Britannia

Britannia
Kukulcan
1Cor 1:2
"Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:"

Spring Messengers

"To attain /the height and depth of thy Eternal wayes" [Milton ("Kukulcan: herpeto-ornithology: Quetzalcoatl")]

Chess:

Chess: "membrane" : [melodrama (Gr. melos, a song): properly (and in the early 19^th century ) a drama in which song and music were introduced, an opera. These pieces were usually of a sensational character and the musical parts were gradually dropped. The word now denotes a lurid, sensational and highly emotional play with a happy ending in which the villain gets all he richly deserves. See RED BARN. "My idea of heaven is that there is no melodrama in it at all" [Emerson ("George Bernard Shaw"] . Memphis : MEM . Melusina, or Melisande : the most famous of all the fées of French romance, looked upon by the houses of Lusignan, Rohan, Luxembourg, and Sassenaye as their ancestor and founder. Having enclosed her father in a high mountain for offending her mother, she was condemned to become every Saturday a serpent from her waist downward. She married Raymond , count of Lusignan, and made her husband vow never to visit her on a Saturday; but the count hid himself on one of the forbidden days, and saw his wife transformation. Melusina was now obliged to quit her husband, and was destined to wander about as a spectre till the day of doom, though some say that the count immured her in the dungeon of his castle…A sudden scream is called un cri de Mélusine, in allusion to the scream of despair uttered by Melusina when she was discovered by her husband…bakery: in Poitou certain gingerbread cakes bearing the impress a beautiful woman "bien coiffée" with a serpent's tail …are still called Mélusines…..Melon: the Mohamedans say that the eating of a melon produces a thousand good works …see Elijah's melons… Memento mori (Latin., remember you must die) an emblem of mortality, such as a skull… "I make a good use of it[Bardolpn's face]as many a man doth of a death's head or a memento mori" SHAKESPEARE: Henry IV,Pt.I,III,iii….Melpomene muse of Tragedy…. "Up then, Melpomene,thou mournfullest Muse of nine, / Such cause of mourning never hads afore." SPENSER: Shepheard's Calendar (November)…

"By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians"."… highlights along the wall : Carlisle…Banks East Turret & Pike Hill Watchtower…Birdoswald Roman Fort…Poltross Burn Milecastle…Chesters Fort…Denton Hall..Newcastle…South Shields Fort…Many people mistakenly believe that the wall was built by slaves. But by today's standards we could say that the wall was a kind of occupational therapy for Roman legionaries; men from all over the Empire who had voluntarily joined the army probably needed such an exercise to keep them fit and busy in what was, at that time, a lonely outpost at the farthest edge of the world.
The Roman army numbered amongst its ranks highly skilled architects, mason builders, surveyors and carpenters as well as soldiers for whom the wall was an opportunity to express their talents and also be part of what they felt was the greatest civilising force in the west at that time. Local people may have willingly helped for not dissimilar reasons. And undoubtedly local people benefitted from trade in goods and services. The majority of the wall was built of stone. At first 10 Roman Feet wide, and later 8, it began in the east and reached the river Irthing near present day Carlisle, from there it continues west to the Solway Firth but is built of 18" x 12" x 6" regulation turf blocks (460mm x 300mm x 150mm). Milecastles were placed at regular intervals. Each pair of Milecastles had two Turrets between them. A Milecastle could garrison between 8 and 32 men. Turrets could also shelter some soldiers though they may have served primarily as look-out vantage points. As Hadrian's project evolved, more legionaries were moved up to the wall and large Forts were built
which straddled it These Forts had gates to allow traffic to pass north and south through the wall. During six years of building the wall reached its final basic form: From the south; an earth mound, then a ditch and further mound, then an open area on which a road was built to allow easy access to all parts of the wall all along its length, then the main wall itself, and just to the north of that, a deep ditch. For native inhabitants the ditch and mounds to the south may have signified the start of a sort of reserved military zone. From the point of view of a "barbarian" from the North, the wall might have seemed an almost superhuman accomplishment; perhaps a psychologically daunting symbol of power.

Built just after the wall was completed in AD 123, Chesters is the best preserved Roman Cavalry Fort in Britain.

At the turn of the 1800's Nathaniel Clayton, owner of Chesters House and Estate, moved hundreds of tons of earth to cover over the last remains of the fort as part of his parkland landscaping, thereby creating a smooth uninterrupted grassland slope down to the River Tyne. Admittedly, he did take the trouble to find and collect a number of Roman artifact which he preserved in the family. However his son John was fascinated by the vestiges of Roman presence in the neighbourhood, and went to the trouble of removing all his father's work, exposing the fort, excavating, and establishing a small museum for his finds. Not only that, but he also made excavations at Housesteads Fort, Carrawborough Mithraic Temple, and Carvoran, amongst others, and all this by apparently devoting himself to archaeology only on Mondays... Chesters was obviously very important to the Romans who built a sophisticated bridge (very little of which remains today except foundations) across the River Tyne at this point. It seems very likely that Chesters was the Roman Cilurnum referred to in the late Roman Military List Notitia Dignitatum, established first as a station for cavalry and, later, footsoldiers. Hadrian himself encouraged the "Cult of Disciplina" amongst legions stationed at the wall, and an early inscription on an altar dedicated to Disciplina, found in 1978, indicates the earliest known military presence was a wing of cavalry; ala Augusta ob virtutem appellata ("named Augusta because of its valour"). The Roman Army was made up of people who enlisted from all over the Empire, and inscriptions have been found showing that those garrisoned here included the First Cohort of Dalmatians (present day Yugoslavia) and the First Cohort of Vangiones from Upper Rhineland in Germany.
It seems that Cilurnum was built to house cavalry capable of rapid strikes into the "barbarian" north, but it is not known how many times it was called upon to fulfill this function

http://www.aboutscotland.co.uk/hadrian/

Hadrians wall

One of the greatest monuments to the power
- and limitations - of the Roman Empire,
Hadrian's Wall ran for 73 miles across open country.

Why was it built?

At the time of Julius Caesar's first small invasion of the south coast of Britain in 55 BC, the British Isles, like much of mainland Europe was inhabited by many Celtic tribes loosely united by a similar language and culture but nevertheless each distinct. He returned the next year and encountered the 4000 war chariots of the Catevellauni in a land "protected by forests and marshes, and filled with a great number of men and cattle." He defeated the Catevellauni and then withdrew, though not before establishing treaties and alliances. Thus began the Roman occupation of Britain.

Nearly 100 years later, in 43 AD, the Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius and about 24,000 soldiers to Britain, this time to establish control under a military presence. Although subjugation of southern Britain proceeded fairly smoothly by a combination of military might and clever diplomacy, and by 79 AD what is now England and Wales were firmly under control, the far North remained a problem. However, the Emperor Vespasian decided that what is now Scotland should also be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Under his instructions the governor of Britian, Julius Agricola, subdued the Southern Scottish tribal clans, the Selgovae, Novantae and Votadini by 81 AD. Further to the North lived loose associations of clans known collectively as the Caledonians. Agricola tried to provoke them into battle by marching an army into the Highlands eventually forcing a battle with the Caledonian leader Calgacus in present day Aberdeenshire at a place called Mons Graupius. 30,000 Caledonians were killed, but the Roman victory was a hollow one, for the next day the surviving clansmen melted away into the hills, and were to remain fiercely resistant and independent.
By the time Hadrian became Emperor in 117 AD the Roman Empire had ceased to expand. Hadrian was concerned to consolidate his boundaries. He visited Britain in 122 AD, and ordered a wall to be built between the Solway Firth in the West and the River Tyne in the east "to separate Romans from Barbarians".