N.S.Gill's Ancient / Classical History Blog

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

From the 6th to the 13th, the Romans celebrated games in honor of Apollo. These popular games started when the Romans needed help against the Phoenicians and became permanent when the Romans faced a plague. Apollo was appropriate for the honored god because he was connected with plagues and healing.
Ludi Apollinares
Roman Games - Ludi
The Circus Maximus
Asclepius and Apollo

Biblical archaeology sees its share of hoaxes and inflated claims. Recently debunked is the James Ossuary, a funerary container supposedly holding the remains of Jesus' brother James. Some continue to believe in it. The current hub-bub in the Biblical archaeology field is over a slab known as Gabriel's Vision or Gabriel's Revelation. Its existence has been known for a decade, but it has recently come to public attention through the New York Times.

The text, written in ink that has disintegrated in areas, appears to include information that could alter the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Scott Richert, About.com's Guide to Catholicism, looks at the hype about this large limestone slab in Shaking the Foundations of Christianity. Here is a passage from Scott's blog that captures the essence of what has made people chatter and blog about this messianic "Dead Sea Scroll on stone":

The implication, of course, is that, if the story of Jesus is "nothing new under the sun," then Christ cannot have been what He and His followers have claimed Him to be--the incarnate Son of God. And that's where the laughable part comes in, because at the heart of the Christian claim of Christ's divinity is precisely the point that Christ's coming was foretold.

People are looking at the text as a challenge to Christianity or as supporting evidence. This all assumes the document's authenticity is verified. Scott has much more to say about the tablet, so if it interests you, be sure to read his blog. If you'd like to discuss this tablet, please post on the Ancient/Classical History Forum thread on the topic.

It used to be fair to say that because of the A.D. 79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which coated everything in its wake in a deadly blanket of volcanic material, especially ash (not lava: see comments), Pompeii had frozen a slice of Roman life in time. But for a while now, there have been warnings about Pompeii, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Now that Pompey's remains are in the air and subject to a constant trampling by visitors, the archaeological site has been undergoing rapid decay. On Friday, July 2, 2008, Italy's cabinet issued a state of emergency for Pompeii to last a year.

Source: Italy Declares State Of Emergency At Pompeii RuinsWatch and listen to a report on BBC News.
Be sure to read Mary Beard's take: Is Pompeii in a state of emergency -- again?

Also see:

• What You Need to Know About Mt. Vesuvius
• Review of Pompeii, by Robert Harris a retelling of the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius from the perspective of an ancient aqueduct engineer.
• Photographs of Baths at Pompeii
• Little House in Pompeii, by Judith Geary

Photo © Judith Geary

The mythologically-themed word of the day is

Chimerical [ki-mer-i-kuhl] a mythological hybrid monster, especially one having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. Now, very unrealistic, fantastic.

Example: To get elected, politicians make chimerical promises to fix the [fill in the blank].

Also see

• Flower Name Meanings
• Etymology of Geometry Terms
• English Words With Latin Prefixes
• More Words From Latin in English
• Words and Ideas
• Roots of English Words: Confusing Greek and Latin Pairs

A week after the news about the dating of the massacre of Odysseus' wife's suitors broke, scientists have released their findings about the probable date on which Caesar landed in Britain. They conducted an experiment about a year ago when, they say, tidal conditions mirrored those of 55 B.C. On this basis, they have revised the August date on which Caesar tried to land almost 100 warships.

Read: Sky and Telescope: New Date for Caesar's British Invasion.

• The Winners and Losers of Caesar's Gallic Wars
• Caesar - Life of a Colossus
• Caesar's Gallic Wars Book IV
  In English, includes the landing in Britain.

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

Roman counting is confusing since it is inclusive, so if, for instance, you want to know how many days there are in a week, using the Roman system, you would have to include both Sundays, as well as the days in between. The answer would be octo '8' (as in October). The calendar is confusing for many reasons. For those who understand the Latin for the numbers, it is puzzling to see that, for instance, September is not the seventh month of the year, since the Latin for 7 (septem) is clearly present in the word. There is no inclusive counting involved in determining which month is called the fifth. The Roman word for 'five' is quinque and the Latin for 'fifth' is quintus. Do you know which month is Quintilis or Quinctilis?

If not, see Which Month Was the Roman Quintilis?

Summer is generally a good time to catch up on reading, so if you find yourself looking for a short ancient/classical history book to read, here are a few suggestions from my book reviews.

The first is Always I Am Caesar, by Jeffrey Tatum. A barista at a local art college coffee shop saw me reading this book (for the second time), plowing through it and totally absorbed. She asked what it was about and then asked to borrow it. Read more...

On June 26, 363 A.D. the Roman emperor Julian, known as The Apostate (for trying to reverse the Christianization of the Roman Empre), died. [See This Day in History.]

Here is what the historian Gibbon writes about Julian's death:

At the same time he reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince who in a few moments would be united with heaven and with the stars. The spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with fresh violence: his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the veins: he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon as he had drunk it, expired without pain, about the hour of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and about eight months from the death of Constantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his life.