![]() The name Prettani comes down to us today as the name Britain. ![]() So even then, the reference was to these ‘painted people’ living on this mythical island of Britain. It’s from him that we get the name of Britain, because he said that Britain was populated by the Prettani, the ‘painted people’. Martin didn't just get inspiration for Game of Thrones from the Wars of the Roses, but from all manner of historical circumstances and people, as Dan Jones explains to Dan Snow. One famous geographer called Pytheas actually circumnavigated, it seems, the main isles of Britain. And, again, they’re only passing references. In fact, the first references we have to Britain were from merchants and geographers in the 5th, 4th, 3rd-centuries BC. It was very different for them compared to the comparatively benign Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean. This mythical place lay across fearsome Oceanus, as they called the English Channel and the North Sea. It was The North in ‘Game of Thrones’ about which they knew nothing. In actual fact, even as Caesar began to conquer Gaul in the 50s BC, Britain was almost a terrifying place for the Romans. They knew about Gaul because of their Mediterranean connections but they knew very little about Britain. But to the Romans, Britain remained a great unknown. Latterly, just before the Romans arrived, the British culture was Late Iron Age. Two smaller bronzes were also found, one a satyr with its hands tied behind its back.Historian and archaeologist Simon Elliott answers the key questions surrounding one of history's most compelling figures - Julius Caesar. ![]() Other items found in the treasure-trove included a 1.8m marble statue of Neptune dating from the third century. The find was made in October 2007 but was kept quiet until now so the site would not be disturbed. "Or was it dumped because Caesar was becoming a tyrant who wanted to kill the republic and become emperor? It could have belonged to an important person, or it could have been placed on a public building." "Perhaps this bust was thrown into the river after Caesar was assassinated because that was a difficult time to be considered a follower of his," L'Hour said. The riddle that remains is why the bust ended up at the bottom of the river in the town dubbed "Little Rome in Gaul". It's extremely rare and most likely unique." "It's done in the republican tradition of realism from real life - he looks aged, lined and balding. "The important thing is that this is a bust taken from the living man," said Michel L'Hour, head of the French government's team for subaquatic archaeological research. ![]() The French culture minister, Christine Albanel, triumphantly claimed the bust "the most ancient representation of Caesar known today". The French excavation team said this was the only bust of Caesar made during his lifetime, apart from a Turin death mask taken just before or after his death.Įven in Rome, portraits and statues of Caesar were essentially posthumous. It is believed the bust was sculpted between 49 and 46BC, when Caesar was in his 50s, a few years before he was assassinated by nobles in the senate house. The bust was discovered by French archaeologist divers scouring the bottom of the Rhône in the southern town of Arles, which Caesar founded in 46BC, distributing land among his veteran legionnaires. He also has wrinkles and lines that reflect the war-hardened life of the man who conquered Gaul and whose quest for power was largely responsible for turning the Roman republic into a dictatorship that would later become an empire. The life-sized bust, which has thrilled French archaeologists, shows a man in his fifties with the receding hair said to have given him a complex after taunts from his battlefield enemies. ![]()
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