Shared Article from archaeology.org

Evidence of Roman Battle Discovered in The Netherlands - Archaeo…

archaeology.org

Archaeologist Nico Roymans of the Vrije Universiteit announced in a press release the discovery of skeletal remains, swords, spearheads, and a helmet in the modern area of Kessel, at the site where Roman general Julius Caesar wiped out the Tencteri and the Usipetes, two Germanic tribes, in 55 B.C. Caesar described the battle in Book IV of his De Bello Gallico. After he rejected the tribes' request for asylum and permission to settle in the Dutch river area, his force of eight legions and cavalry conquered the camp and pursued the survivors to the convergence of the Meuse and Rhine Rivers, where he slaughtered more than 100,000 people. The Late Iron Age skeletal remains represent men, women, and children, and show signs of spear and sword injuries. Their bodies and bent weapons had been placed in a Meuse riverbed.

— Evidence of Roman Battle Discovered in the Netherlands
Archaeology (17 December 2015)

This is an amazing find, in the sense that archaeologists hardly ever find remains from known ancient battles, especially not on open battlefields. It’s a thoroughly unsurprising find, in the sense that it reinforces, once again, that Roman civilization was awful, and Julius Caesar one of the most celebrated genocidaires of history.^[1]

1. ^[1]Beware Caesar. Celebrate the Ides of March.↩

History was made April 1 in Amsterdam when three couples of gay men and one couple of lesbians were married under the world’s first law allowing legal marriage between same-sex couples [Advocate.com]. I suppose this is a positive development, but given my serious reservations about the gay marriage issue, I mark it with reserved applause at best. It’s not that I think gay people should be denied the privileges that str8 couples get. It’s that I don’t think that the government has any business extending or denying benefits to people on the basis of who they’re sleeping with–whether that person is a member of the same sex, a member of the opposite sex, transgendered, intersex, or anything else. So, yay for civil liberties / equal access being extended. Boo for the continued State privileging of marriage.