caldrail

Or maybe it was his reward for winning the game of "hide n seek" he was playing. Okay, let me rephrase things ... assume for a moment that imperial succession worked the way it did with a stereotypical monarchy where the closest male relative becomes the new ruler ... who would it have been? As the struggle between Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian showed it could have been anyone with enough chutzpah and support. This was a inherent problem with Post-Republic Rome. Following the precedents set by Sulla and Caesar it was clear to all and sundry that power was there for the taking. If the current ruler is in a strong position, popular, well supported in the senate, the legions in his pocket etc, then there's less likeliehood of trouble. Augustus retained his power for many years (indeed, he was one of the few not removed from power by plots or coups) by some clever diplomacy and no small amount of civic bribery. On the other end of the scale, we have an opportunist like Didius Julianus who picks up the gauntlet thrown down by the praetorians and comes to a sticky end three months later for simply being unable to find any support whatsoever. The empire was anything but a stereotypical monarchy. Although described as such even by some roman writers, there was no formal hereditary succession. The emperors were in charge of an autocracy in which succession was by popularity, support, connections, selection by the previous ruler, or by military coup. Commodus was described as 'The first man born to the purple', which is the closest to a monarchy Rome ever came. Also, look closely at what was happening in Rome during Nero's reign. Once his mother had been gotten rid of and his advisors sidelined, he became something of a party animal, a socialite, a self-professed performer, and part-time chariot racer. Nero may not have been the first to display his 'talent' in public (Caligula had played the gladiator) but this ws still un-roman behaviour, not something a man of superior breeding and status should consider. Since he was more concernd with his social diary and gigging schedule Nero was losing support in the senate, and this led inevitably to them declaring Nero an Enemy of the State. Would they then accept any member of his family? A dour hermit, a looney, and now a performing artist? The successors of Augustus weren't making much of an impression on the movers and shakers. Titus in his younger days had similar inclinations to Nero and the worry was that he would turn out to be another Nero. Titus of course was more sensible, an cleaned up his act. He was also made of sterner stuff, having won military credibility in Judaea. This is another clue. There wasn't anyone else in the Julio-claudian line with enough of a reputation or faction to be seriously considered. There were other contenders, people considered more suitable either by themselves, the legions, or the senate.

The saxons certainly did move into Gaul even if they didn't conquer all of it. As mentioned above, the french town of Bayeux was a saxon settlement before Winchester (the capital of Wessex). In all fairness though I should point out some of my info is old, and if anyone has something more up to date, feel free. Going mainstream? Not sure what you mean by that.

The name 'Saxon' conjures up an image of a barbarian horde. They were not a popular people. One british monk described them as 'A race hateful to God'. After Augustine converted saxons to christianity from AD596, they were just as loathed as the pagans because they ignored Easter and held rituals on different days to the existing british church. Aggressive and bold, they were skilled seafarers feared even as far as the Bay of Biscay. Saxons weren't unknown in Britain at the end of the Western Roman Empire. Some had settled there and had become 'good roman citizens'. Certainly there were pockets of them outside their homeland, along the North Sea coast, and down the atlantic coast of Gaul, yet the late roman writers also refer to saxons as the most desperate of pirates. Clearly, there was a wide range in behaviour of these barbarians. The Saxon Shore of Kent was named that by the romans. There has been some debate over the emphasis of this phrase. Did it mean the saxons had settled the area (which they had, in small numbers), or did it mean a shore under threat?. The area features the remains of roman castles, stone fortifications built for defence. It therefore follows that some kind of threat existed, for the building of castles is labour intensive and certainly not something done lightly. This chain of defenses was referred to as limes in the Notitia Dignitatum, a document which included lists of miltary assets in the late empire. The word limes means the romans saw these forts as a frontier to be controlled and defended if need be. Waiting offshore were the vessels of the Saxons. Saxon ships were serviceable vessels capable of crossing the turbulent North Sea to England. Typically they might be seventy five feet long, with perhaps as many as a hundred crew if estimates using viking practice are valid. There is every reason to believe that the vikings adapted and improved on Saxon shipbuilding. By this stage of history roman ships had atrophied a great deal. The great galleys of the Punic Wars were no longer required, and probably none too capable of weathering the Oceanus Brittanicus if the experience of Caesar is anything to go by. The roman navy had concentrated on coastal action, using small ships that were easily manoevered upriver, ships that were severely challenged by Saxon longboats. Yet the romans did challenge saxon naval superiority, as in AD285 Carausius was commisioned to clear the sea of pirates, later to proclaim himself emperor for four years. Whether or not he succeeded in curtailing saxon activity, by the next century they were back, as in AD367 Ammanius describes Franks and Saxons as 'ravaging the coats of Britain'. Stilicho is given credit for suppressing Saxon aggression, and the father of Emperor Theodosius is known to have acted against them, and saxon raids of AD440-450 are the precursor to more permanent invasions later. Some time after the roman withdrawal in the around the start of the 5th century whole saxon communities along the northern coasts of Britain are abandoned. They moved southward, expanding into Gaul, the main target of saxon pirates. Bayeux after all was a saxon city before Winchester, and they conquered Gaul within fifty years. Inevitably however they moved against the british south coast. Was this purely a move to capture richer farmland, or a move to escape pictish raiding? Or threats from their fellow saxons? There were other motivations for saxon expansion. Rising sea levels had made many of their coastal settlements uninhabitable, and to a lesser extent, the pressure of human migration westwards in europe was making itself felt. In AD477, the strongest of the Saxon kings, Aella, landed at Anderitum (Pevensey). The roman castle there even at this stage was in a sorry state, presenting little difficulty to Aella's landing. The local populace may have rebelled against him later, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that he razed the british settlement there in AD491. This area was perhaps the most desirable, the most developed under roman rule, the closest to mainland europe and thus with the closest trading links. It was also the best defended even after the roman withdrawal for that very reason. Worse still, Aella's move opened the flood gates for similar action elsewhere. Britain was open for business. In AD495 a saxon chief named Cerdic landed on the south coast at a place named Cerdices-Ora, believed to be somewhere in Hampshire or the Southampton Water. This is a significant point, because that area had already been settled by Jutes, who occupied Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, without any known hostility. Nonetheless, three further landings by in AD501 at Portsmouth led by the chiefs Port, Bieda, and Maegla, and there is reason to believe these groups were Jutish. These landings soon provoked a response from the local peoples, and a king named Natanleod was defeated by the invaders in AD508 by the saxon warlords Cerdic and Cynric, giving a wide stretch of coastal territory. There is a record that Cerdic asked for military aid from Aesc, King of Kent, and Aella, the Great King of South Saxons, not to mention the jutish Port and his sons. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle specifically mentions the arrival of the West Saxons under Stufi and Wihtgar (Cerdics nephew) in AD514, leading to a significant battle at Cerdicesford (Charford) 5 years later and the establishing of the realm of Wessex (The West Saxons with Cerdic and Cynric in power by AD519. Although the original borders are unclear, its believed it closely followed the boundaroes of Hampshire at this time. This boundary was further enforced by the attack on Calleva (Silchester) sometime between AD508-14. The city was razed. There followed a thirty year period of consolidation as the West Saxons brought their new-found influence to bear on the local populations. They established harbours on the coast of Britain that are still there today, and trading links with the continent were reopened. There appears to have been almost no problems apart from one battle named Cerdicesleaga in 527, and this may have been a victory for the Britons. In fact, the Britons were actively seeking to prevent any further incursion of these hostile men. Defensive earthworks were dug and given the Saxon aversion to siege warfare, its probably not suprising they found them real obstacles.At point between AD491-520, however, we have a reference to a battle at Mons Badonicus (Mount Badon, location unknown) - which was a complete victory for the Arthur of legend, who is said to have personally slain over nine hundred west saxon enemies. The validity of this battle is still debated. The period of peace ended with an expansion into Wiltshire, leaving the jutish regions and taking on the Britons head first. Searobyrig (Old Sarum) was captured in AD552. Four years later Bera arrived at Beranburgh (Barbury Castle) more than thirty miles to the north and took the old hill fort for his own use (it's named after him) although it may be possible that Cynric and Caewlin fought the battle and left Bera as the local overlord. His victory meant that the Kingdom of Wessex had won land as far north as the River Thames. It also meant the old roman road between Silchester and Badbury had been cut off, thus severly weakening the british earthworks in areas such as Andover. Territory was rapidly falling into West Saxon hands. Berkshire was absorbed and Caewlin even took control of Surrey after defeating Aethelberht of Kent in AD568 at the battle of Wibbandun (Wimbledon). An advance by Cuthwulf (or Cutha) crossed the Thames in 571 reaching Aylesbury, and the westward expansion had reached Somerset, then in welsh hands. All this was leading to a great stand-off battle, and this was the battle of Deorham (Dyrham) in AD577. Curthwine and Ceawlin, the West Saxon kings, slew the three british kings opposing them. The deaths of Commail, Condidan, and Farinmail brought Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath under Saxon control. A northward advance into the Severn Valley led to the battle of Fethanleag in AD584, a rewarding victory for Caewlin but one that also saw the death of his bother Cutha. The two brothers had been intense rivals and their supporters had squabbled. This battle was the final move in the rapid expansion of Wessex. Caewlins fortunes were to change. In 591 an alliance of Britons and Angles(?) defeated him at Woddesbeorg and he was 'expelled', dying the next year. The Severn Valley would later be taken by Mercia, and for a short while Northumbria was dominant in Britain. The future for Wessex was a long struggle against the Welsh, particularly the absorption of the old kingdom of Dyrwaint (Dorset) but Wessex would never return to the size of territory it held up until Fethanleag. Nonetheless, this constant military struggle made Wessex men known for their skill in combat, the realm was less divided than Mercia or Northumbria, and ultimately Cerdic's descendants would emerge as the future kings of England. The majority of these events are related by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Gildas, or the Venerable Bede in later years. History is written by the victors and indeed there has been some arguement over the validity of the stories, with detractors pointing out inconsistencies in the names of individuals involved, the length of their reigns (Cerdic ruled for forty years, his son Cynric for twenty six), and some doubt as to the origin of the Saxons who landed at end of the 5th century onward. Further doubt has been cast over whether the saxons could have usefully employed the roman agricultural enviroment in abandoned areas, as thick woodland and undergrowth soon recaptures the fields. This ignores the growth of mature trees within fifty years that stifle the undergrowth and allow easier deforestation, and for that reason its believed that saxon farming generally followed the roman pattern. There is also an interesting anecdote mentioned by Geoffery of Monmouth in his History of Britain. He mentions allies of Wessex from Ireland, a group of 'africans', who fought with Caewlin at Deorham. How could that be? Geoffery is guilty of misinterpreting an irish chronicle, which refers to 'black heathens', which the medieval Geoffery could only assume was a description of africans. Not so. The irish description applies to Danes, scandanavian settlers who reached the Emerald Isle long before the traditional beginning of Viking raids. It may not be proof, but there is a strong suggestion that the British Isles were being settled from the continent over a long period of time, and that they were not always welcome by the native Britons. Those opinions would not be forgotten easily and echoes of them exist to this day.

Following the passiing on of Charlton Heston, it turns out that the man himself visited grotty old Swindon in July 1968 because his families nanny, one Murial Loveridge, was a swindoner. He happened to be in britain at the time, appearing on stage in Bath, and popped across discreetly. Apparently he called in for lunch to the Riflemans Arms in town (now the Plum Tree - why do people have to keep changing pub names these days?) which caused a bit of a stir. I've fed and watered myself in that very pub many times - albeit without causing quite such a reaction.... So - Moses came to Swindon. Its a small world. It really is. Rural Oddity of the Week Wandering around my local area, I visited some agricultural land left fallow, hemmed in by railways departed and in use, plus the River ray and some recent housing developments, particularly the houses built on the old moredon power station site (I remember watching the explosive demolition of the cooling towers) and the new recycling center. I knew deer inhabited the area, but I was suprised at how calm this particular animal was to human beings in the vicinity. It sort of gave me an appraisal them wandered off into the undergrowth just to be on the safe side. Well, the natural side of things was great, but I noticed some lorry tires amongst the grass and that woody white stuff you see growing near water. More tires over there. And there. And over there... A field full of overgrown discarded lorry tires. Bizarre! Considering how remote the field has become in recent years, you have to wonder how those tires got there in the first place.

Thats an interesting point, because some people believe the latinisation of the mediterranean caused a cultural schism that has had ramifications to this very day, particularly in the latin vs germanic sense. It is true that Rome gave a sense of common identity to those areas it had controlled, certainly not to those it didn't. Also, like any powerful centralised state, it imposed order across its territory (well... usually anyway...) and as events in modern europe have shown, once that authority is gone old and new rivalries emerge even to the point of violence, like squabbling siblings. When I hear of efforts to bring Europe together under one government I shake my head. It worked for the romans because they had their culture packaged and ready for delivery, all you had to do was sign up and pay their taxes and all the benefits of roman society were yours. Thats all well and good, but the romans had something to offer, something that was arguably better than a mud hut in a temperate rainforest hunting squirrels for survival. But what does a modern united europe offer? Everything we've already got. This political will to recreate a new roman empire is sooner or later going to end in tears. To start with, a few politicians will get their name in the history books (one wonders if that isn't the entire point of it) and some generations down the line, nationalism (or ethnic tribalism) will re-emerge and another cycle of violence will result. We've learned how to co-exist peacefully with each other so why ruin it by sweeping all those established relationships aside? Rome could do so because ultimately it had a military prepared to put down revolutions mercilessly. Romes failure of course is that the military was often the revolutionary, and once that military was no longer able to dominate, Rome fell by the wayside. Who remembers the byzantines in the same light? Isn't our fondness for the roman world a desire to relive past glories, real or imagined?

Republican soldiers were married? Thats interesting - I always thought the prohibition on such things dated way back before Augustus. Is this simply a case of Augustus putting old standards back in place?

As far as I can see, there doesn't seem to be any official ruling on this (please feel free to prove me wrong). When an assault finally takes places at a siege, the men are off the leash, and any loot they carry off is theirs. This sort of thing happened in Jerusalem, where the amount of gold being spent by legionaries involved caused the value of it to plumett in the middle east. But if the city surrenders in orderly fashion? Then without doubt there is also an orderly change in ownership of valuables (or else) and the generals are the obvious owners of the bulk of it, although perhaps a wise general would make a gift of a large portion?

The tradition of freeing was common to medieval Europe. In Germany the tradition of serfdom after a year and a day was recorded. However to return to the original point, NN and myself are somewhat at opposite poles regarding saxon settlement. We both refer to evidence and reach different conclusions. This time I'm going to suggest something else for consideration, the Caldrail Theory of Arthurian COnflict. Now some might be already rolling their eyes - I don't care. What I'm suggesting is that once you strip away the medieval fantasy and celtic legend, there is a story of romano-celtic resistance not to the saxons, jutes, angles et al, but to picts, scots, and irish scots during the same period. Now whereas we know the saxons weren't popular (being aggressive and greedy heathens) and that they resorted to violence to claim british land on occaision, we also know they were invited over at least once (by Vortigern). What if the pressure in early dark age britain wasn't so much saxons, who may have been valuable if distrusted allies, but the invaders from north and west who may have been taking advantage of the roman withdrawal? The arthurian mythos suggests these conflicts took place in northern england or scotland, yet arthurs origin is firmly in the west country, one of the last regions to have been settled by saxons. Opinions everyone?

A fine example of good roman law making ursus. I for one already have a snack prepared for when I return to my villa, for sadly in this library the consuming of rich imperial titbits is frowned upon.

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.