It's just the Greek word for 'fanfiction', right? Here are some excerpts from Robin Lane Fox's 2010 article, "Thucydides and Documentary History" (Classical Quarterly 60.1 11-29), which is mostly speculation about the sources of the treaties in Thucydides, and, sadly for me, very little about what Thucydides is *doing* with them when he sticks ( Read more... )

I stayed late ostensibly to finish rewriting a section, but while I was doing word searches, I got distracted by Pliny (the Younger).

This one is kind of bizarre (and totally irrelevant to what I'm working on, but whatever): (Ep. 1.21) Dear Plinius Paternus ( Read more... )

One of the problems with fantasy novels is that when you use magic for things like, say, encoding secret messages so that they look innocuous to anyone but their intended recipient, you take a lot of the potential fun out of it. Here are just three of the many examples of ways to send secret messages provided by Aeneas Tacticus (c. 4th/3rd century ( Read more... )

I'm working with a book by a 20th century Norwegian scholar named "Eiliv Skard." Awesome name or awesomest name? I feel like he should be a guest character on Deep Space Nine or something. (In fact, he was he was also a resistance fighter during WW2 and survived three concentration camps; he wrote on Latin literature, Roman history, Greek history ( Read more... )

You guys. I am the worst. I was so disdainful of Troubled Waters when we read it for the Sheroes Bookclub. AND I have tons of work to do. So why am I reading the sequel? Here is a choice excerpt from the first few pages (I don't think there is anything remotely spoilerish in it):
"Trouble came with some regularity to this little bar, which was ( Read more... )

Things I read over the last couple of days ( Read more... )

I was browsing the YA section at my public library branch yesterday, and pulled out something called Night School, by C.J. Daugherty. It's your standard rebellious teen + mysterious gothic boarding school + supernatural + love-triangle + ancient evil drivel, but as I was flipping through, a sheet of paper fell out; clearly an elementary/middle ( Read more... )

10:30 "In fact, his [sc. Tacitus's] interpretations consistently express a bitter disappointment with the Roman oligarchy, the only human group for which he really cared." Joan-Pau Rubiés, "Nero in Tacitus and Nero in Tacitism", p. 37 ( Read more... )

"Ozorne's uncle now has a name, and I can get on with the arena games. (The last time Arram went, he threw up.)" (of course he did ( Read more... )

Pursuant to this post, here's a random 18th century French historical painting of Servilia and her father before Nero's tribunal. ( Picture! )