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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gavin Richardson, post: 2672184, member: 83956&quot;][ATTACH=full]595324[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I picked up my Trajan Decius (eBay seller&#039;s photo) several years back when I was teaching a course on Arthurian legend. The Hollywood film KING ARTHUR with Clive Owen and Keira Knightly had just come out, popularizing the &quot;Sarmatian Connection&quot; theory; i.e., the theory that certain features of the Arthurian legend can be traced to Sarmatian/Pannonian/Dacian Roman cavalrymen stationed in Britannia just prior to the Saxon invasions of the 5th century. The association of Arthurian kingship with dragons (e.g., in names such as Uther Pen<b>dragon</b>) is thought to be relatable to the importance of military draco standards from the Dacian region. There&#039;s even a moment in the KING ARTHUR film in which Artorius is on a hill holding the draco standard, which can be heard fainting whistling as the wind whips through it. The belief is that the sound of many of these at the front of an army could indeed be terrifying. At any rate, the Sarmatian Connection will never be proved, but it&#039;s an interesting confluence of Roman history and early Arthuriana, and this Trajan Decius coin offers an affordable, material connection to this intersection of history and myth.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]595323[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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