caesar novus

I've mentioned this before, but don't miss the chance to try rose petal gelato or better yet sorbetto in Italy. I usually have visited in May, so maybe they mainly offer it this month. Walk around the right hand side of Pantheon and continue past it's rear almost a block. I think it shows up in google maps. Their gelato seems less flavorful than others in neighborhood, so also look for rose elsewhere. In Cefalu Sicily I had rose petal gelato that just launched my tastebuds into orbit. It was on the main square with twin towers:

I wonder if there is any evidence how Romans tied their sandals - the final knot rather than the lacing. Was it a common bow tie? Maybe you have seen recent videos on how most folks naively tie shoelaces into a slipknot rather than proper one. The slipknot tends to make the bows sit crooked as below, but you can tell best by grabbing the non-loose lace side of the knot and seeing if it slips. Instead of tying the bows an additional time, (ugly and hard to untie) you can just retie it with the initial overhand knot reversed. For more security, I hereby mandate the easy variation "Parisian knot"; maybe the Romans called it the Gaul knot. After making the first bow, wrap it along with your finger twice instead of once before pulling the second bow thru. You may have to adjust it slightly so the double clenching of the bows sits tidy in the middle (check for slip too). Of a dozen bow knots I think it is the cleanest extra grip one, especially worth the effort when you leave it always tied:

Here is an amazing Iberian channel of largely Roman archeo re-creations and explanation, sort of documentary fragments usually dubbed in english. See the vast Roman structures under Lisbon, or the aqueduct siphons pushing water uphill in Gaul for instance: https://www.youtube.com/@imageen2030/videos

The underappreciated racetrack and golden house

"the documentary promotes the kind of Afrocentrism which aims at distorting and obliterating Egyptian identity and contradicts the country’s history." P.S.: Speaking of televised afrocentrism, the reason U.S. commercials have turned 85% into depictions of afro american life (15% of audience) is ESG. Pensions and other investments have been de-linked from their owners and weaponized for ideology. It used to be that investors would vote for company board members and policies, but this has recently been taken over by institutions who mandate Orwellian Social Good policies. Free markets with their "invisible hand" adapting to consumers are increasingly sabotaged.

Another slam dunk ancient egypt channel, making sober, scientific claims that the mainstream narratives are bunk and systematically biased;

Sophia's alpine counterpart, Marisa Allasio, was preferred by spiritual leaders 17-0. Honestly, her IQ and EQ elevates her rare movies to a more watchable level today:

Looks like the figurine at 2m12s in below film. Isn't this from Paestum's Greek rather than Roman period?

One thing I wish somebody introduced me earlier to are "zero-drop" type shoes, as typified by the Xero brand. That refers to no heel elevation, but goes along with a barefoot feel with super thin flat uncushioned soles, super wide toe box, and tight fit lengthwise. Especially the last sounds like heresy, but one of Xero's videos by the founder (which I have misplaced) sold me on their concepts, and I was so pleased with an example that I stockpiled more for every need. Somehow they make your feet feel really alive without being entombed by cushions or without the rawness of being conventionally near barefoot. The soles seem to be a resilient superball-like material that supposedly stands up to umpteen marathons. Actual Xero's are typically breathtakingly expensive, and shipping can range to $75 to refused altogether, so I have experimented with knockoffs under the Amazon Whitin brand and others which are hit and miss. I wonder if affordable new unboxed Xeros occasionally found on ebay were likely shoplifted? Beware that I could yak on for a dozen paragraphs on how these can keep the podiatrist away. Altho they make boots and all, below is an extreme minimalist cut-it-out-yourself kit:

JERUSALEM - Roman authorities are investigating controversial religious leader Jesus of Nazareth for violating the Empire's clear "stay in tomb" order.

I think the existing inland Rome to Salerno track goes by the backside of Vesuvius/Pompeii, and continues to Paestum, maybe changing to a local train that stops perhaps a mile stroll from Paestum. So it has always been semi-useable, but eventually will have convenient station/hub and an express schedule. Some of my travel nightmares were taking the alternative coastal train route Naples to Pompeii/Sorrento in rush hours, and mystery bus from Salerno to Paestum. So in future you might stay on the morning train when mobs from Rome step off to jam Pompeii museum turnstiles, and ride onward to bucolic Paestum and it's temples among meadows of wildflowers amidst only scattered schoolkid groups. Train back to Pompeii in early afternoon, when it actually empties of tour groups towards sunset hours which might be as late as 8 or 9pm in summer. Of course you are spoiled with must-see stuff nearby, like Herculaneum, Isle of Capri, Positano, Pozzuoli, and various villas which are far from the inland train route. Probably it will pause in Naples if you want to see sculptures cherry picked from Pompeii in their museum, or else hydrofoil over to Capri.

While musing about removing those greenhouses sitting over unexcavated parts of Herculaneum, I came across this surprising statement: Furthermore https://www.actahort.org/books/481/481_96.htm says the focus now is on lucrative off or shoulder season fruits and veggies, so these are concentrated on Italy's mild coastlines and the south (even where summer heat shuts them down). The availability of cheap plastic films made things more affordable than glass. The Roman greenhouses are often misrepresented as using implausable glass roofs to grow off season cucumbers on Capri for Tiberius. But a very interesting source https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/57/2/article-p236.xml explains: That is a truly fascinating illustrated article (actually, like the other, a book abstract), but I'm not sure why they speculate the greenhouses were near Villa Jovis when Tiberius had 4 other villas on the same island. Jovis is kind of a backbreaking climb, although maybe it pokes up into the sun on foggy days:

You're welcome, altho I suspect it was my other topic that was irresistible. Here I was trying to post an outstanding Herculaneum documentary, but I simply cannot find it again among the many good ones. Besides the preserved wood, they showed aerial views of the vast areas not yet dug up. I wondered if they might scrape off some modern buildings given that population of Italy is dropping by a quarter million per year. But it looks like vacant land is being used for greenhouses leveraging their volcanic soil. They grow amazing stuff in that soil, like huge sweet almost non-tart lemons, special tomatoes etc.

Youtube recommendations keep striving to suck me back into music streaming, scoring with a Swiss new wave remix most recently:

This may seem like a random selection from a series of Yale classes on later Rome, but I think it was especially well done. 00:00 - Chapter 1. Primary Sources: Procopius and Gregory of Tours 02:19 - Chapter 2. The Emperor Justinian 08:42 - Chapter 3. Procopius as a Source on Justinian 16:28 - Chapter 4. Background on Justinian 24:10 - Chapter 5. The Circus, the Blues and the Greens, and the Nika Riots 30:20 - Chapter 6. Justinian's Wars 38:11 - Chapter 7. Justinian's Law Code, the Corpus Iuris Civilis

11) Russian Media Monitor. BTW below sample is kind of an IQ test, where you can tell from comments how many fail to grasp it's shrill distracting sound can be dialed down without missing the absolutely riveting content:

Visit the amazing egypt channel https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryforGRANITE that digs the dirt on what is being overlooked or wrongly spun in the incestuous scholarly world of egypt archeology. It doesn't intend to mud sling, but does recognize dysfunctional behind the scenes stuff that I strongly suspected was there. For instance there is wholesale coverup of carbon 14 dating because it all upsets selfish narratives (see video below). Furthermore it reveals prominent phonies and their contradictory announcements - mainly the most famous useful idiot in the whole industry, and a constant darling of US PBS documentaries. I rejoiced (here I think) when he was imprisoned in the arab spring but now he and several others are back in the spotlight blocking productive inquiry.

Rome in Constantinople: 00:00 Architectural Elements: 1:27 Structure of the Building: 2:52 Minarets and Mosque: 5:45 Byzantine Architecture vs Roman: 6:25 Light and Materials: 10:56

Fresh approach to visuals and narrative, I guess from a French perspective.

I see various good quality videos that don't seem to justify their own topic or fit existing ones and may just have a loose connection to ancient Rome. Felt wrong to not post them, so here is a misc assortment topic for them. Hopefully you have already been subscribed to these folks though. I always felt bad about a quirky thing causing me to skip seeing the Vettii villa just before it closing for umpteen years of restoral. Now I can feel more at peace since I see I hate Roman painting aesthetic right to the core: lurid and cluttered. Same applies even to Nero's house where I just missed seeing it's opening; it's more tasteful colors don't redeem the childish scrawl. Architecture and sculpture is where ancient Rome excels for me. The above aerial tour of Rome should not be seen as focused on the ugly typewriter monument, but views FROM it. I was too cheap to pay for entrance when it first opened, and now see it to be like the only skyscraper in Paris; when you are on top of it you see everything except the eyesore itself. This Roman site tour guy is doing more and more with drones and artful music. Of many roof gardens, one that goes by too fast is over the top. It may start up in lower res, but can run in 4k. Would make a nice loop to play continuously on an idle TV?