caldrail

Today I'm setting aside my usual commentary on the World and its problems, and shall therefore describe events in a normal Caldrail Day. You know the sort of thing, that blues song.. 7:00am - Wake up. 7:01am - Roll over and go back to sleep. 8:30am - Neighbours go to work.. wardrobe doors banging.... giggling and shouting..... Car starting up and driving off.... 8:35am - Garage across the yard opens for business and the yard fills up with customers cars. Engines making all sorts of 'orrible noises, alarms going off... 8:45am - No its no good. Up I get, morning ablutions - Ye gods I look I've been pulled through a hedge... 9:00am - Turn up at the library to log on and fill my blog with stuff like this... 9:05am - AM complains his emails aren't working. 9:10am - AM complains the advice the library techie gave him isn't working... 9:15am - AM gives up and goes over to the papers and tell his mates everything he knows about the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879... Wouldn't mind but he's so wrong... 9:20am - AM tells everyone he's going to South Africa soon. 9:25am - Miss L saunters past.... For some reason I can't remember what I was typing... 10:00 - Times up - the computer logs me out. I leave the library. Wow. What a fun packed day, and its only mid-morning! You guys must be soooo jealous...

The problem with guns is not that they kill and wound, but people use them for that purpose. Switzerland for instance has a law that all homes must have a firearm - its part of their civil defences - and I can think of only one instance where somebody openly used a weapon to kill random victims there. America however has a gun culture, embellished and glorified by Hollywood. Back in the old west a gun was an equalizer, since a man armed with one was as good as another. Well, actually that isn't true, and the myth of the fast draw which has connations of heroism is also a myth for the most part. Succesful gunfighters were men who remained calm and aimed. They really were killers. But since onlookers generally took cover or didn't see everything in the short time a confrontation took place found it easier to say the winner was faster on the draw. So a legend is born. Gunfighters were made heroes long before Hollywood. They were men you were either afraid of or needed to respect, and those same opnions are re-emergent in american society where young men who feel disenfranchised find that owning a gun provides them with a measure of self-esteem. On the other hand, there are non-western societies who use guns as a matter of course, but isn't their way of life in many ways reminiscent of the original wild west, in that these tribesmen have their own protocols about violence?

Thats an advance? Caldrail, you omitted "fast-drying cement" from Maty's last sentence -- which was not only a genuine Roman innovation but also an advance. Not omitted at all. I agree, cement was a considerable civil engineering advance. However, gladiatorial shows were held in all sort of venues, not just purpose amphitheatres. Any public space (or that matter, private ones too) were used. The first recorded contest was staged in a cattle market. In any case, amphithatres weren't just made of concrete. Temporary wooden venues weren't unusual and we might remember the Fidenae Disaster of AD27. However, if concrete had been used by the brits since roman times I would have said that was What The Romans Did For Us. But it wasn't. Once they went home we forgot all about concrete and used their stonework and impromptu quarries. It is true the romans took public entertainment to new heights (and depths) but that could happen for any form of entertainment, and reflected the roman obsession with organisation. Gladiatorial combat of course also reflected their mindset, living in a male dominated violent world with a greek martial inheritance. Our inheritance emerges from the barbarians who moved in on roman turf, and whilst they established a society based on fighting (as Terry Jones puts it) the increasing sophistication, agricultural success, mercantile success, and romanticised tradition in peacetime watered down these aggressive traits a lot. As much as they originally wanted roman wealth and power for themselves, they hadn't a clue how to be roman and to be honest I think the late romans - and this includes the byzantines - were losing the technological skills they had once learned.

The idea of germanic invasion is a general one, and as I've pointed out, it makes no allowance for events taking place during the period and we do know the native brits resisted these incursions where they could. Some Angles were slaves were they? So were a lot of other people back then, slavery was far from unusual. Germanic tradition in the dark ages held that if a free man lived in one place for a year and a day then he was automatically made a serf. hardly respectful of freedom, and I don't suppose there's any word on who the Angles masters were? Fuedal loyalty was emerging in the late roman empire and I really don't see why we should be suprised that some germanic peoples (at least in one place) were down the social ladder. Your point about Augustine is well made, but then he wasn't entirely honest about his beliefs either.

I was using someone elses PC on SUnday, and an e-bay monitor kept popping up. Lo and behold genuine frgments of roman pottery were for sale, items found in Swindon would you believe? Such a small world, and proof that looting of ancient sites is not limited to Rome.

Aqueducts were built to supply urban areas and since britain was on the fringe of empire the need to develop urban areas wasn't as keenly felt as say Italy, and in any case, britain was well watered so the cost of such infrastructure was deemed too expensive. Ok, but these were remote from Britain. The romans physically arrived and established their own culture here and so taught the british directly. Town planning comes from a sophisticated organised culture (and goes back a suprisingly long way into human history in places like Egypt or the Indus Valley) but even if this sort of thing is known of, it doesn't mean its adopted. After all the medieval towns weren't so well planned despite the roman tradition and existing town layouts left to crumble during the dark ages. Not entirely true. Latin was preserved by christianity and educated people have been taught the language ever since, though that tradition has now declined somewhat. Not necessarily. Improvements in London sewage arrangements only came about when a ship foundered in the Thames Estuary in the early victorian period and the people attempting to swim to safety suffocated in effluent. Advances occur more often because of necessity or instruction, not because it seemed like a good idea at the time Thats an advance?

Well it was just since christianity was a state sponspored religion, the removal of roman support, the collapse of the economy, abandonment of urban life, the vacuum of government and subsequent violent anarchy may well have made some people think that god had failed them. Generally speaking people only believe they have failed to worship their gods sufficiently if someone actually points that that out to them, which means someone with influence was doing that for a reason. The length of time that christianity was worshipped isn't necessarily a factor since it was introduced something like AD50 onwards culminating in official acceptance in the 300's. Thats a fair few generations to establish civic tradition. Further, christianity does have the advantage that people tend not to discard it easily - it does after all provide protection against death by the promise of an perpetual afterlife in paradise, not to be discounted in age when death was never far away. Since Britain wasn't prone to natural disasters there wasn't a lot of scope for believing god was angry at them, and its not likely that a christian believes he or she isn't in gods favour because the religion has a built-in guilt-forgiveness mechanism.

Pagan tradition survived in Britain better than some other regions of the roman world (apart from the middle east of course, Syria was a notable hotbed of religious invention). Nonetheless, there are plenty of roman burials even in the late empire that have all the hallmarks of christianity. In some cases, this is for no other reason that christianity was the state sponspored religion and to ignore it was going to ruffle some feathers, but given the superstitious nature of roman life you have to assume that these people were christian during life. Its also true that a resurgence in pagan beliefs occured after the roman withdrawal. The influence of germanic incursion can't be discounted there, and its almost as if those early missionaries were trying to bring Britain back within the fold. There is another side to this though. Is the roman withdrawal, and the subsequent rapid decline of british administration, a factor in an abandonment of christian belief by many people?

People just can't resist it can they? A white van covered in dust is an invitation to add your favourite gag. usually its Clean Me which is probably a little obvious.This morning I passed I wish my girlfriend was this dirty. Oh wow, that was original, number two on the best selling dust graffiti list. Number three is of course your favourite football team, number four a crude reference to sexual activity, number five a statement of undying love in a heart shape. Swindon does not score points for original thinking then. Years ago I was on casual earnings driving a van making collections and deliveries of parcels. I'd parked the van in Maidenhead to find somebodies premises. At the time I was wearing military surplus trousers (this was long before they were fashionable) and some wag wrote on the back of the van I found Donalds trousers. Not bad! So not wishing to be upstaged, I added And delivered them on time too In retrospect, perhaps it isn't quite as funny as it seemed back then, but then graffiti rarely is. Obituary of the Week I doff my cap at Charlton Heston who passed away this weekend. It seems the grim reaper has finally wrenched his rifle away from his cold dead hands, the very same man who thumped his fist onto a beach in frustration and condemnation at mans folly. The same man who led the Israelites to safety (at least until the palestinians got fed up with them), the very same who won the Jerusalem Demolition Derby in AD33. Yes, I know he was acting, but the true mark of a great actor is that you believe the role is real. And he suceeded.

Africa - Land of the future's gold Land is for everybody young and old The place that holds a single bright future But what happens when the future turns to torture? Ma' Africa What went wrong with your brains? You kill each other into strife and no human dignity Africa - Lets stand together And make Africa the Land of Hope Ma' Africa From the album 1 Giant Leap (2001) Africa is such a place of contrast. Great natural wealth and beauty, a place where children play joyfully in the face of appalling poverty, and yet the same place where another child will point his AK47 and blow your head off. For some it holds a special mystique - but not for me I'm afraid. I see Africa as it is, a disunited continent blown by the winds of foreign intervention and an inability to mature as a culture. The events in Zimbabwe have brought this into focus again. A nation prosperous under colonial rule and its succesors has been almost bankrupted by the regime of a man who wants to rule absolutely, a man who exploits racial envy to achieve popularity despite leading his nation into commercial disaster. Inflation at 100,000%. Seriously. New banknotes for Five Hundred Million Zimbabwean Dollars are worth fifty british pence! Events in Africa are following trends that another region once suffered, a very long time ago. Britain was a land of celtic tribesmen when the romans arrived. It was conquered but never fully romanised. Eventually the romans had to leave our shores and told Britain to take care of itself. Within fifty years Britain descended into anarchy, under pressure from foreign incursion and would remain so for hundreds of years until the Norman Conquest. The return to prosperity took centuries too as the British became a more sophisticated mature nation. When the colonial powers left Africa (or were ousted), the nations left behind so easily turned on themselves. It occurs to me that what we are witnessing in our lifetime is the early African Dark Ages. There may well be generations of 'strife and no human dignity' yet to come before the africans resolve their differences enough to generate the future they often wish for. There's also something else that worries me greatly. Our own Prime Minister wanted power for a long time. He wasn't popular enough so his predecessor won the election for him, then passed power to him. Our economy is slowly grinding to a halt. Worst still, this Prime Minister refuses to go to the polls - and I suspect he won't until he really has no choice but to. Does all this sound familiar?

There are two ways to look at Julia. Either she was an idiot and got herself used by unscrupulous men eager for pillow talk about Augustus, or that she was acting deliberately in a shameful and spiteful way because her public duty as Augustus's daughter had caused her too much unhappiness. Julia as a political rebel is a bit hard to swallow, but I suppose there is a possibility of it.

Nothing changes does it? Modern politicians sometimes use the perceived external threat as a way of pushing potentially unpopular policies on us, like the time they had the army guarding heathrow very publicly - you have to wonder if it wasn't just some stunt and the real threat is taken care of behind the scenes the way it usually is - you only hear about it when the arrests and court cases take place. Don't get me wrong - the threat to the early republic was real - but overstated at times by those politicians keen to exploit public fear for their own ends.

In a related answer, there is the case of Zenobia. In order to prevent her her assuming the role of usurper again and also to prevent martydom, she was married off to some relatively unimportant roman in a quiet area and continued to live as a wealthy solicialite thereafter

Centurions were not required to retire, they were entitled to continue serving beyond the normal limit of service. The common soldier serves a long period, twenty years or more, and he is rewarded with citizenship, a pension payment, possibly some land in a captured province. He was not rewarded with a career, and since he was only a common soldier anyway, it wasn't expected that he would rise above his station. As regards the centurianate, it wasn't possible to to enter this select group simply by being a legionary and serving a long period - all soldiers did that - and you needed to be a certain personality type and show ability. However, it was possible to become a principales ('junior officer') which included such positions as Tesserarius, Signifier, or Cornicularius. These would be considered permanent active duty assignments that carry special status rather than ranks as we understand them, however becoming one of them entitled a man for consideration for advancement to the centurianate. Thats easy to see in terms of a modern promotion ladder - it just isn't so. Its been estimated that a soldier might take as long as fifteen to twenty years to achieve the status of centurion even assuming he meets the right criteria (and since it took so long to get there, why would he want to retire soon after?) There were also administrative positions within the legion that carried status rather like the active duty ones, the beneficariius for instance. Immunes were soldiers excused active duties, usually because they were assigned as admin clerks or because they some artisan skills in demand, but the title of immunis is temporary and carries no status, however desirable it may have been for the average soldier. Further, there were ad-hoc positions that might vary from legion to legion. Some men were assigned as instructors or torturers for instance. Like the active duty positions, these would have carried a certain status with them. It was possible to be commisioned directly as a centurion on entry to service. Either because you were an equestrian, recommended by someone with influence, or because you had already served as an urban magistrate. I must stress that there is NO promotion ladder for the common soldier. To achieve a promotion he must impress upon his seniors that he is cut from superior cloth, or he will remain amongst the rank and file for his length of service. Ordinary soldiers are just that - they have no career structure and serve until discharged by ill-health, disability, or the finish of their alloted term. Centurions are something different. As career officers they have differing levels of status within their order, commanding a century to begin with and hopefully reaching the highest grade of Primus Pilus by which stage they assume command of a cohort.

The lack of formal training is one reason why many romans of good background were given placements as junior officers. They learned on the job so to speak. It was a roman tradition that a sentor should have military experience, and there are stories of them opening their togas in the senate to show their wounds, to demonstrate that they have fought for Rome. Since the early days of Rome were something of a fight for survival, this defensive mindset emerged later as respect for courage and combat experience - without it, you were a lesser man.

Promotion wasn't the same as you might expect in a modern army. Although it was possible for an ordinary soldier to rise to higher ranks, you had to be a pretty exceptional guy. After all, you were pushing up through a glass ceiling. I'll go further. It wasn't possible to work your way up through the ranks to become a centurion. That avenue of advancement didn't exist within the cohort. Instead, you needed to make a name for yourself, to get noticed by your superiors for your courage and ability to win respect. Popularity wasn't necessarily required. It also depended on your ability to bribe effectively too. People weren't made centurions as a matter of course, because centurions didn't necessarily retire and the post usually became avialble because the former centurion had been killed in battle, so the given the centurions role as the prime warrior of the cohort, that was the sort of guy they needed to replace him.

Yes I thought someone would say that. But that was WWI - not the modern day. Nonetheless the point you raise reinforces the view that the romans weren't so unusual in their behaviour, and that the exploitation of status and wealth is purely a reflection of human social behaviour. We are discussing established and relatively stable nations too, not the mercurial third world for whom bribery is a way of life, and in any case, most of those have little if any connection with a roman past. Social status is a primary instinct in human beings - thats why we covet certain cars, larger homes, places in the country, certain hairstyles and fashions. In every human endeavour, your 'place' in society dictates your treatment and limits. In the modern west, these limits are now somewhat blurred and diluted. Still there, of course, but the old respect for status has gone. In roman times, its noticeable that more often than not these temporary officers failed to produce the required victory, and only then did the romans search for a potential officer who could avoid a disaster. Social status was more important than merit, and it must be remembered too that the romans may well assign someone to lead the entire army because of their status, something that does not occur in recent times. The entire concept of the roman army is different from ours. Today we have a highly strutured military hierarchy that can pass an order down from the highest rank to the lowest. A squad of infantry has more firepower than entire battalions of of men in the flintlock musket era. In fact, the concetration of men on the ground is nothing like what is was - to have too many men on the ground in one place is Not A Good Thing. The romans fought en masse. They gathered together in cohorts on the field to take on their adversaries. It was not necessary to organise thier squads (conterbernium for the purposes of combat, although these groups of 'close companions' had certain administrative and morale bonuses. The cohort would not ordinarily subdivide to fight. In charge of this cohort is a centurion. Its easy to see him as simply a man with a certain level of authority, but thats a modern perspective. The centurion was expected to lead, inspire, and discipline his men. He was the head of the cohort, the motivation and punisher of it. His second in command was the Optio, the 'Chosen Man'. With these points in mind, it can be said that the cohort is the formalised evolution of the roman warband of its earliest days. The centurion is therefore evolved from the role of a tribal chief, the bold warrior leading his tribe to war. After all, the centurion was expected to lead from the front, to engage in melee with his men, to provide an example of courage and skill in battle beside wielding the vine staff. And wield them they did. Centurions were notorious as hard taskmasters. The cohort was His. But what about the lesser ranks? In most cases, these were specific roles within legionary organisation and not simply levels of authority as we see today. However, these junior ranks also performed a useful service. They might for instance resolve many of the minor issues arising from eighty men living in close and claustrophobic campsites and forts. The centurion wouldn't want to deal with every petty issue, and in any case, from the mens perspective it was better that the centurion didn't hear about it until after it was solved - Once the centurion got involved, it was official, and action to resolve the issue would take place, often painfully. The centurionate is unusual in that it had specified ranks within its order. This reflects the professional status of career officers. It was important to give these men an avenue of advancement. Centurions did not retire as other legionaries did, they could carry on serving as long as they were capable. This was to preserve their command and battle experience, to maintain the standards of discipline within the legion. The legion is therefore a union of stylised warbands under the command of their social superiors.

Celts - Belgae - Gauls etc... Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Germans etc... Not descriptive or informative but generally the two groups are linked by common culture amongst each other.

You need to careful with latin terms. For instance - Gregarii were gladiators who fought as a team. That doesn't mean they were equipped in any special way or received special training, nor does it mean they were a seperate class. It was just a name applied those told to take part in a spectacular event aside from the standard and regulated individual contests. The name Soldurii may therefore not mean it was a particular type of unit, rather than it was a unit in a certain circumstance. In the case mentioned above, it appears that certain warriors were used as some sort of elite bodyguard and given a special name, even if they didn't look or behave any different on or off the field.

I notice from time to time that people compare modern day army organisation with that of ancient Rome - thats understandable given the image of the legions as an organised miltary machine. The comparisons are most accurate when based on the post-Marian army, which established the professional status of roman soldiers. However, such comparisons are misleading - here's why. Modern Day Modern armies rely on a pyramid structure - orders are passed down the chain of command to whichever subdivision is capable or intended of handling the task. In the modern army, a soldier is promoted within a pyramid structure to a certain rank. This automatically gives him a defined level of responsibility and authority. He is then assigned a task commensurate with his status, which can be reassigned on requirement. Senior command officers are promoted into their roles within the normal army organisation. Ancient Rome Legions are autonomous fighting organisations which may be assigned to an overall commander. Orders are passed down to the centurions, commanders of the cohort (the basic fighting unit of post-marian armies). Junior ranks may assume command in the place of centurions according to circumstance. In the Roman Legion, a soldier is promoted to a duty, a task, a responsibility already defined by legionary organisation. He is then given enough authority to complete his duties. Although his actual duties can change, they fall within a narrow band of possibilities allowed by his status. Senior command officers are often political appointees and receive their assignments as a result of status in civilian life and the need for military credibility in their careers. Notice however that Augustus makes a compromise between these two alternatives. He introduces the Tribunes Augusticlavii, five executive officers that can be assigned any role in the modern fashion within the legion, a move toward a more flexible command structure that was not carried any further, although it must also be pointed out that senior legionary posts were defined more rigidly in his reforms.

There's no direct equivalent of the modern NCO. The Principal was effectively a sort of team leader, a senior man of the group, the man who answers for the barrack-room. The Immunis, Tesserarius, & Signifer had different responsibilities and the authority that went with them.

Yeah ok, but ultimately, how original is any historians work? To some extent its going to be derivative, because their basing their efforts on what they've already learned which is pretty much the same as the rest of us since they're looking up the same original texts and tramping around the same sites. Personally I'm not interested whether a particular author is 'clever' or 'run-of-the-mill'. From my perspective, there's every possibility that the author has uncovered some fact I wasn't aware of, and their opinion is as valid as anyones. Naturally I have my opinion, and it may not agree. So? I know I don't know everything, I know their are people even on this site who can run rings around me on some subjects, but does that bother me? Not a lot. You can learn a subject but understand nothing. Understanding requires you ask questions. If we aren't challenged, then we stagnate, we sit on our laurels. That in my view is a failure, because people who sit on laurels generally become obstructive to those who want to llearn and understand more and surely the whole point of this site is enlighten? Having said all that, I must confess I come across books I won't bother with. There are those pitched at people of a younger age or people entirely ignorant of things roman. Its not that I discount such works, they do have some value but its likely I've passed that point, and therefore I tend to conserve my funds for something deeper. As long as there's something I can learn from its pages, thats ok with me. Even if I feel the authors conclusions are hopelessly incorrect it doesn't actually matter because to understand the subject I have to discover why he reached those conclusions. It might just be I'm wrong, and there's been occaisions on this site where other people have changed my mind entirely. Then there's the sort of book that masquerades as history. Caligula: Divine Wrath for instance, where *or* disguises itself as intelligent commentary on the vices of emperors past. Please don't bother with it, it really is a smutty book that teaches nothing. Why? Because the book is relying on its readers not knowing too much about roman history and accentuates every sexual reference to draw some conclusions that are in some cases physically impossible. Its a fantasy. And therefore not history.

Its more likely that one guy took the plunge and plucked up the will to do the deed, the others following in less than orderly fashion both because of adrenaline and also to show their peers that they too were a solid member of the conspiracy... Oh dear... I'm speculating....

The Principal, a sort of NCO of the conterbernium, the eight man squad of 'close companions'.

But what is there to make me believe that you know what you're talking about? Quoting the names of your favourite authors? Right. How much original research have you done? Because if all you do is rely on reading others works then you're effectively the same as me, an armchair historian who's opinion is based on what we read. So if my opinion is of no value then... erm... neither is yours.... The difference however, is that I'm not worried if one author or another doesn't meet intellectual criteria. It doesn't matter if that author writes the same old weary passages or covers the same familiar ground - its his bread and butter, his day job. Of course he's going to write about the stuff he knows. And if thats the case, how would you know that some clever speculation isn't a complete load of nonsense written by some guy who's bluffing, who doesn't actually understand everything but can write good enough prose to suggest he does? But being novel for the sake of it, or just to please one particular customer, is of no value except possibly to promote someones career if the guy can get enough media attention for his novel reconstruction. History is about what happened. What might of happened is fun to speculate about (the source of your pleasure, as you describe) but if all you want to read is a list of learned 'what-ifs' then you're not actually dealing in history. Speculation can be very misleading. The UFO genre is based on little else and do you seriously expect me to believe everything these people write? Or that they actually know anything concrete? Anyways, if novel reconstructions are your thing, there's plenty of novels out there.