Paddy Lambert

William Shakespeare, the majestic bard, the enchanting poet, the ethereal playwright, and supposed inventor or first recorded user of dozens of words in the English language that are still used today, words like ‘leapfrog’ and ‘distinguishable’.

Robin Hood may not have a place in the true historical record, but it is fair to assume that the legends themselves hold a special place in history. This is not an unearthing of a great secret as to the ‘real’ Robin Hood, nor is it a comprehensive covering of the legends themselves with listless conjecture and debate.

I welcome you back to this journey where we attempt to follow in the footsteps of the armoured shadows of the Roman empire. Defeated men yet still potent in their violent majesty, taken at the battle of Carrahe in 53BC and marched by exotic dragons dripping with silk into the soft and dangerous mirage. And as with so many over the millennia, their souls destined to be lost amongst those of the remembered. But as we have seen before, maybe this isn't quite true.

In the lastest instalment, we set the scene and introduced the players. Now it is time for us to delve ever deeper into the mystery and enter the murky world where science and legend may walk hand in hand once more. Welcome to the 2nd act of a lost Roman legion in China.

It all started in 1957 when a well respected yet gloriously eccentric Sinologist by the name of Homer H Dubs published a paper entitled: ‘A Roman City in Ancient China’.

In the year of our Lord 2011, a silence fell like a shadow over Egypt, a silence so loud it's roar was heard around the world. Like something straight from the walls of one of the great monuments, our newspapers and televisions produced hieroglyphics that depicted an age of larger than life characters and of political and social revolution, the likes of which we have difficulty in believing in the 21st Centuries ability to produce such events in a bloody and somewhat nonchalant attitude, reminiscent of events we deem to stay in history books.