Agora

A picture about Hypatia maybe?

The production looks good, if it is about her I can't wait to see the reaction of the Christian churches.

Hope it's in English, but I'll watch it anyway.



link from rogueclassicism

The Assassination of Julius Caesar

I really enjoyed this book, it painted Caesar in a particularly good light (don't mention the Gauls!) and provided a different view of the so-called "Roman Mob".

Parenti shows that not only is history written by the winners, it's written by the upper classes of the winners - his "Gentleman Scholars". he has a wonderful quote to illustrate this which roughly is;

"Conformity of bias is taken as objectivity"

From what I can gather (browsing the web) this book isn't particularly popular with many historian's but Parenti's view of Cicero and the Optimates is far closer to more recent depictions that the traditional view.

If you're a fan of Roman history give it a go. It's short, snappy and interesting.

Empires & the MIddle East

Nice animation here of the various Empires who have tramped across the Middle East.

Guns, Germs & Steel, & Europe

I read Guns, Germs and Steel over the summer and found it very interesting and, as we're facing into another Lisbon vote, I'm reminded again of one of Diamonds theories as to why Europe rose to dominance in the past few hundred years after centuries in the Dark Ages;

Diamond also touches very briefly on why the dominant powers of the last 500 years have been West European rather than East Asian (especially China). The Asian areas in which major civilizations arose had geographical features conducive to the formation of large, stable, isolated empires which faced no external pressure to correct policies that led to stagnation. On the other hand Europe's many natural barriers divided it into competing nation-states and this competition forced the European nations to encourage innovation and avoid technological stagnation.^[1]

link

Great and Telling Tales

Two of a series of short and interesting videos.

This first one deals with the brain. It's amazing to think that until quite recently they didn't know what it was for.

This one deals with the notion of Golden Ages - something very many people seem to take very seriously. A few years ago in a pub I reckoned that this was the best era yet for "mankind" I was roundly attacked and regaled with tales of parents idyllic lives pre-1950's. For me it sounded like ignorance was indeed bliss.

Herculaneum Remembered

BBC have a nice little slide show of some of the treasures of Herculaneum. I saw these while in Naples over the summer so I'm feeling particularly smug (which is weird when you think about it)

Anyway, have a look.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7696090.stm

Ostia

A little bit of Ostia is open to the public




Thanks to Mary Beard.

Also.

10 things you need to know about Pompeii

in honour of her new book Mary Beard has posted some corrections to well know "facts" about Pompeii;

1. The inhabitants of the Roman town were all killed by the eruption of 79. Wrong. Just over 1000 bodies have been discovered – out of a population of perhaps 12,000. Most of them made it to safety.

2. The city lay undisturbed from the day Vesuvius erupted until its rediscovery in the eighteenth century. Wrong again, I’m afraid. Almost straightway the locals came back to salvage their stuff, digging through the volcanic rubble, and if they were lucky, heaving out some of the most valuable stuff. If they were unlucky, their tunnels collapsed and they got smothered in the process.

Roman Reinactement

This here is a video promo for the Nijmegen Roman Festival which was held in August. Because I'm such a Roman history geek I thought it was great.



link

BBC preview the new Athens Museum

looks very good;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7381738.stm

Lessons of the Trojan Horse

a bit techie this, but what the heck:

April 24, 1184 B.C.: Trojan Horse Defeats State-of-the-Art Security

Mary Beard on the Olymics

I don’t quite understand how we have forgotten that the “Olympic Torch” ceremony was invented by Hitler and his chums.

I didn't know this!

anyway continue reading here.

the secrets of the twelve disciples

I downloaded (from Channel 4 OnDemand) and watched this excellent documentary on the 12 Disciples. I was raised a Roman Catholic and so was taught that James 'The Bother of Jesus' was not in fact Jesus' bother (after all, Mary remained a virgin forever) but was instead a half brother or adopted or something - I can't quite remember. Anyway, according to this documentary Jesus had four brothers and two sisters! This was news to me and there was lots more along those lines like Paul had a female disciple! They definitely left out that one!

The history of the early Christian church is endlessly fascinating and this program is well worth watching. Part 1 is here and the rest are on youtube

Making a replica medieval sword

House of Augustus opens to public

Man, I'd love to see this. There is more info on the BBC website.

Another new site to visit opens in Rome this week. It’s four rooms of the House of the first Emperor Augustus on the Palatine hill, never on show to the public before. Some parts of this building have opened from time to time, but those bits which you might have seen in the past are currently closed. The plan is that in due course, when conservation has finished, they will open again to join this new section.

Mary Beard on Prince Harry

Mary Beard is a historian with a blog on the London Times website that I happen to like and yesterday she posted about Prince Harry serving in Afghanistan and used it to segue onto Roman Emperor's sending their relatives off to war. The post itself is pretty interesting (if you like that sort of thing) and I gathered that Mary is not a fan of either Prince Harry or war. Whats interesting however is the bile in the comments section, it's amazing. Dare to criticise a stupid war or a prince and your lynched! I've posted one of the comments below which is typical of the lyncher's, many of them seem to have a problem with the fact that Mary is a woman who should really just shut up and bake something, others appear to be a bit misty eyed by the "fight for freedom". Of course freedom should never be used to express an opinion or criticise important people.

It's presumably this kind of 'sh*te' that Harry was talking about on his return from Afghanistan recently.

Only a dullard could write such a dithering piece as this.

He's done a good job and wants to go back. What is not to lke about it all? He's just a boy who lost his mum trying to grow up and do something positive.

Stick to making jam, Mary.

Here’s Penn + Teller +Michael Shermer = Fun

You might also learn something

Britain to drop Britannia

Ok, I'm not British but I think this sucks, the British Government has decided to remove the image of Britannia from its coins. I discovered this through historian Mary Beards blog who provides some interesting background information on Britannia herself. I would have thought after the debacle of renaming the Royal Mail to (the awful) 'Consignia' the idot's would have learned their lesson, apparently not however...

Fascism Redefined

Strange. over the past week I have come across three separate cases of a redefinition of fascism. Fascism is the blending of state and corporate power to produce a totalitarian state whereby all interests are then subservient to the state. But, in what seems to be a coordinated spin, it is being redefined in the U.S. media as anything that could be called "social", be that health care, housing, environment or whatever. I suppose the oligarchy that runs the U.S. would naturally be against anything that involves working people organising and it seems they have taken the battle to the dictionary, after all, who would want to get involved in fascist activities?

This is why democracies need intelligent and informed citizens. It becomes so much easier to fool all the people when they are ignorant of even basic facts, never mind definitions.

I suppose I could just be paranoid, but have a look yourself and see. Thanks to Onegoodmove for the links.

Liberal fascism

Worlds Worst

Sorry can't find the third link (I'm beginning to think it might be the same guy and I am paranoid)

The Bilderberg Group

The Bilderberg Group is an elite, invitation only, annual meeting between world leaders, industrialists and other people of power. Daniel Estulin has been following them around for a few years and Information Clearinghouse has an posted interview with him.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19016.htm

Theres always a temptation to shout "Conspiracy Theory" and ignore the man, however I personally doubt these people get together every year to try and figure how how to make the world a better place for the rest of us.