AM Swink

Character art time!! The fabulous perfectly realized Decimus and Luciana, my Roman Equestrian heroes. You can’t help but root for these two, they are so cute together!

It blows my mind what manages to survive from antiquity. This is, indeed, a delicate little leather thong (underwear!!) dating from the Roman period. The patterning is just as intricate as some of its modern counterparts! Shall you see un**es like this appear on my characters? Hmm, you might need to read and see!

Did you know the ancient Romans had hackamores? These bitless bridles look extremely severe when compared to their far gentler modern equivalents. For horses to wear these and not fuss would have required a very light touch on the reins. When horses were ridden into battle, commands had to be firm and prompt as there wasn’t time for nuance. However, expert use with this equipment would have been needed - we all know what can happen when a horse fights mechanical bits! Auxiliary cavalrymen would have been very capable riders, given the type of bitting used. The model they have for the recreated tack is pretty size accurate for the period as well - horses in antiquity were tiny!

I had an absolute blast at the AHP (now Equine Media Association) conference here in my hometown! Connected with friends old and new, learned so much from the sessions, and was blown away by the amount of freebies I came home with! Can’t wait for the next (even though it’s going to be about as far away from Lex as you could get).

Who was Mithras? This is a god that originated in Persia (modern day Iran) that had reached the Roman Empire by the mid-1st century CE. His mystery cult, exclusive to men, was extremely popular amongst soldiers, hence Decimus and Tullius’s membership. Because the rites were extremely secretive, we only have a vague idea of what they were, though we know it involved ritual feats among acolytes and worship in caves or underground temples. The tauroctony, an image of Mithras slaying the white bull, was central to the cult’s worship. It was believed that Mithras offered hope of rebirth in the afterlife. Oh, and his birthday was celebrated on December 25. Christians stole that off him and assigned it to Jesus, who, according to Biblical scholars, would have more likely been born in the spring.

What did that nighttime Mona crossing look like to Paulinus’s legions in CE 59? I have a bit of an idea. This part of the Menai Strait, directly underneath the Britannia Bridge, is the likeliest crossing point as it’s where the strait is narrowest and Paulinus’s troops were using hastily constructed flat-bottomed boats to cross (the naval fleet never materialised). It’s very easy to strip away the bridge and pylons to see what Mona would have looked like to the Romans then. The second clip is of a point a mile further north along the Bangor coast, where those flood plains were the likely crossing point for the amphibious Batavian cavalry.