Bread and Circuses

Words fail me

I am not entirely sure how to react to this one. The August issue of The Monthly Aspectarian (which is, I note from the strap "dedicated to awakening consciousness") has a nice note/review of The Last Pagan:

The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the Apostate, the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.

The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer, our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different.

It would be churlish to complain about any publicity and all attention is flattering. But I notice that the bio of Julian is reviewed along with Nurturing Your Self While Caring for Another by Rose Kaszycki and Juanita Liepelt; Wisdom Chi Kung: Practices for Enlivening the Brain with Chi Energy by Mantak Chia; and God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us About Our Origins and How We Should Live by Amit Goswami, Ph.D.

I wonder what Julian would have thought of this.

New head of archaeology in Westfalen-Lippe

Michael Maria Rind has been appointed head of archaeology for Westfalen-Lippe. The 49-year old former head of archaeology in Kelheim Bavaria, replaces Gabriele Isenberg. He starts work in January. Full story.

Hermann the German to get his due in New Ulm

With the 2,000th anniversary of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest next year, expect much more of this. A slightly random piece from AP about the planned celebrations in New Ulm in the US, which has a splendid replica of the Hermannsdenkmal. Not so splendid is the article:

New Ulm, Minn. - It's taken three years of planning, but next year New Ulm will celebrate a 2,000-year-old battle in Germany.

In September next year, New Ulm will pay homage to Hermann, a chieftain who defended Germania from Roman conquest. A statue of Hermann towers of the town.

Hermann was a slave warrior who led his troops in battles that drove Romans out of north central Europe in 9 A.D. His victory in the Teutoburg (TOY'-to-burg) Forest signaled the end of the growth of the Roman Empire...

Of course, if the journalist had read the new edition of Rome's Greatest Defeat, then he/she might not have described Hermann as a "slave warrior".

A picture of the monument from the New Ulm website.

 

Anglo Saxons could hold up settlement

The Herald Express in South Devon reports that the construction of a supermarket at Kingsteignton could be delayed by remains of an Anglo Saxon settlement:

Remains of a Saxon settlement could hold up the construction of a budget supermarket on land at Kingsteignton.

German supermarket chain Lidl, submitted pans to Teignbridge Council to build a 1,000 square metre supermarket on the old Wilcocks agricultural site at Newton Road.

Officers have recommended outline planning permission for the store, which could provide up to 30 jobs, be turned down.

Planners say the store would have a 'detrimental impact on the street scene' and to number 2 St Michael's Road, which Lidl owns and plans to sell on completion of the development.

And according to Devon County Archaeology, the proposed development site could mask Saxon settlement remains.

A spokesman for Devon County Archaeology said: "The proposed development lies just outside and to the south west of the putative Saxon core of Kingsteignton. It also occupies the site of Oakland Farm, an undated farmstead shown on the late 19th and early 20th century ordinance survey maps of the area.

"While the site is at present occupied by industrial warehouses and a concrete slab, below ground archaeological evidence associated with the former farmstead may survive, as well as evidence of the early settlement here."

Kingsteignton is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1001:

Thence they [the Danes] proceeded westward, until they came into Devonshire; where Paley came to meet them with the ships which he was able to collect; for he had shaken off his allegiance to King Ethelred, against all the vows of truth and fidelity which he had given him, as well as the presents which the king had bestowed on him in houses and gold and silver. And they burned Kingsteignton, and also many other goodly towns that we cannot name; and then peace was there concluded with them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Putting the band back together again

It has been just over a year since I last posted and figured that it was time to start again. Much has happened in the world of late antiquity and research continues to evolve. New sites have been uncovered, new manuscripts discovered and new books have been published. All of this quite apart from the genius television that was Bonekickers.

Bread and Circuses will continue where it left off and with pretty much the same obsessions: the battle of Teutoburg Forest, Julian the Apostate and the later Roman empire, though other bits and pieces will find their way in.

The Last Pagan, my bio of the Emperor Julian is now out in the US; Rome's Greatest Defeat, the only full account of the battle of Teutoburg Forest, is out in a revised paperback in the UK, and The Art of War, a collection of essays on early warfare edited by Andrew Roberts, is out in a couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to contribute a chapter on Arminius. The proofs look incredible. It is amazing what can be done when a publisher has an art budget.

The blog also looks pretty much as it did before. I have been able to recover my original posts, though images have been deleted. I will be adding links down the side as I go. If I have forgotten someone, please take it as an oversight rather than a deliberate slight.