Ursus

Now that you mention it, I have the first book in that list: Roman Empire. It's a good coffee table book/ overview of Roman civilization.

Interesting. I was not aware of the book, but will check it out. No idea.

I have just tried Michelob's "Bavarian Style Wheat." Interesting. It has a bite to it.

Cyrus the Great disagrees

http://history-world.org/Carthage,%20A%20History%201.htm I found this after a moment's search. This is not my area and I am not sure how accurate the info is, but the author leaves footnotes for further reference.

What's the deal with lawn Gnomes? Why do people put these godawful ugly things in their yards? All too often I am driving along and see an otherwise perfectly kept property despoiled by these crude plastic monstrosities. What is the appeal?

Yes, unless the book is rife with his trademark cynical quips, I think I shall skip any Medieval attempts. In fact, I'd like to see a sequel to Persian Fire, dealing with the war between Athens and Sparta, the rise of Macedon, and the conquest of Persia. And if he wants to get really ambitious ... there are always the Punic Wars.

I don't need no rhetoric, dude. I'm, like, a good talker already. And stuff. .. I'm all for putting a little more of the classics back in the curriculum, and weeding out some of the worse examples of touchy-feely politically correct drivel. However, I think most people are ultimately suited to more vocational training. I try to think of my high school classmates, most of whom were rustic yokels, eloquently reciting Homer and Cicero in the original languages, and I crack up laughing. The finer points of such a cultured educational system would be lost to children of NASCAR and professional wrestling. I'm not sure how you Canadians do it, but most American secondary schools after the 8th grade allow a student to pick either a vocational track (which lets them get a job immediately after high school, or attend further technical training), or an academic preparation course which prepares them for University. The academic track is usually populated by the .. smarter types ... if you know what I mean, and these could benefit from a more classics centered education. But someone wanting to be a mechanic or brick layer doesn't need rhetoric. The Romans themselves reserved that particular type of education for the upper classes, as they would need to know Ciceronian Latin to debate in the halls of the Senate.

The Pope as head of his church is entitled to his opinion, and that Catholicism thinks itself the one true religion is certainly nothing new. But as I stated in another thread, Ratzinger had an opportunity to form coalitions against common enemies (like the Jihadist Muslims that are living in his proverbial backyard in Europe). Instead he chooses to alienate just about everybody except the hardcore Catholic faithful. Not the most politic thing to do in my opinion. I suspect sometime later this century Catholicism and Orthodoxy will have to band together or face annihilation at the hands of secularism, Islam and Charismatic Christianity. But as a pagan it's not my problem, and I have no further comments on this issue.

Don't worry about not being a bookworm. If you enjoy what you're doing, that is what matters. And blacksmithing probably keeps you in better shape than laying about reading a book. I take it you must follow Brigid, the triple Celtic goddess of fire - fire for the domestic hearth, fire for the blacksmith's forge, fire for the poet's heart?

I must have missed this. But I wish to try it. The local yokels around here already consider me an "import snob" as I turn aside common domestic swill. Now I shall recant them with stories of how I drink ancient Chinese beer.

Cults that couldn't fit in with the socio-political vision of the establishment met the displeasure of the state. The Druids were snuffed out as centers of resistance to Romanization, but this arguably was the best thing for the advancement of Celtic society beyond its deliberately imposed tribal, illiterate morass. Some eastern cults met the displeasure of the Republic and the early emperors as they were deemed too exotic or un-Roman. As the Empire itself became more Orientalized, this tended to become a non-issue. I believe the Manicheans were considered agents of Persia more than anything else. Judaism was more volatile in the Greek East than the Latin west. Judaism was an ancient religion and thus to be respected, but it was found hard to love people who made a point of denying the State gods. Circumcision and abstaining from pork was found just downright silly. Nonetheless a Jew is recorded as having become a prefect of Egypt, one of the highest positions in the Empire.

I have a renewed interest in Ancient Egypt. Expect to see some Egyptian, Greco-Egyptian and Romano-Egyptian posts from yours truly.

I think dignitas, or one's social standing, was the most important virtue in all periods, not just the republic. The Empire was merely different. The Romans, having won thesmelves an empire, were eager to enjoy its fruits, and thus handed over much of the legionary drudgery to the provincials (who after a tour of duty could become citizens and enjoy the fruits themselves. Surely the imperial period extended dignitas to the provincials in a way the Republic had not). Elections were hollow shadows, which meant that military victory as a way of inciting mass approval was no longer the point of the political system. One now had to gain the favor of the Princeps for the top administrative posts. And, furthermore, one had to find a way of gaining the 1 million sesterces or 400,000 sesterces to qualify for entry into the distinguished Senatorial and Equestrian orders whence the administrators were drawn.

Won't you be my neighbor?

This test is merely trying to find rough mythological equivalents to the 16 MBTI types. Prometheus = INTJ, Oracle - INTP, etc. The only suprise so far is Pertinax ... I thought he would be an Oracle too. (And the description of Hermes is off. He is not traditional and conforming. He did, afterall, steal Apollo's cattle as a newborn babe).

Ratzinger should be building coalitions against Jihadist Islam. Instead he insults people who would be natural allies. And I thought he was smart, feh.

0% Extroversion, 80% Intuition, 0% Emotiveness, 4% Perceptiveness You are most like Prometheus, and you probably knew that before you even took this test. You probably aren't deliberately altruistic, but you still tend to do things that benefit everyone, even at great expense to your health and personal relationships. You aren't ruled by your emotions, but you still have a strong sense of justice. You make good descisions, but they can sometimes backfire (and this isn't due to a flaw in your reasoning, but due to faulty premises instead). You are very reasonable, you understand systems, you can quickly pinpoint flaws and you know how to correct them. You pride understanding and knowledge above everything else, and your greatest fear is to appear to be incompetent. You tend to be contemptuous of authority, but you don't accept leadership roles yourself until everyone else has demonstrated their own incompetence. You've built a very specific skill set. You know exactly where your strengths and weaknesses are, and you pride yourself on this kind of self-knowledge. You distrust tradition, which you see as arbitrary, and you rely instead on your own judgements. You also pride yourself on your pragmatism. You're also a very private person. Most of all, people think you're arrogant, but screw them! They're the ones who benefit from your ideas and discoveries, and if they took the time to understand why it is that you say and think the things you do, they'd realize that you only appear arrogant because you are exactingly precise when it comes to your area of specification, and most of all because, when you don't know something, you don't have an opinion about it (unlike most of the loudmouths that you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis). Relationships are your kryptonite. It isn't that you don't want them -- in fact, you would very much like a very close relationship with someone who understands you. They're just the one thing in the world that you're naturally bad at. Famous people like you: Niels Bohr, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, Issac Newton, John Maynard Keynes, Erwin Schrodinger Stay Clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite Seek out: Atlas, The Oracle, Daedalus Greek Mythology Personality Test

Eat, drink and be merry!

This is getting off topic, but one can argue this is exactly what happened in regards to the confederation of Hebraic tribes and their patron deity YHWH. One can also see something of it in Stoicism where Zeus becomes the breath of fire in which all things are contained. Or in the Roman Cult of Isis, where Isis soon becomes the goddess, and all other goddesses are mere local aspects of her.

We can't. The term was never used by the people to whom it was actually applied. It was used by early Christians as a catch-all and somewhat perjorative term for everyone in the ancient world who wasn't Jew or Christian. Modern New Age groups have adopted the term for themselves, thus expanding the scope and making the term even more meaningless.

One can't assign modern political factions to an era that had no use for organized political parties.

For non-Roman interests ... Yesterday at a used book sale I picked up a copy of an older book entitled Naked Before Mine Enemies. It's a biography of Cardinal Wolsey. I've enjoyed it greatly. The Cardinal is a man I admire. Funny thing is, I never would have paid it a second thought were it not for Showtime's "The Tudors" and Sam Niell's performance.

Well, I suppose when one studies one culture, one has to have some passing familiarity with the other culture, as the two were entwined historically (and academically, in modern times). One merely chooses a preference between the two, if one so chooses at all. For what it's worth, I think Roman political acumen, combined with Greek aesthetics (to which I might also add Egyptian theology) work for me as a powerful cultural artifice.