Melvadius

Nephele still visits the site when she can but apparently has other concerns taking up most of her time at the moment.

Small portable (ideally but not essentially valuable and/or unique) coins? Anyone who doesn't care about provenance, legality or who the seller is and has enough available funding to build up a collection of coins which no one else has.

Before this thread goes any further I think it appropriate to remind everyone of the forum guidelines Specifically this bit of 2a seems appropriate:

Let me add my welcomes to GOC's Maria and for the convenience of everyone your post and GOC's have now been merged with the general welcome thread.

He was born in 56 AD so it's entirely possible he spoke with veterans of that war though the 100k enemy figure is a bit suspect. Of course a fishing story is much better if the fish in question is size of VW bus though in this case there is a lot of subtext to the whole thing; patriotism, barbarian savagery, etc. ...and of course it was aimed at his audience in Rome so played up to standard themes which may have had little or no reality so far as the revolt was concerned but highlighted themes Tacitus felt were worth espousing. If we discounted the very limited 'written' record the Boudican Revolt may have been led by a 90 year old grandmother complaining that her false teeth had been damaged by a drunken Roman soldier.

It should be obvious from what I've posted here and elsewhere that I do not subscribe to the view of overland routes between China and the west as a 'myth'.

What is missing from the original concept is the underlying econmic factors which Caldrail has pointed out. Von Thunen's theoretical model is a good example in which goods and services are only supplied/ grown AND transported as far as it is economic to do so ire there is a market for them. By extrapolation irrespective of how goods were transported whether by land, riverine or maritime carriers whoever is doing the transporting needs to be certain that there will be a market for their stock in trade. THe carriers may change but the principle still applies that whoever ends up with the goods needs to make a profit - especially if they may be carrying some of their goods for long distances. Overland trade is liable to mainly have comprised smaller or at least lighter high value items so spices and due to its weight silk would have been ideal. Longer distance trade of bulkier or mroe fragile items would have fitted better with the economic advantages derived from maritime/ riverine trade BUT it need not have been exclusive. There is some evidence including the Byzantine period monkls whcih provide indications that some items continued to make their way across the overland route long after it had 'nominally' been closed.

There are more what if's to history than actually happened; one of which is the suggestion that the 'final' battle of the Boudican Revolt occured at Mancetter. There are several other possible sites while evidence for troop build-ups in the area upon which this claim seems to have been based could equally in my eyes have been in advance of the assault on Mona. Unless and until we find mass graves and assorted equipment which can be dated to the period and tied to the Iceni in the immediate area I would be loath to make such a specific claim for Mancetter over any other possible site. But to answer your question at the end of the day Boudicca did not have either 20-20 hindsight or a copy of Sun Tzu in her back pocket so the events of the revolt worked out the way they did more or less as Tacitus recorded them. The general impression of the revolt is of an apparently widespread but still fairly localised uprising of loosely allied units but with no one overall general. While they could bring force of numbers to more or less undefended locations they could sweep all before them but when it came to a disiplined army which made the best use of the terrain and let the enemy come to it their cause was lost.

In one of the first posts on this topic Maty quoted a couple of examples of 'proper' and 'improper' salutes: There is one aspect of this which we all seem to have overlooked and Caldrail's post has reminded me of. In civilian Roman society (which has continued to some extent into modern Italian society) there was a strong tradition of client relationships in which lesser individuals were expected to be on 'call' to those with more power - visiting their homes in the mornign and waitign to be seen. I wonder if the military could have operated on a similar basis, particularly since several of the auxilliary units in the early Principate were recruited from 'client' kingdoms under the command of their own nobels. In these circumstances the 'salute' describe by both Tacitus and Josephus may make more sense if it took the form of a traditional 'client' relationship where you were expected to be available for you patron's commands/ guidance therefore as Maty has suggested keep it simple and mainly verbal or at least ambiguous: Salute/ hail - 'Tribune', 'Centurio', etc Vale/ goodbye - 'Tribune', 'Centurio', etc Would work as greetings/ farewells and if your characters are agreeing to do something then 'certainly' or 'of course' - 'Tribune', 'Centurio', etc may fit the bill.

You might try some of the works available on the Internet Medieval Sourcebook which is part of the Fordham University website. Although I don't think they specifically discuss evidence of plagues or lack thereof the sources mentioned may give you an idea of who was writing in the relevant periods both within the 'Byzantine' area of control and the nearby Muslim world which may in turn give you alternative viewpoints to consider.

OK maybe the reason for mass-production not being instigated durung the war period is a different argument.

Technically so was the MB5 since although developed during the war by repute the only action it seems to have seen was being shot up on a firing range.

All you can wish to know you should find here for the main Roman museum and the site but basically the Verluanium Museum is a must see and don't forget to try opening the drawers beneath the display cases there is a wealth of additional items tucked away there. Obviously the Theatre to the west of the site is worth a look particularly if you can locate them and check its relationship to the earlier Iron Age monument sites on the hill to the NNE. Within the park area, which contains the original town walls and the Museum, there is a building containing a hypocaust and several small sections of wall still standing notably the area to the SSE with the associated ravine.

UPI.com is carrying the following item which links in nicely with current discussion on the Silk Road Myth here:

From my memory of the sources the 'army' was not specifically sent for conquest rather it was an exploration 'in force' which was apparently turned back by the 'Persians' claiming that Rome lay another two years travel away but it does point up the fact that most of our 'detailed' knowledge of the overland explorations in this period comes from Chinese rather than Roman sources. The obvious exception is the 'theft' of silk worms from China apparently undertaken by a couple of monks in the Byzantine period reported here on UNRV.

Given the paucity of 'written' evidence for the period the short answer is probably not with any great degree of certainty. Archaeologically we can look at periods of extensive burning and destruction at sites like Colchester, St Albans, London and now possibly Silchester and link them to the Bouddican revolty period but this is not a guarantee that we have it correct. Carbon dating usually has a window of several years during which events may have occured with varyiong degrees fo certainty. On this basis for example with London given the usual mix of key-hole and slightly more extensive excavations which are possible there in some cases evidence of extensive burnign and destruction could either be the result of the revolt or instead simply another 'Pudding Lane' creating an earlier 'Great Fire of Londinium'. Searches for literary or epigraphic evidence may eventually turn up a few more scraps of evidence but given the usual state of incomplete preservation of writing tablets, even at Vindolanda, and/ or the broken and incomplete nature of inscribed stones in Britain I don't hold out much hope for this avenue of research.

Providing responses to this topic remain within the context of Republican Rome/ Early Principate there is no obvious objection to it.

Oxbow Books/ David Brown - A publisher as well as seller and while they may not always be the cheapest, except for pre-publication deals, if they state they have a book in stock it generally is.

Neither the current UK Government nor the large sections of Murdock run press that support them have any interest in what the reality of the actual UK debt to GDP ratio is. The debt total is the excuse they are using to point blame at the previous government and institue a series of policies that would not get off first base otherwise.

I suspect part of the problems is how various Latin texts have been translated particularly when you consider the context in which the word 'salute' has been interpreted. EG the Latin text of Tacitus Historia 2.80 from the Perseus Tufts site in full is: My Latin isn't brilliant but I suspect that the salutaturi/ salutavere references can be taken as a vocal 'salute' or hail rather than the physical salute it is sometimes translated as. The confusion seems to have arisen since the 'English' word 'salute' although it may have been derived from the Latin root is more commonly taken to be a 'physical' salute rather than a 'vocal' one.

The list of benefits you are proposing look very attractive for someone intending to visit the Wall in the near future but ultimately the main thing you need to be able to do is convince potential long term members that you are both offering a something different to what they can get through membership of other organisations and also that what you are doing will have a net benefit to the 'Wall' experience for the future. I'm already a Friend of Vindolanda and also have Heritage membership so even if I do not visit from one year to the next I continue renewing on the basis that my membership money is going into the long term work they undertake be it excavation, conservation or publication.

Question moved as requested.

Possibly in a very few temples in particular cultures but so far as I am aware not usually a feature of a 'mother goddess' or other cult site dedicated to health problems in the Roman period.

If you are indicating that your belief that the sundry 'reconstructions' in Vegas and elsewhaere in America are cheap pastiches of the real thing then you probably will have a lot who agree with you. However rebuilding on the same site especially if a site does not go completely out of use, is efectively just another phase in that particular sites use. Some aspects of the previous buildings or street layout usually survives therefore archaeologically even if not artistically or socialogically they ARE comparable.

Obviously too easy - Got it in one