The Last Of The Trojans

Most of us born and raised in the Western traditions will have heard of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans .....

Achilles v Hector - Trojan War

It was written about by many Greek authors, most notably Homer in the Iliad (with its companion piece with the Odyssey), an epic poem (like Beowulf in the later Anglo-Saxon tradition) to be recited at Bronze and later Iron age Greek warlords and Kings courts.

Hadrian Was Here

Gelt Forest, near Brampton in Cumbria, was once a Roman Quarry and was used to get stones for the building, rebuilding and repair of Hadrian's Wall.

Hadrian's Wall As It Looked

We know this because in the 18th century, graffiti was found which had been carved by Roman legionaries around 207AD and almost certainly before (The Wall was built from 120AD onwards).

Treasure Of The Neibelung

When I developed an interest in classical music, I naturally came across the The Song of the Nibelungs aka 'Nibelungenlied', which is a high German epic poem about a dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, and the tale of how he was murdered and of his wife Kriemhild's terrible revenge.

The Legend Of The Rheingold

As a part of the tale, a golden hoard is stolen from Kriemhild, and it is thrown into the Rhine where its known as the 'Rheingold'.  

 

Falsa Romani

After spending a week watching Britannia dragged through the gutter by the new Barbarians, it was ironic that the other story that caught my eye was one of false Romans.

A Familiar Sight Outside of The Coliseum

 

I love these tales of role players getting carried away.

Rome Surrenders Its Secrets

Yet more archaeological wonders have been uncovered in Rome, joining those that I have posted on earlier in the year.

Firstly, Nero's revolving dining room (it moved 24 hrs a day, driven by water pressure, and always facing the sun) has been discovered ...... they sure knew a lot about water management in Roman times.

Private British Amphitheatre

and Secondly, a large 'private' Roman amphitheatre has been uncovered inside a gigantic imperial-style palace, within the well-preserved old harbour of Portus. The arena is believed to have been able to hold up to 2,000 people and been used for gladiator games or animal baiting.

Archaeologists claim that the complex is much under rated as it is "one of the most important archaeological sites in the world" and should be rated alongside "such wonders as "Stonehenge and Angkor Wat in Cambodia".

Oddly enough this week also saw more discoveries at Stonehenge .... Archaeologists have discovered the site of an older 5,000 yr old mini-Stonehenge, a mile from the site of Wiltshire's famous stone circle which has been called "Bluehenge"

A Strange Anniversary

This week saw the anniversary of the defeat by Arminius and the Germans, of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Teutoborg forest in Germany in 9 AD. I mention it, because there are those who still believe that the events of that defeat set the course of European history for the next 2,000 yrs.

That the division of Europe into a Romanised West, a German middle Europa, and a Slavic East, was direct result of that few days so long ago. Whether the fact that Germany remained outside the Empire was good (as 19th and 20th German Nationalists believed), or bad, as those who think a German race with a long history of being inside the Roman Empire would have followed a very different path in the 20th century think, is purely a matter of conjecture.

However, I think its unarguable that the Roman Empire would have been considerably stronger if the Germans had been inside its borders. The Eastern portion of the Roman Empire only fell to the Turks in 1453 AD, whereas the Western portion of the Empire fell a thousand years earlier in 476AD, mainly to Germanic tribes.

One look at the map shows that if Germania Magna up to the Elbe had been in the Empire, a massive buffer province would have been created, with large amounts of manpower and a huge influence right into the east of Europe, with who knows what long term consequences.

As it was, the defeat took away the eastward ambitions of Augustus, and although the Germans paid a very heavy price for their victory, as Roman armies regularly crossed the Rhine and devastated Germany for several hundred years (think of the opening scene in the film Gladiator), they never again tried to conquer the region between the Rhine and the Elbe.

Maybe if the Emperor Trajan had gone to Germany rather than Dacia, it might have been achieved, but Germany had no gold, whereas the more civilised Dacians did ... ah well on such facts history is made.

Wiping England from History

There was news recently that Roman coins had turned up on a beach in Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland (which was outside the Roman Empire), and the excitement this had caused amongst local Historians and Archaeologists.

 

Roman Empire

 

Personally I don't find the idea so exciting or strange as Roman trade was well beyond the boundaries of the Empire, and coins have been found as far afield as East Africa (Imperial coin found Nairobi), India, Ceylon (The Roman coins are certainly known to have been found in Ceylon, beginning with Emperors Nero and Vespasian), Vietnam and China, so 30 miles away from mainland Britain seems nothing odd.