05-02-2017, 11:18 PM
Some mention of "aqua regia" ('Royal Water') here, above. This is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids in a 1:3 ratio. It is so-called because it will dissolve the 'precious' or 'coinage' metals. I don't think that the Romans knew of either of these acids.
Do we, in fact, know whether the eagles were made of gold? I can concede that they might have been but an eagle made of gold would have been very heavy to have to lug around. A bronze eagle that was gold plated would have been much lighter. What it was made of would, perhaps, have been a moot point. It was a symbol of the legion that had religious connotations for the Roman soldier. There would have been very few of them anyway. Someone above made the point that comparatively few helmets are known from the period but there must have been hundreds of thousands of the things (possibly even millions over a 200 year span of time). I know of around 800 helmets; a tiny fraction of the number which must have been made.
Consider: how many "eagles" from the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are known? There are just two in Britain (one in the National Army Museum and the other in the Royal United Services museum in Edinburgh). I dare say that there are a few others around Europe. There would have been hundreds of these (assuming one for each regiment). This is only a couple of centuries back. What chance would there be of finding a Roman eagle from 2,000 years ago?
Caratacus
(Mike Thomas)
Do we, in fact, know whether the eagles were made of gold? I can concede that they might have been but an eagle made of gold would have been very heavy to have to lug around. A bronze eagle that was gold plated would have been much lighter. What it was made of would, perhaps, have been a moot point. It was a symbol of the legion that had religious connotations for the Roman soldier. There would have been very few of them anyway. Someone above made the point that comparatively few helmets are known from the period but there must have been hundreds of thousands of the things (possibly even millions over a 200 year span of time). I know of around 800 helmets; a tiny fraction of the number which must have been made.
Consider: how many "eagles" from the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are known? There are just two in Britain (one in the National Army Museum and the other in the Royal United Services museum in Edinburgh). I dare say that there are a few others around Europe. There would have been hundreds of these (assuming one for each regiment). This is only a couple of centuries back. What chance would there be of finding a Roman eagle from 2,000 years ago?
Caratacus
(Mike Thomas)
visne scire quod credam? credo orbes volantes exstare.
