Centurian Whistle

[marsvigilia]

Does anyone have any comments about this Roman army legionary centurion's bronze whistle which was recently auctioned on Ebay.

centurion whistle 1
centurion whistle 2
centurion whistle 3

[Praefectusclassis]

Only that it is a particular coincidence that it turns up after the Rome tv series and that this seller has been exposed as selling (bad) fakes here on RAT before.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Another time, another exemple of fake...

You know yet my opinion about shoping archeological things.

And i think it's dificult to beginn a serious discusion about a piece that is not sure it's roman.

[Gallus Marinus Micarius]

This reminds me of an eBay item I saw recently; it was being sold as a medicinal medallion hanging from a modern chain - a fat snake they said. It looked familiar, then I realized it was one-half of a 1st century hauberk breast hook to hold the shoulder doubling of a hamata! Talk about a wild guess on the seller's part!

[M. CVRIVS ALEXANDER]

Only that it is a particular coincidence that it turns up after the Rome tv series and that this seller has been exposed as selling (bad) fakes here on RAT before.

I am wondering, what's with the 100% positive feedback? hock:

[Dan Diffendale]

I am wondering, what's with the 100% positive feedback?

Pigs are happy with slop?

[Crispvs]

"I am wondering, what's with the 100% positive feedback?"

Recently I won an e-bay auction only to find that the seller promptly sold the item to another bidder after the auction had ended and before I had the chance to contact him (the auction ended on the Friday evening and I did not get the message that I had won it until I had checked my e-mail at work on the Monday). He tried once to contact me by e-mail two hours after the auction ended and then promply sold the item to the other bidder without waiting for a reply. I informed e-bay and left negative feedback, only to find that he responded by leaving negative feedback on my account saying that I was unreliable and had refused to pay, in an attempt to get me to withdraw the feedback I had left by engaging in a mutual agreement to withdraw feedback. I refused to do this and so I have ended up with this defamatory feedback permanently on my account. Had I been keen to get rid of it I would have to had agreed to remove the justified negative feedback I had left for him, thus leaving him with an undeserved 100% positive feedback.
E-bay have since told me that they are almost powerless to stop unscrupulous sellers from using this tactic to maintain apparently good feedback scores.

Crispvs

[Tarbicus]

Libel. Pure and simple. Next time threaten them back. Scumbags.

[Susanna]

My opinion:
never buy stuff at Ebay, you never know if it is fake and also trough the pure digging for stuff to sell, poeple just detroy archaeological places. And any historical stuff without his finding spot or the other findings laid down together with it...is totally useless...for archaeology and history.

Second: I studied many whistle that were sold as to be Roman...they are made out of lead like the ones here and that seems more medieval to me concerning the fact that I know some of them from medieval diggings that were done by archaeologist.

What I know for sure as Roman whistles are some fibulae with whistles on top, lying f.e. in the Historical Museum of Regensburg in Germany.
But what there were used for is pure specualtion.
I doubt a use in the army, I played them, the only imply one single loud tone and the only signal variation would be short or long tone or less or more tones. I guess too limited for the army, if you anyway know bucina, cornu and tuba.

And by the way, after I heared what the played onto their real bad and discusting looking corni in the series Rome, I must say the whistle solution seemed like a solution for the movie, nothing else...

please I would be happy if someone knows more about it... :wink:

[FAVENTIANVS]

Why use a whistle if there already were cornu, buccinae and tubae? Maybe to make it look as a WWI trench battle?!

[marsvigilia]

Well you can whistle while you work.

Why use a wistle if there already were cornu, buccinae and tubae? Maybe to make it look as a WWI trench battle?!

[FAVENTIANVS]

Well you can whistle while you work.

Why use a whistle if there already were cornu, buccinae and tubae? Maybe to make it look as a WWI trench battle?!

Or maybe a dog's whistle.... just heard by a molossian. :wink: :lol:

[Tarbicus]

The use of a whistle is to signal, not play tunes. What else can you do with a basic whistle?

[Susanna]

Signal yes of course, but too limited for the army in battle.

[Tarbicus]

I'm still not convinced of that :wink: Perhaps we assume too much that the *theoretical* intent *might* have been to get the message to a large area. It may have been enough to just draw the attention of the men closest who would initiate a movement or action, the others on seeing this following suit?