Ludovicus

More details about the site. More photos here: http://heritage-key.com/blogs/bija-knowles...lazzo-valentini

For me, Venice without resident Venetians sounds like a very sorry place. I'm sure who ever would buy the islands would hire ex-Venetians to populate the area during the day. It would a thing embalmed.

The Christian Right will not look at the evidence that the Founding Fathers, though Christian, held very few beliefs that we find today in fundamentalist, theocratic Christianity. I find it refreshing that these early leaders, many of whom were Deists, saw the separation of Church and State as a fundamental principle for the protection of religious freedom. Thus so far have many Christians strayed from their own history.

The Romans certainly didn't accept that viewpoint. Celsus, for example, looked down on them: "...they gather a crowd of slaves, children, women and idlers...... Come to us you who are sinners, you who are fools or children, you who are miserable, and you shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven..." And, as you probably know already, there are numerous similar statements attributed to him. Our Fervidus must have seemed a threat to A. Patricius Romanus and the whole Roman order. There is a passage from Paul in which he states that " neither Greek nor Jew, male or female, slave or free..." While this revolutionary impulse of early Christianity did not survive the Empire much, I can see how it challenged Roman power.

The American Revoltion continued as various sectors of the population excluded from the fruits of the early revolutionary years struggled for their rights under the inspiration of the Declaration of Independence. It's interesting that African Americans cited the Old Testament prophets, not the Greeks or the French Enlightenment philosophers, in the quest to expand democracy.

In several cases the local languages added new words to Latin, e.g. carrus, from carra; originally "a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot".

Mary Beard's book on Pompeii cites graffiti written in several languages. My information comes from reading a review of the book here: http://web.mac.com/blaricci/iWeb/Site%2013/My%20Links.html St. Augustine mentions that Punic was still spoken in the hinterlands of his province in the late 4th century. Basque seems to have survived the Roman conquest of Gaul and Hispania. Whether or not these language were expressed in inscriptions is another story. I'm looking forward to replies to your post.

Trash heaps, garbage dumps, latrines, sewers, and privy pits. What would we do without these sources of archaeology? It's not the broken columns, the semi-complete pediments or the marble busts, but the lowest of the low that enrich history.

Don't bet on it. The issue is actually easy to answer, because linguistic intelligibility is reciprocal. You can verify by yourself that modern Italian and Spanish speakers require translations to understand IV century Latin. If that hypothetical Roman of the Late Empire were to shop at the butcher's alongside a modern Italian or Spaniard I'll bet they would understand each others languages quite well. Please remember that my reference is to the mutual intelligibility of spoken language. Non mi placet carne de vacca, said the Roman. Preferisco agnello, said the Italian. Sic, adoro carne de agnello, replied the Roman. Creo que la carne de pollo tiene un gusto superior, added the Spaniard. Bene, nos videmus. Si, ci vediamo. Si, nos vemos. Sic, bona idea. And they returned home. And all the went home.

I think there's a good chance that a fourth century speaker of Latin would be able to understand a modern speaker of Italian or Spanish. By late imperial times spoken Latin was beginning to lose its case system, relying more on prepositions. Here's one modern Romance language that may be the best candidate for an answer to your hypothetical question: The Pater Noster in Modern Sardinian: Babbu nostru, ch

Excerpts from Joy Connolly's lengthy review of Mary Beard's Pompeii, The Nation: October 21, 2009: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/connolly Beard insists on only one thing: "'Our' Pompeii is not a Roman city going about its business, then simply 'frozen in time' as so many guidebooks and tourist brochures claim. It is a much more challenging and intriguing place." She reveals how a city badly roughed up by earthquakes, rebuilt, shaken again, partly evacuated, blasted and blanketed by volcanic ash from Vesuvius in 79 CE, then tunneled into, looted and finally forgotten was rediscovered in the eighteenth century, excavated, rebuilt, bombed by Allied forces in 1943 and reconstructed once more, becoming the "city in a bottle" dramatically if misleadingly packaged for tourists. The eyewitness account of the younger Pliny, who wrote that his naturalist uncle died getting a closer look at Vesuvius on August 24-25, is undermined by medieval manuscript variants recording several different dates and the on-site discovery of autumnal vegetables and a coin minted later in the year. With its focus on labor, education and religion, The Fires of Vesuvius is a testament to how much Roman studies has to offer the contemporary political imagination. Well-informed in the latest research in demography, the history of Roman politics, architecture, ancient economics, feminist and post-colonial studies, Beard probes the experience of men and women, free and slave, rich and poor.

It seems that Southern Africa megafauna survived quite well: giraffes, rhinos, elephants, hippos, et alia. It's only recent homo sapiens who Is threatening these animals. From Alan Wiesman, "The World without Us" on why African large mammals survived: "...humans and megafauna evolved together. Unlike unsuspecting American, Australian,...herbivores who had no inkling of how dangerous we were when unexpectedly arrived. African animals had the chance to adjust as our presence increased." Then, of course, came the Romans of recent history.

How interesting! By the way, do we have any idea when the European lion was exterminated?

Melvadius, I don't know whether to sing your praises for the two links you included in the last post or to shout one of those ancient British curses at you. I spent three hours online completely enthrawed. Seriously, thanks for the Vindolanda site! But three hours!

I wonder if there are studies on the Latin found in the letters/writing from the Vindolanda site. I can't think of another cache of Latin documents so revealing of everyday life.

Good point!

Fascinating find! Here from La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, is a photo of the overlying mosaic, one of the most beautiful I've seen. Click on "successivo" to see more images of the footprints under the mosaic. http://www.repubblica.it/2008/12/gallerie/...-mosaico/5.html

Did you try saying the name in Italian, Colosseo?

I will be in Sicily next week. Anyone with experience visiting the 4th CE Imperial Villa site? I'm wondering if there's been any recent archaeology news? What's not to miss at Piazza Armerina? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Romana_del_Casale

I was thinking along the lines of a Latin-speaking community with deep roots back to imperial times, nourished by refugees fleeing post 410 AD Rome. In modern times we think of large metropolis with neighborhoods defined by minority ethnic groups. I may be way out on a limb, but could there have been a Latin quarter in Constantinople peopled not just by traders but by the descendants of these earlier Western Empire Romans? Do we have authors writing in Latin from the Byzantine period?

Mussolini was so interested in using the monuments of Imperial Rome to legitimate fascism that his projects destroyed many of the post imperial layers of the city. So the city's transition from the end of the empire to the medieval period is mostly lost.

Crushing taxes, paid by the peoples of the reconquered Roman lands, were a featured of Justinian's reign: "Naturally these great enterprises (architectual wonders, Hagia Sophia, etc.) demanded great expense. Justinian's subjects frequently complained of the heavy taxes; many people in the lands he conquered back thought that the glory of being once more Roman citizens was bought too dearly when they realized how much they had to pay to the Roman exchequer." from the Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08578b.htm Small wonder that when the Byzantines attempted to retake Naples they were met with fierce opposition from its citizens. "Before he could advance on Rome, Belisarius first had to take Naples to the south, which he invested in the summer of 536. After failing to persuade the populace to submit peacefully, he subjected the city to a month-long siege. Naples was so stubbornly defended that Belisarius began to despair of taking the place

Thanks. What an interesting thesis. This is a book that I'm definitely putting on my wish list. On the surface, it's always seemed that the Byzantines under Justinian undermined what was left of the old Roman order in Italy. Who needs fiction when history is much more entertaining?

Yes, yes. And for dozen centuries the ruined Colosseum nurtured "the wild flowers and ivy" brought from African in the cages and bellies of the beasts that would entertain. Domenico Panaroli made an illustrated study of the flora of the amphitheatre's floor before it was removed. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Colosseum#Flora "The Colosseum has a wide and well-documented history of flora, ever since Domenico Panaroli made the first catalog of its plants in 1643. Since then, 684 species have been identified there. The peak was in 1855 (420 species). Attempts were made in 1871 to eradicate the vegetation, due to concerns over the damage that was being caused to the masonry, but much of it has returned. Today, 242 species have been counted, and of the species first identified by Panaroli, 200 remain. The variation of plants can be explained by the change of climate in Rome through the centuries. Additionally, bird migration, flower blooming, and the growth of Rome that caused the Colosseum to become embedded within the modern city center rather than on the outskirts of the ancient city, as well as the deliberate transport of species, are all contributing causes. One other romantic reason often given is that their seeds being unwittingly transported on the animals brought there from all corners of the empire."

For precisely that reason I find the Oxford Archaeological Guide to Rome a must for anyone visiting Rome.