Age of the Gladiators
October 20, 2009
You’re at a dinner party, and you overhear your neighbor discussing gladiatorial games in ancient Rome. You sidle over and slip into the conversation, “Did you know that an ape was once trained to drive a chariot pulled by camels?” Later, you check in on the teenagers in the basement watching the newly released Blu-Ray version of Russell Crowe’s “Gladiator”. After Maximus slices through the last of his latest foes, you pipe in with, “Did you know that condemned criminals (and sometimes Christians) were, in fact, thrown to lions, but they were also thrown to crocodiles, wolves, dogs and bears?”
...read the full review of Age of the Gladiators by Rupert Matthews
Surnames of the Licinii
October 11, 2009
The Licinii were the most illustrious of Republican Rome's plebeian gentes, attaining the magisterial rank of consul in 364 BCE (with C. Licinius Stolo) when the patricians had formerly dominated this office.
The plebeian Licinii, however, were not without their patrician connections. Münzer noted: "The first consular tribune Licinius is thought to have been the brother of a Cornelius (Livy 5.12.12), thus originating from a mixed marriage...; the first magister equitum Licinius was thought to have been allied by 'close kinship' (propinqua cognatione) to a Manlius (Livy 6.39.4); the first or second consul Licinius was thought to be the son-in-law of a Fabius..."
...read the full article of the Surnames of the Licinii
Eagle In The Snow
October 05, 2009
Eagle In The Snow by Wallace Breem centers on the years 405 AD to early 407. It captures a key moment in the Empire’s death throes as hundreds of thousands of mostly Germanic peoples mass on the east bank of the Rhine waiting for the river to freeze and then to walk into Gaul. The tale is an epitaph for the Roman Empire with General Paulinus Gaius Maximus serving as the lone pall bearer, carrying the weight of an empire marching inexorably toward its grave...
...read the full review of Eagle In The Snow by Wallace Breem
