caldrail

I'm not sure the optio carried a 'staff' as you seem to understand it. They did carry a vine staff for punishing soldiers, such as those talking in formation or those dropping out of the march. Whilst such a staff might cause considerable discomfort, I'm not sure it was much use on the battlefield.

The late republic was a turbulent time and being a politician must have been a risky business. Many senators died in proscriptions for backing the wrong side, or simply owning a better villa. Whilst there are always going to be ambitious men and risk-takers in any group, I get the impression that many senators of the period were getting very wary about being outspoken. Indeed, that was part of the point of the proscriptions anyway - the people dealing them out, besides those with larcenous motives, were taking out the troublemakers and leaving a much-cowed senate in place. At least in theory anyway. Also I suspect many new senators brought in to fill the numbers were supporters? What you have in the late republic is factional politics, a power struggle very similar to a gangland war in many respects.

Agree completely. To quote 'I Cladius' - "When someone dies, so much is lost". Its not just the relationship with our loved ones, but the experience and memories. One of my relations does this family tree stuff, and although there's some tantalising glimpses of the family I belong to, the truth is they're all names. Their character, their life - all gone apart from a few terse records in various documents. I think families should do more to remember who they are and where they come from.

Agreed. Population expansion across the sea is no more unusual that by land. Its notable that once the means exist, human beings exploit it to find new territories even at extraordinary risk. Ocean going craft are probably older than we realise and the technology to sail has not been a constant development. I'm thinking of Thor Heyedahls experiments in papyrus rafts across the atlantic (though this doesn't prove the actual journey took place in ancient history) or those incredible massive ships the chinese built, only to give up exploring before the europeans arrived in the pacific.

Its probably a little pretentious, but then I suspect many people knew stories of the roman empire from their elders and regarded it as something of a golden age, a better time, particularly since life in the dark ages was often much less secure.

no, you didn't protect the man on your left. Your shield protected you and your own left side. The man on the right had an open 'weapon' side and therefore was less protected there. No, the man on the right side was simply unlucky to part of the formation there. Getting your best men on the right is perhaps wasteful and over-complex in practice. The romans were very keen by policy to protect their best men until the last moment, preferring the majority of casualties to be taken from the novices. This isn't strictly correct according to Vegetius, who records that the first cohort (double strength unit with the elite men of the legion) was always posted on the right side of the line in order to safeguard the flank. Thats the only source that suggests this happened, and it must be pointed out that Vegetius was writing long after the legion of this size had been superceded, and that the man himself had little military experience.

To enlarge on some of the points raised above - Suetonius is a primary source for the principate period. Unreliable? Well, roman historians are notoriously biased and lets remember they were expected to be storytellers first, that their audiences wanted to be entertained with stories of their ancestors. Inevitably, the wilder tales get the headlines even if they're misunderstood or even made up. is Suetonius any worse than other roman writers? No not really, not when you consider how much fiction has been identified in the pages of the Histories Augusta, another primary source for a later period. Certainly a lot of stuff got left out. Thats why we spend hours debating subjects like this. Caligula, for all his despotism, remained very popular with the masses. He was after all the son of Germanicus, a war hero, and followed the dreary Tiberius. In fact, many people welcomed his colourful rule though I suspect they weren't the ones Caligula upset. The man himself was unable to restrain himself. He had complete power over peoples lives and used them for his own entertainment, testing the limits of acceptability. He seems to have a very cruel sense of humour, and Suetonius records the instance when three senators were sent for, kept waiting all night in the palace in fear of their lives, then given a song and dance performance by Caligula himself. Nor does he respect life - on another instance he was fencing with a gladiator with wooden swords. The man fell over deliberately to allow caligula to 'win', but the emperor then drew a dagger, stabbed the prone fighter to death, then ran around waving a palm frond as a victorious combatant. Then of course he had also tested his own poisonous concoction on Columbus, an injured gladiator. If there was ever a case of 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' - it can be applied to caligula. His undisciplined personality was wholly unsuitable for power and he used it as his own personal plaything. Thats not madness - thats just an immature guy way out of control.

Good lord no. It was a religious symbol, a display of the legions spirit. No signifer was going to break that in combat! But then... if you're carrying one and no other weapon to hand.... Soldiers are practical people. If Caesars troops gave ground he would often rally them in person, catching individual fugitives by the throat and forcing them round to face the enemy; even if they were panic stricken - as when one standard bearer threatened him with the sharp butt of his eagle and another, whom he tried to detain, who ran off leaving the eagle in his hand Life of Caesar - Suetonius

The manufacture of scuta probably varied, but given the lack of strength of a wooden edge regarding sword blades, I would expect the rim to have some sort of metal sheath even if only a thin piece of metal. Sharpened? Not as a matter of official policy, but I wouldn't be suprised if some soldiers did that. There are disadvantages to doing this - its possible to drop the shield onto your own foot. no, you didn't protect the man on your left. Your shield protected you and your own left side. The man on the right had an open 'weapon' side and therefore was less protected there. No, the man on the right side was simply unlucky to part of the formation there. Getting your best men on the right is perhaps wasteful and over-complex in practice. The romans were very keen by policy to protect their best men until the last moment, preferring the majority of casualties to be taken from the novices. Its not a myth, just exaggerated. In any case, the gap is not a safe place to be in any standard 4:3:3 quincunx formation, because the gaps are protected by an overlapping unit behind, thus the gaps can easily become traps for the unwary enemy. ???? no, they used swords like everyone else. In the soldiers hand. There is no height advantage in bodies on the ground. Stepping on a body is not a secure foothold and almost every soldier would instinctively try to step over. Notice that roman soldiers were trained to haul their own wounded men back where-ever possible, and the rising pile of bodies assumes that both sides remain fighting flat out in one place. Inevitably one side or another will tend to give ground, although Appian describes a fight between romans during a civil war where the combatants keep pulling back due to exhaustion before rushing in again, neither side willing to be the ones to flee. I'm not aware this practice was standard. There is a danger that a soldier who performed this manoever might find himself pushed over or beaten down by an enemy attack. It may well be that some legionaries did things like this, but remember doing so is a fairly athletic exercise and the soldier must rise to his feet again afterward with all his arms and equipment carried. He'd soon tire himself out doing so.

Caligula had a foreign dignitary executed because he wore a purple cloak, something he regarded as his prerogative only.

I seem to remember that augustus insisted on senators wearing togas on offical duty, so even as early as the start of the principate romans were keen to dress casually.

Roman soldiers did not take part in such contests as they were reserved as a slave occupation. However, they did enjoy dispalys of gladiators in the permanent forts, some of which had amphitheatres nearby. Entertainment for the troops and an excuse to interest them in more sword training. A gladiatorial fight was a spectacle and therefore not ordinary - you needed to be wealthy to stage these contests, and this became even more true as the munera developed. A funeral was something more mundane perhaps? Particularly since death was far more prevalent in roman times, when most romans were lucky to survive into their twenties?

The standard curved square shield has a metal boss, behind which is a horizontal handle. The shield is certainly not a light item to cart around, and it therefore figures that the legionary was well practised in its use. The shield can be carried by the arm left hanging downward, but I'm not sure how much protection that offered. Good lord no. It was a religious symbol, a display of the legions spirit. No signifer was going to break that in combat! But then... if you're carrying one and no other weapon to hand.... Soldiers are practical people. As described above, the sword is gripped by the right hand fist toward you and elbow high. It is actually very easy to draw a gladius like that, and considering the large curved shield in the other hand, the only way to pull it without clashing with the shield and getting into all sorts of trouble. The next man is safe, because the sword is 'flicked' in front of you. The gladius is a close quarters melee weapon and generally drawn when such combat is expected. Otherwise, as you correctly state, the pila are readied instead. No, but there were variants of roman armour in small numbers that protected the arm in that way. In fact, I doubt there were many such injuries anyway. A barbarian rushes at you screaming his nuts off. He swings his longer sword in beserk abandon and you take that blow on the large scutum - not too difficult. Then while he pulls the sword back for another swing, step in close, thrust, turn, pull away. Dead, dying, or in pain, it doesn't matter - the barbarian is down and your forearm never came close to getting lopped off. Thats the theory and in general it worked that way, but I guess soldiers did lose arms occaisionally. This wasn't a game after all - that guy wants to kill you. Centurions wore greaves as standard equipment, the ordinary rank and file did not., although there wasn't anything to stop them buying some lower qulaity item. They rarely did. After all the stoppages, bribes, gambling, sundry purchases, wine, women etc... I don't think armour was easily affordable by a man who only received pay every four months. This isn't recorded as far as I understand, but I doubt there was a standard grip given the pugio was a last-ditch weapon, a utility item. Most in the heat of combat would have held it securely in the fist and used it without much subtlety. Modern research suggests the private soldier wore a white or off-white tunic. This isn't fully accepted however - some re-enactment groups wear different colours and its possible that some legions were issued dyed tunics of a particular colour. Red was generally reserved as a signal of higher rank. We think that centurions for instance always wore red tunics. Also, the quality of clothing increases with seniority. It might seem odd, but for thousands of years the cut of your cloth denoted how wealthy you were, and therefore a strong indication of importance. Centurions were also recognised by the sideways plume on their helmets. Contrary to hollywood depictions, ordinary soldiers did not have plumes on theirs, apart from certain troop types in earlier times like the triarii (denoted by three feathers rising from the helmet). It is believed that the roman navy wore blue tunics - a precedent for dyed tunics issued to troops for whatever reason.

in theory each conterbernium ('close friends' - an 8 man squad of soldiers who lived in the same barrack room or tent) had access to a mule for carrying heavy loads, but the roman soldier carried what he needed to. Vegetius quotes the standard equipment load as 60lbs (thats 43 in our measurement) so it wasn't as bad as modern day, albeit for items less ergonomically comfortable. That however is the roman soldier kitted out according to the manual. In reality, soldiers always dispose of things they decide are superfluous, which pretty much means anything other than the bare essentials. However, in some circumstances, it may have been necessary to carry much heavier loads although I can't think of any particular example. The forked stick mentioned above is a somewhat primitive means of carrying loads, with the weight on the shoulder, perhaps offset by the lorica segmentata shoulder-pieces, though one wonders how these men felt after a days march with only chainmail - I wouldn't be suprised if the legionaries stuffed padding underneath to provide more comfort. The bag and any other external items were therefore tied to the forked end (?) and in true dick whittington style, the soldier marched until time to make camp. Part of the equipment load was two stakes for camp building. I find it a little unbelievable that these stakes were used to build the palisade- surely they neeeded far more? - so they might have been used for other things, like plot markers or perhaps more practical uses could be found around the camp such as frames or tent supports. The contents of the standard roman kit aren't known to me, does anyone else know anything about it?

That famous one aboard ship, when chickens were offered food - and if they ate, then the gods had decreed victory. The chickens didn't, so an annoyed admiral said "Well let them drink intead" and threw them overboard. He lost the battle... inexplicably...

No, that depended on how powerful the emperor was. Augustus was very cautious in his dealings with the senate and that even with his reputation as a benign ruler. Didius Julianus on the other hand pleaded with the senate, who viewed him with utter contempt.

We survived the vikings too. Kinda blows your theory out the door :)

Lapdogs? Not really. Certainly the majority of senators were happy at being wealthy and powerful and rather liked the idea of staying alive, but then many emperors were wary of the sharks hiding in the senate. Remember Commodus in the arena, waving a dead ostrich head at the senators sat above him? Claudius hiding in the praetorian barracks? The execution of Didius julianus? It may well be that the reason Augustus exiled his daughter was because the silly girl was telling them everything they wanted to know. The army was not loyal to the emperor, nor Rome. Each legion was sworn to obey and was loyal to the commander. Many legions persuaded their commanders to assume the title of emperor (successfully or not), whilst other legions followed their respected and beloved leader (Like Septimius Severus for instance). In fact, keeping the army sweet was essential to a long and happy rule. Loyal? Not even close. If the army became disgruntled for any reason, you were in for a rough time. Hadrian for instance assumes power by controversial means, and although he wasn't a natural soldier with territorial ambition in any way, he made sure that army discipline was tightened and that they were kept busy. Although the republican senate was the pwer in rome, was it any more than the senate of imperial times? In some ways yes, given their aristocratic oligarchy, but in other ways, politics was essentially the same. You supported the stronger man of choice, you put weaker men in your pocket. That went on in imperial times just as much as the republic despite the loss of executive power.

The etruscan games were an influence, not the ancestor. Fewer and fewer researchers are placing etruscan rites as the source of gladiatorial combat. There is a gap of some length in time between them. If they were directly related, the fights would have been continuous and perhaps originating in northern areas of Rome rather than Campania?

Although the guy should have been called Drusus, the author of I Claudius[/], Robert Graves, needed to seperate him from the other Drusus (Claudius's ill-fated father). Therefore a nickname was convenient.

Possibly, but the 'bent pyramid' in egypt? The architect realised halfway through construction that his taller design was going to collapse, and ordered a shallower angle for the top half. In any case, if the egyptians were only concerned with stable structures, a subterranean tomb like abu simbel was better surely? The pyramids were designed to make a statement about the guy interred within. Stability wasn't the primary reason.

I'm suprised that Adrian Goldsworthy describes centurions as NCO's - they weren't. They were a class of junior officer that has no modern equivalent. There were NCO equivalents - the principales - but the command structure of the legions was different to modern day armies despite some apparent similarities, and I think its a bit misleading to compare them directly. We understand the modern military structure, its almost part of ordinary life even to those who don't know the details. It must have been the same for the romans in their day.

There is an etruscan funeral depiction showing a person with a bag on his head, using a club against an angry dog on a chain. In fact, the link between etruscan rites and roman gladiatorial displays is somewhat tenuous. The romans also looked back at greek mythology where the one on one heroic confrontation is repeated so many times. Mediterranean cultures often felt the need to spill blood in order to honour the living, and although this may have been an animal sacrifice in many cases, the romans, particularly those in campania, adopted the custom of setting two criminals or slaves against each other. The fights may have actually been to the first blood (there is precedent in later arena displays), mortal wounds were inevitable and somewhat more dramatic and sensational. Later funerals had more pairs because the living relative wanted a bigger send off, and the public display evolved from this need to impress. Gladiatorial combat therefore emerges from all these factors - greek mythology, etruscan rites, and campanian displays of swordfighting.

Pyramids are artificial mountains (apart from their particular religious significance) and as such represent an expression of the human psyche. There's no reason to believe any cultural links across the atlantic. Aliens are just that. They're not human. They wouldn't have human hopes, dreams, aspirations, or motivations. You simply wouldn't be able to second-guess what their intentions are. How would they treat us if they arrived tomorrow? Impossible to say. What can be said is that human society would fragment. There would be those who welcome and worship our 'new masters from outer space', there would be others out on a bug-hunt as soon as the ol' huntin' rifle can be pulled off the shelf. Experience of how primitive cultures adapt to modern civilisation gives a very unpromising precedent.

To P. Laelius Macer from Marcus L Ralla salve. I have in mind to attack at dawn as soon as I arrive. A circumvallation is of course a standard method of besiegement. I have no intention of waiting that long for victory. They will be camped and unready. Fear not macer, my legions are converging at the ford three days from your position. See you soon. Have the best wine ready. Tata for now. Right then, centurion, call that soldier in, I'll deal with him now. "Yes sir. Right you 'orrible specimen, forward... MARCH! LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT LEFT HALT RIGHT FACE Salute the officer!" Now then legionary, I see you have complaints... What is the nature of your problem? "Well sir, we keep trying to camp every night but the german legion already has towels laid out on the best plots. Also, our rations sir, I mean, this brockwurst, its just not roman sir. And every time we're the ones who have to do the fatigues. Why do the Lusitanii get a snooze every lunchtime sir?" I see. Centurion, this man does not understand what a roman legionary must be. He has until dusk tommorrow to learn, see that he does. "Yes sir. Right then you 'orrible little man, you are going to train like you never trained before! Stand to attention! Face front! Right face! MArch! LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT left right left right At the double twice round the camp move it!" Ahh... the power of command...