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All Things Roman (History)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Standard
online wrote:
flag or other conspicuous object to serve as a rallying point for a military force," from shortened form of Old French estandart "military standard, banner." According to Barnhart, Watkins and others, this is probably from Frankish *standhard, literally "stand fast or firm," a compound of unrecorded Frankish words cognate stand (v.) and hard (adj.). So called because the flag was fixed to a pole or spear and stuck in the ground to stand upright.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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online wrote:
brigand (n.)
c. 1400, also brigaunt, "lightly armed irregular foot-soldier," from Old French brigand (14c.), from Italian brigante "trooper, skirmisher, foot soldier," from brigare "to brawl, fight" (see brigade). Sense of "robber, freebooter, one who lives by pillaging" is earlier in English (late 14c.), reflecting the lack of distinction between professional mercenary armies and armed, organized criminals.

Probably then it was in the sense of skirmishers that the name of brigand was given to certain light-armed foot-soldiers, frequently mentioned by Froissart and his contemporaries. ... The passage from the sense of a light-armed soldier to that of a man pillaging on his own account, is easily understood. [Wedgwood]


It's mysterious that the Brigantes were not Brigands according to ortho.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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It's a bit of an open question whether Hadrian's wall served any military function at all. Too many gates. You just had to lose one gate and the walls defensive function is lost. There are bits of the wall you could slip over unseen from the towers.

It is not conceived as a defensive structure.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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It is not conceived as a defensive structure.

So not great against an army, too unwieldy against 'brigands', too sophisticated to channel animals into toll points. We're running out of options. Except this one.

It's mysterious that the Brigantes were not Brigands according to ortho.

But not according to THOBR which says brigand comes from the early English 'brigand' and which in turn comes from 'Brigante' the early English tribe. In other words Hadrian's Wall was not like Trump's Wall -- to keep people out -- it was like the Berlin Wall -- to keep people in.

PS Standard comes from the early English army command "stand hard" i.e. no further retreat from this point, often marked by a standard.
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Boreades


In: finity and beyond
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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
It's a bit of an open question whether Hadrian's wall served any military function at all. Too many gates. You just had to lose one gate and the walls defensive function is lost. There are bits of the wall you could slip over unseen from the towers.

It is not conceived as a defensive structure.

I concur, and so did Hadrian. It was built after Hadrian (rather radically for a Roman Emperor) decided it was time to stop expanding the Empire. Instead, the military engineering skills, and the legions that would otherwise have been army-surplus, were recycled into grandiose civil engineering projects.

Like Hadrian's Temple in Jerusalem. Later (a couple of centuries later) called Solomon's Temple by the revolting locals who were keen to big-up their own history and deny most everything the Romans had ever done for us (or them).

Oop North, the Legions and Auxiliary units that built Hadrian's Wall settled down, took up with the local lasses, donating to the local gene-pool. Like the Sarmarian Cavalry, 5,500 of them formed the sixth legion Victrix, that was sent to Britain. (Ala prima Sarmatorum)
https://www.fellponymuseum.org.uk/fells/rom_dark/cavalry.htm

Settling down, they may well have built Romanesque estates and farms. Along with the Mithraic Temples that all self-respecting Legions would build for themselves. Later, quietly morphing into Roman Christian Temples, and then Monastic Estates, raising sheep and inventing the futures market, still with Rome as the biggest customer for the wool.

Ref.
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/exhibition/index.shtml

Ala prima Sarmatorum
https://www.marres.education/sarmatic_traces.htm

One company, the Ala prima Sarmatorum stayed permanently in England and during a long time a great Sarmatian colony of soldiers existed in Bremetenacum Veteranorum, at current Ribchester in Lancashire where veterans were given land and settled with their wives and children in the 4th century. In this region are Sarmatian tombstones preserved.

Besides these archaeological remains are to date still present their myths and legends. the same as those that survived at other descendants of the Sarmatians in other counties of Europe as in northern France and in North Ossetia-Alania, where live the descendants of the East Alans. In this remote country survived the story Cycle of the Narts.

The hero in the Ossetian tale Batraz lives on in the British King Arthur. The legends surrounding Arthur and his knights are interlard with the myths of the Nart cyclus.


Ah'reet Arthur?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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So they built this massive engineering scheme because they couldn't think what else to do with the soldiery? I remember we had to blanco stones during basic training so is this the same kind of thing?
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Boreades wrote:

I concur, and so did Hadrian. It was built after Hadrian (rather radically for a Roman Emperor) decided it was time to stop expanding the Empire. Instead, the military engineering skills, and the legions that would otherwise have been army-surplus, were recycled into grandiose civil engineering projects.


Well even if Hadrian exceptionally decided to stop expanding, and spend most of his time dashing round inspecting the limits of his empire (as history mysteriously has it), the building of his non defensive wall didn't go to plan, even with all those additional troops/labourers.

Antoninus Pius was anyway quickly ordering (20 years after Hadrian) legions back up North building the Antonine wall, which militarily was much better.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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If as you surmise the wall was a 'companion' to an east-west trade route, dubbed 'Stanegate' at some time, it could have been to establish (and maintain) a hard border with border posts, dubbed 'forts' at some time. Not everything the Romans did/built had a military purpose.
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Mick Harper
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Antoninus Pius was anyway quickly ordering (20 years after Hadrian) legions back up North building the Antonine wall, which militarily was much better.

Two conspicuous east-west coast-to-coast walls in quick succession? There's a turn-up for the books. The Antonine, according to orthodoxy, made Hadrian's obsolete.

"Finished, gov. It's a lovely job, much better militarily than Hadrian's. D'you wannus to start knocking that one down?"
"No, keep Hadrian's."
"Why's that, guv?"
"I want you to knock down the Antonine instead."
"But we only just finished building it."
"Exactly, The soldiers won't have anything to do now, will they? We can't have them sitting around on their backsides getting into mischief."
"All right, lads, look lively. Ours is not to wonder why."
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Hadrian has it good and bad.

The good. He built this iconic wall

The bad. The Romans were great at building roads and walls so... any military deficiencies were down to Hadrian.....err...who should have left it to the experts.

This is the way building projects get analysed.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Here is a recent article from Current Archaeology.

https://bit.ly/2Kctx6y

This raised a smile.

These dates have been analysed and combined in Bayesian models, a technique that uses archaeological information to refine scientific data (see CA 259), by Derek Hamilton.


It seems that we now have to take into account Bayes and The Marine Reservoir Effect to make our OD (Ortho Dating) work.

Christian Chronology Rules OK.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Hatty wrote:
If as you surmise the wall was a 'companion' to an east-west trade route, dubbed 'Stanegate' at some time, it could have been to establish (and maintain) a hard border with border posts, dubbed 'forts' at some time. Not everything the Romans did/built had a military purpose.


Quite.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Often overlooked in the Romans built straight debate, are the events of 1745 (OD).

As the Jacobite rebels invaded, Field Marshal Wade stationed in Newcastle tried to intercept them by crossing to Carlisle. They never got there, the roads were too bad.

Not surprisingly, by 1749 the English had decided to build a straight road.

William Stukeley the English antiquarian,archaeologist and author was outraged that as the road was constructed, the road builders were destroying Hadrian's wall, along with a lot of evidence of Roman British life. Stukeley believed that the planners of the new road should have "discovered" the old Roman Military Way and built over that.

“It was the business of the surveyors of the work to trace out this road. They would have found it pretty strait, well laid out in regard to the ground, and it would have been a foundation sufficient for their new road”.


Alas......such was the belief in straight Roman roads.
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Wile E. Coyote


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wiki wrote:
Roman roads in Britannia were initially designed for military use, created by the Roman Army during the nearly four centuries (43 – 410 AD) that Britannia was a province of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that about 2,000 mi (3,200 km) of paved trunk roads (i.e. surfaced roads running between two towns or cities) were constructed and maintained throughout the province.[1] Most of the known network was completed by AD 180. The primary function of the network was to allow rapid movement of troops and military supplies, but it subsequently provided vital infrastructure for commerce, trade and the transportation of goods.

A considerable number of Roman roads remained in daily use as core trunk roads for centuries after the end of Roman rule in Britain in AD 410. Some routes are now part of the UK's national road network. Others have been lost or are of archeological and historical interest only.

After the Romans departed, systematic construction of paved highways in the United Kingdom did not resume until the early 18th century. The Roman road network remained the only nationally-managed highway system within Britain until the establishment of the Ministry of Transport in the early 20th century.


Such has been the hunt for Roman Roads that by the 1950s new Roman Roads were being discovered everywhere. A group of individuals called the Viatories had discovered a new network of Roman Roads in the home counties. The results of their fieldwork and use of Aerial photography surprised even themselves. In their study of the East Midlands the Viatories discovered 49 Roman Roads of which only 11 were known or previously partially known.
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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G.K. Chesterton wrote:

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
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