Musings on Daily Life in the Ancient and Early Medieval Mediterranean By Sarah E. Bond
In 1898, famed Venetian architect Giacomo Boni was charged with leading new excavations in the Roman Forum (1899-1911) and on the Palatine hill. In order to get aerial photos, Boni enlisted the Italian military's Brigata Specialisti military balloon, used by the Italian Corps of Engineers. He was amazed at the ability to more accurately draw and map the... Continue Reading →
We are in the midst of the NCAA March madness tournament in the U.S., and, as NPR reported, the American Gaming Association boasted more NCAA Brackets than number of votes for the next president. Now, I identify as both a UVa Cavalier and a UNC Tar Heel, and so my entire household was glued to the screen yesterday. As... Continue Reading →
A famous funerary epigram now at the British Museum (IG XIV, 2131) and dating to the second century CE has a skeleton lying in repose. It reads: "Who can say, passerby, looking on a fleshless corpse, whether it was Hylas (i.e., a beautiful youth) or Thersites (i.e., a bow-legged, ugly man)?" I first learned about this inscription... Continue Reading →
The Renaissance (ca. 1330-1600) is often remembered for its revival of Classical literature. Modern books like The Swerve celebrate the Renaissance era book hunters such as Poggio Bracciolini, who travelled to hidden monasteries in search of Latin manuscripts of Virgil or Cicero, and uncovered lost works, such as Lucretius' De rerum natura. However, the Renaissance was also a time for rediscovering Latin and Greek... Continue Reading →
History From Below 