Algunas imágenes del ejército romano en el siglo III (235-284)

In this work we intend to offer a clear and concise view of some of the fundamental aspects of the Roman army that emerged from the “Crisis of the Third Century”, a traumatic period full of transformations that altered the structures of the Roman State forever. We will try to show that some of the most important changes of those key moments were linked to the army, from which the basis of well-known Later Roman Empire would emerge, ultimately represented by the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine. En este trabajo pretendemos ofrecer una visión clara y concisa de algunos de los aspectos fundamentales del ejército romano surgido a partir de la “Crisis del siglo III”, un periodo traumático y lleno de transformaciones que alteraron las estructuras del estado romano para siempre. Intentaremos mostrar que algunos de los cambios más importantes de esos cruciales momentos estuvieron vinculados al ejército, del que surgiría la base para la aparición del consabido Imperio Tardío, representado en última instancia por las reformas de Diocleciano y Constantino.

The Roman invasion (c. AD 43)

The chapter reviews the current state of understanding over London’s origins. Most recent studies have argued that London was built as a trading settlement c. AD 50, but the unpublished results of excavations in the City reveal the outline of a fortified Claudian enclosure. This may be the lost fort that the Roman historian Cassius Dio describes as having been established on the banks of the Thames at the time of the Roman conquest. This new evidence is used to suggest that London was founded in the summer of AD 43 and was the place where the Roman army waited on the arrival of the emperor Claudius, before marching on Colchester. The origins of London Bridge are also reviewed, and the argument that a ford existed at Westminster is dismissed as improbable. This is the most authoritative contemporary review of the circumstances that lead to the creation of London, and the closest that we have to a definitive statement on the birth of the city.

Retreat and Treaty

This chapter examines the retreat of the Roman army from Persia to Antioch. The recoil was slow because of permanent attacks by Persian contingents at the expense of serious losses. Moreover, the Romans were suffering from hunger, thirst, and the heat. Somewhat unexpectedly, the Persian king Shapur II offered peace negotiations. The resulting treaty is considered by Ammianus and others, as well as by modern scholarship, as shameful for the Romans because territories and strongholds, including the important city of Nisibis, had to be surrendered. Jovian was being blamed for a bad deal because he wanted to return to Roman soil as soon as possible in order to secure his position as emperor. However, the conditions of the treaty, which are discussed in detail, were not that bad. Rome had to yield Transtigritane regions, fifteen strongholds, and the cities of Nisibis, Singara, and Castra Maurorum, some of which were already de facto but not de jure in Persian possession. In return, Jovian did not have to surrender and was offered a safe return with his complete army to Roman territory. Shapur was adamant about getting back the Transtigritane territories which his grandfather Narses had been forced to surrender to Rome by the treaty of 298/299. The 363 treaty was therefore a return to the situation before the Roman–Persian treaty of 298/299; it restored the balance of power between the Roman and Persian empires, and introduced a long period of relatively peaceful relations between the two empires.

Early concepts of nutrition, digestion, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and their treatment: from Hippocrates and Galen to Maimonides

For over a thousand years, Hippocrates and Galen have been the Alpha and Omega of medical knowledge. Despite the importance of their contributions to clinical and theoretical medicine, they lacked a true understanding of anatomy and physiology. Hippocrates is commonly associated with proposing the doctrine of «tissue fluids», or humoral pathology, and his book, «On the Nature of Man», promotes this point of view. Galen became inherited the knowledge of Hippocrates. Ultimately, he was recognized as one of the most influential physicians of all time. The number of his works was enormous: he wrote more than a hundred books, which were widely distributed. One of Galen’s main commandments was the rule of harmony: all body systems are balanced; disease is a result of an imbalance. As one might expect, some of his ideas, however, were erroneous. Aristotle considered the pancreas, due to its location in the abdominal cavity, as an organ which only task was to protect the adjacent vessels. In an era when unknown diseases wreaked havoc, the concept of known causes of diseases led to the fascination with the study of food poisons and their antidotes. This was common among aristocracy who felt particularly vulnerable to this kind of threats. According to legend, one of the most famous connoisseurs of poisons was Mithridates VI. Pedanius Dioscorides was a Greek who served in the Roman army during the reign of the emperor Nero. The wandering nature of life led him to study a large number of diseases and medicines. The catalogue of his medicinal herbs and plants became the basis for the study and understanding of the medicinal properties of plants. Liver was considered the source of divine prophecy in many ancient cultures. The anatomy of liver was well known in ancient Babylon: a huge number of clay tablets and objects were left, which testify to the importance of «hepatoscopy» in the Middle East as a form of prediction. Those who used the insides of animals for divination (e.g., haruspices — divine interpreters of the future, using the liver as a prediction tool), could be considered the first official anatomists, since the understanding of the future depended on accurate knowledge and interpretation of certain liver components. After the victory of the Assyrian king Sargon over the forces of Urartu and Zikirti in 718 BC, Sargon wanted to appease the gods by sacrificing animals; in doing so, he studied their livers for predictions. Although the concept of pancreas is rooted in ancient times, as evidenced by the comments of haruspices and priests, knowledge of the organ functions eluded humanity until the works by Danish physiologists Francis Sylvius and Regnier de Graaf. Prior to their studies of pancreatic secretion and the elucidation of the role of pancreas in digestion, described by van Helmont and Albrecht von Haller, most researchers focused on the anatomical description of the organ. If the ancient Assyrians and Mesopotamians did not believe that liver predicts the future, but believed that it was pancreas that did it, then pancreatology may have earlier origins. Maimonides, a Jewish scholar and humanist, was also influential in other fields: he condemned astrology and its attempts to calculate the time of the Messiah’s coming. In the field of medicine, he paid attention to prevention, and was interested in the treatment of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. By the beginning of our era, ideas about digestion, diseases of the digestive tract and their treatment remained very vague. There was a long and difficult way ahead in this area.

European Mail Armour

Mail armour (commonly mislabelled 'chainmail') was used for more than two millennia on the battlefield. After its invention in the Iron Age, mail rapidly spread all over Europe and beyond. The Roman army, keen on new military technology, soon adopted mail armour and used it successfully for centuries. Its history did not stop there and mail played a vital role in warfare during the Middle Ages up to the Early Modern Period. Given its long history, one would think mail is a well-documented material, but that is not the case. For the first time, this books lays a solid foundation for the understanding of mail armour and its context through time. It applies a long-term multi-dimensional approach to extract a wealth of as yet untapped information from archaeological, iconographic and written sources. This is complemented with technical insights on the mail maker’s chaîne opératoire.

Correlation between military and domestic architecture: A tribune's house in Aquincum and its place in Roman architecture

The House of the Tribunus Laticlavius, a large building in the legionary fortress of Aquincum, has only been partially excavated, and this was in the 1970s. This short paper makes an attempt to understand its function and find its place in Roman architecture through a reconstruction of its floor plan and comparison with other prominent residential buildings of the period which share similar features. It appears very likely that the house is based on a loose adaptation of a Hellenistic model, tailored to the needs of high-ranking officers of the Roman army.

The Groma and the Gladius: Roman Surveyors in the Later Republic

<p>Boundaries have been a concern for all settled peoples in all times and places. The Romans were no exception to this rule. Literary documents from the second century B.C. right through to the end of the Western Empire in the fifth century A.D. show a continuous preoccupation with the delineation of boundaries and the ownership or control of land. As part of this preoccupation, the Romans developed a complex legal framework for coping with property ownership. To accompany this legal framework, they developed a sophisticated system of boundary marking and land surveying known as centuriation. A great deal of scholarly attention has been expended on understanding both the system of centuriation and the legal framework governing Roman land use. Far less attention has been paid to the social development of the agrimensores or land surveyors who actually carried out the operation of centuriation and dealt with the problems of property disputes in the Imperial period. This thesis will focus on the social identity of the Roman land surveyors with a particular emphasis on understanding their origins in the surveying institutions of the later Republic. To accomplish this study, the thesis will be broken down into three broad chapters, each chapter containing two or three subsections. The first chapter will examine the social identity and evolution of the finitor, who has traditionally been considered the surveyor of the Roman Republic. The second chapter will examine the identity of the agrimensores or mensores in the particular context of the Roman army in an effort to distinguish them from the metatores, three names which have been considered to refer to the same or a similar occupation. The third chapter will examine the mensor in the context of the Roman Republic and trace the social forces that shaped their identity as specialists in land law and surveying.</p>

The Groma and the Gladius: Roman Surveyors in the Later Republic

<p>Boundaries have been a concern for all settled peoples in all times and places. The Romans were no exception to this rule. Literary documents from the second century B.C. right through to the end of the Western Empire in the fifth century A.D. show a continuous preoccupation with the delineation of boundaries and the ownership or control of land. As part of this preoccupation, the Romans developed a complex legal framework for coping with property ownership. To accompany this legal framework, they developed a sophisticated system of boundary marking and land surveying known as centuriation. A great deal of scholarly attention has been expended on understanding both the system of centuriation and the legal framework governing Roman land use. Far less attention has been paid to the social development of the agrimensores or land surveyors who actually carried out the operation of centuriation and dealt with the problems of property disputes in the Imperial period. This thesis will focus on the social identity of the Roman land surveyors with a particular emphasis on understanding their origins in the surveying institutions of the later Republic. To accomplish this study, the thesis will be broken down into three broad chapters, each chapter containing two or three subsections. The first chapter will examine the social identity and evolution of the finitor, who has traditionally been considered the surveyor of the Roman Republic. The second chapter will examine the identity of the agrimensores or mensores in the particular context of the Roman army in an effort to distinguish them from the metatores, three names which have been considered to refer to the same or a similar occupation. The third chapter will examine the mensor in the context of the Roman Republic and trace the social forces that shaped their identity as specialists in land law and surveying.</p>

ROMANS, GAULS, AND GERMANS: METUS HOSTILIS AND ETHNOLOOKISM AS TRIGGERS

В статье исследуются те эмоциональные триггеры, которые на протяжении ряда веков оказывали психологическое воздействие на коллективное сознание римской этнокультурной и политической общности в процессе её противостояния варварству. В этом контексте автор обращается к такому феномену, как лукизм, под которым понимается дискриминация по внешности (применительно к варварам речь идёт о негативном лукизме). Основной материал статьи посвящён этнолукизму как повседневной дискриминационной практике римлян по отношению к северным варварам — галлам и германцам. Тот иррациональный страх, который римляне испытывали перед угрозой галльского или германского нашествия, в значительной степени был обусловлен негативным этнолукизмом. В данном случае роль эмоциональных триггеров играли характерные плащи и брюки, а также высокий рост, телесная мощь, голубые глаза и длинные светлые волосы северных варваров. Преодолевать панический страх по отношению к галлам и германцам римлянам помогал авторитет победоносных полководцев, таких как Гай Марий и Юлий Цезарь. Процесс варваризации римской армии в значительной степени способствовал краху римской государственности на Западе и образованию на месте Западной Римской империи варварских королевств. The article explores those emotional triggers that over the centuries have had a psychological impact on collective consciousness of the Roman ethnocultural and political community in the process of its opposition to barbarism. In this context, the author refers to such a phenomenon as lookism, which means discrimination in appearance (in relation to barbarians we are talking about negative lookism). The main material of the article is devoted to ethnolookism as a daily discrimanatory practice of the Romans towards the northern barbarians — the Gauls and the Germans. The irrational fear that the Romans experienced facing the threat of a Gallic or Germanic invasion was largely due to negative ethnolookism. In this case, the role of emotional triggers was played by characteristic raincoats and trousers, as well as the tall stature, bodily strength, blue eyes and long blond hair of the northern barbarians. The authority of victorious commanders such as Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar helped the Romans to overcome their panic fear of the Gauls and the Germans. The process of barbarization of the Roman army largely contributed to the collapse of the Roman state in the West and the formation of the barbarian kingdoms on the site of the Western Roman Empire.

The Marble Bust of Mithras Tauroctone from Olbia

The article introduces a marble bust of the Mithras deity, which was found in 2010 in a pit of the 2nd — 3rd centuries AD during excavations at the “R-25” sector in the Upper city of Olbia. Based on the iconography of the sculpture, side and frontal holes, with remnants of rust from the iron rods intended for fastening, it should be assumed that it could have been a part of Mithras Tauroctone sculpture, which is slaying the bull. Such sculptural image of Mithras was found for the first time in the Northern Black Sea region, and has analogies in the sanctuaries of the European and Asia Minor provinces of the Roman Empire. At this time the cult of Mithras became widespread among the Roman army, in particular in the Danube provinces, from where, as part of Roman vexillations, it came to the antique centers of the Northern Black Sea area. His veneration in Olbia is confirmed by the finds of four marble votive relief slabs pieces. On the same sector, in the Roman layer, marble statues fragments, architectural details, an altar, and the lower part of a marble relief depicting a horse’s or a bull’s leg were found, which may be the parts of this sculpture, since they are made of the same kind of marble. In the Northern Black Sea region finds of votive slabs, sculptural images of Mithras, and Latin inscriptions dedicated to this deity mark the points of deployment of the Roman troops. The published marble bust may have come from the mithraeum — a sanctuary associated with the cult of Mithras, which appears in Olbia as a result of a stay of the Roman garrison in the city in the second half of the 2nd — first half of the 3rd centuries AD. Since all finds related to the cult of Mithras in Olbia were found on the territory of the citadel, the presence of mithraeum should be assumed in the Upper city.