caldrail

Only on a saturday night.

ladies and Gentlemen, this insult to the roman empire must be avenged! We must gather our legions and lay siege to Lego headquarters, and demand their immediate production of new citizens and bricks for our make-believe empires! Raise your placards, assemble your protestors, and march on Legoland!

This makes no sense. You've made the claim that the Roman occupation was almost entirely peaceful. No, I said they were conducting their occupation in a peaceful manner. So they were. Varus was very keen to quell any rebellion - and whilst I agree that involves the use of force - the intention was to restore peace and quiet. With Rome its hard to seperate the two, since they were a conquest state. However, the point is that the germans had little the romans could conquer. There weren't any cities, roads, established sources of raw materials, ports, or other infrastructure. A true military conquest in the roman fashion wasn't possible, and because the wilderness has the advantage that it has no border at the rear and thus its occupants can retreat further (in theory anyway) so territorial gain as such has no value. The romans did not invade in the classic sense. They were picking on individual tribes and giving them a bloody nose. Its rather like a new bully at school. He wanders into the playground and starts intimidating other kids from the start, to establish supremacy - and thats what it was all about. The romans weren't interested in thousands of square miles of mud and trees, and for all their awards and triumphs, who got credit for invading germania? No-one. Some got credit for subduing a particular tribe or two. Germania was a region, not a nation state. They wanted a secure border, not a bunch of potentially violent tribesmen. The process of conquering Britain started with the sale of roman luxuries, much as had happened elsewhere. The germans by and large weren't interested. Also, the areas you list were more settled than Germania, with established communities, farms, and some measure of infrastructure that had some positive value to the romans. Is there a difference between being defeated in battle and defeated on campaign? Was any german tribe subdued permanently? Incidentially, thanks for the tip. Where can I get a copy of Vellius Paterculus?

British weather struck with a veangeance yesterday. Not quite the heaviest downpour I've ever suffered, but it kept on raining heavily all day. I have an army issue rucksack - officially declared waterproof -which had a small puddle at the bottom of it. My mobile phone got trashed by water damage again. Why can't manufacturers make a mobile phone that doesn't disintergrate in mildly moist conditions? Worse still, having already been out in the rain and well soaked, I found a message left by the post office asking me to collect an undelivered parcel. Oh no... not another hour long trek across Swindon... ...All for a pair of light bulbs donated by my electricity company. Cheers guys. That put a damper on the deal... Canal Progreess of the Week Its looking ever more serious, as I see from the old collectibles shop that advanced planning consent is in the works. Can't wait...

The star trek genre was borne out of nostalgia for the original, and STNG was a worthy successor. As things wore on though the ideas were getting a bit thin, storylines were getting derivative, and by Enterprise it had devolved to an ordinary US sci-fi series relying on fans being familiar with the original. Star Trek had run out of steam.

Are they worth it? Yes, provided you accept the limited scope of the titles and that the information is necessarily brief. Incidentially I've a couple of spare titles if you want them. One icovers the Praetorian Guard and the other discusses Auxillary Cavalry. PM me a postal address and I'm pop them over to you.

Salve, C Any primary source on that? Germania - Tacitus Annals - tacitus Lives of the Caesars - Suetonius There's probably some good info in Dio's works but I haven't read the relevant period. Notice that Augustus sent Varus to handle taxation - a man known for his greed. The campaigns against the german tribes mentioned by Ursus were pacifications. I accept the confrontations took place, but my arguement is that Rome wasn't attacking everyone. As usual with Rome, they were attacking some and not others in a deliberate policy of disunification. Notice the germans weren't entirely defeated and that the whole point was to impress upon the german tribes that Rome was here and staying. Rome did not want a turbulent frontier - it wanted tax-payers. The triumphs given to generals conducting these campaigns aren't hugely significant. Under Augustus, triumphs were awarded liberally to maintain loalty amongst them. The key is that Caesar wanted them as subjects. In roman terms, that wasn't simply people saying "yes Caesar, no Caesar" - it all came down to wealth and power. For Caesar, a provincial power bloc would be an important asset in his quest to be overlord of Rome. It also meant tributes or tax revenue - though I suspect this was less important to Caesar than it would be for Augustus later. His arrogance is incredible, and illustrates the view of roman political thuggery that Terry Jones is fond of. The thing is, although this military action was taking place, it was limited in scope, aimed at particular tribes for whatever reason or excuse. The difficulty of fighting a people whose infrastructure was almost non-existent is also touched on, as Dio mentions that Caesar took all the booty that he could. I suspect it wasn't much. But this browbeating of the germans did not quell their spirit. They simply retreated further into the forests. Ok, it would have caused them a great deal of trouble in that they had to relocate their settlements and start over, but for a culture closer to the land than the romans this was surely easier? The damage was done of course, and the resentment of the germans must have been keenly felt. Its like a bunch of soldiers pushing the door down, camping in your back yard, then charging you money for the privilege.

DS9 was of a comparable standard. Voyager seemed a bit wishy-washy and lacked the same sense of reality about it, and the Enterprise series never found that magic at all.

The germans were a warrior tribal people, warfare, or at least raiding, was part and parcel of their culture as usually happens in cultures of this sort. When the romans began to rub up against them, we have the sort of 'civilised' vs 'primitive' conflict that we've seen all too often in the last four hundred years. The dominant, more advanced culture sees the lands of the primitive as virgin territory because the primitives haven't done anything with it. The primitives on the other hand see the land as something they're attached to in some way, either as their ancestral lands, hunting grounds, or in some cases, as intrinsically free to all. The german tribes in particular were quite happy with raiding, herding, and living inside their 'Fearful forest and stinking bog'. To them it was their home. Roman civilisation was something different - a culture that wasn't 'manly' or desirable. No doubt they used roman wares obtained by trade - Romans were keen to tempt barbarian peoples in this way, although in Germany the temptations of comfort and luxury weren't so easily bought. A lot depends on the warrior culture. These societies do not remain static, unchanged, but develop as time goes by, albeit at a slow pace. As a young culture its likely to be very hard-edged, competitive, even violent. As the society ages it tends to become more sophisticated, more entrenched in tradition and custom, and prone to settling down - all this had happened to the Gauls. The gauls that Caesar conquered were not the hardened fighters immune to the natural world that their forebears had been when the spread violently across Europe and sacked Rome in 392BC. The germans were a much 'younger' culture at the time of Augustus. The description by Tactitus goes into some detail about their mindset, and allowing for some roman arrogance and misinterpretation, gives a picture of a robust people leading physical and violent lives. Augustus would not have considered these barbarians as too much of a threat. They squabbled amongst each other, had no cities, nor infrastructure, nor and sophisticated culture to admire. Its true Augustus expanded the borders of Rome - we know that towns were being built in Germania before the Varian Disaster - but this was an expansion of Augustus's franchise of the roman system, designed to spread roman colonies, introduce civic pride in the provinces, distribute veteran ex-soldiers, and to widen his tax base. I know some people dispute that last point, but remember that Augustus was buying popularity. He 'found Rome in brick and left it in marble', he boasts in his will of the numbers of men and animals he displayed in games. For him, tax revenue was an important key to his survival. If he raised tax, he becomes unpopular. So if you want more revenue to buy more popularity, your tax base must widen. hence he viewed Germania - with no great valuable resources - as an area to repopulate in the roman fashion. He had done this already. Areas of Greece and surrounding islands had declined and their populations withered, so Augustus had founded colonies in these areas to reinvigorate their economies. He was effectively attempting the same in german lands beyond established frontiers, believeing the germans could be subdued, bought off against each other, and tempted into roman luxury as had the gauls before Caesar summarily conquered them. This process of colonisation was instrinsically undesirable to the hunter/raider minset opf the germans, and as I've mentioned before, the difference in cultures brought up the same attitudes and situations as we see in colonial america, although in the case of the germans a charismatic ex-soldier by the name of Arminius was able to unite the german tribes because of the spread of roman culture - and taxation. Quintilius Varus was there for two reasons - to gain valuable military experience, but also to oversee roman taxation. The germans did not fight Rome because they were being attacked. They weren't under attack at all, the colonisation of Germania was being undertaken in an overbearing but relatively peaceful manner. The germans objected to being asked to consider roman lifestyles, to fence their lands as it were, and to pay tax to Rome, which was outside their experience and caused them problems on a local economic scale, since most germans had little else than each other and a few animals. Its true that some cultures weren't so backward - even the gauls of Caesars time had developed in agriculture and so forth - but even considering the older persian culture the romans sneered at it. It wasn't the proper way, it wasn't roman. The oriental potentates were regarded as effeminate and perhaps most importantly, seen as sapping of human will and strength. Roman society at its heart believed Might Was Right, and although we sometimes focus on their sophistication we forget the macho, virile, and competitive nature of their mindset. Rome was a society that saw itself as strong, something that gave them pride, and its noticeable that despite their increasing luxury by the time of Augustus many romans had continued to pay lip service to it. Luxury was a commodity, it could be bought and sold, and wealth meant power and status in roman society.

I hate to point it out the obvious Doc, but there's more than one engineer in Star Trek. Secondly, O'brien was not the only guy operating the transporter. So did Tasha Yar, Worf, Jordie, the good Captian Picard, and a few other extras. Also, Scotty made an appearance in STNG too. Also, there's no implied connection between Scotty's expertise with the transporter and any event featured in STNG. Now you know what kind of trekkie I am!

The romans offered their culture packed and ready to go to anyone interested. They were utterly convinced they were the most advanced culture, the light at the center of the universe. By the 1st century AD, a roman writer mentions that the gods had given Rome an empire without end. In exporting their culture, the romans made full use of trade. Both the gauls and britons are mentioned as being seduced by roman luxuries - the britons in particular are sneered at for succumbing to temptation. There seems to be a measure of double standards. Whilst on one hand the romans looked kindly upon nations with the good sense to see that adopting latin ways was a good idea, yet in other ways the capitulation of a culture was a sign of weakness, something the romans abhorred. It didn't. Augustus had undertaken a policy of colonisation in german territory which was proceeding comfortably until Arminius united the tribes against it. The germans were rejecting the roman presence in the same way native americans would object to an alien culture occupying land. The spread of complex civilisation therefore would be as a result of roman influence, since the germans were quite happy as warrior tribes, living hard, playing hard, and fighting hard. The harsh border policies along the german frontier were designed for roman security, not to suppress german civilisation, since the romans believed without their unique guidance a barbarian people weren't likely to progress to their 'elevated' level anyway. Thats because for much of the western empire christianity was a wierd cult, about which some very strange and horrifying stories were told. Christianity only became an official religion in the 4th century, by which time Rome was on the defensive. Early christianity wasn't as pious as it would become. Bishops of Rome were notorious for getting very wealthy off the backs of their flocks, and one wonders if that wasn't the purpose of it in the first place, since the same situation occurs in the modern day. So then, the early christian sects were inwardly flocused, being more concerned with consolidation. Later, when christianity was the state religion, it came under the roman sense of unity and expansion, and from that point seeks to bring the world under one faith, as this was the policy began by Constantine in the 4th century AD. It also reflects the settlement of gernay by barbarian peoples after the disruption of the migrations that put so much pressure on Rome. Its more of a natural evolution than any repression by Rome, given that until the late empire german tribes were often anti-roman and very keen to keep their warrior lifestyle. Once displaced by migrations, they were effectively disenfranchised from their homelands (or at least it was no longer as secure as it had been) and thus became more conducive to raiding. This also reflects the diminishing ability of the late empire to defend its interests, and I should mention that one account of a roman raid on german settlements shows cross-border aggression reminiscent of that in colonial america. That didn't interest the average invading barbarian at all. What they wanted was roman wealth and luxury. Thats why the western empire vanishes after the barbarian coup against Romulus Augustulus. Their reign was so lacklustre it hardly registers with historians - though I accept the traditional view of the end of the west interferes with peoples perspective of that era. And incidentially - don't you think it ironic that Rome began with Romulus and ended with another?

The zealot movement in Judaea had more to do with a clash of culture than any specific event. The more hard line jewish people didn't like the roman morality or their insistence on emperor worship, nor were they overly impressed with the roman occupation.

Ok. The blog's been running for a while, stories are getting thin on the ground, characters a bit familiar and tired, and its slowly metamorphising into Last of the Summer Wine. Time then to... Come with me now - and let me take on a journey through Time and Swindon, to the Land of the Mighty Supermarket... Why is it, whenever I go there, that every old person seems to drift in front of me and block my progress in the search for provisions? You turn left, you turn right, you give up and use the next aisle, and they still block you. These days of course they have those infernal mobility buggies, which aren't designed to negotiate the torturous corners in your typical supermarket. Oh get out of the way Old Person, I want to go... "Excuse me young man. Could you reach up there for me? I want a tin of peaches.." Of course madame. There you go. "Thank you. You're very kind." No problem. Now please get out of the way... Oh no, I've attracted the attention of that young keen security guard. He's shadowing my every move like James Bond after a KGB agent. Heck, I hope no-one saw me putting that bag of vegetables in my shopping basket... Then there's that spooky check-out lady, the one who started a few weeks ago. She's nearly ready for a bus pass too. As she lifts my bottles of coloured water through the barcode reader, she says "Good value these, aren't they?" Yes. Yes they are. Thats why I buy them. Hasn't that possibility occured to you yet? Or that you've asked the same question each time I've used this lane at the check-out - Am I stuck in some sort of time loop? Condemned forever to pass through this ladies check out lane? No. If I've learned anything from endless repeats of Star Trek Next Generation, there's always a way to break the cycle. Come on Caldrail, what would a trekkie do in a situation like this? Ah yes. Beam me up Scotty.... Undiscovered Tribe of the Week In Brazil a previously undiscovered tribe has been found in the Amazon jungle.Sorry guys, even you can't escape my blog.

Exactly my point. He failed. But we are told that Jesus walked on water, fed thousands from nowhere, cured the sick and disabled by laying on hands. After three years of that, Jesus would have been the talk of the province and beyond. This was a world where no-one had home entertainment, and people would have discussed a miracle worker for sure.

the power of patrician censor census- the listing of Roman citizen for tax and military service purposes regimen morum- investigating the morals of the members of the class citizen recognitio- the power to grants new upward class status to men of virtue A Handbook of Universal History, William H. Tillinghast The power to grant new upward class status? But was that an exclusive right? In any case, the censor is only formalising an existing situation. If a man reaches the necessary qualification to be admitted to the senate, then the cenors role makkes sense, as he's confirming this mans achievement and making it clear to the senate that he has become a member of their select club. The only reason this power existed was because the numbers in the senate were limited, in order to maintain status and privilege. I think you'll find the censors power to elevate a man were done as a confirmation, not as an executive decision, and that he would not concern himself with lesser ranks overly. In any case, there were plenty of romans pretending to be something they weren't. Slaves pretended to be free men, free men pretended to be slaves. Certainly if caught these people were hauled in front of a magistrate, but did the censor worry about that? He was there as a senate membership auditor. Further, he had no jurisdiction of the roman military as far as I can see, and military service was one way to advance your status. A man promoted from the ranks to centurion was already operating in a role considered worthy of equites. The censor had no involvement in that.

I'm sure the Bible is authentic. The events described are more open to question. (Though the new testament is as good a contemporary text about life under Roman rule from a provincial's viewpoint that any historian can dream of getting.) Ok, I see your point. But the issue is whether the events of Jesus's life are accurate and it doesn't seem likely does it?

The staple diet of legionaries waswhatever they could make from their rations of wheat, so that would be bread, pasta, or porridge. (The early romans were derided as porridge eaters). However, I seriously do not believe they were veggies as such. Barley for instance was considered an animal food, given to legionaries as food for punishment. Meat was eaten as and when. After all, if a roman legion is on campaign and supplies are short, you take what you can find. You forage, you requisition livestock from civilians. No soldier goes hungry when civilians have food of any sort. Also, if you have the same diet day after day after day, wouldn't you welcome something different?

i understand exactly what you mean Moonlapse. The Legend of Old Gregg episode is notorious for freaking people out and yes, it did freak me too. The first series of Mighty Boosh is oddly happy go lucky, even when discussing issues like death (it is a comedy for crying out loud). The second series however is actually better, but darker. For instance, Nightmare of Milky Joe turns the Tom Hanks movie about being castaway into a sort of Lord of the Flies scenario but with coconut people instead of kids. Its funny as heck, but its almost like comedy using the Dark Side..

A fine arguement, but not necessarily one Jesus used. The problem with quoting from the bible is that it relies on the Bibles's authenticity, which is suspect.

The Comitia Curiata was based on the original three tribes of Rome, or more precisely, the thirty curiae that it divided into. Originally this meant the warrior bands and thus has a military-esque origin, since men who had fought for Rome were accorded better status - the origin of patrician families is that of these warriors. The Comitia Centuriata on the other hand was based on the centuries as developed later - but for much the same reasons - and had a system of 193 voting blocks to which citizens could apply their vote. The Comitia Tributa had a much simpler system based on 35 voting blocks, and if I remember right, the Consilium Plebis adopted the same structure. A tribune was not a colonel. A colonel is a modern rank that has responsibility given to him by the state to command a regiment. The romans did not use a regimental system, nor does the modern day have six colonels time-sharing their command as the romans did with their tribunes pre-Marius. The same arguement applies to the centurion. The captain is a modern rank with fixed levels of responibility within a regimimental system,. Centurions were junior warband leaders with direct resonsibility for battlefield command, and in some circumstances, were also given control of territory within a province - far exceeding the captains status in some respects and not in others. I wouldn't rely entirely on T.A. Dodge. He was a military man who applied his own experience to the legions and decided it was the same. Of course it wasn't, but Dodges perspective has been repeated by educated military men since the victorian era. Its a distorted view of the roman legions. The problem is that the romans were organised, aggressive, and to their enemies, appeared as a monolithic military machine, ruthlessly marching across the face of the world and crushing anything in their path. This image has endured to the modern day, and so many times I come across young men staring glassy-eyed into the distance imagining being part of this system. The reality was very different. Roman soldiers were brutal men kept in line by severe discipline rather than loyalty to the state. They bullied civilians and each other. They bribed officers for easy duties and this behaviour, whilst considered undesirable by some statesmen, was more generally considered normal. Legions were independent mini-armies, each seperate from the other, answerable to their commanders more often than not, and certainly weren't shy of mounting mutinies or rebellions. I can't think of any modern army that operates anything like that. I get the impression you're searching for evidence to back this concept you have about a roman monolithic military machine. Its not a good idea. There's enough evidence left to us by romans themselves that suggests they were still using warbands (albeit in a formal and very organised fashion) in pretty much the same way as their enemies. Any attempt to describe the roman system in the same way as ours is ignoring that facts that don't fit, and thinking of a conclusion then trying to find arguements to make it work - thats not good history because inevitably you ignore information that doesn't agree with you. The romans lived two thousand years ago. They fought en-masse with sword and shield. There really isn't much similarity with the modern day and although some of their practises away from the battlefield parallel our own, they were geared to roman needs, not the modern day mechanised armies.

Hey - guess what? - all of a sudden the government are listening. The Prime Minister is 'aware of the impact rising prices are having on families'. The Chancellor is willing to discuss budgetary concerns. Plans to raise road tax are being reviewed. I see. Now that lorry drivers are protesting over fuel tax, now they're losing elections and facing a possible ignomious end to New Labour, they're paying attention. Which means they weren't paying attention before. I always said they weren't, but at last we have a partial admission. But ministers still want a 60% pay rise to

I'll send you a battering ram for xmas

Essentially what Augustus was doing in Germania was the same as the americans settlers of the 19th century. Since there was no realm to conquer, they simply marched in, put up fences, and said to the alarmed inhabitants that this land is now under new management. Naturally the reaction of the german tribes was similar to that of the plains indians. Pacifying the tribes merely kept the peace - it did not bring them under the empire nor created new provinces. Conquest for the romans meant bringing new territory and its inhabitants under roman control - our definition of conquest is a little different, we simply say it means the enemy was beaten. Now you might claim that one tribe or another was beaten and therefore conquered, but then why did the germanian frontier present such a threat thereafter?

No, there are people who apply scientific analysis to religion from its historical and archaeological perspective. I know what you mean though, since some people are religiously motivated, but the christian stranglehold on education and research is no longer as powerful as it was in past ages. For instance, the gospel of Thomas is preserved and the keepers admit they don't believe it (because it doesn't fit christian orthodoxy), but they preserve it nonetheless and allow others to study it irrespective of their motives.

Caldrail, can you elaborate on this? I am not familiar with it at all. There's a reference to this in Who's Who In The Roman World, but as of yet, I haven't found the source it comes from. Constantine certainly attempted to have Jesus worshipped as God, claiming the two were the same (arguably he succeeded since christians often worship Jesus above God). I'll keep an eye out on this, hopefully I'll spot something later.