Bryaxis Hecatee

I'm well aware of the fact the soldiers did build a life, but i'm not sure it had been the spirit of the law... even if on the other hand there were serious concerns on demography in Augustus' staff. Maybe we should see this as a way for soldiers to procreate and produce sons who'll be attracted by the army without having roman patrimoine go their way through automatic inheritance linked to the marriage ? Yet as I said I never looked in depth on that subject.

The Roman state didn't prevent its soldiers from sex with local women or even raising children; it just denied these unions the legal status of regular marriage, at least up to Septimius Severus and maybe even later. As far as I know, no available primary source explained the rationale behind this measure. The traditional notion that it created a pool of illegitimate sons within a military environment that would eventually join the army has been largely discarded. Phlang considered that it symbolically dissociated the soldiers from the civilians. Scheidel stressed that it might have shielded active soldiers from legal claims by civilians. Personally, I think its obvious goal was preventing the unwanted proliferation of Roman citizens, quite in agreement with the Augustan reform as a whole. Also a reason one must not forget but is very valid from at least augustean period would be to have the soldiers free to move quickly from one place to another : no spouse means no tie to the land and the ability to go from Rhine to Persia without growling ( of course they were malcontants, but the rationale can be understood. I've not looked for the date of introduction of the rule, that might provide us with elements.

New discoveries seems to indicate a larger front, and thus maybe a larger force too... So who knows the truth ? Maybe we'll know more after this summer's investigations. Anyway it is a great discovery on the Kalkriese aniversary year !

Allow me to salute our newer members, be they fellow belgian ( even flemish ) or coming from germania or other far away places !

true, its course seems nice enough, but the area does not seem to have that many visitors and the 1 hour wait between two busses might be a cause of the lack of use of archeobus

Copyright issues are always awfully complex, yet ancient art shown in Museum is not subject to copyright : what might be copyrighted would be the labels, not the pictures themselves since they are considered an original production by the photographer. On the other hand digitalized postcards would fall under copyright legislation and so I won't put my 60 to 100 years old postcards of Rome and other places online. As for the material issue, it would probably take more storage space than bandwidth, and I don't know how UNRV is hosted. Still a 1024

Archeobus only on weekend, they are others bus but... i walked under the sun, looking at the sea, going into the hills to reach the castello of Baies, then coming down toward Miseno and going to the Piscina Mirabile on the way... I must confess I did not start at Pouzzole proper but at the train station just next Pouzzole but before Baies, the names escapes me. I just took a bus to do the Miseno-Cumae trip but none came when I wanted to get back to a train station, around 19h, 19h30... So I just walked my way to one

An idea came to me as I read the various comments in Klingan's picture of the day and my own Napoli area threads : we have here a huge community owning thousands of pictures of roman sites, from big and well known places to small and out of the way sites, some maybe not even visible anymore. So I wondered if UNRV could not collect all those pictures with all the data their owner could provide ( place, date of picture, identification of the object, ... ) in order to put a massive online gallery which would be organized by places and monuments for the remains, museums or categories for pieces exhibited (for exemple : sculpture, painting, british museum, K

Pleased to have brought such pleasant feelings back ! I must confess my feet are sore and even bleeding (too much walking, especially the Pouzzole-Miseno and Cumae-Fusaro station day which really broke me) but I come back with good memories even if Pompei and Herculanum were a bit disappointing... I'll try to upload my last pictures tomorrow or the day after, if Picasa allows me to do so freely ( I'm at about 1Go of pictures on my Picasa account... ) : back to the Napoli museum for the secret room and some rooms that were not open the first day or pictures I did not succeed in taking the first time around

Hello, just a quick update to tell you that I did have the opportunity to visit the piscina mirabile yesterday and put the pictures online along with pictures of Baies, Misene and Cumes

The smell was not that bad that day, mainly smelled inside the crater itself. For Rione Terra it might very well be, yet I'am still sorry I could'nt help you on that. I'll go to Baie, Cumae and Misena today, once my pictures of Herculanum, Pompei, Velia, Paestum and Capri are uploaded ( around 750 pictures, usual adress, http://picasaweb.google.com/bryaxis but far from being all tagged unfortunately, takes too much time on the precious little hours I have for sleep) and I'll try the Piscina Mirabile... In any cases, thanks all for the kind words on the pictures !

I've been to Pouzzole today but the Rione Terra was closed unfortunately so I could not take pictures of the area except a few general shots. Sorry Maladict. For the Piscina Mirabile it should be on my agenda for thusday if i'm not mistaken. Views of Napoli, Napoly underground aquaduct system, San Lorenzo complex (with macellum and cryptoportico), National Archeological Museum Napoli, Pouzzole, Pouzzole amphitheater and Solfatara are already online on http://picasaweb.google.com/bryaxis and a full description of my travel is availlable (in french) on http://www.bryaxis.be More hopefully coming soon !

I received this morning my copy of the french review "archeologia" in which there was an article on Volubilis : a city in Marocco which I've seen on TV, in pictures and with my own eyes. And I must say that had I only had the two first medias then my understanding of the article would have been much reduced : here I know how much space is occupied by the area described in the article, how big the presumed punic temple might have occupied, how steep the access to the city is and thus how good for defense, etc. So I must say that for me nothing beats going on foot on the terrain. Of course the fact I'm european and with enough money allows me the privilege of visiting thoses places. But I know that my visits helped me during my cursus in Ancient History and opened new ways to think and put things in perspectives, making me better at my job. Without those travels to Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Mycenae, Epidauros, Amphiaros, Egina, Sounio, Rome, Alba Fucens, Glanum, Olbia of France, Orange, Vaison la romaine, Trier, K

I hope you were not too shaken by the quake that struck the area of l'Aquila this night !

Another place producing lead and where traces of pollution have been detected in Germany, notably in the area around K

well the picture is a degraded version of my original shot, taken with an old Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom 5.1megapixel 4x, 5.7 - 22.8mm, f2.8 - f/8.0 zoom lens. I would have liked better to take the picture with my brother's Lumix TZ-5, which I hope I'll be able to take with me to Napoli... while awaiting for the brand new TZ-7 to lower it's prizes ! I've discovered that using a wide zoom helps in museum when you don't always have the room to take pictures, but while my old Olympus is perfect for that its sensor is not as light-sensitive as the one on new machines ( it only goes up to 400 ISO while newer cameras like the TZ-7 go to 1600 ISO, which is much better in dim lights... )

I had not seen this, thank you all for your kind words !

Well it's all in the description, I decided at last minute ( that is yesterday ) that I'd go to Napoli for one week, from the 9th to the 16th of April. Since Klingan has had the good idea of asking if you need anything from Rome I told myself I could do the same for Napoli, Pompei, Herculanum, Velia, Capri, Paestum and the various sites of the area : I can't promise i'll visit them all but intend to do as much as possible. So just ask and I'll write it in my small notebook

The suiciding galatian at the Palazzo Altemps is also a most beautifull statue, I'm sad I only had my older camera with me to take lesser quality pics with it.

well it looks like it's accessible from london, so that's a good point. for one needs to think to those who might come from far away and do not hold driving licences... For the date I must confess summer hollydays would suit me better, especially since september may be somewhat hectic at work ( we'll be launching a new intranet in my university... and i'm supposed to be the guy in charge of it ! )

Universit

keltoi is the greek name so it is normal roman sources do not speak of them ( but they speak of gauls ) and the celts themselve did certainly not call themselve celts but more probably by using their tribes' names...

I've seen bactrian glass from the Afghanistan National Museum when they came to Paris some years ago and they had magnificent painted white glass in large vases forms, dating from the 1st century AD ( http://www.guimet.fr/afghanistan ) ( http://robertarood.wordpress.com/2008/08/2...l-museum-kabul/ )

Excellent review and interview, has convinced me to get the book as soon as I get the two last volumes of J.J. Norwich's Byzantium trilogy and the 2 novels I've ordered from Waterstone ! The period was so important, especially for history of institutions ( on the definition of the imperium with the clash between Lucullus and Pompey ) but the eastern front is too often dismissed for the civil war or the war against the pirates. @Caesar CXXXVII : indeed the testimonies are quite clear on the subject and I doubt the romans would have lied about it, too big to tell such a thing. But were they 80 000 dead romans, a massacre of the scale of the Cannae battle ? Maybe, i would'nt dismiss it out of hand even if the numbers look a bit high for me especially as the census during this period was a bit hard to establish due to the civil war taking place... I haven't re-read the sources in a while, but that number might well have been a mithridatif number taken by the romans at face value for counter propaganda.

indeed a nice trove of pictures ! thanks ! if you like pictures I can also direct you to http://picasaweb.google.com/bryaxis, where you'll find many pictures of ancient monuments and museums all around the mediteranean