Bret Devereaux

@ProfPaul_J @BretDevereaux @Idiotprofessor4 Ok gents. Netflix now has a series on Varus' campaign into Germany......... Let's get going.

Wait it's out already? I'll get to it, and we should discuss. The trailer had some nice elements, some interesting choices. I wonder if there's hubbub over the Germanic tribes speaking German.

I'm more interested in the ROmans speaking Latin. (and the equipment) First episode left me cold. If you get further, I'll be interested to hear your thoughts.

The Latin seemed pretty decent? I'm sure a philologist with a living Latin bent could find fault (use of dominus as 'sir' struck me as odd, but its used occasionally as a formal greeting in the sources; I'd have to search to check the usage by soldiers to officers though).

The equipment isn't wrong, per se, but seems to oversample high-visibility prestige armors. Helmets look to be almost all 'Gallic' - fancy, high visibility - but in 9 there should still be plenty of coolus, montefortino helmets mixed in there.

And @Idiotprofessor4 would probably also say, there's too much segmentata, not enough mail here. Obviously we have segmentata fragments from Kalkriese, so it's not crazy to have some, but it is probably too uniform. And there's basically no mail?

The scale I saw struck me as odd. Roman scale armor usually has pretty chunky scales, often pretty thick (in the same range as segmentata pieces, I recall?). The scale in the show seemed thinner and to fall quite flat. Could still be correct, just looked wrong to me.

They make a big deal with the famous Kalkriese mask, which - as they have it - was probably for a cavalryman's helmet, but was also probably decorative. I don't think anyone would wear it while riding, the way they have it.