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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
(12-03-2015, 03:23 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote: There's a note in Ammianus Marcellinus (17.8.1) that the campaigning season in Gaul did not begin until July.

This is perhaps a further argument (assuming the situation was the same in Britain) for Paulinus not commencing his campaign against Mona in March or April 61 - unless he was forced to do it for some reason.

However, if he began it in July 60 he could very well have been concluding his campaign in September.

Ammianus says in the passage mentioned that Julian had to wait until July, when the summer weather succeeded frost and cold, and supplies could be brought up from Aquitaine. Caesar states that the climate in Britain is more temperate than in Gaul as the cold is less severe (BG, 2.1.12). It is, therefore, possible that the campaigning season in Britain began earlier than in Gaul. Of his own actions, Caesar says that, having heard of a potential rising of the Gallic tribes, he raised two legions in Italy and sent them to Gaul in the spring of 57BC. He joined his army himself as soon as forage began to be plentiful. This is where Hesiod may come in, although climatic conditions in Greece in the 7-8th centuries BC may have been very different to those in Britain and Gaul several hundred years later.

(12-03-2015, 03:23 PM)Nathan Ross Wrote: (EDIT - Diodorus does sound sceptical, although there seems to be a note in Hesiod's Works and Days that the main wheat crop should be planted a month after the autumn equinox. So it seems that winter-growing wheat was the main crop throughout the ancient world, as Deryk says. If only one crop was planted, it would have been this one.)

I could not find this passage although, in a highly convoluted text, I could easily have missed it. What I did find was this:

(ll. 383-404) When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising (10), begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set (11). Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea, and who inhabit rich country, the glens and dingles far from the tossing sea, -- strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter's fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season. Else, afterwards, you may chance to be in want, and go begging to other men's houses, but without avail; as you have already come to me. But I will give you no more nor give you further measure. Foolish Perses! Work the work which the gods ordained for men, lest in bitter anguish of spirit you with your wife and children seek your livelihood amongst your neighbours, and they do not heed you. Two or three times, may be, you will succeed, but if you trouble them further, it will not avail you, and all your talk will be in vain, and your word-play unprofitable. Nay, I bid you find a way to pay your debts and avoid hunger.

(10) Early in May.
(11) In November.


However, he does not seem entirely to rule out planting in the spring:

(ll. 458-464) So soon as the time for ploughing is proclaimed to men, then make haste, you and your slaves alike, in wet and in dry, to plough in the season for ploughing, and bestir yourself early in the morning so that your fields may be full. Plough in the spring; but fallow broken up in the summer will not belie your hopes. Sow fallow land when the soil is still getting light: fallow land is a defender from harm and a soother of children.

If any of this is relevant, it could, perhaps, support the idea of the rebellion breaking out in March or April, when a crop planted in November would not have been harvested in May and the planting of a crop in March or April for harvesting in September or October had been neglected.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM
RE: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand. - by Renatus - 12-04-2015, 05:42 PM

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