+- RomanArmyTalk (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat)
+-- Forum: Research Arena (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Allies & Enemies of Rome (https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/forumdisplay.php?fid=10)
+--- Thread: Sub-Roman Britain (Cavalry etc) (/showthread.php?tid=6780)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 09-21-2010
Quote:Alan,Yes. Not only in Britain but throughout Europe, yet kept alive by monastecism to finally reach a university level. Probably no coincidence that the University of Southern Wales was not-long-ago called "Saint David's."
I agree. Of course, probably fewer and fewer people probably read Latin (or any language) during this period.
Quote:I've read that civilization is a veneer only two generations thick. Which I take to mean that even we could degenerate back to cavemen that fast if all the underpinnings of our culture were removed, Lord of the Flies fashion. But what the consensus seems to be saying here is that the Roman underpinnings of sub-Roman Britain were not kicked away, and in fact are still evident centuries later. Today, even.I'm in favor of the "Three Generation Principle;" it just takes a little longer. :wink: According to recent "end of days" films like The Road or The Book of Eli, the thing starts in one generation.
Quote:What I think I see is a political disintegration which worked against an organized resistance to the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps because the sub-Roman Britons didn't see the Germans as as big a threat as their neighboring tribe, civitas, warlord/kinglet. Just as rival emperors destroyed huge portions of Rome's army fighting each other even as barbarians overflowed the empire's borders.We find it big-time in Gilas. It's the beginning of the end. Then it's repeated in Nennis and Bede; but by then we are 400 years after the fact, then even later. Some of it was pure fancy, like the statement that the Britons were pulled off the Wall with grappling hooks. Even a chimpanzee can avoid a grappling hook. But then again, we see it in the movies-- where some guy watches a flamming arrow arc through the sky and land in his chest. (Must have been Mr. Magoo! 8) )
Quote:So the technology to field a well-equipped, well-organized military, including cavalry, remained, but the focus to do so did not? :?That's a good summation. Nobody forgot how to plant crops or forge a blade. The crofters and craftsmen just shifted allegience, sometimes under (Saxon) pressure, sometimes voluntarily. This is the picture that we never got from historians like Carte (1776) to Morris (1976, or thereabouts). Two centuries of Saxons as rabid baby-killers, all dressed up like Stellen Skarsgaard. :roll:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 09-21-2010
Let it go Alanus, we all know that Linda Melckor ruined what could have been a very good historical pic. :roll: A large army maybe not, well-equiped, more than likely, and the cavalry seems to have been the focus at least under the Ambrosii and "He who I shouldn't name". Anyways I seem to have discovered why Ambrosius Aurelianus seems to have a similar name last name to the British cavalry unit the Equites Scutarii Aurelici, a few pages, maybe five or six, I was informed that its name didn't have to do with a person, but a place. Aurelianum. (IE. Orleans) Taking that, and the fact that Ambrosius the Elder is said to have been from Gaul, could it be that Aurelianus could mean "From Aurelianum"?
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Matthew Amt - 09-21-2010
Sorry, Nicolas, that movie would have sucked if Merlin himself had written the book! The only decent "historical" movie out there (from the ancient or medieval eras, that is) is Monty Python's "Life of Brian". (Well, I like "Robin and Marian", too!) But we REALLY need to keep Hollywood out of this discussion!
Vale,
Matthew
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 09-21-2010
Movies aside, it seems highly unlikely that Orleans was named after the family of Aurelianus, more likely after Marcus Aurelius. From 407 to "the end," the city was controlled by the Alans, first by King Eothar and in the 450s by Sangiban. What I have been championing in the past few posts, is a revised and better understanding to the last stages of "sub-Roman Britain." Certainly Ambrosius played his important part, but the gigantic "Twelve Battles" of Briton vs. Saxon, are not showing up archaeologically. No great fields of bones. And all I'm saying is that the "old" approach was based on conjucture and romantic exaggeration based on legend, not fact.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 09-22-2010
Quote: the gigantic "Twelve Battles" of Briton vs. Saxon, are not showing up archaeologically. No great fields of bones.
They seldom do though. I'm sure that the scrap between William and Harold was the biggest battle on British soil during the whole early medieval period but there's not one jot of archaeology to indicate that thousands of men died there.
And it's not like anyone has made a concerted effort to excavate any of the 12 sites...probably because no one can agree on where any of them were.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 09-22-2010
Hello Matt,
You're correct, and I overstated my case. The soil of Britain isn't the best for archaeological retention, and chances are the expert diggers (not the Rodney Castleton types) are in a state of argument or disbelief. Not surprising, considering the Twelve Battles don't arrive in literature until found in a historically unsound tract. (Nennius. We also have the "dog of What's-his-face," "the son of What's-his-face," etc.)
I just don't think sub-Roman Britain was quite as bloody as Welsh tradition claims it was. We really don't know what happened. When we find Saxon leaders even in quasi-history, and named Cerdic and Cynric, what are we to think? They look like politically displaced Britons out to reclaim lost privaleges, not like braid-bearded baby killers in smelly furs. 8)
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Medicus matt - 09-22-2010
Quote:I just don't think sub-Roman Britain was quite as bloody as Welsh tradition claims it was.
Oh I suspect that it was in terms of frequency, just on a much smaller scale than is reported in written tradition (because the written tradition will just have exagerated the already overblown heroic oral tradition).
It's the same from the other side...the Anglo saxon Chronicle tells us that Hengist and Horsa slew 4000 men at Crayford, Cerdic and Cynric slew 5000 at Netley etc...all with just three ships crews...It's amazing that there any British left to fight at Badon. :wink:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Boom - 09-22-2010
this is my first post here ! sorry to dig up an old post to reply but I see this wrong idea being repeated everywhere.
Quote:(Interesting but off-topic: the deer is also heavily depicted in post-Buddhain northern India, and it has been suggested that the Buddha, who was called Sakamuni, "sage of the Sakas," may have come from a Saka steppe tribe. Not my suggestion, but curious.Buddha was called sakya-muni (the sakya sage).the sakya's (pronounced sak-koh ) were a ruling tribe that lived in eastern India, currently on the borders of Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar. it has nothing to do with the central asian tribe saka. the sakas do not appear in Indian literature for 400 years until after Buddha's death.hock: )
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Gaius Julius Caesar - 09-22-2010
Thanks for the interesting piece of info Boom. Do you have a real name you could put into your signature too?
Welcome to the forum and good first post!
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Boom - 09-23-2010
done.
thanks for the welcome.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Alanus - 09-23-2010
Welcome aboard, Boom. This has become a long thread. Not always informative, but always interesting.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 09-24-2010
Welcome! Be prepared to defend your ideas :lol:
Alanus, I believe you misunderstood me. I don't think the Orleans was named for the Ambrosii, I think the Ambrosii were named for Aurelianum. Think about it, why would a Gaul of a family we've never even heard of have attachments to an ancient senetorial family? And why, if that was indeed the family's repeated name, did his son and grandson have the exact same name? I think it is a designation to remind everyone of where they came from and to give them a legitimate claim to one of the last three "real" Roman alae in Sub-Roman Britain.
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Matthew Amt - 09-24-2010
Quote:Think about it, why would a Gaul of a family we've never even heard of have attachments to an ancient senetorial family? And why, if that was indeed the family's repeated name, did his son and grandson have the exact same name?
But that's how Roman names worked. Gaius Julius Caesar was the son of Gaius Julius Caesar, and I believe *his* father was also Gaius Julius Caesar. The emperor Vespasian was Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and he had 2 sons: Titus Flavius Vespasianus (who became the next emperor, Titus), and Titus Flavius Domitianus, who succeeded Titus as Domitian.
Moreover, when a slave was freed (very common event!), he took the praenomen and nomen of his former owner, with his old personal name adapted to a new cognomen. This was also done by non-Romans who joined the Roman army. So a Thracian named Bassa joined while one of the Flavians was ruling, and became Titus Flavius Bassus. And there would be lots of people with the names of emperors or powerful people. You see lots of 3rd century soldiers named Marcus Aurelius Something, for instance. Oh, you also take someone's name when he adopts you (upper-class men often adopted other adult men, or had themselves adopted, for political purposes), so when Gaius Octavius Thurinus was adopted by Caesar he became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (the future Augustus).
So by the post-Roman era, Ambrosius Aurelianus is no surprise at all. Probably half the kids in his high school had the same name, ha!
Valete,
Matthew
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - ArthuroftheBritons - 09-27-2010
I was aware of that... But wasn't that falling out of practice by the mid-fourth century? Also I doubt Gildas would have considered his name significant if "half the kids in his high school" had it. :lol:
Re: Sub-Roman Britain Cavalry - Boom - 09-28-2010
Quote:Welcome! Be prepared to defend your ideas :lol:not to my death I suppose ? :lol:
thanks for the welcome.