caldrail

No he didn't overextend the empire. He was trying to expand his tax coverage and improve the security of his borders by a policy of romanisation (which was nothing unusual). Unfortunately, he made the mistake of assuming Varus could handle the administration and security of his new buffer zone, and hadn't figured on a charismatic and clever individual like Arminius to weld an alliance of german tribes.

No, they had responsibilities more on par with a tribal chief. Artillery and cavalry are very much specialist units to the british of 1875. Cavalry because they're superior beings on horseback (and its unlikely they'd leave the column to screen for ambush because they don't believe the enemy are capable, and prefer to remain with the column for safety), artillery because it relies on state of the art industry back home. The british will not assault the fort until artillery have pounded it into dust in any case. Artillery is not a specialist unit for the romans. Apart from the odd expert in their ranks, any legionary can do the monkey work involved. Cavalry almost certainly will screen the column - the romans are cautious in warfare, and its likely they'll assault the fort very soon, for romans don't like being in one place too long, and its more expedient (and more impressive) to accept heavier casualties and take the objective quickly. Ultimately, command and control is done by shouting loudly. The romans have trumpets, the british have bugles, so in that sense there's little difference. The british however are effectively an army of archers - given their use of firearms - and this affects their behaviour on the field, since they also have no armour and can expect the enemy to use firearms also. The roman have armour protection, relying on close quarter combat to do business. As to the situations, there's too many variables, and its impossible to guarantee that a commander will order his troops to behave in a set fashion. As a rule, the romans did badly in ambushes, but then the british had their fair share of embarrasements.

Ok, but isn't it also true the only reason his autocracy was so benign was simply to ensure his own survival? Had he a stronger grasp on roman politics, perhaps he might have reverted to the bloody terror of his youth?

Since Rome depended on military power, then success on the battlefield is the key. If you can dominate the roman legions they have no defence, and might afterward be willing to be subjugated. Besieging roman towns is pointless because the romans would simply trap you there - a fate Hannibal was wary enough to avoid.

In blighty we get a few yank cars. They look awful. Aprt from those 70's muscle cars perhaps. But usually when a caddy the size of an articulated truck leans round the corner most people point derisively. Funny thing, two mates of mine, jovial rogues by nature, were into fast cars in their younger days and once bought one of those massive cadillacs with wings. That evening they decided to show off their purchase to the neighbours and cruise around the block. They ran out of petrol three-quarters of the way round.

Apparently not. I'm too educated and experienced in the ways of civilisation. Wrong accent you see....

SSSSH! Don't tell everybody....

This is also the tendency of human beings to organise and classify - its easier to understand if you teach that Rome fell in AD476. It also carries that moralistic message about decadence and the inevitable falling by the wayside of an 'evil empire' as the christians saw it. It is, therefore, a very victorian perspective. Technically, I agree the roman empire survived until 1453 but isn't that simply reorganising by a different standard? For instance, Mommsen ended his history of Rome with the accession of Augustus, because as far as he was concerned the Empire was unworthy of the democratic principles of the Republic and represented an end to traditional roman culture, as if what followed was merely an appendix in roman history after the decline of a culture which he admired for its founding principles. Also, if you regard christianity as the protector of roman culture (and you can - latin would be a forgotten language without it), then the roman world has never gone away, and its empire survives under new management very succesfully thank you.

I wouldn't dismiss them entirely. You're there, nervous, waiting to fight, and a dozen men handling big heavy angry dogs loose their hounds at you. Those dogs are running at you, full of bared teeth and snarls, and dogs that want to be violent don't mess around. A big heavy dog intent on savaging you doesn't suffer the same morale problems as we do - it just goes at you. I understand what you mean - shields, greaves, weaponry - and to some extent if a formation keeps its nerve then the dogs will be defeated, largely because they become too focused on the one guy they're ripping into. But.... Wouldn't you be a little more nervous if a dozen snarling rottweillers ran toward you full pelt?

No thats ok, the site is informative, and fair play for pointing it out. The use of modern terminology is second nature to us (obviously) but fundamentally wrong, because it distorts the way we understand the roman military. Notice I used to make the same mistake too. Thats why I criticised the site, but at the end of the day at least the information is more or less as it should be, and as Adrian Goldsworthy points out, we shouldn't foist anachronistic organisation on a culture who had different ideas about how to fight wars. For instance. A recent post named the Optio as an executive officer. This suggests an air of authority, of some refinement, a guy with an office. In reality, Optio means "Chosen Man", and given the somewhat brutal methods employed by legions to command their men, what the name refers to is an official henchman of a centurion, nothing more. A man who wields discipline in support of his boss, almost gangland in its authority rather than any professional image. Part of the problem is the image of the roman military as a fully organised monolithic military machine - which in way, it was to people living two thousand years ago and such images survive in the folk memory for a long time, and now we interpret that folk memory in modern terms. Even after the Augustan reforms, with the legions at their organisational peak, they were still corrupt, bullying, and pretty much laws unto themselves. The reality is Rome was an aggressive city state whose military went through great changes in organisation, yet never lost that traditional warband element.

For a while we've had some cracking weather, lovely and sunny. Today though its cloudy, damp from yesterdays rain, and to be honest, quite a bit cooler. In fact, as I strolled across town in the mid-day gloom I could see my breath. Then again, things ain't too bad. The rain yesterday didn't amount to a cyclone sweeping Swindon downstream in massive mudslides or tsunami's. nor did an earthquake reduce my local school to an impromptu graveyard. Nature can be fantastic. A fluke of the weather, a little spot untainted by mankinds need to redevelop, or an animal in the wild close-up, where you never expected. Something that for one reason or another entrances you with its beauty. Sometimes though, nature ain't like that at all... Nature's Nasty Side If you're squeamish at all - look away now... On my way to the library in West Swindon I passed through one of those urban playgrounds that no-one uses. The other side of a fence made from railway sleepers I noticed movement on my left. A crow, startled by my sudden appearance. But it was the other bird that shocked me. A pidgeon, clearly badly injured, feathers strewn everywhere and unable to escape, was being eaten alive by scavengers. At times like this you feel powerless, and it reminds you just how cruel nature can be right in your own back yard, away from the media news teams and their cameras. But on a lighter note Right, enough of death and misery, back to my jobsearch. And there's a new winner of Idiot Employee of the Month. I was given a phone number to enquire about a vacancy and duly rang, but the contact wasn't available, so I rang back later. This time however the woman on the phone realised it was a good idea to ask what the phone call was for, and discovering I was after a job, took some details and promised to send me an application form. Next day, the form arrived in the morning post. With absolutely no details of where to send the thing when I'd filled it in. Obviously this is some sort of initiative test isn't it? I think I've applied to be James Bond's apprentice without realising. Oops... sorry... didn't mean to blow your cover chaps...

You mean there's more? Ohh... Yeah... rescuing father....

An archaeologist and his money are easily parted.... If you can get there with your bad back and hangover...

Unfortunately, he refers to legionary posts in modern terms. He also makes the mistake of referring to specialised troops when such specialisation was considered undesirable by imperial legions, which is why cross-training took place. A legionary was not trained as an artilleryman and regarded as such, he was merely a legionary like any other, who happened to have been trained in artillery. Further, the legions did not contain specialist formations such as artillery. I've already gone into some depth on the nature of roman organisation, and the use of the phrase NCO is not correct. NCO stands for Non-Commissioned-Officer, which indicates a lower level of command in a pyramid structure and is a hangover from the class system of european armies dating from the 1600's. For instance, he mentions the tesserarius as an NCO responsible for watch words. This is a distortion, because the tesserarius was a job within the legion, not a rank as we understand it, although I accept it brought a certain level of status to the holder of that title - but only whilst he did that job. That said, its got all the pertinent information and perhaps there are people who could benefit from studying it.

Translator? Most of the guys filmed doing the work of studying the remains in america had british accents. Correct GO - the british are taking over dinosaur research in a fiendish plot to prove that dinosaurs did not speak english with an american accent

yes.. but... it looks like a barge, handles like a barge on springs... and since when did the americans build a car that goes round corners? A few years back I met a woman from Iowa, or Idaho, or Indiana, or somewhere flat and empty. The conversation got around to driving cars and I asked her what it was like for her to drive in Britain, thinking she'd talk about driving on the correct side of the road. "(gaaaaaasp!)" She said, "You people are sooooo-Per-Meyen!" Apparently she was very impressed by the sort of driving that now gets british citizens tarred and feathered. At a roundabout she sat there astonished whilst traffic buzzed round her oblivious to her presence, and quite unable to think and react quickly enough to slot into traffic. She must be deaf too, because I cannot imagine she wasn't beeped at....

I agree completely. Indiana Jones is a disaster as an archaeologist and quite why the university pays him to teach - when clearly he spends most of his time fighting nazi's in desert regions - because his irresponsible attitude to archaeology is to extract artifacts without the proper authority from the country involved. Therefore, not only is he a tomb-robber, but an antiquities smuggler as well. I also notice he never records any evidence or finds, and going on a dig with the otherwise respectable Professor Jones is a very risky venture. Looks like fun though.... Sneaking into strange ruins... running from big heavy traps & irate natives... flying aeroplanes infested with snakes and nazi's.... getting involved with tank battles... eating strange insects... and getting involved with pretty and inebriated women. Sign me up immediately.

The gladius hispianensis is recorded (by polybius?) as a weapon of superior quality, and since the sign of a good sword was to bend the blade over the head and touch the shoulders before allowing it to spring back to shape, it clearly shows the excellent spanish sword-making dates back way before the islamic invasions.

I'm thinking in terms of those glyphs of jackal headed people (mythological figures but your average traveller in older times wouldn't know that) which were interpreted literally, and if there's a further connection to lycanthropy I would be astonished, as surely this was down to the human fear of wild wolves picking off weak and helpless members of their society?

Often. Especially after a pair of these dogs ripped a young child apart. problem is, the same people who want agressive powerful dogs are the same people who don't give a fig for Dangerous Dog Acts. This is however an interesting point, because the romans were dealing with potentially or very dangerous animals almost on a daily basis. I imagine they accepted the risk to some extent, but I don't recall any mention in roman sources of people suffering animal attacks outside the arena.

Frankly I'm envious. No really... All that scraping away dust and dirt under a baking hot sun...

In the UK the Rotweiller (a large and heavy dog with an unsavoury reputation for attacking young children) is often touted as the descendant of roman war dogs. I've no idea if thats true or not.

I also wonder if the modern fad for computer animations is swallowing up the budget previously spent on expert talking heads. Personally, I think the program could have taken the opportunity to say more about the late cretaceous enviroment of north america (the creature died about two million years before the K/T Even). I admit they did touch on this - they mentioned the 'mississipee sea', the river in the fossil location (that isn't there any more), some speculation about herds of these things running away from T-Rex (who apparently wasn't fast enough to catch them according to the research on the remains locomotion).

Recently I watched a program about medieval psychology, which was interesting. One thing the ppresenter talked about were the Dog-Heads, men with heads of dogs, thought to have villages and farms of their own and always 'somewhere over the horizon'. Now as to whether the continued claims of medieval people to have spotted these creatures wandering around at night are true, who can say? Thing is... I've wondered if the myth of these creatures started because of egyptian heiroglyphs depicting similar creatures. Egyptian wares and oddities may well ahve travelled about with trade especially in roman times and perhaps during the medieval as well, and since your typical peasant is none too educated and remained very literal about his christian worldview, that he interpreted images in this way? And from a few interpretations, a rumour becomes accepted as established expectation. Its interesting that medieval explorers who went out to find these Dog-Heads asked the locals where they were, only to be told 'We thought they lived where you come from" Bizarre...

Condemno ad bestias - Thrown to the beasts Condemno ad gladius - Thrown to the gladiators Condemno ad ludum - Thrown to the lanista, and presumably he used you like any other slave he owned and put you to work doing would he thought you were good for. Spartacus was sentenced in this way for being a bandit, and so his potential death by violence was deemed a suitable fate. The fight of two men with one dagger and the winner passes his dagger to a fresh man was a way of dealing with the noxii, or undesirable criminals. It was in fact an 'entertaining' way to get them to execute each other. It must be pointed out that this form of fight has been viewed with some suspicion in recent times. There were no fixed rules for contracts between lanistae and volunteers as far as I'm aware. One story records a higher class individual who wished to save his friend from debt, and signed on as a gladiator to earn enough to get him out of debt. I've no idea if the man was succesful, and in any case, he would be stained with slavery and therefore ineligible for public office thereafter. The numbers of fights were recorded by the gladiators themselves, either scratched on their cell walls or a lasting record on their tombstones. We know they were very keen to record their track record, and I dare say the audience did too, for betting purposes. Thus you might have heard two men arguing about Triumphus - "No way, Lucius, he gets let off more than he wins. I'm betting on Decimus..." - or that sort of thing. Bad luck tokens were for sale at events with which to curse the gladiator they wished to lose (and one wonders if a few of these lead pebbles weren't thrown at the gladiator if he won...). Anyway, the number of fights we believe gladiators fought depends on statistics gathered from such sources and might be a distortion of what actually happened. Nonetheless, gladiators, particularly the succesful ones, were pampered athletes and trained very hard, which required time. They also needed time to recover from wounds, and they may at times have been sent away to tour the provinces giving demonstration bouts.