Based on the Twitter recommendation of JeffTMM, and the fact “Game of Thrones” was still 15 minutes away, we tuned in “A.D. The Bible Continues” for a while Sunday night. Jesus asked Peter if he, Peter, loved him. Of course, Peter replied.
“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus said. He asked the question again, and got the same answer. “Feed my sheep,” he tells Peter.
Alan said, “Feed my dog.”
Cracked me up.
Why are so many biblical dramatizations so awful? Actually, they pretty much all are — Jesus is too pretty and everyone’s teeth are too white. All the poetry is lost. It’s like the opposite of “The Godfather,” in which a pulpy, craptastic story was turned into a spectacular, operatic movie. These shows take the greatest story ever told and turn it into bad community theater.
I will say, though, that I never come away from these things unimpressed with the Roman soldiers. The ones in “A.D.,” etc. had breast plates with nipple rings on them. Yes, little rings dangling from the nipple part of the armor. I guess it’s so you can tie a rabbit’s foot there, or your keys.
I know Rome was wealthy, but is it possible every Roman soldier had identical fighting gear? The production of all those leather minis and brush helmets must have been a logistical nightmare.
I just figured out why the centurions wore those brush helmets. So their men could pick them out on the field of battle, right? Plan for retirement, should it ever come: Read up on that stuff.
Oy, what a day. Driving, meetings, then another meeting via speakerphone, which is only marginally better than driving nails into your palms, but does have the advantage of a mute button.
So let’s get to the bloggage, which is, coincidentally enough, mostly blogs:
Neil Sternberg bought some shoes. And wrote about them.
Gin & Tacos on the increasingly tiresome call-out culture.
Some simple rules for eating. I know, I know — to add to the million previous simple rules for eating. But they’re good rules.
Monday is over, so bring on Tuesday.
ROGirl said on April 21, 2015 at 5:35 am
I’m seeing the call-out culture in a different context with my recent experiences in corporate America. People are taking great umbrage when they hear something they don’t like, and their immediate response is to have the other person fired. It has become a zero-sum game. I have seen it in several workplaces. I was on the receiving end in one case and was forced to resign ahead of being canned, but I saw it happen to someone else, too.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 21, 2015 at 6:58 am
We’re not likely to see another Pasolini do a “Gospel According to St. Matthew” in our generation — the expectations, let’s say, are low. I thought the Pilate was an interesting portrayal, and Caiaphas was less the ham-fisted thug you usually get.
It took Nancy’s ironic view to point out to me the puzzle of nipple rings on Roman breastplates, which is, on reflection, incomprehensible. But I’m sure they had some no-bid contract with an exiled former senator still having connections to mass produce legionary gear in an oppressive workshop in Dalmatia. Stamping out those leather skirt things and cutting winding straps above the sandals out of goat skin instead of the leather from cattle called for in the specs from Rome. Pilate was hoping for one of those deals someday, if he could just get out of Judea without any more letters of reprimand in his personnel file from silly old Tiberius.
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Basset said on April 21, 2015 at 7:31 am
Quality shoes, I suppose, but they sure are ugly. I have to agree with the 7:04 am comment on part one.
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alex said on April 21, 2015 at 8:00 am
I once bought a sales-rack pair of Allen Edmonds shoes and they were the best ever. Mine didn’t have garish red stitching. They were an elegant, low-profile cap toe oxford that were perfect for dressing up and were comfy from the git-go. Ordinarily I buy Johnston & Murphy dress shoes, and those aren’t cheap but they inevitably hurt like hell and have my feet covered in Band-Aids for the first week or two when they’re new. But once broken in, they last two or three times as long as any crap-ass Cole-Haans.
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beb said on April 21, 2015 at 8:36 am
Nipple rings on the breastplates of Roman armor? That is so high-level fetishism. Though on par with the molded in nipples on Batman’s costume (George Clooney version.)But it all reminds me of a complaint made about female Storm Trooper costumes. They all come with a pair of enormous mounds to high the boobs under. But, as someone with more interest in actual armor noted, the goal of a breastplate is to direct the enemy’s weapon off the body. So a breastplate ought to be a smooth, unobstructed curve and not one with a blade-catching valley in the middle. Those nipple rings, likewise would snag the enemy’s sword instead of deflecting them away.
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BethB said on April 21, 2015 at 8:36 am
I guess I thought I never needed to care what shoes a president wore to his inauguration or on any other occasion. I also don’t care what anyone is wearing as long as I think it looks good for them and the event. I hate hearing Red Carpet commentators asking stars, “Who are you wearing?” It makes me want to look closely to see if I am missing the fact that they have another person attached somewhere that I cannot see. I would prefer they not ask at all or phrase it, “Who designed your dress?” I love looking at pictures of what everyone wears at any event, but I could care less who designed, made, or created it. I probably am in the minority on that, though.
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Suzanne said on April 21, 2015 at 8:37 am
I watched a bit of A.D. Which seemed marginally better than the Bible mini-series of last year that featured ninja Angels. I agree that these movies always fall flat and the beautiful teeth thing is something that bothers me with so many historical dramas. I only saw the Pentecost ninja tower of flame descend on the Disciples as they prayed part of AD & a few minutes of the aftermath where some Christians were killed. The Roman soldiers’ armor looked a little too perfect, a little to factory production made, like their teeth. I didn’t notice the nipple rings, which I am thinking should have been un-missable.
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Wim said on April 21, 2015 at 8:44 am
I seem to recall–from church elder reaction to pop culture like ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘Godspell’ and even antique fare like ‘The Ten Commandments’ and ‘The Bible’–that there was a time when attempts to portray gospel in film were condemned as sacrilege, at least among the humorless and apostate sects my people favored. They probably would have found ‘The Passion of the Christ’ just as offensive as ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ come to think of it. The word ‘Papist’ would have come up a time or thirty. They couldn’t even sit through ‘Ben-Hur.’
For reasons that would be tedious to explain, I once had to study Roman armor. The History Channel used to have Sander Vanocur asking people if selected movies were ‘history or Hollywood?’ They were always Hollywood. So is fruity armor with pierced nipples and pleated leather skirts and strap-wound sandals.
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Snarkworth said on April 21, 2015 at 9:55 am
I remember watching Roots, and being impressed that a downtrodden slave woman (played by Leslie Uggams) could pull off such a perfect manicure.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 21, 2015 at 10:09 am
Hoping this link is visible even to non-Facebooking folk, but thought I should post it because we’re such a Great Lakes community (with all due respect to Montana, California, and points beyond…), and it’s just cool —
https://www.facebook.com/AIRSTATVC/posts/451782714988399
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alex said on April 21, 2015 at 10:14 am
I remember watching Star Trek and being impressed that millennia from now women would be styling their hair and makeup the way they did it in 1968.
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Deborah said on April 21, 2015 at 10:14 am
My parents took us to see the Ten Commandments when I was seven. I was terrified for weeks after that smokey green fingers would come wafting down our street. I went to see The Greatest Story Ever Told with my Dad and sister when I was in high school. The thing I remember most about it is my sister crying like a baby, not silent tears and muffled sniffles but out and out waa waa waa. I was so embarrassed.
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brian stouder said on April 21, 2015 at 10:44 am
Speaking of great stories, here’s a darkly humorous one, right down to the victim’s name
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/police-woman-killed-farmer-husband-buried-manure-30469207
How many times has my lovely wife (who is having a birthday today!*) contemplated how satisfying it might be to plug me, and then bury me in a pile of manure?
*She’s officially ‘29’
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john not mccain said on April 21, 2015 at 10:52 am
“I remember watching Star Trek and being impressed that millennia from now women would be styling their hair and makeup the way they did it in 1968.”
Everybody knows the 23rd century was all about retro-style, even or perhaps especially when it made for less efficient function.
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Deborah said on April 21, 2015 at 11:06 am
Happy 29th Mrs, Stouder!
I’ve been noticing that eye make up is going retro again. When I was in NYC in late January I saw a lot of young women with really heavy eye make up. Now it seems to be everywhere. What goes around comes around.
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BigHank53 said on April 21, 2015 at 12:21 pm
If you re-watch Uncommon Valor it’s impossible to miss the ridiculous teeth of the rescued POWs. Ten years in captivity but the VC have been making sure they brush and floss daily.
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FDChief said on April 21, 2015 at 1:40 pm
There’s a whole field of archaeology around Roman armor, and so as such I can’t even pretend to be familiar with the scholarship. But I feel fairly confident saying that the nipple rings are a product of the prop room, not the archaeology.
Even though I haven’t watched the show I feel fairly confident predicting that the nipple rings are on the officers’ armor, a fruity Hollywood version of the Lorica Musculata. This stuff turns up on various artistic depictions of soldiers from the ancient world (such as Trajan’s Column) but my understanding is that most serious historians believe that it was a parade uniform that in reality was worn by a small number of guard units. Officers in 1st Century Judea? Not.
And I’ll also bet that the Roman EMs are shown wearing that hoop armor (the so-called Lorica Segmentata, tho apparently no one knows what it was really called…) which is another Hollywoodism; again, the archaeology and most historians suggest that Eastern legions probably wore some version of scale or lamellar armor (Lorica Squamata) or chainmail (Lorica Hamata).
My understanding is that the 1st Century Roman Army was similar to the modern U.S. Army in that its equipment was produced by civilian contractors; not until the 3rd Century AD did actual government manufactories appear to supply the forces. The legion would have had a number of local contractors making their kit, and apparently repairing what they had – finds have included armor that showed signs of alterations or repairs made some time after the original construction – who were, apparently, given some sort of pattern or guidance that showed what the “issue” arms and armor were supposed to look like. So there was SOME uniformity. But armor in particular was expensive and hard to make, so it tended to be kept around and re-issued even after newer models were introduced.
So in a typical Roman squad in Jerusalem circa 30AD you’d probably have found a couple of guys with mail, another maybe one or two with the hoop-armor and a bunch more with scale armor. But that’s hard on the prop person and not the Hollywood image, so instead we get the Hollywood version.
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FDChief said on April 21, 2015 at 1:50 pm
And speaking of military dress, the helmet-crest thing has always made me suspicious. Wearing a big honkin’ brush on your hat always seemed to me to be a good way to get picked on in combat, or get your self hurt either through catching something or someone’s sword in it or just making it harder to look around.
Most troops know their officers’ and sergeants’ voices and know them by sight. In a preindustrial army like Rome’s they also would have known where those officers would be when in combat formation. So the point of wearing a fancy hat seems to offer fewer advantages than disadvantages, and it’s my guess that the plume was kept in the locker for parades and field-days…
Of course, given that Jerusalem wasn’t a combat post at the time, it’s entirely possible that the soldiers, including their officers, would be wearing their “garrison” uniform so the plume might have been stuck on just to impress the local girls…
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Bitter Scribe said on April 21, 2015 at 2:12 pm
Maybe Christians should be like Muslims and ban all visual depictions of God, Jesus, etc. It would have prevented a lot of bad movies and TV shows.
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nancy said on April 21, 2015 at 2:22 pm
This is the point where I should reveal I once knew — in the extremely casual sense of the word — a gay couple who restored a magnificent old Victorian near a hospital in Columbus. The hospital ladies’ auxiliary was always borrowing it for fundraisers and such, which is why they had a custom drapery covering the wall behind the bar in one of the conservatory rooms. When the ladies weren’t there, they pulled it back and revealed the homoerotic mural of Roman soldiers lounging around in various states of undress, most with casual half-masters or full erections, some with cock rings, a few with their fetching brush hats.
My first introduction, as a very young woman, to the cult of Roman-army erotica.
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brian stouder said on April 21, 2015 at 2:34 pm
See – and all the only thing that Roman art is guilty of, is being straight-forward (so to speak)
Modern military erotica seems to focus on long rifles, long barrels, long tall ships, and jumbo submarines (that can fire it’s load while submerged)
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 2:44 pm
We need to know more about you, FDChief.
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Dexter said on April 21, 2015 at 2:50 pm
The counterman at my regular convenience store asked how my day was going last Thursday. I told him I had just returned from the eye doctor, having been examined for new glasses. He said ,”Oh yeah, those are coming back in style.” He had thought the ones I was wearing, a 13 year old pair I keep in the van for night driving at times, were my new ones. And how many times have wire rims come into fashion, disappeared, and re-surfaced? I know that the ugliest glasses ever, women’s octagonal frames with bows that hook onto the bottom area of the thick plastic frames…no way will they ever come back in style. Think Dustin Hoffman’s ‘Tootsie’.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 21, 2015 at 2:50 pm
FDChief — not sure about that. The legation’s base at that time was Caesarea Maritima, and they had to escort Pilate twice a year to Jerusalem, where they might well have been on either a full-dress or ready-for-action status, but not garrison gear.
I’ve learned lots of odd trivia about why certain uniform parts are what they are, but I’ve never known what the deal was with the brush on the helmet. I was thinking it was really more of a horsehair plume, so it was thick enough to blunt a blow — like the padding we put inside a modern helmet, but on the outside. Cushion the shock, allow them to keep wading forward. Anyhow, they would have been brown or black, and more of a tuft than a scrub brush.
The main thing I like/liked in A.D. and is worth remembering in understanding Pilate’s actions: he was already on double-secret probation for how he handled angry mobs in Jerusalem a few years earlier. And he hated the place, just wanted back to Caesarea by the Mediterranean, because he wasn’t stupid. He, his wife, the legion with him, just wanted to get through another spring break mob scene without having to slaughter hundreds again, and get in trouble for having done so (again). That side of the tensions around what we now call “Holy Week” and the weeks after is nicely presented in the storyline. And if the special effects seem cheesy, I have to admit I liked the touch of having a visual echo between the Resurrection visual, and the Pentecost one. It worked for me. The smouldering looks and stilted delivery doesn’t seem any worse than “Game of Thrones.” No dwarf, but we do get Peter’s granddaughter for dramatic asides.
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brian stouder said on April 21, 2015 at 2:51 pm
And here’s an interesting article, about “Gloomy” Don McLean and the day the music really died.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/08/gloomy-don-mclean-reveals-meaning-of-american-pie-and-sells-lyrics-for-1-2-million/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_2_na
“People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity,” McLean said in an early interview, as the Guardian reported. “Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time.”
But what state was that? It seemed like the song’s cast of characters — which include a jester, a king, a queen, good ol’ boys drinking whiskey and rye as well as “Miss American Pie” herself — were meant to represent real people. The song includes references to Karl Marx; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (or, more likely, John Lennon); the Fab Four; the Byrds; James Dean; Charles Manson; the Rolling Stones; the “widowed bride,” Jackie Kennedy; and the Vietnam War.
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 2:59 pm
“the “widowed bride,” Jackie Kennedy”
What? I thought that was a reference to Buddy Holly’s wife.
I think I’ve said it before here – you know you’re a boomer if you can remember every word to American Pie but can’t remember where you left your keys.
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Dorothy said on April 21, 2015 at 3:36 pm
I agree, Sue. It’s got to be about Mrs. Holly. Jackie was not a bride in 1963, but you could consider Mrs. Holly one. They were married just six months when he died in the plane crash.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
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brian stouder said on April 21, 2015 at 3:38 pm
That is a sad, somewhat angry (and altogether memorable!) song.
It is striking that such ‘shattered innocence’ (or disillusionment, or whatever) could be credible in the ’60’s and ’70’s – considering the absolute end-of-the-world catastrophe that was the 1940’s; and the tense 1950’s that followed
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Jolene said on April 21, 2015 at 4:13 pm
Speaking of American Pie, David Letterman is hosting some of his favorites during the last few weeks of his show. Last week, one of those favorites was John Mayer singing all the verses of American Pie. Very well done.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=8vcau75JJ2w
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Suzanne said on April 21, 2015 at 4:56 pm
“…you know you’re a boomer if you can remember every word to American Pie but can’t remember where you left your keys.”
Absolutely! And you know you are really in trouble if you can’t remember either!
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MichaelG said on April 21, 2015 at 5:27 pm
When I was in training in the Army in Fort Gordon, GA, they had us try some experimental shit that involved wearing a helmet with a little eight inch antenna sticking up on top. Every time that antenna would move, one’s head would move in counterpoint so that your head would be moving like a bobble head. Boing, boing. It was awful. I’ve often wondered if stuff like those brushes one sees on Roman helmets in movies would cause a similar reaction. Also I agree that calling attention to one’s self in combat as a leader would be dangerous. Look at contemporary US Army uniforms. Those two factors would incline me to believe that the brush stuff would be for dress or parade uniforms.
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 5:54 pm
So, journalists, what’s this all about?
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a34501/the-death-of-political-journalism/
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MarkH said on April 21, 2015 at 6:04 pm
The reason for the helmet brush was so we could all have a great laugh in the 20th century.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqAUiUDyFlY
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 6:17 pm
MarkH, I’m currently making this for my husband. By his request.
http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/crocheting/accessory/alvie-the-alien/15827?_ctp=15827&_ct=iuqhsx-kdyluhiqb-huikbj-fqjjuhd&NAVIGATION_PAGE_CONTEXT_ATTR=PATTERN
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MarkH said on April 21, 2015 at 6:33 pm
Perfect, Sue; I’ll take one! 🙂
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Sherri said on April 21, 2015 at 6:37 pm
What I don’t understand about “Clinton Cash” is, after Citizens United, what difference does it make? It’s now possible to put unlimited amounts of money into elections from undisclosed sources, foreign or domestic, through the use of 501(c)4 organizations, so where’s the scandal*?
*Other than, of course, IOKIYAR, and a scandal if you are a Democrat, and a super-duper scandal if you are a Clinton.
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 6:43 pm
MarkH, I’ll need your spouse/partner/significant other to sign a ‘yes, I’m ok with him looking stupid’ waiver. Sorry, but it’s my standard requirement for things like Marvin the Martian hats and Dr. Who scarves.
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Dorothy said on April 21, 2015 at 7:03 pm
My boss’s grandson has a Yoda hat. I belong to Ravelry.com and there are lots of patterns for it! I think you have to be a member (it’s free) in order to see this, but just in case they allow visitors without signing in, here’s a link to the patterns: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/search#sort=best&craft=knitting&query=Yoda hat
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Jakash said on April 21, 2015 at 7:10 pm
Jolene,
I really enjoyed seeing that American Pie performance on the teevee, but I thought he seemed to flub the third verse. Looking at it now, from 5:15 to 5:23 he seems a bit flustered by the “forward pass”, getting the Jester involved a little early. Well, and he said “could break that devil’s spell”, instead of Satan’s, but what kind of a nitpicker would be bothered by that? ; ) Regardless, Dave certainly seemed to appreciate it and the old “Late Night” jacket was a nice touch!
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Sue said on April 21, 2015 at 8:12 pm
Oops, made that last comment and then dashed out the door without due consideration.
Let me rephrase with apologies to MarkH for sounding rude:
MarkH, I’ll need your spouse/partner/significant other to sign a ‘yes, I’m ok with him looking ADORKABLE’ waiver.
Actually, when I make something ‘quirky’ for someone, I often do try to get permission from those who love that person but also have to stand next to them when they’re wearing it.
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Dorothy said on April 21, 2015 at 9:37 pm
Re my comment @27—I meant 1959, not 1963. Apologies.
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MarkH said on April 21, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Sue — No apologies necessary. If you saw some of the headgear out here on the ski slopes, helmeted or otherwise, you’d know a Marvin cover would make even this 60+ geezer a total hipster. I’ll try to trick Debbie into signing the note!
BTW, I always knew him as Marvin as well, not Alvin.
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FDChief said on April 21, 2015 at 10:20 pm
…where they might well have been on either a full-dress or ready-for-action status, but not garrison gear.”
Sorry, GI slang. “Garrison” means dressed up, with all the shiny bling on, as opposed to “field” which would be “ready-for-action”, stripped down to combat load. So in garrison the centurion would very likely be wearing all his doo-dads on his hat, both to impress the locals as well as his commander with his smartness…
One other thing to consider is that Judea was a pretty minor province and not one on or near a threatening frontier enemy like Sarmatia, Dacia, or the German tribes, so it didn’t have a legion posted there – the closest were in Syria. So far as I know the Roman troops in Judea included three cohors (“cohorts”, roughly the equivalent of a modern infantry battalion) of Auxilia; non-legionary infantry typically recruited either from Italian-Roman citizens or non-Latins, two in Jerusalem and the third in Caesarea.
Among the units known to have been posted to Judea are Cohors I Sebastenorum recruited from Samaritans, Cohors Prima Italica Civium Romanorum, Cohors Secunda Italica Civium Romanorum and Cohors Prima Augusta. All these would have been Latin-speaking Roman citizens recruited from the Italian peninsula and therefore probably better equipped than a non-citizen unit. An ala of cavalry was also stationed in Judea, the I Sebastenorum that was also recruited in Samaria.
So…basically these guys weren’t ash-and-trash, but they also weren’t the frontline legion infantry. So they would have probably gotten older, non-spec equipment that the guys from Legio X Fretensis handed down to them…
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Deborah said on April 21, 2015 at 11:27 pm
FDChief, What do you do for a living?
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MichaelG said on April 22, 2015 at 12:25 am
Informative stuff, FDChief. And hence the sneering term “Garritroopers”.
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Dexter said on April 22, 2015 at 1:18 am
Man executes man by shooting him dead in cold blood as TV used to phrase it. Man is only charged with manslaughter. Man appears before judge and tells judge he feels like he’s due a vacation in The Bahamas. “Sure, Mr. Bates, now you get along now and have yore-se’f a good ol’ time…now don’t miss your plane, y’heah?” Talk about a mockery of justice!
Worse thing about being a night owl or insomniac is when the day comes when you have to get up at 6:00 AM for an appointment two and a half hours away and you just cannot get out of it nor want too, as it is that important. Here I go, off to bed now, to lie awake another few hours. If I can catch just a few zzz’s I can make it.
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Wim said on April 22, 2015 at 7:33 am
MichaelG, I believe ‘Garritroopers’ was an invention by Bill Mauldin for a ‘Willy & Joe’ cartoon. ‘We call them garritroopers: too far back to wear helmets, too far forward to wear neckties.’
Most of what we purport to know about Roman armor comes from its surviving representation in Roman art and statuary. Trajan’s Column, for example.
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brian stouder said on April 22, 2015 at 7:33 am
Fort Wayne Alert!
http://wane.com/2015/04/21/co-founder-of-the-roller-dome-passes-away/
If you ever went roller skating in Fort Wayne, you’ve seen this woman.
There is a link to a 24 minute documentary on this woman, and it is really, truly Good Stuff.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 22, 2015 at 7:49 am
FDChief, neatly put. And I shouldn’t have called them “a legion.” But what would they have equipped for to head up to Jerusalem for Passover? That’s a guess, because as Wim’s observed, we don’t get much Roman soldier gear in the archaeological record. We know the units more from inscriptions on jugs or impressions on roof tiles.
You’d enjoy, unless you’ve already read it, Anne Wroe’s “Pilate: the Biography of an Invented Man.”
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 22, 2015 at 8:25 am
A selection from that book: https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/wroe-pilate.html
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FDChief said on April 22, 2015 at 11:24 am
Sue, Deborah: I work for a soils engineer in Portland, Oregon as an engineering geologist. But I was (variously) a line medic, infantry mortarman, and artillery fire-direction specialist in the RA, USAR, and Oregon ARNG, and a lifelong military history buff. Hence the vast and useless store of Roman army knowledge.
MichaelG: As I remember, the actual Mauldin cartoon quote is even better: “Too far forward to wear ties. Too far back to git shot.”
Jeff: As you point out, part of the problem is that we have such little actual evidence of daily life in the Roman Army. Statuary depictions, usually by sculptors who had only the local troopers to go by, if that (my understanding is that most military historians are of the opinion that many of the depictions on Trajan’s Column, for example, were done by Roman artisans who hadn’t seen many of the soldiers they depicted and guessed or inferred the uniforms and equipment from the ones that HAD, such as the guard units stationed in the capital), fragmentary records, and extremely sparse archaeological finds – the Kalkriese excavations have produced some tremendous revelations about legionary kit in the 1st Century AD.
But speaking as a modern soldier and trying to infer what might have been the “inherent military probability” of a detachment commander tasked with sending a couple of companies (centuria) on personal security detail with the local military governor my guess is that, given the relative quiet of Jerusalem at the moment I’d have had the boys kitted out in their “Number 2” or “Class B” uniform; not the fanciest parade outfits – that would have been too likely to get mussed tussling with unruly crowds or, worse, sold in the marketplace by Private Marcus whose thirst for wine and tendency to somehow part with his kit was notorious – but with their best field gear and sidearms only.
The heavy shields and pila would be more of a nuisance than a benefit in an urban operation-other-than-war environment, so they’d likely get left in the barracks. Helmet without the fancy parade plumes (officers with their helmet-brush, though, to look the smarter), lorica, and gladiusonly would be my bet.
But at least one of the centuria would have been tasked as a reaction force in full combat kit – shield and pilum and all – somewhere close by in case real trouble started. Since what we know from the scriptural sources suggests that didn’t happen, however, my guess is that any sort of depiction of the Romans in the bible stories that shows them with shield-and-spear is pure Hollywood…
(In case anyone is interested in the Kalkriese or in more Roman military history I wrote a fairly long blog post about it back in 2008 here: http://firedirectioncenter.blogspot.com/2008/09/decisive-battles-teutoburgerwald-9.html)
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FDChief said on April 22, 2015 at 11:32 am
Or, if you want to go directly to the source of the Kalkreise excavation and what it tells us about the Teutoburg engagement and the Roman Army of 9AD, it’s here: http://www.livius.org/te-tg/teutoburg/teutoburg01.htm#Introduction
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MichaelG said on April 22, 2015 at 3:00 pm
You two are absolutely right about the Mauldin cartoon. I can just see Willy and Joe sneering at the garritrooper. I’ve even got the book around here somewhere.
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Julie Robinson said on April 22, 2015 at 3:20 pm
Sometime in my teen years Bill Mauldin came to my high school for a lecture and showed slides of his cartoons. As I recall, he embedded long before it was popular. As a callow kid, I had never seen anything like his work.
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beb said on April 22, 2015 at 5:53 pm
You’ve heard of a hair shirt… why not a hair panty
http://gawker.com/you-can-never-have-too-much-bush-so-here-are-panties-m-1699496594
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brian stouder said on April 22, 2015 at 8:51 pm
Beb, I’d say “Thread Win” – but I’m still busy cringing!
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Dexter said on April 22, 2015 at 10:16 pm
Something I learned today that I am sure beb and nance know: Wayne State has a medical school. My examining doctor at the Battle Creek VA was finishing a a 2-hour eval of yerz trooly today and I asked her where she went to med school…Wayne State she replied. I have never had an exam like that. Thorough, and plenty of time to ask any questions I had about anything. Wayne State turns out fine doctor.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 22, 2015 at 10:49 pm
Enjoying your write-up on the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Chief. Teutobergerwald post first, of course.
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