanders in the ancient world could only see what was in line of sight, had no substantia means of communication to individual formations, and in fact often gambled on a plan decided on beforehand and agreed with subordinate commanders. It wasn't always the tactics on the day that swung it, but the position of the sun, the restrictions and effects of terrain, and since the ancient world had a love affair with the ambush, very much one of superior situational intelligence. That said, the phalanx wasn't really intended as a solitary formation. The idea was a remorseless advance across a broad front by solid ranks of men that would very literally push the enemy back with rows of pikes. Cavalry - as usually deployed - would protect the flanks. In fact, the cavalry actions were often the first of the day, and in many cases decided who would eventually win the battle. We also need to realise that cavalry were in short supply for much of the period. Horses were expensive and not as common as later periods. For all its advantages though the phalanx was an inflexible formation - the very reason for it's decline as the importance of securing the flanks escalated - because the phalanx made that necessary. It was therefore, a step in an arms race. Invent a better way of advancing on the enemy, then find a better way to get around it.

Thanks for sharing those vids, guys. Never again will I be embarrased about my musical past

Some time ago on a job website I was asked if I wanted to take part in an online questionaire. The questions were fairly moronic but I hadn't anything better to do. One listed a load of organisations and asked me to describe them in three words. One was MI5, our home defence secret spy unit. I wrote 'Probably boring, but?'.I did kind of wonder if that answer was going to get me held in custody for three months under the Prevention Of Humour Act, but I never got an interview. Yesterday was my first day at the special unit designed to reintergrate me with jobseekers in the outside world. In the meeting room with me were the usual mix of people. The guy running the course began by describing what we were going to be doing. This doesn't look like a very exciting course. Most people get rope bridges across flooded mountain rivers, or dancing lessons, all in front of tv cameras, but all we have to do is post letters in obscurity for thirteen weeks. The tutor started handing out sheets of paper. He wants us to fill in a form. No problem, although I notice the questions are a bit anal. You know, who you are, where you live, what you've done, what you did after that, what you'd like to do when they set you free into the wild... Another form? What's this about? Oh, an equal opportunities thing. I have to declare what species I am. What choices have I got? Reptile? Furry Mammal? I know, I'll tick Ape Descendant... Albino.... Ooh look, yet another form. This one is what exactly? Ahh, health and safety. They want to know who to contact when I have that tragic accident with a photocopier that sets fire to the building. I think I'll put 'Emergency Services' for that. Oh no, not another form... This one's a classic. I have to fill out a form full of questions asking whether I understand what's going on. Well I think I do.... That man is doing his best to explain it all. Then he hands out another form. Customer satisfaction. Circle the appropriate answer. Was the induction useful? Were the forms handed out efficiently?... And so on. Do we get a prize if we hand it in? Free benefits for a month? Deep inside of what remained of my concious brain activity, a tiny spark of instinct struggles above the mind-numbing forms and it occurs to me that these forms are of no possible use to any sane statistician in any way at all. I think this is an MI5 recruitment test. I've got thirteen weeks to become James Bond. Revelation of the Week Occaisionally I wander down the hill to the collection of fast food shops and take my pick of world cuisine. There's an advert in the pizza place for a cheap burger, so let's try that. The foreign gentleman who works behind the counter of all these shops takes my order and disappears to find something to put in the bag. While I wait I look through the colour flyers left on the shelf. There's usually a good selection. An advert for a monster truck display... not interested. Last months local music scene listings... Old news. Hello? What's this? I've found an article describing how anyone, armed only with a copy of the Bible, can scientifically prove that the Earth is in fact only 6,000 years old. All you have to do is swap verses around and the story becomes clear, revealing evolution as a false science... Wow. Was Darwin wrong after all? Let me just finish this banana, and I'll see what answer I come to. Hey... This is wierd... If you reassemble the pages and letters in the Bible at random, you eventually get Macbeth...

I'd started a whole load of local bands, most of whom I really can't remember the names of at all. Bardiche was a typical period melodic rock/soft metal band I joined in the mid-eighties and eventually managed for a year or so but after Pete Farrar got the hump because I wasn't making enough profit to pay him an expected fee for his services, I kind of got disillusioned with running bands and looked for something worth joining. Then I found Red Jasper, a quirky sort of contemporary folk band. After a series of embarrasing gigs I pushed the band into rocking it up a little, thinking (correctly) that we'd get more attention. It was a strange circumstance really. In truth, Jasper was an uncomfortable mix and the members were all pulling it their own way. I got blamed for most of that but in all honesty we were all guilty. On the plus side, we played some high profile venues, got rave reviews in Kerrang, and were described as 'Jethro Tull on speed'.