"Historians" "locate" "King Arthur's Round Table" "which seated 1,000"
The claim is this: the round table was not a round table at all, but a Roman Amphitheater. There is some support to this, as there were early historical documents stating that the table could "seat 1,000" and thus his table brought all the boys to the yard, and was better than yours.
In a much less egalitarian way, these same historians believed that nobles got to call dibs on the front seats, where they got served free beer, popcorn, and hotdogs, while the commoners in back had to pay out seven dinarii just to get a warm beer after waiting in line for 10 minutes and always missing the best part of the speech. The only upside to this is that they were British, so warm beer was kind of their thing.
Going along with this, and basically the foundation for the claim, is that Camelot was not a purpose built castle at all, but really just a left-over Roman fort. Which makes me think that they just read Jack Whyte's excellent book "Uther" and called it a day on their research.
Anyway, this is the claim:
'Camelot historian Chris Gidlow said: “The first accounts of the Round Table show that it was nothing like a dining table but was a venue for upwards of 1,000 people at a time.
“We know that one of Arthur’s two main battles was fought at a town referred to as the City of Legions. There were only two places with this title. One was St Albans but the location of the other has remained a mystery.”
The recent discovery of an amphitheatre with an execution stone and wooden memorial to Christian martyrs, has led researchers to conclude that the other location is Chester.
Mr Gidlow said: “In the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who wrote the earliest account of Arthur’s life, referred to both the City of Legions and to a martyr’s shrine within it. That is the clincher. The discovery of the shrine within the amphitheatre means that Chester was the site of Arthur’s court and his legendary Round Table.”'
Yeah...... that's a bit of a stretch. I mean, it all seems plausible, possibly even likely, but definitive proof? No. Which is why I am skeptical of the nature of these claims: legitimate historians don't generally stick themselves way out on logical precipices.
Still - I think it is really interesting, and it does all seem to fit together. I especially like the amphitheater as a political tool part, seems like a logical and very astute political move.
Also, Gildas did not write an account of Arthur's life. In fact, Gildas although he probably was a contemporary or near-contemporary of whatever historical figure was the initial inspiration for the Arthur legends, never actually mentions Arthur at all.
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