I forgot! I was supposed to be posting this for Vilakins

[quarryquest]

vilakins translated some Latin for me recently. When I was up in Northumberland I went to Hexham Abbey, and I realised that this Roman grave memorial is for a Vexillarius (all be it one on a horse) just like she is when she re-enacts.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Oh, that's rather fine!

[quarryquest]

Coming from Northumberland I tend to get a bit blase about Roman stuff because there is so much of it ...

[cmcmck]

Understandable.

Rochester was a Roman town, but not all that much evidence survives.

[vjezkova]

Always amazing, so many Roman stuff...well, here used to be "Germania Libera" in 1st century AD:-) - so no (or rare) sites and stuff.
Great photo!

[vilakins]

Wonderful, thank you! I'm impressed that you remembered I'm a vexillarius.

I think they used a lot more cavalry in the later centuries in Britain. I'm intrigued that it's part of an abbey; I wonder if it was built round it, or whether the vexillarius was a Christian connected with it.

[cmcmck]

Later Roman forces took a hell of a battering from peoples with better cavalry than they had themselves but they learned rapidly- most of their military approaches were learned from others as they freely admitted.

You might find this book about Roman generalship interesting:

John Goldsworthy

In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire (W)

Why, yes, I AM a historian by trade! :o)

[quarryquest]

They found it when they were doing some restoration in Victorian times - most of the nave is from then and the choir and other bits are original Norman. Someone found the crypt when they fell into it!

[vilakins]

Ah, so it was in the crypt! That makes sense.