Ghostly Romans

[Arthes]

Well well
I personally went drinking in this pub during the Chester Roman festival last year!

Over the centuries, both landlords and regulars of the pub have heard the drum of marching feet beneath the floors.

The cheeky blighters never mentioned the Roman marching to me and I was still in kit.
Ho hum I'll have to ask around if I go to Chester next year.

Maybe we should organise some Roman ghost weekends or something, with everyone going in Roman kit, early or late......keep us occupied over the winter months.....lol
Drinker in the pub 'hey listen, can you hear the sound of marching feet and jingling'
Barman 'those ghosts are back'
Drinker 'arrrrrrrrrrgh, they have just come though the door'
Roman '10 bottles of Posca please and 5 packets of cheese and onion- huh, where has everyone gone???'

[falco]

Ok..spent last night as a "Ghost" on the Peterborough ghost walk..last kit was Auxiliary..you try controlling large oval shield on very windy night...still, better than the Monk's habit I had to do a quick change out of( & nearly caused a unfortunate motorist to crash...)

[Arthes]

Greetings,

Ok..spent last night as a "Ghost" on the Peterborough ghost walk..last kit was Auxiliary..you try controlling large oval shield on very windy night...still, better than the Monk's habit I had to do a quick change out of( & nearly caused a unfortunate motorist to crash...)

Fascinating......were the audience expecting you.....or did you just step out of a doorway..... hock:
Large oval shields are hard enough to control on a windy day (especially when quite light like mine)- but make great umbrellas... :wink:
I am intrigued as to why the poor motorist nearly crashed....I have visions of a monk's habit flapping across the road... :roll:
regards
Arthes

[falco]

No,they weren't expecting me...had to lurk & pop out at various places in different kit...bad phrasing on the habit incident..solitary car coming down deserted road by cathedral..headlights caught me in mid-change in what I thought was secluded alleyway..don't know who was more startled,wonder how all the SuperHeroes get used to it......

[floofthegoof]

That would suck to be a ghost from Roman times. Sitting on a moor for 2000 years? Booooring.

[Arthes]

No,they weren't expecting me...had to lurk & pop out at various places in different kit...bad phrasing on the habit incident..solitary car coming down deserted road by cathedral..headlights caught me in mid-change in what I thought was secluded alleyway..don't know who was more startled,wonder how all the SuperHeroes get used to it......

Had to get out of the habit of worrying I suppose..... :lol:
I always remember that Superman film where he ran to a telephone box and found it was one of those open cubicle ones....!!!
regards
Arthes

[Tarbicus]

headlights caught me in mid-change in what I thought was secluded alleyway..don't know who was more startled,..

Blimey, Falco, are you one of those reenactors who goes commando or wears leopard skin undies?!

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

LOL!

(BTW Jim, your tunic rocks!, the answer to the tunic debate!)

[Arthes]

Lulworth Cove, Dorset

Origin: Unknown


Background: Bindon Hill is to the east of Lulworth Cove in Dorset. The Romans landed here before their victory at the Battle of the Drove. This is a Roman Legionnaire's story.


Story: We were victorious in battle and we held the valley for our beloved Emperor thousands of miles away. One foggy night we were marching along Bindon Hill when we lost our footing and the whole legion fell to their deaths on the rocks of Arish Mell below. A sad end for such a brave and victorious army.

If you listen carefully when fog covers Bindon Hill you can still hear our footsteps and the clash of armour.

From: [url:28cvt1la]http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/hauntedplaces/bindonhill.htm[/url]

[falco]

Surely,in the Best Hollywood tradition ,only studded leather underwear for Romans!!...(M&S Boxers,actually.....)

[Arthes]

Scottish Ghosts
by Dana Love
Another sighting of supernatural Romans in the border country has taken place at Newstead, near to Melrose. It was here that Dere Street crossed the Tweed, and an important Roman fortification was established beneath the three summits of the Eildon Hills, hence its Roman name of Trimontium. There have been a good many hauntings here, though few folk have actually seen the spirits. What is experienced are the sounds of the Roman settlement, hammering, banging and sawing, as if they were busy constructing their homes and shelters. The sound of a bugler announcing commands to the soldiers has sometimes been heard, as has the tramp of marching feet. Most of those who have heard the noises have done so in the early evening, when all is still around them.

Roman soldiers have also been seen in spirit form at Dunblane in Perthshire by the author Archie McKerracher. In 1974 he stood outside his house on the outskirts of the town to get some fresh air. It was a dark night, and he could hear the sound of many tramping feet. Over a period of twenty minutes or so the sound seemed to get louder and louder, as though an army was marching past. It did not bother him, though, for he returned inside and went to bed.

A week later Archie McKerracher was visiting and elderly couple who lived on the same estate. They told him that their cat and dog had been frightened by something in the past week, and gazed across the room as though they were watching something. Their evident unease lasted twenty minutes. Further discussion elicited the fact that the animals must have witnessed the scene at the same time as McKerracher. A third witness turned up ten years later when he was giving a lecture on local history. Cecilia Moore had sensed the army marching through her front garden.

Research revealed the fact that in 117 AD the Ninth Hispana Legion had marched through the Dunblane area on the way to putting down a Celtic uprising. They seem to have disappeared in the area, whether killed in a battle or not was never discovered. The housing estate was also known to have been built over two Roman marching camps, and comparison of aerial photographs of the site before development with those after showed that the Roman road passed right through the gardens of the houses concerned.

Taken from:-http://www.invink.com/x98.html

[Robert Vermaat]

Sigh. That stuff about the IX 'disappearing will never ever go away, will it?Mind you, my introduction to all this was Rosemary Sutcliff's 'Eagle of the Ninth', so I probably shouldn't complain..

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

anyone else know of any stories actually from roman times besides pliny's?

[Arthes]

anyone else know of any stories actually from roman times besides pliny's?

[i]About noon a hideous-looking woman entered the mill-house. She was dressed in dirty rags and evinced great grief; I took her for someone accused of a capital crime. She had a patched mourning mantle loosely thrown about her; her feet were naked; her thin face was the colour of boxwood under its coat of filth, and her grey hair, patched with white and daubed with dirty ashes, tumbled down over it. She came up to the baker, took him gently by the hand and pretending that she had something private to tell him, led him aside into the bedroom. She shut the door and they remained together in conference for a long time.
When all the wheat which he had given the men to grind had gone through the mill, and more was needed, they knocked at the bedroom door and called out: ‘More wheat, Master, more wheat!’
No answer.
They knocked more loudly than before, shouting: ‘More wheat Master, MORE WHEAT!’ at the top of their voices.
Silence.
The door had been carefully bolted inside, so suspecting foul play they decided to break it open. One, two, three! With a concerted heave they burst the hinges and toppled into the room.
The woman was nowhere to be seen, but the baker was dangling from a rafter with a rope around his neck. He was quite dead when they cut him down.
They raised the customary howl of mourning and all sobbed for grief; and the funeral took place the same evening, a very large crowd gathering at the grave-side. The next morning the baker’s daughter, who had recently married a man from a a neighbouring village, came running to the mill-house with her hair disordered, weeping and beating her breast; which was remarkable, because no message about her stepmother’s divorce and her father’s suicide had yet reached her. But her father’s pitiful ghost had appeared to her in the night with the noose around his neck, telling her exactly all that had happened, beginning with the stepmother’s adultery and ending with her resort to black magic: how his soul had been bewitched out of his body and forced to descend to the world of shadows. After a time the servants managed to quiet her, and eight days later, when the required sacrifices at the tomb had been completed, she auctioned the mill-house and all its contents â€â€

[Tarbicus]

Satyricon; Vol.2; Ch. 62

"It so happened that our master had gone to Capua to attend to some odds and ends of business and I seized the opportunity, and persuaded a guest of the house to accompany me as far as the fifth mile-stone. He was a soldier, and as brave as the very devil. We set out about cock-crow, the moon was shining as bright as midday, and came to where the tombstones are. My man stepped aside amongst them, but I sat down, singing, and commenced to count them up. When I looked around for my companion, he had stripped himself and piled his clothes by the side of the road. My heart was in my mouth, and I sat there while he pissed a ring around them and was suddenly turned into a wolf! Now don't think I'm joking, I wouldn't lie for any amount of money, but as I was saying, he commenced to howl after he was turned into a wolf, and ran away into the forest. I didn't know where I was for a minute or two, then I went to his clothes, to pick them up, and damned if they hadn't turned to stone! Was ever anyone nearer dead from fright than me? Then I whipped out my sword and cut every shadow along the road to bits, till I came to the house of my mistress. I looked like a ghost when I went in, and I nearly slipped my wind. The sweat was pouring down my crotch, my eyes were staring, and I could hardly be brought around. My Melissa wondered why I was out so late. "Oh, if you'd only come sooner," she said, "you could have helped us: a wolf broke into the folds and attacked the sheep, bleeding them like a butcher. But he didn't get the laugh on me, even if he did get away, for one of the slaves ran his neck through with a spear!" I couldn't keep my eyes shut any longer when I heard that, and as soon as it grew light, I rushed back to our Gaius' house like an innkeeper beaten out of his bill, and when I came to the place where the clothes had been turned into stone, there was nothing but a pool of blood! And moreover, when I got home, my soldier was lying in bed, like an ox, and a doctor was dressing his neck! I knew then that he was a werewolf, and after that, I couldn't have eaten a crumb of bread with him, no, not if you had killed me. Others can think what they please about this, but as for me, I hope your geniuses will all get after me if I lie."

[url:1y8qru1s]http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5219/5219-h/5219-h.htm[/url]