A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
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
I hope everyone will forgive me taking this week to break from our normal diet of history-and-pop-culture (though we are discussing a key historical concept here - it is me after all), but it is the July 4th weekend and I have been meaning to treat this topic for a while now. I must further … Continue reading Collections: My Country Isn’t a Nation
This is the second part (I, II, III, IV, V) of a series asking the question 'Who were the Romans?' How did they understand themselves as a people and the idea of 'Roman' as an identity? Was this a homogeneous, ethnically defined group, as some versions of pop folk history would have it, or was … Continue reading Collections: The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part II: Citizens and Allies