Melvadius

In a related article to the previous one I posted recently about the discovery of a Hoard of 'necessity' coins, Past Horizons is carrying a very good follow-up article on the workshops themselves. The new article includes several images including 360 degree photographs of the excavations and much more on the Gallo-Roman (or as the article states Romano-Gaulish) potter Pistillus himself here plus images of some of the figurines and related material found on the site.

If its not Caistor I'd actually go for Lympne instead.

Thank you From my not that vast store of images:

The answer to the numbering issue goes back to the later Rerpublican period. Initally when Rome was still basically a single city state; consular armies were called up for a single campaigning season and given numbers more or less at random. As Rome expanded and campaigns became extended - especially with theatres of war on multiple landmasses armies stayed in existence for longer periods and the numbering system became corrupted as new armies were raised for different long term campaigns. It became further corrupted when civil war broke out and competing generals were raising their own legions effectively with the same number. Octavian/ Augustus inherited the debris of civil war and while several units were disbanded he also took some of his opponents surviving legions into his own army either as they were or merged with some of his own units. The consequence of this merger was that several legions had the same nuimber so the different naming conventions were then used to seperate out the similarly numbered legions. Once the 'genie was out of the bottle' it became less of an issue about forming legions as needed and using numbers more or less at random simply using a name as a designator. By the later Imperial period the situation became even more confused with a drift to creating 'cohort' sized legions and vexillations of existing legions being based away from their parent legion for years at a time and needing to recruit locally. It appears that in most instances it became the practice to simply call all of the vixillations by the original legion name irrespective of where they were based or how many long term vexillations the unit had been split into.

The link to the additional video report (in French) mentioned in the text is here in case anyone missed it.

Philip the Arab?

Ah that explains it. As stated on other threads there are only three mentions of the revolt in extant sources - two from Tacitus and one by Cassius Dio. Cassius Dio was actually writing around a hundred years after the event while Tacitus is relatively speaking contemporary as he would have had the chance to speak to people personally involved.

I'd be interested to know which source you are quoting because such a suggestion doesn''t appear to be in any of my reference books. BTW I think you are referring to Legio II Augusta as staying in its base - as well attested by Tacitus. Legio XIV Gemina, and parts XX Valeria Victrix, formed the main part of the Roman forces along with an unknown number of auxilliaries as a vexillation of the IX Hispana had been routed earlier in the revolt.

Welcome Scipio I hope you enjoy the fora,. BTW Don't worry about posting in the wrong place we moved your post here.

Don't complain too much. More traffic to the site from anywhere is potentially a good thing particularly if we get more members or at least regular readers out of it. In addition if they do visit on a regular basis we could have some dedicated economists effectively on tap available and willing to try answering or at least discussing economics related questions like how could the Roman empire pay for itself for so long;).

I can see what you are arguing but I would tend to draw more of a distinction between any 'divine' status either claimed or implied by the Imperial Cult and how individual Roman patrons may have been seen by their clients, or more likely their tenants, after their death. While some patrons may have been seen as particularly favoured of the gods and generally 'good' men and as such to be honoured I do not think that most Roman citizens would have ascribed to them 'divine' status. Depending on how badly they may have 'gouged' their clients/ tenants, they may have been placed into an entirely different 'spiritual' category. To adapt a quote 'we bury/cremate our dead so they stay dead' may have closer resonance to the truth of the matter in most cases.

Past Times is carrying a report here on the discovery of a major cache of around 10,000 'necessity' coins minted as an local expedient to replace 'officially' minted coinage which were scarce during much of the troubled third century

Have a great day

The point of the page I linked to was it had an early sketch of the Pantheon from which you could see that at this point in time there were no extant statues on the roof. The image you have linked to seems to have sculptures on the pediment more like something from the Parthenon in Greece rather than what the available evidence of the remains of bronze fasteners suggests may have been on the Pantheon in Rome. As indicated above; it appears to have been decorated with relief sculpture, probably of gilded bronze. Holes marking the location of clamps that held the sculpture suggest that its design was likely an eagle within a wreath; ribbons extended from the wreath into the corners of the pediment This would suggest an image along similar lines to the eagle on a legions standard or indeed the Emblem of the city of Rome but I can't find a suitable image to link to.

I am not certain that you will find some images anywhere as I rather suspect the statues were all lost/ removed from the roof well before the Renaissance when people started drawing the Pantheon. With a quick search of images I did find one which even if undated looks to be one of the earliest available on the web here. From Casssius Dio History of Rome 53.27 there does come a partial description or at least indication of the type of statues there would have been both externally and internally: It is worth noting that the Wikipedia article indicates that the Portico would have included what seems a fairly 'standard' Imperial Roman image on its pediment. It probably N.B. Topic moved from Hora Postilla Thermae as this forum seems more appropriate for this discussion.

OK we will try slighlty south of where I was guessing before 'Iulium Carnicum'

The link to this review is here but usually the way to search the reviews is to click on the 'books' link on the left of any forum pages (under the UNVR History logo) and then go to the 'History Books Index'. The index should normally be at the top of the page and then search alphabetically.

This issue was picked up in the Independent review in Jan 2007. I do wonder why the Guardian is only reviewing this book now - was there a paperback issue or is it simply desperation to get something they can fit inot to their 'Great Dynasties' series of reviews? As to being the 'founding' father of Western Civilisation I agree with Ingsoc's confusion although I see 'Western civilisation' as being based on more than one bedrock - Greece had a major part to play in Rome's development as did several other cultures both as actors and reactors to Rome's development. I could even argue for the Islamic states beign of significance as they effectively saved some of the ancient writings which feed into the Renaissance flowering that could otherwise have been lost. While Augustus aquired Rome and obviously had a significant influence saying that there was a single 'founding father' seems to be going several steps too far into speculation as he stood on the shoulders of those who had gone before and created the conditions around the breakup of the Republic that he was ultimately able to take control of.

STV apparently have a video report of the find here unfortunately it requires 'Flash' to play which I don't have on this PC.

It is unclear in the BBC article what the problem with the stones was that they couldn't be moved. However the Scotsman makes the point in their article that when first found the stones were 'too brittle' to be examined. Presumably they have been doing some heavy duty preservation on the stones before they could be cleaned up and the faces revealed for study. The need to conserve the stones is confirmed by an article in the East Lothian Courier which incidently has a good photo of the four seasons heads found on one of the stones here

Second wild guess Teurnia

The issue as the Heritage Key site makes clear is that the evidence for a IX Hispana presence outside Britian at the end of it's life is higher than for its presence inside Britain. Most scholars I have spoken to or heard on the subject are inclined to the view on this basis that the IX was more likely to have been lost outside Britain than inside although as the BBC article makes clear there are some 'revisionists' who take the opposing view. Personally, given the scattered continental evidence I am more inclined to the 'orthodox' view for destruction/ disbandoning outside Britain although not necessarily in Parthia there are several other events where either could have happened across the empire in the period. Indeed several other legions disappeared from the roles of Roman legions over the years and are often only mentioned as a legion lost rather than by name - historians tend to guess based on major events and which legion is no longer listed and when. Around the same time Legio XXII Deiotariana disappeared in this way and as they were based in the East they tend to get associated with the Bar Kockba Revolt but there is no specific evidence for this assertion. A legion was also claimed lost to the Parthians at Elegia and if the IX had been transferred to the continent in exchange for Legio VI Victrix around AD 119-120 they could easily have been transferred again in anticipation of a major campaign. Coupled with Roman reticence about naming shamed legions is the underlying problem, with any discussion on the topic, the Roman habit of transferring complete or partial units around the Empire in pursuit of either short or long term aims either when an invasion was being planned or an enemy attack anticipated. Given how scanty our records are anyway it is unsuprising that there are a lot of places and actions where the IXth or any other unit could have vanished from the records - effectively without trace - as many 'have'.

I'll try Aguntum

Previously I got the impression that some fora posts did not seem to increase my overall post count and although I may be wrong I now suspect that the updating of 'view counts' of fora is not necessarily a continuous process . Although the precise 'count' may be updated by the site software as it occurs the actual updating of the 'counter' is much less frequent while sometimes updates to the counter seem to be triggered by replies.

CiceroD if you were in the UK you probably could find suitable cloth at several markets or specialist cloth shops although you may have to do a lot of mileage to see what they hold. There are also several re-enactor's fairs run each year some of which in addition to the usual pre-made items (ususally but not always medieval) such as clothing, armour and other equipment have cloth suppliers willing to sell you something suitable by the yard or metre. In fact one of the biggest UK events is the Spring Market (although I believe there is also an autumn one) which is coincidentally going to happen this weekend (18-20 March 2011) - full details of this and contact details for the traders including several cloth merchants can be found here From your membership page you seem to be based in America and I believe there are similar facilities and events there (and elsewhere) so even if they may be a bit old it may be worth your while checking out the suppliers listed at the American 'legion' sites which are listed above: Leggio XX has several suppliers listed under fabric here. The Legio XXIV site doesn't seem as well laid out but also lists one or two fabric suppliers here.