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Following the capture of Babylon, Darius led an army against Scythia. For Asia was flourishing; it had both numerous fighting men and ample revenues, and Darius had developed a desire to punish the Scythians for having earlier invaded Media and having conquered those who had tried to oppose them; for in doing this the Scythians […]
Picture source The first of several summer family trips will keep me away from the computer over an extended weekend. Withdrawl pangs start in 10… 9…
Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles 560 pages, Allen Lane, £30 ISBN: 978-0-713-99793-4 Attempts to conjure up contemporary relevance with regard to the ancient world can often appear trite and laboured at best, and fatuous and false at worst. However, the history of Carthage does force […]
Ryszard Kapuściński’s Travels with Herodotus is a marvelous half-memoir of his career and half-reflection on Herodotus’ The Histories. Other than a few articles I’ve read over the years, this is my first extended exposure to Kapuściński. I have definitely shortchanged myself in not reading more of his work before now. Kapuściński was a Polish journalist/correspondent […]
In 249 BC the Roman consul Publius Claudius Pulcher—a man variously described as being mentally unstable, an arrogant snob and a drunk—decided to launch an attack on the Carthaginian-held port of Drepana [on Sicily]. The mission got off to a rocky start when the sacred chickens used to gauge divine favour went off their feed, […]
The lack of recent posts is tied to summer fun with the family and too much work, not to lack of reading. Hopefully I’ll be able to post on the following books/chapters before an upcoming trip: Book 4 of The Histories–the Scythian chapter, or Darius invades Europe. After finishing this chapter my first time through […]
I have already mentioned where the author of this account came from; and now I shall tell you what I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. Aristeas, they say, was in lineage the equal or superior of any citizen in his town. One day he entered a fuller’s shop in Proconnesus and dies there, […]
The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton (1900) by Thomas Eakins Picture source That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of […]
Picture of the 1986 first edition dust jacket for A Summons to MemphisPicture source The courtship and remarriage of an old widower is always made more difficult when middle-aged children are involved—especially when there are unmarried daughters. This seemed particularly true in the landlocked, backwater city of Memphis some forty-odd years ago. … Almost immediately […]
Harold Bloom calls Hadji Murad “my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world, or at least the best that I have ever read.” Bloom argues throughout his book “that originality, in the sense of strangeness, is the quality that, more than any other, makes a work […]