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All Things Roman (History)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Given that Britain wasn't an independent state, the term 'capital' is a bit misleading anyway. I suppose orthodoxy would refer to the seat of the governor of Britannica Superior. Looked at from a Roman perspective, London is quite well placed to administer the southern half of England.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:
Given that Britain wasn't an independent state, the term 'capital' is a bit misleading anyway. I suppose orthodoxy would refer to the seat of the governor of Britannica Superior. Looked at from a Roman perspective, London is quite well placed to administer the southern half of England.


Here is what Wiki says.

Britannia Superior (Latin for "Upper Britain") was a province of Roman Britain created after the civil war between Septimius Severus and Claudius Albinus. Although Herodian credits Severus with dividing Roman Britain into the Northern territory of Britannia Inferior and the Southern territory of Britannia Superior,[1] modern scholarship argues that it is more likely that Caracella was the person who made the split sometime in the early 3rd century CE.[2] The previous British capital Londinium remained the centre of Britannia Superior while Eboracum, or modern York was the capital of Britannia Inferior. Epigraphical evidence shows that Upper Britain encompassed approximately what is now Wales, southern England and East Anglia.[3] However, the official boundary between Britannia Superior and Inferior is still unclear..


This strikes Wiley as not just unclear but downright strange. The upper and inferior brings to mind Victorian class rather than geographic distinctions. If you look at where an emperor (not governors) went and set up their admiistration, it was Eboracum. Severus set up base in modern York for 3 years, and was buried there. Later Constantine the Great was acclaimed, by his army, Emperor there. I know that Hadrian travelled to London but there again he travelled a lot.....at least, we are told all this by lovers of scripts and sources.


Although Londinium went through a period of decline during this time, the province as a whole continued to be developed. Villas were expanded[4] and a new wall around the capital was created.[5]


Not exactly the strongest argument is it? Still it's better than what follows about these mysterious governor chappies.

Governors of Britannia Superior are difficult to trace and it is hard to decipher exactly when the province became distinct from its twin Britannia Inferior. Also, little information about their system of governance or their peoples exist today. However, some archeological research of Britannia Superior leads historians to believe that Romano-British relations may have to be restudied with a more modern approach.[6]


Like a longer list of those that were governor, and an approach that relies on rational argument?


Due to instability within the Roman Empire, reforms by Diocletian and Carausius' usurping total provincial power in the late 3rd century, the province was restructured by Constantius early in the 4th century.


About time too, the only constant (sic) in all this, is a desire for London to be a capital. I wonder why?
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Mick Harper
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If you look at where an emperor (not governors) went and set up their admiistration, it was Eboracum.

You wonder why emperors visited Britian at all. But you are right, York seems serially more important than London. I suppose it could be argued they were concerned with Pictish ingresses but why an emperor would be concerned with such pettifogging threats to a faraway province that wasn't even attached to the empire proper points to what the sixteenth century mind, not the Roman imperial mind, has in mind.

and a new wall around the capital was created.
Not exactly the strongest argument is it?

I should cocoa not. Who's threatenng London? Anti-Roman malcontents in Hertfordshire? Saxons getting through the Saxon Forts?

However, some archeological research of Britannia Superior leads historians to believe that Romano-British relations may have to be restudied with a more modern approach.

I don't think they mean 'restudied with a more sceptical approach'.
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Wile E. Coyote


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If the Romans really wanted to set up a Britannia Superior they would surely have opted for Canterbury not London as capital. After all nobody argues that Alfred the Great's capital was actually Southampton or Portsmouth, that would be ridiculous, he clearly looked at his options and chose Winchester, and rightly so!
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Wile E. Coyote


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I went onto Medium.com and happened to come across an article "Is Christianity a western religion?"

The answer is obviously yes it is, Christianity is centred on Rome and, unlike the Eastern religions, it is based on facts, chronology, and so has a specific linear traceable history, it is not based on unhistorical eastern teachings, spiritualism and so on.

Turns out Wiley was wrong!!
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Wile E. Coyote


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Wile E. Coyote wrote:
I went onto Medium.com and happened to come across an article "Is Christianity a western religion?"

The answer is obviously yes it is, Christianity is centred on Rome and, unlike the Eastern religions, it is based on facts, chronology, and so has a specific linear traceable history, it is not based on unhistorical eastern teachings, spiritualism and so on.

Turns out Wiley was wrong!!


Yes, this Medium article, tells us that you (you poor fools) think of Christianity as a western religion (you actually don't), but it is really not. Jesus was middle eastern, the central pillar of Christianity has to be the historical Jesus. So it's a middle eastern religion that you, you dummies, think of as Western religion. It sets you right, Jesus was Middle Eastern, so Christianity is Middle Eastern, brought to the west by the Apostle Paul (Saul).

Could the truth be simpler?

There was no historical Jesus.

Jesus was a Roman invention.

Christianity is Roman.

Was Christianity miraculously born in the middle east? Did Christianity exist as an underground persecuted mystery religion in the west? Or was it a western invention exported outwards as the state religion of Rome?
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Mick Harper
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The Bible on these matters, Revisionist Historiography, begs to differ

A less likely candidate than the Roman Empire to espouse turn-the-cheek values would be hard to imagine but since we, with all our fancy historical and archaeological investigatory tools, believe the Roman Empire was Christian, there is every reason to suppose they could be persuaded it was.

'They' being western Europeans of the Dark Age. So, yes, Christianity is a western religion.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Did word of Christianity travel from Jerusalem to Augustan Rome via the Apostle Paul (Saul)?

Or did it travel from the Rome of Saint Augustine to Jerusalem along with Paul Orosius ?

Or was it both? Or was it neither?
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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Was it case of idyllic stable shepherds (countryside) first, or city first?
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Wile E. Coyote


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You will look, mainly in vain, for early Christian churches, this is because we are assured that the term "church" does not apply to buildings. It is less clear to what it does apply, it is something like an Early Christian community meeting in a private home, to pray, listen to readings of scriptures and sing hyms, ie all the activities Christian folks these days do in churches, but without the actual buildings.

There is an interesting page on Wiki on House Churches https://bit.ly/3jwzYHx

Wiki sums it up

For the first 300 years of Early Christianity, until Constantine legalized Christianity and churches moved into larger buildings, Christians typically met in homes, if only because intermittent persecution (before the Edict of Milan in 313) did not allow the erection of public church buildings.[6] Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote of worshipping in a house. The Dura-Europos church, a private house in Dura-Europos in Syria, was excavated in the 1930s and was found to have been used as a Christian meeting place in AD 232, with one small room serving as a baptistry.[7][8] creating the current style church seen today.[9]

That isn't a lot of archaeology for 300 years.

Could it be that early Christianity is a history, without an archaeology?
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Wile E. Coyote


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You get the impression that, according to ortho, these early House Churches were forerunners of Church buildings.

The sequence runs: private house, with chuch-like activities. Then comes the House Church (not a lot of those), then comes .....well, actually it's the basillica.

wiki wrote:

New religions like Christianity required space for congregational worship, and the basilica was adapted by the early Church for worship.[8] Because they were able to hold large number of people, basilicas were adopted for Christian liturgical use after Constantine the Great.
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Wile E. Coyote


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It feels like a strange evolution. A lot is put down to Constantine the Great (Edict of Milan) or his mum Helena who in her final years made a religious tour of Syria, Palestine and Jerusalem, and discovered the True Cross.
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Wile E. Coyote


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New religions like Christianity required space for congregational worship, and the basilica was adapted by the early Church for worship.[8] Because they were able to hold large number of people, basilicas were adopted for Christian liturgical use after Constantine the Great.


This was a curious episode, that required Constantine to shift capitals from Rome to Constantinople (it is called doing an Akhenaten) and leaving his wandering Christian mother Helena (the discoverer of The True Cross) to set in motion the chain of events and building works that led to Rome becoming the former capital, but administrative centre, of Christianity.

Private Homes, Church Houses, Constantine tolerates Christians he vacates, Helena, Converted Basilicas, seems to be the Ortho Sequence.

The archaeology shows basilicas, converted basilicas.
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Mick Harper
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Name a Roman basilica converted into a Christian church before the eleventh century according to the archaeology.
.
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Wile E. Coyote


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At what date does Roman become Romanesque?

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque style, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 11th century, this later date being the most commonly held.
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