A retiarius was a Roman gladiator who fought with equipment styled on that of a fisherman: a weighted net, a three-pointed trident, a dagger. The retiarius was armoured, wearing an arm guard and a shoulder guard, his clothing consisted only of a loincloth held in place by a wide belt, or of a short tunic with light padding. He wore footwear; the retiarius was pitted against a heavily-armed secutor. The net-fighter made up for his lack of protective gear by using his speed and agility to avoid his opponent's attacks and waiting for the opportunity to strike, he first tried to throw his net over his rival. If this succeeded, he attacked with his trident. Another tactic was to ensnare his enemy's weapon in the net and pull it out of his grasp, leaving the opponent defenseless. Should the net miss or the secutor grab hold of it, the retiarius discarded the weapon, although he might try to collect it back for a second cast; the retiarius had to rely on his trident and dagger to finish the fight. The trident, as tall as a human being, permitted the gladiator to jab and keep his distance.

It was a strong weapon, capable of inflicting piercing wounds on limb. The dagger was the retiarius's final backup, it was reserved for when close a straight wrestling match had to settle the bout. In some battles, a single retiarius faced two secutores simultaneously. For these situations, the armoured gladiator was placed on a raised platform and given a supply of stones with which to repel his pursuers. Retiarii first appeared in the arena during the 1st century AD and had become standard attractions by the 2nd or 3rd century; the gladiator's lack of armour and his reliance on evasive tactics meant that many considered the retiarius the lowliest of the gladiators, an stigmatised class. Passages from the works of Juvenal and Suetonius suggest that those retiarii who fought in tunics may have constituted an more demeaned subtype who were not viewed as legitimate retiarii fighters but as arena clowns. Roman artwork and grave markers include examples of specific net-men who had reputations as skilled combatants and lovers.

Roman gladiators fell into stock categories modelled on real-world precedents. All of these classes were based on military antecedents. Rare gladiator fights were staged over water. Fights between differently-armed gladiators became popular in the Imperial period; the earlier murmillones had borne a fish on their helmets. However, because of the stark differences in arms and armour between the two types, the pairing pushed such practices to new extremes. Roman art and literature make no mention of retiarii until the early Imperial period. Graffiti and artifacts from Pompeii attest to the class's existence by this time. Fights between retiarii and secutores became popular as early as the middle of the 1st century CE. In addition to the man-versus-nature symbolism inherent in such bouts, the armoured retiarius was viewed as the effeminate counterpoint to the manly armoured secutor; the retiarius was seen as water to the secutor's fire, one moving and escaping, the other determinedly inescapable. Another gladiator type, the laquearius, was similar to the retiarius but fought with a lasso in place of a net.

The more skin left unarmoured and exposed, the lower a gladiator's status and the greater his perceived effeminacy. The engulfing net may have been seen as a feminine symbol; the light arms and armour of the retiarius thus established him as the lowliest, most disgraced, most effeminate of the gladiator types. Helmets allowed both spectators to dehumanise the fighters. However, the retiarius was allowed no head protection; the emperor Claudius had all net-fighters who lost in combat put to death so that spectators could enjoy their expressions of agony. The retiarius's fighting style was another strike against him, as reliance on speed and evasion were viewed as undignified in comparison to the straightforward trading of blows; the retiarii lived in the worst barracks. Some members of the class trained to fight as Samnites, another gladiator type, in order to improve their status. There is evidence that those net-men wearing tunics, known as retiarii tunicati, formed a special sub-class, one more demeaned than their loincloth-wearing colleagues.

The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that: So the lanista's establishment is better ordered than yours, for he separates the vile from the decent, sequesters from their fellow-retiarii the wearers of the ill-famed tunic. The passag

Recon is a role-playing game wherein players assume the role of U. S. military characters during the Vietnam War. It started as more of a wargame with role-playing elements, like Behind Enemy Lines and Twilight 2000, evolved into a full role-playing game; the first edition was published by RPG, Inc. in 1982 as a 44-page book. A 44-page digest-sized second edition packaged with a referee's screen was published in 1983 by RPG, Inc; this edition introduced the idea of created and disposable characters. Like Dungeons and Dragons, the Mission Director used a Random Encounters table to generate terrain and villages, create groups of adversaries for the players to fight, obstacles to overcome, or problems to solve. Combat was resolved using miniatures rules. Recon is a mildly controversial modern military system of jungle combat in the Vietnam war; the rules cover character creation, recon teams, missions and debriefing, hand-to-hand combat, small arms and heavy weapons, terrain generation. San Succi was a map pack.

It detailed a 16-block area in 1:72 scale for use with 25 mm lead figures. It contained a guide to the buildings on the map, a Non-Player Character generating system, a vehicular combat system. Sayaret / Track Commander – was a supplement set during the Arab-Israeli Wars. Players could generate Israeli soldier characters that could operate as a commando detachment or a tank crew, it allowed the Mission Director to run Israeli commando raids or tank battles. The Haiphong H. A. L. O.: SOG Operations in North Vietnam - The first adventure campaign, involved missions behind enemy lines in North Vietnam. It expanded roleplay to include Army Special Forces, Navy SEAL, Marine Force Recon commando characters and detailed real-world airborne and amphibious insertion techniques. Missions included reconnaissance, sabotage, assassination / ambush, prisoner snatching, search and rescue. Hearts & Minds – The second adventure campaign, involved a cadre training mission in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

Characters are part of a Special Forces "A" Team sent to train a group of Montagnard tribesmen into a fighting force. They have to win the tribespeople over, protect them from reprisals, secure their area of operations, it included a random-generation tunnel complex table. Headhunters Ltd. - A variant contemporary adventure campaign where the characters play veteran mercenaries working for the eponymous Mercenary Force. It was announced in the gaming press but was never released before RPG Inc. went out of business. Platoon 20 RECON - A line of 20mm lead figures for use with RECON, they came 5 figures per set. They included the Vietnam-era American Army, ARVN troops and Montagnard mercenaries, VC Main Force and NVA troops. There were Israeli troops and PLO terrorists for use with Sayaret / Track Commander; the Revised Recon was designed by Erick Wujcik and published by Palladium Books in 1986 as a 152-page book. Wujcik's Revised Recon revamped the tactical miniatures game Recon by Joe F. Martin; because of its origins, Revised Recon was the only other Palladium game aside from Valley of the Pharaohs that did not use Palladium's house system.

Recon received just one further book, Advanced Recon, which involved a commando campaign set in 1960s Laos. The Revised Recon was a complete revision and expansion of this modern military system, with rules rewritten for compatibility with the standard Palladium Books game system, it includes a illustrated hardware section, rules for playing mercenaries, several scenarios, plus guidelines for interfacing Recon characters with other Palladium game systems. The second edition, Revised RECON, was released June 1986 by Palladium Books. Many of the basic rules were kept the same, but author Erick Wujcik made an attempt to "balance" them; this was achieved by reducing elements of luck. For instance, rather than randomizing the number of skills a character had, one could select a number of skills based on his class. Another significant change was the concept of a "minimum" skill level for weapon proficiencies; these were decided by rolling percentile dice, which meant that a character could theoretically have a skill level anywhere from 1 to 100.

However, in the revised edition, a low roll could be "bumped" up to whatever the minimum skill level was for that particular weapon. Notable in the revised edition was the substantial amount of information it provided about equipment and vehicles. Whereas RPG Inc.'s version had only limited information regarding guns, the Palladium edition had pages of gun statistics as well as detailed descriptions of aircraft and vehicles. The new edition focused more on the fictional RECON world, which used OPFOR-type nicknames for major nations. Countries included "Stateside", "Big Red", People's China, Southern'Nam, People's'Nam, Buntar, Delancourt, San Isabel, San Marcos, Boorland, Ephor, Greenham Isle, Grugashan and Dakali. Advanced RECON - introduced February, 1987 - was an expansion of the rules, it allowed the creation of Special Operations characters, set the game world in the historical Southeast As

Edward Haven Mason, of Boston, was the first philatelist to study, to write on, proofs and essays of United States postage stamps and postal stationery. Mason specialized in collecting and studying proofs and essays related to United States postal history and wrote extensively on the subject, his books include: Essays for United States Postage Stamps, published in 1911, The Proofs and Essays for U. S. Envelopes in 1911, More Essays for United States Postage Stamps, in 1912. Mason's listings of proofs and essays were the basis for their listing in Scott U. S. Specialized Catalogue of Stamps. At the time Mason performed his studies and wrote, it was illegal in the United States to publish illustrations of United States postage stamp material; as a result, his works have no illustrations. Edward Mason was named to the American Philatelic Society Hall of Fame in 1949. Only ten copies of Mason's books, with photographs interleaved by the New England Stamp Company, were printed. Copies of these interleaved books are located at the Collectors Club of New York and at the Smithsonian Institution, in the library of the National Postal Museum.

Mason was the son of United States Attorney David H. Mason and the brother of attorney and football coach Frank A. Mason. Philately Philatelic literature Edward Haven Mason