Boudicca

[Minimalist]

True, Dig, but as in the ANE, it was the nobility who could afford them and this was not much more than a rag-tag force of rebels. Boudicca would not have had the time to gather a Mechanized Division.

[John1]

The interesting thing about the Church Stow topography seems to be that the slopes would have been too steep for chariots (although I am no expert) so assaults along the ridges would have been the only way to bring them into play, straight into the triple ditch complexes. So a slog on foot up the gully between the two forts. The two forts being a "univallate fort" in the wrong region and of "playing card" shape, and the other being a motte and bailey, with no motte and 3 baileys, all pretty non-standard forms.

It's worth having a look at the topo of the Church Stowe, then look at the other candidates, Mancetter and Paulerspury. Church Stowe is the only valley contained by free standing ridges, thus providing the valley acting as a "rampart", as described in Tacitus, also the highest and steepest of all the candidate sites (ok Mancetter is as steep but the valley there looks more like something to be trapped in rather than to act as a rampart).

Also it is interesting to note in the Tacitus version of Boudicca's speech she refers to the Legions hiding behind their entrenchments....It seems extremely unlikely that Paulinus would hold his troops, even just over night, without putting up a marching camp. In fact waiting for 250 000, drunken, raping, pillagng Brits with monster hangovers would probably provide several days, if not a week, to prepare the ground. So surely, wherever the battle site turns out to be, there shuld be some indication of Roman field fortifications, if you didn't have to rely on only topography you wouldn't...

Anyway fingers crossed those metal detectorists will get out there one day.

[Minimalist]

It seems extremely unlikely that Paulinus would hold his troops, even just over night, without putting up a marching camp

SOP for Roman armies was to build an entrenched camp at the end of every day's march, anyway. Commanders violated that principle at their peril and Suetonius Paulinus was no shmuck.

[John1]

That's exactly what I'd been led to believe. So any candidate site for the battle should surely be accompanied by a speculation concerning where the marching camp/s to hold 10 000 troops would be sited. The Church Stow theory is the only one which seems to attempt this, do any of the other candidate sites have suggested field fortification locations?

[Minimalist]

You may find this of interest, John.

http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... _camp.html

Ideally the camp should be set on high ground, not too close to the tree line to preclude sniping by archers or a sudden rush at the wall from that side. There should be a water source which might only be a stream.

[wxsby]

A Roman camp was really a small fortified town, with its own shops and tradesmen, which was often set up for one night when the army was on the march. But Roman soldiers were so well trained that they could set it up in five to sixe hours.

Livy, the great Roman historian, tells the story of how, one day, the army of the Consul Paulus Emilius was setting up a camp when a young officer burst excitedly upon them. He told the Consul that the enemy were nearby on the march, and in a perfect position to be attacked. If they could be attacked now, victory was certain. Hearing this, the officers made as if to order the suspension of the construction work, but the Consul prevented them. He was surrounded by his officers and implored not to lose such a wonderful opportunity. But Paulus Emilius, his face resolute and serious, mounted the tribunal (rostrum) and spoke to the assembled men.

"Your forefathers," he said, "before thinking of anything else, used to see that their camp was completed. Only then would they leave it to go into battle; if defeated, they had a haven to retire to. They left a strong garrison behind when they went out to fight, for a general whose camp was destroyed was defeated in the eyes of his men even if he was victor on the field.

This mentality has been used from ancient Rome to Vietnam to Afganistan. Re it's tactical or strategical advantages, I have my opinions, but they are the opinions of the lowly grunt. I think the idea sucks. Air F*****g Mobile~! Wins today.

[Minimalist]

An idea similarly expressed by Napoleon Bonaparte when he said:

If thunderbolts were available, they should be preferable to cannon.

One fights with what one has. The Romans had a pretty good won-loss record.

[Ishtar]

So .... do we think there's a possibility that she may be as mythical as Arthur?

Arthur wasn't mythical. Arthur was a British born (of a royal Celtic bloodline) Roman educated imperial citizen. He was the commander of Roman 'special forces' in Britain who rebelled, with his men, when he realized that Rome was abandoning them before the advancing Saxons. Thus his warrior status.

The myth of Arthur, which began long before the Romans invaded these fair isles, was based on the north European Cult of Arth, or the Cult of the Bear, the Bear being Ursa Major, one of the constellations that many megaliths worldwide are aligned to, including the pyramids. Ursa Major, for that reason, was also known to the Celts as Arthur's Seat or Arthur's Chariot.

[Minimalist]

Meet Lucius Artorius Castus, Ish.


http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/1/halac.htm

The reconstruction of the main inscription can be translated as:

To the spirits of the departed: Lucius Artorius Castus, centurion of the III legion Gallica, also centurion of the VI legion Ferrata, also centurion of the II legion Adiutrix, also centurion of the V legion Macedonica, also primus pilus of the same [the V legion Macedonica], praepositus of the classis Misenatium (the fleet on the Bay of Naples), praefectus of the VI legion Victrix, dux of the legions of cohorts of cavalry from Britain against the Armoricans, procurator centenarius of the province of Liburnia, with the power to issue death sentences. In his lifetime he himself [possibly: "fecit," "had this made"] for himself and his family . . .

[Ishtar]

I've already met him, Min.

He ain't Arthur.

I wonder how many guys at that time had Artorius as middle name? There's is nothing in this one's career that even remotely connects him to the Celtic myths of Arthur. Not one single incident. And anyway, the Celts (indigenous Britains) are hardly going to celebrate a Roman centurion in their myths, given the total wipe out at Anglesey.

I've said this to you before, but you really need to understand what mythology is. You seem to be only interested in seeing it as political history. I know it's more fun for you with your little tin soldiers marching into countries and then marching out again. but you need to get beyond that. The myths, where Arthur first appears, are, like most myths, about cosmology, earth sciences, philosophy, mathematics and sacred geometry. "Arth" means Bear = Ursa Major.

[uniface]

the Celts (indigenous Britains)

The Celtoi were round-heads and lived on the continent. Britons shared their material culture but were different people(s).

"The so-called Celtic Question, than which no greater stumbling block in the way of clear thinking exists . . . there is practically to-day a complete unanimity of opinion among physical anthropologists that the term Celt, if used at all, belongs to the brachycephalic [round-headed] darkish population of the Alpine [Swiss] highlands . . . totally lacking in the British Isles."
—W. Z. RIPLEY, Races of Europe, 124, 126, 305.

http://www.jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/ ... n_ch12.htm

[Digit]

Ye Gods! You're scraping the bottom of the barrel there Uni.
Any chance of a quote from someone less than 150 yrs old?

Roy.

[uniface]

Knowledge has a shelf life now ?

What passes for it surely does, admittedly.

Have Border Collies stopped being Border Collies ?

Does the altitude of the Matterhorn's peak have to be re-measured every couple of years ?

Has Newton's binomial changed in the interim ?

No pretext is ever too trivial or strained to "debunk" an unwelcome generalisation.

(I wonder if the demonstrable genetic component of intelligence will ever be RE-acknowleged ?)

Keep drinking that koolaid

[Minimalist]

I wonder how many guys at that time had Artorius as middle name?

With Roman names the so-called "middle name" actually designates the gens or family name. So there may have been scads of guys named "Lucius" but probably not many named Artorius. There could have been any number bearing the cognomen "Castus" (The Pure) although one wouldn't think the army would be a great place to find them.

Myths are not real but Artorius Castus apparently was.

[Minimalist]

Knowledge has a shelf life now ?

Does the altitude of the Matterhorn's peak have to be re-measured every couple of years ?

Probably, if one wants to be accurate.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 121207.htm

Swiss geodesists, who have already been measuring the Alps with highest accuracy for decades, have observed, however, that the Alp summits, as compared to low land, rise up to one millimetre per year.

Personally, I don't know that it matters all that much.