caldrail

"I'm cold" mentioned a young lady to her friends outside the library this morning. She's right. It is. That usually happens around the start of December so quite why she's dressed in the bare minimum of clothing I don't know. Dogs don't have this problem because they come with fur coats attached. I spotted a little keeshond puppy last night and couldn't resist the temptation to approach the owner and find some excuse to pet the little bundle of furry fun. We used to have a keeshond many years ago. Wonderful dogs, full of character, full of spirit, and this little one was no exception. They break your heart but every tear is worth it. Not sure about the half naked girl outside the library though. Who's Kidding Who? Our chancellor, some guy called George Osbourne who seems to have popped out of thin air, has just released his Autumn Statement, the last chance the government have to impress us with their economic policies and results before Cameron starts his campaign to justify another five years of the media catwalk. So has George Osbourne impressed us? I have no idea. I changed channels. I did notice that they claimed unemployment was down. Yes, George, I know. You shameless fakers pushed me off benefits along with everyone else to claim that. With a bit of luck they'll catch a few of you on illegal earnings. Wouldn't be the first time, would it? Dealing With Dole Documents Talking about benefits, my self imposed exile is up and my new claim is under way. The bad news is that I'm back with Eva Braun as my claims advisor. She doesn't like me. Or my jobsearching. Or my evidence. Or my military surplus trousers. She's northern. They don't have fashion in the north of England. In order to claim nil earnings payments from the Council to compensate for my self imposed exile I must complete my submission of documentary evidence before the deadline because I voluntarily exiled myself from benefits and if I don't meet the deadline I get no cash. With me so far? Okay, keep up. I have submitted all the documentary evidence I have so far and now I'm only awaiting the letter that tells me I'm back on benefits at the specified rate. You may now breathe once to maintain conciousness. That would have arrived within the specified deadline except that the Department of Work and Pensions have decided that I must submit my bank statements that I failed to submit to the claims handler who took photocopies of them at the Job Centre. Still here? I'm impressed. So now that I'm unable to submit that final letter confirming my new benefits payments because submitting my bank statements again will delay confirming my new claim, and so in order to inform the Council of my inability to meet their deadline for nil earnings submissions, I had to submit my letter from the Job Centre telling me to submit my bank statements that I already submitted. Not only that, I had to explain all this to a lady from the Council who probably woke up this morning expecting a dull boring afternoon. Just another day on the dole queue - as soon as the letter confirming it arrives. Sorry Apologies to Ghost for trumping his b-fortnightly blog entry yet again. It isn't deliberate - I'm just losing track of which year it is. I noticed this morning a letter from the Job Centre telling me a payment had been made for "going into full time work". What the...? So I made a phone call and the DWP contact centre didn't know what I was talking about. Then I made a visit to the Council to register the evidence when the kind lady behind the desk pointed out the letter was two years old. DOH !!!! Salute of the Week It seems my neighbours are beginning to get the hint about late night noise. Just this week one of them warned me he was having a birthday celebration. That he was expecting guests wouldn't bother me, I was only concerned at what would happen after they came back from the clubs. No problem he assurred me. So I'd like to thank Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Deep Purple, and any other pioneer of very loud music for providing me with the tools to achieve peace and quiet in the wee small hours.

Evidence suggets the Romans used cannabis for medicinal purposes. I've just read a book deaing with this sort of thing and although recreational drug use is not well supported in Roman sources, it's a fair bet some of them did. How widespread that practice was is open to doubt - there's no sign of a 'drug trade' and the use of such substances may well have been restricted. I've also been made aware that Roman legionaries had noticed the celts using substances to induce beserk rages and began copying them. Again, there's little documentary evidence.

Augustus' nasty side rarely gets focused on - being such a successful politican and getting favourable reviews from the ROmans themselves, he tends to be described as 'great' - but in reality he was very quick to get suspicious about potential threats and none too merciful once he'd made up his mind.

Yes, the Romans ate burgers, Roman style. They had street vendors like we do as well. Personally I quite like globi (bread with poppy seeds and honey - really nice)

Feel free to join in. We love debates on this site

It's an interesting point because strictly speaking fame is a matter of degree, not simply a label you can attach to yourself at some point. If I am actually famous it certainly isn't earning me millions nor do I live in a country mansion with armed security dudes everywhere. Okay, I do occaisionally communicate with arab sheiks and african dynasties, but most people seem to dismiss my musical career rather quickly and as for being Lord, you ought to see the arguments I get into with Swindon Job Centre. But then they're just a bunch of pompous communist desk jockeys and snobs. A few years ago I mentioned on my CV that I was known around the world for various things, Roman history among them, in order to accentuate the positive rather than any attempt to be big-headed. At one particular interview the office manager held up my CV with no shortage of moral outrage and demanded to know why I thought I was famous. I don't recall using that word, I told him, but that didn't prevent him from challenging my CV. In the end I simply shrugged and said "My name's been published in credits - that pretty much cuts it". Well that shut him up. I didn't get the job. Am I famous? I honestly don't know. So far I'm not being invited to all the right parties.

A dynastic title? "Caesar" was nothing of the sort. It ought to havebeen and Augustus had every intention of creating such. There was nothing in Roman law that said a Caesar had to rule the empire. They didn't officially need one. Unfortunately, once the precedent had been set, it was difficult to avoid, because many senators preferred some scapegoat at the top rather than a mass slaughter of politicians when things got sticky, because there were always senators wanting to join factions and support a powerful individual, and because there were always individuals who wanted the job (however bogus it actually was). As I've rep[eated ad nauseum, Commodus was the first Caesar identified as a dynastic inheritor by the Romans. Not even the Julio-Claudians got that credit - because it wasn't the family tie that got them the job - it was senatorial politics. You can stop this sort of nonsense right now. Republic means "For the people", which in the context of the Roman world was something of an excuse if not an outright lie. All tjhe Caesars did was make things more complicated and reduce the public's say in matters. What "republic" means to the modern US or any other similarly democratic state is irrelevant.

No, but it did make to to Dio... He was most enthusiastically aided and abetted in all his undertakings by Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the son of Strabo, and formerly a favourite of Marcus Gabius Apicius — that Apicius who so far surpassed all mankind in prodigality that, when he wished one day to know how much he had already spent and how much he still had left, and learned that ten millions still remained to him, became grief-stricken, feeling that he was destined to die of hunger, and took his own life. Roman History Book 57 (Cassius Dio)

The diner in qiuestion was Apicius, a known gourmet, who collated a cookbook by the name of De Re Coquinaria in the 1st century ad. He was supposed to have spent more than a 100 million sestercii on his palette and when he realised he had only 10 million left, he ended his life. I understand this account comes from Pliny - I can't confirm that yet.

Our military nature is the extension of primeval social instincts. Chimpanzee groups have been observed patrolling territory and resorting to predetermined violence to enforce it.

Via the neo-pagan movement there has been a more sanctified image of celtic tribes than previously considered in Britain, but the opinion is deeply devided between the 'Golden-Agers', the historical researchers, and those who sneer at 'primitive' peoples, usually preferring the Graeco-Roman world in a sort of modern analogue. As for Betthany Hughes I can't say I agree with everything she broadcasts - television has an unfortuante tendency to amplify things a bit but that's not neceesarily her fault - yet on the whole she makes rational and realistic points. As it happens, on this subject I seem to be somewhat in agrrement. My own study of the area I live in rather confirms this colonial image, with iron age tribes co-existing with the Roman military, economy, and government. The idea that the British were mystically converted into pure Romans is bunkum taught in schools by people who just don't know any better - they're simply reaffirming the same rubbish to the next generation. Regional and cultural identity is a very strong factor in human society. It can survive changes and can be demonstrated to be still existant after a millenia or more. It is, after all, these identities that weakened central government in Britain is contending with with calls for devolution and local independence.

I'm searching for a reference to a Roman gentleman, probably during the early principate, who committed suicide after spending all his money on dinner parties to impress his friends. I know it exists - I've seen it - but so far I can't locate the source. Could anyone help?

It's no good. After several evenings of cheap ready meals and the leftovers of my fridge, I felt there was no choice but to succumb to temptation. So I took the oportunity to blow some of my savings on a takeaway meal to stave off dietary diseases and boredom. At the local fired chicken store, one I frequent now and then when I have money to spend, I selected my favourite peri-peri meal. It'll blow my head off but for the english, this culinary torture is a masochistic pleasure, and for me, a welome relief. As a patient and indullgent father proceeded to order the deaths of several more hapless chickens, his daughter and a friend were turning the fast food establishment into an impromptu dance floor. I wonder if they're students at the performing arts school up the road? Not quite the colleges we get in England for that purpose (there's one in Swindon too), and far away from the psuedo-professional arts education parents throw thousands of dollars at every year to try and get their kids into a child-actor role in their summer break, but the result is the same. These two kids clearly believed utterly they were going places. "When we're famous..." One started, listing her favourite and desirable lifestyle accesories to achieve before her career implodes in a haze of drugs and divorces, the other simply giggling at the prospect. At this point I have to be honest. I have after all some experience of the performing arts, even professionally for a few years, and at a glance I noticed something. Despite these two girls confidence, their movements were less than elegant, their voices unpleasant to listen to at giggling volume, and whilst I'm sure their fathers think the world of their little angels, they aren't going to grow up to be lookers. It's a tough world. Especially when you want to be famous. Was I like that at their age? Dreaming of fame and fortune? Yep. I was. The difference is that I had parents who refused point blank to tolerate my adventures in music and so I did them anyway, pushing at the inertia of world ignorance with every ounce of my feeble efforts. These two young ladies are going to learn sooner or later that fame costs. And this is where you start... Well, you know what I mean.... I shook my head at the foolish ambition before me then hurriedly explained to the fast food assistant that I did want my meal with fries. Lacking Balance The sun has come out this morning. That's pretty much the good news today as I wade through the formalities of keeping the authorities notified of changes in my circumstances and benefits claims. My first gripe is my sense of balance. I'm reaching the age when falling over is no longer funny, and tends to get a bit painful. Caught in one of those 'banana skin' moments with wet leaves this morning... Woah!.. No, I've recovered, no I haven't... Uo-oh, this is embrarrasing....AAARGH! Thud. Ouch... I discover I've thumped my hand on the ground leaving very uncomfortable bruises and skin abrasions.What is happening to my life? Forty Things To Do Last week I saw one of those news items on my email service, the sort where someone lists all the things you should before you're forty. Most of them are faintly ridiculous, impossible, or self contradictory, written by some moron who thinks that visiting Paris is romantic, or jumping from an aeroplane an achievement, or that eating at a michelin rated resteraunt says something about you. One of the things to do was having children , which the commentator corectly pointed made the others more or less unachievable. But there's something more important here. It's the idea that we can claim a measure of esteem from our peers if we conform to their ideas of achievement. It's nothing more than keeping up with the Joneses. Do you really want to measure your life to a list of social requirements made by someone else? Or would you prefer to strive for something you decide is worthwhile? I suppose you could argue that wanting to be a rock star as I did in my younger days was nothing more than attempting to conform to some ideal. Perhaps. It didn't feel that way for me - that was far more of a personal struggle to free myself of family restraint and become my own man, forge my own future, and not have the fixed plan laid out before me that my mother and father clearly were striving to foist upon my shoulders. My mother always manipulating me, my father always making arrangements behind my back. I was so angry in those days - no wonder I became a rock drummer. Die, audience. Feel the power of my percussive wrath. Well I had my few moments of fame. Not so fortunate, as it turned out, but life throws those banana skins at us. Performer of the Week I came home a couple of days ago and ionce I'd thrown off footwear, jackets, shopping, and had the chance to sit and catch some breath, there was some weird music coming from somewhere. Sort of like Gary Numan's Tubeway Army when they're feeling sad and lonely. It was my downstairs neighbour, whose attempts to be deep and meaningful in the medium of song was seriously mournful. I turned the television on, raised the volume, but she didn't get the hint, the music was still audible. So there was nothing for it but to raise my morale and lift the mood with a blast of death metal. Ahhhh....... So peaceful.....

There's a space mission planned to land on the Moon and deposit time capsules from the public. Get on board. (the mission I mean, not the capsule... Sorry... Erm...)

The provincial headquarters was at Eboracum, or modern York.

No it isn't. Not even close. The idea of kingship is nothing more than intellectual laziness. People who say that Augustus and his inheritors were kings are merely looking at the superficial, the record of influence and decision making, without looking into circumstance. Context is everything. The Romans did not institute a monarch after the Republic was fomed at any time, either formally or informally. Commodus was nominated by the ROmans as the 'First Caesar born to the Purple' and even he wasn't called a king. Nor was he.

Augustus was not a monarch. He might appear to be one, but as Tom Holland points out, his role in modern terms was more like a mafia godfather. I prefer to call Augustus an autocrat. A very influential man, a very aggressive politician in many ways, a very nervous politician in others, and yes, he did try to create an imperial dynasty - but that dynasty was intended to be 'chief advisors', not kings. Nor were ruling powers assigned to Augustus in the same way that Julius Caesar had attracted. He was given temporary powers - boasting of thirteen consulships (which means he was a co-ruler of the Roman empire officially for a total of thirteen years - and of course was given the role of Imperator (which many confuse with the word 'emperor' - the two have different meanings - Imperator means he was the military commander of the Roman empire and indeed he went to great lengths to assure personal loyalty from the legions) As I pointed out to you before, the Republic hadn't gone anywhere. It had changed it's political structure and power sharing (not for the better as some would say), but any idea that Augustus was a king is complete rubbish.

Clearly Sebastianus thought otherwise. Others in his day did too - Vegetius describes how men ought to be motivated and includes both methods - suggesting that harsh discipline alone is not the answer, and we know he was referring to former practises because he states he looked for these precedents in the histories available to him. Valentinian was quite happy about Vegetius' findings. Having read the first book, Vegetius then thanks his Caesar and writes two more.

Not afraid, butr aware of the risks. It's a mistake to see Hadrians Wall as marking the northern boundary of 'safe' territory. The north of England was a wild and wolly place in Roman times, much in the same way as the wild west was to the Americans of the 19th century. Local commands were given to troops manning the security zone. Overall commands came out of the legionary forts to the south, where the reposne armies were stationed, and where the local governor had a connection with. Orders via the Channel? Not realistic. Too slow and too vulnerable to weather. The surviving ditch is weathered down from it's more formidable origin. The Romans sometimes added all sorts of defensive extras if they wanted more strength. Pointy sticks and pits for intsnace. But the point is that the ditch increased the security of the position. It made for something to cover behind, and reduced the enemies capability of attacking directly. Not an infallible defense at all, but it helped. No legion was ever considered a navy whatever their designation or position. The Roman navy was an independent force with it's own command structure and what appears to be a very intricate breakdown of authority and skills. On the western coast the naval forces were liimited to coastal patrol and anti-piracy operations, using rather more modest vessels than the Punic Wars had seen in the Mediterranean.

Sebastianus, observing the indolence and effeminacy both of the tribunes and soldiers, and that all they had been taught was only how to fly, and to have desires more suitable to women than to men, requested no more than two thousand men of his own choice. He well knew the difficulty of commanding a multitude of ill-disciplined dissolute men, and that a small number might more easily be reclaimed from their effeminacy; and, moreover, that it was better to risk a few than all. By these arguments having prevailed upon the emperor, he obtained his desire. He selected, not such as had been trained to cowardice and accustomed to flight, but strong and active men who had lately been taken into the army, and who appeared to him, who was able to judge of men, to be capable of any service. He immediately made trial of each of them, and obviated their defects by continual exercise; bestowing commendations and rewards on all who were obedient, but appearing severe and inexorable to those who neglected their duty. Nea Historia (Zosimus)

Well obviously I can't comment because I haven't seen the video, though in fairness, the accuracy of computer reconstructions is sometimes suspect - I once saw one of a naval battle at a colosseum around nine times the size of the actual building. However - the Romans did not build stout stone defences from the very start. Such constructions require stable occupation for some time, for practical reasons, and you find that Roman legionary forts develop into stone castles. The Limes for intstabnce were usually little more than a palisade. Much of Hadrians Wall, and certainly the great extent of the later Antonine Wall, were constructed from wood and earth embankments initially (and I recall reading somewhere than a section of Hadrians Wall remained earthen). At the Antonine Wall, I notice the Romans compensated for the lack of stone defenses - which were never built on that wall - by the addition of pits, spikes, and ankle traps. There is every reason to believe that the Romans were well aware of the dangers of pushing into lower Caledonia - the wall was abandoned when Antoninus died.

Strictly speaking the Roman navy in the Punic Wars wasn't that brilliant, but they compensated by using gangplanks called the corvus to utilise their land troops in boarding actions. I'm not an expert on ancient naval wrfare by any means butI am aware that the Romans were never great sailors - the poor performance of the late empire navy probably has a lot of causes. Firslty they weren't using anything like the old galleys, mostly smaller ships of single banks of oars which werer better suited to patrolling than battle - which would have been the main preoccupation for them. Then again, the state of play in late empire armies was pretty bad most of the time. Vegetius tells us that the legions had lost their strength and substance. Zosimus in retrospect was absolutely scathing about their behaviour. It follows the naval forces were of comparable quality.

Tiberius would have have felt himself protected by slaves (and some of them were described as throwing unwanted visiotors off the cliff) or any praetorians posted there. having removed himself from the centre of politics and allowed the Roman world to partially admiister itself, I doubt he had many worries, especially after Sejanus had been uncovered and dealt with. If suetonius is to be believed, Tiberius increasingly became a dirty old man, and thus more concerned with sexual fantasies than real world issues.

Military organisations serve a number of potential functions. Security, politics, social order, employment, etc. The emphasis varies between countries and their agendas/commitments, and even with time, as strategies and policies in the global climate might in one decade require investment, or reductions in another. Whether an armed force has integrity, honour, respect, and such is another matter and often such things are in the eye of the beholder. A soldier might feel wanted and useful within the service and hated by his un-militaristic civilian peers. The reverse could be true. To try and find a strict definition when dealing with opinion and experience in large numbers is never really going to work. You can talk in generral terms I guess - I often do - but there will always be those who see things differently, either because their observations, experiences, or education differ, or simply because they just want to see things from a different perspective. People are like that.

Drawn out? You mean like the plot vacanct modern Doctor Who which assaults the emotional state of the viewer for an hour just because someone wants to say "See you later?". But I do see your point about US series in general. They do occaisionally have screen writing issues (Next Generation did - the whole thing was nearly scrapped early on and emergency writers were brought in) but then writing for television is a very mutable process. Anyone submitting a script has to accept that the end result might not be anything like their conception. Very often an american sci-fi series, especially these days now that sci-fi is marketable, is that someone will sell an idea to a producer and the series only gets written once the market returns enough interest. They're often single idea themes that get gradually stretched further and further, often seen as proving grounds for up-and-coming actors rather than saleable stars, re-worked to conform to american media sales concepts, and unlike Dr Who, which has a strong writer basis, american series can easily lose steam because they were never fully planned out in terms of series plotlines and because they rely primarily on a self contained story format for each episode. You can always tell when someone is getting bored - cue the flashback episode.