caldrail

Gallic = Gaulish. They were also called Galatians occaisionally (Gauls who settled in Galatia, Asia Minor, though there were greeks there too). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia just out of interest.

Hadrian was taking advantage of a natural escarpment and insisted in certain features, such as a gate every mile even when it opens onto a cliff. The actual terrain wasn't considered by him, and if any Roman engineers mentioned I daresay they got put straight. In other words, they were expected to build the wall as ordered. Actually they didn't, because as we know the scale of the wall reduced during construcion. Some sections of the wall are smaller than the foundations. As a no-go zone... difficult to say. The Wall was a security barrier certainly and the road alongside used by the military for patrols, but then all Roman roads were built for military and adminstration purposes, not civilian use, yet they still travelled on the road without problem. Also, there were Romano-British settlements along the wall which must have communicated with one another? Also, the wall is not a military fortification, but a civil security barrier. The gates were there to allow the public passage through it, a sort of customs barrier in the ancient world so that the locals couldn't smuggle weapons or avoid taxation.

I dropped down to the library this morning... Whaddaya mean you thought I might?.... anyway, I turned up a little earlier than normal and although the foyer was open, the rest of the building was closed off with a folding door. The security guards religiously open this barrier three minutes after opening time, every day. This morning it seems even that task was too onerous. No guard was in sight. Eventually a pair of librarirans bravely decided to open for business. They went into the small room to find the keys (a sure sign they hadn't clue what to do) and emerged to insert the key into the door, which remained resolutely locked. "You've broken it" I said. (You can tell I was in that sort of mood can't you?) "Yes" Said the librarian struggling to free the door from its latch, "I have". Sigh. Its going to be one of those days. One Of Those Days Of The Week At last! They managed to get the door open. A veritable rush of frustrated internet browsers surged forward and up the stairs. When I dusted myself off and chose a PC, I discover they were all switched off. Erm... Excuse me?... Are you going to switch these PC's on? "Oh dear" Said the librarian, "I thought it was a bit quiet." No kidding.

Both. He saw the changes as introducing more efficient training and deployment, plus the opportunity for the poorest men of Rome to undertake military service, plus the availability of permanent standing legions in an enviroment of conflict inflation.

Up to a point thats correct. However, right from the start, wealth became a fundamental marker of Roman status, and people being social animals, the social status amongst the herd, once the means is established, becomes a major motivation. That doesn't mean the setup is necessary, rather its become the accepted norm. An important point to realise is that the decrease in incentive with increased wealth really only manifested itself after the Marian Reforms. These changes allowed the poorest men of Roman society opportunities for a military career - something that wasn't so easy in earlier times, if for nothing else than their inability to purchase equipment, as you say, but also that ever present status associated with it. A poor man attempting to serve alongside others in the eraly Republic wasn't going to be well accepted. And incidentially, since human beings are by nature somewhat less than noble, there would always be those who obtained their equipment without the need for purchase. The early legions were no more than a militia. They were gathered from citizens in order to protect the land they owned. Roman society, although essentially urban in later centuries, had rural origins. Certainly they relied on men of independent means, but actually this wasn't about whether they could afford gear, although it must be conceded that they graded themselves according to the equipment they carried into battle, but about their property and the income derived from it. The land they owned was considered to give a motivation for service, to defend their farms against enemy aggression. I don't the Roman sense of loss of virtue at all ironic. I think they were very aware of the falling standards and decay of public morality in the late Republic (I know some disagree with me). The upshot of my reply is societal changes may arise from necessity, they also do so from opportunity, and human instinct always leads people to exploit situations for their own comfort.

The reforms of Marius are usually looked upon as a big step forward in military terms. In some respects they were. It turned Rome's annual/campaign militia into a permanent standing army. Thing is though, this change reflects the needs of the time. Warfare was becoming more protracted and the older levy system wasn't suitable any more. The adoption of the pilum for instance was an attempt to blend the utility of the first two ranks of the older militia system. Instead of two rankls, one with javelin, the next with sword, he decided that one rank equipped with both was more adaptable. One important fact to realise is that Marius based his reforms on his own experience. Having been called upon to raise a legion and not being able to levy experienced triarii, he instead decided to opt out of the traditional three tier system and instead recruited and trained swordsmen which he needed promptly. This wasn't unusual to Marius. Other generals had previously found similar difficulties in maintaining the traditional structure of a legion for no other reason than the constant recruitment that was occuring. So, in other words, in his reforms he formalised trends and changes already existing in the Roman legions by that time. There's no doubt that the reforms of Marius were an important step forward. Unwieldy traditional procedures were swept away in one go. A new professional army (in terms of vocation, not ability) extended the recruitment pool even further than Rome already had available, as now the poor had access to service whereas military service had once been a privilege of Roman citizenship and wealth. The standardisation of the Roman legion is also notable but again this was based on what already existed, a system known to the Romans and well tried over centuries. Therefore, the reforms of Marius were not a complete change as is sometimes suggested, but an evolution, a 'maturing', of the former system.

I came back from the library yesterday morning having trawled throught the various job sites and discovering how evrywhere else in Britain has vacancies. Walking up the hill, I couldn't help notice an electricity company van parked beside our local transformer. Wait. Don't tell me. There's been another power cut... It seems I was correct. Everything in the house, including the heating, the cooker, the fridge, the lights - all the usual electrical stuff that makes survival comfortable - was off. At least the electricity company was here already, so I'll show some patience and wait for it all to come back on. And the Electric Company said "Let there be electricity", and there was. Great stuff. Now lets switch the PC on, catch up with the days news, and Phuttt. Oh brilliant. The power's off again. Looks like one of those days. I rang the electric company and with a little reminder of the previous power cuts she dutifully promised to get the supply back on by two o'clock. Only an hour to wait. With twenty minutes to go before their self-imposed deadline, the van was back and shortly afterward... Bing! Everything switched back on. Sigh in relief. Hug my computer like a long lost friend and get back to my usual pottering around. Now then, I need to make some notes about.. Phuttt! Once again my PC deflates like a limp balloon, fading to black. Patience, Caldrail, patience... It only took the man five minutes to restore power this time. Bing! Ohhh-kay. Now lets try to get these notes in order. So if... Phuttt! Oh come on! You cannot be serious. This time the man from the electric company knocked on my door and told me that the underground power line was faulty and that they needed to switch the power off until they located where the fault was. We had a conversation about electrical faults and clearly he wasn't convinced the workmen could do much with the ice still present up the hill, but the power should be back on in a day or two. A day or two? Heck. Better be prepared then. A drop or two of anti-freeze in the toilet, defrost the fridge before it floods the kitchen (which it does anyway as I struggle to catch the ice shards in the gloom), and prepare for a very cold morning start. In the late evening the power returned, with a cluster of vans up the road, lights flashing, working into the night in horrible sleet and wind. It's been something of a stark reminder of how dependent we are on electricity. A darkened house with no light, heat, or means to cook food, in the grip of some of the worst winter weather we've seen in twenty years. And to be honest, I had it easy compared to some peoples struggle elsewhere in Britain. Doomladen Prediction of the Week Firstly, now that sunny weather has returned to our wet and slushy land, we have the prospect of flooding to look forward to as heavy snow thaws out. Better than that though, one Minister of Parliament is now saying the recession will be the worst for a hundred years. Don't you just love politicians? On the one hand, Ed Balls has made this doomladen prediction, whilst baroness Vadera claims she can see 'green shots of recovery'. Sorry dear. Mr Balls has just pruned them. I start to wonder if the government are actually working together, and whether they have any clue at all what's going on or what to do about it. Not that I would dare criticise our hard working prime minister. Must be so hard coming up with all those slogans. Ooops. Looks like I'll have to make a public apology or be banned by the BBC.

Right then. The pavement is covered with undulating ice an inch thick. It's slippery, dangerous, and I'm fed up of risking my neck on it. So I retrieved my trusty spade from its burial place and got to work. I dug up a narrow path something like fifity to seventy yards long. Some pedestrians merely strode past me without a word, but three actually said thank you. I suspect an asian woman would have been number four but talking to strange caucasian shovel-wielders in the street isn't part of their culture, even if she knew any english. I'd dug up the worst of the ice on the hillside pavement and that was enough, so I went back indoors and waited for the inevitable backstrain to make itself felt. Now get this. In the meantime, one of my neighbours, incensed that I 'd had the temerity to even consider clearing ice along 'their' pavement, threw a load of snow from their front yard on the cleared path and stamped it down to create fresh ice. My faith is Swindon is restored. It really is populated by anti-social neanderthals. A Dog's Life Once again a young child is mauled by family pets. In this case, tragically, the child died. It's all very horrific but when you boil it all down, you have a pampered pet suddenly having to come second place to a screaming annoying infant. Eventually the dogs lose their temper, and since they have teeth and children are not too capable of fighting dogs.... The result is a media headline and a family tragedy. Fido is still at heart what he was born to be and the squabble over pack status is done. I think we forget that at our peril. If you allow a dog status and privilege , it doesn't like losing them. Unfortunately, most of us aren't too good at communicating with dogs even though they often warn us aboiut how they feel. Worse still, we forget that their fluffy pet image is only skin deep.

The biggest problem with the NT as I see it is that using it as a historical source is much the same as learning about Spartacus from the works of Kirk Douglas. The story was written to illustrate Jesus as the son of god, and really should have a page that says "Some characters and events have been changed for dramatic purposes". That is after all the main reason behind the inconsistentcies in the accounts of the time. If you try to compare a history book (however biased) with a fairy tale, naturally it won't work. The problem here is a matter of faith. Christians base their beliefs on the Bible and so they do desperately want the NT to prove to be correct. That creates a market for researchers who would like to be the first to find that evidence. Time and again I read or watch tv and a researcher wanders off to the Holy Land "In search of Jesus". Well, he was there, I don't doubt that for a moment, on the principle of no smoke without fire. But in the same way that we eulogise personalities such as sportsmen, entertainers, and especially politicans (who make a living from exploiting this facet of the human psyche), so the image of Jesus has become more important than the man. There is one researcher in particular I'm thinking of. I've seen him tv a couple of times now, and always by the end of the program he bleats on that the man himself is not important, but that his message is. The only account of his 'message' is in a story rewritten to deify him decades later, and that was subject to a committee to decide what events should be kept or discarded. I've said before that my biggest bone of contention to the NT thing is not its dubious accuracy, but rather the lack of confirmation from contemporary sources. Tiberius was not a man to accept that some judaean born in a stable had any right to be regarded as divine as he was. I can't imagine him sat in Capri hearing of some barbarian claiming to be the son of god and not doing something about it. The episode of Jesus' arrest is therefore perhaps based on real events, since he was speaking against Roman sentiment during a military occupation. The curious thing is that only Jesus was arrested in the story, and that no great change in public order was noted by Roman commentators. If Sejanus had a hand in appointing Pontius Pilate as governor, that merely made him politically astute and acceptable to the Sejanus regime. Certainly he wouldn't have wanted a political upheaval - the very thing Jesus was striving for (as opposed to the spritual motives the NT describes) - and so Jesus was slapped down having brought himself to Roman attention. The story of the crucifixion is a fundamental part of Christian mythos, but one that doesn't entirely make sense, and although the Romans are held to have nailed Jesus up, the episode remains obscure in Roman terms. Perhaps thats not suprising. You have a rabble-rouser in a turbulent province and once dealt with, the turbulence dies down. The Judaean establishment may well have wanted jesus out of the picture too, as he represented a loose cannon. The deed is done, peace is restored without recourse to conflict, and no-one is saying anything to Rome. If anyone seriously does want to compare contemporary accounts and attempt some sort parallel chronology, good luck I say. Who is more correct? A film scriptwriter playing on peoples emotions or a tabloid newspaper that is more interested in celebrity secrets?

The frozen slush and hard packed snow has turned to an undulating sheet of ice outside my home. On a downhill pavement, it's fairly lethal. Looks like I'm going to have to break my back and shovel my way to the shops to prevent broken bones. What a choice. Choices of the Week Every year you see the same adverts. Lovable pets in help center cages looking mournful. The message is always "A pet is not just for Christmas" and I agree wholeheartedly. Not everyonme does it seems, and in the papers was a report of a puppy left in a sealed box by the roadside. The callousness of its last owners is obvious, but it also strikes me that a suprise gift of a pet is the daftest idea for pet you could possibly consider. It may be that someones dog has had puppies unintentionally and they're trying to rid themselves of the unwanted animals by handing them as gifts to friends and so forth, but you can't help wondering how thoughtless the gift was, never mind the death sentence meted out by the recipients. In this case the dog was rescued. There's no guarantee it will find responsible owners. As for the irresponsible ones, a part of me wants to seal them up in a container and let them freeze. The other part wants them named and shamed. then again, with all these pro-animal sentiments and responsible attitudes, why is there is no clear cut procedure for passing on unwanted animals? Because, much like human children born to unmarried teenagers, they simply get in the way and cost money.

We... slightly don't, no. Given England last had snow like this eighteen years ago, and that Swindon never got a snowflake even then, I doubt anyone thought of buying one. A shame, because the pavements outside my home are covered in packed ice since no-one shovelled the snow away, and its well slippery.

Actually, trolleys are well adapted to survive wintery conditions. They carry on hibernating in ditches and hedgerows without ill effect, ready to lay there basking in the sun when the weather improves.

Popularity. Although Tiberius was Augustus's successor he wasn't popular with the masses. Germanicus was, and whether you rate his ability as a general or not, he was without doubt more popular than Tiberius. Thst important. With popularity, you have more freedom of action, more support. To all intents and purposes Tiberius was looking over his shoulder at the peoples favourite war leader, a celebrity in Roman terms.

The misery goes on. In very un-swindon-like style, the snow started again last night and as I glance out the window of the library, it's just begun cascading down in thick torrents. Our local council now has only two days of grit reserves left to clear our roads and keep Swindon moving. I'm biting my nails. Weather Update of the Week Oh. Its just reverted to that thin sprinkle of fine drizzly snow. Panic over. Phew.

Good point. Increasingly, with cars becoming dull as ditchwater to drive, lots of gadjets and toys are migrating to the front dash for drivers to play with. I think the reason I haven't had any serious accidents (I made a couple of low speed bumps in my early days, one was someone elses fault) is that I don't play with the dashboard or even bother with the stereo. Always look out the window. I know it sounds daft, but, there's a sort of parallel with fighter pilots. Its the one you don't see who gets you. Actually, the dullness of modern cars is a mystery to me. Adverts constantly portray production vehicles as fun to drive, exciting, responsive, a pleasure to own etc... The ones I've driven handle like rice pudding and need a request signed in triplicate before they gather speed. Maybe I'm lucky. I'm old enough to remember when cars were real cars

Funny thing is, in bad weather like this the trollies vanish from sight.

Wow. Now there's a man who takes his Dungeon & Dragons seriously. I'll bet he gets tons of party invites....

Its funny you posted this Doc. A friend of mine drove in the states once and was thoroughly frightened. Not by gun totin' hoodlums or whatever, but just by people cruising at legal speeds and basically losing attention because of the boredom. I'm reminded of an american lady I came across once. She was from Idaho, or Iowa, or somewhere flat and empty. We got talking about driving and I asked how she found it driving on British roads. She gasped in typical rural drawl "You people are sooo-peerrrrr-men." and went on to describe how she drew up at a road junction and didn't dare move for cars whizzing all around her. In fact, the same phenomenon is starting to occur in Britain. Now that speed limits are rigidly enforced, people are becoming less attentive (one reason why the accident rate hasn't improved much since speed cameras came in). Whereas in the good old days you kept a good look out for your own survival, now you just sort of accept that everyone is doing the same speed and doing the same things. Before my car(s) were nobbled and I became a pedestrian, it was getting more and more hazardous on city dual carriageways (the ones limited to 40mph) because no-one bothered to look before they manoevered. Not really a change for the better.

Can't. All that snow from last night and early this morning has turned to slush. Boy oh boy is it going to be slippery overnight!

Yep, it snowed. I woke up to the sound of people falling over. A garage mechanic shovelling snow off the ramp to the yard made sure I got out of bed. I'm going outside. I may be gone some time. What is going on? Swindon is alive with people. Cars crawling forward sensibly at a steady pace. People laughing, joking, gritting pavements. Youths dragging plastic sleds they got for Christmas four years ago and never thought they'd ever use. Help... Drowning in community spirit.... A ten year old threw a snowball at his mum. He missed, but hey, it doesn't snow too often around here. "This is quite fun isn't it?" He observed. Yes, kid, it is when you're ten years old. For the rest of us, we have to avoid.. woah.... wooooooooaaaahhhhh! Splat. Oh no. I've fallen into someones footprint. Sheer walls of snow at least three inches deep. Aww man, how do I get out of this? At least I'm not injured. Can't phone Mountain Rescue, I left my mobile phone at home. Guess I'll just lie here, surviving on melted snow, until a walking shag pile carpet turns up with a barrel of rum under its chin to lick me to death... Return To Form Of The Week AM was sat at the PC 'doing his emails'. In the next cubicle, a young man was discussing something with his friend whilst he pointed at the screen. "Do you mind?" Demanded AM, "We're trying to concentrate. This is a library. Its a place for people to concentrate.". Wow. That shut him up. ? An hour later AM was struggling with his emails. "How do I save this?" He demanded, "I've only got thirty seconds left..." I waited with undisguised glee for him to fail to save it. He dragged a poor unsuspecting librarian to assist him. She shrugged, helpless to satisfy AM's need for instant assistance. His time ran out. "Oh ,look at that. That was a big story, and now I've lost it. Useless. I come here, I try to use my emails, and I can't save it. I should throw this computer through the window.." And so on, endlessly. He started lecturing his neighbouring PC users about how bad the computer system is. I was tempted to remind him that we needed to concentrate, but I was enjoying his performance too much.

Whether a general was 'good' often didn't matter. Roman society was always competitive and political intrigue was part of military life. From the Augustus onward, each legionary commander was chosen by the Emperor, he wasn't a career soldier. The Emperor chose 'safe' men. people he thought were reliable, and often they proved not to be. Therefore a popular general might not be such a good idea, nor one who who was immodest.

Last night I sat back to watch a little tv. In both senses. Outside I heard a revving car engine and tire squeals. Oh come on you idiot, surely you're not pratting around in this weather? Sheesh... Later I became aware of a persistent rumble. I get that from big diesel engines idling outside by the pedestrian crossing. Except this time it just went on and on. Its uncomfortable because the vibration carries through the house. Looking out the window I spotted why. The single decker bus outside had failed totally to negotiate the icy hill and was waiting for assistance to arrive. It was very slippery last night and although a little slushy this morning, I was a tad careful about walking down to the library! best news of all is that tomorrow the snow is back, slap bang over Swindon like a cryo-thermal nuclear blast. Can Swindon resist this onslaught of Winter? We shall see... Statistic of the Week One in five Brits stayed at home during the snowfall over the last few days. Like me. Only I've got a better excuse to stay off work for a day or two. Its called not having a job. I wonder if that statistic will be bigger if we get snowfall next year...

Oh we do get summers! maybe not tropical hot, but certainly sweltering for us Brits. Yes, our winters are more usually an extended Fall, and thats the country as a whole.

Back in 1908, Swindon was inundated with 15 inches of snow. Thats more then we got yesterday. The result of all those warnings of blizzards and sub-zero temperatures resulted in this picturesque scattering of snowflakes. This does in happen Swindon - a couple of decades ago there was a country wide snowfall over Britain. Drifts six feet deep cut off entire communities and made travel all but impossible. In Swindon, not a single snowflake. I would love to know why Swindon so rarely gets snow. Is it a hot place to be perhaps? Certainly not at the moment. It is genuinely cold. Britain gets laughed at for its absolute inability to cope with anything more than three snowflakes in one place. One snowfall and the entire country falls apart. Yes, we're dunces when it comes to winter. But then, since we so rarely get one, is it fair to blame us? Conversation of the Week On my way home from a hike in local countryside I happened upon a woman who was about to take a photograph of a tree bud. I stopped and said "I've taken some daft pictures in my time but that talkes the buscuit" She laughed and we got talking. A newbie to Swindon (You can tell, she likes it here), she has nontheless come to grief against the 'can't do' attitude of local garages. You have my sympathy. Apparently today she has to fix her camper-van, drive to work in Newbury, then attend a job interview in Portsmouth. With all the snow that fell over the last two days? You wait until you leave Swindon. Good luck.

I woke this morning to that dull white glow through the curtains. I knew that meant snow. Well it was no suprise - the warnings had been made regularly on tv for the last couple of days. What felt strange though was the curious lack of rumble. There was no background noise of passing cars, nor was the house shaking as lorries rumbled past. Walking down to the library, Swindon is deathly quiet. There's hardly any tire tracks in the snow, which is merely a surface covering, albeit a very slippery one. The college car park is virtually empty. The good news is that heavier snow is expected in the area by mid-day. Russia never invaded during the Cold War, but now they're here with Cold Air. There's a few of them in the library trying to log on like me. Sort of an advance guard. I'll bet they feel right at home. Warm Glow of the Week I notice that a steam locomotive has been cleared for service on British mainlines. Thats always an event - I know most people wouldn't admit it for fear of being labelled a trainspotter - but there's a mystique about these victorian engines that you just can't beat. This one is an A1 'Peppercorn' (I'll bet you just wanted to know that). Designed and built in 1948/49, the class was scrapped in the 60's as dieselisation made itself felt. But not this one. After raising three million pounds, a group of enthusiasts have built a brand new one which they've named Tornado. Extraordinary.