Adrian Goldsworthy & Harry Sidebottom - my 2 favorite British novelists-historians in conversation

 Salvete Omnes,

a short entry - 

happy to call out that we can watch my two most favorite British historian-novelists in conversation on Adrian Goldsworthy's podcast on Yt. 

*

Yesterday I started listening to the new non-fiction book by Harry Sidebottom on the iconic figures of the ancient Rome - the gladiators and their world in 24 h.

Scuola gladiatoria in Carnuntum

* the list of gladiator types but my favorite book is this one by Konstantin Nossov (from Osprey Military Pub.), numerous illustrations by Vladimir V. Golubev. Francois Gilbert also has two books on the gladiators from the IV c.BC to VI c.AD(Elite series from OspreyM.P.), with plates by Giuseppe Rava. Roger Dunkle, Gladiators, Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome. 
There is also a non-fiction book by Tony Sullivan, The Real Gladiator. The True Story of Maximus Decimus Meridius.  Or several books on Spartacus and the Roman Servile Wars. 

eques gladiators

and the present day European reenactors from Nimes, Trier, Carnuntum etc.

eques or a mounted gladiator reenactor

.

.

*

Valete

Sauromatae virgin warriors by Hippocrates

 Salvete Omnes,

 

 The ancient Skuda, Skula, Skolotai, Saka (Skify,Σκολότοι, Skithian, Scythians, Skudra, Sogdian, Скифы, Скіфи, Саки, Scytowie, Sakowie ) or the Archers of the Eurasian Steppe were dreaded second wave of mounted horse-archers, after the Cimmerians, in the ancient Western Asia. 

 

But for the ancient writers the image of the armed and mounted young woman was especially or perhaps extremely untypical, intriguing, astonishing  and perhaps exiting.  So today we will quote an ancient writer about the virgin warriors of the steppes - the Sauromatae ha-mazan.

I have not quoted on these paged the so called father of medicine or Psuedo-Hippocrates (Hippocrates 2), a Kos/Cos-born Greek medical writer and doctor of the second half 400s BC and first quarter of the 300s BC. (460BC-375BC) who left some interesting observations or perhaps more like some tall tales about the ancient Skuda from beyond the Don River in the vastness of the Scythian Desert. 

In one  his medical treatises titled 'On Airs, Waters and Places' Hippocrates provided some curious glimpses into the world of the nomadic warriors and wanderers, whether he traveled there or read it somewhere and included it into his writing we simply don't konw. 

First in this quotation  the country of the nomads, in his Greek world view (part XVIII):

What is called the Scythian desert is a prairie, rich in meadows, high-lying, and well watered; for the rivers which carry off the water from the plains are large.
There live those Scythians which are called Nomads, because they have no houses, but live in wagons.The smallest of these wagons have four wheels, but some have six;
they are covered in with felt, and they are constructed in the manner of houses, some having but a single apartment, and some three; they are proof against rain, snow,
and winds. The wagons are drawn by yokes of oxen, some of two and others of three, and all without horns, for they have no horns, owing to the cold.
In these wagons the women live, but the men are carried about on horses, and the sheep, oxen, and horses accompany them;
and they remain on any spot as long as there is provender for their cattle, and when that fails they migrate to some other place.
They eat boiled meat, and drink the milk of mares, and also eat hippace, which is cheese prepared from the milk of the mare. Such is their mode of life and their customs.

Now, the Sauromatae virgin warriors of Palus Meotis (Meotis Swamp or the Don Delta):
Part XVII
In Europe there is a Scythian race, called Sauromatae, which inhabits the confines of the Palus Maeotis (for this is the boundary of Europe and Asia*), and is different from all other races. 

 

Their women mount on horseback, use the bow, and throw the javelin from their horses, and fight with their enemies as long as they are virgins; and they do not lay aside their virginity until they kill three of their enemies, nor have any connection with men until they perform the sacrifices according to law. Whoever takes to herself a husband, gives up riding on horseback unless the necessity of a general expedition obliges her. They have no right breast; for while still of a tender age their mothers heat strongly a copper instrument constructed for this very purpose, and apply it to the right breast, which is burnt up, and its development being arrested, all the strength and fullness are determined to the right shoulder and arm.

 

 

 A short but informative entry on the fabled Amazons or ha-mazan on Encyclopedia Iranica page.

It appears that Hippocrates had some very negative views on the horseback riding and its effects on the human body - and according to his writing  the  ancient nomadic Scythians were affected negatively by horseback riding up to causing them impotence, which is curious since in Thessaly , where Hippocrates eventually died according to sources, and in Macedonia the aristocratic warriors rode more than walked, and Thessalians were the fabled horsemen of the ancient Greece (no Osprey about their horse, but about the Italian Greek horse, sadly).

ps

Perhaps I should bring here the writings by Herodotus on the Sauromatae.

 all images come from Wiki Commons

 *part XIII

 

 

Valete

Roman chariots and chariot racing etc

Salvete Omnes,

and since yesteryear  we have had the brand new month of February, and new post in the older theme - the ancient Roman vehicles etc.
This time a few images showing the Roman quadriga or 4-horse chariot - the most extreme of the Roman vehicle use for the specator show and pleasure - Academia article on the topic here - with the driver or charioteer having a short but perhaps if victorious then almost very celebrity-like moment in time.
Rome's Circus Maximus was the most famous ancient Roman chariot racing stadium.

Let us start with some of the Roman mosaics-
Barcelona, Spain - circus 
 

 Villa Roman del Casale

Lugdunum - musée gallo-romain de Fourvière - in Lyon





stone relieves and  funerary monuments - sarcophagi etc

 



 
Napoli, Italy Museum


Finally, some modern connections and reconstructions  have been developed for the film - mostly due to the amazing popularity of the American Christian novel titled Ben-Hur, A Tale of The Christ by Lew Wallace, the most popular novel of the XIX century .
there has been attempts at reconstruction of the Roman chariot racing - in the feature movies like Ben Hur (3 version - 1925,1959 & 2016, all spectacular and ahistorical but I do prefer the Charlton Heston's version, there was a short film made in 1907, can be viewed here) -  and in more documentary fashion lately the Timelines' production on the  Chariot Racing.

Also, last year  the author and equestrian reenactor Mike Loades  developed his new video production  on the Roman circus chariots and it can watched here. I am yet to watch it ..

Valete
ps
all images are from Wiki Commons

Ancient Roman carriages etc

Salvete Omnes,
we will travel to the ancient Rome and the wider Mediterranean world and will take a look at the Roman vehicle traveling on the famous Roman roads. 

 So this is this rather  short entry on the vast and interesting subject of the  ancient Roman vehicle and its types and varieties -  here the excellent article (and much more in other chapters) by Dr Judith A. Weller titled Roman Traction Systems.
Below various images on Wiki Commons -

 Roman carriage
 
 (replica, more photos here)
 
Some o the vehicles - carts, chariots, wagons and carriages listed below:
horse, mule or oxen oxen carried litter known as 
-basterna

I . Singel axle vehicles

-biga
-birota
-essedum
-cisium (fast traveling 2 person vehicle)
-covinnus
-carpentum
-plaustrum (two wheels)

- quadriga



II .   the second category was the  2 axles (four wheels) vehicles, drawn by horses, mules or oxen:
 

-plaustrum(4 wheels)

-sarracum (serracum)
-carrus
 -carrus arcuatus
 -carrus triumphalis
 -carrus falcatus
-carruca (dormitoria)
-petorrium
-pilentum


Post and mail carriage
-rheda
-angaria
 
and some other types or Roman vehicles
-arcera
-capsum
-benna
-labula (military wagon)

-labularium (military wagon)

-tensae/thensae

Carpentum (Eon Images)


 Nota bene the town dwellers who had money to rent a vehicle they could do it from a cisiarius.
they were slaves or free men who would be driving the hired vehicle, and they were notorious for driving very fast the cisium, covinnus or even rheda carriages.
Those cisiarii (banded into a profession) located at the livery stables  at the town gates, although perhaps also having offices at the mansio (inn) - there were more or less 1 mansio  per 4 mutationes (mutatio or hostel), were spread out in towns along the Roman roads or cursus publicus, and for example Julius Caesar hired a carriage to travel from Rome to Rhone and allegedly his hired coach traveled the distance of some 1,200 kilometers in just 8 days .
 another example or Roman travel - in 38 or37 BC poet Horace traveled along with Octavian's envoy Maecenas  from Rome to Brindisi and wrote about this,  in his poem Sermones or Satirae 1.5.

Valete

ps
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities John Murray, London, 1875. - web version. - where many of the named vehicles are listed and explained with the primary literary and iconographic sources.