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The Romans tended to see trousers as a barbarian item of clothing, at least until the late empire. There's very little evidence for climatic variations in kit but for practicality it's not hard to imagine that some adaption to local conditions took place. I note the Romans stress the use of cloaks for cold or bad weather. Incidentially the colour red as used by media and re-enactors is likely to be wrong. Romans saw 'red' as a symbolic of status, so officers may well have dressed in such colours, and we know that deliberate over-dyeing of material was used to make a fake purple, a high status colour if ever there was one. Legionaries were probably dressed in natural off-white shades of clothing, though some earthy colours have gained support in recent years. In previous era's to our own much was made of the quality of clothing, which would indicate the status of the wearer as much as any rank symbol does today. The clothes worn by senior officers were probably quite different from those of the rank and file.

The naval commander was Praefectus Classis. This site won't let me edit replies so I couldn't clear the typo. Sorry.

No. It is quite common to see parallels with modern military organisation but a legion was not a regiment - it was an independent mini-army all of its own, a packet of military power to be distributed to where security was needed and in the hands of chosen commanders. There were various titles that in some circumstances could see you allocated command of a legion or two. Praetor, for instance. Even Quaestors (a high level finance minister) sometimes received commands if the situation demanded it. Prefects were usually at cohort level but the Praefectus Castrorum was senior enough to take command if his superiors were unavailable. The Praefectus Calssis commanded a fleet of ships. Praefectus Equitates was a cavalry commander. However, in the later empire the legions were re-organised to meet the demands of the day with smaller legions and more emphasis on cavalry. At the same time, permanent army organisations begin to appear under the control of a Magister Militum, second only to the Emperor as military commander.

A dangerous policy. Kids will start thinking that video games are a uniformly accurate source of information. They're not.

Don't get too wrapped up in modern dietary science. Remember that for the exertion of a legionary, the twice daily arms practice, the weekly route march, the onerous manual labour when required, the act of digging a trench and rampart when camping for the night, and for a few, having to stay awake at night to guard it. They were primarily eating bread. Okay, meat too when they could get it, but on campaign the diet must have been substantially worse than normal. They still managed.

Good luck on proving this. I say that because there are scholars who've tried to fix the time and date and the possible eclipse parameters don't easily fit, not to mention the data available to Thales might well not have been enough.

There's no real shock or debate about this. They were fed a diet based on barley, which was considered animal food by the Romans (it was given to badly behaved legionaries as punishment), but this was not an issue for slave fighters, especially since the barley had a tendency to 'bulk up' the gladiator. A layer of fat was considered a good defence against minor sword cuts, and if you notice, some mosaics show very portly gladiators indeed. Now were they specifically vegetarian? I think not. Remember that volunteer gladiators (perhaps star athletes too, I have no data) had the freedom to come and go from a Ludum, thus they would have had plenty of opportunity to purchase fast food on the street. Also, though a little less important, gladiators were usually given a last meal which doubtless included the option of meat dishes. In many areas, fish and seafood would have been just as common. Whilst owners were not going to give all their gladiators a deliberately healthy and interesting diet - they were slaves, en par with animals even if the star athletes sometimes rubbed shoulders with the wealthiest patricians , a lot would depend on what was cheap and available in the area. Traditionally the Romans ate bread, or in earlier times, porridge (for which the Romans were derided by other peoples). Bread remained a staple of the Roman diet - it was likely this would remain true for gladiators.

I'm sure there's plenty more books you could add to that list

In a word, lots. Some writers play heavily on the few descriptions of marching legions that list thr equipment they carried with them, and interesting it is too, but I'm very wary of assuming that was in any way standard across the whole of Rome's military. Firstly, modern mass production did not exist. Therefore basic equipment was bound to vary. The ranks of identical legionaries in film and tv looks cool but isn't likely to look entirely realistic. Variations in the colour of cloth, armour design, weapon details, and shield shapes might be expected. We have one Roman writer who records that a senior officer saw a legionary spending a great deal of time painting his shield and commented scornfully that the soldier was spending more time on that than sharpening his blade. So the design on the shield surface was probably individualised.

Possibly, but equally as likely to be influenced by Syrian customs, a region known as a hotspot for alternative religions in classical times. Also the the nature of early Christianity was very fragmented into individual sects which basically followed their own teachings. Many rituals would have been similar, but certainly not all. It was only with the attempted unification of Christianity after 325 that dominant church leaders applied Roman chauvanism, and in quite an ugly form too. Many of these female clerics were positively persecuted.

The Roman legions had become a multi-ethnic military force before the Byzantine era. Remember that legions were raised in the provinces more often than Rome, who had always employed foreign elements as allies whenever required. The 'foreign-isation' of the Rome's military is sometimes touted as one of the reasons for the decline of the legion, though this had more to do with structure than any ethnic issues.

Just a couple of points to raise on peripheral issues - Females and religion. This was not abhorred by pagan Rome. After all, the Vestal Virgins had a vital religious role in preserving the spirit of the eternal city. yes, it is true that Rome was a very chauvanistic society but at the same time, women were accorded the potential to become matriarchs of the family, running the household though never master of it. That said, we find by imperial times that women had found legal loopholes to assert certain rights and this was not effectively countered by legislation. In fact, early christianity shows evidence of women as leading affiliates, bearing in mind this was before their attempted unification courtesy of Constantine. Once largely coherent in the late 4th century, the ugly side of masculine domination arrives and images of leading female clerics were erased. This was especially true in the east of the empire. Isis was a popular religion in Rome. It did not persist in the face of the rising competition between Mithras and Christianity, but still for a long time acceptable to the Principatal Romans who had a habit of treating foreign religions, especially those from Syria, as fashionable. Cleopatra was indeed from a dynasty of Greek origin but still regarded as Egyptian at the time, the land of her birth. Although originally earthly kings, pharoahs were also the religious leaders of Egypt and came to be seen as divine in their own right. By the time of Cleopatra, divine status was part of the job. Appearing as Isis was simply a ritual affirmation, a display expected of her by the people, and please not that with her Marc Antony dressed as Dionysus in public appearances at least once. And finally, Cleopatra's children were all allocated large regions of the projected Romano-Egyptian Empire. Hope that helps.

You know, speaking generally, I find two thirds of my time on history is about countering fondly held myths and legends. They are absolutely insidious and much loved by many. Partly this is because we tend to categorise and stereotype naturally (yes, I do too) but I do suspect that education is a major villain. When we first learn about historical periods it's always a few pages in a well illustrated book that portrays a 'typical' person and his signature style of home. All the famous anecdotes, right or wrong, condensed into an entertaining paragraph. What we're not introduced to as youngsters, or at least not until we reach higher education, is the concept of questioning these stereotypes in favour of deriving from source or archeological material. I suppose teachers have a hard enough time without kids posing impossible criticisms.

No, it's a mental state brought on by increasing maturity and a belief we know more than anyone else

Sorrry, did I understand this correctly? You're saying there were twelve syndicates of pirates surviving from ancient times? Emphatically, no.

Not available in Britain

What is the basis for describing this as a deliberately hidden hoard? Whilst your theory is plausible, it requires evidence of geological change. It might simply be objects lost at sea, either in transit or during a beaching operation, presumably to trade or shelter.

There were cultural legacies. The use of latin, titles, and architecture. So many people believe that Britain was 'romanised' within a generation or two but really that idea can't be justified. Native culture persisted in the background, especially since Roman influence was weaker in the north and west, such that it re-emerged after the legions had gone back to the continent. And on that subject, let's remember that although Britain was left undefended, the Britons weren't just abandoned, they seceded when Rome declined to assist them. That was a political act, not a cultural one. Also it's hard to imagine that these impressive villas were simply left to the elements. Even when families could not afford to run homes of the grander size, they remained in use as industries or farms. What is notable is how quickly cities were abandoned when no longer economically or militarily viable, a process that started in the 4th century. The Saxon settlers from the 6th century onward saw these expansive stone ruins and imagined they were once the swellings of giants.

I think the flood theory is a bit misguided. I have heard of evidence that the western Sahara region once suffered a very large inundation but that would only matter locally, it wouldn't cause mass migrations. More of interest is the history of the Sahara region as a whole. As you might know, it became a desert relatively recently and for a long time it had been a lush semi-tropical rainforest, later a savanah, which rather indicates the writing was on the wall. The thing is, some academics have gotten to thinking that the Nile used to be sourced in the west of Africa and flowed across the Sahara region before turning north. The satellite imagery confirms potential geology to support this. The case involves an old map showing a Nile River coming from the west, but to my mind, that could just as easily be a distortion in the mapping of such a large and unknown area. Anyway, my point is that migration toward the Nile Valley had more to do with the dessication of North Africa - climate change - than a specific natural cataclysm.

Not impossible, but I'm always a little wary of theories that involve cataclysmic impacts. Human beings love the drama of things smashing into each other - Hollywood has mined that particular theme for a long time, and indeed, may well have encouraged it, because I notice the Victorians were much more sensitised to bumps if their use of language is anything to go by. If the theory is true, then the unfortunate people of Sodom were subjected to a shocking event indeed. But meteor impacts leave specific signs after the event. Is that evidence available?

The point about the limes is that they were not fortifications. Neither was the stone barrier at Hadrian's Wall despite the usual depiction of towers and crenellations (the walkway was not wide enough for practical defence purposes). These constructions were barriers to control passage across the frontier, not prevent it. In North Africa the walls link one side of certain valleys to the other, the objective being to obstruct free passage of mounted people. The trajanic wall in eastern Europe (nothing to do with the emperor Trajan, this was a 4th century construct) was the same, obstructing horsemen from the distant east. In fact I can only think of two walls that were deliberately obstructive, one at Alesia (okay, that was two), and the wall built by Crassus to contain Spartacus and his horde. Neither of those were frontiers but military constructions built to control a battle. Note that by the later empire the Romans had all but given up using such barriers and relied on intercepting intrusions inside Roman territory.

This is actually a distortion. When you talk to expert geneticists it's apparent that recreating mammoth DNA isn't exactly simple - you can't just expect surviving DNA strands to successfully replicate an entire animal. What is likely is spawning a hybrid animal - an elephant with mammoth characteristics - might happen a lot sooner.

Similar clues are available in the sources if you care to note. One that springs to mind is the senatorial trial of Galba c.150bc in which he gets let off because his children were present and crying their eyes out. But it's more fundamental than that. The division between humiliores and honestiores is case of society giving preferential treatment to the upper classes (if you're a slave, there's little justice to be had).

Have you ever come across British humour from that period? Suprisingly Romanesque. You'll see what I mean

You mean a list that contains Asterix the Gaul as a 'best film of Ancient Rome'? I wouldn't make too much effort on this. It's only someone's opinions after all.