Comments for Great Names in History

Comment on Pliny’s Heroic Death by poverty_dieter

poverty_dieter — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:26:30 +0000

So sad!

Comment on The Crow: or the First Punic War (Part 3) by 100swallows

100swallows — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:01:06 +0000

Hey, Gloria, thanks a lot. I agree about those boring modern history books. I don’t know how any kid would choose to study history OR literature OR art after “taking a course” in any of those fields. You are an artist: what do you think of art talk? Do you think anyone could ever like a famous painting because of the things most critics say about it? As for writing history myself, I enjoy it but right now I’m trying to practice what I preach over at my other blog
http://100swallows.wordpress.com/
and I haven’t enough time for both activities.
How did that Roman ship come out?

Comment on He Saw Alexander the Great by 100swallows

100swallows — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:44:36 +0000

Thanks, Rrishi, I had never heard either of those stories and they are curious and memorable. I’d say an old body preserved in honey is still pretty ghoulish: did Alexander’s nose stick to Augustus’s cheek?

Comment on The Crow: or the First Punic War (Part 3) by gloria

gloria — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:03:45 +0000

I am an artist and never did well in history – with all the date memorization and it seemed boring to me the way all the authors wrote so “expertly” factual and unending ad nauseum to read and learn. The teachers were equally boring. Once we went on a field trip to see the house where Cornwallis signed the treaty that ended the war for Independence. Um, (id I get the right war?) Anyway it was some house and history came alive for an afternoon. I thought gee, I have been missing the point haven’t I. Back for a test and more dates and uhhhhh.

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed your story. I ended up reading it as I was looking for images of Roman ships because I have to draw one for a client.

Conservative educators are clamoring(sp?) – oh no- history is being re-written and skewed in public schools – well true – but would someone rise up and make the truth interesting at least! GEEEZ.

Why don’t you consider it. Lots of parents out there would buy the books….$$$ the great motivator.

Bravo
gk

Comment on He Saw Alexander the Great by Rrishi

Rrishi — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:54:14 +0000

Then there’s that excellent but probably apocryphal (right?) story that Augustus knocked off Alexander’s nose when he bent to kiss the corpse, and also — second beloved fact — that the body was embalmed in honey. Now THAT’s why the old historians were the best, they wrote these things down!

Gosh, what an experience it must have been to see the conqueror like that — much less ghoulish than the Mao and Lenin displays (yuck) in Beijing and Moscow.

Comment on A Real Letter from a Roman Soldier by Rrishi

Rrishi — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:38:09 +0000

Wonderful! There’s so much to be found in those old books of history — earlier historians had more story and less theory. A propos your last comment, a historian of ancient India recently told me that hardly anybody opted to study ancient India, despite the relatively manageable size of the corpus of sources and the potential for detective work. Instead most history grad students elected to study “modern India”. In addition, she said, and I’m not kidding, that the “worst” students picked “ancient”. It’s dreadful, a vicious circle. What’s one to do??

Comment on A Real Letter from a Roman Soldier by 100swallows

100swallows — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:24:50 +0000

Ritesh: Thanks. I just ordered the book you are reading–you made it sound good. One good thing about having so few sources for a man like Alexander is that, reading them, you can know as much as anyone ever did–anyone who lived later. Ancient history has become so simplified and standardized that it is not much better than a collection of myths. The discouraging thing about modern events is that there is so much material–so many facts, so many points of view.

Comment on A Real Letter from a Roman Soldier by Ritesh Ranjan

Ritesh Ranjan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:55:38 +0000

Great post Swallows. It is great to read an eyewitness account of history. Feels like you have actually gone back in time. Most of what we read today in History is either what the victors wrote or interpretation of historical events by scholars. E.g. what we know about Alexander today is mostly derived from the works of Arrian, Plutarch, and Justin and none of them was Alexander’s contemporary. So, it was great going through your translation of the letter and imagining how life would have been for this young soldier – as he saw it. A few days back I bought a book called ‘Eyewitness to History’ edited by John Carey. I am having a lot of fun reading it.

Comment on Chariot Racing by phoebe

phoebe — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:34:53 +0000

very helpful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment on A Real Letter from a Roman Soldier by 100swallows

100swallows — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:00:53 +0000

Ross36: Greek was still the lingua franca all over the Mediterranean. Alexandria was the cultural capital of the world and there they spoke Greek. This soldier and his father had Greek names and at least understood Greek, though they might have spoken some Egyptian language at home. Now as a soldier in the Roman army the young man would have to learn Latin.