caldrail

How clean were Roman latrines? I think assuming they were very clean is something I would avoid, for some obvious reasons. None of them were self flushing and that's why they employed running water whenever possible. Nonetheless as with any drain sometimes the channels would get clogged and needed clearing, especially sine the drainage system of the Roman Empire generally is a little exaggerated and in particular those of a Roman camp are likely to be primitive. Clean superficially, given they were regularly mopped out, but let me take this moment to remind everyone that cleaning a soldiers backside was done by a sponge on a stick, shared among the men, and cleaned by swishing it in a water channel.

The Romans themselves answered those questions many times. Active campaigning tended to make better soldiers, idleness created the worst. There's a letter from Lucius to Fronto that describes Syrian legions as always wandering off their posts, always getting drunk, and basically making a poor show of military service, and for that matter, Nero ordered Corbulo to march to Armenia with Syrian legions that had never done any military duties at all. That ought to point to a major possibility in legionary excellence - the presence of a commander who is capable of leadership, motivation, and training. Also note that Plutarch mentions in the Life of Marius that legionaries love commanders who share their food and labour - we can read how the airs and graces of senior men contributed to the mutinies in Pannonia. Josephus describes the legion, without meaning to be complimentary, by the famous phrase "Roman drills are bloodless battles; their battles are bloody drills". In other words, the installation of relentless training made better soldiers, though clearly this was dependent on the commander not being especially lazy himself. Underlying all of this was the divorce that Marius gave the Legion. After him, they were no longer loyal to the state but effectively independent and loyal to their commanders whom they saw as responsible for their welfare. Thus later, legions became aware of their potential political clout and tended to use it - thus generals sometimes found themselves being urged by their men to march on Rome and take over by virtue of popularity. Bear in mind that almost half the major battles fought by Roman legions were against each other. Roman legions were not regiments in a state army - don't be fooled by modern thinking - there was no army organisation above legion level. Each legion was a separate packet of military power assigned to politicians to further their interests in security (or as often happened, personal ambition)

Surely that's a subjective argument. Whilst he went to great pains to maintain the public image of humility, authority, and in particular the protector of morality, he was in private just as paranoid as other rulers of SPQR - and given he had effectively worked toward becoming Rome's back seat driver in defiance of the same traditions that got his adoptive father killed, the idea that "I found Rome in brick and left in marble" represents genuine beneficence is also rather flawed - he was bribing Rome, either specifically, such as rewarding military commanders with triumphs they had not actually qualified for, or generally, such as civic improvement. He squandered a vast sum of money making sure his public reputation remained intact, even after his daughter rebelled and flouted his moral stand by sleeping around excessively, and his need for more cash to bribe, build, and fund the lavish games he staged for free public entertainment led directly to one of Rome's worst military disasters.

There's a view (which I don't share) that tradition creates credibility - how Roman is that? The Greek pagans are doing what most reconstructists have always done and created a cult of their own for fashionable alternative - or just as likely, the buzz of doing so, of being slightly rebellious and exclusive of mainstream public. For that matter the Romans had shown this sort of behaviour too, with egyptian and Syrian cults proving hard to subside. McEverdy is looking at established and recognised pagan religions in the early medieval world, but of course, his attention is only on such religions within the otherwise Christian sphere. Into the medieval period for instance the Teutonic Knights and other crusaders fought deep into what is now Prussia and Lithuania against people who were definitely not Christian.

I saw something odd the other night. The moon was high in the night sky, a bright crescent - but what the.... The bottom corner was apparently lopped off, as if some unseen object was out there between Earth and our favourite orbital body. Or was it a huge terrain feature on the lunar surface as my work colleague suggested? It was a bit unexpected and not a little weird.

As well intended as it is, I'm always very sceptical of these sort of diagnoses, made on the back of flimsy description or evidence, and some are incredibly exotic. I do accept that malaria is potentially the cause - Rome was increasingly prone to this sort of disease with so much standing water about - the drainage system of Rome is hugely exaggerated.

The only list the Romans may have passed on even close to your requirements was the census of Claudius, the Caesar before Nero. The Census was important in the Republic but from Sulla onward it had a more sporadic treatment. The last republican census was called in 22BC by Augustus, although some Caesars found it useful to call one ad hoc for admin purposes - particularly Claudius, the immediate predecessor of Nero. Whether this census list still survives I couldn't say, but that's what you need to look for. Bear in mind however that the increasingly turbulent senatorial political arena had many members preferring to be as anonymous as possible, enjoying the prks of senatorial status, avoiding the risks, and basically moving in temporary factions for safety. Whilst your intent to be historically accurate is commendable, in this respect you would be excused for some poetic license. Populate the Senate with the people your story needs - even romanophiles like me aren't likely to insist on exact placement - although using references to famous or infamous members would add period accuracy. You can get such from the works of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio.

This current eclipse isn't visible in Britain, but I remember the last full eclipse that was. Sadly typical British weather meant I couldn't actually observe it - but I went outside to experience it alone and the effect was peculiar. There was a silence, even in an urban setting, birds ceasing their constant twittering and immobile, nothing moving. It was all over in a few minutes of course but the experience is strangely profound.

A number of possibilities occur to me, not least that it might 'horse furniture'.

Many years ago I wrote a piece on the internet about my departure from a company's employment in scathing terms. Back then I wrote how the place would close and the site redeveloped. It has been announced that such will come to pass, my prophecy having been proven correct. Working there in the good ol days was a different experience than you normally get in warehouses today. There were no agencies involved in finding jobs there, a family atmosphere, and good rates of pay. The rot set in when the influx of young lads and the retirement of older women made the atmosphere much more like a school playground. The change from old fashioned hierarchy to modern style office class system reduced peoples motivations to work toward a career and a future in the company, making careers a lottery rather than the result of hard work and merit. Finally, the older hands were gotten rid of by hook or by crook, seen as obstructive and stuck in their ways. Truth is, they knew their jobs whereas the new generation of workers, managers or labourers, did not. New ideas haven't helped. Placing the management of warehouse production in the hands of a sub-contractor has done no good. The idea was to let a specialist handle it instead of the hamfisted efforts of what amounted to amateur managemnt, but profit proved hard to achieve. So the company has finally decided that it's time to give up, uproot, amd start again elsewhere. Good luck. Welcome Back It was great to see W back at work. I wasn't on the premises when it happened but he'd been crushed by a forklift truck whose driver (the very same driver who nearly knocked me flying once before) hadn't been too observant. Luckily his injuries weren't too serious and now he's fit to resume duties again. Is it just me or has W grown up a little? His experience seems to have done him a favour. Not So Welcome A politician claims that older people voting for Brexit have 'shafted the young generation wholesale'. What a load of nonsense. Far too many young people are lazy, indifferent, and assume that the world owes them a living. That's the sort of world that being a member of the EU has encouraged. If forcing the younger population to work toward an independent Britain they can be proud of is shafting them, then shaft away. Some might see this as hypocrisy given I spent the better part of the last decade as unemployed. I would point out that I was not given the choice, and ultimately, I was thrown to the wolves by the Job Centre who see stopping peoples money as a positive move. That was despite making nearly ten times the quantifiable effort to find emloyment than I was officially expected to achieve. So I got shafted. And as the spokeman for the Job Centre proclaimed in a television interview, I too found paid work within six months. Not the success story that the Job Centre wanted to advertise me as, but one of those who got off their bottoms and went to work when the opportunity presented itself. Why should ex-EU Britain be any different? Not Welcome At All The EU were clear that Britain would not be punished for choosing to leave the Union. They are keen to avoid giving Britain favourable terms to prevent encouraging other members to opt out, and indeed, there are sentiments of that sort evident in France, Greece, Holland, Italy, Spain, and probably other countries. Nonetheless the EU are demanding a high price for leaving, a 'divorce bill' they're insisting on. Since Britain used to be one of the major contributing nations within the EU, the proposed bill can hardly be seen as simply a necessary legal payment but rather an attempt to squeeze whatever they can at the last moment, a feature of EU administration that has been clear for a very long time and one of the reasons people have become dissatisfied with EU membership. The other reasons are the covert suppression of national identity and the influx of migrants assisted by the open border policies of the EU. Why are we so suprised that this is happening? The Roman Empire went through a similar process, becoming larger, bureaucratic, corrupt, facing ever increasing immigration and political uncertainty, not to mention rebellions and at least one break-away empire (that included the British Isles curiously enough). If ever there was a reason to see the value of history, current events are proving it like nothing else, especially since the EU exists to recreate the Roman Empire in a parallel sense. Gildas, a sixth century monk, described Britain as an island 'Rich in usurpers'. He wasn't wrong. Unwelcome Weather Of The Week Saturday overtime. Mandatory. Grumble as I might I had no choice but to turn up to work. The weather was supposed to be about sunshine and showers but toward the end of the shift all hell broke loose. I have never seen hail like that in England before. Neither had the Goans, who raced to the door to experience the sort of weather that probably doesn't happen in India. It doesn't normally happen in England but we didn't let on. Although the hail was not as fierce as some countries in the world expect, for England, it was pretty impressive.

The best defence of an elite Roman is to have friends, allies, spies, or if you like, just be better at petty intrigue than your opponents.

Prison in Roman times was not a punishment per se, rather a place to hold someone until a punishment was ordered (and usually relatively quickly). It might be instructive to learn that prison was not a punishment in its own right in Britain until legislation was passed in the 1860's to establish a basis for rehabilitation of a criminal. IF a man is exiled rather than executed it generally occurs because he is classed as honestiores, or basically, an upper class Roman. Humiliories, the lower classes, could not expect such leniency. As for character, ambitious career Romans tended to be opportunistic. Patricians sometimes got involved in some shady schemes on the quiet. Remember that the 'public face' of important Romans was something endemic in roman society. Even if someone were not actually guilty, rumour, gossip, information, or blatant accusation were common means of getting a rival into trouble. Accusations of witchcraft were taken very seriously. Poisonings and social misdemeanours like involvement in commerce might also be used as condemnation if enough witnesses could be found. Sometimes it was merely petty intrigue with lots of sneering and insults to destroy a man's reputation. It was such a situation that under Roman law, slaves could not offer evidence unless they had been tortured to obtain it, because their owners might have instructed them as to what to say.

I think it's worth remembering that someof Rome's concrete structures have survived. There were very few building regulations in those days and no universal standards. The 'cowboy builders' of the Roman era were infamous for their quick and jerry built constructions to maximise profit at the expense of any notion of safety. Also, in the Colosseum, we have at least one example of builders using a cheap non-waterproof alternative to avoid costs.

Both empires were well aware of each other, although they were a bit hazy about exactly where. The Chinese attempted once to gain Romes help in dealing with barbarian tribes - their emissary reached the Persian Gulf and asked if he could reach Rome by sea. The sailors apparently said yes, but one would have to go around Africa taking two months to more than a year if weather went against him. He was advised to take rations for three years. Needless to say, unaware the overland distance was more practicable, he gave up his quest. It's believed that the Romans sent one successful diplomatic mission to China though nothing came of it, and one Roman ship reached Chinese shores - ever. There is no record it returned safely. The Romans in particular found imported silk the must-have material for all sorts of uses and thus wanted to maintain strong trading links. Eventually as we know silk moth eggs were smuggled west and China's monopoly was lost.

Well, I can't dop the maths, and I don't doubt for a minute that a lead sling bullet can kill - but the same stopping power as a .44 Magnum? Perhaps, but that does seem a little exaggerated to me. However, one should read the article and research the figures I guess.

I can't find any solid info on this but I have a thought. We know that the XI Claudia was sending out vexillations to other parts of the empire during the mid to late imperial era. A vexillation is a non standard formation size and it's thought that many of these sent by various legions to pursue Roman military objectives never returned to the home unit. Nothing dramatic I'm afraid, it's just that as the empire wore on paying troops was getting hardr. many went without pay at all, either being rewarded by alternatives such as land or finding themselves civilian jobs. So I kind of wonder if the XI Claudia evaporated over time, troops settling in on their new territories, or simply going civilian since nobody seemed to care.

As I type this blog entry it's nearly half past four in the morning. The blackness of the night is giving way to that pale blue twilight before dawn, the amber street lights still shining . It's too warm to sleep anyway. With the window open, I can hear birdsong outside in the street. Birdsong? There used to be a time when you never heard birds until the sun was up. These days I hear them chirping all night and I find it very hard to get used to it. A couple of weeks ago there was one night when the birds stayed silent - why I have no idea - and that was the comfortable familiar silence I remember from my younger days. Not even a speeding hatchback bobbing up and down to the beat of overlarge sub-woofers in the boot. Not even a distant singing contest from a drunken rabble. Not even the relentless giggles and shrieks of girls in a wobbling contest on their high heels. Nope, it's peaceful out there. I like that. A new day is coming my way. Coming for someone else too, as the first of the morning commute drives past my home. When the day progresses the noise will increase, not just because of the traffic jams of an urban main road, but the volume level of car stereos rising in direct proportion to summer sunshine. So many people adopting stereotypes and lifestyles mapped out by... ahhh... Come to think of it, who exactly dictates how we live? Stacey A colleague at work is one of those men who finds it impossible to live without a partner. It's as if blokes like him struggle to feel comfortable without a woman to define their manhood. Personally I don't suffer from that malaise. To be with someone merely for appearances, or because of some lack of identity, or an addiction to social behaviour? No, my life is not defined by who I'm with, even though a great many people in my home town seem to feel it should be and voice their disapproval regularly. Pfah. None of their business, and as for their opinons... Erm... Who are they, exactly? But my colleague needs his fix. Quite why I don't know, he has a catalogue of spectacular failures, a divorcee with restraining orders against him, children he cannot contact, the loss of property and even a roof over his head, plus the bitter memories of a prison sentence he doesn't feel he deserved. For a while he was feeling enthusiastic about Stacey, an American woman who claimed she was a US Army sergeant in Iraq (despite using a British phone number). Eventually her demands for cash and expensive presents overcame his desire to pair off. Now Stacey wants the latest Samsung smartphone worth a whopping five hundred pounds for her birthday. Money to pay for her mothers hospital bills. Money to pay for this, pay for that. Tell her where to go, I advise him, she's just a con merchant. He knows, he agrees, but he cannot let go of a contact, even if it is only a facebook friend. Luckily now he's dscovered another facebook friend to occupy his need to fill a void in his life, this time a lady in far away Indonesia. I rib him about her, enquiring whether he's jetting off to see her on the weekend. Actually it came as quite a shock to me to discover he really was planning to travel there. The red tape involved prevented his departure at short notice, and to be fair, the crash of British Airway's computer systems this week would have stopped him anyway. I hope he's made a good choice this time, and I wish him well in is search for completeness. It does beg the question though – how can people regard facebook contacts as actual friends? They’re just not. Claiming you have thousands of friends online is an exercise of ego and folly, for at best, the vast majority are only ever going to be fair weather friends, and for practical purposes, hardly any of them will ever meet you face to face. Human social dynamics mean that almost everyone will only have less than ten genuine friends at any time, and more than a hundred is unmanageable for us. Add to that the anonymity that the internet allows. Partly out of a need for security, it must be said, but I’ve seen all sorts of inflated claims by individuals seeking more respect than they deserve. Or for that matter, more money. Screenie Of The Week Doesn't that look a bit like a Lancaster bomber without gun turrets? It should do. This is the Avro Lancastrian, the civilian cargo plane version of Britain's most famous WW2 bomber. Cold, draughty, noisy, no creature comforts except a flask of tea passed around, all rattling rivets and vibrating aluminium panels. But on the plus side, long range and good lifting ability, albeit not exactly convenient to load. Carrying around nine to thirteen passengers, that's a lot of aeroplane for so few people on board, with four gas guzzling Merlin engines pumping out a total of 6500hp at full chat. We're used to thinking of military flying when talking about WW2, but the Lancastrian began its career in 1943, flying between Britain and Canada, and the similarly derived (but much more suitable) Avro York starting its transport life the year after. Pictured here turning onto the approach for Sonderborg, Denmark, my approach was spoilt by a light aeroplane on finals at the same time. In real life, I would have gotten a serious telling off for puting her down against explicit orders to 'go around', but hey, I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Time then to snooze and dream of aeroplanes past. Or whatever subconcoius chaos that goes through my head.. Right now I notice the blueness has gone, the street lights have switched off, and the passing of cars and motorbikes is stepping up in frequency. Dayligjht has arrived. Happy birthday Stacey. Sorry your present hasn't arrived, but I guess someone else will send you something expensive.

Aha, now this is right up my street. Firstly, the idea of monarchy is actually ours and comes from translation of latin texts, which lose something of the original meaning in translation. The Roman word for 'king' is Rex, but when they use that word, they don't mean the sort of monarch we immediately think of, a sort of medievalesque dynast. The word Rex means, more strictly, "Tyrant In Charge". Romans associated absolute and permanent rule by one man as tyrannical inherently. This is why the idea of being a king was so abhorrent to them after the Republic was founded. Although Rome was never properly a democracy, it did have democratic sentiments, and the Romans believed that free will and self determination was what made a human being superior to animals.(slaves were legally 'Not Human' and equivalent to animals, because they were told what to do). The idea that one man could dictate to the nation state effectively meant he was enslaving society as a whole, so perhaps you can understand why the Romans weren't happy about Rex-hood. Julius Caesar had every intention of ruling Rome. His career works toward that end. But notice how he puts on a display at one Lupercalia by refusing three times the 'Crown' offered by Marc Antony. Instead, he gets himself made Dictator for three years. Dictator was a Republican office in which a man was given full executive power to cope with an emergency. After six months, or the end of the crisis, the power should be handed back to the Senate. Or else. Caesar then got himself;f made Dictator for ten years, and finally, for life. That made him an absolute ruler, the only Roman to have that power since the end of the Roman monarchical period when Tarquin Superbus was ousted. It also made him Rex, despite his efforts to show he wasn't, and nobody was really fooled. With him permanently in power, he was too powerful, and no-one else could have their turn at the top. So the conspiracy to get rid of him began and eventually Caesar was assassinated. Augustus comes to power after surviving the civil wars in a position of supreme influence. As it happens, Augustus had once seized power illegally. A centurion had marched into the Senate and told the assemblage to make Octavian Consul, holding the hilt of his sword "Or this will". But as the man holding the reins with a victorious army, he was keen not to make the mistake that Caesar had made. In fact Marc Antony had abolished the post of Dictator after Caesar's death. yet with Augustus so influential and potentially dangerous, there were accusations of whether he was Dictator and would he please admit it. Augustus always refused. He even refused to be called 'Dominus' as he portrayed a more egalitarian image. He called himself Princeps 'First Citizen', and pursued a role of executive advisor, though few were really fooled by that either, but at least he wasn't trying to be Rex. Of course Augustus wanted to dominate and rule - he was an ambitious man, but note that Suetonius mentions that twice Augustus seriously considered giving up his role and returning power to the Senate (which is kind of interesting given that one of his first acts as ruler and victor of the wars was to hand power back to the Senate officially) Does that make him a monarch? Cassius Dio moans that he might as well have been, such was the extraordinary power and influence that Augustus successfully managed to maintain to his death of old age. For Dio, writing in a later period when the Caesars had gotten used to wielding power, it was an obvious comparison. Yet no Caesar after Julius, not even Augustus, was ever an absolute ruler. Their role in society was as the top social dog, with political offices, honours, rights, and such given to him by the Senate. Although it had overtones of dynastic rule, the job was never officially part of a Roman constitution, never actually required to run the state, never defined or regulated, with no established means of succession other than winner takes all. You grabbed power, wielded money and influence, maintained your popularity, and ttried to avoid being bumped off by those frightened of you or those that wanted to be where you are. Augustus clearly had every intention of founding a dynasty of executive advisors in his mould. fate had other ideas, and he was forced to nominate Tiberius as his successor - though this was not official - merely another Augustan guideline. Was he a monarch? Not in the modern or medieval sense, as he was never crowned or titled as such, nor was such a role ever tolerated in Rome after Ttarquin. Was he a monarch in Roman estimations? Yes. If you understand why.

Marius was only using and adapting changes already in progress within Roman society. His reforms of the legions made official many changes and experiments that had already been used in the Punic Wars. So whilst he is guilty of divorcing Rome's military from the state and making military organisation a much more feudal-esque idea, that was the direction things were going in anyway. One can speculate that characters like Caesar would have made the changes that Marius already had - they certainly seized the opportunities provided.

'Evil' is subjective, but the question asks whether the Roman Empire was evil from our perspective. Defining 'Evil' is pointless - it remains an opinion and therefore everyone has a different conception of what evil is (though most of us would be somewhere in the same ball park). Further, the idea is clouded by modern perception of what a nation state is, and a suprising number of people imagine SPQR to be some kind of centrally controlled totalitarian state much like Humanity experienced in living memory. Of course Rome was never like that. It was a city state with interests in a large swathe of self governing but ostensibly loyal provinces. Control was never absolute. It can be easily said that there were evil people within the empire, some of whom in positions of power and influence, but this was always balanced by the actions of the good or the disgruntled. I agree that Rome was tyrannical in some respects - that was a reality of ancient politics.

It was an attempt to stifle the spread of barbarian fashions which many senior Romans objected to.

No, he didn't. Caligula was not impressed with the performance of the Senate, any more than they were impressed with his antics. So, having lost his temper, Caligula told senators how useless they were. Effectively he was saying "My horse could do a better job than you lot and if you don't watch it, I'll make him Consul!". Like many such events in the lives of powerful characters, those who overheard it drew other conclusions or added emphasis in spreading the story.

However, it is very important to underline that my information is based on a single archeological find now in a Jerusalem museum. Whilst it conforms with the known tree/timber availability in ancient Judaea and accounts of crucifixions in the sources, it is drawing conclusions from one find, and that can never be certain.

Remember that Caesar was brought up to be a success from childhood, and whilst I don't doubt Marius was influential to some degree, he does not stand out in the same way as Caesar would later in life. As power hungry as Marius was, he still played by the rules, unlike Caesar who would later throw the rulebook into the Rubicon and go for total control albeit in polite style, and his influence was rather more dangerous to Rome than he was personally, in that by creating a persistent legion answerable to him rather than the state, it set in motion precedents that led to the unstable politicisation of the military as legions were no longer part of a national army but instead packets of military force allocated to politicians. Would Rome have been so very different? No, not really. Specific events and details would be different of course but the same charismatic and ambitious individuals would have nonetheless behaved similarly. Marius made changes that sped up the process that led to the Principate - but those changes were waiting to develop. Roman society was not going to much the better in the circumstances prevailing.

Evidence of crucifixions has been found in Israel. One skeletal foot still had the remains of a hefty iron nail embedded in it, and it appears that these nails were recycled after death of the unfortunate victim. In this case, a knot in the wood seems to have deflected the point of the nail such that the nail could not be removed, so they buried the victim with the nail still attached. Further, the traditional crossbeam was only viable in areas with plentiful lumber. In ancient Judaea there seems to have been rather less wood to be had, so the victim was nailed to a more lightly constructed 'X' frame closer to the ground - which probably would have been the correct form of crucifixion for jesus, thus the story of carrying the cross to the execution site has somewhat disappointing ramifcations.