A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week we're going to take a bit of a detour because the previous post on the Roman conscription system, the dilectus, sparked some discussion both here and on social media which made me realize that the popular understanding of the way that the Roman army changed during the Late Republic (c. 133-31 BC, though … Continue reading Collections: The Marian Reforms Weren’t a Thing
This is the fifth and final part (I, II, III, IV) of our 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 … Continue reading Collections: The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans, Part V: Saving And Losing an Empire
This is the fourth part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2002 film of the same name. In the last part, we looked in some depth at the organization … Continue reading Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part IV: Men of Rohan
This is the third part of a series taking a historian's look at the Battle of Helm's Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII), from both J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers (1954) and peter Jackson's 2002 film of the same name. In our last part, we looked at the film-only cavalry engagement that … Continue reading Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part III: The Host of Saruman