Tag Archives: rome
Facebook, Roman style

At Gizmodo
Sex and Roman coins
At Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog. Pictures definitely NSFW.
Why the Germans do not speak a Romance language
Fantasy before Reality
I stumbled on 5 Ancient Acts of War That Changed the Face of the Earth. The history is accurate, though the style and vocabulary are …. not what I used when writing papers for History 10 at Carleton 40 years ago. Also interesting are the parallels used to describe historical events. Mildly NSFW language behind cut
A Novel of Ancient Rome
Give Me Back My Legions!, by Harry Turtledove. This is historical fiction, without any elements of alternate history or science fiction. I liked it much better than most of the Amazon reviewers did. Continue reading
Some books I read in 2009
Clothing and society in the Roman world
A single horrifying number
2%: The US Civil War, mathematics, and why we have already lost in Iraq
Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt – They made a desert and called it peace. (Tacitus)
Archaeology and the Druids
Possible Druid Grave Enchants Archaeologists. Via Archaeology in Europe
Unlike a lot of sensational reports, this one is properly cautious about the dangers of interpreting a society from physical evidence alone:
There’s a joke among archaeologists: Two of their kind, in the future, find a present-day public toilet. “We’ve discovered a holy site!” cries one. “Look, it has two separate entrances,” says the other. “This here,” he says, pointing to the door with a pictogram of a woman, “was for priests. This is evident by the figure wearing a long garment.”
This reminded me of Digging the Weans (excerpt here), and Motel of the Mysteries.