New 'wall building' movie

Jasper Oorthuys — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:00:00 +0100

Marc Sanders of Phalera Filmworks - and the centurio of Legio X Gemina - taped the construction of our Roman wall and ditch during the 2008 Roman Festival in Nijmegen. The video has now been re-edited (with me cut out, phew!) and has had graphics added to it, made by a member of Legio XV Primigenia. It looks totally awesome now. Just needs an English voice over, as the current version is Dutch only.

TV-shoot with unintended consequences

Jasper Oorthuys — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:00:00 +0100

For some reason I forgot to post the blog below in early July. So mentally backdate and have a laugh at the photos...The tv-show (in Dutch and quite a bit outdated in its historical research) has been broadcast by now as well (last item of the show).

I'm involved in the organisation of a reenactment event here in Nijmegen in late August. This event has various aspects, which make it different from others. One of those is that we'll try to have some irregular Batavian reenactors.

Roman wall-and-ditch, day 5-End

Jasper Oorthuys — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:00:00 +0100

I wasn't able to attend much of the preparations on Friday. We had someone come over at home to install bathroom cupboards and the like. When I arrived on the festival terrain, it was raining. Hard. Pluvius kept this up pretty much until Saturday morning at 10, just before the Festival was to open. From then on we had pretty much unbroken nice and actually sunny weather. I actually managed to get me a red neck!

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones when the reena...

Roman Festival 2008, promo vid

Jasper Oorthuys — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:00:00 +0100

As I'm part of the (volunteer) organization, I thought I'd put this up here too. A promo video for Nijmegen Roman Festival of next week. Building of the wall starts Monday, when the city archaeologist who excavated it, will indicate where the post holes will have to go. Rebuilding on the spot!

Thanks to Marc Sanders for the video.

Visiting the Companions

Jasper Oorthuys — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

Until yesterday, my experience with Ancient reenactors had been pretty much limited to Early and Late Imperial Romans (luckily Republican Rome seems to slowly gain in interest). Granted, there were two or three Celts or Germans at the Xanten events I visited, but at least they belong in the era.

'Greeks' are still fairly rare on the ground and at present I only know of one group who do anything Hellenistic, the German group Hetairoi (please prove me wrong if there are more out there!)...

Using more reenactors?

Jasper Oorthuys — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:00:00 +0100

As you may or may not know, getting good quality illustrations for our articles is a constant concern for me. Simply put, I can illustrate Roman imperial stuff forever and a day, but when it comes to Roman Republican soldiers, Alexander's troops or, dear me, those wonderfully interesting Successor armies, it's another story.