A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week we're taking a brief look at Roman roads because that was the topic which won out on the latest ACOUP Senate poll and on this blog we conform to the mos maiorum by following the Senatus Consultum. In particular the question here was from Matthew Runyon who asked, "What was so revolutionary about … Continue reading Collections: Roman Roads
This week on the blog we're going to talk about Cleopatra or to be more specific, we're going to talk about Cleopatra VII Philopator, who is the only Cleopatra you've likely ever heard of, but that 'seven' after he name should signal that she's not the only Cleopatra. One of the trends in scholarship over … Continue reading Collections: On the Reign of Cleopatra
This week we're going to take a bit of a detour to talk about how we should imagine the warriors of Gallic/Celtic armies were equipped and fought. I wanted to write about the topic because the YouTube algorithm served me up a video on it, which isn't ever fully wrong but struck me as importantly … Continue reading Collections: Who Were ‘the Celts’ and How Did They (Some of Them) Fight?
This is the third and last part of our three(ish) part series looking at the governing structures of the Greek polis (I, IIa, IIb, IIc). Over the last three sub-parts, we looked at the political structures created and manned by the politai. This week I want to look, briefly, beyond the politai themselves to the … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis, Part III: People and Gods Beyond the Politai
This is the third part of the second part of our three(ish) part look at the governing structures of the Greek polis (I, IIa, IIb). At some point I promise I will write a series whose organization does not look like a parody of itself. Last time, we looked at the particular role of magistrates … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis 101, Part IIc: The Courts
This is the second part of the second part of our three(ish) part look at the governing structures of the Greek polis (I, IIa). Last time, we looked at the basic institutions of governance, how nearly every polis has magistrates, an assembly, and one or more councils which function together to govern the polis. We … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part IIb: Archons
This is the first of a planned three part look at the structure of the ancient Greek polis, the self-governing 'city state,' as part of a larger series on civic governance in the pre-modern world. Since I argued, way back in June of 2019, that a noble house in Game of Thrones was unlikely to … Continue reading Collections: How to Polis, 101, Part I: Component Parts
Hey, folks, fireside this week! As this is going up, I am preparing to appear digitally on a panel on "History and the Public, Now and in the Future" at the University of Maryland. March may end up with more than the usual number of firesides, because I actually have three of these invited talks … Continue reading Fireside Friday, March 3, 2023
Welcome back! We are back from our November hiatus and thus back to regular weekly posts! This week we're going to answer the runner-up question in the last ACOUP Senate poll (polls in which you too can vote if you become a pater aut mater conscriptus via Patreon). The question, posed in two different ways … Continue reading Collections: Why Roman Egypt Was Such a Strange Province
This is the third part of a three part (I, II, III) look at some of the practical concerns of managing pre-industrial logistics. In our last post, we outlined what 'foraging' actually entailed - how armies got supplies both from friendly populations but also from neutral or hostile populations. In particular, we focused on the … Continue reading Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part III: On the Move