DecimusCaesar

I enjoyed that one too, though what he was doing wasn't all that revisionist at the time, after all the series and the book were written in 1997 when a lot of other scholars, following in the footsteps of Steven Runciman's Crusades histories of the 1950's (plus Le Goff, Maalouf etc) were saying that the Crusades were a terrible period of history. To quote 'A History of the Crusades vol.3, 1954' by Runciman : "In the long sequence of interaction and fusion between Orient and Occident out of whcih our civilization has grown, the Crusades were a tragic and destructive episode...There was so much courage and so little honour, so much devotion and so little understanding." It is only after the events of September 11th that historians began re-assesing the Crusades once again. Jones' book wasn't really revisionist at the time as he was just following what Runciman et al had been saying since the 1950s. Although once again he did try to portray the war as 'good Arab Muslims' versus 'bad Christian Crusaders' sort of thing (Playing the devil's advocate as Pertinax said). Historians of the past, influenced by post-colonial regrets at how the Western world had exploited many countries would see parallels in the cruelty of the Crusaders while avoiding atrocities committed by Arabic armies. Post September 11th it's the other way round, with historians drawing parallels of the Muslims of the Crusader era as being the equivalent of Al-Qaida, while the Crusaders are being portrayed as noble defenders of Christendom and Western Civilisation. The truth no doubt is somewhere in the middle between both ideas, or perhaps they are both wrong. As for Terry Jones claiming that the Barbarians arent as bad as they were, he isn't proposing a new revisionist history, he's just agreeing with what historians have been saying for the last few decades..."the fall of Rome was just a peaceful transition from Roman to Germanic Europe"...The Barbarians weren't really barbaric....etc. it's only in the last few years that historians like Peter Heather and Bryan-Ward Perkins have gone back to the traditional 19th century view that the Roman Empire was destroyed by savage, technoloigcally backward barbarians, whose actions set Europe back centuries with the Dark Ages. Terry Jones ideas might seem radical a lot of the time, but the truth is he is just re-packaging old ideas, although he's does it in a very entertaining, humorous way. Even so a good Terry Jones' book I recommend is Medieval lives, which is excellent.

In the 'De Rebicus Bellicis' an anonymous Roman writer proposed to the Emperor Valens sometime between 367 and 369, that the Romans should used scythed chariots being drawn by cataphractii, that would chase down and slash the hamstrings of the fleeing enemy. This same man proposed using a 'carriage ballista', that would carry a extremly powerful ballista to the battlefield, that could shoot a missile a distance "twice the length of the Danube." This was not the Chariot-ballista that we see in Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion, rather it was just a ballista being drawn slowly on a back of a cart. There is no evidence to show that either of these two ideas were used, they probably were not, but it does go to show that the Romans were toying with the idea of using chariots in warfare at one time. Great picture Longbow. It reminds me of an episode of Meet the Ancestors where they reconstructed a British War-Chariot of the first century BC and demonstrated it use by riding by cut-outs of Roman soldiers while hurling javelins at them. It was more effective than I originally thought.

The numbers must have been large, but I quote Bryan Ward-Perkins: "Evidence such as this (graffito on the walls of Pompeii) has led to an intense debate over the extent to which the people of Roman times could read and write , the importance of the written word in their society. In the absence of statstical evidence, the issue will always be open to discussion, since it will never be possible to come up with reliable figures for the number of people comfortable with literacy, let alone provide a nuanced view of what level of literacy they had attained." Despite this I would venture to say that a large percentage of the population (not including slaves) did have some grasp of literacy. I would guess that the upper classes, which loved writing letters to one another and composing poetry were fully literate, while a sizeable percentage of plebeians had some very, very basic grasp of literacy.

I have read Terry Jones' Barbarians a few months ago and although I didn't agree with a lot of his views he did provide a fairly good counterbalance to all the pro-Roman texts. The book was bound to infuriate many Romanophiles and Jones goes out of his way to show that the Romans were evil, barbaric people, while the barbarians were all civilised, peaceful and respectable to other people's rights. I never got a chance to see the TV show the book was based on, but now two episodes from the series have been posted on Google-videos: The Savage Goths The Huns and the Vandals Unfortunately I cannot find the other 2 epsidoes about Celts and the Easterners (Greeks and Persians). They might take a while to load.

Thanks for the link Clodius. It seems that Hannibal's camp is now nothing more than a cabbage patch, while the Roman camp has a road running through it. It makes you realise how large the battlefield must have been in real life.

Great link Pertinax, thank you for posting them! A lot of those are hilarious stuff, the type I don't usually see mentioned in books about Pompeii. They remind you that behind all the great, important figuers in Roman history like Caesar, there were also average people like you and me, whose voices and lives have long since been forgotten. Those graffito scribblings bring a rather human, down to earth side to ancient Romans.

I will have to agree with you on this one. As I have stated on the BBC thread the show does not do a very good job at getting the events or characters across properly, but in terms of sets and costumes the show is well ahead of others in trying to portray an ancient Rome that is constantly changing, with different fashions, architecture etc (even if it's not completly accurate - Carthaginians dressed as Iberians and so on). Like I said before the show is probably much more accurate than your average History/Discovery Channel documentary on the Romans but it still lacks accuracy. Still, it is not that bad a starting point for those who are only just becoming interested in Rome - if it gets people to read factual, accurate books on the Romans then it has done some good. For most Romanophiles though the show is a dissapointment.

I was reading Tim Newark's book about the Barbarians recently and he said that the Romans, during the later Empire, would employ barbarain bounty-hunters to hunt down and kill bandits, criminals and dangerous barbarian soldiers. He gave one example of a travelling German mercenary called Charietto who was employed by the government to rid an area of southern Gaul of looters and bandits. He said Charietto would stalk these men in the night and he would attack them when they were most vulnurebale, cuting off their heads while they were drunk or sleeping and then taking them to Roman officials for pay. Charietto even joined forces with Julian whose job it was to clear an area of barbarians. Julian would fight them in the day, leaving them exhausted and demoralized so that Charietto and the bounty-hunters could hunt them down at night. Because of this Charietto became increasingly important and rose to high positions in the Roman army. Charietto was finally killed by Alammani after he charged them down during a fight only to be peppered with lots of spears. Does anyone else have examples of these Barbarian bounty-hunters? I read that Valens also employed bounty-hunters to hunt down barbarians for reward. Does anyone have good sources for these claims?

An interesting subject! As far as many of the prominent families of the Roman senate went, weren't they massacred by the Goths in the sixth century? Even so that would not explain why some family names die out. What I find strange is why some names are popular yet others die out. For instance my own family name only dates back to the 16th century, so my ancestors from before this period would have had completely different family names, yet they decided to abandon one name and go for another newer, modern one. The same could be said for first names. At the same time some names manage to transcend cultures and time, that's why some Bronze Age Greek names like 'Jason' are still used today and other names probably go back further than that. Why did naes like Jason survive to be used until modern times while names like Domititus, Vespasianus etc die out?

I was curious about this very subject a while ago, I knew that the Romans did not use chariots in warfare in Republican and Imperial times but I had always wondered if during the early Iron age/Etruscan eras if chariots were used in Italy.

I tried to open this link yesterday and It caused the computer to crash...it was probably a warning from my PC not to go near it...now I know why...

Great review. It looks like it would be a good book to start studying Constantine before moving on to the more academic, in-depth stuff.

I wish you luck in your dissertation Aphrodite. I spent over a year writing mine out, and I had very litte interest in the subject, which made it an even more taxing job.

This reminds me of a article I read in British Archaeology many years ago about a hoard of coins dating back to the Anglo-Saxon era. the coins were forgeries of Arabic coins, or perhaps mistakes on the Arabs' behalf as they read: "There is no God but God and Allah is his prophet' instead of Muhammed. It's amazing the level of trade connections between northern Europe and the east that survived the fall of the Western Empire.

I was under the impression that the northern provinces of Africa that were considered to be the bread baskets and the source of wealth of the Roman west. I believe that even Gaul, which was much more densely populated than Britain or most other northern provinces still produced less wealth than most of the eastern provinces.

Remember, remember the fifth of novemeber; gunpowder, treason and plot. I see of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot... It was like Bonfire night tonight where I live. It seems more of tradition to set off fireworks for several days before and after November the fifth these days.

Excellent post Zama. Is it true that the Romans also manufactured some materials in this area, like shoes and other objects? As you did mention some workshops and I believe I read at another point that the fort did produce some objects like shoes.

I believe that Constantine managed to 'convert' some of the lowly senators and officials to Christianity with the promises of higher ranks and better pay. With more important figures converting to the religion others felt the need to 'jump on the bandwagon' in order to get better earthly benefits. As for the poor, the promise of eternal bliss after a lifetime spent toilling would have been enough to convert some of the people. After all the religion had been rather popular among the common people living in the east for quite some time.

You are right. Constantine didn't fully convert to Christianity until he was on his deathbed, he still had pagan sympathies throughout his reign. There could not have been a splitting of the Churches during Constantine's lifetime as Christianity didn't even become the official religion of the Empire until 394, under Theodosius the Great.

Interesting site. It was worth seeing to see that Roman re-enactors have made arm manicas and other rarer pieces of armours. The only problem is that some of their picture links are broken. Will the Legio II Avgvsta be coming to Britain, perhaps to Caerleon (the home of the II Avgvsta) any time to join with British re-enactors, like the Italians and french did a few years ago?

Thanks for the answers every one! Thanks Ursus! It's exactly the same reason why Constantine tried to get Christianity more popular. Religion as a way of uniting the people. I didn't realise that it went further than Constantine's reign, but now that I look at it again I don't know why I didn't realise that the first time. Thanks again.

Welcome to the forums Zama! Here is a link to a website about the Romans in north Wales: Kanovium Project Here is another about the Roman Army in north Wales: Roman Auxilia in North Wales As for books about Roman Britain, the Guy de la Bedoyere book which has already been recommended is definately worth having. A Companion to Roman Britain , which might be out of print/ or out of date, has a good gazeteer of Roman sites in Britain. For books about Roman sites in Wales, Roman and Early Medieval Wales by Christopher J. Arnold abd Jeffery L. Davies might be good but rather too dense and academic for beginners.

Thanks for the recommendations DF! I have read the Averil Cameron book, it's very good! I believe she is one of the leading experts in the field. I have also had a look at Ammianus Marcellinus and Procopius ( that man really hated Justinian and Theodora...they killed how many people in Africa???) It's true what you say, first hand texts from the era are hard to get. Thanks for telling me not to jump straight to A.H.M jones' work...I was planning on getting that. I might wait a while then.... I will probably get the J.B Bury books eventually...thanks again!

I was reading recently about the reforms made by Diocletian. In terms of religion, Diocletian tried to bring back attention towards the old gods, the ones that they had adopted from the Greek Pantheon (Jupiter, Juno, Mars etc) yet he failed. Why was it that the cult of the undefeated Sun God (a mixture of the Syrian god El Gabal, Mithras and Sol) had taken such a hold on the people? Why did the old gods that the Romans had worshipped for centuries fall out of favour among the people to such an extent that Diocletian found it hard to resurrect intrest? Why the constant change in religion? After all, before the Romans had adopted the Greek Pantheon, thay had worshipped the spirits of their ancestors. They later worshipped Sol Invictus, who made way for the Christian God. Does this mean that there was a constant change in Roman Paganism, with newer ideas and gods becoming dominant over the old ones? Or did the old ideas never actually disappear in pagan times, did they just become less relevant than the new ones?

Here is a link to the new trailer for the Last Legion: The Last Legion Trailer It runs on Quicktime. It takes a few minutes to load up, so best to leave it for a while until it's done. It looks like it's going to be a mythic/historical type of movie on the same lines as 'The Scorpion King' rather than a historically correct film.