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Hello Please can someone answer a few questions about the Romans? Sorry if I posted in the wrong area admin!!
I get the impression that the Romans are barbaric and slaughter other nations in a kind of genocide letting no one live and enslaving the prisoners that they caught. I am right in my theory? I know that some where caught and sent to become slaves, and for entertainment but I get the feeling that the Romans are no better than the native population
I have seen some documentaries about roman army. But, the last one I watched was about Caesar and his army must of them had hardly any amour just a spear and helmet along with a shield. Why do I see Romans dressed in full equipment with shiny armour
Was the main cause of the Roman downfall due to lack of money since the time of Nero when Rome was trying its best to rebuild or was it due to the empire been too big? I read that the Romans went out with a wimper nothing special or do we really not know?
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That's certainly one of the conclusions Terry Jones came to in his Barbarians TV series and even better book of the same name. It is an attempt to wade through the pro Roman propaganda that is still commonplace and compare them with their neighbours that they bullied into submission. In most cases very unfavourably.
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From the limited excavations that I have worked on I have not come across a single spear or piece of armour for the romans. What they seemed to have in incredible amounts, and that doest seem to be repeated until the Victorians come up with blue and white ware, is crockery. The roman sites are positively dripping with it and if the site is not positively dripping with crockery it aint roman and possibly some poor local tribe trying to be like the romans. Whether the romans were using the crockery in the suggested massacres I would not like to say. It is all mainly broken which probably resulted from violent impacts. I suspect that it was mainly used to feed people although it could have been in a big feast after or even before the massacre. There have been some recent excavations on the north side of the Humber that have found a remarkable number of complete roman pots placed in ditches. They could have been put there in readiness for an ambush that never happened.
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Very interesting what you both have said. Many thanks for your time and help as I know very little about the Romans and more into Medieval period. I think it is safe to say that they were no worse than the early native tribes of Europe. I still feel they did bring forth new ways of living from both hygiene and welfare of some of its people not all as most seem to have still suffer some kind of poverty. Much like today?
its very interesting that you have not come across spear or piece of armour Unitof1 maybe your luck might change I hope so. Unitof1 you mentioned " There have been some recent excavations on the north side of the Humber that have found a remarkable number of complete roman pots placed in ditches. They could have been put there in readiness for an ambush that never happened"
Could it be a huge trading post between the Iron Age people and the Romans? I think we still have a lot to learn from the Romans camps and forts but you are quite right about the lack of weapons been found might be due to the soil condition, or if a Roman solider dies in war was it taken from him and used by someone else.
Thanks you both for your help and I welcome anymore interesting facts by others
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A couple of years ago i was on a site at Market Rasen,and in one large pit (only a third dug by hand) there was 11 complete Roman grey ware pots in groups of 3, a ditch had 1 whole pot and a gully had another. In the pit i found that the pots must have been carefully placed as they were too tight together to have been dropped! Some time after the site i had chance to talk to Roman pot specialist Maggi Darling who thinks they could have been ritually placed.
Is this a wide spread practice for the period? and has any research been done on it?
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I recall a site at Melton (funnily enough possibly Unitof1's north of the Humber site) where mostly complete RB pots were found in abundance in certain ditches. They may have been deposited complete but ploughing had done its evil work.
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You have to watch out about the ploughing sometimes it could be actual ritual ploughing which might be to do with fertility or turning spears and weapons into ploughs which might be relevant in the massacre possibilities which might symbolise peace and it would be incredible if there was a symbolic killing of the crockery going on. There was a lot of arding going on under long barrows in Cambridgeshire although even if you think that long barrows are houses with thingey entrances I don?t think that anybody should imagine that they had ploy tunnels in the Neolithic although there is evidence that the crockery had to be killed.
DoubleD It?s a pity about only a third dug by hand, was that like a slot across or wedge shaped. I recently got my first roman kiln but only managed to get a 600mm slot through a bit of it
edited because actually it was 480 mm wide slot I had to dig at it side ways
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It was a pie segment slot cut in a complete pit (in plan),the rest was dug after a weeks nagging at Sup. he got the machine in to rip it out and dumped on the side! basically hear you are now you can have a look! surprise surprise there was no more complete pots,what a miracle they all just happened to be where my slot was.
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I bet it was a sandy site?
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Its amazing what disappears when you wave a machine bucket at (un)desired features.
