caldrail

Oh Neil.... I used to think the same way about these things. The name atlantic is based on the legend of atlantis, not the other way around. The rising sea levels were just as likely due to the earth wobbling on its axis, the same reason for the ice ages, but since the hothouse period following the K/T event the earths climate has refused to stabilise. The atlantic opened up from the jurassic period onward. Even if the azores plateau was above sea level at any time, I don't believe this accounts for the atlantis legend. How did elephants get there? Please don't say by atlantean ship.... The arguements you give above are standard for those supporting the atlantic landmass theory, which has no substantial proof. The atlantic floor is rising and has been since pangaea pulled apart. There may well be a future landmass in the atlantic, but not in the past. Graham Hancock, Erich Von Daniken, Andrew Tomas - they all want to make a name by discovering some truth about the world that has been hidden or ignored by respectable science. Truth is, they look for coincidence and call it evidence. They look at ancient art and appraise it for modern technology. They see what they want too and misinterpret without question. No. King arthur is based on a story written by a medieval writer based on legend. It was a novel of the thirteenth century, that has become accepted by the masses as semi-historical. The same is happening with Dan Browns Da Vinci Code. Or the Holy Grail? What a wild goose chase that is. In this case, the grail never existed at all. It was first mentioned by a medieval writer named Chierten Des Troyes who wrote an arthurian tale called Percival - and he never actually finished it, dropping dead somewhat inconventiently. Later writers added their own endings to the tale and the original purpose of the grail was lost, replaced by a christianised plot about the last supper. Arthur was a real person - he's mentioned in dark age writings - but probably wasn't a king, more likely a warlord defending against saxon aggression. The possibility of an individual hero from seperate real people doesn't work for me. It happens the other way around. An individual does something, gets remembered, then his story grows and becomes romanticised out of proportion. The legend of atlantis is compelling but then it was intended to be from the start. Starting with a legend then trying to prove it against all odds isn't good history/archaeology, because you become blinded to the evidence that disproves it. I'm not saying there weren't any civilisations we're not aware of in distant ancient times, but that I don't think they were as succesful as later ones nor as expansive as plato claims.

I promised I'd find this reference, so here it is....

The archaeological record supports this statement absolutely, at least with respect to Western Europe. In 400, ordinary people lived under tiled roofs, had a varied selection of pottery vessels suited to multiple functions, had access to luxury products made some distance away, and access to imported wines. A hundred years later they were living under thatch, cooked, ate and drank from basic round pots, had virtually no luxury items unless very rich and drank beer or mead. So they lived in less grand homes. But what about the quality of life? There's more to that than luxury items, which most people couldn't afford anyway even during the pax romana. As I mentioned, the dark ages might have been a nightmare for some regions but then some people might have said the same thing during the height of the roman empire. This was also the period that saw the rise of islam and its conquest of north africa and spain. They were supportive of learning and culture if I remember right. The Byzantines were still there and doing ok. I really don't believe the vikings thought the dark ages were a nightmare either. Which incidentially brings me to the point about dark age technology. Viking longships. Hey, its a start, ok? Dark architecture? Whats wrong with thatched huts? Can you make one? What about moorish palaces, what about byzantine art and literature, not to mention islamic writings. To call the dark age a nightmare is a gross misunderstanding. We call it a dark age because it was a dark time for us.

Thats probaably an obvious choice but no, he wasn't. Caligula was actually popular with the masses, and despite his reported behaviour, didn't ruin the empire. Be careful, because his 'madness' is more likely the result of a cruel sense of humour and absolutely no self restraint. What about Elagabulus? A 14 year old transvestite who wanted to pursue his orgies and wierd rituals whilst his mum ran affairs of state. Or Commodus, who entered the arena as a gladiator hundreds of times and whose opponents were only allwed wooden swords. Perhaps Didius Julianus, who bought the throne from the praetorians and died three months later begging for his life despised by everyone. What about Caracalla? He murdered his brother in front of his mother and conducted a nasty purge in Alexandria because of some alleged comment. Constantine perhaps? Although called the Great by christians, he remained a pagan until his deathbed, tried to get a relation worshipped as jesus, and told some real whoppers to his soldiers and public. There are other examples of bad emperors that I haven't thought of, but I'm sure with a little reading you'll discover just how many of them were pretty awful people.

Oh yes. The dreaded Atlantis. Trouble is, the legended city has been placed at just about every point on the earths globe in an attempt to fit in with plato's description. I think thats wrong. Plato originally got the story from Solon, who heard it from egyptian priests. Plato used the story for a morality tale and his version of the city is deliberately exaggerated to emphasise the fall of a great civilisation. In no way can you take his description absolutely literally. There was an interesting report last year about someone who was surveying the mediterranean between cyprus and israel, where undersea rock formations apparently resemble plato's description. This is not entirely impossible. The northward movement of the african tectonic plate has blocked the straits of gibraltar at least once, and perhaps as many as ten times in prehistory. Each time the med has evaporated and become a huge salt desert valley. Eventually of course the dam breaks and the sea floods back in, with a wave moving at an estimated 400mph and filling the sea again over the course of a century. What a waterfall that would have made! So there is a remote possibility that people lived down there - but its a hot salty desert. A great city state, with verdant pastures and all manner of wild beasts? It just doesn't fit the facts. As for myself, I 've come to the conclusion that the minoans were antlanteans. The explosion of Santorini is probably the most likely cause of the legend. During an eruption of the volcanic cone in the island centre, sea water got into the fissure after an earthquake. This causes a massive explosion, like krakatoa in the nineteenth century. The coastal cities and facilities of the minoans were inundated by a truly awesome tidal wave resulting from it, and their culture devolves into cannabalistic survivors. But - there is a tantalising picture somewhere that shows an ancient city on a conical mountain rising out of a sheltered bay. My guess is that Atlantis may well have existed, as an important city in the minoan state, and that it stood on the volcanic cone at Santorini. Which is why we can't find it because its now spread over the mediterranean! Its also why Plato made his wild story about it - there was nothing to see and describe for real. So he decided to write about it 'beyond the pillars of hercules', way out there in unexplored earth. As for the tales of widom and ancient mystical science far exceeding our own.... yeah right....

The term Dark Age is partly a reflection of the importance of roman culture in our history, since the romans somewhat arrogantly assumed that theirs was better than everyone elses. Now, that was fine until the reign of Honorius. In AD410 he received an embassy from Britain begging for military support - The Groan of the Britains. He refused, and from that point the britons were on their own. They attempted to retain some semblance of romanic life despite the incursions of foreigners (the period from where the legend of King Arthur springs). Archaeology shows that many roman habitations are becoming abandoned at this time, as romano-celts either choose or are forced to assume a more simple/celtic lifestyle. The old roman order had collapsed without external direction leaving communities to struggle on. What was left was under pressure from the foreigners who were expanding across britain piecemeal, colonising and raiding. On the one hand, the period is no longer 'under the light' of roman culture, whilst on the other fewer historical records survive from this period making a 'dark hole' in history. The locals at the time may well have regarded themselves living in a 'dark age', now that the golden age of roman power was past. In fact, the dark ages were no more ignorant any other period nor was it any more savage. It was a chaotic violent time however in which britain was undergoing political and demographic change. Many of these statements can also be applied to mainland europe since the collapse of the west in AD476. The roman empire had changed since its glory days and was no longer the unified culture of old nor one that lived by the same standards. Therefore the term 'Dark Age' is something of a misnomer. What is strange about this period is that the remainder of the roman empire, the Byzantines, seem to fade away from peoples conciousness as something too distant when they had much more immediate problems to face, yet the byzantines maintained a sophisticated city state for centuries.

The name will probably come from before the Danelaw existed.There was Danish settlemets all over Britain Hundreds of years before the Danelaw came about.Same goes for the Saxon's/Angles/Jutes who came over,there was no sudden urge to migrate and invade it happened over hundreds of years. Yes, that would make sense. Studying the ordnance survey map of that hill there are plenty of anglo-saxon names surviving and its clear they had danish neighbours at one point. Goatacre is medieval, but Tockenham and Lyneham are obviously saxon. Nearby Littlecott is too. Bradenstoke (where the medieval abbey stood) isn't a name I recognise. Does the suffix Stoke mean anything to anyone?

I really don't see much cultural evolution at all. Roman culture changed rapidly. An end to the austere life expected of a roman, the institutionalisation of public entertainment, the autocracies, the lowering of public morality, and the beginning of the inward looking empire that bought and brought the outside world toward it. It really was more of a revolution, but one that was bound to happen at some point, because you get the impression that roman society was building up pressure for a change from the social wars onward.

Probably because they couldn't afford them. The generals on the other hand could offer their men booty from their victories. The senate tried more than once to relieve people of their command but the men were behind their commanders.

No historian has ever suggested this motivation. The standard explanation is that Octavian curtailed manumission to relieve demands on the corn dole. Previously, slave owners could relieve themselves of the cost of feeding their slaves by passing off the costs to the state via manumission. Wasn't another reason that too many slaves were being freed in peoples wills as a way of being remembered as a generous man?

Cicero seems to me to be someone who was a great actor. His oratories were supposed to be dramatic affairs with sweeping gestures. Perhaps then a passionate man, one who rested on his laurels somewhat, someone who saw himself as a privileged person and worked to protect his place in life. Despite his attempt to curtail the ambitions of up and coming personalities, when it all went wrong he finally chose to end his life with some dignity, at least if the story is true. Compared to some romans, a man of some principle if a little self-important.

Whats interesting is how often people today are living in the same area as their ancestors dating way back. There was a welshman was was discovered to be a descendant of some ancient remains in grave nearby a couple of years ago. I like the map of Danelaw. Dauntsey - the example I used above - is roughly at the top of the 'h' in Farnham. There's a large hill to the southeast of Dauntsey (The slope of which is called Dauntsey Bank, famous as the site of the first locomotive to break the 100mph barrier) which has a plethora of medieval names and one disoluted monastery, now only some crumbing stones. For those who want to find it, RAF Lyneham Airbase is on top of the hill. The point is that if Dauntsey means Isle of the Danes, then they were living well south of Danelaw. What I don't know is whether they were living on the Lyneham hill or on a smaller patch of dry land in the marshy lowlands northwest. Looking at the map, I realise that Anglia (the root of England) doesn't actually cover what we know regard as England. Am I wrong, or is the north referred to as Umbria? Does anyone know the root of that name?

Inspired by the Vikings eh? No, I don't think so. islanders tend to become sailors at some point. We know however that Alfred the Great had a large navy to fend off pirates and raiders, so to some extent the possibility of viking incursions meant that the british had to become sailors. The same thing happened for the romans under threat from Carthage. In the words of George Clooney (Three Kings) "What is most important in life?..... Necessity."

There is evidence of a chort of moors stationed on the Wall. I'll try to dig up the reference.

Yes. Military life back then wasn't so different than today. There would have been stragglers and an infuriated centurion waiting to shout at them very loudly when they turned up. However, remember also that they never had medevac capability, so any stragglers were in danger of being picked off, rather like the Foreign Legion in modern times, March Or Die. I imagine many of the stragglers were actually keen to keep up.

A part of me still hankers after those heady days following Augustus. The Julio-Claudians may have been murderous, bizarre, self-important, arrogant wastrels, but they had class! Another reason I like the period is that it follows a time of civil strife and uncertainty. So, we have something like the Restoration, or the Roaring Twenties, or the Swingin Sixties. A time when people were basically trying to let their hair down and enjoy themselves. Its a colourful period and when we think of the empire, its the principate that first comes to mind.

Possibly, but we also note the spherical weights added to pila of the later imperial period to increase penetration. Was there an improvement in shield protection? Possibly, but it seems unlikely. Ok Friend, then take a pilum, hold it near the point, and try to raise it. Quite apart from the effort to lift the shaft to a horizontal attitude is possibly more than you're physically capable of, you will also notice that the leverage of the weighty shaft is more than sufficient to cause a bending moment in a piece of metal less whose stiffness is very low. Its just physics. No, you don't quite understand. The impact with the shield is instantaneous and soft shank or not, the penetrative momentum will push the pilum point through before any bending takes place. Only when the pilum comes to rest, either in the shield or also in the gentleman holding it, is any bending likely to occur. Wooden guards? Not on pila. Are you describing a spear of the late empire? By that time the pilum, was falling into disuse and was replaced with a number of differing spear designs. I don't really think the pilum could be described as free-swinging. Under gravity the end of the shaft will drop to the ground very quickly in this case. If perhaps it didn't - and I must accept that there's a possibility of it - then the shield has an awkward weight hanging off it and the bearer simply won't be able to use his shield effectively, even if he's strong enough to continue holding it up. Try this yourself. Make a bogus shield with a 6' wooden shaft sticking out of it. You will struggle! As I said its interesting that the re-enactors failed to achieve these results because other re-enactors have supported the bendy/hinged pilum idea. This has been popular wisdom for some time....

Vikings identified themselves as the son of their father sometimes, but nordic naming isn't something I have any information about.

First of all, modern recreations are not exact, they're reversed engineered and only approximate at best. Also, the method of use is also subject to the same research and guesswork. That said, there's probably not too many ways to throw a spear! When considering the impact, you also have to bear in mind the strength and construction of the shield, which might vary from the reproductions. Case 1: The early pilum with two pins, one wooden, one metal. The pilum is thrown and strikes the shield. The weight of the impact forces the point into the shield structure which gives way - the pilum penetrates. The sudden impact load on the point is transferred to the shaft via the two pins. One is made from metal, which merely deforms and doesn't break. The wooden one cannot deform under shock load and snaps, leaving only the metal pin as a hinge, and from that moment the pilum is rendered useless as a weapon. However, the impact is already made, and for a brief moment an uninjured enemy must take time to remove the awkward and unwieldy pilum from his shield or simply abandon the shield altogether. It isn't guaranteed that the pilum can be withdrawn because its possible for shield splinters to close up behind the point during withdrawal. The pilums that have penetrated the shield and with enough force to injure the enemy behind it have already served their purpose, and the impact with the shield has already broken the wooden pin. Case 2: The later pilum with soft iron shank. Again the pilum is thrown and strikes the shield. The weight of impact forces the point through the shield but the shaft carries this blow without any damage to the fixings, which are not designed to break. When the pilum comes to rest, either in the shield or the body of the bearer, the weight of the shaft causes a bending moment that acts on the natual pivot point which is the shield hole. Therefore under gravity or perhaps forced by some shield movement the pilum shank bends, making the point useless thereafter. There is still a likeliehood of shank-bending if the bearer is killed or injured. In both cases remember that the enemy is probably using a shield wall formation, and are therefore attempting to keep their shields presented for protection at all costs. Assuming the bearer isn't injured, then the pilum is a large weight making the shield very unwieldy at best. In a shield wall situation it might not be possible for the bearer to reach over and extricate the pilum without exposing himself to danger or dropping his weapon. The technique of standing on a pilum isn't as difficult as you think. The pilum ahs already bent or fallen to the ground under gravity, and the bearer of the shield is more concerned with the legionaries about to skewer him to waste time fiddling about with removing the pilum from his shield even if he could that in the heat of combat. You don't actually need to stand on it squarely, merely kick it. There's enough leverage to pull the enemy shield down. Please realise that the enemy is probably trying to use his shield to good effect during a roman advance or whatever and since he's under fire from pilum salvoes, not to mention the imminent arrival of sword thrusts, he's already in a defensive stance and might not be able to see everything going on in front of him. Its interesting that the recreations didn't achieve the results expected

The real problem with such refuse would be in the smaller side streets that wouldn't have the luxury of sidewalks. Having said that, where sidewalks are in evidence then the majority of spoil might still hit the street. Why? because if someone wants to dispose of it they have basically two methods of putting it out the window. The first is simply to tilt the container, so it falls directly below. This would soil the sidewalk for sure but then that might actually be seen as an antisocial way of disposing of rubbish. Possibly more likely is that the person would 'throw' the stuff out with a flick of the arm. In that way, the sidewalk is spared and the spoil hits the street, at least usually, though it might depend on how high the window is.

Its true that roman medical care was quite good, recognisably proficient even by todays standards, and that this care was one of the perks of legionary life. Indeed, we understand that legionaries in peacetime had a better life expectation than most civilians. Nonetheless, the legionary life was no bed of roses. You would be expected to work, march, and fight as directed and woe betide you if the commanders thought you were a slacker! The men however took any excuse to avoid hard duty including bribery, someting the romans were never able to eradicate. This was one reason why artisan or scholarly skills were so useful in the roman army - it meant you were quickly placed amongst the immunes and therefore could sit in a warm barrack room whilst your mates were out there building roads and aqueducts. The hard labour of civil engineering was useful in that it provided free labour, kept the men busy, and also hardened them to physical work in the outdoors. Athletes on the other hand don't usually work in this pattern. Their physical effort is actually harder on the body because its concentrated into a smaller time frame and uses more effort within it. The roman soldier has a hard slog ahead of him, and despite the dicomfort of primitive equipment and lack of weatherproofing, if he grits his teeth and focuses on the task ahead he can indeed get through it. Human beings really can achieve extraordinary levels of endurance at times, and military life shows this to this day.

Lets understand what we mean by the urban poor. Most people in the city of Rome were not wealthy. Some had trades and could live reasonably well but thats still poor by our standards, unless they were able to expand and own several businesses. The real urban poor were the immigrants who came to Rome seeking work and finding none. These people lived in squalid conditions that we associate with third world poor today. The grain dole didn't actually raise their standard of living at all - it merely prevented them from starving and also prevented any food riots. Arguably, like any social charity, the grain dole did nothing to encourage these people to seek work and probably a fair few of them were scrounging off wealthier men.

If I'm not mistaken England does indeed mean Angle-Land. That doesn't mean they were dominant, perhaps only that they claimed a larger slice of land, or perhaps claimed it first. There is a difference. The saxons themselves had an unsavoury reputation back then. One monk writes that the saxons are 'a race hateful to god'. Certainly they were expanding aggressively but it took time - it wasn't a massive invasion and blitzkrieg by means - more like small landgrabs by communal groups at the expense of the romano-celts. As I remember, it took something like a century before saxons took territory in wiltshire. Also notice that danes were resident in wiltshire too (Dauntsey = Isle of the Danes) at some point well south of the Danelaw border. So we have small groups wandering into the wilderness and claiming land from mother nature or even better any locals who happen to have done it for them.

Given that the stones are damaged by wheeled vehicles, I think we can safely assume that the vehicles were damaged even more by the stones. I agree with connolly - those stones were for keeping you clean and dry from pavement to pavement. The impression we get from the sun-bleached ruins and tv/film is nothing like the scene you would have witnessed back then. The streets were mucky with dirt and refuse. Wealthy people might carry scented objects close to the nose to relieve the stench. We are after all talking about a civilisation, like many that followed including our own, that threw its waste and spoil into the street.

The legions were expected to work hard for their pay. Exercise was part and parcel of their training regime, and once a week a legionary was expected to take part in a route march overnight, including the temporary marching camp. To show how fit they were, when the three legions were destroyed in the Varian Disaster of AD9, emergency replacements were marched north covering twenty miles in five hours. Given they were carrying around sixty pounds of pack and equipment, thats a hard forced march by any standard. Unlike pampered athletes, the accent is on endurance and determination. A few aches and pains are not going to impress the centurion! The esprit de corps of any military unit is important here, because whatever the commander says is one thing, whatever your mates say is another. After all, what else could they do? If the soldier fell out of the march because of muscle strain or a blister or two, is the unit unit physician really going to stay by the roadside to help him? When they're miles away from anywhere and possibly in enemy territory? How did they cope? By gritting their teeth and moaning like crazy at the end of it. Just like modern armies.