Pertinax

ACs link is here: http://www.hadrians-wall.info/hadrianswall...dunum/index.htm GOC I hope your tour doesnt coincide with the "Great North Run", or if it does that you have booked hotels in advance.

You are not alone, same here.

Probably unrelated, but id better post..gallery upload is very difficult, just getting a blank screen "done" with no error message.

WW is most apposite here, the one unyielding horror of living in Britain (apart from the quality of transport) is the never-ending dampness, the sub-stratae are not so much a rich dust rather a wet pudding of gelatinous awfulness.All my visits to Hadrian's Wall have been (even in summer) a yomp through obscene clinging mud. Also given the depth and plenitude of Roman era finds (Eboracum is a good example) vigorous ejection of topsoil is not unseemly.

The 14th! http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1936 As can be seen we are in the period 75 CE -125 CE or thereabouts. Once again we have excellent attention to authenticity , from quotidian detail of carried (Centurion) marching gear : http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1937 and camp implements : http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1935 some robust noble born persons: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1941 and a hawking party: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1938 here is the great falconry authority Gemima Parry-Jones in appropraite dress (alas with modern microphone) http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1939 to the overall appearence of the soldiery (in a wide selection of segmentata and hamata, with some fine personal flourishes in the way of Roman bravado: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1940 http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...si&img=1942 This is the unit to which the noted classical scholar (and re-imaginer of artillery) Alan Wilkins lends his gravitas with his painstakingly rebuilt weaponry (check my Ballisate gallery for his "Polybolus"

The Poison Paradox by Timbrell the eminent toxicologist, I shall be injecting figs all week(apologies to The Augusta). The book hinges on the Paracelsian doctrine of "the poison is in the dose" , that is -you can kill with most things if you get the dose right (water for example), its just that some caterpillars and the water from your lilies will do it quicker. Beyond this of course the line is to be drawn between medication and assassination, one man's fish dinner is another man's zombie powder (fugu toxicity), I believe CSI had an episode on this very subject?) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poison-Paradox-Che...5377&sr=8-1 I also finished Justinian's Flea by Rosen http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justinians-Flea-Pl...5783&sr=8-2 which I will be suggesting as a good "late period" general reader when I post the review.A very articulate work.

None of the cars hit your head did they?

Do bear in mind the combat -ready look for Celts..woad on the body (as a sort of portable wound salve and first layer anti-bacterial barrier) and malachite paste on the hair to give a bleached- blonde "stiffened " dreadlock finish (to emphasise height and threataning colouration) .Insofar as this combination is Celt-Iberian (and woad (a fearsomely healthy "weed") and malachite are readily available) then a wide geographical usage does not seem so strange.

Oh dear , drunk at the keyboard again. Two unrelated outbreaks of disease in the UK (the E.coli above and "bluetongue" a mite borne infection of ruminants) , emphasised the constant mutation of aggressive bacteria in the face of broad spectrum antibiotics.The mutation of Y pseudo to Y.pestis tends to make me think that any new plague will be immuno -resistant regardless of the technology thrown at it (nay, because of it ). The Justinian episode actually ran for near 200 years and re-shaped Europe, the Influenza epidemic of 1919 hit a much bigger population (with colossal casualties, more than Stalin managed to kill and starve even) but did not denude the main centres of population.

I suppose the "mental judo" we might need to employ is this: as we know proir to Hadrians Wall the Stanegate was in essence the frontier. The road system existed to deliver combatants to a required area or at least to allow policing and intelligence collection , at all possible speed within a given area.The suggested mindshift of Hadrian is to "an Empire with boundaries" , where by necessity he felt obliged to "manage" possible reasonably definable physical frontiers , his predecessors had always followed the idea of an "Empire without boundaries" ie: acknowledging the idea of Rome as a constantly dynamic , expanding entity with a moral certitude of civilising the non-civilised.So perhaps all pre-Hadrianic road systems had the potential to be "frontiers" in a very loose sense delivering garisson troops to unsettled areas as required. A quote from Rosen in Justinian's Flea (as regards the pre-Islamic arabs) but quite reasonable in N Europe and "Caledonia" in particular was " dangerous to annoy , but pointless to conquer" .That is warlike inhabitants with nothing that Rome needed save for them to shut up and go away.

Oddly enough this was the thing that was at the back of my mind: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/h...icle2511957.ece

Yes indeed they are best considered a sort of "bespoke machine" , the Legions technicians could re-build, replace and make good damage in the field from local materials, but for that they needed time of course. All the smaller units could be attended to by the creation of (most but not all) parts unlike say a modern GPMG , where no-one in the field could do much to save major parts of a damaged unit without available transplants which could not be made in the field at all.

At last a chance for the Forum to get a decent clubhouse! http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life...icle2511780.ece

Rats are the main vector , but other ground rodents do carry the disease. Various squirrel and prairie dog populations have endemic plague problems (any "wild rodent" is a possible vector) , and it is suggested (as a mutation ) some scavenger birds. The "other rodents" are not usually near major concentrations of humans , but you can get unlucky and get bitten.Usually mature adults are more susceptible because one needs to be bitten quite a lot to be "hit " by a carrier flea (as not all fleas are infected) small surface area (kids) dont get bitten as often as large surface area (adults) having less skin.

A public thank you to AC , sometimes one's best endeavours fall foul of bad luck and unforseen circumstances, this is very much the case here. Resurgam! We will re-group and try again.

Might I commend the invention of the jackboot ( by the Assyrians) as the fundamental tool of military excellence? Allowing all season , all terrain campaigning over lesser sandal- wearing types in the Fertile Crescent.

A question for Viggen , but in the public domain, do you have any revised (present day) pie charts pertaining to membership/visitor stats as previously published in the Gallery area?

I am working up a review of "Justinian's Flea" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justinians-Flea-Pl...2724&sr=8-1 which is a "scene setter" for the Late Empire not just a disease oriented text,( though the medical part of the work is rivetting). I have blogged here: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?automo...;blogid=19& because I think the argument developed in this text informs several major outbreaks of "plague" within the reach of Attic to Justinian outbreaks.

I would nominate Ercolano , as so little has emerged from the site in relation to what we know is buried. http://www.auav46.dsl.pipex.com/

Woo Hooo , return of the Cheese eating Neapolitan Nemesis!

That is my after dinner chat...I went in the wrong way! I didnt see the "do not " signs till I was leaving by the entrance doors! Also no-one was in the museum at all, I could have died of embarassment , but by then id photographed the whole lot ,every single last item. .

By train one would travel London-Newcastle , then Newcastle to Haltwhistle.The first part would be perhaps 250 miles , but quite fast ,the second 50-60 miles and rather slow.Or one might get a plane to Manchester and hire a car, a journey of one hundred miles of gloriously beautiful scenery all the way(if its not raining).

Primus Pilus kindly sent me a copy of "Justinian's flea" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Justinians-Flea-Pl...2722&sr=8-1 Which I intend to review in full shortly.I have however been receiving pms from forum members regarding both the Antonine and Justinian episodes, and I now wish to give a short summary of additional information regarding possible causation. Of the fascinating transformation of Yersinia psuedotubercolosis into Y.pestis (the actual "plague") I will leave you to discover from the book , save to mention that bacteria are (unknowingly) smart , and they will achieve their mission! My previous blog entry ""Plague and Rye" (just scroll back a little way) expounds on the plausibility of Ergot of Rye predisposing a population to auto immune deficiency , thence making any aggressive viral incomer more effective in its epidemic effects (or indeed tipping gross morbidity into epidemic status). Ergotism flourishes when grain suffers a cool damp summer, and is compounded by poor storage (lack of ventilation) and processing of infected grain. Remember that Ergot was not even recognised as a parasitic fungus till very late in the history of cereal production. The vectors that brought the Justinian episode to a head are quite remarkable, but most crucially the enabling factor that lead to a "critical mass" of black rats as the instruments of contagion was cool, damp, summer weather. So ergotism and rat population both thrive in such circumstances, an unhappy coincidence especially as they are also related to the storage of grain in proximity to population centres. Most unhappy indeed because humans are not actually the desired host for the parasite flea, the rat is its most desired target .The flea that hosts Y pestis is Xenopsylla cheopsis, and was so chosen because it is easily blocked by pathogenic bacteria, ie: it fails to digest harvested blood, goes into a biting frenzy and dies.this is of course the desired vector operating most efficiently from the Y pestis point of view, propogating its sisters in the medium of rat blood. Not any old rat of course but particularly Rattus norvegicus (black) as opposed to Rattus rattus (brown).Now R norvegicus hitched its way from India with ocean traffic delivering pepper, but its favourite food is grain, and it does not care to move far in search of it (being a coastal type) , so a comfortable grain ship moving from Egypt to Byzantium was in essence a mobile home with all mod cons.Now X cheopsis didnt originally care for R norvegicus, it actually jumped ship from the egyptian nilotic rat for reasons unknown (tasted sour perhaps?).The chain of causation grows ever more complex. The problem for humans is if a very abundant rat population is parasitised by the flea containing the plague bacterian, and it is too efficient in killing its hosts The flea is fooled into thinking it is starving by action of the plague bacteria, (a coagulant in its gut does not allow it to digest harvested blood). the flea is impelled to bite more to seek blood .This is fine if the biting is just done to rats, they are smitten with plague,( they die-that being the apotheosis of the bacterian), but not until the fleas have also breed to maintain a reservoir of the virus.Sadly when rat populations hit demographic peaks, having an abundant supply of grain in a concentrated area (Byzantium say) , fleas can then "jump off" searching for hosts and land on (and bite) humans. This is the only method of contagion , one cannot cough bubonic plague onto another human for example. So a huge die off of infected rats leaves humans grossly susceptible to contagion, if weakened by ergot poisoning the fatality rate exceeds the basic likely plague fatality rates considerably. The book itself is not just about this episode, though the impact of the Justinian plague on the course of world history is enormous. Post Scriptum: The three versions of the plague depend on how it affects a person: Bubonic plague is the most common form and results in flu-like symptoms and the swelling of lymph nodes in the neck, armpit or groin into large, painful cysts called buboes.That is the form that the event in Justinians reign took. Pneumonic plague is the least common but most dangerous form of plague. In this form of pneumonia, plague bacterium gets into the lungs of the victim, causing the coughing up of bloody sputum. Septicaemic plague occurs primarily as a secondary disease, Gage says, when pneumonic or bubonic plague is left untreated and the bacterium gets into the victim