Dominance of the Roman Legion

Now this is the story all about how the legion got flipped-turned upside down, I’d like to make a blog, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how the army became supreme from a place called Roma 

So here we have the Roman legion, the strongest and most organized army of their time…until the collapse that is. The legion was comprised of 4,000 t0 6,000 men. Cohorts two to ten were made of six centuries of eighty men; each century was commanded by a centurion. In a century, were ten contubernia, smaller squadrons of eight men, which provided more maneuverability on the battlefield. However, in the first cohort, which was the most elite, were five centuries of 160 men, with twenty contubernia in each century. 

But what made the legion so dominant was not its massive size, but its unity, the discipline, and their technology beyond their time. They were able to accept defeat, and take the best aspects of their enemies to adapt it as their own, but make it better. Just like the “85 Bears” they were brute force that trained and worked harder than all the rest. Their attacks from all angles, and the ability to overcome.

The Romans moved as a unit, they fought as one well oiled machine, where as the bands of Gauls and Britons fought recklessly and were poorly equipped and used guerrilla tactics. 

Here we have a typical battle(Note that the black and green army men are the Romans, and only represent half a century)

Here are five contubernia being leg by a single centurion at the front

These miscellaneous figures represent the Gauls, whose fighting styles varied from tribe to tribe. Their battle formations were unorganized, they fought scattered, and were nowhere near as professional as the Romans, and also nowhere near as disciplined.

 

 

A Roman Dinner

Roman Cena

Image result for ancient roman dinner

A Roman dinner was by far the most important meal of the day. A lot of items used to cook in ancient Rome are still frequently used today. Many Romans ate popular meats such as beef, chicken, and all types of fish but meat was much more expensive in ancient Rome then they are today. Meaning not everyone was able to enjoys such meats. An ancient Roman diet weighted heavily on their class and wealth.

Dinner for a poor Roman was very bland. A typical Roman dinner for someone who is relatively poor is bread with vegetable soup or porridge. Grains and lentils were used frequently with poor Romans because of how many different meals they could make with them. On the flip side, rich Romans enjoyed a flavorful and exotic meal almost every dinner. A normal Roman meal for a wealthy person was made up of at least three courses. With the first course being a starter meal for wealthy Romans, the second course was the main meaty meal that was typically followed by a third and final course of nuts and fruits.

The fruits that were eaten by ancient romans were mainly figs, apples, grapes, and pears. The vegetables that were eaten the most were beans, or legumes because they were easily accessible. Extremely wealthy Romans would also eat very crazy and expensive meals such as peacock body parts.

Lexie and I cooked a recipe from Apicius that was boiled eggs in a pine nut sauce but it was very difficult so we gave up and chose a different recipe that was glazed carrots.

(For pictures go to lexie’s blog)

Works Cited
BBC. “Primary History – Romans – Family and Children.” BBC, BBC,
   www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/romans/family_and_children/.
Carr, Karen. “Roman Food – Rich and Poor – Quatr.us Study Guides.”
   Quatr.us Study Guides, Publisher Name Quatr.us Study Guides Publisher
   Logo, 25 Apr. 2018, quatr.us/romans/roman-food-rich-poor.htm.
Cartwright, Mark. “Food in the Roman World.” Ancient History Encyclopedia,

The game of Roman Aristocracy vs. The Poor of Rome

The game of Roman Aristocracy vs. The Poor of Rome

When choosing a topic my partner, (my friend Luke) and I narrowed our choices down to focusing on the aspects of class and wealth during the Roman Empire. While focusing on the jobs, food and everyday lives of wealthy Romans when compared to those less fortunate, we decided to make a board game that illustrates the differences. With these different aspects of life in mind, our board game was designed to be unfair towards the poor, to demonstrate the challenges faced by Romans of low social-standing and how they were able to be taken advantage of, etc. The game is a two player game, having one player play as a poor farmer while the other player plays as a wealthy and influential senator. As the game progresses, one can see the blatant favoritism of the wealthy, as a demonstration of the way the wealthy and the educated were able to take advantage of the desperation and naïvety of the poorer farmers. Although I had no experience with this topic prior, I certainly enjoyed researching the topic and learning all I could about the differences between rich and poor people of the time period and how they lived, while  using this newly acquired knowledge when assembling  the board game.

 

Bibliography:

“Occupations: The Elite.” World Eras, edited by John T. Kirby, vol. 3: Roman
Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E. Gale, 2001, pp. 198-202. Gale
Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3034800116/
GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=5d01d749. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Occupations: The Non-Elite.” World Eras, edited by John T. Kirby, vol. 3: Roman
Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E. Gale, 2001, pp. 202-203. Gale
Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3034800117/
GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=bc2a33f7. Accessed 22 May 2018.

“Social Class System and the Economy: Overview.” World Eras, edited by John T.
Kirby, vol. 3: Roman Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E. Gale, 2001,
pp. 180-183. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/
doc/CX3034800109/GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=703cdf4f. Accessed
21 May 2018.

“The Social Classes.” World Eras, edited by John T. Kirby, vol. 3: Roman
Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E. Gale, 2001, pp. 203-205. Gale
Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3034800118/
GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=5c4b26be. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Latin project

For my project I made a commercial that told the audience to join the roman army and become a gladiator. The actor we had was my cousin Jaden, he told the audience to join while wearing a roman soldiers outfit. To prepare for this I did research about the roman army’s tactics. The research later helper me and my group develop the script that we had Jaden read. Our end product was an ad telling people to join the army and we were able to have jaden read and act for it. We had Andrew filming and edit most of  it. One of the challenges that we faced was the research. It was difficult to find good recorses and then turn it into a source. And it was also hard to focus with our group because we couldn’t pay attention very well together. It was easy to record and to have jaden read the script.

Hannibal

Hannibal was arguably one of the best generals that ever lived. He led his group of soldiers over the alps into Italy. He had over 80,000 men and he did war elephants. He invaded and stayed in Italy for 15 years. As he was about to attack Rome, the Romans invaded Carthage and forced Hannibal to retreat back to his home city-state. When Hannibal returned home he found out that the Romans had gotten there first and he was forced to retreat into the country side. He later died of poisoning.

For this project we made a board game in which you are Hannibal and you are trying to get to Rome. You roll a singular die and move across the squres with the arrows. Each turn you pick up a card and do what the card says. First one to Rome wins.

 

Hannibal’s March: The Board Game

While searching in the library for a topic, wasting multiple days, as the procrastinator I am, I chose to research Hannibal’s Army which was, incredibly, not taken yet. I had thought the whole story of Hannibal was very intriguing, great general forced to go on the run from the Romans and eventually kill himself, but didn’t want to learn more about that. Want I really wanted to know about was how he had built his army. I had to start fast, it was almost the end of the second week. After barely researching enough to know that Hannibal used a ton of different soldiers from different places along with bringing elephants over the alps, I still had not started my project. Finally near the end of the third week I began building the board game. My partner and I finished the project during the last Friday of the school year.

The main facts of Hannibal’s army are this. They were comprised of warrior’s from Gaul, Libya along with Spain. All these soldiers brought with them different cultures and fighting styles. This really goes to show how good of a general Hannibal was. The fact that he could bring all these men together in an effective attack on Rome was incredible. Sadly this was during Rome’s great conquest, and as soon as the legionaries heard word of this attack they turned towards Hannibal’s home, Carthage. Hannibal was forced to retreat to the city but by the time he got there, a peace treaty was already being agreed upon. Not wanting to be killed, Hannibal fled, finally killing himself as not to be humiliated by the Romans.

This is our Cards and our board game. You role a dice, travel the distance shown on the dice and draw a card. You then follow the instructions on the card. The green is the land, the white is the mountains and the blue is the ocean. If you check google maps you will see that our map is practically the same thing.

 

 

 

 

Roman Religion

My topic was Roman Religions. My teacher kind of just went up to me and said “You don’t have a topic. You should do this!” This project in general kind of terrified me because I had already begun one inanotger class, and while working on this one I was assigned a third. It was difficult for me because they we all due today. Science I was able to finish and turn in ontime. I have honestly no idea how I was able to finish that one but not this one.

Things that made this project tough were not having clue what I was doing for the first half of our many weeks we were given. The project outline was on google classroom and although I read it it was already too late.  I did not get help from my teacher because I didnt want to admit how far behind I was. I think another thing that may have gone betterwould be if I had a student partner to work with, because theyvwould have completed some of the work and there would be fewer tasks for me to complete.

One thing I did feel successful in was reading a bunch of database articles on Roman religion. I just wish more of that info stayed with me.

 

Roman armor

One peice of the roman armor was called chain mail. Mail was made by interlocking 1 ring with 4 other rings.  Chainmail was not used until the first centry C.E. In the early years of rome a legiionary often wore a helmet with long plumes of feathers, carried an oval shaped shield and was protected by a short suit of chain mail. Later in time the shape of the shield changed. The full time soilder in the 2nd century AD had plates of metal joined together into armor to protect his upper body.   A legionary helmet now had flaps to protect his cheeks and neck. In the later days romans would also wear lorica segmentata protecting the chest and belly, which consisted of bands of steel tied together with leather strips. To keep the mail shirt clean the shirt it self would clean bye the rings rubbing together. Chainmail shirts in republican times to the first century B.C.E. Chainmail armor was poor at defending arrows but good at defending sword slashes. If the arrow would hit the rings it would perce though and would lead to an infection. The chainmail covered just below the average Roman waist. To go to the imovie visit Ians post.

 

 

 

 

 

Roman Weapons

 

    There are two main types of Roman weapons, the first is the gladius. The gladius was a double edged short sword used in close quarter battles. The second main weapon the Romans used was the pilum or as we know it as a spear. Each soldier would usually carry two of these spears. They would draw the spears then throw both of them when they got between 10 and 20 feet of the enemy soldiers.

    There were a few less common weapons that were used later. The first was the pugio this weapon was a dagger that was used as a side arm for Roman Legionaries. Another weapon was the Spathea. This weapon was a longer and bigger version of the gladius it was used in the first and second century AD. Another weapon was the plumbata. This weapon was a weighted throwing dart that replaced the plum in the late empire. Each soldier would carry up to 6 of these darts. They had better range and more accuracy because of the dart like  design.

    If you would like to learn more and see pictures zabout Roman weapons and armor I would suggest checking out me and my partners iMovie. Roman weapons and armor

Note: you may shave to pause the i movie to read some of the text. This is due to m,e having to severely shorten the length so that’s the file was not to large

 

 

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