caldrail

Fiction.

What was going on here? Was Severus doing some manual labour to please his soldiers? (Plutarch mentions in the life of Gaius Marius how soldiers much loved commanders who 'shared their food and labour'. And Tacitus incidentially makes mildly scornful descriptions of an officer in Pannonia in ad14 who went everywhere by carriage). Or has SSeverus walked into his office and saw everyone lazing about, quaffing honeyed wine, chatting and gossiping? Right you lot, off your backsides, and get yourselves down to the tile kilns. MOVE! Makes you wonder doesn't it?

No. You're jumping on a bandwagon. I agree padded protection saw some limited application in the Roman Empire - we know that. I agree that the use of padded protection was discussed in a late empire treatise on how to improve the Roman legion - you offered the excerpt. What I'm telling you is that you shouldn't be so quick to assume fact from very fragmentary suggestions. You offer two reliefs on Roman monuments to somehow prove that a garment not openly mentioned in context of legionary use was in actually in widespread use, and as I pointed out, your interpretation of those reliefs can be questioned - there is no context to confirm those garments are exactly what you say they are. A major point to be contended is pseudo-statistical, and that alone should make anyone wary. You claim padded protection must have been in common use because of some kind of aggregative impression of production scale. Bear in mind that the legions utilised artisans within their ranks and employed civilian artisans whenever necessary. Also bear in mind that artisans did not have to create metal armour suits in one go. They had an option to make parts constantly and store them for future use/sale. Also realise that although the legion supplied the gear in most circumstances, it was a hire purchase agreement with the legionary, who had an option to buy his own outside of military logistics, and the question of what happened to all that armour when legionaries retired from service is not adequately answered. You could argue chainmail is a little different, but the Romans did not seem to suffer difficulties with it any more than the other users of such armour before and since, and had the advantage of a more organised supply network. Slugging it out? You have to sometimes. Otherwise we could spread all sorts of nonsense and find ourselves looking back at historical subjects with modern bias, invention, and fantasy.

Sufficient? I'll give you credit for an interesting comeback, but please note important aspects. Firstly the document only survives as a medieval copy. Whilst that probably hasn't affected the text greatly, the document showed be approached with some caution. Secondly, the document relates not on the current state of the Roman military but how it might be possible to improve it. In other words, a suggestive text rather in the same vein as De Re Militaris. Thirdly, the origin of the document is not precisely dated but reckoned to be around the 4th or 5th century, probably toward the latter. The Roman legion of this time is a very different beast to the classic legion we all know and love. What must be considered is the influence of 'barbarian' equipment, since the standardisation of the legion at this late stage had all but gone. Fourthly - and directly referencing your post - to who and what period is the author discussing? I will concede that padded protection was not unknown to the Romans (I'm thinking of arm and leg protection of gladiators, though this was not to protect against opposing weapons but to safeguard the fighter from hampering his own efforts by colliding with his own shield) thus I will give you a point - you came back with supporting information. However the connection with earlier legionary practice is too tenuous. You make an interesting point, but no, it isn't sufficient

There's no 'must have' about it. If you can point to something in the Roman sources or archeology that specifically mentions such quilted undergarments, you've scored a point. I have to say I've not seen anything like that.

I think the term 'quilted armour' needs to be used carefully. The misinterpretation stems from common use in role paying games where the protection value is important rather than the usage. Articles like aketons or gambesons are used in two contexts, firstly as an undergarment for metal armour, secondly as a cheap alternative to metal. Such articles are known to have seen use from the eleventh century and it seems odd that we don't see more continuous use if the Roman soldier is so equipped. There are of course alternative interpretations. In the first image, the armour appears as a top layer, but might easily be metal plates sewn onto a supporting garment. Remember that the monument would have been painted when fist displayed so we've lost important info. It would be interesting to hear the results of forensic archeology in this regard. The second image is more convincing but again notice how thick that soldiers undergarments already are. And he wants another layer? It could still be an alternative style of scale armour. I do take the point but the evidence is not compelling. If there's anything contextual to settle the matter fine, but until I see such evidence, I'll view these images as a curious but unsubstantiated possibility.

Nice effort! There's a lot to be said about my home area. I should think about doing something like this.

Coins can be found anywhere. I once found a 1925 English shilling in the middle of a crop field. On Time Team, a gold sovereign was found in an old moat. But coins collect where they are used. Locally, in what was once the Roman town of Durocornovium, unusual groups of late empire coins were discovered. What had happened was a change of architecture had led to wooden huts raised on stone plinths, so coins were being lost through the floorboards. Or in the case of Cunetio, a Roman town next to modern day Marlborough, a substantial buried hoard was found, presumably belonging to someone who meant to come back and recover his loot. OR more generally, used as offerings in lakes and rivers. I suppose really you find coins whereever human beings have been, the amount and disposition depending on the circumstance.

Whilst I'm not a luddite, I've always resisted the temptation to embrace the internet as anything more than a convenience. It is true that I adopted an internet based job searching procedure back in the days when the internet was not quite so all pervasive and employers recruited by all sorts of traditional means. It's also notable that the Job Centre became very antipathic to my methods once the internet caught up with them and officialdom dictated what was or was not acceptable. They would argue I failed to get a job. I would argue I was getting attention from companies that otherwise would have remained exclusive. For a long time I began using the internet at my local library or those cheap and cheerful internet cafes that sprung up around the town. The increasing use of smartphones rendered the internet cafe commercially obsolete and the arrival of Covid meant libraries were shut, so I took the plunge and got connected. Well whaddaya know, now I need my internet connection as badly as everyone else. My connection was cut off for 24 hours last night. Not sure why, my provider quoted technical problems, and a van was parked outside my home in the early hours of this morning whilst technical wizardry took place. Lo and behold I got out of bed this morning to discover my internet is alive and well. Hello World. Brave New World Thee are people in my area who think I'm a hermit. It is true I don't feel the need to socialise as much as I did when I was young (I begin drawing a pension shortly) but I'm not quite as agrophobic as they think, I did after all go to the pub last week. No really, I did. Came to no harm whatsoever. But interconnectivity has made the world strangely accessible. I have guitar lessons from professional players in America, Canada, New Zealand. I discuss history with people from just about everywhere. I even had an hour long conversation with an American Hollywood film producer a few weeks ago. None of this would have been possible a decade ago. But of course it isn't all wonderful. Criminals and conspiracy theorists abound. It's great to be able to interact globally, not so great when you have to be so wary. Hang on... Who are you? Brave New World Of The Week Now we come to events in Afghanistan. The Taliban have waited for the west to give up and go and the policy worked, though apparently they're a little miffed that withdrawing US forces disabled much of the military hardware they left behind. It was going to be difficult enough for them to find anyone who can operate modern military aircraft anyway without showing off to the world how much scrap metal they now own. But the worlds media want scapegoats. It makes for good entertaining copy and so the pressure on selected politicians gets intense, sometimes excessively zealous. But how do you fight a faction that can melt into the civilian population whenever you mount an operation against them? Guns? Bombs? Missiles? No, it comes down to the internet. Find out who your target is, where they're going to be, and deploy a remote controlled drone to make warfare nice and personal. I suppose that sounds a bit critical but that's how war is developing now. The Russians are currently upgrading their conventional armed forces with some alarming new weapons. A continuation of older style policies? Certainly. Dictators love powerful weapons with which to throw their weight about. But both Russia and China are known to use the internet as a means of attacking the West. So was the loss of internet access yesterday a bold offensive by rival empires to suppress my campaign to enjoy global interaction? Funnily enough, I'll probably never know.

This video discusses Sino-Roman contact from a military perspective.... However it is also true that trade and diplomatic missions were taking place on rare occaisions during the Roman period. Sino-Roman relations - Wikipedia

Check this out....

A question asked on another forum, but an interesting one. The short answer is yes, although we don't know much about it, and they had knowledge of powerful empires across the continent of Asia because there was trade. That actually sums up the where most of their geography came from - merchants who weren't acting under official orders but seeking new lucrative markets, or in the case of empires like China, heard stories passed on through intermediate trade. Were there any official expeditions? Again, the short answer is yes, though these were far and few between since the Roman Empire became a very insular beast, but of course sometimes they got curious. There was a military expedition that went south along the Red Sea coast, blantantly aggressive, which did sterling work subjecting the locals to Roman victory, defeated eventually by sickness, exhaustion, and thirst, forced to retire to safer territory. There is also a mention in the sources of an expedition into the deep deserts of North Africa (Though the areas are probably much more arid now) where the soldiers fought with 'troglodytes' (cavemen). One might add that Caesar's campaigns in Britain were also explorations since the island had not received any official Roman attention before that, and he was looking for precious metals to pay off his debts before returning to Rome. I would add that military scouts must have made many explorations of frontier areas to gauge external threats or find an existing one. Strabo of course wrote a guide to peoples and nations around the Indian Ocean.

There must be a whole plethora of medicinal plants we've forgotten. To be honest, whilst the Romans got very good at treating weapon injuries (or rather, the Greek medics in their service did) their understanding wasn't as good. They were as likely to prescribe prayers as other treatments, and some of them were downright unhealthy. Is it just me or is it Greek medicine that was underpinning Roman health care generally?

That is a great find but as always we stumble across stone ruins. So much of Roman construction was based on wood, especially in places like the Britannic provinces, and of course, nothing impressive of that sort survives. Having said that, I haven't forgotten that clever water bucket chain they found in London some years back. The mud at the bottom of the well preserved some of the wood (and where would we be without the wooden letter material found at Vindolanda?)

Curious. The origin of the bluestones has been known for a very long time but only now has it become a problem with souvenir hunters?

Whilst I won't argue with Pompieus concerning his info, I would point out that it is possible to raise cohorts outside of a legion and form them into a vexillation without the need to go all the way to formal legion organisation. The Praetorians were never amalgamated into a single bodyguard legion (despite coming together in the same camp during Sejanus' attempted power play), and the Urban cohorts, repurposed from praetorians, were similarly organised.

There's a curious sensation when you visit a place like this. We're used to Romans on tv and film, and perception of their similarities to the modern day rather colour our ideas. But you see these displays and it's foreign, a bit mysterious even with notices telling the public what it is. That's when you sense the differences in culture.

That's an interesting take on things. In Hannibal's case I doubt the prospect of disease was a major consideration. His forces were depleted by campaigning and he was getting desperately short of supply such that a siege of Rome wasn't a practical idea. Note that he doesn't even try, despite the panic in Rome that his arrival could be imminent.

Pandemics aren't likely to be all that unusual. I was watching a video earlier today discussing how neolithic peoples in western Europe may have suffered a catastrophic drop in population from disease - with the caveat that it also conforms to issues with colonisation. Too many people moving into one region, setting up farms, and not surviving long because they haven't adapted to local conditions well enough. Noticeably these population shrink to around half of what they were then become stable. This happened in Britain during the 4th millenium BC. However I did understand that much of the disease associated with the classical city of Rome was malaria, spread from standing water (Although the Cloaca Maxima was a feature the Romans were proud of, it is wrong to see ancient Rome as having a sophisticated drainage system catering for the whole urban sprawl)

I came across the August issue of National Geographic and not suprisingly the cover picture of a murmillo gladiator caught my eye. The feature was an article explaining what was actually going in the arena compared to popular perceptions of Roman blood sports, and not a bad article as such, though I would like to comment on some of the assertions made in the article. Why would You Bring So Much Armour To A knife Fight? - Well, the gladiators sword did get quite small but remember this was a trend that developed over a number of centuries. The idea of a shorter sword is that the fight gets close in and fast, making for more impressive displays (the article stresses the need to perform for the public, though it neglects to point out that it was in the gladiator's interest to show off - it improved his chances of missio if he could not continue the fight). Perhaps more importantly the armour worn by gladiators was usually (not always) designed not to keep the gladiator alive, but to keep him fighting. The Romans wanted to see a professional fight, not a slaughter of men disabled by wounds. That might sound odd considering the other forms of arena killing, but it's all about context. Gladiators Fought For Show - To some extent, yes they did. The article does mention fights staged sine missio (No Mercy) and that one fight was advertised as using sharp weapons, but it is well known that gladiators often fought demonstration fights especially in wandering troupes who could not easily replace their fighters and blunt weapons, also used for training, were expected. Morning bouts were generally considered warm-up events and nobody expected deaths at that stage. The headline acts might well be more serious, sharp edges, a chance for the audience to decide fate, and so on. Gladiators Fought At Similar Skill Levels - Yes, this did occur, as for instance the account of a fight between Priscus and Verus at the Colosseum written by Martial, and famously the Emperor Titus gave both men victory and freedom for their epic duel. Whilst it is true that the public wanted a fair fight, sometimes it would not be possible to match people exactly or indeed it might not be wise to risk a star gladiator unnecessarily. So sometimes an expert would be matched with a tiro. The outcome was never certain, but highly probable. Gladiators Survived 90% Of The Time - The rate of survival is commonly stated as such, but this would be between experienced fighters with reputations, such that even if they lost a section of the audience at least would be rooting for them and call for missio. However, the odds of a tiro fighting his first match might well be considerably more dangerous, with the possibility of facing a more experienced man, less investment in training, and no reputation to spur public support. Some statistics suggest that one in three gladiators got invalidated out in training, and another one in three would die in their first fight. Our concepts of gladiator fights are often hopelessly distorted. Television and film usually show gladiators dressed in all sorts of get-ups and using weapons inherited from fantasy. Fights were strictly categorised into standard pairs and as the article does mention, controlled by referees. Gladiators Swore An Oath To Be Punished And Killed - Yep, very true. They were slaves, whether purchases or volunteers, and expected to obey their masters. "He vows to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword." - Satyricon (Petronius) Further, Cicero outlines the stoicism and loyalty of typical gladiators... "Just look at the gladiators, either debased men or foreigners, and consider the blows they endure! Consider how they who have been well-disciplined prefer to accept a blow than ignominiously avoid it! How often it is made clear that they consider nothing other than the satisfaction of their master or the people! Even when they are covered with wounds they send a messenger to their master to inquire his will. If they have given satisfaction to their masters, they are pleased to fall. What even mediocre gladiator ever groans, ever alters the expression on his face? Which one of them acts shamefully, either standing or falling? And which of them, even when he does succumb, ever contracts his neck when ordered to receive the blow." - Letters (Cicero) Yet things weren't always so honourable or dramatic. Suetonius records how Caligula stopped a fight and scolded the assembled fighters for being too wussy. One man immediately sought to impress the Roman head of state by slaughtering his hapless colleagues with a trident. Caligula was apparently appalled at the sight (and that from a man recorded as killing a helpless gladiator as a mock victory) The article was overall quite good - and interestingly, printed the image of a full size gladiator sword across the bottom of a folding page!

This was a common method of executing criminals. Not just lions. either. There's an anecdote (I wanted to track it but my 'safesearch' settings are locked into strict mode because I live in England and thus refuses to do anything except proudly announce my internet search won't happen) in the Roman sources where the writer describes how the victim is being attacked by a bear and no longer the shape a man would be. @Guy - Yeah, I got it, but look closely at the depiction. It can be interpreted differently. To me it looks like the lion is nuzzling a familiar human. Please note that 'throwing to the lions' is a common theme in the popular perception of Rome and the info is playing to that crowd. Okay, it might be the case, but I'm just not convinced.

Just a personal point of view but this does not look like an execution at all. If it was, the lion would be on top, triumphant, surely? Perhaps this has more to do with mythology or is a reference to someone associated with lions?

We're so used to polished marble classical statues it's hard to imagine the Romans painted theirs. The same with funerary monuments, all the original colour weathered away to leave worn stone. Rome had been a colourful place in the past (pun intended)

Hi. Stumbled across this film on YouTube this evening. Made in 2014 on a low budget by Polish students it tells the tale of how Otho began his move toward displacing Galba in ad69. IT plays a bit fast and loose with history, principally concerning Poppea Sabina (You'll soon find out why). Nonetheless although technically a 'C' movie the production standards are high, the acting passable, and there's more than a little hint of Gladiator about it. The film is in Latin with Polish and English subtitles. Emperor, Imperator a film by Konrad Łęcki (in Latin and Teutonic :) - YouTube

We tend to get carried away with image of orgies and unbridled sex. Well, okay, sex was very available from slaves or cheap prostitutes. Yet I can't help noticing instances like Clodius trying to get off with Caesar's wife. Sure, she wasn't exactly rejecting him, but her mother was very moral and strict about relationships. True, Augustus found it necessary to impose laws to offset a lack of traditional marriage, but I wonder if we get carried away with the wall paintings assuming that such portrayals were ordinary. I mean, modern *or* is available widely but how many of choose to actually live in such an erotic lifestyle?