Review; Antony and Cleopatra
June 29, 2008
Antony and Cleopatra: the world’s greatest pair of historic lovers, an evil temptress and a love-struck drunkard doomed to defeat. Or so we think. Our sources on these individuals were written in the wake of their defeat at the hands of an implacable enemy. Shakespeare’s famous play then ennobled the tale into a literary romance that resonated throughout Western literature. Patricia Southern tries to cut through these centuries of hype and alleged slander by offering, in her view, a more impartial assessment of the Late Republic’s most infamous lovers...
...read the full review of Antony and Cleopatra by Patricia Southern
Review; Roman Poetry
June 22, 2008
One can approach poetry in two ways. A scholarly and objective treatment would analyze poetry in terms of its form, style and social relevance. I cannot claim to be a scholar, nor can I even claim poetry as a forte. I prefer instead to taste poetry - to sample its enticing, delectable sumptuousness. I offer here a purely subjective review of one author's own subjective treatment of the great Roman poets. What interests me is not so much genre and form, but the fashioning of a witty phrase. What intrigues me is perhaps not so much the historical and literary context, but the at times raw lasciviousness conveyed. Therefore if you want to know more about Roman poetry as Roman poetry, I cannot really help you, nor will I claim to do so. But what I will do is share with you an overview of an author's translation of several works. If you find them, as I did, to be on the whole inviting and entertaining, then consider yourself quite free to explore the topic further by consulting relevant sources, scholarly or otherwise...
...read the full review of Roman Poetry by Dorothea Wender
Review; Twelve Caesars
June 16, 2008
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was born around that fateful year of 69 CE. It was then that the Julio-Claudian dynasty finally collapsed without a direct heir. Senatorial commanders of provincial armies took to the battlefields to decide the issue of succession. Suetonius' own father, a military tribune, had fought at the battle of Betriacum in the Year of the Four Emperors. When it was all over, the Flavian dynasty stood victorious as the new masters of Rome, and the empire of the Caesars crawled out from under its cradle into a maturing adolescence. Perhaps it was for personal reasons - a sense of having one's own fate entwined with larger events - that Suetonius decided to write a history of the empire and the personalities who presided over its birth. Whatever his motivations, Suetonius became the leading witness for Rome's early empire.
...read the full review of Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
Review; The Christians as the Romans Saw Them
June 11, 2008
"The place to study early Christian thought is with its critics," according to Robert Louis Wilken, professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia. "Christianity became the religion it did, at least in part, because of critics like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian." The modern Western world, with rising levels of both secularism and religious diversity, moves slowly out under the shadow cast down by centuries of Christian influence. Judeo-Christian conservatives decry the trend and fight ever so assiduously to retain their status as the establishment. It is therefore educational and perhaps wickedly entertaining to study a time when Christians were counter-culture activists themselves arrayed against a hostile establishment. Wilken presents a highly readable account of Roman views on the upstart Gallilean cult.
read the full review of The Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Robert Louis Wilken
Review: The First Frontier
June 07, 2008
The core topic of this book is the development of the 'massive and complex frontier system' by the Romans in Scotland. This system comprises three distinct elements; the Highland and Strathmore lines of forts and the Gask line of watchtowers and fortlets running in parallel between them. Although previously seen as separate phases (c/f Jones and Mattingly (1990), An Atlas of Roman Britain), this system is now becoming recognized as a unified whole and the prototype for all subsequent linear Roman frontiers including Hadrian’s Wall and the fortifications along the Danube...
read the full review of The First Frontier: Rome in the North of Scotland
Review: Backgrounds of Early Christianity
June 02, 2008
Few things invite such invective as the topic of Christianity. It is seen as either the best or worst product of Greco-Roman civilization depending on one's proclivities. The very fact it was a product of its culture should make for a fruitful and objective study on Antiquity, but one finds the pursuit hard to conduct without an explosion of zealots on both sides of the debates. What I would like to do is to broach the topic, hopefully without adding any more bias or vitriol to the debate. To that end I offer the following review on a book that may prove helpful to both sides ....
...read the full review of Backgrounds of Early Christianity
