Aphrodite

Oh, does you disertation involve the antics of Clodia? She is mentioned in the sources yes! But t is not about her in anyway though. Why thankyou dear!

I think maybe I should have put that in inverted commas, i totally agree and the gently coax was somewhat tounge in cheek...

Historical Romance nominal morphology...put into English, I study the evolution of gender inflection and agreement from Latin into (early) Romance, combined with language change theories. And my head's about to explode! wow. That sounds taxing, but rewarding! Good luck with it, it must be such a relief to be nearing the final hurdle. I am happy today as I got good feedback from my tutor on my first chapter draft, i had been nervous to say the least! Frankly I envy PhD candidates. Working in seclusion on a topic you presumably chose and actually like seems a godsend. It seems to beat the hell out of the dog-eat-dog tussle of law school and the daily inquisition of the legal Socratic method, at least from what I can tell from friends and acquaintances. I came to this conclusion during my first year of law school--what I'd opted for instead of a PhD program. I guess the grass is always greener...and the lawyer jokes...if I had a dollar... I'm not a phd student, I study in england and here all finalists write a dissertation, I'm not sure if this differs in america? But yes, i did get to choose the subject and i'm really enjoying it (when i'm not pulling my hair out), its very rewarding conducting my own research and I think i will be so so proud when its done! Good luck with law school.... yes don't worry the grass is always greener, when i'm having a bad day i find my self wishing i was doing something more structured!

Do you play strip poker when you are round your mother's for sunday lunch?

Aphrodite, you are a godsend! We ladies languish here among our beloved patriarchs...... But to be fair to the men on the Forum, they would welcome 'the female slant', and we only have ourselves to blame if we don't contribute. I have several little projects in mind..... I hope you'll help. I look forward to posting and chit-chatting with you over the coming months. Excellent! I will look out for your posts, and when my brain is ticking over i shall post and look forward to your replies too Are you studying/researching, or do you have a personal interest in the subjuect? I read that and thought you said the fags! As we all know a womans best friend is a gay man... but what do you mean by the figs? Its xmas soon and my dad will be eating figs if that counts? "until it degenerates into bitchy pomo deconstructionist blather" In preference to macho great men of history type topics? I don't think there is a place in historical research for 'bitchy pomo deconstuctionist blather' personaly... what about you? I'm most certainly not a feminist, but i am most drawn to social history and the lives of families and women - looking further into the rhetorical sources and finding the backgrounds and hidden meanings of society isn't it just... i planned to have an early night but got draged out to party - my first night out in over two weeks and i really needed it! lets see how i cope in the morning. The dissertation is nothing like i imagined, its taken over my life and all i can see is getting the best grade I possibly can, and i'm sacrficing a vibrant social life for it, but i know it will be so so so worht it Good luck doco! What is your subject area?

I guess you would call it gambling but shhh. Who indulges in what? I don't tend to play for cash very often, my student loan has enough to contend with, without the added spice of a gambling problem! However, I did win

Of keeping me entertained for the next few months, while I write my dissertation? I figure chit chat on this board is still historical and topical so not as bad as msn distractions! This way i get to continue learning.... although I'm not sure how interested most of you will be in the women and, their lives, of late antiquity.... Maybe the femal slant on a few issues will add to the debate... who knows!

I never get to watch this as my housemates have no interest in history... i made them sit through a documentary on churchills involvement in the war in greece once and they weren't too happy lol.... Its america's next top model, will and grace, freinds and corination street all the way in our house! Oh well, i read history all day long, write it all night long so TV is a form of light entertainment for me. I can buy the DVD when i'm working and missing my historicalness!

I prefer bronze age greece

Hey guys... check out the latest of my books I am selling on... a few interesting ones on the Late Roman army for all you military lovers, especially interesting for those of you looking to see a different side of what is traditionally seen as 'the' roman army. Also a little paperback on the clothing of the roman army, great illustrations and a good accompaniment to the duller academic novels on the market. Plus a good academic book on Pompeii, which would be perfectly combined with Robert Harding

Because we are all curious about where we comefrom, and associations with greatness!

Its bonfire night on Nov5th... and my uni is having the huge fireworks display tonight, but i'm missing it and staying in the library as i have too much work to do on my dissertation to go to the funfair For those of you who are not familiar with bonfire night, we celebrate each year the foiling of the gunpowder plot to blow up the houses of parliment, the result of which was Guy Fawkes being burned to death. It is tradition to let off fireworks and have a big bonfire, and to burn a 'guy' on the bonfire. This is basically a man that you make in the same way as a scarecrow... although its more of a thing for kids to make the guy and by now its probs been banned for resons of political correctness Anyway, on bofire night we all go down to bonfires and eat toffee apples and roast chestnuts! I just wish Guy had tried to blow up parliment in the summer...

I love the decadence of the Byzantine era, when i read i can't help but picture gold, mosiacs, rich fabrics.... I like the transfer of the empires centre and looking at the effects of the rise of a new religion. I must say though that the new and prudish attirude of the religion was somewhat of a turnoff - where was dioyonisus when you needed him!

Constantines family, notably his father and him, were worshipers of the sun god. Constantines coin has both christian (the symbol) and sun god (the latin phrase i think) references. The main theory on Christmas i will throw into the pot is that Constantine chose the time of the Winter Solstace for the major religious festival of the new religion for two reasons: 1. To honor his personal (if not public) continuation of sun god worship. 2. To gently coax pagans into christian traditions - keeping the major festival at the same time as the solstace would mean the people felt some famliarity and were not as resistant to change.

I am female.... I don't fancy being a vestal virgin, And i'm not that religous so the priestess of jupiter is out.... so I guess my profession will be that of a matron! I think I would be happy in this role though! I would make it my career to marry well and be a good wife and reap the benifits!

The fall of rome did not really signify the begining of a dark age though I do a class called Women in Late Antiquity... and we had a discussion on what 'late antiquity' was. The following points were raised: Late Antiquity = roughly the rise of Christianity (fourth century) to the mid seventh century. 1. For late antiquity think late roman - i.e Byzantine. 2. Tertullian wrote in the second century, yet his rhetoric still fitted the ideogies of the empire a few hundred years later. 3. 'Late' Antiquity is defined by the rise of christianity. 4. Dark Ages? Schools call the period the dark ages, but this was NOT a period of decline! Urbanisation of the east. I guess you could say Antiquity ended when the middle ages began

No, I don't think at all the Byzantines thought the earlier empire was not worthy of respect. The Byzantines basked in their past glories and the tradtions and ways of life carried on. Much art and sculpture especially took its influences from earlier times in the Empire. The main thing though to remember was that the empire was Christian, and very religious. This means the Christian emperors are going to be the ones mentioned the most in the sources. It would not have been proper to venerate the pagan ways of the old emperors, and even offensive to many ascetics. What can be seen though is the classical education of many of the christain writers, Jerome is greatly influenced by cicero - and talks about his consuming passion for his work in one of his letters, one that he then criticised himself for, for not being devoted enough to the writings of the bible - to speak of unchristian things was simply wrong. However, when reading his work, there are so many striking paralels between his rhetoric, and that of the classical writers. History is not all about 'the great men' - look further than that and you will see the old empire glorified in many ways. ) So, so, so many tradtions stayed on. The social codes on the importance of the family, and of the mother stayed strong throughout the byzantine era. Views on women, and women's role in religion stayed pretty much the same (they were bottom of the pile). The thing to remeber is the 'byzantines' WERE roman - they did not see themselves as different, they saw no major cut off from the old empire. Yes things progressed, but compare any two parts of the western empire and you will see both change and continuity.

I think people in general, (maybe not so much those who take an academic interest in the RA, but still mainly in general), do have an image in thier minds of a roman army that wasnt really so. No army is perfect and this is certainly so for the Romans, a perfect army would not result in endless battles to regain territory and the eventual breakdown of the western empire. Like others before me have said, 'the roman army' was an entity that spanned over a thousand years. In the glory days it certainly had superior tactics and techniques than the barbarion armys. On of the main things that sticks out the the Roman calmsness, silently and solidly advancing across the field, forming an inpentitrable block that is backed up by the archers to the rear. In comparrison the enemy would charge in all horns blaring - the sight of a menacingly calm unit they were rushing towards would have been imposing. As the army went into its 'late' stage, from about the second third century onwards, its appearance changed to a much more medievil one, and it was no longer military superiour to its enemies. They learned from years of defeat and were advancing their techniques and tactics all the time. I have also read how the later roman army did not advnace into battle silently anymore, and people by this time were cutting off their thumbs to avoid being called up - the prosfession had obviously lost its glamour by this point!

Good advice, thank Primus! Alot of what i'm trying to do with my academic writing is to be more confident to use my own oppinons on the source materials, that will get me higher grades, I'm geting 2:1's at the moment though which is really good, but i want at least one essay to come back as a First!

This little word is the bane of my life, from the second i hand an essay in all i ever do is worry that i havent referneced it properly, and that i'll be charged with plagerism! The thing that gets me on it, is that you are supposed to reference to show that you are not taking anothers idea and using it as your won, ut when the body of your work is made up from reading books written by authors expressing their oppinon on history how do you know how to strike a balance! Ahh very stressful, but luckily ive noever been pulled up on it so i must be appraoching it right... but still...

The wink in my post was supposed to mean you didnt really take what i said seriously! It was a light hearted comment. I dont really want to post my picture up, not unless everyone body else does as well, and i don't want to post my picture up just for the purpose of having my clothing scrutinesed thankyou very much!

I wasn't impressed with the british accents! They for some proper accents they need to get the yocals speaking, these folk all sounded like quite posh versions of the regional accent! The welsh accent wasn't very strong at all, you should here my welsh mate chris speak, he's from the valleys and i can't understand a word he says half the time! They also need some good northern accents on there, and a proper cockney. Why bother with one from East Anglia?!?!?!? The staffordshire accent is spot on though I can confirm after living there most of my life, although i was born in Lancaster, which is in north england near manchester, and i now live in Birmingham. They need a yam-yam black country accent! Yow alrioght? Where am ya? hehe!

Did you know that St Patrick wasn't actually welsh? He was kidnapped from somewhere (i forget, maybe wales or england) and taken there as a child! Bejesus!

I'm sorry, but being the young style queen that I am , the thought of making a tshirt based on a historical theme and actually wearing it sends shudders down my spine, along with holiday tshirts with slogans such as "i visited the isle of capri".... But enjoy your competition and good luck Id say for a design challenge though, a poster would be better, one prehaps suitable for young history enthusiasts to proudly display on their walls!

Ten out of ten for effort though! I'm sure what you have done is relevent to your class, and it will look effective in a presentation