Melvadius

Alternatively according to at least one author if something similar to these event's in Gaul they may have ended up even further away than mysterious Cathay

Yes this is the 'theory' which has been trotted out on an irregular basis since the original article about this group since the 1950's when Homer H. Dubs, a professor of Chinese history at Oxford University first mooted it. BTW I like the Wikipedia comments on Dubs:

I must admit that I haven't used the Perseus Tufts website for a few years but I don't remember it being anywhere near as crowded then as it seems to be now so I can sympathise with your complaint

Thank you Harvey Sheldon (who has excavated extensively in london) has made this point in a couple of lectures I have listened to. In fact you may find Harvey's 1995/96 review which covers both Gustav Milne's Roman London as well as mentioning Andrew Selkirk's 1995, article which you found of interest. [bTW Andrew Selkirk is the founder of Current Archaeology which has been around since 1967] I'm not sure if things have moved on very far from the confusion expressed in these 1995/6 articles as we are still waiting for someone to find a definitive inscription from London which may clarify it's precise status. IIRC a few years back Harvey seemed to come down on some Imperial interest in London at several points in it's history to the extent of the Emperor's apparently granting it a separate existence from much of the country and it possibly existing as an administrative center.

I know that it mentions 'Roman' in the banner of this story from Newstrack India however in my view the claims for a 'lost Roman legion' in China are currently so much moonshine without much basis in fact. I will reserve judgement until they can provide something a bit more Roman sounding than 'Western-looking people with green, deep-set eyes, long hooked noses and blond hair' Chinese as the basis of this theory. There were innumerable different tribes and racial groupings along the Silk Road several of whom seem much more likely candidates as the origins of this particular enclave. In my view what this group of 'anthropologists' really need are some 'archaeologists' to find and scientifically excavate a group of dateable burials that they can carry out isotope analysis on to see where the occupants grew up. Ideally these should contain something provably Roman in origin like some nice Italic pottery and more importantly some phalerae as these would indicate the burial of a centurion - something unlikely for a civilian merchant to have been lugging about China.

Actually in the later Empire I believe there are some recorded instances of a form of conscription being instigated with communities required to provide a set number of recruits. In case it is of interest I have extracted some (but not all) surveying related terms from Campbell, B

Both Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall have numerous marker stones indicating that different sections were built by different cohorts of the legions. They obviously were also responsible for laying out and building their marching camps. The setting out of these camps were the responsibility of a specialist within the legions. There are also a few indications that auxilliaries may also have been directly involved in construction projects including roads and forts as well as possibly some 'civilian' projects at the Emperors decree. However most older history books have them simply acting as guards while the legions built. There were civilian architects and land surveyors as indictaed by Vitruvius and some other Latin texts. I indicated on another thread the value of Brian Campbells 'The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors' regarding the functions and responsibilites of such men. In my view it is quite possible that someone trained as a surveyor int he legions would have taken their skills into pricvate life and to some extent vice versa.

Thanks for the references I really must get around to reading those books in partucular fully sometime soon.

Possibly although I have a couple of issues about this. The first is that although coming from a museum the 'restorations' do not seem to have been done to full museum standard ie the internationally agreed standard is that any replacement should be fully identifiable as such and equally important the 'restoration' must be fully reversible with no damage to the 'origial'. This leads to a second question rather than issue - did he apply to the Vatican Museum to see if any of their sorted and labelled parts (most of which were removed by Victorian period ladies armed with geologists hammers) originally came from these statues so could be used in the restoration?

This project has moved on and there are now two recent articles on the BBC (Nov 2010) as well as a website which is dedicated to publishing additional results from the survey as individual cave recordings are completed. Real Mortimer

Following on from innumerable gaffs, sexual misconduct allegations and general political and other 'foot-in-mouth' comments and actions Italy's current prime minister (Berlusconi) has apparently found a new way to get his name in the papers. Is this something we should get upset about?

I think the answer to that is probably. There is strong evidence for the Roman practice of centuration being carried out in newly conquered areas whereby regular plots of land were created and there is some evidence that the necessary surveying was undertaken by legion officers. I know that parts of Northern Italy still show evidence for centuration while the second and third pages of this document shows examples of centuration and gives some explanation of it. The article by Caravello and Michieletto is probably much better giving a lot of basic details not covered in other documents including how the lands were laid out and divisions created between areas. For your question one quote describes when this happened although not specifically mentioning who carried out the actual surveying: There are however some good photographic images of possible areas of centuration and discussion on this blog specifically about some North African examples. Brian Campbell's The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary (Journal of Roman Studies Monograph) is possibly the definitive work on the subject containing a wealth of detail of how it was carried out and by whom but I haven't got time to go through it at present.

Putting aside the normal roman practice of taking slaves during an initial conquest although not directly relevant to British slaves being taken to Rome there is some basic information on Roman slaves in Britain on the Museum of London website which you may find of interest as they mention both a slave from Gallia Lugdunensis in Britain and more importantly the presence of Imperial Freedmen in Britain owning slaves - some of those they owned by implication may have been British. Imperial Freedment were slaves owned by the Emperor who had been freed and tasked with carrying out various duties for their master. In the case of those assigned to Britain it is not impossible that at some point they may have returned to Rome and taken some of their British bought slaves with them. The Icons site has links to a couple of stories relating to Roman slaves in Britain one of whom, Regina, was definately from Britain. N.B. I am not sure if the links work correctly but you can see an image of Regina's tombstone here on the BBC History of the World website.

While agreed that this is speculation it is based on a few basic premises including several that even if we have no specific records the Romans were perfectly capable of working out for themselves. Neither do they necessitate modern ideas on military manouvering. i) All large units would have to organise themselves in such a way that they can move quickly from point a to point b. ii) Trajan's column et al depict large units of men moving in column with multiple men abreast. iii) Arrian specifically describes (possibly suggested) tactics against the Alans which includes a description of how units were arranged on the march and De Munitionibus Castrorum (About the Fortifications of Military Camps) usually now attributed to "Pseudo-Hyginus" desribes camp layouts. iv) To change from column to line abreast to face the enemy you have limited options in how this can be done. v) If you find you need to replace one unit with another in the face of the enemy again you have limited options vi) QED my suggestion as one possible way in which untis could be exchanged if needed BTW Nowhere did I suggest that it was done in this way and my original post made clear that such a manouver could probably best be organised based on actions by the rearmost unit whose 'dressing' would have largely remained intact irrespective of how badly the front unit was 'chewed up'.

Ah 'that' clip from 'Rome'. I would agree highly unlikely to be carried out while in direct contact with the enemy and no real reason to do so in the short period of combat depicted. However by waiting until the enemy have pulled back from immediate contact and by opening out the spacing between the 'files' in essence what I suggested as a possible means by which entire centuries could be relieved.

The Daily Mail carries a report with some good photographs on the excavations in Syon Park which have uncovered extensive remains of a Romano-British settlement as well as some late Bronze-Age and other periods material. [Edit The Musuem of London press release is also now on-line which gives a few more details of these excavations which actually took place in 2008 but have only just been announced]

I suppose at some point I should try watching this clip but cannot from this machine. From what I can gather the point of discussion is about a 'formal' as opposed to 'informal' relief of the front rank in a sustained battle. Both Virgil61 and Caldrail have made interesting comments on this with Caldrail's example of a police line particularly aposit for 'informal' actions during combat but the crux is really that in any battle, outside the general period of intense melee, there will be ebbs and flows of combat when units will to some extent pull back from direct contact with each other for a breather. I suspect from re-enactment experience very few units of the period could keep fighting at a sustained level of skill for more than a few minutes at a time, let alone hours, without an increasing number of combatant making a mistakes and being injured or killed. During such 'breaks' in battle badly wounded men can slip to the back of the formation and fresh men take their place while ranks are redressed and if necessary groups of men replaced or at least relieved. The question is how large a unit could be moved forward in relief of another and whether they would have a formal way of doing so and here I suspect the Roman practice of organising units in maniples may come into play. To speculate; one relatively simple method of relief for the Romans would involve training two centuries together with one placed behind the other in battle. Although the front century may have been in battle the rearmost unit hasn't and should to a great extent have retained its original dressing. This would allow the rearmost centurion to order his unit to go into 'double' ranks leaving a space between each 'file' of troops as an opening manouver. If necessary he could run down the line counting off his men. All it would take then would be for the leading man in each file to step forward and tap the rearmost man in his 'sister' century to make him aware that he is the one who has to move. The message is passed to the rest of the maouvering file and at the word of command the front century would open up in a similar way to the rearmost allowing passage to the front of the relieving unit. The advantage of this method is that it can be carried out quickly irrespective of dead or injured men lying about and rough or broken terrain. It also doesn't involve difficult manouvers in the face of the enemy which could leave a unit side on to the enemy while they try to shuffle sideways out of the battle line. IF this is the system the 'coreographed actors' on the Rome DVD carried out then it really is one of the most logical methods that could have been used and one which I am sure the Romans would have thought of using. The additional point to make of course is that for legions to be as effective as they apparently were in the early Principate, irrespective of more modern infantry or artillerymen's views on drill, the Romans would have needed to carry out regular drills in all forms of combat including close formation manouvering.

As my source was an on-line archaeological news round-up I suspect it is more that it has just filtered through to becoming a 'news' article albeit in my source's case on a local newspaper. Mind you I have now found the associated 'iRomans' site run by Tullie House Museum which may be worth a look for anyone with young children.

Two different postings on this topic have now been merged here.

I know the feeling or lack of same when the radiators in out house don't work properly for which reason we do consider form time to time doing away with them and installing modern underfloor heating instead. You can get this but rather than via hypocaust it involves running a long length of wiring or pipes (depending which system is installed) under the floor surface, after that warm floors whenever you wish.

Steve Kaye writing in British Archaeology describes some of his recent analysis and thoughts on possible locations for the rebel army led by Boudica's defeat by the Romans. In general I can follow and accept his reasoning although I would note that several authorities state that the Ninth legion probably only lost a vexillation rather than being totally destroyed. According to the report by Tacitus in the Annals only 2,000 men were needed to be transferred into Britain from Germany after the revolt to bring the legions back up to full strength. Despite that one slight caveat I don't think his basic argument for the battles probable general location is unreasonable.

[Edit The Westmorland Gazette are currently carrying a report on a new use for Twitter] I suppose this is an obvious advance in the use of 'Twitter' and possibly a lot more educational than its originator's thought it would ever be used for.

Possily they could IF they could get enough men together to try but it took years to be able to get enough Roman re-enactors together in sufficient numbers in one place to even make up a full century and that only happened a few years back. You also have to remember that most Roman re-enactment groups are effectively drill groups rather than combat reenactors. It's the sharp swords you see - 'they don't like it up them' as Corporal Jones would say On this basis trying to reenact an ancient battle with thousands of participants in which such an evolution could be attempted seems a forlorn hope.

I would remind posters on this thread that there is a Code of Conduct on this forum, so can we keep this civil please or do you really wish several portions of this thread consigned to the outer darkness?

Sorry Trethiwr but the London wall does date to the early Third century although I have been told that there is even some debate about precisely when the dock areas were blocked off. I was told by one of the excavators that there is some indications that where there are short inlet docking areas these may actually have been kept open after the wall was built until a lot later in the Roman period. At most initially possibly only being blocked off by 'chains' or a similar temporary barrier mainly intend to prevent ships sailing in and out without paying a toll. BTW We have several of these small guide books for various sites including Pompeii, Herculaneum and I believe Paestum. If you search Amazon for 'guide with Reconstructions' quite a few different locations come up.