Fascism from Aesop?
Image via Wikipedia From a reviewish sort of thing in the New Straits Times of Michael Macrone’s Brush Up Your Classics: An Informative and Entertaining Guide to Understanding the Most Famous Words, Phrases, and Stories of Greek Classics. (inter alia) Most of us are familiar with Aesop and his fables. He lived in sixth-century Greece. [...]
Odysseus’ Palace Claim
As usual, the day I’m away from my laptop some major news manages to accumulate in mailboxes, twitterfeeds, and on Facebook. At this point, the ‘best’ coverage (note the scare quotes) of this story comes from the Telegraph; skipping the intro bit: Nearly 3,000 years after Odysseus returned from his journey, the team from the [...]
Nemean Meteor?
Image via Wikipedia An item up at Fortean Times about Ernst Chladni caught my eye a couple of days ago because it included this paragraph: In fairness to the Age of Reason’s meteorite debunkers, an awful lot of superstition and folk tales fell from the sky. The large meteor that came down on Ensisheim, Alsace, [...]
First Elephant in Britain?
Image via Wikipedia As I dig deeper into my pile of things I’ve marked with little purple question marks, I find an interesting item I first came across toward the end of May. Something called the Londonist had a feature called An Historic London Elephant Parade which included this in its timeline: 43 AD: Emperor [...]
Paris (?) Sarcophagus … and Biblical Archaeology Review
I don’t know why this happens to me so often … I take a break from my news feed to run some errands and then I get a notice via Twitter from the folks at Biblical Archaeology Review pointing me to an article with the headline screaming: Has the Sarcophagus of Paris, Prince of Troy, [...]
Roman Aqueducts and Bamboo?
Image via Wikipedia Francesca Tronchin and I have been virtually shaking our heads at an item in the Guardian which includes a headlinish sort of thing: Ecce: The Romans built a 50km aqueduct from Uzès to Nîmes in France with an overall fall of about 17 metres and an average gradient of 1/3000. How did [...]
Latest Arthurian Round Table with a Roman Connection?
Image via Wikipedia An item in the Daily Mail (hyping a television program, as often) seems to be causing some excitement: His is among the most enduring legends in our island’s history. King Arthur, the gallant warrior who gathered his knights around the Round Table at Camelot and rallied Christian Britons against the invading pagan [...]
Homer’s Odyssey … in Canada?
Image via Wikipedia Once upon a time, there was almost an annual event of some guy coming up with a new theory about where Homer’s Odyssey or Iliad really took place … haven’t had one for quite a while, but in the Toronto Star I was gobsmacked to read this one: The first thing to [...]
That Crucifixion Nail
After a busy week, I can finally look into some of the things flittering across my twitterfeed and facing me on Facebook and filling my email box. Apparently, a nail believed to be from the crucifixion (not just any crucifixion, of course, although it seems to be mostly the headline writers who make this connection) [...]
Site of the Golden Bough Found?
From the Telegraph … I may have things to add later when I have time to look into this more detail: In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld safely. They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built in [...]
Source please: Aristotle on Redheads
Anyone recognize the source of this one? In Ancient Egypt, the tables were turned and it was the redheads who were sacrificed, which, let’s face it, is hardly a good start, but does leave room for improvement. The Ancient Greeks didn’t quite consider it a death sentence, but Aristotle considered them to be “emotionally un-house [...]
Cambyses Lost Army? The Plot Thickens …
Prom Iran’s PressTV: A group of Iranian archeologists is planning to go to Egypt to study the remains of a great Persian army in the Sahara desert. Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (ICHTO) Hamid Baqaei announced on Sunday that Egypt had agreed for the Iranian group to conduct studies there. Two Italian brothers [...]
Another Shroud — Don’t Buy the Hype
Okay, if there’s one thing that really, really annoys me about the media it’s when they don’t take the time — whether on purpose or out of simple negligence — to do a bit of research about something. This a.m. as I was waiting for my triple grande sugar-free-vanilla soy latte to be constructed, a [...]
Cambyses’ Lost Army Found? Don’t Eat That Elmer …
I’m sure folks have all heard/read about the latest news from the Egyptian desert — presented with varying degrees of credulity by a less-than- incredulous media –about the claimed discovery of remains of Cambyses’ ‘lost army’ by the brothers Castiglioni. Google, fora, lists, discussion groups are all agog at this apparently amazing discovery ‘proving’ one [...]
Difficile est bloggam non scribere!
One of the things which continues to bother me about blogs and the like is that they really haven’t been embraced by a significant number of academics actually working in the field (there are exceptions, of course) and as a result, the press is ‘getting away with murder’ in regards to claims it is making [...]
Not Sure What to Make of This One …
I’ve got a large file of ‘claims’ associated with the ancient world which I try to track down every now and then, but this one arrived today and I can’t wrap my head around it at all … from one of those press release things: The more she listened to this music, the better she [...]
Sardonic Smile Origins
Homer is usually cited as the origin of the phrase, ‘sardonic smile’, specifically, from Odyssey 20.302 (or thereabouts): So saying, he hurled with strong hand the hoof of an ox, taking it up from the basket where it lay. But Odysseus avoided it with a quick turn of his head, and in his heart he [...]
Alexander Statue from Alexandria?
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to lend any credence to claims of artifacts from the period of our purview being found in Egypt. After all that Cleopatra business of a few weeks ago (about which I might blog some more items that I’ve been sitting on), we get this item from the Egyptian State Information Service: [...]
Roman Mass Production?
An item/press release in Earthtimes claims: German scientists disclosed Friday new evidence that the ancient Romans used mass-production methods to make metalwares at lesser cost, just like modern factories do. A close study of a 28-centimetre-tall bronze figure of the god Mercury made in the 2nd century AD showed it was hollow – an indication of [...]
rogueclassicism Review: Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer
Editor’s note: you might want to read our previous thoughts on this program/claim/issue (made prior to viewing, obviously): Cleopatra, Arsinoe, and the Implications As a sort of followup to all the hype about this program, I thought it might be useful to provide a reviewish sort of thing of this program since it has appeared [...]
