How really \'different\' were the Romans?

[Nathan Ross]

Isn't all that the point Mark Hygate is trying to make?

I think he's going further than that. My apologies if I have this wrong, but Mark seems to be suggesting that we can use our own relevant life experiences (in his case, his military background) to fill in the gaps of ancient history, and give us insights unavailable to academic historians tied to evidence-based analysis.

There's something to be said for this - history is not an exact science, but a method we use to try and help us understand the past. Empathy and imagination are necessary aspects of interpretation, and our own experiences shape the way we look at evidence. Otherwise historians would be able to agree about everything - which they clearly do not!

But I'm wary of the idea that convincing theories can rest solely on personal experience or ideas of 'common sense' or modern practice, without any foundation in evidence, either material or documentary. For all the relative scrappiness of our knowledge, we do know enough about the ancient Romans and their army to suggest that there were significant differences between them and us.