Salve bene Pontifex Quinte Metelle

--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, "Q. Caecilius Metellus"
<metellus@...> wrote:

>
> Q. Caecilius Metellus Quiritibus sal.
>
> For the current nundinum, the calendar is:
>
> 11 a.d. V Id. Mai. C F Religiosus

MMPH: a. d. V Idus Mai is one of the days of Lemuria, in fact the
day on which sacrifice was to be offered to Mana Genita. Should not
it be listed as dies nefastus?

> 12 a.d. IV Id. Mai. D C
> 13 a.d. III Id. Mai. E N Religiosus
> 14 pr. Id.. Mai. F C
> 15 Id. Mai. G NP Religiosus
> 16 a.d. XVII Kal. Iun. H F Ater
> 17 a.d. XVI Kal. Iun. A C
> 18 a.d. XV Kal. Iun. B C
> 19 a.d. XIV Kal. Iun. C F

MMPH: Why is this last day noted as dies fastus when in the
Republican fasti it was noted as dies comitialis?

>
> As always, I'm open to answer any questions, comments, concerns,

etc.

>
> Valete Optime,
>
> Q. Caecilius Metellus Postumianus
> Pontifex
>

Vale et vade in pace Deorum
M Moravius Piscinus

This is eactly the sort of thing that we should be adding to the wiki.
Could I prevail on you to do this? Perhaps under the title "Insense"?


optime vale

M. Lucretius Agricola

--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, "marcushoratius" <mhoratius@...> wrote:
>
> Salve Kriss
>
> Certain trees, flowers, and herbs were at times associated with one
> deity or another, but there was not generally a system of
> correspondences made between a particular God and Goddess and a
> particular incense to use in Her's or His rites. If you go through
> Roman sources like Pliny's Historia Naturalis or the works of Ovid,
> then you find some of the associations that Romans made. Here is a
> list with some examples
>
> Adonis: fennel, barley, roses.
>
> Apollo: bay laurel, hyacinth, parsley.
>
> Asclepius: all-heal (panaces such as St John's wort), butterfly weed,
> milkweed, mustard, opanax, thin-leaf parsnip.
>
> Castor and Pollux: frankincense.
>
> Ceres: barley, dittany of Crete, hyacinth, pennyroyal, poppies, spelt,
> storax, violets.
>
> Chiron: chiron vine, greater centaury, St. John's wort, wormwood,
> yarrow.
>
> Diana: hazel, jasmine, lavender, mandrake, rosemary, wormwood
> (artemisia).
>
> Dis Pater: cinnamon, frankincense, honey, ivy, mint, pennyroyal.
>
> Faunus: ivy, peony, pine, violets.
>
> Faustus: ivy, pine.
>
> Hecate: garlic, hemlock, mandrake, rue.
>
> Hercules: cyprus, henbane, herb Robert, opopanax, oregano, monkshood
> (aconite), water lilies.
>
> Janus: bay laurel, violets.
>
> Juno: cyprus, iris, lily, orris root, saffron.
>
> Juppiter: bay laurel, benzoin, cassia, cinnamon, marjoram, saffron,
> sage, vervain.
>
> Lares: myrtle, juniper.
>
> Liber and Libera: cinnamon, frankincense, honey, ivy, mint, pennyroyal.
>
> Manes: garlic, poppy heads, violets.
>
> Mars: bay laurel, cinnamon, peony, red clover.
>
> Mercury: dill, hellebore niger, marjoram, mercurialis annua (herb
> Mercury), myrtle.
>
> Minerva: ampelos or chiron vine, dogbur, olive, plantain, rosemary,
> yarrow.
>
> Muses: couch-grass, white hellebore.
>
> Pales: basil.
>
> Priapus: lotus tree.
>
> Proserpina: hyacinth, mandrake, mint, myrtle, parsley, rosemary, rue,
> violet.
>
> Quirinus: juniper, myrtle.
>
> Robigo: vervain.
>
> Saturnus: costus, fig tree, storax, violets.
>
> Silvanus: cyprus root, or trees in general.
>
> Venus: ambergris, corn cicely or shepherd's needle, fennel, lily,
> marjoram, myrtle, rose, Venus' comb, and any sweet smelling flowers.
>
> Vesta: bay laurel, juniper, violets.
>
>
> More of a concern to the Romans was what could not be used in the
> rites of one deity or another. It was considered a sacrilege to use
> bay laurel or olive in any purification rite to atone for blood-
> letting, or in any rite involving the Di inferni. Myrtle was
> appropriate in rites for Venus, and for that very reason was excluded
> from rites to Fauna or the Bona Dea. Certain trees were noted as
> arbores felices and could be used in any rites for the celestial Gods,
> while other trees that were arbores infelices were prohibited in such
> rites, but for the same reason were used in rites for the Di inferni.
> More often it was not the particular plant that was considered in a
> given rite but where it came from. In general, if a plant was allowed
> to grow in the deity's temple precinct, or might appear there on its
> own, then it would be used in a rite for that deity. Or plants taken
> from the Palatine Hill might used for certain deities, as place was
> associated with the Gods more so than any genius of plants.
>
> In general bay laurel should be used as an incense for celestial Gods
> and Goddesses, and for most terrestrial Gods and Goddesses, ie Di
> celesti et Di inferi, but not for Di inferni, and should not be used
> in certain rites. It can be used as an initial offering in a
> caeremonia, but should not be used during an immolatio (blood
> sacrifice) portion of a caeremonia.
>
> For purposes of purification, sulfur was used as an incense to purify
> any place, person, or animal from death or disease. Otherwise vervain
> was considered the herb of purification and would be rubbed on altars
> and burned as an incense to purify a space prior to performing any
> ritual.
>
> Vade in pace Deorum
>
> M Moravius Piscinus Horatianus
> Flamen Carmentalis
> Tribunus Plebis
>
>
>
> --- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, "kriss112233" <kriss112233@>
> wrote:
> >
> > dear nova roma group!
> >
> > i'm searching about informations about incense used in roman rituals
> > and correspontations with the gods.
> > maybe someone has a webpage for me or infos with this topic.
> >
> > thank you very much
> > Kriss!
> >
>

A. Apollonius M. Moravio omnibusque sal.

I'm not Metellus or indeed any other pontifex, but since I'm sitting here as your question arrives let me try an amateur answer. You asked:

> 11 a.d. V Id. Mai. C F Religiosus

> MMPH: a. d. V Idus Mai is one of the days of Lemuria, in fact the

day on which sacrifice was to be offered to Mana Genita. Should not
it be listed as dies nefastus? <

And:

> 19 a.d. XIV Kal. Iun. C F

> MMPH: Why is this last day noted as dies fastus when in the

Republican fasti it was noted as dies comitialis? <

These two days are nundinae. Under the lex Hortensia, enacted M. Marcello C. Rutilo cos. (287 B.C.), any day on which the nundinae fall becomes fastus. These days do not appear as dies fasti in surviving Roman painted or inscribed calendars because nundinae fall on different days every year, so marking them would mean the calendar had to be re-painted or re-inscribed every year.

The calendar issued by the pontifices at the beginning of this year adopted the provisions of the lex Hortensia, previously not observed in Nova Roma. In my opinion this was a good and proper decision and brought us closer to historical practice, but it must be admitted that it can be a little confusing. What I do is to make a little mark in my diary to indicate the days on which the nundinae fall. They recur every eighth day (ninth by the Roman way of counting), so the next will be Friday the 19th, after that Saturday the 27th, and so on.

OSD C. Equitius Cato

Salvete omnes!

Hodie est ante diem III Idus Maius; haec dies nefastus publicus est.

"You'll catch sight of the Pleiades, the whole throng together,
When there's one night still left before the Ides.
Then summer begins, as I find from reliable sources,
And spring's tepid season comes to an end." - Ovid, Fasti V

Today is the last day of the Lemuria.

It is quite clear from Plautus that ghost stories, even if not taken
very seriously, aroused a wide-spread interest in the average Roman of
his day, just as they do in the average Briton of our own. They were
doubtless discussed in a half-joking way. The apparitions were
generally believed to frighten people, just as they are at present,
though the well-authenticated stories of such occurrences would seem
to show that genuine ghosts, or whatever one likes to call them, have
the power of paralyzing fear.

In the "Mostellaria", Plautus uses a ghost as a recognized piece of
supernatural machinery. The regulation father of Roman comedy has gone
away on a journey, and in the meantime the son has, as usual, almost
reached the end of his father's fortune. The father comes back
unexpectedly, and the son turns in despair to his faithful slave,
Tranio, for help. Tranio is equal to the occasion, and undertakes to
frighten the inconvenient parent away again. He gives an account of an
apparition that has been seen, and has announced that it is the ghost
of a stranger from over-seas, who has been dead for six years.

"Here must I dwell," it had declared, "for the gods of the lower world
will not receive me, seeing that I died before my time. My host
murdered me, his guest, villain that he was, for the gold that I
carried, and secretly buried me, without funeral rites, in this house.
Be gone hence, therefore, for it is accursed and unholy ground." This
story is enough for the father. He takes the advice, and does not
return till Tranio and his dutiful son are quite ready for him.

Great battlefields are everywhere believed to be haunted. Tacitus
relates how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, armies were seen
fighting in the sky; and at a much later date, after a great battle
against Attila and the Huns, under the walls of Rome, the ghosts of
the dead fought for three days and three nights, and the clash of
their arms was distinctly heard. Marathon is no exception to the
rule. Pausanias says that any night you may hear horses neighing and
men fighting there. To go on purpose to see the sight never brought
good to any man; but with him who unwittingly lights upon it the
spirits are not angry. He adds that the people of Marathon worship the
men who fell in the battle as heroes; and who could be more worthy of
such honour than they? The battle itself was not without its
marvellous side. Epizelus, the Athenian, used to relate how a huge
hoplite, whose beard over-shadowed all his shield, stood over against
him in the thick of the fight. The apparition passed him [Pg 25]by and
killed the man next him, but Epizelus came out of the battle blind,
and remained so for the rest of his life. Plutarch also relates of a
place in Boeotia where a battle had been fought, that there is a
stream running by, and that people imagine that they hear panting
horses in the roaring waters.

But the strangest account of the habitual haunting of great
battlefields is to be found in Philostratus's Heroica, which
represents the spirits of the Homeric heroes as still closely
connected with Troy and its neighbourhood. How far the stories are
based on local tradition it is impossible to say; they are told by a
vine-dresser, who declares that he lives under the protection of
Protesilaus. At one time he was in danger of being violently ousted
from all his property, when the ghost of Protesilaus appeared to the
would-be despoiler in a vision, and struck him blind. The great man
was so terrified at this event that he carried his depredations no
further; and the vine-dresser has since continued to cultivate what
remained of his property under the protection of the hero, with whom
he lives on most intimate terms. Protesilaus often appears to him
while he is at work and has long talks with him, and he keeps off wild
beasts and disease from the land.

Not only Protesilaus, but also his men, and, in fact, virtually all of
the "giants of the mighty bone and bold emprise" who fought round
Troy, can be seen on the plain at night, clad like warriors, with
nodding plumes. The inhabitants are keenly interested in these
apparitions, and well they may be, as so much depends upon them. If
the heroes are covered with dust, a drought is impending; if with
sweat, they foreshadow rain. Blood upon their arms means a plague; but
if they show themselves without any distinguishing mark, all will be well.

Valete bene!

Cato



SOURCES

Ovid, "Greek and Roman Ghost Stories", Lacy Collison-Morley
(www.gutenberg.net)

Salve!

That is very, very true-I never thought of that-that might also account for those woman warrior burials in Britain.

Danni Lee

Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
Salve, Danni Lee

There is also something else that we did not consider - if the females came dressed like the men, carrying the same weapons, cut their hair the same way, even painted themselves the same (where face and/or body pain was used), would the Roman commanders have even noticed that they were women? Would they have even looked? As you say, one barbarian may have seemed pretty much the same as any other to a Roman.
Also, throughout the ages, many women have disguised themselves as men in order to join an army and fight. So just because there is no surviving written account doesn't mean the women weren't out there fighting alongside the men.
I remember reading about the woman who disguised herself as a man in order to join the Union Army, fought in the civil war, was even decorated for bravery, yet no one knew she was a woman till the day she died many years later of natural causes. Knowing how good some women are at fighting, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to suspect than some women may have been successful at getting away with being regarded as men on the battlefield.

Vale bene in pace Deorum,

Maxima Valeria Messallina


Jenna Leonard <morriganstormymoney@...> wrote:
Yeah Maxima-while no Roman would let a respectable Roman women fight, I do wonder why a blue-blooded Roman Tribune or Centurion would ever care what the common barbarian female rabble did, as long as they did not start fights or spread disease in the ranks.

Danni Lee

Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
Jenna Leonard <morriganstormymoney@...> wrote:

I was wondering as to the lack of mention of any woman warriors in the ancient sources other then the brief period of women gladiators and a mention of Gaulish women fighting besides their husbands-but as the Numerii which the Samaratians may have been put of, were irregular soldiers, more like militia-warband types, maybe the whoever was over the Samaratians in the Roman chain of command never cared enough one way or the other if some of his attached auxullaries were women? To a Roman Centurion or Tribune, maybe a barbarian was a barbarian was a barbarian-they were all the same and all beneath him-as long as the Samaratians showed up on the field of battle, and didn't desert or start too many fights with their own side, their Roman commander didn't bother to ask too many questions as to the gender of his irregular troops as he would have of regular Roman legionarires.

Danni Lee



Salve, Danni Lee

I came to the same conclusion. I don't think the Roman commanders asked or cared what their gender was, just as long as they showed up ready for battle.

Vale bene in pace Deorum,

Maxima Valeria Messallina


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Q. Metellus M. Moravio A. Cordo salutem.

What Cordus has said is correct. The two days, which are the first and last
of the current nundinum, are the nundinae, which is why they are marked as
fastus. The only time the character does not change, of course, is if the
nundina falls on a dies nefastus publicus.

For ease of use, I've highlighted the nundinae in the relevant decretum,
with a note at the end.

Salve Danni Lee,

>That is very, very true-I never thought of that-that might also account for >those woman warrior burials in Britain.

The Brougham burials? I remember when the news first broke--I became extremely excited until I realized that, as is nearly always the case in archaeological finds, the supporting evidence is very open to interpretation. Even the chief archaeologist at Brougham suggests the women might have been wives, not warriors.

From the first of the linked articles below:

"Hilary Cool is nevertheless prudent, the English archaeologist, responsible of the excavations, says: «Nothing than we know about the Roman army induces us to think that women were accepted and it can be also that the rests of the swords, found near the bodies of the two Amazons, belonged to their husbands instead, even high rank officials. It has already happened that we find some Germanic culture widows that they take the weapons of their men to protect house and family in contingent situations."

http://legioneromana.altervista.org/eng/news.php?

http://legioneromana.altervista.org/eng/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1132996444&archive=&start_from=&ucat=4&

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1411715,00.html

http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/pages.asp?type=M&url=250_Warrior+Women&lvl=,50,169,171,250,

Vale,
Artoria


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve Romans

I would like to comment on the use of the subject line "A reallllly
stupid question"

As an educator I have to say that the only really stupid question or
questions are those that are never asked.


I have asked many questions in this forum and I have benefited from
the responses that I have received.

A "reallllly" stupid subject line maybe : ) but stupid questions
never.

Vale

Tiberius Galerius Paulinus

P. Dominus Antonius,

You should read an email thoroughly before you comment on it and make sure
you understand everything. I did not say that women served in the auxiliaries
or the legions. I said that some Roman and Greek historians during the
fourth and fifth centuries commented on the fact that women were warriors among
the Alans and the Sarmatians; usually in the capacity of horse archers. These
peoples were used as foederatii by the Romans both before and after the
Battle of Adrianople and throughout the period up to Aetius. The specific
authors are: Ammianus Marcellinus, Priscus, and Zosimus. If you are looking at
secondary sources, you should use Tim Newark (his works are usually illustrated
by Angus McBride which make them very nice); E. A. Thompson; B. S. Bachrach;
C. D. Gordon; and W. Goffart.
However, you are correct in that I should have qualified the figure of 10%
of such groups of hired troops being women. I based that on the research of
Drs. E. V. Cernenko and M. V. Gorelik whose work involves the Scythians, Saka,
and Sarmatians. During the invasion of Scythia by Darius the Great, the
Greek Herodotus indicated that 1 warrior in 10 among the levies of King
Idanthrysus of Greater Scythia were women. This was the largest number of women
involved in warfare among the Scythians, Saka, or Sarmatians that I have ever
read about and it occurred during an invasion of their homeland. I would expect
that when riding out of their tribal areas, the number would have been
considerably smaller. Cernenko and Gorelik use archaeological data to show that
there are hardly any graves among Scythian free and noblewomen that did not
contain at least one bow and a number of arrowhead plus a dagger. In only
three were swords found and no lances or lanceheads at all. Among the
Sarmatians, bows and arrowheads plus daggers were found in female graves during several
periods but no swords or lances were ever discovered. This would support my
thesis that women would have been horse archers only.
I hope this answers your question.

Aurelianus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Juniper berries and pine resin were common in the Republic. Aromatic gums
such as frankincense, myrrh, copal, and Egyptian kyphri entered into use
during the late Republic and early Principate following the annexation of Asia
Minor, Syria, Judea, and Egypt.

F. Galerius Aurelianus,
fl. Cer.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

OSD C. Equitius Cato

Salvete omnes!

Hodie est pridie Idus Maius; haec dies comitialis est.

"The day before the Ides is marked by Taurus lifting
His starry muzzle. The sign's explained by a familiar tale.
Jupiter, as a bull, offered his back to a Tyrian girl,
And carried horns on his deceptive forehead.
Europa grasped his hair in her right hand, her drapery
In her left, while fear itself lent her fresh grace.
The breeze filled her dress, ruffled her blonde hair:
Sidonian girl, like that, you were fit to be seen by Jove.
Often girlishly she withdrew her feet from the sea,
Fearing the touch of the leaping billows:
Often the god knowingly plunged his back in the waves,
So that she'd cling to his neck more tightly.
Reaching shore, the god was no longer a bull,
Jupiter stood there, without the horns.
The bull entered the heavens: you, Sidonian girl, Jove
Impregnated, and now a third of the world bears your name.
Others say the sign is Io, the Pharian heifer,
Turned from girl to cow, from cow to goddess.
On this day too, the Vestals throw effigies made of rushes,
In the form of men of old, from the oak bridge.
Some accuse our ancestors of a wicked crime,
Putting to death men over sixty years of age.
There's an old story, that when the land was `Saturnia',
Jove, prophetically, said something like this:
`Throw two people into the Tuscan river,
As a sacrifice to the sickle-bearing Ancient.'
Until Tirynthian Hercules came to our fields,
The sad rite was performed each year, as at Leucas:
He threw Quirites of straw into the water:
And now they throw effigies in the same way.
Some think that the young men used to hurl
Feeble old men from the bridges, to steal their votes.
Tell me the truth, Tiber. Your shores pre-date the City,
You should know the true origin of the rite.
Tiber, crowned in reeds, lifted his head from mid-stream,
And opened his mouth to speak these words, hoarsely:
`I saw this place when it was grassland, without walls:
Cattle were scattered grazing on either bank,
And Tiber whom the nations know and fear,
Was disregarded then, even by the cattle.
Arcadian Evander is often named to you:
A stranger, he churned my waters with his oars.
Hercules came here too, with a crowd of Greeks,
(My name was Albula then, if I remember true)
Evander, hero from Pallantium, received him warmly,
And Cacus had the punishment he deserved.
The victor left, taking the cattle, his plunder from Erythea
With him, but his friends refused to go any further.
Most of them had come from deserted Argos:
They established their hopes, and houses, on our hills.
Yet sweet love for their native land often stirred them,
And one of them, in dying, gave this brief command:
"Throw me into the Tiber, that carried by Tiber's waves
My spiritless dust might journey to the Inachian shore."
That funeral duty laid on him, displeased his heir:
The dead stranger was buried in Italian ground,
And a rush effigy thrown into the Tiber instead,
To return to his Greek home over the wide waters.'
Tiber spoke, entering a moist cave of natural stone,
While you, gentle waters, checked your flow." - Ovid, Fasti V

The oldest tradition of the founding of Rome ascribes to Evander the
erection of the Great Altar of Hercules in the Forum Boarium. In
Virgil's Aeneid, where Aeneas and his crew first come upon them,
Evander and his people are engaged in venerating Hercules for having
dispatched the giant Cacus. Virgil's hearers recognized the very same
Great Altar of Hercules in the Forum Boarium of their own day, one
detail among the passages that Virgil has saturated with references
linking a heroic past with the Age of Augustus. As Virgil's backstory
goes, Hercules had been returning from Gades with Geryon's cattle when
Evander entertained him and was the first to raise an altar to this
hero. The archaic altar was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, AD
64. Evander was born to Mercury and Carmenta, and his wisdom was
beyond that of all Arcadians. According to Virgil previous to the
Trojan War he gathered a group of natives to a city he founded in
Italy near the Tiber river, which he named Pallantium. Virgil states
that he named the city in honor of his son, Pallas, although Pausanias
says that Evander's birth city was Pallantium, thus he named the new
city after the one in Arcadia. Evander was said to have brought to
Rome the Greek pantheon, laws and alphabet sixty years before the
Trojan War.

Valete bene!

Cato



SOURCES

Ovid, Wikipedia

Salvete Messallina et Danni

It seems to me that these sort of situations were quite inevitable. If a group of possibly thousands of allied soldiers turned up, say for example Sarmatian cavalry or British tribesmen where women did sometimes serve, the Roman officials would have had to go through the whole lot checking each individuals identity and so on to sift out any women. It seems far more likely to me that they would have been told where to camp and then left to get on with it.

Valete

Brutus

Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
Salve, Danni Lee

There is also something else that we did not consider - if the females came dressed like the men, carrying the same weapons, cut their hair the same way, even painted themselves the same (where face and/or body pain was used), would the Roman commanders have even noticed that they were women? Would they have even looked? As you say, one barbarian may have seemed pretty much the same as any other to a Roman.
Also, throughout the ages, many women have disguised themselves as men in order to join an army and fight. So just because there is no surviving written account doesn't mean the women weren't out there fighting alongside the men.
I remember reading about the woman who disguised herself as a man in order to join the Union Army, fought in the civil war, was even decorated for bravery, yet no one knew she was a woman till the day she died many years later of natural causes. Knowing how good some women are at fighting, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith to suspect than some women may have been successful at getting away with being regarded as men on the battlefield.

Vale bene in pace Deorum,

Maxima Valeria Messallina


Jenna Leonard <morriganstormymoney@...> wrote:
Yeah Maxima-while no Roman would let a respectable Roman women fight, I do wonder why a blue-blooded Roman Tribune or Centurion would ever care what the common barbarian female rabble did, as long as they did not start fights or spread disease in the ranks.

Danni Lee

Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
Jenna Leonard <morriganstormymoney@...> wrote:

I was wondering as to the lack of mention of any woman warriors in the ancient sources other then the brief period of women gladiators and a mention of Gaulish women fighting besides their husbands-but as the Numerii which the Samaratians may have been put of, were irregular soldiers, more like militia-warband types, maybe the whoever was over the Samaratians in the Roman chain of command never cared enough one way or the other if some of his attached auxullaries were women? To a Roman Centurion or Tribune, maybe a barbarian was a barbarian was a barbarian-they were all the same and all beneath him-as long as the Samaratians showed up on the field of battle, and didn't desert or start too many fights with their own side, their Roman commander didn't bother to ask too many questions as to the gender of his irregular troops as he would have of regular Roman legionarires.

Danni Lee



Salve, Danni Lee

I came to the same conclusion. I don't think the Roman commanders asked or cared what their gender was, just as long as they showed up ready for battle.

Vale bene in pace Deorum,

Maxima Valeria Messallina


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CAIUS MORAVIUS BRUTUS
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve Romans

FYI

Vale

Tiberius Galerius Paulinus

***************************************************************************

explorator 9.3 May 14, 2006

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ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME (AND CLASSICS)

Fair bit of coverage of a Greek fisherman's find of an ancient
bronze:

http://tinyurl.com/jzerc<http://tinyurl.com/jzerc> (CBS ... photo)
http://tinyurl.com/k3mkp<http://tinyurl.com/k3mkp> (AP via Yahoo)
http://tinyurl.com/ezor7<http://tinyurl.com/ezor7> (IOL)
http://tinyurl.com/evw49<http://tinyurl.com/evw49> (Netscape)

.. and the story of the discovery of one of the disputed-
ownership Getty bronzes:

http://tinyurl.com/zu4fn<http://tinyurl.com/zu4fn> (LAT)

A marble head of Augustus was found at a villa site outside
Rome:

http://tinyurl.com/l5maw<http://tinyurl.com/l5maw> (ANSA)

Assorted Roman finds from York:

http://tinyurl.com/gdo32<http://tinyurl.com/gdo32> (Yorkshire Post)

.. and Ewell:

http://tinyurl.com/h3skm<http://tinyurl.com/h3skm> (icSurrey)

A Roman cemetery has been found in a Gloucestershire quarry:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4759611.stm<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4759611.stm>
http://tinyurl.com/jy43v<http://tinyurl.com/jy43v>

Very interesting Sabine chariot find:

http://tinyurl.com/jmang<http://tinyurl.com/jmang> (ANSA)

Latin is alive and well in Arizona:

http://tinyurl.com/gbesl<http://tinyurl.com/gbesl> (Republic)

.. and Tennessee:

http://tinyurl.com/kfhqc<http://tinyurl.com/kfhqc> (DNJ)

Some Linear B humour:

http://www.uta.edu/anthropology/petruso/Nestor.html<http://www.uta.edu/anthropology/petruso/Nestor.html>

On symposia:

http://living.scotsman.com/homes.cfm?id=697372006<http://living.scotsman.com/homes.cfm?id=697372006>

Nice profile of Rufus Fears:

http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_128002212<http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_128002212>

The Times had an excerpt from Terry Jones' book on Barbarians:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2168328,00.html<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2168328,00.html>

More coverage of what they're finding as they dig that tunnel
under the Bosporus:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,415463,00.html<http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,415463,00.html>

More on lead in Alexandria's Harbour:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060508/alexandria_his.html<http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060508/alexandria_his.html>

Recent reviews from BMCR:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/recent.html<http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/recent.html>

Recent reviews from Scholia:

http://www.classics.und.ac.za/reviews/2006.htm<http://www.classics.und.acza/reviews/2006.htm>

Visit our blog:

http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassicism<http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassicism>



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Caius Moravius Brutus wrote:

> Salvete Messallina et Danni
>
> It seems to me that these sort of situations were quite inevitable. If
> a group of possibly thousands of allied soldiers turned up, say for
> example Sarmatian cavalry or British tribesmen where women did sometimes
> serve, the Roman officials would have had to go through the whole lot
> checking each individuals identity and so on to sift out any women. It
> seems far more likely to me that they would have been told where to camp
> and then left to get on with it.

And for that matter why _should_ they check individual gender? I would
expect that the numeri or federati were expected to provide _n_ fighters
and a Roman commander wouldn't think of insisting on men only. If the
barbarians were accustomed to let women fight, let them -- and on the
march, how would they have separated them from the camp followers (or
logistical support, as we would say) who legitimately included woman?

-- Publius Livius Triarius

Pompeia Minucia Strabo Quiritibus S.P.D.


To many, today is Mothers' Day. To all mothers, happy, happy :)

As with many holidays, this one has its roots in Roma antiqua. Here's
a link with some info on its history.

Valete!





http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/momsday/momdayhistory.html

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Publius Livius Triarius wrote:

> And for that matter why _should_ they check individual gender? I would
> expect that the numeri or federati were expected to provide _n_ fighters
> and a Roman commander wouldn't think of insisting on men only.

Sorry, this was ambiguous. I meant not that he would reject the idea, but
that it simply wouldn't occur to him.

-- P.L.T.

The proponents of this theory have provided a wealth of speculation and a
poverty of evidence.

Come on guys and gals, just one fact. Any fact. Maybe one that is even
unrelated just so we can argue facts.

No? Nothing? That's too bad.

"Maybe they wouldn't notice" and "maybe they wouldn't care" are not facts or
evidence. These are attempts to excuse the lack of evidence.

How can anyone credibly claim that Romans noticed (and wrote about) their
enemies that were women, but didn't happen to notice when the soldiers that
they hired were women.

In an age of limited privacy and tight quarters, how did these women
warriors manage to hide their gender during bathing, defecating, urinating,
changing clothes, during medical treatment of injuries, etc, etc? How did
they ALL avoid pregnancy? How did all these (10%) women warriors manage to
evade ever being killed and having their gender discovered post mortem. Why
do none of the grave stone pictures ever depict a woman warrior?

The simple answer is that they didn't exist.

Never mentioned, and never depicted, across the entire Roman Empire and
Republic, spanning centuries. Talk about a conspiracy of silence. I stand
in awe. That makes the Da Vinci conspiracists look like rank amateurs.
Call Dan Brown and Oliver Stone. There are books to be written and movies
to be made.
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

An article in last week's Sunday times

Decline and fall of the Roman myth
We were 'barbarians', but early British civilisation outshone the Roman
version, says ex-Python Terry Jones. We just lost the propaganda war Nobody
ever called themselves barbarians. It's not that sort of word. It's a word
used about other people. It was used by the ancient Greeks to describe
non-Greek people whose language they could not understand and who therefore
seemed to babble unintelligibly: "ba ba ba". The Romans adopted the Greek
word and used it to label (and usually libel) the peoples who surrounded
their own world.

The Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the peoples
whom they called Barbarians became for ever branded � be they Spaniards,
Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And, of course,
"barbarian" has become a byword for the very opposite of everything that we
consider civilised.
The Romans kept the Barbarians at bay for as long as they could, but finally

they were engulfed and the savage hordes overran the empire, destroying the
cultural achievements of centuries. The light of reason and civilisation was

almost snuffed out by the Barbarians, who annihilated everything that the
Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe to
the Dark Ages


The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the renaissance
rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art.

It is a familiar story, and it's codswallop.

The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its
philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique feature of Rome
was that it had the world's first professional army. Normal societies
consisted of farmers, hunters, craftsmen and traders. When they needed to
fight they relied not on training or on standardised weapons, but on
psyching themselves up to acts of individual heroism.

Seen through the eyes of people who possessed trained soldiers to fight for
them, they were easily portrayed as simple savages. But that was far from
the truth.

The fact that we still think of the Celts, the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths
and so on as "barbarians" means that we have all fallen hook, line and
sinker for Roman propaganda. We actually owe far more to the so-called
"barbarians" than we do to the men in togas.

In the past 30 years, however, the story has begun to change. Archeological
discoveries have shed new light on the ancient texts that have survived and
this has led to new interpretations of the past. In Roman eyes the Celts may
have lacked battle strategy, but their arms and equipment were in no way
inferior to the Roman army's. In fact the Celts had better helmets and
better shields.

When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological advance:
chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur that the
Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield, but that
was the case.

The Romans had chariots, but the Britons made significant design
improvements and, as Julius Caesar noted, had thoroughly mastered the art of
using them. So how come the Romans built roads and the Celts did not? The
answer is simple. The Celts did build roads. The "Romans-were-greatest"
version of history made the earlier roads invisible until recently. One of
the best preserved iron age roads is at Corlea in Ireland, but it was not
until the 1980s that people realised how old it is. It was known locally as
"the Danes' road" and generally assumed to be of the Viking period or later.
It was not until the timbers were submitted for tree-ring dating that the
truth emerged: they were cut in 148BC.

However, the really startling thing is that wooden roads built the same way
and at the same time have been found across Europe, as far away as northern
Germany. The Celts, it seems, were sophisticated road builders and the
construction of these wooden roads was no mean feat of engineering.

Oak planks were laid on birch runners and they were built broad enough for
two carts to pass each other. What's more, Celtic road building is not
necessarily predated by that of the Romans. The first important Roman road
was the Appian Way, built in 312BC, but the so-called "Upton Track" in south
Wales, a wooden road laid across the mudflats along the Severn estuary,
dates back to the 5th century BC.

It is only now that historians are beginning to reassess the sophistication
of Celtic science and engineering. From early times the Celts were the iron
masters of Europe. A Celtic smith was regarded as a magician, a man who
could take a lump of rock and transform it into a magical new substance � a
cunningly worked steel blade sharp enough to cut through bronze or ordinary
iron.

The Celts' mastery of metal technology also enabled them to develop
sophisticated arable farms. We know they had iron ploughshares in Britain
from about the 4th century BC because in a shrine at Frilford on the River
Ock, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire � a site that was occupied from about
350BC � an iron ploughshare was found under one of the central pillars where
it had been buried, perhaps as a votive offering. It is a fair guess that
the temple was one of the first buildings to be erected there and that the
iron ploughshare was offered at the time that its foundations were laid.

The Celts' use of metal even allowed them to invent a harvesting machine.
Historians did not believe that it could be true until bas-relief sculptures
were discovered that apparently show just such a contraption. It was a sort
of comb on wheels that beat off the ears of corn and deposited them in a
container rather like the grass box of a lawnmower. A replica was built and
tested in the 1980s.

It has been easy to underestimate Celtic technological achievements because
so much has vanished or been misunderstood. Of course, it was thoughtless of
the Celts not to leave us anything much in the way of written records � they
should have known that the lack of books putting forward their own
propaganda would weight the evidence firmly in favour of the Romans.

Western society's enthusiasm since the renaissance for all things Roman has
persuaded us to see much of the past through Roman eyes, even when contrary
evidence stares us in the face. Once we turn the picture upside-down and
look at history from a non-Roman point of view, things start to look very,
very different.

*(c) Fegg Features Ltd and Sunstone Films 2006 *

*From Terry Jones' Barbarians by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira to be published
by BBC Books on May 18 at �18.99. The book is available for �17.09 including
postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585. Terry Jones'
Barbarians begins on BBC2 on Friday May 26*

**

*Flavia Lucilla Merula*


--
Chaos, confusion, disorder - my work here is done


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

---Salve Merulla et Salvete Omnes:

An interesting perspective, for sure. Glad you posted this one.


Valete
Pompeia


In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, "Kirsteen Wright"
<kirsteen.falconsfan@...> wrote:

>
> An article in last week's Sunday times
>
> Decline and fall of the Roman myth
> We were 'barbarians', but early British civilisation outshone the

Roman

> version, says ex-Python Terry Jones. We just lost the propaganda

war Nobody

> ever called themselves barbarians. It's not that sort of word.

It's a word

> used about other people. It was used by the ancient Greeks to

describe

> non-Greek people whose language they could not understand and who

therefore

> seemed to babble unintelligibly: "ba ba ba". The Romans adopted

the Greek

> word and used it to label (and usually libel) the peoples who

surrounded

> their own world.
>
> The Roman interpretation became the only one that counted, and the

peoples

> whom they called Barbarians became for ever branded — be they

Spaniards,

> Britons, Gauls, Germans, Scythians, Persians or Syrians. And, of

course,

> "barbarian" has become a byword for the very opposite of

everything that we

> consider civilised.
> The Romans kept the Barbarians at bay for as long as they could,

but finally

>
> they were engulfed and the savage hordes overran the empire,

destroying the

> cultural achievements of centuries. The light of reason and

civilisation was

>
> almost snuffed out by the Barbarians, who annihilated everything

that the

> Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe

to

> the Dark Ages
>
>
> The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the

renaissance

> rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art.
>
> It is a familiar story, and it's codswallop.
>
> The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its
> philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique

feature of Rome

> was that it had the world's first professional army. Normal

societies

> consisted of farmers, hunters, craftsmen and traders. When they

needed to

> fight they relied not on training or on standardised weapons, but

on

> psyching themselves up to acts of individual heroism.
>
> Seen through the eyes of people who possessed trained soldiers to

fight for

> them, they were easily portrayed as simple savages. But that was

far from

> the truth.
>
> The fact that we still think of the Celts, the Huns, the Vandals,

the Goths

> and so on as "barbarians" means that we have all fallen hook, line

and

> sinker for Roman propaganda. We actually owe far more to the so-

called

> "barbarians" than we do to the men in togas.
>
> In the past 30 years, however, the story has begun to change.

Archeological

> discoveries have shed new light on the ancient texts that have

survived and

> this has led to new interpretations of the past. In Roman eyes the

Celts may

> have lacked battle strategy, but their arms and equipment were in

no way

> inferior to the Roman army's. In fact the Celts had better helmets

and

> better shields.
>
> When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological

advance:

> chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur

that the

> Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield,

but that

> was the case.
>
> The Romans had chariots, but the Britons made significant design
> improvements and, as Julius Caesar noted, had thoroughly mastered

the art of

> using them. So how come the Romans built roads and the Celts did

not? The

> answer is simple. The Celts did build roads. The "Romans-were-

greatest"

> version of history made the earlier roads invisible until

recently. One of

> the best preserved iron age roads is at Corlea in Ireland, but it

was not

> until the 1980s that people realised how old it is. It was known

locally as

> "the Danes' road" and generally assumed to be of the Viking period

or later.

> It was not until the timbers were submitted for tree-ring dating

that the

> truth emerged: they were cut in 148BC.
>
> However, the really startling thing is that wooden roads built the

same way

> and at the same time have been found across Europe, as far away as

northern

> Germany. The Celts, it seems, were sophisticated road builders and

the

> construction of these wooden roads was no mean feat of engineering.
>
> Oak planks were laid on birch runners and they were built broad

enough for

> two carts to pass each other. What's more, Celtic road building is

not

> necessarily predated by that of the Romans. The first important

Roman road

> was the Appian Way, built in 312BC, but the so-called "Upton

Track" in south

> Wales, a wooden road laid across the mudflats along the Severn

estuary,

> dates back to the 5th century BC.
>
> It is only now that historians are beginning to reassess the

sophistication

> of Celtic science and engineering. From early times the Celts were

the iron

> masters of Europe. A Celtic smith was regarded as a magician, a

man who

> could take a lump of rock and transform it into a magical new

substance — a

> cunningly worked steel blade sharp enough to cut through bronze or

ordinary

> iron.
>
> The Celts' mastery of metal technology also enabled them to develop
> sophisticated arable farms. We know they had iron ploughshares in

Britain

> from about the 4th century BC because in a shrine at Frilford on

the River

> Ock, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire — a site that was occupied from

about

> 350BC — an iron ploughshare was found under one of the central

pillars where

> it had been buried, perhaps as a votive offering. It is a fair

guess that

> the temple was one of the first buildings to be erected there and

that the

> iron ploughshare was offered at the time that its foundations were

laid.

>
> The Celts' use of metal even allowed them to invent a harvesting

machine.

> Historians did not believe that it could be true until bas-relief

sculptures

> were discovered that apparently show just such a contraption. It

was a sort

> of comb on wheels that beat off the ears of corn and deposited

them in a

> container rather like the grass box of a lawnmower. A replica was

built and

> tested in the 1980s.
>
> It has been easy to underestimate Celtic technological

achievements because

> so much has vanished or been misunderstood. Of course, it was

thoughtless of

> the Celts not to leave us anything much in the way of written

records — they

> should have known that the lack of books putting forward their own
> propaganda would weight the evidence firmly in favour of the

Romans.

>
> Western society's enthusiasm since the renaissance for all things

Roman has

> persuaded us to see much of the past through Roman eyes, even when

contrary

> evidence stares us in the face. Once we turn the picture upside-

down and

> look at history from a non-Roman point of view, things start to

look very,

> very different.
>
> *(c) Fegg Features Ltd and Sunstone Films 2006 *
>
> *From Terry Jones' Barbarians by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira to be

published

> by BBC Books on May 18 at £18.99. The book is available for £17.09

including

> postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585. Terry

Jones'

> Barbarians begins on BBC2 on Friday May 26*
>
> **
>
> *Flavia Lucilla Merula*
>
>
> --
> Chaos, confusion, disorder - my work here is done
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

In a message dated 5/14/2006 3:29:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
kirsteen.falconsfan@... writes:
When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological advance:
chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur that the
Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield, but that
was the case.
Actually that's not true. And I'd appreciate some discipline in not blurting
out such things. This is how mis information is spread.
The Roman legionary was un nerved by the noise the chariot wheels made after
the invasion. Once they discovered the chariots would not crash home into a
legio line (they were too light) and the Britons used them as taxis, they
treated chariots with contempt.
The Romans had chariots, but the Britons made significant design
improvements and, as Julius Caesar noted, had thoroughly mastered the art of
using them.
Pray tell what were these improvements? The ability to run out unto the yoke
pole
between the two horses and brandish your javelin and shield? That takes
balance,
not improvement. Caesar admired the ability of the Briton chariot to
skirmish with the Roman battleline, but I'd hardly call it an improvement. You
cannot win a battle by skirmishing.
The Roman chariot was copied from the Etruscans which phased theirs out by
600, replacing it with heavy cavalry much like the rest of Antiquity. It made
economic sense to replace two horses with one, plus the warrior could wear the
same armor on horse back as he could in the chariot. Etruscan chariots were
used to transport warriors to the field, and in
the pursuit, but as a skirmishing weapon, not likely. It was too heavy and
of robust construction.

So how come the Romans built roads and the Celts did not? The
answer is simple. The Celts did build roads. The "Romans-were-greatest"
version of history made the earlier roads invisible until recently. One of
the best preserved iron age roads is at Corlea in Ireland, but it was not
until the 1980s that people realised how old it is. It was known locally as
"the Danes' road" and generally assumed to be of the Viking period or later.
It was not until the timbers were submitted for tree-ring dating that the
truth emerged: they were cut in 148BC.
Of course the Celts built roads. I know no civilization that did not. And
there is no historian that would say other wise. What the Romans did, was not
make them follow terrain features but keep them as straight as possible,
cutting through and over the terrain features.
That was what was un heard of. Gillian and Jones are best writing satire
like the "Life of Brian."

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/14/2006 3:09:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
marsvigilia@... writes:
Never mentioned, and never depicted, across the entire Roman Empire and
Republic, spanning centuries. Talk about a conspiracy of silence. I stand
in awe. That makes the Da Vinci conspiracists look like rank amateurs.
Call Dan Brown and Oliver Stone. There are books to be written and movies
to be made.
Ha Ha. That was pretty good. But that is the typical argument of the de
constructionist,
"we can't know everything from that time, so we must be right. Scientific
method be damned."

I have had many students argue that with me. So I always come back with,
"We can only go with what is given by the sources. Sure its nice to think
that
certain things did or did happen, but with no proof, its speculation. And if
you write a paper
on speculation with no proof, be assured you'll get an "F" and there is no
speculation involved. That's the fact."

If people are coming here to learn, better to leave notions at the door, and
study the sources. And those don't include pop culture, like coffee table
books...

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, QFabiusMaxmi@... wrote:

>
> In a message dated 5/14/2006 3:29:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> kirsteen.falconsfan@... writes:
> When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological

advance:

> chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur

that the

> Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield,

but that

> was the case.

QFM respondeo:

> Actually that's not true. And I'd appreciate some discipline in

not blurting

> out such things. This is how mis information is spread.

Pompeia: Now Maxime Senator, the poster has clearly stipulated that
this is an article from 'last week's Sunday Times'...a perspective
according to Terry Jones, who might perhaps :) portray things in a
rather sardonic fashion. Where is it written in the article offered
that such things are stated by Livius, Plutarch, Appius, et al? I
think we have to take care not to take things too seriously....and
not take ourselves too seriously while we're at it.

In the matter of 'misinformation', every mighty military machine can
claim some roots within the soil of propaganda...and I think that is
all that is being stated here. Do you not think the Romans,
particularily Iulius Caesar, employed propaganda? I am certain they
did in my opinion; it would be wide-eyed to think otherwise.

Either its a 'food for thought' perspective found in the Sunday
Times, or its a serious historical probe into the issues. If the
latter is the case, I must atleast acredit Merulla for supplying a
reference and author...which you, I'm afraid, have not provided.
So, let's just chalk this up to one man's opinion, which we might
all enjoy for what it likely is, (speculative humour to get
historians going?.) and be invited to think 'on the other side of
the fence', ok? Surely we can take a morsel or two of criticism,
can't we?;
It is too easy to take our pursuits too seriously...we can withstand
a few challenges here and there, no?

My take on the matter,

Valete
Po

> The Roman legionary was un nerved by the noise the chariot wheels

made after

> the invasion. Once they discovered the chariots would not crash

home into a

> legio line (they were too light) and the Britons used them as

taxis, they

> treated chariots with contempt.
> The Romans had chariots, but the Britons made significant design
> improvements and, as Julius Caesar noted, had thoroughly mastered

the art of

> using them.
> Pray tell what were these improvements? The ability to run out

unto the yoke

> pole
> between the two horses and brandish your javelin and shield? That

takes

> balance,
> not improvement. Caesar admired the ability of the Briton chariot

to

> skirmish with the Roman battleline, but I'd hardly call it an

improvement. You

> cannot win a battle by skirmishing.
> The Roman chariot was copied from the Etruscans which phased

theirs out by

> 600, replacing it with heavy cavalry much like the rest of

Antiquity. It made

> economic sense to replace two horses with one, plus the warrior

could wear the

> same armor on horse back as he could in the chariot. Etruscan

chariots were

> used to transport warriors to the field, and in
> the pursuit, but as a skirmishing weapon, not likely. It was too

heavy and

> of robust construction.
>
> So how come the Romans built roads and the Celts did not? The
> answer is simple. The Celts did build roads. The "Romans-were-

greatest"

> version of history made the earlier roads invisible until

recently. One of

> the best preserved iron age roads is at Corlea in Ireland, but it

was not

> until the 1980s that people realised how old it is. It was known

locally as

> "the Danes' road" and generally assumed to be of the Viking period

or later.

> It was not until the timbers were submitted for tree-ring dating

that the

> truth emerged: they were cut in 148BC.
> Of course the Celts built roads. I know no civilization that did

not. And

> there is no historian that would say other wise. What the Romans

did, was not

> make them follow terrain features but keep them as straight as

possible,

> cutting through and over the terrain features.
> That was what was un heard of. Gillian and Jones are best

writing satire

> like the "Life of Brian."
>
> Q. Fabius Maximus
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Salvete omnes,

I'll be on a geologic course in Calgary from Monday to Thursday night
this week.
Hopefully the hotel I shall be at will have intenet connections. I'll
try and keep up with NR duties there or catch up on my return on
Thursday.

Regards,

QSP

Salve Aureliane

Italy was in trade relations with the East as far back as the Late
Bronze Age. Cato Major, during the Middle Republic, mentions
frankincense and I think that the Romans would probably have known
of myrrh by then as well. Cinnamon was mentioned by Herodotes in
the fifth century and probably came to Rome by 140 BCE if not
earlier. Great quantities of cinnamon were being offered to Jupiter
under Augustus, but it doesn't appear to have been in prominent use
before then. Copal? Maybe had the Romans reached the Americas they
would have used it. I use copal when offering to the geni loci of
my area, as I assume the local spirits here might prefer its
frangrance over some exotic incenses. Kyphri refers to a mixture of
fruits, honey, wine, and spices. If anyone is interested, I have a
recipe and have made kyphri before. I don't recall mention of it as
an incense to Roman deities, and it may have been reserved at Rome
for use in the Isiac cultus.

Simple is usually better. Juniper, bay, and pine were the most
common "incenses" that Romans used. Actually any tree that was
regarded as an arbor felix would have been used in most rites, and
any sweet smelling herbs and flowers would also be used. The
arbores infelices I mentioned earlier could be used in rites for the
Di inferni, but IIRC what I have seen mentioned most often in those
cases was pine. It depended on why you would be invoking the Di
Inferni or Di Manes. Arbores infelices would be used for defixiones
or possibly in necromacy, which of course the Romans did not think
were propoer rites for anyone to engage in. Disturbing the Manes in
that way. But arbores infelices could have been properly used in
some rites that were intended to expell "evil spirits" such as the
larvae or Febris, Quartana, or Terzana.

Exotic things like cinnamon were offered because they were exotic.
In similar fashion, drinking vessels of newly discovered material,
like malachite or crystal, were offered to the Gods. Anytime the
Romans came upon new herbs, spices, or trees that were rare and
expensive they offered such things as incense to the Gods.
Sandalwood from India, for example, came to be used as an incense in
imperial times. So something like copal, or chocolate or coffee,
had the Romans discovered them, probably would have been used as
offerings. However such exotics were in addition to the more
traditional incenses that you mentioned. Frankincense was an exotic
offering in Cato's time and thus is specifically mentioned in some
cases. By the Late Republic probably and by the Principate
certainly frankincense had become a common, even "traditional"
incense to use so that it began to be harvested twice a year to meet
Roman demand. The same with myrrh, from what Pliny says, there was
such an increase in demand for myrrh under Augustus that production
had to be increased, but the Romans knew of and used it as an
incense well before the Principate. A problem with determining
exactly when some exotic materials were used is that our sources
primarily come from the Late Republic or early Principate, but I
think it is safe to presume that anything the Greeks knew about the
Romans acquired between 167-140 BCE, and some things they may have
traded for much earlier. They did not have to annex territories in
order to be trading through them to more distant sources of
materials.

Vale optime
Piscinus

--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, PADRUIGTHEUNCLE@... wrote:
>
> Juniper berries and pine resin were common in the Republic.
Aromatic gums
> such as frankincense, myrrh, copal, and Egyptian kyphri entered
into use
> during the late Republic and early Principate following the
annexation of Asia
> Minor, Syria, Judea, and Egypt.
>
> F. Galerius Aurelianus,
> fl. Cer.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

M.Hortensia Q. Fabio quiritibus spd;
well not everything is included in sources as they are the
result of time, destruction & the prejudices of the writers. Think
of Cicero, the self-confessed liar.
Anyway, archeology is indeed our best source for new
information. Look at the issue of the supposed Roman-Chinese Silk
route that scholars have been debating for ages;
then a burial find like that splendid Chinese pottery horse with
Roman trappings...the pic was in Harvard mag, I posted that here.
now that's the start of the proof.
valete
M. Hortensia Maior

> If people are coming here to learn, better to leave notions at the

door, and

> study the sources. And those don't include pop culture, like

coffee table

> books...
>
> Q. Fabius Maximus
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

On Sun, 14 May 2006, QFabiusMaxmi@... wrote:

> In a message dated 5/14/2006 3:29:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> kirsteen.falconsfan@... writes:
> When the Romans got to Britain they found another technological advance:
> chariots. It may seem odd to those of us brought up on Ben Hur that the
> Romans should have been surprised by chariots on the battlefield, but that
> was the case.

> Actually that's not true. And I'd appreciate some discipline in not blurting
> out such things. This is how mis information is spread.
> The Roman legionary was un nerved by the noise the chariot wheels made after
> the invasion. Once they discovered the chariots would not crash home into a
> legio line (they were too light) and the Britons used them as taxis, they
> treated chariots with contempt.

Even this falls short of the fact -- chariots on the battlefield were as
obsolete by the time of the Battle of Marathon as, say, black powder
muskets would be today. Generals didn't have to be very bright to realize
that killing or crippling one horse would put the other horse, the driver
and fighter, and an expensive piece of wainwrightry out of action, to be
policed up by an advancing line of foot soldiers.

-- Publius Livius TGriarius

In a message dated 5/14/2006 11:00:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
dicconf@... writes:
Even this falls short of the fact -- chariots on the battlefield were as
obsolete by the time of the Battle of Marathon as, say, black powder
muskets would be today.
But why would black powder muskets be obsolete? The weapon is accurate in
the ranges most modern weapons firefight, the procurement is easy, all you need
is nitrate piles, lead ball molds and since the powder is water soluble the
weapons are easily cleaned. Perfect for guerrillas. The Zulus used smooth bore
muskets against their neighbors in the 1900s and they made quite a
respectable showing. The only reason why black powder weapons are only in use by re
enactors today are the large amount of modern weapons that are available on the
world market to third world countries, so black powder is not needed.

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On 5/15/06, QFabiusMaxmi@... <QFabiusMaxmi@...> wrote:

> Actually that's not true. And I'd appreciate some discipline in not
> blurting
> out such things.

I didn't blurt anything out. I posted an article from a newspaper, clearly
stating where it had come from. The url, if you're interested is
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2168328,00.html I made no
comment on it but simply offered it up. I was not aware that we had
censorship in Nova Roma.

Flavia Lucilla Merula

--

> Chaos, confusion, disorder - my work here is done

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve Flavia Lucilla,

Kirsteen Wright wrote:

> I was not aware that we had censorship in Nova Roma.

We do. But Fabius Maximus is not a censor.

Vale,

Marinus
Censor

On 5/15/06, Gnaeus Equitius Marinus <gawne@...> wrote:

>
> Salve Flavia Lucilla,
>
> Kirsteen Wright wrote:
>
> > I was not aware that we had censorship in Nova Roma.
>
> We do. But Fabius Maximus is not a censor.
>
> Vale,
>
> Marinus
> Censor

:-) In that case, Censor, is it permissable to offer up for discussion
articles that aren't totally complementary to Rome or are we so insecure we
can only deal with positive images?

Merula

--
Chaos, confusion, disorder - my work here is done


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

OSD C. Equitius Cato

Salvete omnes!

Hodie est Idibus Maiis; haec dies nefastus publicus est.

"Come, Mercury, Atlas' famous grandson, you whom
A Pleiad once bore to Jove, among the Arcadian hills,
Arbiter of war and peace to gods on high, and those below:
You who make your way with winged feet: who delight
In the sounding lyre, and the gleaming wrestling:
You through whose teaching the tongue learnt eloquence:
On the Ides, the Senate founded for you, a temple facing
The Circus: since then today has been your festival.
All those who make a living trading their wares,
Offer you incense, and beg you to swell their profits.
There's Mercury's fountain close to the Capene Gate:
It's potent, if you believe those who've tried it.
Here the merchant, cleansed, with his tunic girt,
Draws water and carries it off, in a purified jar.
With it he wets some laurel, sprinkles his goods
With damp laurel: those soon to have new owners.
And he sprinkles his hair with dripping laurel too,
And with that voice, that often deceives, utters prayers:
`Wash away all the lies of the past,' he says,
`Wash away all the perjured words of a day that's gone.
If I've called on you as witness, and falsely invoked
Jove's great power, hoping he wouldn't hear:
If I've knowingly taken the names of gods and goddesses,
In vain: let the swift southerlies steal my sinful words,
And leave the day clear for me, for further perjuries,
And let the gods above fail to notice I've uttered any.
Just grant me my profit, give me joy of the profit I've made:
And make sure I'll have the pleasure of cheating a buyer.'
Mercury, on high, laughs aloud at such prayers,
Remembering how he himself stole Apollo's cattle." - Ovid, Fasti V

"Though he was laid out in swaddling-clothes with her winnowing-basket
for a cradle, he escaped and made his way to Pieria, where he stole
some cattle that Apollon was tending. To keep from being discovered by
the tracks, he put boots on their feet and led them to Pylos. He hid
them in a grotto, except for two which he sacrificed, pinning up their
hides on rocks, boiling some o the meat for his meal and burning the
rest. Outside the cave he found a tortoise feeding. He cleaned it
out, and stretched across the shell strings made from the cattle he
had sacrificed, and when he had thus devised a lyre he also invented a
plectrum. Meanwhile Apollon reached Pylos in his search for the
cattle, and asked the locals about them. They told him that they had
indeed seen a boy driving some cattle, but they could not say where
they had been driven because there were no tracks to be found. So
Apollon learned who the thief was by divine science, and made his way
to Maia on Kyllene to charge Hermes. Maia, however, showed Apollon the
baby in his swaddling-clothes, whereupon Apollon took him to Zeus and
demanded his cattle. When Zeus told Hermes to return them, he denied
everything, but since his father would not believe him, he led Apollon
to Pylos and gave him back his cattle. Then, when Apollon heard the
lyre, he exchanged the cattle for that." - Apollodorus

"I am he who bears his father's mandates through the sky. My father's
Juppiter himself." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.708

"Hermes ... messenger of Zeus ... Celestial messenger of various
skill, whose powerful arts could watchful Argos kill. With winged feet
`tis thine through air to course." - Orphic Hymn 28 to Hermes

"Zeus who masses the clouds made answer ... turned to his dear son
Hermes: `Hermes, you are always our messenger." - Homer, Odyssey 5.4

"There was a craftsman who had a wooden statue of Hermes. Every day he
poured libations and made sacrifices to it, but he still wasn't able
to earn a living. The man got angry at the god so he grabbed the
statue by the leg and threw it down on the ground. The head of the
statue shattered and gold coins came pouring out from inside it. As he
gathered the gold, the man remarked, 'Hermes, you are an unlucky god,
since you take no thought for your friends. You didn't do me any good
when I was treating you with devotion, but now that I have wronged
you, you give me this immense reward. I do not understand this strange
kind of cult!" - Aesop, Fables 464

"A man fashioned a Hermes out of wood and carried it to the market to
put it up for sale but no customers approached him. In order to
attract some buyers the man began to shout that he was selling a
wish-fulfilling god who brought profit to its owner. 'Hey you,'
someone said, 'why are you putting such a thing up for sale, instead
of enjoying its benefits yourself?' The man answered, 'I am in need of
some immediate benefits, but this god happens to take his time when
distributing profits!" - Aesop, Fables 561

Today is the Mercuralia. Mercury, whose name is connected with
"merchandise" (merx), is the Roman divinity of commerce and gain,
later identified by the Romans with the Greek Hermes. His mother was
Maia, the eldest of the Pleiades, and the most beautiful of the seven
sisters. The Ides of May was recognized as his birthday. It became a
festival of traders and merchants; Ovid records the details of their
rites.

With laurel boughs, they sprinkled their goods for sale, along with
their hair, with water from a fountain near the Caperna Gate called
aqua Mercurii. They offered prayers to Mercury, who in legend had been
a thief, for forgiveness for past and future perjuries, for profit,
and for the continued ability to cheat customers! It is reasonable to
suppose that the guild of merchants spent the evening of the Ides of
May dining and feasting together.

Valete bene!

Cato



SOURCES

Ovid, Apollodorus, Homer, Aesop, Wikipedia

Salve Merula,

> :-) In that case, Censor, is it permissable to offer up for discussion
> articles that aren't totally complementary to Rome

Indeed it is. Especially when clearly labeled, as yours was, to indicate its
source.

> or are we so insecure we can only deal with positive images?

Perhaps some of us are, but I think the majority can deal with the
uncomplimentary criticism.

Vale,


CN•EQVIT•MARINVS

Is anyone here affiliated with Fectio?

Vestinia

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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F. Galerius Aurelianus P. Domino Antonio S.P.D.

Sir, there are numerous examples to be found among both classical historians
and in classical art to support that woman participated in battle both on
the field and in the arena that your statements place you in the category of
either a blissful ignoramus or an arrogant chauvinist. I have already directed
you to three classical historians in the current era who mention women as
warriors and there a number of other sources as well going back to the fifth
century B.C. It is obvious to me that since you must lack the ambition or
energy to research this subject you choose to dismiss it out of hand. Since you
have failed to offer a single classical author or modern historian,
archaeologist, or anthropologist who would support your statement:

"In an age of limited privacy and tight quarters, how did these women
warriors manage to hide their gender during bathing, defecating, urinating,
changing clothes, during medical treatment of injuries, etc, etc? How did
they ALL avoid pregnancy? How did all these (10%) women warriors manage to
evade ever being killed and having their gender discovered post mortem. Why
do none of the grave stone pictures ever depict a woman warrior?

The simple answer is that they didn't exist.

Never mentioned, and never depicted, across the entire Roman Empire and
Republic, spanning centuries. Talk about a conspiracy of silence. I stand
in awe. That makes the Da Vinci conspiracists look like rank amateurs.
Call Dan Brown and Oliver Stone. There are books to be written and movies
to be made."

Your limited knowledge about classical contraception, hygiene, sexual
habits, battle, medical practices screams out that you probably have never studied
beyond out of date high school text books and the History Channel could
supply more accurate information than you. You have taken one remark that I made
and inflated its context even after I corrected the original statement.

I invite you to debate with me either publicly or privately about any point
of your hypotheses just so I might have the opportunity to perhaps increase
your knowledge.

Vadite in pace Cereris.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Mon, 15 May 2006, QFabiusMaxmi@... wrote:

> In a message dated 5/14/2006 11:00:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> dicconf@... writes:
> Even this falls short of the fact -- chariots on the battlefield were as
> obsolete by the time of the Battle of Marathon as, say, black powder
> muskets would be today.

> But why would black powder muskets be obsolete? The weapon is accurate in
> the ranges most modern weapons firefight, the procurement is easy, all you need
> is nitrate piles, lead ball molds and since the powder is water soluble the
> weapons are easily cleaned. Perfect for guerrillas. The Zulus used smooth bore
> muskets against their neighbors in the 1900s and they made quite a
> respectable showing. The only reason why black powder weapons are only in use by re
> enactors today are the large amount of modern weapons that are available on the
> world market to third world countries, so black powder is not needed.

That's far from the only reason. A black powder musket fires one shot
every 30-40 seconds, accompanied by a big puff of smoke labelled "shoot
right here!" -- er, no, cancel that last bit. You have to stand up to
load it, not a good idea on a modern battlefield. The powder, as you say,
is water soluble, which means that in high-humidity conditions you have
lots of misfires and in a rainstorm you're lucky to be able to shoot at
all. Loading takes six or seven separate actions, easy to get mixed up
when your own system is running an adrenaline overload -- some of the
muskets recovered at Gettysburg had five or six successive shots jammed in
the barrel, indicating that the users had gone on loading and snapping
caps without really noticing that the main charge hadn't gone off. All in
all, except for the chance of first-round kills a score of troops in Roman
armor with pila and gladii could probably take down a score of musketeers
if they started a hundred yards apart. About the only advantage that
firearms had over archers and armored infantry was that a soldier could
learn to use a musket in a couple of weeks and shoot it when he was half
starved and dead tired.

Such, O cives, is my opinion, and it is my further opinion that destroying
Carthage was a bad idea.

-- Publius Livius Triarius

In a message dated 5/15/2006 1:35:21 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
kirsteen.falconsfan@... writes:

I didn't blurt anything out. I posted an article from a newspaper, clearly
stating where it had come from. The url, if you're interested is
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2168328,00.html


So you did. I missed that. Sorry about that. There are so many people
here that think they are experts after reading 1 book and then make
outrageous claims,
claiming sources' backing so that we have to separate the wheat from the
chaff.
"If it was in the paper, it has to be true." seems to be the common
denominator these days.
I hope that my lecture on Celtic chariots was at least informative.

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/15/2006 9:45:59 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
dicconf@... writes:

You have to stand up to load it, not a good idea on a modern battlefield.


You have never been a civil war re enactor. You are taught to load while
lying on your back.

Gettysburg is no different then any other war. You have trained men who
stress out in the heat of battle. My cousin told me of a lot of US Vietnam
conscripts, that never fired a shot in a firefight. It happens.

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/15/2006 5:55:07 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
PADRUIGTHEUNCLE@... writes:

Sir, there are numerous examples to be found among both classical
historians
and in classical art to support that woman participated in battle both on
the field and in the arena that your statements place you in the category
of
either a blissful ignoramus or an arrogant chauvinist.


Again, what does have to do with the beginning statement about women
fighting in the service of Rome? I believe that is what Tony is commenting on, not
the existence of women warriors.

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

"P. Dominus Antonius" <marsvigilia@...> wrote:

<<How can anyone credibly claim that Romans noticed (and wrote about) their
enemies that were women, but didn't happen to notice when the soldiers that
they hired were women.>>


MVM: Because the Romans were unaware they were women as they either looked similar to the men, were disguised as men, or the Romans just didn't bother to look too closely. After all, defeating their enemies was their goal so knowing their enemies very well was a must, and bragging about who they defeated a given.


<<In an age of limited privacy and tight quarters, how did these women
warriors manage to hide their gender during bathing, defecating, urinating,
changing clothes, during medical treatment of injuries, etc, etc?>>


MVM: Oh, they managed it quite well. Perhaps the men who they quartered with knew and didn't care or they may have been relatives, i.e. brother and sister. Or all the women warriors quartered together. It can be done. Women are very resourceful in case you never noticed. We have to be to have survived thousands of years of oppression, persecution and all manner of deprivation in patriarchal cultures.


<<How did they ALL avoid pregnancy?>>


MVM: Maybe because it wasn't on their agenda. They came to fight, not have babies.


<< How did all these (10%) women warriors manage to evade ever being killed and having their gender discovered post mortem.>>


MVM: They didn't. That's one way in which it was learned that there had been women warriors present in battle.


<< Why do none of the grave stone pictures ever depict a woman warrior?>>


MVM: Perhaps they did but these stone pictures did not survive to the present day. Not everything of the past has survived to modern times, even things carved in stone.


<<The simple answer is that they didn't exist.>>


MVM: You may wish that to be true but knowing our gender far better than you, we dare to say that they did exist and in far greater numbers than you would be comfortable with. As I said, women are very resourceful. Trust me on that.


Maxima Valeria Messallina


---------------------------------
New Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thank you Fabius.

I was wondering how to respond to what was a rather outlandish ad hominem
attack. I had not insulted the gentleman Padruig, though it strikes me that
it would not be terribly difficult to accomplish should I so desire.

A few points Padruig, in no particular order:

1. It does not make me a chauvinist to have a disagreement about events
that happened 2,000 years ago (plus or minus a century or two.) I have made
no, repeat NO, comments about the ability of women to fight in either a
modern context nor an ancient one. I have not denied that they may have
fought for other nations. I am not arguing what they could physically do
but what they did do. If you do not understand the difference, then I am
sorry for you.

2. I believe your historical references are to non-Roman women warriors.
Therefore these references are not strictly relevant to the discussion that
I thought we were having. Yes, I was discussing whether or not women
warriors fought for Rome. Rome, you know the big city that ruled the
civilized world (well the Roman parts anyway.) Perhaps you were having a
different discussion.

3. Regarding my providing references, I would like to point out that it is
difficult to refer to something that does not exist. I suppose it would be
nice if Josephus or Vegetius had bothered to write down "Oh, those Romans
are such terrible chauvinists. They never allow women to fight in their
wars. They're just stubborn that way." Unfortunately these and many other
esteemed writers of antiquity never bothered to point out what was perfectly
obvious to them and their readers.

4. There is an enormous difference between women gladiators and soldiers.
There were retiarii in the arena, yet the Romans did not uses retiarii on
the field. There were lions in the arena, yet the Romans did not use lions
on the field. There is an enormous difference between warfare and
entertainment. In entertainment novelty is often important.

5. I have said several times that I am open to new evidence. I have not
seen any here. If you care to support your assertions with facts and
evidence, I remain interested in hearing what wisdom you are able to
impart. By the way listing off half a dozen or so authors who have written
many books each is not providing a reference. And in this particular case
is more akin to sending someone on a snipe hunt (similar to a wild goose
chase.) Generally it is useful to provide a title, page number, etc. You
are even allowed to quote directly without fear of copy right violation.

6. I am not sure which comment of yours that you think I took out of
context. The 10% comment maybe. I don't know. I can find the email where
you further justified the 10%, but it did not appear you were withdrawing
it. I do find it surprising that the Romans wouldn't notice if 1 in 10 of
their hired troops were women. Perhaps the Romans simply lacked the
abilities to make such fine distinctions. It is amazing they survived as
long as they did.

7. I do not have a hypothesis per se. I am contending that no one here has
proven (nor even supported) the hypothesis that women warriors ever fought
for Rome.

8. Perhaps women warriors would have no difficulty concealing their gender
in a public bath, or communal lavatories, or when receiving medical care for
injuries. Perhaps each woman warrior had a personal attendant to protect
her secrets even after she died on the field. With 10% being women warriors
that would be a lot of personal attendants. These possibilities strike me
as being absurdly improbable. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to how it was
done. Perhaps not.

9. Evidence. Evidence. Evidence. Show me some evidence of women warriors
fighting for Rome. A pillar, a monument, a gravestone, records, writings
anything. Really anything would be more interesting than you simply
insulting me because I disagree with you.

10. It is interesting that in an ongoing discussion you invite me to
debate. What's next fisticuffs? Here is my debate: "Show me evidence.
Provide a reference. Quote an original source."

11. You suggest that my education is limited. It has certainly been
limited in the sense that I have never seen any evidence of women warriors
fighting for Rome. But then I suspect your education is similarly limited.

That should do for now.
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/15/06, QFabiusMaxmi@... < QFabiusMaxmi@...> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 5/15/2006 5:55:07 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
> <PADRUIGTHEUNCLE@...>
> Again, what does have to do with the beginning statement about women
> fighting in the service of Rome? I believe that is what Tony is
> commenting on, not the existence of women warriors.
>
> Q. Fabius Maximus
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sigh.

Ave Valeria,

Yes, women are (and have always been) resourceful, clever, competent,
strong, ingenious, brave, studious, industrious, courageous, good shots,
etc, etc.

Oh, one more thing. There is no evidence that they ever fought for Rome on
the field of battle.

My comfort is irrelevant. I have never said that it was impossible. Simply
that there is no evidence.

I have a question for you. If tomorrow someone discovers an ancient
historian who wrote about a previously unknown legion of women warriors who
fought valiantly at the battle of Such In Such. I will say "Wow. That's
interesting stuff we didn't know before. Having seen some real evidence, I
now believe that women warriors did fight for Rome." Now here is my
question. Does this somehow make me not a chauvinist. Or am I always going
to be a chauvinist because I dared ask for evidence, a reference, some
historical fact, rather than relying on vague assertions that "Women are
very resourceful."

My mind can be changed with evidence. Is there any evidence or lack thereof
that can change your mind?
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/15/06, Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
>
>
> MVM: Because the Romans were unaware they were women as they either
> looked similar to the men, were disguised as men, or the Romans just didn't
> bother to look too closely. After all, defeating their enemies was their
> goal so knowing their enemies very well was a must, and bragging about who
> they defeated a given.
>
> MVM: Oh, they managed it quite well. Perhaps the men who they quartered
> with knew and didn't care or they may have been relatives, i.e. brother
> and sister. Or all the women warriors quartered together. It can be done.
> Women are very resourceful in case you never noticed. We have to be to have
> survived thousands of years of oppression, persecution and all manner of
> deprivation in patriarchal cultures.
>
> MVM: Maybe because it wasn't on their agenda. They came to fight, not
> have babies.
>
> MVM: They didn't. That's one way in which it was learned that there had
> been women warriors present in battle.
>
> MVM: Perhaps they did but these stone pictures did not survive to the
> present day. Not everything of the past has survived to modern times, even
> things carved in stone.
>


> MVM: You may wish that to be true but knowing our gender far better than
> you, we dare to say that they did exist and in far greater numbers than you
> would be comfortable with. As I said, women are very resourceful. Trust me
> on that.
>
> Maxima Valeria Messallina
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Carthago delenda est
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/15/06, dicconf <dicconf@...> wrote:
>
> Such, O cives, is my opinion, and it is my further opinion that destroying
>
> Carthage was a bad idea.
>
> -- Publius Livius Triarius
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

My coins arrived today. Beautiful workmanship. My compliments to everyone
involved. Looking forward to next year's minting

Q. Fabius Maximus
Proconsul, Pontiff,
and a happy member
of Nova Roma when it runs
correctly.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

M. Hortensia Q. Fabio spd;
Well I'm glad you are happy with our coin, but as one of
the original members and small investor in the project - why were
you against it when it came before the Senate? If you're happy with
NR when things go right, why weren't you an investor.
Nova Roma cannot ever achieve anything without hands-on cives.
Caius Curius Saturninus of Academica Thules, Vox Romana, Lucretius
Agricola, Equitius Cato, Vipsanius Agrippa of the Coin Project, are
terrific cives.
I'm on the coin project it made a coin, I'm a producer of a podcast,
we made one and are working on another.

I urge all cives to join in real life efforts for Nova Roma;
imagine what our res publica would be.
Dream & DO!
bene valete
Marca Hortensia Maior
producer Vox Romana
member Coin project

> aedilis plebis

My coins arrived today. Beautiful workmanship. My compliments to
everyone

> involved. Looking forward to next year's minting
>
> Q. Fabius Maximus
> Proconsul, Pontiff,
> and a happy member
> of Nova Roma when it runs
> correctly.
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

In a message dated 5/15/2006 7:15:02 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
rory12001@... writes:
Well I'm glad you are happy with our coin, but as one of
the original members and small investor in the project - why were
you against it when it came before the Senate?

Why Maior? Because every project attempted here is a shot in the dark.
For every successful sales project completed we have 2 that fail. When I was
Praetor I had to threaten several "citizens" to return the money they
received for goods, when they had no intention of completing the transactions.

But since I was vocally against this, I wanted to be the first to
congratulate the consortium,
for carrying out their project. I wish them many sales.

If you're happy with NR when things go right, why weren't you an investor.
Maior I have been investing money in NR since 1998. I'll let other people do
it now,
after all that's fair isn't it?

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve

Could someone tell me what this word means

Schopfhem


Thanks

Vale

Tiberius Galerius paulinus

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Mon, 15 May 2006, Maxima Valeria Messallina wrote:

> As I said, women are very resourceful. Trust me on that.

Those of us who know best don't need to be told ;-)

-- Publius Livius Triarius

On Mon, 15 May 2006, P. Dominus Antonius wrote:

> 2. I believe your historical references are to non-Roman women warriors.
> Therefore these references are not strictly relevant to the discussion that
> I thought we were having. Yes, I was discussing whether or not women
> warriors fought for Rome.

Is it absolutely clear that we are asking whether women warriors fought
for Rome, period -- which would make the comments about female fighters
among the federati relevant -- or women warriors who were enrolled in the
Legions? I haven't seen anything indicating that they were admitted to
the Legio, but that was only about half of the troops who fought for Rome.

> 4. There is an enormous difference between women gladiators and soldiers.
> There were retiarii in the arena, yet the Romans did not uses retiarii on
> the field. There were lions in the arena, yet the Romans did not use lions
> on the field. There is an enormous difference between warfare and
> entertainment. In entertainment novelty is often important.

This is going off from the topic, but wasn't there an effort by some
usurper or other to defeat a Legionary attack on The City by enrolling a
group of gladiators, whose heavy armor was far more complete than that of
the Legionary infantry? (After all, the gladiators didn't have to march
in theirs.) IIRC the Legions stomped them into the ground. The usurper
had forgotten that the legionaries were trained to fight as a coordinated
group and not as individuals.

-- Publius Livius Triarius

M. Hortensia Q. Fabio spd;
the 2 for 1 figure sounds good, but I was tribune last year and
the only project besides the coins was Caius Curius Saturninus's
calendar, which also went forward and is entirely subsidized by
Saturninus.

Now that we aren't embroiled in constant online political fights, we
have the time to create and participate in real life projects in
Nova Roma.

Unfortunately this activity is not reflected in the College of
Pontiffs, if you want to sit on the sidelines that's fine by me. But
the Religio is just going nowhere. And no it's not fine and not
acceptable.

Did you realize the Cerealia did not take place? I and Senatrix
Julilla Sempronia Magna agreed to officially designate the Flamen
Aurelianus' real life games as Nova Roma's official ones.
We waited; what happened. Didn't you notice!
I think I have to perform a piaculum as aedilis plebis
and I am not happy at all.....
M. Hortensia Maior
aedilis plebis

> Why Maior? Because every project attempted here is a shot in the

dark.

> For every successful sales project completed we have 2 that fail.

When I was

> Praetor I had to threaten several "citizens" to return the money

they

> received for goods, when they had no intention of completing the

transactions.

>
> But since I was vocally against this, I wanted to be the first to
> congratulate the consortium,
> for carrying out their project. I wish them many sales.
>
> If you're happy with NR when things go right, why weren't you an

investor.

> Maior I have been investing money in NR since 1998. I'll let

other people do

> it now,
> after all that's fair isn't it?
>
> Q. Fabius Maximus
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Federati or Luminati it doesn't matter. Just show me some evidence that
women fought for Rome. Even if some gladiators were women and some
gladiators fought on the field for Rome this does not indicate that women
fought for Rome. Even if some triabal warriors were women and some tribal
warriors fought on the field for Rome this does not indicate that women
fought for Rome.

Surely if there were any evidence extant showing women warriors fighting for
Rome, some one among Nova Roma would know of it. Would know someone who
knows of it. And could give a real reference with a page number. Just
giving an author's name is useless.

If there is real evidence, proof, something, anything. But there does not
appear to be.

Let's see some evidence.
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/15/06, dicconf <dicconf@...> wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, 15 May 2006, P. Dominus Antonius wrote:
>
> > 2. I believe your historical references are to non-Roman women
> warriors.
> > Therefore these references are not strictly relevant to the discussion
> that
> > I thought we were having. Yes, I was discussing whether or not women
> > warriors fought for Rome.
>
> Is it absolutely clear that we are asking whether women warriors fought
> for Rome, period -- which would make the comments about female fighters
> among the federati relevant -- or women warriors who were enrolled in the
> Legions? I haven't seen anything indicating that they were admitted to
> the Legio, but that was only about half of the troops who fought for Rome.
>
>
> > 4. There is an enormous difference between women gladiators and
> soldiers.
> > There were retiarii in the arena, yet the Romans did not uses retiarii
> on
> > the field. There were lions in the arena, yet the Romans did not use
> lions
> > on the field. There is an enormous difference between warfare and
> > entertainment. In entertainment novelty is often important.
>
> This is going off from the topic, but wasn't there an effort by some
> usurper or other to defeat a Legionary attack on The City by enrolling a
> group of gladiators, whose heavy armor was far more complete than that of
> the Legionary infantry? (After all, the gladiators didn't have to march
> in theirs.) IIRC the Legions stomped them into the ground. The usurper
> had forgotten that the legionaries were trained to fight as a coordinated
> group and not as individuals.
>
> -- Publius Livius Triarius
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> Salve, Praetor Pauline, et salvete, omnes.
>
> Salve
>
> Could someone tell me what this word means
>
> Schopfhem
>
> ATS: Schopf is German for the crown of the head, forelock, treetop, etc.
> Schoepfen (umlaut on the o) means to ladle out water, etc. Are you sure that
> you have the word spelled correctly? F followed by h is an unlikely
> combination except possibly in a compound word, and this does not appear to be
> an inflected form of a noun (dative, if it were). Helm is helmet, casque,
> dome, or (different word with same spelling) handle. Schopfhelm makes some
> sense, but Schopfhem doesn¹t...
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Vale
>
> Tiberius Galerius paulinus
>
> Vale, et valete,
>
> A. Tullia Scholastica
>
>
>
>
>


>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve et salvete,

>But why would black powder muskets be obsolete?

Gods, Maximus--why would they not be? I've had the opportunity to shoot both a black powder rifle and a fully-automatic M-16. I know which one I'd want with me in battle.

Vale et valete,
Artoria


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/15/2006 8:22:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
dicconf@... writes:
This is going off from the topic, but wasn't there an effort by some
usurper or other to defeat a Legionary attack on The City by enrolling a
group of gladiators, whose heavy armor was far more complete than that of
the Legionary infantry? (After all, the gladiators didn't have to march
in theirs.) IIRC the Legions stomped them into the ground. The usurper
had forgotten that the legionaries were trained to fight as a coordinated
group and not as individuals.

They were Gauls, freed when a Gallic tribe revolted. The city they were
defending wasn't Rome. The Gauls were hoplomarchos, so heavly armored that it
took pickaxes to kill them. It's in Tacitus "Annals"

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/15/2006 10:42:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
icehunter@... writes:
Gods, Maximus--why would they not be? I've had the opportunity to shoot both
a black powder rifle and a fully-automatic M-16. I know which one I'd want
with me in battle.

Sure, but what if you couldn't get a M-16a2. would you settle for a stick or
a tower musket?

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/15/2006 9:03:31 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
rory12001@... writes:
Did you realize the Cerealia did not take place? I and Senatrix
Julilla Sempronia Magna agreed to officially designate the Flamen
Aurelianus' real life games as Nova Roma's official ones.
We waited; what happened. Didn't you notice!
Yes. We noticed. Some fine speeches were made during the discussion. But,
remember,
Rome was not built in a day.

Q. Fabius Maximus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

A. Apollonius P. Dominio omnibusque sal.

Scripsisti:

> Carthago delenda est <

Carthago nonjam delenda est. Carthago jam deleta est. Hodie Carthago omnino deest. Ut dixit Johannes Cleese in fabula praeclara, "Esse desiit. Exspiravit iitque ut creatorem inveniat. Cadaver es. Vitae egens in pace quiescit. Nisi eum in sedile confixisti flores nutriat. Ordo ejus metabolica jam praeteritus est. De surculo descendit. Hamam calce petivit, ex spira mortale tergiversatus est, aulaeum levavit, et choro non manifesto interest. Hic est psittacus prior!"

;)

Salve Tiberius Galerius Paulinus,
Schopfhem is a little town in germany, Schwarzwald (Black Forrest?). No other relevance that I know
Best
Publius Flavius Barbatus

----- original Nachricht --------

Betreff: [Nova-Roma] OFF TOPIC: GERMAN TRANSLATION PLEASE
Gesendet: Di 16 Mai 2006 05:06:35 CEST
Von: "Stephen Gallagher"<spqr753@...>

Salve

Could someone tell me what this word means

Schopfhem


Thanks

Vale

Tiberius Galerius paulinus

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
Visit your group "Nova-Roma" on the web.
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Nova-Roma-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.



--- original Nachricht Ende ----

1 Million Singles in Ihrer Nahe. Finden Sie Ihren Traumpartner
bei Deutschlands beliebteste Partnerboerse:
http://singles.freenet.de/index.html?pid=11512


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve Publius Flavius Barbatus


Thanks

Can you tell me where in Germany it is located?

Vale

Tiberius Galerius Paulinus

--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, h.spoeckinger@... wrote:
>
> Salve Tiberius Galerius Paulinus,
> Schopfhem is a little town in germany, Schwarzwald (Black
Forrest?). No other relevance that I know
> Best
> Publius Flavius Barbatus
>
> ----- original Nachricht --------
>
> Betreff: [Nova-Roma] OFF TOPIC: GERMAN TRANSLATION PLEASE
> Gesendet: Di 16 Mai 2006 05:06:35 CEST
> Von: "Stephen Gallagher"<spqr753@...>
>
> Salve
>
> Could someone tell me what this word means
>
> Schopfhem
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Vale
>
> Tiberius Galerius paulinus
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
> Visit your group "Nova-Roma" on the web.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> Nova-Roma-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
Service.
>
>
>
> --- original Nachricht Ende ----
>
> 1 Million Singles in Ihrer Nahe. Finden Sie Ihren Traumpartner
> bei Deutschlands beliebteste Partnerboerse:
> http://singles.freenet.de/index.html?pid=11512
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus Tiberio Galerio Paulino salutem dicit

A simple google search will net you several results. One such result is here:

http://www.thomasgraz.net/glass/gl-2061.htm

Vale;

Modianus

On 5/16/06, Tiberius Galerius Paulinus <spqr753@...> wrote:
> Salve Publius Flavius Barbatus
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Can you tell me where in Germany it is located?
>
> Vale
>
> Tiberius Galerius Paulinus

Salve Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus

Thanks


I did an internet search but nothing came up so thanks for this its
a big help.

Vale


Tiberius Galerius Paulinus


--- In Nova-Roma@yahoogroups.com, "David Kling (Modianus)"
<tau.athanasios@...> wrote:

>
> Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus Tiberio Galerio Paulino salutem dicit
>
> A simple google search will net you several results. One such

result is here:

>
> http://www.thomasgraz.net/glass/gl-2061.htm
>
> Vale;
>
> Modianus
>
> On 5/16/06, Tiberius Galerius Paulinus <spqr753@...> wrote:
> > Salve Publius Flavius Barbatus
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Can you tell me where in Germany it is located?
> >
> >
>

> Salve
>
> Could someone tell me what this word means
>
> Schopfhem
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Vale
>
> Tiberius Galerius paulinus

Salve Tiberius Paulinus.

The word "Schopfhem" in its writing is looking more like a place name.
Maybe there is a misspelling but if not, just a place.

Vale
Marcus Flavius Philippus COnservatus
_______________________________________________________________
SMS schreiben mit WEB.DE FreeMail - einfach, schnell und
kostenguenstig. Jetzt gleich testen! http://f.web.de/?mc=021192

> Sure, but what if you couldn't get a M-16a2. would you settle for a stick or
> a tower musket?

Is it a pointed stick?

How about a handful of grapes?

--
hucke@...
http://www.graveyards.com

"The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the
voices you are throttling today." -- August Spies, 1887

OK. That's completely over my head. ;-)

Perhaps I can take a Latin class when the kids are a bit older. For now
I'll have to struggle with knowing a only few quotes.

--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/16/06, A. Apollonius Cordus <a_apollonius_cordus@...> wrote:
>
> A. Apollonius P. Dominio omnibusque sal.
>
> Scripsisti:
>
> > Carthago delenda est <
>
> Carthago nonjam delenda est. Carthago jam deleta est. Hodie Carthago
> omnino deest. Ut dixit Johannes Cleese in fabula praeclara, "Esse desiit.
> Exspiravit iitque ut creatorem inveniat. Cadaver es. Vitae egens in pace
> quiescit. Nisi eum in sedile confixisti flores nutriat. Ordo ejus metabolica
> jam praeteritus est. De surculo descendit. Hamam calce petivit, ex spira
> mortale tergiversatus est, aulaeum levavit, et choro non manifesto interest.
> Hic est psittacus prior!"
>
> ;)
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

C. Equitius Cato Q. Fabio Maximo quiritibusque sal.

Salve et salvete.

Fabius Maximus, I'm glad you got them and that you like them :-)

I have said this before, but I would like once again to publicly thank
the group of citizens who made this project come alive and persisted
in it until it bore fruit. A few stand out:

G. Vipsanius Agrippa, who actually created the NR Coins List so that
there was finally an actual place where we could go to hash out the
process; M. Lucretius Agricola, whose patience and knowledge were
almost indescribably valuable; A. Apollonius Cordus, whose insistence
on an absolutely correct blend of form and function was both an
inspiration and a lesson in the complexities of British
understatement; the guys from Dacia, led by T. Iulius Sabinus - as
Cordus, Agricola, Livia and I lay on the grass across from the tomb of
Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way scratching out design ideas, their
voices rang through the summer air: "GOLD! We want gold! or silver at
least!" soon...soon...; these are just a few of the several citizens
who gave their time and effort (and cash) to see this project through.

I have perhaps been the most constant public voice for this group (or
at least the loudest), but the praise and thanks of the Republic
deserves to go to all of them.

Valete bene,

Cato

On Mon, 15 May 2006, P. Dominus Antonius wrote:

> Even if some triabal warriors were women and some tribal
> warriors fought on the field for Rome this does not indicate that women
> fought for Rome.

"I can't help thinking that if this were reduced to syllogistic form it
wouldn't hold water."
Sir Roderick, late Baronet Ruddigore

On Tue, 16 May 2006, QFabiusMaxmi@... wrote:

> In a message dated 5/15/2006 10:42:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> icehunter@... writes:
> Gods, Maximus--why would they not be? I've had the opportunity to shoot both
> a black powder rifle and a fully-automatic M-16. I know which one I'd want
> with me in battle.
>
> Sure, but what if you couldn't get a M-16a2. would you settle for a stick or
> a tower musket?

In a conflict in which there is a possibility of having an M-16 and you
can't get one, the other side is likely to be using AK-47s or FLNs. If
so, the weaon of choice should probably be a stick -- with a white flag on
the end.

-- Publius Livius Triarius
heroism without risk, as somebody in Gilbert and Sullivan said...

"P. Dominus Antonius" <marsvigilia@...> wrote:

<<I have a question for you. If tomorrow someone discovers an ancient
historian who wrote about a previously unknown legion of women warriors who
fought valiantly at the battle of Such In Such. I will say "Wow. That's
interesting stuff we didn't know before. Having seen some real evidence, I
now believe that women warriors did fight for Rome." Now here is my
question. Does this somehow make me not a chauvinist. Or am I always going to be a chauvinist because I dared ask for evidence, a reference, some
historical fact, rather than relying on vague assertions that "Women are
very resourceful.">>


MVM: I was not the one who wrote you were a chauvinist, so please don't attribute to me words I did not write.
I will pray to the Gods and Goddesses of Roma that the evidence you so desparately need will be forth coming.
However, I resent you saying that the resourcefulness of women is nothing more than a "vague assertion." No, it's a fact. Every living woman is proof of that fact. And a historical fact. History books are full of accounts of the resourcefulness of women throughout the ages, even in Roman times.

Maxima Valeria Messallina


---------------------------------
Sneak preview the all-new Yahoo.com. It's not radically different. Just radically better.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

dicconf <dicconf@...> wrote:

On Mon, 15 May 2006, Maxima Valeria Messallina wrote:

> As I said, women are very resourceful. Trust me on that.

Those of us who know best don't need to be told ;-)

-- Publius Livius Triarius


Salve

I am very glad to hear that. However, the comment was not intended for everyone, only for the gentleman I was responding to. I apologize for any confusion.

Vale bene in pace Deorum,

Maxima Valeria Messallina


---------------------------------
Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> Salve, P. D. Antoni, et salvete, omnes!
>
> OK. That's completely over my head. ;-)
>
> ATS: Essentially, Cordus observed that Carthage doesn¹t need to be
> destroyed, it has already been destroyed, whereupon he quoted a certain wag on
> the subject, saying that it had kicked the bucket and left the mortal coil,
> etc.
>
> Perhaps I can take a Latin class when the kids are a bit older. For now
> I'll have to struggle with knowing a only few quotes.
>
> ATS: The Academia Thules offers Latin classes which do not require
> physical presence in class or fees. They do, however, require a good bit of
> work. There are also study groups available online based on various texts,
> notably the common one I am using in my class (now effectively ended) and some
> others. If you want to learn Latin, and cannot absent yourself from home,
> this is the way to accomplish the task...but it will not be either
> instantaneous or without time and effort on the learner¹s part, time and
> effort which one must take from other pursuits.
>
> Incidentally, Dominus is a rather unlikely nomen, and likely forbidden by
> NR law. Grammatically it is quite questionable in that capacity.
>
> Vale, et valete,
>
> A. Tullia Scholastica

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Valeria,

I began my post with an ode to the fabulous qualities of women. And the
very first thing I said was "resourceful"

Here is the quote from my email:
"Yes, women are (and have always been) resourceful, clever, competent,
strong, ingenious, brave, studious, industrious, courageous, good shots,
etc, etc." For you to then complain that I am in any way disparaging the
resourcefulness of women is at best attacking a straw man.

Why don't you understand that I am not insulting women. Perhaps I am
insulting the Romans. Perhaps the Romans were incredibly stupid for not
utilizing all available resources for conquest and later for their own
defence. Perhaps they let their chauvinism and prejudices stand in the way
of good public policy and defence strategy. Perhaps the Roman Empire would
still stand today and the whole world would be speaking Latin if only the
Romans had used women warriors in the Legions, the auxilia, and the
federati. All of these thing are possible, and are in the nature of
speculation. In fact I think I'll start a new thread on that topic.

I have said that the discussion of women warriors fighting for Rome is
speculative because there is no evidence to support that conclusion.

If I said there is no evidence that the United States ever landed a woman on
the moon, would you come back and say well there were American women
astronauts, and American astronauts landed on the moon, and women are very
resourceful are just as smart and capable of landing on the moon as men, and
could have pretended to be men, or maybe the other astronauts didn't care or
notice, or maybe everyone on that particular crew were also women or
relatives, therefore there probably were American women astronauts that
landed on the moon, and besides most people can't remember the names of the
astronauts anyway. Such a claim would be silly wouldn't it? Perhaps not as
silly as Gatling guns and extraterrestrials. But almost as silly. That is
essentially the argument in another context that has been offered to support
the contention in question. And please understand that I am not ridiculing
you here. I am attempting to explain why these arguments don't work.

You were not the one who called me a chauvinist, but you implied it. You
wrote: "You may wish that to be true but knowing our gender far better than
you, we dare to say that they did exist and in far greater numbers than you
would be comfortable with." Saying I would not be comfortable with large
numbers of women warriors certainly leaves the impression that I am being
chauvinistic. Perhaps I am simply from Missouri, "The Show Me State."

I did not write that you were the one who called me a chauvinist, although I
may have implied it.

If my implication was wrong, then so was yours.

"Vague" was intended to refer to how this only vaguely has any relevance
regarding whether there is any evidence, and certainly does not represent
evidence. The statement could be read that you were being vague about what
you were asserting. This is definitely imprecise, if not incorrect, of me.
You were definitely not vague. You have your opinion on this and have
stated it clearly. You generally have side stepped the issue of evidence.
This however is not really being vague, I selected the wrong word.

I don't need evidence that there were women warriors that fought for Rome.
I certainly am not desperate for such evidence. I will however not believe
it until such evidence is discovered or someone can provide a verifiable
reference.

I was glad to see that in your recent post you more or less conceded that
evidence of women warriors fighting for Rome has not been forthcoming.
Perhaps when and if such evidence is forthcoming we can have a spirited
discussion about the evidence.

--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/16/06, Maxima Valeria Messallina <violetphearsen@...> wrote:
>
> "P. Dominus Antonius" <marsvigilia@...> wrote:
>
> <<I have a question for you. If tomorrow someone discovers an ancient
> historian who wrote about a previously unknown legion of women warriors
> who
> fought valiantly at the battle of Such In Such. I will say "Wow. That's
> interesting stuff we didn't know before. Having seen some real evidence,
> I
> now believe that women warriors did fight for Rome." Now here is my
> question. Does this somehow make me not a chauvinist. Or am I always
> going to be a chauvinist because I dared ask for evidence, a reference, some
> historical fact, rather than relying on vague assertions that "Women are
> very resourceful.">>
>
>
> MVM: I was not the one who wrote you were a chauvinist, so please don't
> attribute to me words I did not write.
> I will pray to the Gods and Goddesses of Roma that the evidence you so
> desparately need will be forth coming.
> However, I resent you saying that the resourcefulness of women is
> nothing more than a "vague assertion." No, it's a fact. Every living woman
> is proof of that fact. And a historical fact. History books are full of
> accounts of the resourcefulness of women throughout the ages, even in Roman
> times.
>
> Maxima Valeria Messallina
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Were the Romans incredibly stupid for not fully utilizing all available
resources (i.e. women) for conquest and later for their own defence?

Did the Romans let their chauvinism and prejudices stand in the way of good
public policy and defence strategy?

Would the Roman Empire still stand today and would the whole world would be
speaking Latin if only the Romans had used women warriors in the Legions,
the auxilia, and the federati?
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Salve Maxime et salvete omnes,

>Sure, but what if you couldn't get a M-16a2. would you settle for a stick or
>a tower musket?

I'd need more information. What sort of stick? Is there a fuse involved? In all seriousness, obsolescence does not mean an object (or tactic) is suddenly without value, only that something newer and better has come along to replace it.

Vale et valete,
Artoria




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

OSD C. Equitius Cato

Salvete omnes!

Hodie est ante diem XVI Kalendas Iunius; haec dies comitialis est.

"Arvorum sacerdotes Romulus in primis instituit seque duodecimum
fratrem appellavit inter illos Acca Larentia nutrice sua genitos,
spicea corona, quae vitta alba colligaretur, sacerdotio ei pro
religiosissimo insigni data; quae prima apud Romanos fuit corona,
honosque is non nisi vita finitur et exules etiam captosque
comitatur." - Pliny, "Natural History" xviii.2

"ille mag. manibus lautis capite velato sub divo contra orientem
sacrificium indixit deae Diae sic Quod bonum faustum felix
fortunatumque sit populo Romano Quiritibus, fratribusque arvalibus,
Tiberio Caesar Augusto, Iuliae Augustae et liberis nepotibus totique
domui eorum, sacrificium deae Diae hoc anno erit a.d. XVI Kalendas Iunias"

("The magister [of the Fratres Arvales], with washed hands, head
covered, below the open sky and turned to East proclaimed the
sacrifice to Dea Dia in the following way: 'In order that it may be
auspicious, prosperous and happy to the Roman people of the Quirites,
to the Fratres Arvales, to Tiberius Caesar Augustus, to Iulia Augusta
and to all grandchildren of their household, the sacrifice to Dea Dia
this year will be on the 16th day before the Kalends of June.'") -
Comentarii Fratrum Arvalium, CIL VI, 32340.0-20

Today is held in honor of the Dea Dia. The worship of the Roman
goddess Dea Dia was in the hands of a priesthood of twelve, the
fratres arvales (Arval brethren), and she possessed a shrine in a
grove outside Rome at the fifth (or sixth, depending on the period)
milestone on the Via Campana, in the modern suburb of La Magliana. The
deity, her cult, and her priesthood supposedly date back to very early
in Roman history, but they underwent a major renovation by Augustus.
Roman legend held that the priestly college was originated by Romulus,
who took the place of a dead son of his nurse Acca Laurentia, and
formed the priesthood with the remaining eleven sons. They were also
connected originally with the Sabine priesthood of Sodales Titii and
were probably originally their counterpart among the Sabines. From
the previous period, we only know of the existence of the arvales and
of a public sacrifice, mentioned by Varro. The site itself bears
testimony of cultic occupation since at least the third century BC.
But it is impossible to be sure whether these items belonged to Dea
Dia or to Fors Fortuna, who possessed a temple on the same spot.

After Augustus's reform the priesthood consisted of twelve members
chosen by cooptation from the most distinguished families. The
reigning emperor was always a member. The reorganization was one
element in Augustus's policy of directing enthusiasm for his person
and policies into traditional religious channels. Under the empire the
Arval brethren offered sacrifices not only to Dea Dia but to a wide
variety of divinities to secure the health and prosperity of the
emperor and his family. Along with sometimes lengthy descriptions of
the rituals celebrated in the grove of Dea Dia, and of other
sacrifices of the brotherhood in Rome, the records of the Arval
brethren were inscribed on marble, and numerous fragments have been
preserved. These records, extending from 21 BC to AD 241, are a major
source for traditional Roman religion in the imperial age. The cult
and its priesthood are documented as late as AD 304.

Dea Dia, who was the owner of the lucus fratrum arvalium and the main
addressee of the cult celebrated by the Arval brethren, is only known
by the proceedings of this brotherhood. Thus, there has been much
speculation about her identity. During the nineteenth century, when
scholars tended to assimilate gods, some saw her as a goddess similar
to Ceres, if not Ceres herself. In the "Romische Mythologie" (1831) of
Ludwig Preller and Heinrich Jordan, Dea Dia was supposed to embody
certain aspects of the numen otherwise venerated under the names of
Ceres, Tellus, and perhaps Ops or Acca Larentia. One also finds
assimilations to Diana, Hebe, and the Mother of the Gods. In short,
Dea Dia was supposed to be an indigitation (the assimilation of minor
deities to one major god or goddess) of Ceres or another goddess
linked to agriculture.

The name Dea Dia is an emphatic doublet, meaning literally, "the
celestial goddess." According to the Arval proceedings, Dea Dia
performed her divine function between the periods of sowing and
harvesting and was thus the good light of heaven that brought the
crops from germination to maturation. The ritual at her festival
employed, among other offerings (a lamb, meatballs, sweet wine, and
pastries), green ears from the current crop, together with dried ears
of grain from the previous year's crop. The other gods and goddesses
mentioned in her lucus are to be considered her assistants or her guests.

Valete bene!

Cato



SOURCES

Pliny, Fears & Scheid
(http://www.bookrags.com/cgi/cite.php?type=gale&id=dea-dia-eorl-04)

A. Apollonius P. Dominio omnibusque sal.

> OK. That's completely over my head. ;-) <
>
> Perhaps I can take a Latin class when the kids are a bit older. For now

I'll have to struggle with knowing a only few quotes. <

Ah, sorry, I guessed that since you were writing in Latin I could respond likewise, but I'll explain.

What you wrote - "Carthago delenda est" - means "Carthage must be destroyed". I responded:

"Carthago nonjam delenda est. Carthago jam deleta est. Hodie Carthago omnino deest. Ut dixit Johannes Cleese in fabula praeclara, "Esse desiit. Exspiravit iitque ut creatorem inveniat. Cadaver es. Vitae egens in pace quiescit. Nisi eum in sedile confixisti flores nutriat. Ordo ejus metabolica jam praeteritus est. De surculo descendit. Hamam calce petivit, ex spira mortale tergiversatus est, aulaeum levavit, et choro non manifesto interest. Hic est psittacus prior!""

Which means:

"Carthage no longer needs to be destroyed. Carthage has already been destroyed. Today there is a complete lack of Carthage [that makes more sense in Latin!]. At John Cleese said in the famous sketch, "He has ceased to be! He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed him to the perch he'd be pushing up the daisies! [Actually I made a mistake translating that last sentence - what I wrote really says "If you didn't nail him to the perch he would push up the daisies"] His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! This is an ex-parrot!!""

The quotation is, of course, from the 'dead parrot sketch' by Monty Python's Flying Circus. Carthage was razed to the ground in, as I recall, 146 B.C, and it was forbidden for the site to be built upon in the future. There is a story, possibly untrue, that the Romans sowed the ground with salt to stop plants ever growing there.

I hope that makes a bit more sense. And yes, do learn Latin when you get the chance - it's very rewarding.

Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus S.P.D.

I wanted to let everyone know that I have heard from Diribitor
Stephanus Ullerius Vanator Piperbarbus and he has instructed me that
the votes have been counted. We are now waiting for the election to
be certified by Custos Emilia Curia Finnica and Custos Titus Licinius
Crassus. I'm confident that they will be contacting me soon so I can
announce the election results.

Thank you for your patience.

Valete:

Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus
Consul

Thank you for the suggestions for Latin classes. I do intend to follow up.
But with three boys 2, 4, and 6, I unfortunately have less time and energy
than I would like for other pursuits. However Latin is high on my list once
all are in school.

The my name was chosen about a year ago as a Latinization of my name, and I
appear to have gotten my endings mixed. Perhaps "Dominius" would be the
better form.
--

>|P. Dominus Antonius|<

Tony Dah m

Oderint dum metuant - Cicero
Si vis pacem, para bellum - Vegetius

On 5/16/06, A. Tullia Scholastica <fororom@...> wrote:
>
> > ATS: The Academia Thules offers Latin classes which do not require
> > physical presence in class or fees. They do, however, require a good
> bit of
> > work. There are also study groups available online based on various
> texts,
> > notably the common one I am using in my class (now effectively ended)
> and some
> > others. If you want to learn Latin, and cannot absent yourself from
> home,
> > this is the way to accomplish the task...but it will not be either
> > instantaneous or without time and effort on the learner¹s part, time and
> > effort which one must take from other pursuits.
> >
> > Incidentally, Dominus is a rather unlikely nomen, and likely
> forbidden by
> > NR law. Grammatically it is quite questionable in that capacity.
> >
> > Vale, et valete,
> >
> > A. Tullia Scholastica
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I do not see, Valeria, why it is constantly necessary that people are
forced to defend themselves from accusations of chauvinism (explicit
or implied) while you run rampant, expressing chauvinist attitudes of
your own:

"I resent you saying that the resourcefulness of women is nothing more
than a 'vague assertion.' No, it's a fact. Every living woman is proof
of that fact."

You are arguing that not a single woman in the world is lacking in
resourcefulness? You went on to add that it is an historical fact, as
well. Meaning that no women in the world has EVER been without
resourcefulness. Do you find every human being in the world to be
resourceful? If so, then the statement has no value; if not, then you
are merely claiming that (at least some) men are without resourcefulness.

I agree with Dominus, where is your solid evidence? Possibility, even
probability, is not evidence. And in this case I would never afford
the assertion the latter (probability) except in wildly usual
circumstances and certainly not to the tune of 10% of the military
being composed of female soldiers. It is my understanding (someone
correct me if I'm wrong) that to enlist in the Roman legions (not
allied legions) one had to be a Roman citizen. Roman women were under
the protective guardianship of a male citizen at all times in their
life. How then were they able, en mass, to rush off to join the
Legions, for surely these men were not going let valuable property
like women, who could be traded for political alliances, etc., run off
only to commit illegal actions.

Also, vague--yes, vague--references to resourcefulness do not explain
to me how it was possible for these women to disguise themselves in
the ranks of the Roman legions, in close quarters with so many others.
Present some solid evidence and stop hiding behind political
correctness like a shield to shame anyone who proposes that women
quite probability did not serve in the Roman military and certainly
not in any numbers close to what you are proposing. You have the
burden of truth.

-P. Claudius Insomniosus

-----Original Message-----
From: "Maxima Valeria Messallina" violetphearsen@...
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 0:49pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: A reallllly stupid question

"P. Dominus Antonius" <marsvigilia@...> wrote:

<<I have a question for you. If tomorrow someone discovers an ancient
historian who wrote about a previously unknown legion of women
warriors who
fought valiantly at the battle of Such In Such. I will say "Wow. That's
interesting stuff we didn't know before. Having seen some real
evidence, I
now believe that women warriors did fight for Rome." Now here is my
question. Does this somehow make me not a chauvinist. Or am I always
going to
be a chauvinist because I dared ask for evidence, a reference, some
historical fact, rather than relying on vague assertions that "Women are
very resourceful.">>

MVM: I was not the one who wrote you were a chauvinist, so please don't
attribute to me words I did not write.
I will pray to the Gods and Goddesses of Roma that the evidence you so
desparately need will be forth coming.
However, I resent you saying that the resourcefulness of women is
nothing more
than a "vague assertion." No, it's a fact. Every living woman is proof
of that
fact. And a historical fact. History books are full of accounts of the
resourcefulness of women throughout the ages, even in Roman times.

Maxima Valeria Messallina

---------------------------------
Sneak preview the all-new Yahoo.com. It's not radically different. Just
radically better.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Gaous Fabius Buteo Modianus S. P. D.

The results of the Censor election has been sent to me by Custos Titus
Licinius Crassus:

The results have been collected and tallied by the Diribitores and certified
by both Custos and are as follows: With 29 Centuries voting, 28 approved
Marcus Octavius Germanicus, 1 Century abstained and no Centuries rejected.

----

Marcus Octavius Germanicus is elected Censor, and shall complete the term
vacated by former Censor Gaius Minucius Hadrianus Felix.

Valete:

Gaius Fabius Buteo Modianus
Consul


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Congratulations Marcus Octavius! I hereby release you from duties as my
scribe and welcome you as my colleague.

-- Marinus

"David Kling (Modianus)" <tau.athanasios@...> writes:

> Marcus Octavius Germanicus is elected Censor, and shall complete the term
> vacated by former Censor Gaius Minucius Hadrianus Felix.

CN•EQVIT•MARINVS