caldrail

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...

Well well well... What do I hear on the radio today? The canal extension has received the go-ahead from the planners. Stand by for road works...

I've mentioned before about a scheme to build a canal through Swindon. There used to be one, the Wilts & Berks, and the last stretch of this water still exists on the outskirts of town. There is however a lobby for recreating it and they occupy the Old Collectibles Shop opposite the new permanent library currently under construction (Swindon had a temporary library for thirty or forty years). I spoke to one of their people the other day. The plan is to go under the road at Kingshill, follow the course of the main road past the GWR Park (The canal originally ran behind the houses, not in front) and divert northward to Swindons boundary. It means digging up one of the major through routes for motor vehicles, which I suppose in the anti-car regime we have in Britain today this is no obstacle at all. So who pays? I had images of horrendous council tax bills and to be honest so do other people, which is why the lobby set up shop. Apparently the European Union pays for it, because they like urban beautification schemes and the assumption is that the canal will bring in money. They want Swindon to be a place to visit. Come and see our canal! A place to visit? There's nothing here to attract visitors at all. We just don't have any tourist traps. Ok, sure, there's the railway museum, but its nothing like as impressive as York and a disappointment for those aware of Swindons railway history. The biggest problem with Swindon is the problem its always had. Its embarrased by its working class railway history. Swindon likes the future, its all about redevelopment and there's plenty of those bland new office blocks in evidence. Yet all those victorian pidgeon nests were what gave Swindon its character. So many of those edwardian brick shool houses are gone now. I remember the atmosphere of the places, the tangible sense of tradition, now replaced by modern schools that whilst being more efficient in terms of energy look horrible, become horrible in a few short years, and simply don't command the same respect. But what about Swindon College? That 60's edifice is about to be pulled down (the campus has moved to North Star) and whilst I studied engineering there for five years, to be honest I won't shed any tears. It was a horrible building. I remember Production Engineering B classes in the early afternoon on the south side, with the sun beating down through the windows. The whole class nodding their heads semi-comatosed by the heat. In its place is going to be a new shopping arcade, a cinema, a hotel etc. Its the sort of civic renewal that looks great on paper but looks undesirable after the natives have lived in it for a few years. There's been a thread on the forums about finding old photographs of your home town. Swindon is well blessed with those. A chap named Hooper went about in the 1900's photographing anything and of course with Swindon being the old railway town it was, there were always other people making records of life in Swindon. You know, the Great Western Railway did much to make life bearable for its employees. It built an entire housing estate for them (the 'Railway Village'), a park, a hospital (now closed), and of course the now derelict Mechanics Institute for social matters. The modern National health Service was inspired by the success of the health schemes set up by the GWR. You just don't see this sort of civic responsibility with employers now, and they probably couldn't afford it anyway. Swindon was once a quaint little isolated market town on the hill, changed forever by the arrival of the GWR works to the north. Now its changed forever again, its past demolished to make way for the future, like an old lady who dresses up in the latest fashions and nightclubbing to attract the young men. Its all a little sad. I've been leafing through those old photographs again. Occaisionally I see things I remember. The old canal warehouse on Milton Road. The market hall on Commercial Road. The greek style frontage of the chapel on Temple St. That old greenhouse in Queens Park. The Goddard Manor House at Lawns. The arched iron bridges crossing the canal behind the main roads. The huge stone and brick workshops of the GWR. The oddly rural railway station building, and those quiet farm fields in little pockets here and there now buried under housing estates. There's a part of me that wants the old Swindon back. It had style.

I remember finding an indian resteraunt in Rotorua, New Zealand. It looked all very plush and professional, inhabited by genuine asians, and the curries were lousy. Thing is, without the competition and expectation of the british, the standards are lower. I don't suppose the new zalanders knew any different. My cousin went to a takeaway in Auckland whilst I was staying there and asked the propietors for the hottest curry they could make. 7 out of 10.

If you want to say something go ahead. Its not going to bother me if you disagree with what I've said. I was fairly negative about the program but then it glossed over a great deal of the story, it romanticised Spartacus whilst trying to give itself historical credibility, and Crassus came across as a pantomime villain. Regarding the fate of Spartacus, there is a story from roman sources that on the final battlefield, he spotted Crassus on horseback at a distance and attempted to reach him in order to slay his nemesis. He was beaten down by sheer weight of numbers.

Aliens can't stand the food? Why do they keep coming back then? Anyway, if you regard an indian curry as unpalatable thats only because the americans haven't access to the the authentic article. Come to think of it we've got all your american stuff on our shelves too, and your burgers are tasteless plastic disasters. I suppose it gets difficult to cook good ones when you run out of buffalo!

I just knew this program was going to be awful. Promoted in the tv guides as a docu-drama made with the advice of historians (and she was credited at the start of the show), it portrayed the short career of Spartacus from the perspective of Oenemaus as he recalls his tale by voiceover as he hangs from a crucifix on the Appian Way. It simply didn't look roman. The great unwashed mass of plebs were indeed long haired and unwashed, looking more like apache indians in some scenes. A politician named Lentulus looked extremely uncomfortable in armour and horseback, and the guy who played Crassus simply played him as a hissing villain. As for Spartacus, he actor spent the whole hour looking bemused at being given a starring role. Historically the show gave a very abbreviated version of the rebellion. There was no mention of the pirates who Spartacus had contracted to carry him to safety and the camapign was shortened to a finale at the Wall of Crassus built across the toe of Italy. That said, the Wall of Crassus sequence was an interesting spectacle which actually looked reasonably authentic and something that hasn't featured in other versions of screen portrayals. What really spoilt it was Spartacus meeting Crassus for a parley before he breaks out over the wall. The script was woeful and neither actor had the gravitas to carry it off. So then, the major points of disagreement with this program... 1 - Spartacus is shown fighting in the arena. There's no record he advanced beyond training. 2 - The rebels are shown escaping at Spartacus's command from the school at Capua - He was one of a bunch of ringleaders. 3 - The rebels find weapons at the school - In reality they found gladiatorial weapons in a wagon outside the school after the escape. 4 - Gladiatorial equipment, particularly armour, was hoplessly incorrect. 5 - The betrayal by pirates is not depicted. 6 - Oenemaus, the commentator, broke away from Spartacus and was killed early in the campaign in real life. It was a little odd to hear his voiceover whilst he's shown dying on the crucifix. 7 - Guards are shown with leather lorica segmentata - erm... No. 8 - Spartacus and Crassus never met. Come back Kirk Douglas - all is forgiven.

Too busy with the delights of Vindaloo, pilau rice, and onion bahji (not to mention a healthy supply of poppadoms and lager). Seriously, GO, you americans have no idea what food is

Masada. Herod the Great built it as a retreat and the zealots later used it for the same purpose against roman retribution. Having arrived and built a circumvallation of stone, the romans alsobrought in ten thousand slaves to build an earth siege ramp to assault the place and the various camps in the dry terrain required four hundred donkey loads of supplies a day. Ballistas were placed on stone pillars built into the ramp to keep the enemies heads down. The defenders knew the romans were going to get in and built an inner wall from timber and rubble, and it was a fairly robust effort at that. Once the romans found it, they attempted to burn it and it was almost a disaster because the flames were in danger of setting fire to thier siege equipment! A change of wind prevented that from happening. Famously one roman centurion who led an assault through the walls slipped on the stone floor because of his hob-nailed boots and was killed. Eventually the romans penetrated the inner defenses only to discover the zealots had committed mass suicide, apart from one woman and her children who'd hidden in a sewer.

The testudo is a protective formation most often employed in sieges to approach relatively safe from missile fire. Popular opinion has the romans attacking slowly and relentlessly in testudo as if the formation was a 'tank', but this simply isn't so. The unit cannot effectively fight until it has de-testudo'd itself. There is suggestion that they used the testudo as an impromptu siege ramp - the formation parks itself against a wall, the rear ranks lower themselves, and allow masses of romans to clamber up over an obstacle. You might wonder how secure the foothold was but consideration for health & safety weren't foremost in a roman commanders mind! From the civil wars onward, yes they did. During the earlier phalanx style warfare this was a no-no, but later, when more flexible tactics were employed, the romans found that charging headlong was sometimes enough to frighten an enemy. There are mentions of such charges in the civil wars although I would agree that such tactics weren't the first choice.

Ahh GO, how mislead you are by internet conspiracy theory... Incidentially, the reality behind corn circles is a sophisticated attempt to communicate with aliens symbolically. Originally these messages said something like "Want a game of tiddlywinks?", but we've made progress in corn circlism and at least one recent circle said "Please do not transmit any more soap operas" Hey hang on - Whats wrong with our food? Get some fish'n'chips down yer boy. Mushy peas and drippin' for supper.

Its also formal wear, and then turning up to see a patron in a crumbled garment might not be too impressive Mind you, on the other end of the scale, I'm reminded of a story about a young woman from a wealthy family who runs off with a gladiator. In the text it mentions that she has forsaken her soft bed of swan down. Nice if you can afford such things.

Here's a collection of six golden oldies of Swindon before the automobile. This one is the street where I now live. The tram line is interesting because just before the first world war there was an accident with a tram whose brakes failed. Ten people were killed roughly were the photographer is. The canals were a feature of Swindon before the railways arrived, forming a junction between the Wilts & Berks and the North Wilts canals. Two views of Marlborough Road, one of the main thoroughfares into the Old Town on the hill. Some of these cottages are still standing. The Midland & South West Junction Railway (Swindons Other Railway) is behind the houses on the left. One of the major shopping areas in the new town built to service the needs of the Great Western Railway (Their main line is off to the left of the picture) Manchester Road has been infamous in recent times as Swindons Red Light District. Here it is looking more respectable.

I woke last night dimly aware that my bed was wobbling. Now usually the rattles and vibrations I experience at night are the result of heavy lorries thundering down the hill, or perhaps my neighbours stereo (or just my neighbours), but this felt different. Objects were rattling around, and the bed was still wobbling. Its an extraordinary sensation and one that left me wondering "Was that an earthquake?" Yes it was. Measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale and centered in Lincolnshire, the earthquake struck Britain in the small hours, the biggest in twenty five years. Funny thing is I don't remember any earthquakes at all ever. What suprises me even more is that according to the Geological Survey we get two hundred earthquakes a year and no-one notices. Want a vacation? Come to Britain. Even our earthquakes are polite. Eurovision Song Contest Entry of the Week Ah yes. Once again the nations of Europe and Asia Minor are voting for their favourite entry to compete against each other in a televised final. God won it at least once by inventing Cliff Richard. Sweden won it by inventing Abba. Now everyone else wins it by exporting the worst performers they can find. Ireland has decided to send a tv puppet called Dustin this year. Can you believe people take this competition seriously? Null points....

It is, but you missed the point. At the end of WWII Britain and the US agreed to share technology, including that pertaining to high speed flight. We gave the US our research for the Miles M52 project but the US returned nothing, apparently using the research to perfect their own record breaker. Can you replicate evolution? Oh good grief man its been replicated EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!!! Its going on in your back yard. Its happening - right now - all around you. Its part of life on earth. For crying out loud just throw that bible in the bin and start thinking for yourself. Look how easy it is to breed. Its not just ourselves, we can breed all sorts of animals and plants (hey, nature made that a breeze!). Notice also how easy we breed new species. Thats utilising mutation, the cornerstone of evolution, although in this case we enforce it rather than relying on random interaction. Mutation is built in, its part of natural diversity to ensure a strong gene pool, and since unsuitable species tend to die off if the enviroments don't suit them, only the suitable mutations will do. Thats evolution. Its an observation made about life on earth. I'm not a paleontologist nor do I have access to the relevant research. Please ask one for the required proof. The fact two species lived at the same time is irrelevant. Lots of species lived at the same time and funny enough still do today. Unless the americans are actually manufactured in detroit somewhere they're still flesh and blood like the rest of us. That means you arrived in this world because mummy and daddy bonked each other one night (perhaps in the back of a Detroit product?). Sex is part of the natural world and therefore since you are the result of such behaviour you also belong to the natural world. Human beings are animals. Thats all. We're not spritually superior beings in any way whatsoever, we're not seperated from the natural world except by our own mechanisation of the food supply, and our behaviour is nothing more than derived from the social animal we always were. As for primitive species, I see plenty of them on a saturday night in my local town - I suspect you have your own quota. Do these people evolve seperately? Unfortunately not.

Plenty of theories have been accepted with a great deal less evidence than that available for evolution. The problem with evolution is that it implies our origin is somewhat more humble than the handiwork of god, which to fundamentalist christian belief is contrary to biblical teaching. So in many ways the theory of evolution does not find universal acceptance because of human arrogance. The religious arguement I'm going to leave to one side for now - its bound to upset people because I don't like the way artificial stories are rigidly put forward in spite of commonsense - but if the fossil record and enviromental specialisation of current species isn't proof enough of the concept (its not a philosophy at all), could the americans please credit the british with breaking the sound barrier since there's no conclusive, solid proof they ever thought of it themselves. Would you like to reconsider an unpalatable scientific concept instead? We're all flesh and blood you know, us and our anthropoid cousins... We just have a little less body hair, thats all.

There must have been some variation in the manner spectacles were staged (variety was important to roman entertainment as well as tradition) and since it was expected that a wealthy man should be generous (something that survived in italian culture for a long time) the sort of event suggested isn't so suprising. There's no suggestion of venue that I can see and although I don't read latin, I see no mention of amphitheatre either. If the hunt of four leopards was all the public went to see why would Magerius need to stage it it at an amphitheatre? Any public space could be utilised and without the need to change props, house fighters, cage entire menageries of beasts as we might expect in a large event, it would be simpler and cheaper to let the Telegenii organise the show on his behalf. It might even be more convenient for the crowd who are saved the trouble of travelling to an arena. The roman ublic did demand entertainment and sometimes did so aggressively. In the reign of Tiberius, the family of a dead centurion whose body was on display in the marketplace were told they would not be allowed to bury his remains until funeral games had been staged at their expense. The townspeople were rounded up by legionaries as soon as Tiberius heard about it. Also, since we know troupes of entertainers such as gladiators went on tour out in the sticks performing to entertainment-starved locals, why is it so suprising that beast-hunters used the same entrepeneurial flair?