Silentium

Indeed and yes, all four became consuls. It is interesting to note that the simile " to be stupid like a donkey" is used in current Italian, same for the metaphor "to be a donkey" (to be very stupid). I'm not sure whether this expression is common in English too.

Happy birthday PP!=)

Of the same type (kind?) is that which - as it has been recounted- Scipio said with irritation in Numantia to Metellus:

I am not against the idea of financing the preservation of the area with the entrance fees, I also think the all-inclusive ticket is very convenient for tourists who have never been to Rome before, but it should be more of an option rather than an imposition. People should be free to choose between a single or all inclusive ticket. There is (understandably) an endless queue to enter the Colosseum, so why should one queue for hours and pay an all inclusive ticket just to have a walk in the forums? I really can't understand.

For those who can read Italian, here is a link to Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma with the complete map of Line C and descriptions of all the findings. Here are picture of the excavations in 3 areas: Piazza Venezia San Giovanni Campo Marzio Apparently what remains of Agrippa's cenotaph and the renaissance glass factory in Piazza Venezia will have to be demolished.

True..Rome is a "layered" city. This is also the reason why we only have 2 underground lines while most european capitals have at least 10, with terrible repercussions on traffic and mobility, but that's the price to pay for having such treasures I think. Mussolini wiped out a medieval and Rinascimento neighbourhood as well as several imperial buildings to build Via della Conciliazione and Via dei Fori Imperiali.

Happy birthday!

Well, if you live on campus you'll be just a couple of hours away from home and your friends, it doesn't seem too bad same for your girlfriend, at least you are in the same country *sigh*. Pros surely outweigh the cons, you'll see, moving to live on your own is a great experience.

Certain reports of mutual intelligibility with Dutch seem to suggest that the case for creolisation may have been overstated. Afrikaans seems to have retained West Germanic’s distinctive word-order asymmetry, and that distinguishes it from Dutch-based creoles, which are exclusively SVO (and therefore undermines extreme creolist accounts of its origins), although Khoekhoe must have had some influence on its morphological development (just speculating). On the lexical side the situation is slightly more diversified and complicated… Another factor to take into account is that there are different varieties of Afrikaans, some of which reflect strong Malay and English influences. While Afrikaans is probably not a creole language stricto sensu, I think the definition semi-creole is quite fitting, something in between the superstratist and creolist views.

This is a legitimate observation. The Dutch East India Company established a refreshment station there in 1652, introducing several varieties of 17th century Dutch which, in the next couple of centuries, came in contact with Khoekhoe, slaves from Madagascar, East Africa, India, Indonesia, SriLanka and also with European French and German speakers. Written records prove that a distinct variety of Dutch already existed there by mid-18th century, referred to as Kaaps Hollands (Cape Dutch) or geradbraakte/gebroke/onbeskaafde Hollands ("mutilated/broken/uncivilized Hollandic"), verkeerde Nederlands ("incorrect Dutch") and kombuistaal ("kitchen language"). How did this local variety turn into a distinct language then? In brief (there is an extensive literature on this and the question is still open to discussion) there are 3 main positions: the superstratist and variationist positions claim that the emergence of Afrikaans as a distinctive language was due to the natural process of language evolution in absence of strong normative pressure (to make things simple, a bit like Italian/Spanish/French/Portuguese/Romanian etc. evolved from the Latin of sermo familiaris) thus confining the non-germanic languages to a marginal place (practically just to the lexical area), while the creolist view argues that Afrikaans is the product of the interaction between that form of "non-standard" Dutch I mentioned before and the various Dutch-based pidgins spoken by the Cape's population (and therefore a semi-creole language). The language was standardized and recognised only in 1925.

I've watched "Silk", a film based on a novel by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, starring Keira Knightley and Michael Pitt. I wasn't particularly impressed with the book, whose style seemed a parody of that of Gustave Flaubert, and the film seems to be a loyal adaptation... Oh, and apparently there will be a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, I wish they had continued to follow the Monkey Island videogames storyline...has anyone played the games?

One of the best books I've read in...years. Last books I read are "The Rhaeto-Romance languages" by John Haiman and Paola Beninca and "Essays on Politics, Language and Society in Luxembourg" by Gerald Newton

Thanks much Silentium; and for providing the link to the Baths of Capo di Bove thread. I remember that from before, when you put it up the first time. I had wandered across your posting and that aerial view of the baths during one of my late night searches for postings that had gotten four or less replies. At the time I saw it in September, and I put it up as background on my monitor screen (I keep a pretty clear screen). It was amazing to look at in that way. If any one does do that, (and I recommend it) notice the fracture line that enters from the middle left and traverses the floor passing through the path of least resistance until it exits the structure top right. The view was worth spending some time poring over. At the time I spent some time searching for it

Exactly what I wanted to say; while it is true that early medieval kings received their power from the Pope, it is also true that a multitude of mosaics depict them wearing the clothes of a byzantine emperor; Otto I, the norman Roger II of Sicily and also William II of Sicily, in addition to the previously mentioned doge in Venice. I think it's more about institutions than culture itself. Actually most of the works of ancient Roman classic literature and science survived to present day thanks to the manuscripts produced in the byzantine scriptoria.

Thank you don't worry, I haven't been around for quite some time and yes, my next birthday is dangerously close

Happy birthday Ramses!

From this article on Italian newspaper La Repubblica: http://roma.repubblica.it/dettaglio/Quinti...aviglie/1419906 My (rough) translation: Quintili, the latest wonders Excavations brought to light 50 rooms, a portico and mosaics Magnificent ruins and green fields all around, as far as the eye can see, this is Villa dei Quintili today. But at the time of the emperors it was a different Rome: an infinite multitude of columns and white marbles,red plaster,polychromous mosaics,frames made of precious stones and sky-coloured lapislazuli,but also architecture-like gardens all around the real architectures which contained staterooms and spaces for gladiatorial games. And the architectonic extension of this place of leisure, wanted from the Quintili family and so longed for by Commodus so as to lead him to exterminate its owners - so he could have their paradise facing the Via Appia- is definitely coming to light thanks to the new excavations started on 11 october 2007. But happiness for the good news is immediately ruined by a bad one - the 250.000 euros financing the project are over, so yesterday the workers have packed their bags and left. They excavated with archaeologists Riccardo Frontoni and Giuliana Galli -who, directed by Rita Paris, have worked for Soprintendenza Archeologica- and in just 4 months the men at work have found the walls and perimetres of 52 rooms (facing a big 40-metre diameter esedra,probably used for training) that were used by the athletes to have massages or to make them stronger through the weights;also a portico half a kilometre long, that served as a place for the philosophers to think while walking, and for the runners to train; again, a mosaic carpet coloured by small geometrical flowers; and,inside a 5 metre radius rotonda,an old,stained piece of iron:but of fundamental importance,for it belonged to a roman sculptor."It is so rare to find a chisel outside Pompeii.We've found it in the deepest layer of this circular room and it probably dates back to the time of Commodus,when the bricklayers took off the marble panels to create new ones",Frontoni explains. For the young archaeologists that for over ten years have worked at the villa,built on the lavic hill of Capo di Bove*,belvedere from where the owners could contemplate the landscape as far as Tivoli and compete in beauty with Hadrian's villa,these days' frustration is that of a gold miner that has found a mine but can't excavate it.Only the initial part of the floreal mosaic that covered the corridor connected to the frigidarium has been brought to light.The remaining 20 metres lie under the heap of earth accumulated for centuries over the buried vestiges. From the clean side came out the marble skirting written in greek, the red plaster, many glass tesseras from the azure-coloured vault, collapsed on the floor.However,in addition to this caleidoscope,it has also appeared "the wall of an oven used in the early middle ages to recycle glass, and dozens are the fragments of ancient melted glass we've found in the earth",Galli explains. Archaeologists could have limited their work to excavating just this wonderful corridor.Or else bring to light exclusively the rotonda,which,during the first excavations,has brought back dozens of fragments of marbles coming from Asia and Africa: fiore di pesco,serpentine,ancient pink and yellow,precious alabaster.In this way they would have added other attractions to the site that has opened to the public in 2000.The Soprintendenza has,however,preferred the substance of the shapes over the pleasures of the eye, and has brought to light all the perimeters of the open buildings where it was thought there were gardens.In order to know whether the rotonda was covered with a vault like the Pantheon and whether there were columns of the front of the esedra,all there is to do is to look for other funds, and to remove that couple of metres high earth heap that suffocates marbles, mosaics and history. *Note of the translator: you might remember this name from my thread on the Baths of Capo di Bove. Thread here. More photos here.

Ah, ok, for a moment I hoped they were intact.. =( but what they've found so far sounds very interesting, hopefully I will be able to provide pictures of the new excavations soon now that I'm back in Italia

My favourite poem is L'Infinito by Leopardi Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle, E questa siepe, che da tanta parte Dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude. Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati Spazi di l

Grazie!

I agree. The Eastern Empire was considered the legitimate heir of the Classical one, one further proof is provided by art history. It is to Byzantine models and iconography that the early medieval kings who wanted to legitimise their power (at least in the Italian Paeninsula) turned to. I'm thinking of the Normans in Sicily, who called byzantine artists to decorate their residences and cathedrals and adopted the byzantine cerimonial, and also of Venice - San Marco for example is built after a VI century Constantinopolitan church, the Apostol

Are the paintings on the walls frescoes? Are they good quality?

It's just good to see you back browsing around. I miss your first hand reports of various archaeological activities around the eternal city. Thank you! It's good to be back actually, and it's good to know that there is a place like this on the net to discuss and learn about ancient Roma and the other civilisations. The Triumviri and the Patricii have done an excellent work with this site really, so thank you for keeping it up and running! I will be glad to contribute in any way I can, being here in Roma

Honestly, it is such a pity that the Italians are missing this excellent series..I wonder why it was never translated.