05-06-2019, 07:04 PM
I'm inclined to disbelieve anything reported by the Daily Mail - the comments below the line on this article are exactly what one might expect! Although this looks like it was first in the Telegraph (which isn't much better these days...)
Its not clear what evidence "amateur historian Roger Nolan" has used to identify his camps - did he first decide on that dead-straight line of march between Dover and Wheathampstead, then work out approximate 20-miles intervals, then look for suitable camp-like traces where the dots fell, so to speak?
20 miles a day is Vegetius's march distance 'on good roads' - when advancing into unknown enemy territory the distance would be considerably less (as shown by camp frequency in Scotland, for example).
"Denge Wood appears on old ordnance survey maps as a cattle pen... "There are ramparts and ditches redolent of Roman marching camps elsewhere." - Any ditched enclosure can look a bit like a 'Roman marching camp', but I think we'd need a bit of further corroboration on these...
Its not clear what evidence "amateur historian Roger Nolan" has used to identify his camps - did he first decide on that dead-straight line of march between Dover and Wheathampstead, then work out approximate 20-miles intervals, then look for suitable camp-like traces where the dots fell, so to speak?
20 miles a day is Vegetius's march distance 'on good roads' - when advancing into unknown enemy territory the distance would be considerably less (as shown by camp frequency in Scotland, for example).
"Denge Wood appears on old ordnance survey maps as a cattle pen... "There are ramparts and ditches redolent of Roman marching camps elsewhere." - Any ditched enclosure can look a bit like a 'Roman marching camp', but I think we'd need a bit of further corroboration on these...
Nathan Ross
