Bread and Circuses

Gone fishing

On holiday in France for the next couple of weeks. Normal service resumes After September 12.

If the redesign is cropping the right column of text off, or looks strange in some way, hit refresh. A tech friend explained that it had something to do with the cache in your computer's memory. That seems to have solved the problem for several people who kindly alerted me to it. 

Graeculus continued

I have posted in the past about appearances of the word graeculus.

Here is another one.

In the Life of Hadrian in the Historia Augusta (1.5):

Imbutusque impensius Graecis studiis, ingenio eius sic ad ea declinante ut a nonnullis Graeculus diceretur

As ever it is translated in the Loeb as "Greekling":

He then grew rather deeply devoted to Greek studies, to which his natural tastes inclined so much that some called him "Greekling."

Roman civic continuity

Great piece (and picture) over at Towards an Archaeology of Iconoclasm on a series of inscriptions at the Colosseum, set up by Decius Marius Venantius Basilius, consul in 484, about various restorations he paid for. Not only is it significant for showing civic continuity after the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, it is one of the few inscriptions I have come across from the reign of Odovacer. 

Archaeology Today

Sheer silliness. I had never seen this Monty Python sketch about archaeologists before... and not a beard, trowel or CAMRA membership in sight.

The Historia Augusta

Although I have referred to it in the past, I confess that I had never fully read the Historia Augusta. This has been a huge mistake. Not only does it cover a period about which I knew comparatively little – broadly speaking it falls into the gap between I Claudius and late antiquity, when the Roman empire gets interesting again – but it is also a marvellous, tabloid-y read.

It is usually described as a continuation of Suetonius and to think of it as part two is fair enough. We're not talking Godfather II or Empire Strikes Back here, but we're not talking Miss Congeniality 2 either. More Toy Story II.

A good online text, as ever, is at The Latin Library while LacusCurtius has the most accessible - a transcription of the three volume Loeb in both English and Latin. The most user-friendly translation in print is Antony Birley's Lives of the Later Caesars.

Pompeii 3D

Ignore the voiceover and just look at the pictures. Some rather clever 3D modelling of Pompeii as part of the scan project conducted by CyArk and Ferrara University.

Anglo-Saxon belt-buckle

A couple of papers carry a story about a rare 7th century belt buckle found outside London. The below is the Telegraph version:

A rare 1,300-year-old Saxon belt buckle unearthed with a metal detector will go on public display for the first time today.

The copper alloy buckle, which dates from AD 600-720, is only the second one of its type to have been found in England.

It was discovered recently on the outskirts of London by Bill Robson, a treasure hunter, who handed it to the Museum of London.

Faye Simpson, community archaeologist at the museum, said: "This buckle is as beautiful as anything you could hope to find on Bond Street and would originally have been gilded - probably in gold or tin, This is a really exciting find, which has come to light through responsible metal detecting."

The buckle follows the Byzantine style, and would have been fastened to a "loop and tongue" strap with an iron pin.

It is unusual because an artefact of this type would normally be found in Spain and Portugal.

See the BBC for another version and a picture. Also the Guardian.

   

More on St Augustine

Christian radio is not a land into which I would normally venture, but have a listen to Mike Aquilina on St Augustine. A very good overview of his life and career (emphasis on the Confessions) and worth it alone to hear the Christian father described as the "big daddy" of the church. Listen to it here.

Monica and Augustine

As a historian it is easy to end up parsing a classical text to such an extent - background, what it says about Roman society, power politics, prosopographical matters, archaeological evidence etc - that you forget that your historical characters have another life as objects of faith. Over the weekend, The Way of the Fathers posted a couple of notes with numerous links (here and here) based around the feast day of St Monica, mother to St Augustine. Worth a look.

Theodor Mommsen

Meant to post this couple of days back. Nice piece at Roman History Books and More about the German scholar, with several links including a review of a biography by Stefan Rebenich.