Psychopathologies of roman re-enactment!

[Virilis]

Well, I warn you all, this is silly...

Why do I such an interest in the roman culture? The first thing I can remember is that I saw as a kid in tv Marlon Brando playing Marcus Antonius. Then when I turned seven and got a library card I marched right away to the local library and borrowed all the books about ancient greece, rome and egypt. Next step was seeing in the movies "Ben Hur" when I was 10 years old. To add to the excitement was the fact that the movie was not allowed for under 12 years old...

It all seemed so obvious, like I knew right away that this is it. There`s no roman ruins in Finland on which you can stumble on when you leave your home, like almost rest of other europeans.

Why late roman empire? I was thinking about this today when I was jogging. The obvious answer is usually that this area is "a much less researched area etc". Well, I noticed to my shame that my reasons for fascination about this specific area of roman history is that it has AN INHERENT TRAGIC ELEMENT about it! The empire beginning to decline and losing it`s all-embracing invincibility and glory! It seems that my true heroes are tragic in nature, not marching from win to win...

To be honest, of course late roman history is very interesting despite this fact, army equipment and transition to byzantine empire and all that stuff. In short, my choice of interest was not based wholly on RATIONAL REASONS :oops: . Perhaps I will next come out of the closet and declare;
YES, I PLAY GOLF TOO :wink: ...

[TITVS SABATINVS AQVILIVS]

We can be call it the " battle for Berlin" or the "I want to stay on the wrong part" syndrome. I think that indipendently of the political aspect, people born after 1945, was fascinated seeing on TV lots of documentaries too. The B/W visions of the katiusha rockets were shoot directly from the corners of the buildings in the late afternoon, the last 88 guns shooting the t-34s, but also reading about Hanna Reitsch that visits Hitler's Berlin bunker flying a Fw-190 fighter to Berlin-Gatow airport encircled by the soviets, to receive useless orders and deliver useless letters designed to rally the Luftwaffe. Leaving on this futile mission only minutes before Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun. Or the General-ace pilot Adolf GAlland's practically useless but fascinating last mission on the marvelous jet fighter Me-262 against the inesorable flood of allied bombers and fighters mastering the skies. The italian X MAS of Iunio Valerio Borghese for the honor of the humiliated and destroyed Italy... As also the last days of Saigon left by u.s. helicopters from the roofs. Maybe that we re-enact the late empire, because attracted by the taste of the end we find in it and in some of its episodes like for example the heroic Iulianus' parenthesis or the battle of Adrianpolis too...

Vale

[Caius Valens]

Hi Caius here, I guess for me what appels to me about the late Romans is the idea of the Late roman legions holding the line against the growing barbarian tide. There is a Tragic element in all this, of a lost country the sadness of the passing of a way of life that will not be seen again.There was mentioned in another thread about the evaction of Roman Britian (an artist wanting to do a pic) .Cast your mind's eye to that time and place. The sadness of the men (the troops)having to leave behind their women and children while the transports sail away for ever,I call it the 7th Calvary syndrome, You cheer Custard and his brave men , even though you know the out come is. There is a sense of loss at least for me Cheers Caius Thomas R

[Tarbicus]

I like being on the winning side. Cool armour as well.

:wink:

[Martin Wallgren]

Same here!

[Robert Vermaat]

Who wants to be a ..Late Roman?

[mcbishop]

but also reading about Hanna Reitsch that visits Hitler's Berlin bunker flying a Fw-190 fighter to Berlin-Gatow airport encircled by the soviets

Okay, pedant mode on. I think you'll find she flew into central Berlin (and thus to the bunker) in the rear seat of a Fiesler Storch being flown by Robert Ritter von Greim (whom Adolf was about to appoint as the 'head' of the Luftwaffe). When v. Greim was injured by Soviet ground fire, she then had to fly and land it from the rear seat (without the use of the rudder, as v. Greim's feet were jammed in the pedals) by leaning over him (she had the presence of mind to practise this beforehand). The trip to Gatow was certainly accomplished with her jammed into the rear fuselage of the FW-190, and v. Greim sitting behind the pilot, but the important landing bit was in the Storch (the whole escapade was only really possible because the Storch was - and still is, as there are several flying - a good STOL aircraft). v. Greim was no mean pilot himself, with 28 'kills' to his credit from WW1, where he was commander of Jasta 34.

Read the excellent (if stunningly naive and blinkered) The Sky My Kingdom for Reitsch's life. She was a renowned test pilot and pioneer record-breaking glider pilot.

Mike Bishop

[Tarbicus]

She perhaps also wasn't the sharpest pin:
[url:1gcxd1wm]http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1253.htm[/url]

When she learned Germany was thinking about a suicide version of the V-1 rocket -- a Kamikaze bomb to be guided by a human being -- she asked to test the prototype. She was disappointed when she found it was an empty threat.

Reitsch confirmed that the basic V-1 airframe was prone to severe vibration resulting from engine noise. She believed the deployment of the V-1e as introduced would result in significant pilot losses, even if the pilot had agreed to perform a suicide mission.

[url:1gcxd1wm]http://www.lycos.com/info/hanna-reitsch.html[/url]

[Praefectusclassis]

When she learned Germany was thinking about a suicide version of the V-1 rocket -- a Kamikaze bomb to be guided by a human being -- she asked to test the prototype. She was disappointed when she found it was an empty threat.

Interestingly, the Dutch army museum in Delft has such a V1. The doll in the cockpit doesn't look like her though. :wink:

[mcbishop]

She believed the deployment of the V-1e as introduced would result in significant pilot losses

They presumably mean 'significant pilot losses without achieving the desired aim' otherwise the phrase appears to imply the possibility of a suicide mission without pilot loss! Shades of kamikaze pilot reunions...

Mike Bishop

[Graham Sumner]

Mike Bishop wrote:

v. Greim was no mean pilot himself, with 28 'kills' to his credit from WW1, where he was commander of Jasta 34.

He is even credited with flying at low level and strafing a tank until it was disabled. A feat you could try and emulate in the game 'Flying Corps'!

Graham.

[tlclark]

This 'love of cultures in decline' (what do you call this? "scenderophilia"? That mixes greek and latin though so it would probably be something else) animates a lot of the civil war re-enactors as well. Famously known as "The Lost Cause" crowd it enobles the efforts and aura of the 'Old South'.

Not sure how I feel about this. I love the current south, but the Ol south is not something I could cling to my bosom.

I can say the same for Rome. I LOVE Rome but so many aspects of Roman life are so alien, they may as well as happened on another planet.

Of course, I adore the intrigues of Byzantium. It's like a 1000 year South American soap opera with Greek Fire!

Travis