caldrail

Officers of the 11th Corps discuss plans for the advance into Eastasia territory. Their Glorious Leader, Big Brother, demands a victory, and the proud soldiers of Oceania must achieve it. Ingsoc Commissars will be waiting... A scene from the colossal global conflict of the world of George Orwell's 1984. (AI artwork generated from text)

Enjoy your Saturnalia!

Suprising results from archeologists who found a thriving town from a period of crisis.... Archaeological discovery upends what we thought we knew about fall of Roman empire (msn.com)

She can say whatever she wants. Varus believed what Aminius told him and dismissed the warnings of Segestes, then led his troops into a very long defile and ambush. Unlucky about the storm but his troops were going to be slaughtered, and since Varus decided to commit suicide rather than attempt a rally and breakout, it's hard to see him as a competent commander. Experienced, yes, but a poor judge of character and actually a little self-deluded about the value of Roman law.

The biggest shock is that there's something left there. Many Roman sites have been looted illegally long before academic study.

This seems to be contentious. There's two main camps, one favouring suffocation by whatever means, the other favouring a sudden temperature increase and the various effects of that. I have a sneaky feeling that both camps are correct according to circumstance. Pompeii was hit by a series of pyroclastic flows, hot turbulent clouds of ash that carry significant energy and flow down the sides of a volcano and out across surrounding terrain due to gravity when the eruption fails to lift the weight. The first nine flows simply deposited ash against the town walls, but the tenth went over the top and into the town. Those in peripheral areas would have been more at risk of suffocation. Those hit by the cloud mass would experience the heat within it. My two cents.

No, no factions. In fact the ownership of specific gladiators wasn't important to the public, they were only interested in a thrilling fight and a pile of coins from their betting. As for the gladiators themselves, they were generally intensely loyal to their owners and part of his familia, the brotherhood of gladiators that he owned. Owners varied. Cicero for instance praises the fighters owned by his friend Atticus in a letter and tells him that if he had rented them out, he would have easily recovered his expenses in the last two events. For Atticus, it was a hobby. There were two centres of gladiator schooling. The four major ones in Rome probably held as many as two thousand gladiators, and there were other large schools in Capua, Campania, not far from Pompeii. Smaller schools might exist in any Roman city or its environs. Pompeii for instance had a gladiator barracks Recently another was found in Austria and the artists impression shows the training arena that the large schools always used...

However please notice that Caesar was not an academic personality. He was however an able self-publicist.

Bearing in mind the extent of the empire and the ethnic diversity, your descriptions of 'a typical Roman' might only apply to a subset of them especially with relation to earlier periods. I would also be careful of drawing too many conclusions from Roman statues, which were often reworked from originals and even then to be viewed from certain angles - they were not photographs.

Despite the disasters I don't really think the end of the western empire was a military thing. Certainly didn't help, no dispute there, but there had been a long economic decline and a weakening of 'roman-ness'. Rome had been prone to insurrections and civil wars but remember that Rome always lost battles from time to time, the idea of the unstoppable military machine is just hype - and very old hype at that. After all, we talk about the end of the Roman occupation in Britannia as taking place in 409 with the withdrawal of the last legions posted there, but it's forgotten that the Roman administration was still place and remained functioning until around 440, when the exasperated Romano-Britons threw them out when Rome failed to respond to the 'Groan of the Britons'. We seceded from the empire, we weren't just abandoned because the troops were sent to Gaul to support a usurper. This military image is very pervasive when dealing with Rome but it's not always the the only context to events.

It cannot be denied that our current westernised world inherited much from Rome, but don't concentrate on the similarities. Rome was a very different beast to modern democracies, though sometimes you have to wonder, and understanding those differences is very important to see Rome in the context of its own time instead of a modern world in togas. Great that you're interested in Roman history.

Syria was a hotbed of religious diversity, with varied cults that sometimes became fashionable elsewhere in the empire. There was one that was popular among slaves, and another with a very dubious immoral character. I seem to recall that Christian cults (themselves very diverse back then) reached Rome via Syria, though don't quote me on that.

A river wharf more likely but the location of a trade post was not contested. Water transport was the most preferred means of getting goods around in the Roman Empire, which indicates that the much vaunted road system wasn't what we expect in todays thinking.

The existence of a ship is not necessarily what it appears to be. Certainly it points to navigable waterways which can change considerably over time, but a similar wreck uncovered by Time Team was found to have been moored merely to stop erosion

Because if you move or disturb the find you lose the context and vital historical information can be lost.

This one's an oddity. A series of clips from footage recorded for the original 1937 film version of I Claudius that was never finished. Alex Korda was taking on Hollywood with some success and wanted a Roman epic, so he approached Robert Graves, but the film was very expensive and personality conflicts doomed the production.

The other day I sat down to watch a YouTube video about how Constantine the Great impacted history. Might be interesting. The academic started with a broad description of the Roman Empire, basically claiming that Augustus was an undeclared emperor and pretended that Rome was still a Republic. This is the foundation of the 'Standard Model' of Roman imperial government. I have never heard anything sound so false in all my life. Does that academic seriously expect anyone to believe that Augustus was able to fool the Romans into thinking the Republic was still in place for fifty years? In a society based on tradition and obsessed with politics and debate? Is he seriously suggesting nobody noticed? It may seem suprising that in spite of their vigilant Republicanism many members of the Italian governing class were satisfied by what seems to us a fiction. Yet the Romans, although their intense anxiety to preserve everything good in the past made them instinctively averse to open changes, had a fairly impressive record for modifying their institutions when this was necessary. The World Of Rome (Michael Grant) Okay, so why does the Republic seem like a fiction? There was no actual 'fall of the Republic', it doesn't exist in the Roman sources. It's because people like the idea Rome was ruled by emperors. It's been imposed on education since the Middle Ages based on the revisionist later writings of Roman authors and the experience of dealing with the Graeco-Roman Byzantines. Take Augustus himself. Paterculus gushes in praise and reminds us that Augusts was the saviour of the Republic. Yet five hundred years later Zosimus dismisses Augustus as an absolute monarch who abolished the aristocracy. This reflects changes in Roman culture during the imperial era, not the career of Augustus. But not everyone is so blinded by the Standard Model. The overwhelming importance of tradition in Roman society is a warning for the historian tempted to consider Roman history in terms of turning points and separate periods. Persistent obsession with tradition fosters continuity even within a broad framework of change. In other words, while the terms 'Republic' and 'Principate' suggest separation and change, we should expect continuity, mitigating and to an extent denying this change. It is not only that the Republic conditioned the Principate: it also continued into the Principate - The Legacy of the Republic (David C Braund) from The Roman World (Ed. John Wacher) Also, rather than using the word 'birth', we should perhaps speak of emergence, since the features of the Augustan monarchy that were adopted by its successors took shape gradually, bit by bit, within the Republican institutional edifice. For the Principate was not created ex nihilo, but put slowly into position using existing forms, and following no preconceived plan but, rather, added to and modified according to circumstance... - A History of Rome (Le Glay, Voisin, & Le Bohec) I actually go further. It hasn't escaped my attention that the Romans still referred to their state as SPQR, Senatus Populous Que Romans (Senate and People of Rome) right to the end in the west in 476, which is an arbitrary date based on the takeover launched by Odoacer as he became King of Italy. The Senate may have been functionally powerless in the Dominate (the later Roman imperial period) but they still represented traditional authority, and rather than the imperatores (Victorious Generals) simply admit they had become monarchs, they required senatorial acceptance, awards of privilege, and legitimisation. Why would they need to if Rome was the Empire rather than the Republic? Exactly who were they trying to kid? The facts are startlingly obvious if you set aside the much loved but medieval 'Emperor of Rome'. Rome remained a Republic with evolving leadership. The Polybian hybrid government of aristocratic Senate, democratic people, and executive Magistracy had changed to Dominatal Magistracy with Senatorial acceptance - but it was the same nation state. When Augustus stated in his Res Gestae that he was Princeps Senatus he meant it. That was his day job. Yes, he was particularly powerful, but never absolute, and in any case power alone does not make you a monarch. His powers were based on a series of privileges, titles, and honours, not any existing position in Roman society, these powers given him by the Senate, and as an ambitious man of course he used them. However if you notice young Octavian had been invited into the Senate on the promise he would protect the Republic. He did exactly that. Yes, he profitted personally from doing so - he was an elite Roman, of course he did. Augustus even refers to this success as a statesman as the 'fruit of his labours'. If power wasn't his primary objective, as indeed Aurelius Victor claimed it was, then what was it? A prosperous Republic. There is no other answer that fits.

They're filming it now. There was an accident on set and people got hurt in some kind of fireball.

Found this by accident. Nice atmosphere, and for this site, a lot more topical than most songs

The problem isn't piracy as such, but pirates who become good at it and organise themselves as effectively as the military forces they end up facing. Piracy in the Mediterranean was a serious issue, it sucks profits from the economy and makes travel dangerous, as indeed Caesar found for himself. We can immediately discount film, tv, and computer games as comparisons - they're just fantasy and the creators of such media are free to make what they want of piracy. Real piracy is potentially dangerous but the pirates are preying on helpless merchant shipping as they always have done - and still do. They make bold quick attacks knowing they can intimidate ordinary sailors. Or just be dishonest, as Spartacus found when he tried to hire a pirate fleet to take him and his followers to Sicily. As soon as the money was aboard ship they sailed away and left him stranded. But your post betrays a certain expectation of modern naval experience. Roman ships had no large calibre guns or long range missiles, torpedoes, etc, just a lot of armed men, and catching a lightly loaded pirate ship[ with a naval craft back then was not so easy. The Romans literally had to catch them unless they assaulted the pirate base because at sea the only means the Romans have to stop them is by ramming, spreading fire, or boarding actions. That's not easy, not even for a 'professional' navy.

It's a matter of context. If the Romans are discussing all the peoples who lived on the isles then yes, they are Britons. However, normally they refer to Britons as the tribes within their sphere of influence and specifically name the Caledonians as Pictii (the Painted People) both because they were a barbarian people in opposition to the presence of Rome but also the clear separation in culture.. Always bear in mind that Rome did not classify people according to nation states, it was about region and tribe. Where the Romans didn't know the tribes very well they tended to be more generic, such as the more distant northern tribes referred to as Germani (Spear-man, or 'True Celt')

"Illusion of deference to the Senate" is a rationale for explaining the anomalies if you accept Augustus was an emperor. I simply don't accept that view. When Augustus described himself as Princeps Senatus he meant it. Yes, he was a very influential man to say the least, but power alone does not make you a monarch. He didn't impose - he utilised the rights and privileges awarded him by the Senate - and acceptance from the Senate was the hallmark of Roman leaders right through to the end in the West - which is why I contend the Republic actually lasted in official terms until 476.

Following on from some recent themes it might be worth taking a generic look at Roman political power. I mean, all that those Roman leaders had to do was click their fingers, right? It's becoming apparent to me it really wasn't that simple. Even Dictator, the most powerful of offices the Republic could assign, was in theory subject to veto. The issue here is that we tend to make huge assumptions about the Romans without really understanding how their society actually worked. The worst of these tendencies is to assume a modernesque style. But Rome belonged to the ancient world and was a fairly unique version of civilisation on top of that. Let's take an example to illustrate what I mean. When we read Gaius by Suretonius we find that Caligula is given absolute power in recognition that he was the son of Germanicus and therefore bound to be a brilliant leader. Later still we read that Caligula, a man who regarded the Senate as a bunch of time wasters and an obstruction to his greatness, is asking the Senate for permission to hold games. It seems absurd. Yet what we have here is an example of demarcation in Roman power. In military terms a man might be given imperium, the right to command an army, and so if he's allocated legions, he may command them. However what is usually overlooked is that the Romans don't give power without strings attached. That leader must also have provincia, a field of responsibility, which described why the leader may have legions at his beck and call, what he is expected to use them for, and the geopgraphic limits of his command. In one region he may be entitled to lead armies. In another, he isn't. The Roman writers don't emphasise this aspect of military control because they assumed everyone understood it. Political power was also demarcated. So in our example, Caligula has the top level right to make decisions, but unless he can change Roman law, he cannot brush aside the rights of others (which of course is exactly what he thought he could get away with). Roman politics was an exercise in managing privilege. It was the erosion of the rights of the Roman people that led to the Dominate when Rome became a full autocracy. But if you notice, during the Principate, the Caesars who led Rome did not invest all their power in one title. Their power was the sum total of privileges and the respect others had for their virtus, auctoritas, and potestas. Virtue, authority, and power. You could have two men assigned the same privileges yet there would be differences in how lesser mortals perceived them as leaders. So the question must be asked, was absolute power in Rome quite what we expect it to have been?

Ah, but Augustus did not rule. Personal rule over the citizens of Rome was the same as monarchy, the same as enslavement, the same as tyranny, the entire rationale that the Republic had been formed to avoid. Now I can't deny the sum total of his titles, magistracies, and privileges were pretty influential to say the least, but remember he reformed the Senate. He reformed the military. He obstructed irregularities in democracy though I accept not everyone will see that as having been positive, and he sought to create a strong foundation for the Republic. Yes, that's right, you read it here first. The idea he swept away the Republic and started some kind of imperialist 'empire' is basically bullshit invented by later Roman writers whose government in their own day was more autocratic and so they simply described Augustus in terms of their own experience without analysing changes in Roman society. During Augustus' lifetime, he was hailed as Saviour of the Republic (and I do concede he encouraged such a view). By the tiome Zosimus wrote about him in the 6th century Dominate, Augustus had become an absolute monarch who abolished the aristocracy. Little wonder the Middle Ages invented the term 'Emperor' to describe the 'Victorious Generals' who led Rome. Augustus himself stated in one of his edicts that his influence was the 'fruit of his labour'. Well, if running the empire wasn't the actual work he was up to, what was it? He remained true to his promise of ensuring the Republic would come to no harm. If that meant Rome must accept a certain level of leadership to maintain good order and prosperity, so be it, but the Julio-Claudian dynasty wasn't supposed to be about ruling the empire, it was supposed to be about preventing conflict for power. If you read the sources carefully, there was a number of people trying to grab power of Rome besides the usual players we read about. Augustus knew this.