caldrail

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.

Borough Roughly corresponds to the Burg, Berg, Borg and Bourg used in teutonic countries and parts of France. It means town. I don't know where 'shire' comes from, although I can tell you that the word 'Sherriff' was originally 'Shire - rieve'. Sex is as follows: Wessex - West Saxons. Essex - East Saxons. Middlesex - middle Saxons. Sussex - South Saxons. The 'sex' element used to be spelt 'Saexe'. I like it. Technically then the Cotswolds are a poor mans forest in saxon times. Thats even more interesting given that the roman town of Corinium (now cirencester) was such an important settlement. Be careful of Sheriff because I believe thats a medieval phrase.

In any open public space. Temporary arenas were sometimes erected, or simple wooden seating arranged. The forum was a venue for such displays. Having looked at the ludus built by julius caesar, I notice that there was seating around the rim like a smaller version of an ordinary amphitheatre. Was that used for public displays besides training?

Are you sure you have the right size for the tent? An eight man leather tent is a bulky item, none too light, and given how much work was necessary to keep it in good condition the romans wouldn't want it very large at all. These were men on the march and therefore roomy accomodation was not necessary. Bear in mind also that whilst camped not all soldiers slept in the tents due to guard duty amongst other things, so the others weren't always so cramped up together.

Very much the point. Despite the politics, it shows Antony as capable of being led. The average roman male regarded 'love' as something akin to emotional slavery. We know they did fall in love - they were humans after all and grafitti at Pompeii from one love-struck man proves it. Whilst Antony was a general in his own right, with up to thirty legions plus a large fleet of galleys at his disposal prior to Actium, he was nonetheless not as strong emotionally as some of the other contenders. He did after all commit suicide after he lost Actium in a fit of despair. Cleopatra at least tried to see if she could get out of difficulty first. PS - Having read a bit more about Antony, I discover that after Actium he retreated to Egypt and tried to defend it, so my arguement doesn't hold up. I would have been more impressed if he'd taken to the hills a la spartacus, but then is that possible in Egypt? I stand by my original comments however.

In actual fact, the good Reverend Smith way back in eighteen hundred and something reckoned that the 'co-hum' phrase was pidgin latin used by saxons. I'm no expert on ancient languages though and I guess even back then he knew more about it than I will. Interested to hear of the welsh connection though, because the book was about north wiltshire place names and the maps included showed all the victorian era names which have fallen into disuse since.

Very often this 'psuedohistory' is created by people who really don't know very much and want people to listen to them, whether for profit or simply because they're hopeless cases. In some cases psuedohistory is the basis of a religious cult. On the other hand, sometimes history/archaeology does turn up things that don't fit accepted thinking. Like the water erosion on the sides of the sphinx. or those incredibly mammoth chinese ships used during the dark ages. Problem is, many learned people have taken a great deal of time and effort to learn the accepted history and don't like that work being overturned by some upstart newcomer without any credentials. So some oddities get suppressed. I think you need to look at each of these new ideas and treat them objectively without being swayed by coincidental or misinterpreted evidence.

Having just discovered a nineteenth century volume at the local library, I thought it might be interesting to pass on some the information regarding saxon place names that survive to this day. I'm sure there are plenty of others still existing but from these you can get little clues as to how the land was developed during the dark age. These are only saxon phrases and viking extensions are not included. Firstly, it must be realised that the Britain the romans conquered was largely forest. The saxons who followed them were often reclaiming land from mother nature. Field- This is derived from Fell, or cleared woodland. A field is therefore a forest clearing for the purposes of agriculture. Mead- This suffix, so beloved of modern developers, actually means open grazing land reclaimed from marsh. Meadow is derived from it. Bury- An intersting one, because this modern spelling actually means two things. The first is derived from burgh, or hilltop fort. An example is Barbury Castle. The other meaning is derived from berie or flat open land. An example is Avebury, mentioned in the domesday book as Avreberie. Don- Hill. Ton- Or tun. The word town is derived from this, but the original meaning is an enclosed cattle pasture. Ham- A suffix derived from heim or 'Home'. It denotes a settled community. Cot/Cote- A word that signifies a poor mans dwelling. Cottage is derivd from it. For example, Draycott is a place where cottagers, or poor folk, are living. Ey- Island. This can refer to an island in a marsh as well as running water. Dauntsey for instance translates as 'Island of the Danes'. Leigh/Ley- meaning 'By The Wood'. Ford- Not suprisingly, a place where a river can be safely crossed. Bourne- A seasonal stream or rivulet, the sort of thing that dries up in summer. Leaze- This suffix denotes open communal pasture surrounding a thicket of trees. This sort of feature is sometimes seen in west england, although the communal ownership has long since become private. Croft- Fenced or hedged land close to a dwelling, presumably for their use. Pen/Penn- A fenced enclosure. Penning- A disused farmyard or enclosure. Ing- Possibly related to previous definition, Ing refers to the home of a powerful family and the other families who look to them for leadership and protection. Comb/Combe- A distorted word. Comb should mean 'ridge' but often denotes a valley. The other spelling, Combe, is suspected to be derived from Co-Hum which means 'connecting two hills'.

We Brits call them 'sleeping policemen'. Do you call them that too? I must say it never occurred to me that the Romans invented them. I, like others, thought those big paving-stones were purely to serve as stepping stones during heavy rain -- but I quite agree that they would also have the effect you mention. I don't remember any source hinting at chariot races in city streets ... perhaps this is why! I disagree. Given the pedestrian and crowded nature of roman settlements it would have been difficult if not impossible to reach any reasonable speed along a street. Although these stones would indeed inhibit speed so would everyone else, thus they weren't really needed. If the ancient sources had mentioned say... young men racing chariots around town and being frowned upon by their elders, I could accept it. Mind you, given the activities of youths in powerful cars these days one wonders if the romans did indeed have trouble with risk-taking young men of wealthy families!