Maty

Just to add my congratulations. It sounds like a great book on a fascinating topic. It's great to see books on ancient Rome gaining public interest - long may it continue and increase!

"I can assure you that soldiers do not shoot to miss" If I might use some anecdotal evidence, in the Mrewa district of then Rhodesia in 1978, some insurgents attacked a farm outbuilding in which five men guarding the farm were billeted. The attackers took their firing position in some feeding pens about seventy metres away. In the course of about a ninety minute firefight some 2,600 rounds were exchanged (the guards would probably have fired off more, but they only had 2000). Relieving troops (of which I was one) were slow to arrive because they were in vehicles and there were landmines to consider, and the insurgents pulled back in their own time. In the course of the above exchange, not only were there no casualties, but neither building was hit. Admittedly the action was at night, but it does suggest that not all soldiers are committed killers. And there is a big difference between fighting and killing. On the other hand, for the close up and personal bit I know of an officer who had the drop on a bunch of confused teenagers with AK47s who walked right into his kill zone. They were less than 20m away, rather than 500. He just kept shouting at them to surrender while they ran away. I suspect that if legionaries did get PTSD it would be in those situations where they were forced to recognize the humanity of the people they were killing. This is where fearsome enemy warriors in anonymizing helmets would help to make the process less personal. Also doing something they had been intensively trained to do (fight as a group in close formation) would, I guess, have been a lot less stressful than say, nailing people to a crucifix. I'm still guessing here, but I suppose the more intelligent an individual, the more he can rationalize what he is doing. Also I understood that PTSD does not necessarily manifest itself in forms that are mistakeable for cowardice. It can also appear as odd behaviour- sometimes even extremely violent and confrontational behaviour, paralysis or an uncontrollable twitch. It is indeed possible that some legionaries collected the full set, and at this distance in time it's hard to know how common this was, but I think a consensus is emerging from the discussion that the circumstances of modern warfare and society make PTSD much more likely today.

Basically, yes. Though some future breakthrough might prove us wrong. PTSD is not a given for everyone who has been in highly stressful situations, and maybe some legionaries did so suffer, but even as today, they would have been a minority. I got the statistic on wwII kill ratios many years ago when I got into psychology in Oxford - cant remember from where. However, have a look here http://www.military-sf.com/Killing.htm and particularly the book recommended if you want to follow this up. Incidentally, there is also a correlation between the intelligence of the individual and willingness to kill in war. Apparently a higher IQ makes you a better killer.

Ave Caius I was looking at this when doing Legionary - my next opus I spent a lot of time on this website which can, I think, answer your questions much better than I... http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/people-2.shtml Felix Saturnalia!

Oke - a couple of points. (All my humble opinion, so I'm not pretending this is gospel) Firstly, post traumatic stress is very much a 20th century thing, in part at least caused by people killing despite a deep-seated belief that this is wrong. (In wwII it was shown that a majority of soldiers shot to miss) Also the sheltered age we live in gives us a belief in our personal immortality (how many corpses have YOU seen?) and a lot of the rest of the trauma comes from having that belief challenged. I strongly doubt legionaries shared this mindset - war was glorious and a fact of life and killing the enemy was good right and proper, furthermore death happened all the time around you, pretty much at random. Secondly, except in exceptional times, most soldiers did not spend all their time fighting. Some legions literally (e.g. III Augusta) went centuries without a serious punch-up. And when there was a major punch-up the shock was mitigated by being shared by most of the community - which is why the world did not go into collective psychological shock after WWII. Soldiers did interact with civvies in downtime - look up cannabae in Pauly or on the web. Every legionary camp had places outside the walls - in the words of one writer - potare, amare, lavare. i.e. for wine women and a wash, not necessarily in that order. Also many soldiers (as we know from e.g. the vinlandola letters) kept in reasonably close contact with their families (civilians) and from papyri in Egypt we know that some soldiers also routinely ran protection rackets on the local civilians. Finally on retirement soldiers had the option of reintegrating into the civilian community (often by buying into a business with their substantial pension) or sometimes settling abroad with fellow vets in a military colony.

Thanks Maladict! I think you have just sorted out my Christmas present to me.

I suspect that if such a book existed, I'd have come across it by now. The nearest I know of is called simply 'Rome' and is produced by A. Bell. However, it goes well beyond the AD 60s and is in any case both rare and outdated - my copy is 1898. You might do better with several books - and in my opinion there are few better places to start than the (illustration-free) Platner's topographical dictionary of Rome. However, be warned that this is not a book for beginners or even the casually competent. The pictorial dictionary of Rome - by Nash is more approachable. I believe someone called Richardson has produced an updated and illustrated edition of Platner so you might consider that . Also consider Heffner and Kerr's Atlas for seeing things in place, and if your French is up to the challenge, Coarelli's archaeological guide is meant to be pretty good (my French is not up to it, so I can't say). If you do find anything else along the same lines or better, I'll be eager to hear of it.

http://www.legionary.org.uk/ Needs a few beers before it's entertaining for adults, but the kids should enjoy it.

Salve A Yup, I do remember the earlier thread, because it provoked me to look into the matter. The problem is that there is an inherent contradiction. We might believe that Brutus and the Regnal period are semi-myth (though I tend toward the literalist camp) but the Romans had clear ideas about what happened when - even if those ideas were misguided. What is interesting (and forgive me if this has been gone over elsewhere as well) is the theory that Lucius himself might have been a plebeian - he was practically a member of the ruling family, and it has been argued that the kings of Rome had - constitutionally speaking - to be plebs. (The interrex had to be a patrician, and this stopped him picking himself). If anyone has come up with proof that Lucius had to be a patrician I'd like to know where to find it. A further possibility is a non-conferrateo marriage, or one between a plebeian and patrician which resulted in the husband losing statues (this is one theory as to how the Claudii Marcelli came to be plebs). What's interesting is that contradiction - the Romans accepted Brutus as the descendant of the liberator, yet seem to have had so little issue with his pleb status, they did not, afik, even discuss it.

Another interesting thing about Brutus is that he was a plebeian, whereas his alleged ancestor Lucius Brutus was very much a patrician. Odd that he should have 'inherited' the name without the status.

Currently reading Vote for Caesar by Peter Jones. Subtitled how the 'Romans solved the problems of today'. It's a fun book, but only worth reading if you are as familiar with modern Britain as ancient Rome, as the writer gets well stuck into Gordon Brown and friends as well as (fro example) praising the ancient Roman and Greek systems of education and contrasting hem favourably with what goes on in a modern comprehensive. A highly enjoyable and idiosyncratic rant.

I've just discovered that, unavoidably, I need to work through a large chunk of Macrobius' 'Saturnalia'. Which does not have any English translations. So (appropriately enough, given the title) it looks as though my Christmas reading is covered. I expect my Latin to be considerably more fluent by January.

Following up GPM's very useful original post led me to 'Basically, I say, I do not give a damn For Marsian augurs, village mountebanks, astrologers who haunt the circus grounds, or Isis-seers, or dream interpreters' Appius Claudius the Augur quoted in Cicero's On Divination 58

When you see the reviews for Goldsworthy's latest, take a good look at the reviewer's name. I've read the book, and I think it's going to ruffle a few feathers. The modern approach is that all was basically all fine and dandy in the later Roman empire albeit the place was going through some extensive social, political and economic changes. I think it's fair to say that Goldsworthy disagrees with this view, so I'm expecting to hear noises indicating deep outrage from late Roman historians. Even the title suggests that the western empire 'fell' - preposterous!

Nessus? Nope, but you're right about him being a centaur. I can't hold back any longer... Are you... the centaur Chiron? The "four legs" and "handy" were major clues, Maty! You know with my love of names I would connect "handy" with the meaning of the name "Chiron" (or, "Kheiron"). Hercules had poisoned arrows that he had dipped into the blood of the hydra he had slain, and he shot Chiron. ("By an archer slain.") Chiron would have suffered interminably (being immortal), but to spare himself the suffering he abandoned his immortality and was placed in the constellation of Sagittarius ("With an archer I live.") I waive my turn. Come on, we need more people to participate here! -- Nephele Yup, exactly so, Nephele. Next!

Persephone? Four legs have I, yet handy still The hydra's poison still won't kill By an archer slain, With an archer I live The last of my kind with much to give

Ah, good old Guardian. Only they could have come up with a 'ground-breaking' statue. Gives the swords to ploughshares concept a whole new meaning.

Polybius seems to be our only source for the two-pila legionary. When researching this recently I was assured that those re-enactors who had tried it found that one was plenty to handle along with the rest of battle gear. The problem is that no-one explicitly refers to the number of pila later. There's just comments like 'The legionaries discharged their pila ...'. However, it seems probable that the legionaries of 100 AD had just one pilum apiece, so I've gone with that. However, given that pila are rather fragile, it would make sense for spares to be available on a campaign.

Thanks for this Asclepiades - it appears that we have both examined the same (and I suspect the only) sources. I'd be interested in your opinion though - to what extent do you feel Mummius was acting on his own initiative, and to what extent was he carrying out his orders from the senate? (For what it's worth, I feel that a decision of this magnitude would have been decided at an even higher level than a consul with imperium - for something like this he would have needed a consilium, and no less of a consilium than the senate would do. That is, though the decision technically rested with Mummius, the senate gave him 'advice' he could not ignore.)

Hi Sonic - I'd agree and disagree with you here. Firstly, I'd agree that what we really need to do is look at the actual document - original sources are always best! However, this ban - as described - goes well beyond 'obscure Latin phrases' to include things like, e.g., well, e,g. I fully understand that both some of our new citizens may not understand some of the language used, but this is an argument for raising their language skills, rather than lowering the language requirements of others. Otherwise to use (excuse me) a reductio ad absurdem, we might end with a ban on polysyllabic words on the basis that many people don't understand polysyllabic. (Didn't we recently have a paediatrician attacked because some of the linguistically challenged of our proud nation failed to understand that this meant 'child doctor'? Do we change the name or educate the people?) I speak from the perspective of one who has spent the past two years in Austria trying to make my academic German comprehensible to the good people of the Tirol. I would certainly not insult them by expecting that they should change the standard of their language to suit the convenience of newcomers such as myself.

Interesting thread, this. I've recently been spending some time with this period (the inevitable book will be along in due course) and my opinion is that the number of whackos around on both sides was minimal. There is some doubt whether the Achaeans ever intended to go to war with Rome - the sequence of events seems to be - 1. Critolas was elected on a demagogic anti-Roman, anti-Spartan platform, and his electorate expected him to deliver. 2. C. was not stupid enough to either alienate his voters or the Romans, so he called a conference and told the Romans (this ambassador was a Julius Caesar, and in conciliatory mood) that he alone would represent the Achaeans at the conference, and all decisions would be referred to the main meeting of the league in six months hence. Caesar went home in a huff 3. Crit. was apparently trying to gain six months for everyone to cool down. However,popular opinion meant he had to do something about Sparta, so started raising troops 4. Metellus told the Achaeans to leave Sparta alone (Sparta had been forcibly incorporated into the league and wanted out). 5. The Achaeans pointed to previous judgements by Rome that Sparta was an Achaean issue, and that Rome had no jurisdiction. The Romans went away. Critolas decided to test the water by attacking Heraclea (another secessionist city), and found the Romans took this as a declaration of war. 6. Metellus advanced as far as Corinth before was replaced by Memmius. (Critolas has gone from the scene by now also) 7. Memmius wins a battle outside Corinth, and then proceeds to sack the place 8. The rest of the Achaean league collapses, and Memmius announces the 'freedom of Greece' (again) except Corinth, and orders all Corinthians at the assembly arrested. 9. He then proceeds to scientifically demolish Corinth. The points to note are: This was almost certainly on orders from the senate rather than a private initiative. The senate also commanded Carthago to be delended in the same year. Though there may have been economic considerations, this was an act of terrorism designed to scare the rest of Greece into line. (Remember Metellus had just crushed the revolt of Andriscus in Macedonia and most of Greece had been sympathetic to him). Rome was also campaigning in Gaul and Spain at this point and was very stretched (eight to ten legions in the field) and just could not afford a prolonged Greek war. So a horrific example was needed. It worked too, for the next sixty years. Rome needed somewhere as an object lesson and Corinth was chosen because - it was the centre of Achaean resistance during the war, Roman ambassadors had earlier been insulted there (and put in actual physical danger), and Corinth had originally been allowed into the league through Roman intervention a generation previously and had failed acknowledge its debt to Rome for this. Oh, and it was a trading rival. Memmius was no philistine - he freed one man who quoted Homer to him whilst he was interviewing slaves for literacy - but it was part of a Roman's bluff public image that he did not care for Greek fripperies, so Memmius probably encouraged the stories about e.g. replacing statues to show that he was a 'real' Roman of the old school. That's my take anyway. I'd love to hear what everyone else has to say - this is highly relevant to what I'm doing right now.

I looked at the picture of the forum temple that they used as the image for Rome. On the columns you can see the marks made by the cables where they tried to tear the place down during the renaissance. The job proved too difficult, so they made it a church instead. Interesting that one era's demolition site becomes another's iconic image.

And an excellent response from the BBC's today programme here ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsi...000/7705636.stm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/336...in-phrases.html Apparently we should all be using NewSpeak.

In one hundred and twenty four very readable pages. http://www.scribd.com/doc/3961788/Lorica-S...an-Plate-Armour I hadn't heard of the armatura press before - I shall have to investigate further. The monograph is readable online free, but an effort has been made to make this difficult so that you sign up. Well worth a look though, if this is your thing.