Melvadius

All the best for a Happy 'Triumvir' Birthday

Lovely set of references there - now if only the 'original' had been as good

We have discussed or mentioned the impact of the UK Portable Antiquities Scheme several times on this site as something which gives an outlet for metal detectorists and others more accidental discoverers of items of histric value to have the find professionally recorded and a database built up which can be used for archaeological and histrical benefit. Incidentlally allowing the discovers to sometimes receive significant montetary awards while allowing museums a chance to purchase significant items in preference to them disappearing into private hands. PAS mentions include: Frome hoard (item 7) and Bronze Age axe hoard A recent news article in ScienceInsider from 'across the pond' paints an entirely different and more worrying image of how sites are effectively being stripped by TV sponsored 'vandals' in the USA without anywhere near the same control or ultimate historical benefit.

To pick up on the point regarding women having 'jobs'; the Roman's having three different forms of marriage complicates the following but basically: From memory the main issue in the most usual form of marriage was the fact that under Roman law women were under the control of their 'Pater Familia' (father or possibly grandfather depending on the household composition) until they were married after which they came into the control of their husband. It was generally only if she had three children AND became a widow that a woman could do away with having a male relative as her guardian. Although IIRC in one the remaining two forms of marriage a woman actually remained under her father's control irrspective of how many children she had. NB This website seems to include some good basic information on the various forms of Roman marriage although Bill Thayer's site includes here a much fuller and more legally bounded discussion of the various forms. There are a few scattered records of women who having attained freedom from male control were able to establish themselves in their own businesses or in other ways attain semi-independent powers like Euamchia and Julia Felix in Pompeii. You may find this article of interest as it provides some basic background on both women.

The topic of Latin inscriptions has been discussed on UNVR a few times before including: Inscriptions Where to find them? in January 2011 and; How to find Latin inscriptions without out physical access to CIL in December 2009 since then there may well be a compilation such as Caldrail suggests somewhere however I have not come across it so far and the only ones I have come across online are fairly limited in my limited experience of using them. So far as functionality is concerned tending to mainly be sorted by inscription references rather than by topic. An example is the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum maintained by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum was formed in 1853 with all Latin inscriptions published on a regular/ irregular basis ever since. One major issue seems to be that often, with the publically available on-line resources, the indexing is based on the CIL (or similar) reference rather than by subject matter so it makes extracting strictly military inscriptions or indeed many other topics problematical. If I remember correctly the CIL website may also be one of those which simply list the extant inscriptions and doesn't include translations of the Latin text so you may have to do your own translation. The CIL also tends to be a year or so behind the paper publication date with its electronic updates I believe currently only including items published up to 2008. There are several countries which maintain their own records of inscriptions such as the annual round-up published in Britain in the Journal of Roman Studies so such inscriptions may have a country specific reference as well as a CIL or similar reference which may appear ina different year depending on publication schedules. There are also the quirks in any system which makes any search 'interesting' including where an inscription may have originally been found incomplete with additional segments found at different times. This means that you could have two (or more) references which will need to be linked together, hopefully by whichever database you are looking at and with mising segments interprolated, before you can read the entire 'extant' inscription. This is possibly something for someone with a vastly better knowledge of ,databases Latin text and the ability ot translate them into a modern language (any chance it could be English?) than me to spend several years compiling an easy to use, searchable database.

If you have the time you may find the Roman Britain website of interest since it includes maps and linked pages providing a lot of detailed information for each fort and other locations in Romen Britain. The webiste contains a lot of additional information although ti can be difficult to navigate to so I am including two options for the information you requested. The normal way people find things is to use the main Roman Britain map and then navigate to the location they wish by clicking on the relevant layer and individual symbols on the maps which opens up additinal web pages. For a search about auxilliary units this would mean going to the military layer map of the Roman Britain site and filtering for just the auxilliary forts then going into Map Squares NY and NZ. Within the map square you can click on the symbols for individual forts along Hadrian's Wall and see which auxilliary and legionary units left any evidence via inscriptions for their presence at which fort and when - although not all did so. A simpler way of doing it would be to go to this page on the Roman Britain site list the Hadrian's Wall, Stanegate Forts and the Western sea defences (western extension to Hadrian's Wall around Cumbria). On this page you can get to the same location specific web pages as above by clicking on the relevant fort name. There is also a separate page for the Antonine Wall here.

Strangely enough there appears to be no listing for the quote prior to that by Patty and Johnson cited above which actually comes from 1953. It couldn't possibly be another case of author(s) needing a nice (in this instance 'conservative') quote to back up a point and unable to find anything which does so making something up and slipping it in because no one will ever be bothered to check it up. I suppose the alternative view is that somewhere out there there is a really bad translation of either Plato or Aristophanes which no one has seen fit to put onto the web or otherwise into the public domain.

I did a quick search for "roman comedy" cross dressing and there are several hits including this short essay proving that there is at least one Roman play involving cross-dressing as a central theme in Plautus

Have a great day today Mate. Hope the coming year goes well including all the best for your new studies

Posting the same article links as someone else in different fora or on a different page of a busy forum happens from time to time. However, even if it may have been an old article I don't think it has been posted before or at least not recently and the general story is worth flagging up again anyway so no worries. It only gets really embarrasing when you post the same article as yourself a year or two apart. So far I think I have managed to avoid that particular boo-boo

It does tend to ring bells and possibly the date of this publication may at least partly explain why: Beste, Heinz-J

I quite enjoyed the first three or four programmes which were broadcast originally although 'true' in TV speak in reality tends to mean that it is only loosely based on 'real' people. If anyone interested in history watch them AND are very lucky they may recognise one or two 'real' events which accidently slipped through the production/editing process. Actually possibly a slight diservice to Garrow's Law which at least initially attempted to keep in as many of the true facts which were known about Garrow as possible. The basis of his courtroom methodology is probably fairly accurate but not necessarily a lot of the 'back' stories. What little is known about his personal life is apparently fairly contradictory.

This is the type of topic that IF I have read it correctly Domonic Montserrat seems to have included, even if not his direct intent, in his essay 'Reading gender in the Roman World' in Janet Hutchinson (Ed) (2000) 'Experiencing Rome'. Montserrat from what I have read of him and from when I saw him on TV seems to have had a somewhat idiosyncratic viewpoint on sex in general but for this question is possibly the right area to look fo rinsperation. The essay was his attempt to look for evidence of how the Roman's viewed sex or rather 'gender' and the abiguity of hemaphrodites and non-masculine behaviour but it seems to cite some relevant sources which I have extracted some quotations and references below although I haven't had time to check them. To start with you have Cassius Dio claiming that Elagabalus asked at one point to be 'called a lady' (Roman History 80.16.2-6). Possibly more germaine to your question is the legends of Hercules being sold as a slave in expiation of his 'blood-guilt after a murder' and being forced by Omphale to dress as a woman. This legend appearing in several murals and statues from the period. Apparently Roman poets and visual artists reveled in this paradox, Examples Montserrat cited were Ovid, Fasti 2.283-358, Heroides 9.101-118, Propertius 3.11-17-21 and 4.9.45-50. You may also want to consider how foreign eunuch priests are presented in texts like Apulieus, The Golden Ass (8.24-30) there are also references in Juvenal Montserrat here cited Juvenal, Satires (2.93-99 and 3.58-80).

If the date on the bracelet was as it appears to claim to be 'AD DCCLIII' then it would have been made in AD 753. I have serious reservations about this dating since it depicts the Capotiline Wolf with the suckling Romus and Remus beneath it which as discussed elsewhere on latest evidence was possibly cast no earlier than the 13th Century AD. On the whole to me it doesn't 'taste' right and I wouldn't be suprised if expert analysis of the metals proved it was made no earlier than the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Any other takers?

The concensus of opinion seems to be that it is both a misquote and probably a misattributation. Firstly none of Socrates writings survive except as mentions by other authors (mainly Plato) but one suggestion is that it paraphrases Aristophones The Clouds which is famous for its caracatures of Socrates. Wikiquotes has some interesting links to previous discussions about it.

I am not certain without seeing the email but is it possible that the link was actually intended to be http://www.unrv.com/forum/forum/57-quintus-libri/ which is one of the fora on this site? The idea behind this fora as Primus Pilus expressed it is:

[Mod Message - Topics merged since originally posted on different fora yet contained different sources.] I agree this is a sad day particularly with the use of leathal weaponary which doesn't bode well for other sites containing important artefacts.

Roger as you have now had 4 posts approved your status has been automatically changed to 'pleb' so if you go to your own member details you should now find that you have the ability to chose/upload an avatar. Click on your name where it shows in the top left hand corner of the screen and then choose the option to 'edit my profile' on the top right of the screen. Choose the 'change avatar' tab and you will see a message about the file sizes and formats allowed followed by instructions on how to change/chose or upload your own avatar. Otherwise known as 'sonic' here

Common misconceptions 101 include the 'fact' that 'Global Warming' means that everywhere will get warmer. Actually all it means is that mean temperatures across the planet will increase but some places will see more frequent droughts while other may see more severe and/or frequent winter storms. Looks like unfortunately this time you have got the short end of the spongeum and are in a cycle of more severe weather. Having hit two bad patches of black ice within a few miles when driving in the early evening at the weekend and temperatures plummeting to -10oC and higher at night time you have my sympathies. As to how the Roman's coped a few sharp skirmishes may have gotten the blood flowing for a few minutes but longer term other options may have been preferable. Contrary to what I was told in school a good few years back the Vindolanda tablets point out all too clearly that at least in northern Britain the Roman's were not totally unaware of the benefits of both socks and underwear. I am sure that those on the Danube were also not averse to pulling on the winter woolies and stoking up the fire as much as possible.

I'm tempted but I will not say R.... that so instead let me simply add my welcomes to Ghost's.

Salve DecimusCaesar, Sorry I missed posting this earlier but here's hoping that you had a good Birthday on the 11th.

Currently I cannot read the full article so have had to rely on the USA Today report. I wonder if by looking at individual locations of finds there may be alternative explanations for this discovery. We know that the Romans had specialist camel units or at least mixed camel/ horse and/or foot units in some parts of the eastern Empire so movements of units previously based in the eastern Empire and subsequent camels use for either pack animals or any other military function may explain the military connections. However an alternative explanation may have been the importation of specimen camels for display/ use in amphitheatres, whether military or civilian, especially since several of the locations listed so far as I can tell froma quick search seem to also have had amphitheatres within a few miles of the find sites. The full report if or when I can read it well may provide useful information on how extensive the finds were including if it was partial or complete skeletons, a single or multiple animals represented and what evidence there is for how they may have died. However at present the USA today item leaves more questions than it answers.

Contrary to international conventions they also seem to have neglected to keep accurate maps of where the mines had been laid. They actually laid most of the mines in peat bogs, where depending on local conditions mines can shift nearer or further from the surface, making clearance extremely problematical. This has lead despite several areas being permanently cordoned off to fairly regular losses of sheep by the Flakland Islanders ever since (sheep don't read danger signs too well). The last time the Argentinians decided that they could steal the Falkland Islands along with its potential oil reserves and vast fishing grounds was when the UK had a Conservative government selling off everything in sight and the Argentinian economy went to the wall. Is anything different these days?

There seems to be a move now to consider that the equipment praetorians used did not have any major difference from that available to normal legionnaries with a few exceptions due to them paying for their own equipment and being better paid consequently able to afford extra ornamentation. The one difference seems to be the oval scutum being retained until at least the Flavian period and specific decorations they used (moon and stars seems to have been common motif). There is quite a good composite article on Roman Army Talk here with the main references listed on the last page.

It is not an area I know well but if you wish detailed information you may do worse than looking out for this book The Cavalry of the Roman Republic by Jeremiah B. McCall. Apprently as well as being available in both hardback and paperback you can also get it on Kindle but either way it is still fairly expensive.