06-17-2009, 09:19 PM
So I've been thinking lately. We all associate weapons, armor, shields, etc with finds from abandoned forts (defined as no longer in use today). Now often I see, "occupied by such and such legion in the such and such year". My question is, how reliable is this information?
I pose this scenario to you. Let's say Legio II (just picking a number) leaves a fort they built and have been known to occupy. Let's say a known Auxilia unit replaces them there. Now theoretically let's go ahead and now have Legio III replace those troops and it not be known.
Now everything we thought we knew about the fort and every item we hear about excavated there is false (or at least under a different assumption).
What brought this up was the fact that I look at how much work was put into these forts. They couldn't have been outright abandoned after the first unit left them. I would think they'd still be used even a 100 years later (look at current military bases or forts that last 50+ years even in hostile territory). One could dig up the fort thinking the unit in BC occupied it, when a different unknown legion could have occupied it in AD. Which means the items found may belong to the later unit and it throws our whole understanding of events, times, etc off.
Does this make any sense? Has anyone thought about this before? Is this a concern at all?
I pose this scenario to you. Let's say Legio II (just picking a number) leaves a fort they built and have been known to occupy. Let's say a known Auxilia unit replaces them there. Now theoretically let's go ahead and now have Legio III replace those troops and it not be known.
Now everything we thought we knew about the fort and every item we hear about excavated there is false (or at least under a different assumption).
What brought this up was the fact that I look at how much work was put into these forts. They couldn't have been outright abandoned after the first unit left them. I would think they'd still be used even a 100 years later (look at current military bases or forts that last 50+ years even in hostile territory). One could dig up the fort thinking the unit in BC occupied it, when a different unknown legion could have occupied it in AD. Which means the items found may belong to the later unit and it throws our whole understanding of events, times, etc off.
Does this make any sense? Has anyone thought about this before? Is this a concern at all?
"It is the brave man\'s part to live with glory, or with glory die."
- Nomen: (T.J. Young)
- Nomen: (T.J. Young)
