I'm in Thanksgiving mode here in Spain, but working on a presentation about Tiberius who was born on November 16th in 42BC. I will put it up some time before the holidays, hopefully. See you soon!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Coming Soon to Ancient Modern and Ridiculous
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Saturday, November 04, 2006
The Ancient, The Modern and The Ridiculous 11/04/2006
This week a short history of Pertinax, perhaps one of the shortest reigns in imperial history. Also a virtual tour of the Naples Museum.
Friday, November 03, 2006
The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous ---A Promo
Why did Caesar regularly pluck out all his body hair? Did this lend credence to the popular saying of his time, "Caesar is a man for all women and a woman for all men"?
Did you know that dear old Uncle Claudius wrote a tract on the importance of breaking wind, and recommended this expulsion even at the dinner table? He even tried to get a law through the senate to the effect. I guess he wanted the senators to pass more than legislation.
History is full of the kind of gossip perhaps even the Enquirer would think twice about printing. Great writers of antiquity such as Suetonius, Polybius, Tacitus and Dio were also the major-league yentas of their time. Procopius, secretary of the Byzantine general Belisarius and author of the book The Secret History, wrote about the Emperor Justinian and his wife Empress Theodora in such terms as would rival the scandal mongering of a modern Hollywood exposé. Robert Graves took Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome as his model for the mayhem-riddled I, Claudius and Claudius the God. He also borrowed from Procopius for his lesser-known but no less exciting book Count Belisarius.
Most people avoid reading the ancient authors for fear of ponderous writing about forgotten places and events. It seems like a lot of investment just to get a little juicy information. Writers like Colleen McCullough, Steven Saylor and Lindsey Davis research directly from the classics, wrap them up in an interesting package and deliver it to millions of fans. What many of us don't realize is that, in the realm of the classics, the events as reported by the old historians are in many ways stranger and more exciting than their interpretation by modern writers.
Join me each week on The Ancient, The Modern and the Ridiculous and discover how much fun the ancient world really was.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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