M. Demetrius

Merry Christmas, all.

I want the Roma Victrix Beaker @UNRV http://bit.ly/romavictrix

Cohort V, a Central Texas Living History group of Romans will host the second annual Old Fort Parker camp Jan 27-30. Friday for setup, Saturday competition, Sunday awards and fellowship, discussion of how things went, suggestions for next year, etc. RAT topic here: http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat.html?func=view&catid=23&id=299474#299982 Find out more about the fort: oldfortparker.org Nice restrooms and showers, running water adjacent to camp site. Camp info below: INTENTE! Cohort V proudly announces the Second Annual Old Fort Parker Encampment. January 28-29, AD2012, at Old Fort Parker, near Mexia TX. Campers may arrive any time on Friday the 27th to set up camp and get ready for the activities. The public will have access to the camp from 10 to 5, both days. Be prepared to explain gear and answer questions. Some table top displays may be on hand, also. Modern camping area and "period" tent camping area available. This year's theme is "Preparing for the Siege". Saturday, the events will be broken into two parts, morning training and afternoon skills tests. Prizes awarded to winners. Mess hall food available, or you can bring your own. If the burn ban is lifted by then, we may be allowed to cook in fireboxes raised off the ground. One unit standard per unit is welcomed. We will have an Honor Row to display them at the HQ tent. Bring your own means of standing it in the ground. Events include: raising the siege tower, building a bridge, javelin throwing, marching drill, flint and steel firemaking, flat bread baking, storming the gates and more. All members of this group and their guests are welcome to join in and attend. Men, women, and children welcome. Unruly children will be sold as slaves to the Fort. Sorry, no pets. From dawn Saturday until camp ends on Sunday, Roman period clothing is required, 1st C AD preferred, but any Roman era will be accepted. Some loaner gear may be available with advance notice. Non-Roman reenactors will serve as Roman auxilia. All non-period objects (ice chests, propane stoves, flashlights, etc.) are to be kept out of sight. Registration is mandatory. No walk-ons. Deadline for registration is Jan 15 for mess hall, Jan 22 for camp only. Write cohort.five@yahoo.com for general information, and gverret@gmail.com for registration packet. Camp only $10 per person. Camp and mess hall $20 per person. A donation will be made to the Fort from registration fees collected. Online registration: docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?for...NZaHJvWkV5cFlmc1E6MQ Pay registration via PayPal by sending funds to cohort.five@yahoo.com You'll kick yourself later if you miss this camp. BE THERE or BE QUADRA!

But the the whole affair is contrived. Its fiction. It was designed to take the story of Jesus (whom Paul never met) and embellish it to the point where his divinity was made clear. The problem with Jesus is that the closer you look at his story the less you find. He was certainly a real person, he certainly did preach to the masses, and he certainly did disappear in a hurry. But notice how contrived the accounts are. On the one hand Jesus arrives in Jerusalem to cheering crowds, a sell-out success story. Within a short time, those same people condemned him to death. Why? The bible explains it all away by saying that Jesus martyred himself for our sins, but since when did God need an act of this sort? According to the Old Testament, if God thought mankind was sinning excessively he did something about it. The various miracles supposedly performed by jesus are unlikely to say the least, and there's no supporting evidence that they ever took place. In fact, had Jesus performed such miracles, he would more likely have been parceled up and sent to Rome for an interview with the emperor. No, these stories are either exaggerations of real events or simply made up for the purpose. There's no guarantee these miracles were present in Pauls original draft, or perhaps his version was even more outlandish. We don't know. Paul took two years out to create this mythology and it must be said, despite poor sales at the beginning its been a best seller ever since. What Paul wanted was a career in preaching religion which effectively makes him no different to those bible bashers who fill auditoriums and get interviewed on prime time tv. It was about money. It was his nine to five. As NN correctly states, the original works (not only those by Paul, there were others trying the same thing) were censored. Constantine, painfully aware how damaged his empire was by a civil war that brought him to power, shamelessly used religion to a unifying factor. Arguably he made a good choice. Roman religion was too loose and disorganised for that purpose, but christianity had a hierarchy and loyal worshippers seeking absolution for their sins. However, christianity at that time was not a single movement. It was a ployglot of individual churches saying similar things but with their own twist. What Constanitine insisted on was that the church leaders got together and sorted out exactly what christianity was. Even though he wasn't a christian, Constantine saw the value of this religion in holding his empire together. Christians of course would quote this as evidence of superior belief, but that simply isn't the case. This was an example of political expedience. Sigh. It wasn't two years, it was seven, as Acts clearly says. The people who condemned Jesus weren't the masses, they were the lawyers and priests, but you know, there's no point in going over this same information with you again. Believe what you want, sir, but if you are wrong in the end, you are in a whole lot of eternal trouble...and the worst of it is you deliberately alienate the very people who could give you the answer you will need in that day. If you investigated the Gospels more carefully, you'd see that Jesus' divinity is clearly explained from four different vantage points, confirming prophecies from centuries before: from a Jewish prophetical viewpoint, from a medical doctor's views, from a spiritual man, from a Gentile tax collector. It's pointless to keep saying things like "It's fiction", when it appears not to be so to over two billion people worldwide. Nuff said, I'm done. I guess I misunderstood: thinking this was more about Roman history than antiChristian dogma. Moderator/owner, you may close or delete my account if you wish, because I'm tired of having to listen to the constant pagan and other anti-Christian diatribes. Fare well, all, and remember, if I'm wrong, then I've lived a life under some self-restraints in an effort to live more like I believe God wants: If I'm wrong, well, see above. May the Lord God bless you all with a true knowledge of His will for your lives.

I still maintain that they'd frequently get nicknames for colloquial use. Not all soldiers even today are called by their names, and our naming is different, of course. Imagine a contubernium with 8 men all praenamed "Marcus" (entirely possible). Some would be named by events, "Thunder" was one name given by J. Caesar to a soldier, e.g. Some by deed, "Gaul gutter"..."Line breaker"..."Ox", whatever would be easy for the nearby soldiers to remember, based on some common event or attribute. Or they could be called "Marcus the Calabrian", etc. Nicknames existed, and many are recorded for Romans. Often not complimentary when written of opponents on the Senate floor.... Today, in the military, last names are frequently used, but if there are three "Smiths" in a group, one may be called "Smitty", another "Lefty" and the third, just "Smith". I think that would have been the same back then, since their naming system was much more limited.

Additionally, if she heard Paul (Saul) of Tarsus speak directly (provided he existed in the commonly understood sense), then (in my opinion) the story we are familiar with now would've been considerably different. It would've been far more ideological and transcendental than the physical Jesus story we are so familiar with today. I'm not sure how you arrive at that, Pilus. What Paul writes in Romans, Ephesians, Philemon, Corinthians, etc., is pretty down to earth. He speaks clearly of the physical death, actual burial and amazing resurrection of Jesus Christ--not making it sound ideological or mythical at all. He gives sound advice concerning marriage, divorce, foods sacrificed to idols, obedience to God, et al., all of which are foundational to Biblical Christianity. I think he wrote about 2/3 of the New Testament, also known as the Greek portion of the Bible.

The Book of Acts says that Paul was under house arrest, but he evidently could receive visitors, as he requests things from different people (his cloak in one instance--winter must have been on the way). Imagine being the Roman soldier who was charged with guarding him, having to listen to his discussions, and so forth. In some cases depending on how serious a threat the prisoner was, a soldier would be chained to him to prevent his escaping.

Yes, he did. And finally, his century rebelled, and drowned him in the river. I had the book just the other day that had his name in it, and the episode, but can't see it right now. (*gotta clean this place one of these days...no telling what's lurking in here*)

The trouble with them is they're not made for contact drill. The tang is welded to the blade, right behind the brass at the guard. The originals were made from a single piece of metal. It's more work for the factory to do it the "old way", so they don't. Most of the reenactors use a special variety of gladius if they're going to contact mock combat. They typically have a large, blunt point, so nobody gets pierced.

Right all the way. I'm reading Polybius' The Rise of the Roman Empire, and he's making that point clear. Add in the difficulty of not being able to get fresh supplies or troops from the homeland, and Hannibal's position is increasingly less tenable each day that goes by, each soldier he loses in battle or to normal attrition. Plus, he was fighting to fulfill his blood oath to hate the Romans, while they were fighting for their very existance, and they knew it.

Maybe, but we are discussing evolution - not the origin of life itself. Life developing and changing due to environmental factors is a proven fact, and it does NOT rule out the existance of a god. Why should it? That species become extinct is not arguable. I've never seen a velociraptor, nor would I want to. Today, species become extinct when they cannot adapt to changes in the environment, or over predation brought on by a large number of causes. No more jackrabbits in Wyoming, so the wolves and coyotes are now attacking a larger number of calves and lambs. This will provoke the ranchers to deplete the predators, which will cause... In Texas, we have a South American species of fire ant, that was introduced sometime early in the last century on the East coast, and has spread westward. They eat the hatchlings of ground nesting birds, like quail. There are very few quail. This decreases the rattlesnake population. These ants are also driving out the native ants, as they enter their mounds and eat their young. Several species are on the verge of extinction, including the famous Texas Horned Lizard. Natural selection is a fact of nature. Variations within a species are facts of nature. Case in point, all dogs are Canis Familiaris. Same species, from the chihuahua to the Great Dane. If left to their own devices for a dozen generations or so, most of our familiar breeds would disappear, and a generic dog would emerge, likely around the size of a German shepherd, and litters of pups would have more variety, floppy ears along with erect ears. Breeds can be made, hybrids produced, but that's not evolution. Just selective breeding. Evolution, as I understand it, proclaims that simple organisms on one way or another become new species of increasingly complicated organisms through a process of gradual adaptations. To oversimplify, amoeba becomes yeast becomes eventually man. That's the part that is not clearly proven: that one species becomes another, over and over, as if by some unseen force. Water flows downhill unless energy is used to raise it uphill. Entropy will be maximized, not minimized, unless energy is expended to prevent it. It's true that Prime Cause is not essential to evolutionary theory, but common sense says that if the planet is not eternally existant, then there must have been some strand of replicating DNA spontaneously generated somewhere, somehow, quite a long time ago, else there would be no DNA today. Since there is, it had to come from somewhere. At that point, a person makes a "faith decision" to believe that it happened as a result of random chemical combinations, or that it was created by an external force, such as God. Random accident, or deliberate design. That's where the argument becomes unprovable. Anyone is free to choose whichever (s)he wishes, and I'm not browbeating anyone over their choice. From my personal perspective, I don't see why the hard line evolutionists are so worried about just presenting the information and data as we find it, giving the models that would support whichever theories exist, and letting intelligent students work through the scientific process and arrive at the most likely conclusion, based on their . If one or more theories don't measure up to the known evidence, then reject them and continue to narrow down the field to as few choices as may remain. OTOH, to slant the discussion in any direction on the basis of a "faith decision", is to depart from true scientific thought, and begin to indoctrinate based on non-factual assertions. At the same time, I don't see why creationists are afraid to allow evolutionary theory to be explained. At least the creation theory addresses the issue of Prime Cause. Either way, it's not productive for people on either side of the argument to call the others by derogatory names, or imply that a belief in God is archaic or small minded. I point out that Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal and Albert Einstein believed in God, and few doubt their intelligence or belittle their scientific achievements. Just my view. Not being contentious.

I lay no claim to being a great mind, but since you asked, I think this kind of topic is provocative and leads to the two viewpoints simply arguing both unprovable points of view. None of us were around then, and either you believe the Bible or you don't, either you believe in spontaneous generation of DNA or you don't. But that's just me.

Did you get the part about his two favorite horses he talked to the boy about? Scatto and Argento? (Ok, it's Italian, not Latin, but it means "Trigger and Silver") I know that they didn't write that in by accident.

If that doesn't work try: THIS But wait! I heard on the news that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. How could they let this happen?

This has got to be one of the most over rated war films ever, I thought it was weird and boring, it's not a patch on "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket". Even "Hamburger Hill" is better than this. IMO off course. The Mel Gibson film "We Were Soldiers" is one of the best war films I've seen in a long time. Saw Stardust the other day. A fun movie: not to be taken seriously, of course. It's like "Harry Potter meets the midieval sorceress sisterhood with the Princess Bride somewhere in the background." Fun. I agree that We Were Soldiers was good. Sam Shepherd stole the show with his dry lines. "...well, if I need one (a rifle) there will be plenty of them lying on the ground...."

They would use the testudo formation if they were either moving to ram a gate or somesuch, and didn't take time to build a proper "attack tunnel", or anytime they were facing significant amount of missile attack, slingers, archers, javelineers. It's a pretty hard way to move around, as only the front rank can see what's happening, and it is fairly suffocating (not literally) for the men in the middle. They did not, however, break ranks and come screaming down the hillsides waving their swords around like Hollywood actors lacking real battle training.

I read that in Josephus, too. And I'm guessing it depended on the angle of the sunlight to the airborn stone. If the Romans were shooting into the sun, the black would be harder to see than light limestone. Must have had some reason, says I, though that's not a real consideration. We're talking about people who put brass hinges on leather belt buckles....

As always, it depends on the wealth of the family. Windows (since not generally filled in with glass, but sometimes with wooden shutters) would automatically let heat out of the room, and light indirectly in. In winter, the shutters could be closed to hold heat in, at a sacrifice of light input. In cities, often the house was not directly on the street, but down a hallway, and the more accessible streetside area was rented to shop keepers, so their merchandise could be bought more easily. Sometimes this shop was owned by the craft-makers who lived in the house, other times it would be a food vendor, pottery, jewelry, whatevery shop. I don't think they had cooling systems, other than opening a door and allowing low air to replace the high, warmer air. For heating, yes, many houses had a firebox of sorts below ground level that heated the water for the bath (now we're talking "Villa") and allowed warmed air to flow under the floors, to heat the floor tiles in bedrooms and other similarly occupied places like the kitchen and triclinium. Offhand, I don't remember the name of that heat system: someone else may...please fill in the blank. Some houses had cellars along with that net of underground air passages. The cellars would be used for food and other storage, just like today. That had a lot to do with the climate where the house was located, and the depth of the soil.

Some of the balistae could throw a stone weighing a hundred pounds, others shot "arrows" with shafts as large as two or three inches diameter. The former were building breakers, the latter were for concentrations of troops. They found a stack of those hundred pounders outside the walls at Jerusalem. Nicely rounded, nearly spherical. They'd certainly make a leak in your roof!

It's just Latin for praise to god. Both words pre-date Christianity but that doesn't mean the phrase itself has an underlying pagan tone. While others here are more versed in Roman religion than I, its tone feels Christian/monotheist and doesn't seem likely to me to be adopted directly from a pagan ritual. I suppose one would have to review a good deal of text and tablets to know for sure though. That is found on top of the Washinton monument. The word "Deo", in context, is most likely dative singular masculine, or said another way, the recipient of the subject, "laus" which means most likely, just "praise" in its noun form. It means "praise to God", singular. Because Laus is a noun, not an imperative verb, it is not a command. It more reflects an oblation.

You're not far from the truth. Apparently after making their way over the wall during the middle of the night, the Romans encircled the town from atop the inside of the wall. The townspeople massed together in a defensive square to prepare for a Roman attack, but one never came. The Romans just stood there and did nothing. After awhile the townspeople began to panic and, well, ... it kinda went downhill for them from there. The people inside were probably thinking, "Now where is that guy that said we don't need to worry about the Romans, that our wall would protect us? Bring him up here to the top of the wall. Let's see if he can fly." The Romans had a tradition that the people in the beseiged town could honorably surrender (not always without harm to themselves, mind you) until the ram touched the wall. Then there was no negotiation until the whole affair was over. As for it taking the modeler more time than the actual, I'm sure that's true, but then, the Romans were used to that kind of work, and had probably 10,000 guys working round the clock. That adds some man hours to the count, you know? All the roofs of the ramps and "tunnels" were covered with leather. Just think of how many cows that represents!! They used leather because it would not burn, and has a little structural strength.

We may be saying the same thing, but we may not. Caesar saw the situation and gave orders for a line to be made and hidden behind his cavalry. When Pompey's greater numbers began to push Caesar's cavalry back, they retreated on signal, drawing the enemy cavalry into the waiting infantry, where they were stopped, repelled, then routed, throwing Pompeys entire flank into utter disorder. There were ways that the units could be reorganized, moved up, back, ordered to flank, encircle, etc., and these were most likely done by trumpets of different pitches, (lituus, tuba, cornicen) inclination of standards, hand signals, and maybe other means we don't fully understand. But the lines didn't just become automatons, they were kept in order by the command structure, and were maneuvered by those who could see a larger picture than the men on the front line.

This is precisely what J. Caesar did when his army faced Pompey for their final encounter. He created an "invisible fourth line" in his battle array. These men (iirc two or three cohorts) had the task of suddenly appearing in front of Pompey's cavalry during their attempt at flanking on Caesar's right. At the right time, if we can believe Caesar's narrative, they were ordered to drop out and reform on the right, stopped and routed Pompey's cavalry, and the confusion in his lines caused by retreating cavalry produced just the right effect to win the day. The maniple/cohort functional maneuverability helped the Romans work out some larger battles (can't remember the name right now, and breakfast is ready, so I'm scramming) but in that battle against barbarians, the Roman center gradually retreated into a "C" shape and the two wings then surrounded the penetrating enemy, and destroyed the center of their line. The victory was total. But these maneuvers only happened because the specific subsets of the army could be ordered independantly, presumably by officers observing the whole battle line. A soldier would be very limited in his awareness of the rest of the line beyond a couple of men in either direction.

Of course, I admit immediately that I'm no expert. I do Roman reenacting, however, and concur that with one exception, all the reenactor gladii I've handled are point heavy, and overweight. As best I can tell, this is because the makers of the inexpensive swords use lesser quality steel for their blades. This is primarily to keep costs down, but because the metal is of low quality, the amount of metal they must use necessarily increases. The exception sword was from a custom swordsmith, and the balance was practically perfect, the edge so sharp it was scary, and the weight possibly half the one I carry. Mine is to show people how cool a gladius looks; his could easily be used in combat successfully. Mine cost about 50 USD, finished including scabbard, his 350 (for the blade only! He had to build the grip assembly and fabricate a scabbard on his own.) Mine was made in India, his was made by Mark Morrow. The Roman soldiers trained with swords and shields that weighed twice the real weight, so to them, the gladius in battle was lightweight. I'm reminded of a skinny archer who could draw a 90lb longbow...a college weight lifter, muscles bulging everywhere could only draw it back about half way, because he had not trained the specific muscle groups needed. He could lift 400+ lbs in all sorts of ways, but couldn't do that task the skinny guy could. And the 20-30 minute encounter is probably about all a typical trained soldier could handle, and would necessitate some kind of changeout of front lines, or they would be at risk of collapse. Roman cohort lines were often 8 or 10 men deep (and 20 or 16 wide), so there were plenty of fresh muscles available, as has already been stated. And if fighting a barbarian horde, they would be tired also, and most likely the lines would separate and regroup. Just how that maneuver was handled is the question that we won't be able to answer successfully unless some scroll is deciphered somewhere that explains it. Perhaps an excavation at a Roman training camp will someday produce the bronze placque that elucidates all. Or perhaps not. Picture this, perhaps: The time has come for the exhausted to break off the battle and the fresh troops to move up in the ranks. The Germans, say, being aware of this, begin to drop back a few paces. This signals the centuriones to rotate the troops forward. Instead of moving their tired soldiers back, these simply take one step aside, say to their right, and the ranks behind them advance, keeping pressure on the enemy, and bringing fresh troops to bear on a line that is not as neatly ordered. A volley of pila from the 5th and 6th ranks of legionaries, thumps into the ranks of the barbarians and pins some shields together, some soldiers to the ground, and some soldiers to the soldiers behind, as they are massed together hoping to regroup. A second volley follows, producing more havoc (this would be on the order of 40 to 60 javelins per cohort involved, perhaps). The barbarian falling back turns to a retreat, and the front 3 or 4 ranks of Romans break into a trot and advance on the enemy, still holding their lines, as their brothers from behind march forward to close the gap. Meanwhile, as the Roman army advances, the tired troops fall in to the ranks near the back and are able to be given water, wounded removed from the lines, etc., while the Germans have no such respite. A rising cloud of dust and the sounds of a thousand horse hooves skirting their right flank produces terror in those soldiers on that side of the line, and terror from a rain of pila and grim Roman legionaries trotting into the battle, gladii at the ready, adding a sword thrust the the wounded lying in disarray in the no man's land between the lines: fresh troops in ordered rows coming against a mass of milling wounded, frightened farmers and weavers, likely produces a rout. If not, the process repeats. Behind these first cohorts are two other long lines of similarly determined Romans. Add to that slingers, archers, and light infantry javelin troops, sending a steady spatter of missiles into the mass, and it should become evident that as long as the Romans hold the ranks and files in order, they can present a steady supply of fresh troops against a less ordered mob. I'd rather be a Roman, I think.

Here's another look at some various standards. Most of these are reconstructions used by modern reenactors, mostly taken from museum artifacts, pictures, etc. http://www.legionxxiv.org/signum/ Pretty interesting commentary on their respective uses, and no shame about saying "We don't know" where that applies.