Melvadius

I know that Richard Dawkins pops up on several different radio based scientific and/or theological debate related programmes on a fairly regular basis. Could it have been the 'Life Scientific' which was shown in early September by any chance?

This is fairly old news other versions of which, although not this specific source, were previously cited in this thread. However it is good to remind people that even in muck there can be a lot of what is literally archaeological 'gold'.

BTW I've just listened to the video and there is one interesting comment by the reporter which seemed to indicate that one of the solidii is dated to Honorius. Fair enough you may think but the claimed date was AD423 which is actually when he died and more than 10 years after 'new' coinage is generally supposed to have stopped reaching Roman Britain around 406/ 410 AD. IF the claimed date is proven correct this really does make this a Nationally important discovery - well done that metal detectorist for reporting their find and thereby letting the museum get in to check over the site.

The BBC is carrying this article and associated video report of a nationally significant discovery of gold coins by a metal detectorist near St Albans. The Herts Advertiser has a similar article but also indicates that there will be talk in St Albans, I believe at the Verulamium Museum, on Roman gold coins on 1 November 2012: Details are: The museum will be presenting a talk on the Roman gold coins hoard at 7pm on Thursday, November 1. Tickets cost

Welcome to UNRV syapa & ByzantineNut and regarding your question all roads here may lead to Rome but several of our members are equally happy to discuss Byzantium.

The problem is that anything which tends towards a specialist and/or academic market is always liable to be seen as an expensive production item to publishers when you factor in all the various production costs. I quite liked the look of Chariots and Other Wheeled Vehicles in Italy Before the Roman Empire until I saw the $80 price tag.

I know that there were two distinct schools of thought in the group I was part of. I only wore segmentata a few times but vastly preferred hamata especially after I had finished making my own. I have one abiding memory of doing some drill practice in full kit one January with snow on the ground and although admittedly wearing a cloack as well as a tunic my upper body was nice and warm inside the hamata. Mind you my feet lost all sense of feeling after splashing through a few ice covered puddles in the road.

I haven't seen specific figures quoted but by repute church attendance during WW2 in the UK at least initially went up and obviously there were church parades for those under arms. I suspect it is a truism that having bombs dropped from a great height or takign older examples armies tramping back and forward over your crops and stealing your livestock will either turn you to religion or against it. To paraphrase the tagline from the old joke - Q. ...but you aren't a XXXX! A. Now is not the time to be making enemies. It just depends who is relating things afterwards which aspect comes to the fore.

The Telegraph is carrying a report on the discovery in Austria of a female burial dating to the Bronze Age which contains a wide range of tools related to the production of bronze tools and implements. a lot of people don't realise that flint use continued well into the Bronze and even Iron Age so with the discovery of a hammer and anvil along with flint tools (possibly for cleaning burrs off bronze?) this discovery is seen as the first hard evidence for the creation of Bronze Age tools not being a solely male preserve in the period as is usually claimed. A slightly longer article is here from Business Standard while the Irish Daily Mail article here points out that another 14 burials from the site are currently being investigated. It sounds an interesting investigation to look forward to more details from in the future.

The Guardian is carrying this story of a new 3 week expedition to explore the site where the Antikyther Device was discovered back in 1900/1901. THe site being explored is host to several diffulties not least the danger of bends when divers are operating at depths of 70 meters or more over an extended period but equally it has a lot of promise since there are nearby wrecks whcih have not been previously explored and this is hopeful for the discovery of possibly more parts from the device or even another version.

Here's wishing you all the best of the day and hope things go well in the coming year

Artimi, You haven't said what the second document is, whether it is also a Chinese document (I am assuming Sun Tzu' Art of War, on a similar topic or from another culture eg Frontinius Strategemata and if the task is simply to analyse or compare and contrast. This is actually key to deciding how your neice needs to undertake this task. Irrespective of what the requirement is one of her first tasks will be to look at some background cultural/ historical reference material relating to the documents eg who was writing, who may they have been writing for, were there religious or other factors which may have affected this writing and what do the documents tell us about the cultures and/ or each other. PS the 'J' website may well be 'JANET' which is the UK' research and education website.

The Smith dictionary (linked ot above) carries a lot of interesting information on this topic if you go through it including a couple of sections to the effect that: A father could kill his married daughter and her paramour if he caught them in the act in either his own or his son in law's house but her husband was only allowed to kill the paramour int he same circumstances if he was a panderer, actor, dancer, currently convicted of a public crime without his rights restorered one of the families freedmen or a slave. However the killing had to be undertaken then and there while a husband couldn't continue living with his wife after being made aware of such adultery - if he didn't divorce her he could be punished as a panderer himself. Obviosuly there is a lot more to this and the laws were subject to change and some aspects were reinterpreted over time.

It sounds like one of those 'hang it off the wall' type statements that some people throw out to see if it sticks or at least what rises to the surface afterwards in general discussion. A favourite trick of some teachers/ lecturers trying to make their class think for themselves or at least wake up. Basically IF you take the view that the Roman's accurately reported the numbers killed in their various wars AND that all those who died were killed by the gladius rather than the spartha, pilum or various other available weaponry &/or disease/ famine then it COULD be true. However in actual fact in my view there is no real way to prove or disprove it. Even for the Modern Era, let alone the Roman period, we do not have accurate 'tabulated' records of who was killed with precisely which weapon and when. But it makes for a good starting point for a discussion

i think it did very well but i do think that like all armor it could be periced the right way A few years back the reenactment group I was then part of back in 1999/ 2000 spent several happy minutes firing a reconstructed 'scorpion' dart thrower at a redundent set of lorica segmentata until they succeeded in piercing it. This was so a specific shot could be included in the Adam Hart-Davis TV series "What have the Romans Done for Us". The point to remember is that although they were firing at 50-60 yards/ metres range for safety reasons, like most if not all reconstructed bolt throwing and ballista devices, the tension of the scorpion was a lot lower than it would have been in real life - consequently both the effective range and hitting power fo the fired dart would have been a lot higher.

The BBC is carrying this article on the discovery of a 5000 year old buried Oak tree. Apprently they cut it into planks on site with the intention of drying the plansk and then creating a 44 foot long table to go on public display since fewer and fewer 'bog oaks' are being found. I only hope, but suspect they haven't, cut samples first to add to the Dendrochronology database which is invaluable for dating fragments of wood which are sometimes found at prehistoric sites.

The Late Roman Army by Pat Southern and Karen R Dixon makes some mention of the Equites Dalmatae pointing out how little is known about both their origins and fighting style.

Given how many of our members are literate in more than one language I was slightly suprised that it has taken until now for someone to take up the challenge of reviewing one of the vast corpus of non-English books which can provide interesting insights into less commonly cited aspects of the Roman period. So all in all well done to Joe for blazing the trail. PS a personal plea to please try and keep your reviews in English, even if the subject is in a non-English language, otherwise now we are getting back in the groove (we have a few more reviews in hand already on the stocks waiting to be launched) it may take us longer than normal for someone to check them before they can be posted.

I would definately include A Companion to the Roman Army by Paul Erdkamp in your reading list since it includes several very good essays with recent academic theories and research over this period. I would also suggest including Lawrence Keppie's The Making of the Roman Army: from Republic to Empire.

That is the question - his referencing is very patchy. In some sections it is actually quite good (full Tacitus book and passage references) but equally often he doesn't seem to bother at best only citing 'most authors now believe' or not even that simply hanging his descriptions of events in mid-air. In this instance it does chime with what I have read more academic authors state.

No I really do mean that the recruitment spread around this period to the rest of the Empire. I cannot remember if anyone has suggested why but I suspect the underlying problem was that during the wars between Pompeii and Caesar and thereafter the wars between Octavian/ Augustas and his various enemies much of Italy had been devastated and there had been heavy losses amongst the legionarries who had been recruited from Italy. Recruiting had extended in this period to the various provinces depending on where the various contenders though they could obtain sufficient replacements for their losses Thereafter there was a general shift to recruiting in the provinces Keppie identified a Republican period practice of with legions being recruited annually they were usually numbered from west to east in a northwards arc around the med. He was first to suggest, with Dando-Collins later supporting the view, that later on different legions each established their own traditional recruiting grounds in specific provinces. Initially this was usually based on where they were first raised/ recruited but thereafter was usually dependant on where they had been based at specific points in their history with low numbered legions initially usually based and /or recruited in Spain.

Dando-Collins states that Tiberius followed Augustus policy of not recruiting men into the legions who lived south of the River Po and 'broadlyextended the draft throughout the provinces' (p21). Augustus apparently enrolled special cohorts of freedmen into the auxilliaries after the Varus disaster but one major instance of non-citizens being recruited into the legions was with Nero in AD68 when he raised a 'new' legion from sailors based at Misenum at this time although freemen they did not have either citizen or Latin status. Dando-Collins believes that the raising of the I and II Auditrix was not a straight forward enrollment of saiors but was a bit more complex which also involved the raising of first one then a second unofficial 'support' legion by the town of Vienna on the banks of the Rhone who supported Nero but had an ongoing feud with their neighbours at Lugdunum who supported Vindex. Nero's 'sailor' legions were not officially recognized or equipped and suffered heavy losses at Milvan Bridge when they approached Galba trying to get some sort of official recognition but instead he sent his cavalry against them. It was only later that Otho merged the two groups inot the I Auditrix and the surviving non-citizens were granted citizenship on being officially enrolled (Dando-Collins (84-89)& (98-104).

Past Horizons is carrying a biot more information on the recent work here.

Although the rule of thumb was that only citizens could serve in the legion and the auxilliaries were composed on non-citizens, strictly speaking there seems to be confusion about the precise status of some men who served in either the legions or the auxilliaries throughout much of the early Principate. There were several instances where for one reason or another non-citizens were drafted into the legions in emergencies when such men may have been 'given' citizenship so they could serve. For instance sailors and marines (usually freemen or other non-citizens) were drafted into the legion in a couple of crises even slaves in one instance in the late Republican period. Some auxilliaries seem to have changed their name on enlistment to the tri-nomina format even before they had received their citizenship while in a couple of instances entire auzxilliary units received citizenshiop for extreme valour before their term of enlistment had completed. After problems with units rebelling when led by native leaders auxilliary units were usually commanded by citizesn even if the unit themselves continued to be recruited from non-citizens - there also could be senior centurions drafted between legion and auxilliary units. It does seem likely though that men serving in the legion did get given the tri-nomina even if they were strictly speaking non-citizeen on enlistment.

It does seem to have stirred up controvery recently - probably due to it being announced at a symposium. The BBC is now carrying this report on the announcement in whcih some of the scepticism already generated is highlighted along with further detailed analysis here by Kate Cooper, Prof Ancient History, University of Manchester on their Religion/ Ethics pages. Prof. Cooper discusses some of the potential implications of this and similar fragmentary texts from the early Christian period.