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Melvadius

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Everything posted by Melvadius

  1. Welcome to the site Misthoforos. If you are any good at using a sling then you are way ahead of my feeble attempts of a few years back.
  2. This may be going out on a limb but after some searching I have discovered that 'caducidade' can be translated in Portugese as either 'maturity' or possibly 'due date' presumably this last referring to when a policy expires. In this context I suppose it is possible that a foreign speaker may have used the the first examples of the word translation as 'maturity' when referring to the period when Rome (or any other emerging power reaches its full maturity) and starts to expand. By doing so it will come into conflict with established power groupings around it. In Rome's case this would probably have been when it started to butt up against the Etruscans and other established city-states around it in the 5th/6th centuries BC.
  3. I agree with Caldrail that without some more information it is unlikely we can identify what conflict/ trap you are referring to. Given the problems with the spelling we have already encountered when 'googling' for 'Duecedes' it may help if you can give some more information. A longer reference to work with including some context such as where you heard about the conflict and/or what the topic under discussion was at the time may provide us with something we can relate to a specific conflict or at least period in Roman history.
  4. I suppose it only goes to show that the 'Grauniad' despite the advent of spell checking, since years ago a disgrunteled about to be ex-employee in the days of hot-type managed to change their banner without anyone noticing, still has problems with proof reading
  5. The Guardian is carying an intriging article under the heading Personally I am not totally convinced that just because a single charred olive stone was found in a secure context it necessarily dates to that context. There have been several examples found of coins and other small items dropping down to lower levels either through worm action or during dry spells when the ground may open up. A secure layer of olive stones would be another matter so I wait to see if more information/ examples are forthcoming.
  6. Silver, Although you have edited your last posts you seem to have missed the point of my original post I hope this isn't deliberate so would point you to the forum guideleines. Disagree with repondents by all means but discuss the point NOT the poster and keep this thread polite. To go back to my original question you ask for citations but in my view the examples you have provided have a major problem regarding a Roman venatio since they tend to be modern extract and so far as I can see heavily biased to examples involving combat with animals from the New World. Admittedly it is not a topic that I have read extensively but so far as I am aware ancient writers do not provide much information on it except in generalities thus my question if any research been done factoring up the size and musclature of animal remains found in proximity to arena's - I suspect the answer is negative.
  7. Interesting though the statistics you have provided may be they are out of context since they do not answer what I see as the underlying question of is there any archaeological evidence for the size and maturity of beasts involved in such combats.
  8. I would remind everyone of one thing. We can be fairly certain that no Roman would have been able to consider matching a 'Californian Grizzly' with any other animal let alone a 'puma'. So far as what the Romans had available to them to match in the arena is concerned settign aside questions of which particular species/ sub-species were available the real question is how large an animal were they able to capture AND transport. OK we know that some fairly large animals could be found in non-native parts of the Empire but were really dangerous specimens always transported as full sized-animals or was the more usual practice to transport them as relatively immature specimens and then keep until mature/ someone paid enough for them to be used earleir. If it was the last case then any match is likely to have usually been between relatively undersized specimens - so comparisons with modern examples where fully mature specimens could eb easily transport is fairly moot. We cannot get a real idea of scale from either wall paintings or mosaics and I am uncertain what if any archaeological work has been done to identify the relative maturity of any animal remains found in association with arena's - Klingon anyone else?
  9. I may be misreading your question but it reads like you have posted a class essay topic. If this is the case you may find it best to start by reading the section of the site which covers the Fall of the Roman Republic and then come back with any specific questions on areas you are uncertain about or if you need to ask about references for further reading.
  10. You probably need to look into a full edition of Plint the Elder's 'Natuaral History' or the surviving works of Galen and similar Greco-roman period authors to get an idea of how various herbal mixtures were used for medicine (and/or magic). The Universite of Virgina Health systems site is a good start since it has some useful overview information on Antiqua Medicina: From Homer to Vesalius it touches on Roman, Etruscan medicine, Galen and other related topics.
  11. According Tacitius (relevant extracts can be read at the Roman Britain site) while the first attack was aimed at a perceived Druid power-base, rather than being a renewed assualt on Druids per se the second assualt was instead aimed at the Ordovices who were the local tribe. Obviously there are large gaps in our knowledge of Roman Britian in the period from the written record while the archaeological record provides even less precisely datable information. The difference in targets may indicate that the intial destruction was fairly thorough despite being curtailed. However personally I suspect that the Druids were possibly not so large a force in pre-Roman Britain or at least not so formal a grouping as many authors and/or historians seem to give them credit for. The other thing to consider is that twenty years does give time for population levels to either rebuild naturally or alternatively for other tribes to move into a vacuum created by the previous destruction and/ or enslaving of local populations.
  12. Erm you seem to have conflated the dates that Lentulus was alive with the period when Octavian/ Augustus was in power. It would have been more helpful for your argument to have given specific dates in which the coins you have chosen as exemplars were minted. This is especially so since a letter attributed to Lentulus referring to Jesus Christ is generally believed to be apocraphyl. Come to think of it since Lentulus was dead long before Jesus Christ came to notice that makes any connection between him and Christian beleifs even less likely
  13. This thread takes an unusual view of history vis-a-vis monotheism. Personally I cannot say that it is entirely convincing since you seem to have conflated elements of the Imperial Cult with Christianity which most biblical and Classicla scholars see as entirely seperate. There is more indication that the 'Triumphs' which were created with captured armour and weaponary had the form they did stems from a simple need to have some way of placing them on view and/or carrying them about rather than any supposed theological basis. It really boils down to the fact that in my view you have not proven any causal connection between the diverse elements you have thrown together in this thread - for which reason it has been moved to this thread. Re a couple of comments above - please remember keep this polite otherwise we will have to consider further moderation to this thread.
  14. The Guardian is carrying this artticle about a newly developed x-ray technique for identifying coins and presumably other metallic archaeological remains which have been found in a compacted and corroded mass long before the normal conservation methods could be able to separate them out.
  15. I believe they are still available although since the webmaster is currently abroad it may take a little while for it to come through. You should order through the '>map page. If there is any problems you should eventually get a full refund since the orders are processed through Paypal.
  16. Science News has just picked up on this Economic resource for calculating journey times and preferred modes of travel in the Roman Empire in this article:
  17. Yuo may want to look out a lecture by Cambridge based Classicist Mary Beard which this article reviews in which she discusses some of the difficulties with identifying ancient statues/ bronze heads. The lecture itself is "Mistaken Identities: How to identify a Roman emperor"
  18. The 'History' page is only updated when new articles are added to the site by one of the webmasters such as book and film reviews or articles on specific historical topics. Unfortunately currently we only ahve one webmaster and as a new father he has had his hands full doing other things for the last few months consequently there have been only few updates since last November.
  19. Always difficult with hoards when you need to be able to identify the last 'dated' coins to work out what was happening in the period and then basically 'best guess' what influenced the hoarder - the names of whom are almost entirely impossible to determine with only patchy written records from the period. The Daily Mail in this article along with some good close-ups of the coins suggests the following influencing factors:
  20. As can be seen this article (especially on page 5 in section 2.1 Historical timeline) there is a lot of debate on when the transition occured. If I've understood it correctly the authors view seems to be that it didn't really occur until the 13th century when laws debarring illigitemate children from inheritance were promulgated by the church and they effectively took control of marriage.
  21. BBC news is carrying this story of the discovery of a major 1st century BC coin hoard being discovered on Jersey - there could be up to 50,000 coins in it.
  22. I rather suspect from the vegitation that it may actually be in Italy.
  23. Unfortunately there seems a block on general viewing of the images on Facebook.
  24. During the Republican period, before there was a standing army, the appointed tribunes conducted an ad hoc draft, or dilectus, to recruit men into the consular army.
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