caldrail

Because our ancestors the cro-magnons ate them probably

Marc Antony had thirty legions plus allies camped in turkey during the civil wars, plus a fleet of ships too. It may not have been the best roman army ever - it was the certainly the largest ever on campaign together.

The film Gladiator has that great opener for sure. If you ignore the obvious inaccuracies of the equipment involved, there are two other sequences that really do capture the flavour, if not the look, of the spectacle of staged combat. The first is the 'Re-Enacment of the Battle of Zama'. Its way cool. Chariots, female sagittarii, and some real fast paced (and gory) action. The second is the 'Return of the Champion Titus of Gaul', for the involvement of animals, the distribution of gifts to the audience, the deals done behind the scenes. Just fast forward when Maximus brings his opponent down.

Poor old Nero... The preoccupation with the penis is something buried deep in thehuman psyche. It may well be our modern expression of it is more pronounced, but then, perhaps not. There's a country in the middle east/asia minor (for the life of me I cannot remember which) whose rural population paint massive phaluses (strangely reminiscent of those in workplace latrines funny enough) on the walls of their houses. Apparently its a good luck charm. Now you may decide that thats different from our western preoccupation with strength/masculinity, but its not so alien if you think about it. I think we need to draw a distinction between art for decoration and art for pornography. As for the ladies, I suspect they did what women usually do today and burst into fits of giggles between each other. Given Juvenals scathing description of the airheaded mindset of roman women, how could it be anything else? Livia, I suspect, was less impressed with mens dangly bits and more with their presence, confidence, and political clout. But then she was an exceptional woman, much closer to the roman ideal of sturdy resilience and family matronhood.

Its also a lot of people trying to be clever. The neanderthals died out because they were a species in decline, losing out in competition with cro-magnons and changing climates. Now its entirely possible they were cannibals - there are possibly still some of modern humans that do that today in remote pockets (lets ignore the wierdo's out there) but did that cause the extinction? The rabbit/fox grpah comes into play here and I suspect it didn't, but you might have concede it did the neanderthals no favours if true. But then, if the neanderthals were as settled as I've been educated to believe, then surely cannabalism was infrequent, since otherwise they were eating famiily members and thats a sure sign of human desperation in the face of starvation.

No distractions? Good grief, not on a friday or saturday night. The local tribes emerge from their caves for competitions of singing very loudly and the usual hormone driven rutting. Well, time for me to retreat to my lonely mountain top above the rainforests of darkest wiltshire, where I shall sit cross legged and contemplate my navel, marvelling at the inner intricacy of the universe and becoming one with nature... Oh stuff it, thats boring, I'm off down the pub...

I would be, but the stupid earthquake woke me up when I was trying to sleep

In that case your original question is a reflection of your own modern mindset. Now thats not so is it? MPC - wake up. If a man wants to have a joke or wants to insult someone, he draws an image. Thats human psychology and the romans were no different in that respect. Hercules was supposed to be a demigod. A divine being. Given the roman distaste for greek nudity perhaps the small willy is simply public decency. Or is it a statement that Hercules is physically powerful and thus his presence overwhelms the physical nature of his genitalia, and I have to say I don't recollect any mention of Hercules being a womaniser. With statues, perhaps a careless sculptor turns his head at his fellow workmates conversation and accidentially lops the member off. His mates role about laughing, he goes white, and very very carefully reconstructs a smaller version from the stump. As for mosaics or their marble counterpart, there's no guarantee the artist got it right. After all, these were artists impressions and very rarely are such depictions visually correct to the last detail. The association you draw with large willies and strength/masculinity is your idea - I never said that, but lets be honest, even without that connection there are plenty of modern day people who are fascinated with large genitalia. I'll send you some of the unsolicited emails I get perhaps, that might educate you to how peoples minds work. Or if thats too risque for you, could I suggest a visit to a workplace latrine, where you will no doubt encounter expressions of this nature scratched on the wall. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some existing roman grafitti of this nature? Its how people are. The problem with your approach to this is that you're extrapolating from a small sample (no pun intended) without any regard to human psychology. We're not fundamentally different to the romans. Ok, they had a few customs that no longer exist, they had a tolerance of violence that we don't. They also varied in nature as we do. Some people are prudes, others completely fecund. And I'm quite sure there were romans who linked the penis with such ideas as you dismiss. After all, why else would people like Tiberius and Caligula have men with large willies rounded up and displayed before them? There is no difference. Even today people see genitalia in the light of their own personality and expectation.

Okeedokee - whilst I'm certainly no expert on roman funerals, as I understand it something like this happens. The parent (male?) is the household master and therefore makes the arrangements for the funeral. He ensures the will is read (it may have been read already as a courtesy to his friends and relatives whilst the guy was still alive). Inevitably some of the mans slaves are given manumission and there's going to be some deals done with these new freedmen to keep them within the family so to speak. The freedmen may well be given duties to perform regarding the funeral. The body is left in state for a few days for those wishing to pay respects (yes, the modern day funeral is a hangover from our pagan past) and the father will be offered commiserations and compliments on his sons achievements, and therefore may well be present for some time. Finally, there is a procession in which the dead man is given a reclining pose, to show him at peace, and he is laid to rest in the grave - again much like today. If anyone else knows better please feel free.

Well... I got... 1 - Marcus Aurelius 2 - Paulus 3 - Scipio Africanus 4 - Seneca 5 - Nero Rock on babe. I'm an intellectual party animal. Trajan was lower in the list so definitely I like conquering Dacia, not to mention staging entertainment for four months (yep, thats me...). On the other hand, so is General Varus... Ouch, thats worrying....

Don't tell anyone, but there's several forklifters in the warehouse who don't have licenses. Most companies wouldn't dream of employing forklifters without them for health & safety, or even insurance. The irony is that the guy suspended has only just had his license renewed! Some of these guys are shooting around a little bit quick. It gets a tad scary sometimes.

I see on the newspaper stands that some some Motown singer is considering moving to Swindon. I fall over laughing, and suggest this person gives up drugs.

Pfah! The UN know we brits are made of stern stuff. Whats an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the richter scale to us? The only casualty was a bloke in Bolton whose chimney fell on him - he's recovering in hospital. If the house I live in can survive an earthquake, then its typical of sturdy british architecture. (Caldrail notices a large crack in the plaster... hmmmm....)

Yes I know what you mean. Cleopatra in real life was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to manipulate men to get it. I don't mean sex, for her that was a means to an end. Nor was she entirely the beauty of legend, although it must be said she had an attractive personality that hooked both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony (and would have snared Octavian too if he hadn't been so wiley). With many of these romanesque epics the accent is moralistic storytelling, usually depicting Rome as a sinkhole of deptavity and madness. Thats a popular image and fundamentally wrong. My mother for instance cannot get into her head that the romans weren't all lewd lunatics - she'd been taught that in her younger days and won't let go of that familiar image. She's also a committed christian and I suspect that also colours her opinions - it certainly has coloured hollywood depictions in the past, and I think thats part of the reason these old roman epics are so hard to swallow. That said, its astonishing how far removed from reality these films can be, something you notice when you know a little about Roman history. Years ago, when I was working professionally in rock bands, our sound engineer (the band managers wife) asked me if I'd enjoyed watching the support band. I laughed, pointing out all the hapless errors they'd made. She then speculated that for me, knowing what I did about musical performance, that it must spoil things because I noticed all the mistakes. I told that it didn't, because I also noticed when they got it just right. A few months later she brought up the subject again and told me thats she was beginning to see what I meant. Now I've had a dig at a BBC2 program about Spartacus elsewhere on the forums - I think deservedly - but I also recognise the difficulty of entertaining people for whom roman history is something akin to snail racing. When you watch a program, just as Nephele pointed out to me, you have to accept the program as is. If a documentary makes these mistakes you have every reason to rubbish it. A program for entertainment is something different, however much it jars your sensibilities. The BBC2 prog made the mistake of trying to sell itself as historically accurate and for me, that ruined its credibility. It should have have been truer to itself. This is why the film Gladiator is so much more watchable, modern production values aside. Its true to itself, it doesn't make statements about religion or modern politics, it simply tells a tale of a disposessed man seeking revenge. But then, times move on and our expectations of entertainment change. Its funny how some films age terribly and others seem somehow as fresh as the day they were filmed. The quality of acting, script, and score is all a part of it, but there's an underlying need for a story that is communicated clearly and without unnecessary emotional baggage. Some directors get it right, others don't.

Found this on yahoo.com. As usual there's a lot of hype along with this find, but its an interesting one nonetheless. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_re_eu/greece_tomb

Its highly likely they were forced to by prevailing weather conditions. This would have impacted on their usual herding and raiding activities, and quite possibly the availability of food and water was becoming scarce. Also, the huns were beginning to group in larger social units and this does usually inspire conquest.

If it wasn't much different, why the artistic depictions of Hercules as so small? When was the depiction created? Roman sexual behaviour changed over the late republic in line with other tastes in luxuries. From the moral outrage of earlier times to the licentious smirk of imperial Rome. Was the artist any good? Was he making a joke at the sponsor of the work? Was it an insult? I can't answer your question MPC.

But of course you're right. These programs are made by people essentially ignorant of roman history for people even more so. That means they try to depict a popular 'expected' vision of Rome. The problem is this docu-drama was advertised as being historically accurate - it wasn't - and simply because historians were consulted doesn't mean they were listened to. At the end of the day program makers want to sell their work and they twist the story to suit themselves. This program was part of a 'Hero and Villains' series and therefore (inevitably) Spartacus is portrayed as a hero. He was one of the ringleaders of the escape from Capua (not the only one), and only became the sole leader of the revolt after he, Crixus, and oenemaus had squabbled. As a heroic icon, like say.. King Arthur, or Robin Hood, Spartacus has all the romantic elements. Fighting for freedom, the underdog, etc. What this docu-drama fails to address is that Spartacus was not the hero of legend. He was a rebel. He couldn't handle army discipline, he couldn't bear the discipline of the ludum. Make no mistake, Spartacus was no coward, he was a bold and courageous fighter, but he just wasn't a hero. Crassus of course bears the label of villain. Well, ok, he was avaricious to the point of larceny, but evil? He's shown ordering a decimation as proof of his villainy, and the manner the decimation is carried out doesn't ring true. Problem is, Crassus wasn't so different from leading romans of his time. The fact he ordered a decimation was to punish his new command for their previous 'cowardice' - a standard roman punishment if one used rarely. Therefore the program is portraying these men in a modern light, and fails to make the viewer understand that these men did things this way two thousand years ago. The accent therefore is on drama, not documentary, and the fact a historian was asked some questions about Spartacus doesn't give the program any more credibility if the makers simply draw stereotypes for entertainment. Uhh... I'm nit-picking aren't I?.... Anyhow, if anyone else has seen this show, feel free to comment.

I've had a chance to look at the damage. The bolts holding the front upright were sheared, the upright itself snapped in two places, and the upright behind twisted. Its a mess. The forklifter has been suspended.

In some ways the Spatacus prgram tried to depict Rome on a budget, but details like hairstyles were ignored. Thats why it never really looked convincing Also, the program made the classic mistake of depicting gladiators with leather breastplates. Sorry but they didn't equip themselves this way. By 73bc gladiatorial combat was into its golden age, it had become big business (yet to increase further under Augustus), and the earlier classes of fighters were well established. Such men fought bare chested because the idea was an exciting swordfight that might end in a dramatic clean kill, with plenty of blood from a fatal chest wound rather than disabling injuries to limbs and 'cuts above the eyebrows' to stop the fight. The notion that two men fought to the death and that the crowd always condemned a loser to death is wrong. True, the editor of the games was wise to listen to his crowd, but a sizeable number of fighters walked away alive after losing a fight. On the other hand some fights were clearly below par - suetonius describes how caligula was annoyed at a poor performance. The winner also had the right to spare his opponent - we know this from an inscription at Pompeii which says something like "Take heed from my fate and show no mercy, whoever he may be". Somehow I suspect this sort of respect was rare and if the editor called for an execution of a loser, it generally took place. In this instance this script was ok in that Crassus got upset when Spartacus hesitated to kill his opponent. As editor, he had ordered a death to please the crowd and got miffed at his wishes being ignored. Not historically accurate to Spartacus's real story, but correct in behaviour apart from the fact that gladiators were professional fighters even in his day who took great pride in providing entertainment. Sure, not all were highly paid celebrities and many of the cannon-fodder were derided by an audience for cowardice or clumsiness. We know some men committed suicde rather than fight, we know some tried to run away in the arena, and that others tried to fake a death, because the games organisers had taken precautions to prevent this sort of thing. I really would like to see portrayals of gladiators to be more accurate. Helmet, padded forward leg, padded sword arm, shield. Even if it isn't quite correct to the last detail, at least they'll look like gladiators rather than greek leather clad tribesmen.

Exactly. the senate never pushed it home. They threatened Caesar but never actually caried it out. As far as I can see, the senate believed th threat was enough, but Caear being the risktaker that he was, decided to call their bluff. One or two emperors did but tats was natural since romans tended to look upon successors of a family as a chip off the old block (indeed, some careers were based on that premise). However, this meant that an emperor was more likely to promote the chances of favorites, people they liked and could groom for success, rather than simply relying on their own children being up to the job. Succession wasn't automatic, it required political manoevering in Rome (or outside of it more often than not) Thats part of my point. Interest in politics had faded as the republic drew to a close. Not completely though. As in Britain today, if a politcal cause was relevant and stirred enough emotion, there would still be public demonstrations. However, points of principle had become less important than bread and circuses.

But the people willing to assassinate or mount coups are not inherently law abiding people That's true, and it's why small crimes (like Clodius' Bona Dea crime or Caesar's crossing into Germania) must be prosecuted mercilessly--a ruthless application of the law will catch petty scoundrels before they go on to greater crimes. No arguement there, but notice how limp the prosecution was. Caesar was no stranger to risktaking in politics - he had been part of a four man plot to take the senate by nothing more than mass murder. The problem with such ruthless personalities is that they tirelessly exploit every single gap they come across, whereas your average law abiding group think everythings sorted and move on to other business. Now it has to be aid Caesar knew there was a threat of his career coming to an abrupt end, which I why he led an army across the Rubicon to back his survival. But that in tself shows that Caesar was not going to back down simply because some law-abiding people thought it would be better. Most of them of course were unable to rival caesars popularity with the masses, won both by hs personal charisma and also by his un-patrician willinness to meet them on their home ground and shake their hand. He used popularity methods instead of relying on good old fashioned social superiority. Caesar was in effect using methods we associate with modern politicians rather than depending on the old school tie. For the senate, Caesar represented a loose cannon on the deck, and given that republican politics had become somewhat moribund and self-serving, his popularity was bound to put him high in the polls. The general apathy of the roman population toward politics at this time is demonstrated by this 'wow' factor of Caesars approach. Instead of castigating Caesar for his un-roman ways, they cheered him on. Would the senate have risked their own popularity with the masses to bring Caesar down to size? Yes, because the senate was not concerning itself with civil popularity and instead was wrapped up in its own tiny competitive world. Caesar was a threat to that world, not to Rome as a whole though perhaps there many senators who couldn't see the difference. By this time the imperial mindset was already in place in roman life, it only needed a strong individual to take the reigns. That doesn't mean the senate couldn't react - Augustus was clearly anxious to avoid the same fate that Caesar suffered, but notice also the dismay of Caesars assassins when they discovered the rest of the world was't supporting them. So altough the prosecution of the senates enemies was possible it wasn't necessarily desirable given that the senate were no longer as popular with roman citizenry as certain individuals, and that by then the senate wasn't held in the same regard as rulers of the roman world that it once had been.

Anyone reading Suetonius will be in doubt what roman thought about penis size. It wasn't much different from what people think of it today.

The actual chilli heat does vary a lot even at the same venue. The takeaway I go to is the one I've used for more than twenty years. Only once have I had a serious complaint about their food and its always verrrry spicy. I've got one in the fridge for dinner tonight. Lamb Vindaloo with mushroom rice, onion bahji, and salad/yoghurt on the side. All for

Industrial accidents happen. There's no denying that. I know of a guy who drove his forklift off the bay because he hadn't noticed the lorry had gone. There was a forklifter at one place I used to work who regularly smashed holes in the breezeblock wall because he reversed out without looking. There was another who broke off the sprinkler head and flooded the warehouse with brown sludgy water. There's a chap who works in our warehouse who thankfully doesn't work for us. He fell out of the back of a container not too long ago and is currently suing his employer for accident compensation. Now he's gone further by driving his forklift forward with the view obscured by a tall load. He ripped out one upright in the racks and can thank his luck there wasn't any heavy pallets in the racking above him. Accidents of course don't happen in this warehouse - thats the official line from our hosts - and as yet we don't have any word from them regarding this accident. It is worrying because the car manufacturer we share the new shed with have appropriated some floorspace for themselves, stacking stillages right next to where we relabel goods for transport. It doesn't make you feel safe and secure at all.... Car Sale of the Week AD has decided to part with his little hatchback and phoned the trade paper when he got home from work. He was getting replies within half and hour, proof that selling your car via the internet can work. Between you and me though, I reckon it was the advert he had me design and print off that did it. The reason I know this to be the case is that AD never gives anyone else credit for anything... Community Initiative of the Week Free gigs? Outside the department store under that false plastic circus tent thing? Times have changed. Getting the local council to agree an open air performance in such a place back when I was a struggling local musician would have been another titanic struggle with officialdom. Actually, I think its a good move, an excellent way for young bands to showcase themselves to a wider audience. Now all the local council have to do is find bands who can actually play...