While looking for inspiration (i.e. googling of the word legion), a series of drunken key strokes led to the serendipitous discovery that 90s popular beat combo R.E.M. (kids, ask your grandparents or any men you know under twenty five with quiffs and long beards) had originally been called R.O.M.E and that all of their tunes had been written with lyrics that tried to capture life in the ancient empire. Stipe and his pals were forced to change both the name of the band and all of the words to their songs by their record company as the historical links were thought too esoteric and intellectual. Sadly, lost to time are the lines from ‘Everybody Hurts (after partying with Tiberius)’ ‘Shiny Happy Gladiators’ ‘It’s the End of the Roman Empire as we know it’ and ‘Man on the Mulsum’ but amazingly, I unearthed their original version of ‘Losing my Religion’ which seems eerily pertinent. It appears the Romans were up for a bit of Keretizein, no doubt adopted from Greek culture along with everything else of merit, and this is R.O.M.E’s attempt to document the game as it was played back in the day by the IXth Legion. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any recording by the band but I did discover that the Australian actor Russell Crowe used it to get into character for some film he did once (and yet tries to emulate Stipe’s vocal stylings). I hope you’ll agree it’s a fitting tribute.