Northern Neil

Remember, chaps, that us over the pond have yet to see this - so dont tell us too much!!

WOW- how can anyone follow that? Happy birthday, Antiochus!

Xanten?

Ah - how do you know he doesn't, GO? WELL.... as it so happens... I probably might if I knew a bit more about them. Problem is, Christianity has wiped out so much of what there is to know about these religions, that there is almost nothing you can attach yourself to spiritually. I dont believe the modern Druids have got it right, as their modern interpretation seems very cosy and idealistic. I also think the neo - classical revival religions in Greece and parts of Italy have it wrong also, as most of the practices and mysteries associated with those cults have been wiped out.

The Romans did indeed eat fast food, but probably not nearly as much as our society does. At Pompeii and Herculaneum fast food bars can still be seen. I dont think they ate 'A lot' of fast food; like you say, many people didnt have kitchens, so their one meal of the day was probably obtained from a fast food shop. I think they didnt get obese because most of them physically worked quite hard, and the motor vehicle wasnt there to take the kids round the block to school. The plebs in particular probably had to let their money stretch as far as possible given their poverty. In our society, people who regard themselves as quite poor still buy and eat far more food than they need. Whilst buying your already obese child a Big Mac so he will behave during the shopping trip is an option for us, it probably wasnt for a Roman family of plebs. So, therein lies the secret. We eat far more food than our bodies need to sustain themselves, and rely on motor vehicles for many journeys which our legs would accomplish just as well.

Well spotted, Mosquito. My felicitations.

...However, their past is also ours, and their own descendents may hate them for their follies. It will be a world tragedy if these sites are destroyed.

Just give me your ground plan, preferred style of Domus and nominal deity, and as far as I am concerned, all I need to know about your personality is already there. Expect three months or so for delivery of your new house.

In the happy little colonia of HVMVCVLVM, where everything is tiny, tickety -boo (British expression) and the populace worship the benevolent guv'norship of its founder, R.Cornelius Hadrianus (NN), the citizens are erecting a personal mansion to their great benefactor. In the centre we have the peristyle, with central pool (currently out of view) which is filled by a run - off from the impluvium (under the confluvium, centre right). The slave and tradesmens quarters are to the front, and to the lower right are some workshops with cheap apartments above, which I propose to rent to trusted citizens. Upper right, some columns need to be added, to ensure the stability of the superstructure, which is built above a wine/fast food shop managed by a paid slave who manages it on my behalf. His pay, perks and ultimate freedom depend on the profitability of this enterprise.The rest of the structure - the buildings around the peristyle, the two - storey unsula and the central garden are my own domain. More pictures to follow, pending completion!!

Put simply, no human being deserves to die, unless nature or the individual dictates. That said, Caesar was the architect of his own demise.

Sometimes conflict forges friendships. I have had several disagreements with people on this forum who have since become friends, because such passionate discourse has made us more than just one - dimensional voices on a computer screen. I do agree though that things should be kept courteous, and nothing should ever be taken personally.

Here is a spin - off from the discussion about the Iranian dam. I find it illogical that so many cultures in the world have happily allowed their parent cultures to be submerged once they have adopted monotheistic religions. Moreover, often the evangelisors have been military invaders, sweeping aside the host culture amidst great slaughter and carnage. Why do the Iranians follow a religion which annihilated their own glorious past, and which was brought to them by invading Arabs, a people they still (generally) have little affinity with? Their own original religion, Zoroastrianism, still has a few adherents - surely any Iranian nationalist would want to identify with that religion, rather than that of a people with whom they have been at perpetual war? Why do Central American indians practice Catholicism to the letter, in the knowledge that the Spanish forced this religion on them, destroying their civilisation in the process? European Christians have as their 'antichrist' a figure who was previously their god of Autumn/winter, and nothing to do with evil, seduction etc. Female priests (presumably under the influence of Ceres or some equivelent deity) burnt at the stake as purveyors of evil, and still used as a terrifying image to children, or a negative description of a woman. On this last point, I believe the film 'The Whicker Man' makes an oblique reference. EDIT: Although its climax was dictated by the contemporary view of paganism as a repository of horror - film resource. Some answers please, as this question has niggled me for some time.

In Pompeii and Herculaneum the external windows were almost at ceiling height, which would support your suggestion that they were placed simply to let light in. As to the cisterns and Impluvia and how they worked, I am in the dark. I can only make the assumption that some kind of overflow directed surplus water into the sewers.

Many thanks MPC and PNS for those excellent references. I found this on a British 'Channel 4' forum: I've tried to find an easy reference for you but can't come up with anything that deals specifically with roof drainage. Anyone else got any ideas? The short answer to your question, though, is that it depends on the building. The wealthier the owner, the more likely it would be that a building's roof would be equipped with gutters and and that there would have been ground drains on the site. Guttering and downpipes were rare, however. Where used they were made of both ceramic (most commonly) and wood. There were special tiles often with gargoyle-like heads to direct water away from the building. More usually, in the absence of gutters, roofs probably overlapped walls by quite a distance.

Paganism was not unified or in direct opposition to Christianity. The term 'paganism' was a Christian construct with which to bracket all other religions which werent either their own, or related, like Judaism. I believe that Mithraism and other cults which had an afterlife as their central theme were every bit as emotionally satisfactory as early christianity. Some of them were even monotheistic. The thing which really got Christianity off the ground was adoption by the state and the fact that the religion was conferred on you shortly after birth from then on. And like it was to most of us viewing this forum.

At least the Pathans of Afghanistan were destroying something which was not part of their cultural ancestry - not that this qualifies their act of vandalism. The thing that saddens me is that these sites represent the history of the Iranians - or Persians themselves. They are destroying history which is directly relevent to themselves, in much the same way as the early Christians destroyed classical statues and temples in the Dark ages. In future decades or centuries, when Islam has emerged from the angry and retrograde mindset into which it currently seems to be sinking and returned to the enlightened form it took in the 9th - 11th centuries, future Iranians will despise the small mindedness of this policy.

I feel I must hand this over to Wotwotius; If he hadn't said Augustus' Mausoleum, I wouldn't have guessed the city.

This is correct. When the model is complete I will upload some more photographs - the peristyle does indeed have a pool (out of view) partly filled by run-off from the roofs, and partly from overflow from the impluvium. Exterior windows at ground level were indeed rare; but quite common above head height. At Pompeii exterior windows tended to be about seven to ten feet off the ground. The windows on this model are depicted accordingly, thus affording the privacy required for my tiny citizens. Smaller windows did exist at ground level which appeared to give illumination to staircases and store rooms. Although the groundplan of this house is from Timgad, the overall appearance of the model is derived from my visits to Pompeii. I would be very grateful to receive ideas about drainpipes and gutters; none of my reconstruction material seems to show them, and I can only find a few scattered sources.

I am the same, but with beer. Fortunately, this does not happen with small or moderate amounts.

R.Cornelius Hadrianus (NN) pays close attention...

I think not. Alexander's advanced version of the phalanx in tandem with his intelligent use of cavalry would have caused serious problems to the incipient Roman legions, and Rome would have become a historical curiosity, like the Etruscans and the Kingdom of Pontus.

ROME!!!

I see your point; most of the romantic stuff attached to this I naturally disregard, and I do not in fact agree that this map resemples Antarctica actually under the ice. I suppose I have hammered on about it because I have a niggling doubt that in amongst the garbage, there may be a little something here, and it would be sad if we overlooked it on account of the mass of garbage which has accreted around the subject. I just feel that the two final maps on my link do show a similarity which deserves closer scrutiny. But then, as Kosmo has stated, it is a matter of opinion wether or not there is a similarity, or to what degree you accept discrepancies.

Being of 1950's persuasion, I immediately zoomed to this new thread. I misread it - I thought it said 'Tired of unearthing unspeakable ancient Elvis'!

R.Cornelius Hadrianus(Northern Neil) stands on his own in a corner, an engineer only just elevated from the plebaean class in his threadbare and only toga, somewhat overawed by the wealth and status of the other guests. He sees a half naked man in a thracian helmet come into the atrium and trip over the ledge of the impluvium due to his restricted visibility. In an eerie presage to something that actually happens to his modern incarnation many years later, the following occurs: Being of slightly shy disposition and not wanting to start a conversation with a man rumoured to eat babies, he wanders off to one of the food tables. He accidentally knocks a dish full of small savouries off the table with his elbow. They land in a large tray full of gravel used by the domus cats as a toilet. Nobody sees this. Acutely embarrassed and not wishing to appear silly to these people he has just met, he quickly picks up the savouries, puts them back in the dish, and hurries to another room! Nervously looking through the doorway he has just exited, he sees Caldrail lift his helmet and help himself generously from the dish of savouries...