Dacia and Modern Politics
October 24, 2008
In the study of History, the detachment of one’s own cultural values can be hard to achieve. In most examples of historical writing – including the ancient sources (e.g. Tacitus, Annals, 1.1; Livy, 1.1.1.) – the claim of impartiality rarely departs from the text; but, with most examples of historical writing, the execution of full impartiality is a rarity. It is, as it were, hard not to claim that cultural bias is ingrained at a subliminal level (Mattingly, 1997, 14). The mindset of the historian always resonates throughout his prose...
read the full article on Dacia and Modern Politics
Propertius
October 03, 2008
A love-struck Roman male was once construed an oxymoron. The Latin mos maiorum placed duty to the state above all other considerations, including romance. Had not Aeneas sacrificed his love for Dido in siring the Roman race? And yet it was Rome that developed the love elegy, the poet's exaltation of a man's amorous servitude. Sextus Propertius was one of the leading voices of those who, in so many words, placed Cupid's arrows before Rome's majesty. While Augustus' regime tried to co-opt Propertius for their moralizing mission, they were never entirely successful. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, Propertius' poetry resounds throughout the ages, to be appreciated readily by the modern romantic...
...read the full article about the poet Propertius
