2024/08/01 by M.C. Bishop · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeological Research and Protection #Classical Antiquity Studies #Historical and Architectural Studies
paper · doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.87
openalex publication_date 2024/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/08
At a time when the Parthenon Sculptures refuse to go away (in every sense of the phrase) and uncatalogued items were allegedly found to have been sold off by a member of staff, The British Museum needs some good news. There must have been sighs of relief all round when their new exhibition in the (itself often controversial: Puffett 2023) BP Gallery, Legion: life in the Roman Army , opened to almost universal press acclaim (e.g. Clark 2024; Jones 2024); it runs from 1 February to 23 June 2024. However, some (perfectly valid) observations in her blog by a scholar qualified in the field triggered a ‘woke alarm’ in some less-qualified quarters (McGrath 2024). It was always likely to be a crowd pleaser, with something for every “exercitologist” (Bishop 2014: 24), whether amateur or professional. For those visitors who had cut their Roman military teeth on Graham Webster's seminal Roman Imperial Army (Webster 1969, 1979, 1985), it was going to have its work cut out to satisfy.