No News like Ancient News – Roman frescoes discovered

[Blackwolf]

And nicely said aecurtis

I love words like "Scythian" that will always confuse us. This is one of those lovely terms we will never fully understand and completely grasp, like "Peltast". Lovely how in our national-state mindset we try to grasp something in absolutes, that was probably a very loose term throughout antiquity.

In one of our excavations in the Northwest of Greece, we found a tombstone with the name Dindylas on it... It doesn't sound Greek to me and the epigraphic experts couldn't place the name. I always wanted to imagine him as a Scythian mercenary.

Lovely thread, Prof!

 Yes it's wonderful,I do the same thing

[Patrice]

For me,my ancients fascination has always been the Sarmatians (no surprise there then... ), and the idea that the Sarmatians were the inspiration for the Arthur myth (Sarmatians were stationed in Britain). An interesting book has been written 'From Scythia to Camelot' by Littleton and Malcor. Some would suggest such a premise is rubbish,I rather like it,and when one deals with Arthur,well,he is  a myth (I think?) so no harm done.

I don't call it rubbish. The Romans sent troops from everywhere as garrisons everywhere else in their Empire, so Asian cavalry in Great Britain would not be surprising. There is no proof and I wouldn't say that all the (so-called) Round Table knights were Sarmatians, but some influence is possible.

Question : where do you think this guy is from?



...Some BoB country? Mongolia? China ?

No his name is P-J Hélias he was a well-known Breton writer in the 20th century, from the "Bigouden" area a small part of south-west Brittany where people have some Asian look. There is no explanation. Perhaps a Late Roman Hunnic garrison was there...? But DNA does not confirm it.

[Blackwolf]

No I don't think it's rubbish either,there definitely were Sarmatians in Britain and Alans in Brittany (which certainly may explain Mr Helias).

[aecurtis]

"Asian cavalry in Great Britain would not be surprising."

The Sarmatians in Britain are well-documented.  In his history of Rome (Book 71), Cassius Dio informs us that after defeating them, Marcus Aurelius packed off 5500 Iazyges to Britain.  It's this event on which Ms.Bradshaw bases her "Island of Ghosts".

The problem is conflating the historical Lucius Artorius Castus of the 180s CE and the mythological "King Arthur".  Castus is interesting: having served as a centurion in four legions, he subsequently became a primus pilus, then a legionary prefect, then a procurator (in Illyricum, where his tombstone documents his achievements).  At one point while still in Britain, he had the title "Dux legionum et alarum Britannicarum" while commanding an expedition against Armorica!

But as a fairly bog-standard infantry soldier who achieved moderate success, and died and was buried in the former Yugoslavia, he doesn't make a very good candidate for a brilliant cavalry leader whose successes were maintained over three centuries of Romano-British tradition as the character, or possibly title, "Artos".  It just doesn't pass the common sense test.

Back to Armorica, Brittany--and the Alans.  I have a soft spot for "my peeps" (that's where the praenomen "Alan/Allan/Allen" comes from, after all)!   I recommend getting one's hands on a copy (probably only through libraries, these days) of Bernard Bachrach's "A History of the Alans in the West; From Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity Through the Early Middle Ages".  It's much easier to make a credible connection from the settlement of Alans in Brittany through to the Breton cavalry accompanying William the Bastard in 1066 (or even Alan Fergant, Duke of Brittany, going with his knights on the First Crusade) than it is to connect Centurion Castus to the "Arthur" of literature.

Allen

[aecurtis]

P.S.  The historical Duke Alan Fergant of the c.11th had an illegitimate son, Brien FitzCount, who was a supporter of Empress Matilda during the c.12th civil war with Stephen.  The historical Brien was transformed into the literary character Brian del Illes in the c.13th Arthurian romance "Perlesvaus", in which he appears as a contemporary of Arthur, Kay, Percival, and the rest--and as an enemy of Arthur.  See what I did there?   

Allen

[Blackwolf]

Yes

[Prof.Witchheimer]

The massive European network of Stone Age tunnels that weaves from Scotland to Turkey

Stone Age man created a massive network of underground tunnels criss-crossing Europe from Scotland to Turkey, a new book on the ancient superhighways has claimed.
German archaeologist Dr Heinrich Kusch said evidence of the tunnels has been found under hundreds of Neolithic settlements all over the continent.
In his book - Secrets Of The Underground Door To An Ancient World - he claims the fact that so many have survived after 12,000 years shows that the original tunnel network must have been enormous.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2022322/The-massive-European-network-Stone-Age-tunnels-weaves-Scotland-Turkey.html#ixzz1oAm0zArj

[Paul]

  From scotland to turkey!!!!  but surely earthquakes etc would have collapsed nearly all of them ?

[Patrice]

Er... it says that there are some in Scotland and some in Turkey. It surely doesn't mean that one tunnel went from Scotland to Turkey?

And from Scotland and Turkey, to Moria too ?

[OSHIROmodels]

I saw a documentary in Japan about those tunnels. Very interesting (well, getting what I could from a rough translation from my wife  ).

cheers

James

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Er... it says that there are some in Scotland and some in Turkey. It surely doesn't mean that one tunnel went from Scotland to Turkey?

And from Scotland and Turkey, to Moria too ?

I wouldn't take all that too seoriously, the author is just trying to earn some money with his book. Till now he just found some old tunnels. Almost every town in Europe has underground tunnels. I wouldn't go so far and claim they're part of a former global europe-wide-net. But certainly an inspiring  idea.

[joroas]

I wouldn't take all that too seoriously, the author is just trying to earn some money with his book. Till now he just found some old tunnels. Almost every town in Europe has underground tunnels. I wouldn't go so far and claim they're part of a former global europe-wide-net. But certainly an inspiring  idea.

I read a book once where they found a new country at the back of a wardrobe............ 

[Prof.Witchheimer]

I read a book once where they found a new country at the back of a wardrobe............ 

damn, you beat me to it! I wanted to post news about it to this thread tommorrow 

[Prof.Witchheimer]

The fate of the Ninth
The curious disappearance of Legio VIIII Hispana

No news on the country at the back of wardrobe today but an interesting article about the famous Ninth Legion
(just an addition to the discussion on the film The Eagle - http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=38856.0)

http://ancient-warfare.com/pdf/web/AWIV-5/fateoftheninth.pdf

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Sibylline Books

The Sibylline Books or Libri Sibyllini were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameters, purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, and consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Republic and the Empire. Only fragments have survived, the rest being lost or deliberately destroyed....

...The story of the acquisition of the Sibylline Books by Tarquinius is one of the famous mythic elements of Roman history. The Cumaean Sibyl offered to Tarquinius nine books of these prophecies; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquinius at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she burned three more and repeated her offer. Tarquinius then relented and purchased the last three at the full original price and had them preserved in a vault beneath the Capitoline temple of Jupiter...

...The Roman Senate kept tight control over the Sibylline Books;[1] Sibylline Books were entrusted to the care of two patricians; after 367 BC ten custodians were appointed, five patricians and five plebeians, who were called the decemviri sacris faciundis; subsequently (probably in the time of Sulla) their number was increased to fifteen, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis. They were usually ex-consuls or ex-praetors. They held office for life, and were exempt from all other public duties. They had the responsibility of keeping the books in safety and secrecy. These officials, at the command of the Senate, consulted the Sibylline Books in order to discover not exact predictions of definite future events in the form of prophecy but the religious observances necessary to avert extraordinary calamities and to expiate ominous prodigies (comets and earthquakes, showers of stones, plague, and the like)...

...The books were kept in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, and, when the temple burned in 83 BC, they were lost. The Roman Senate sent envoys in 76 BC to replace them with a collection of similar oracular sayings, in particular collected from Ilium, Erythrae, Samos, Sicily, and Africa.[citation needed] This new Sibylline collection was deposited in the restored temple, together with similar sayings of native origin, e.g. those of the Sibyl at Tibur (the 'Tiburtine Sibyl') of the brothers Marcius, and others. The priests then sorted them, retaining only those that appeared true to them (Tacitus, Annales, VI, 12). From the Capitol, they were transferred by Augustus as pontifex maximus in 12 BC, to the temple of Apollo Patrous on the Palatine, after they had been examined and copied; there they remained until about AD 405. According to the poet Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, the general Flavius Stilicho (died AD 408) burned them, as they were used to attack his government.

read more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibylline_Books

what a gaming scenario!