caesar novus

Short but intense version: Chambers Brothers "Time Has Come Today"

Roman mosaics, like their sculpture, seem to me as having an ineffable pleasing visual quality. Well, here it is made effable with tile layout principles deduced and illustrated: P.S. for their sculpture I would say they make beguiling meditative poses, when not making copies of Greek melodramatic sculpture or intimidating emperor vanity stuff.

Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - Mas Que Nada

Here is a more meaty talk about the site with outstanding illustrations, cued up a few minutes past the intro formalities:

The Animals "Don't Bring Me Down" on The Ed Sullivan Show

Here is a walkthru of Pontius Pilates pilgrim's road, which has been excavated horizontally for over a third of a mile 50 feet under Jerusalem. I gather it is nearing being opened to tourists, altho excavation is still in progress as you can see by the host disturbingly yanking artifacts out of a wall of dirt. It was super expensive and high tech to dig without disturbing the surface:

Here is an outstanding example of Indian fusion music accented with modern sensibilities. I attempt to drop you into the middle so as not to miss amazing solo vocals, tabla, etc:

Lucky it's not in the dark parts of below map, which are occupied. And a few hours ago AP warned about the remainder:

Or Circus Moderatus? The famous one in Rome is 2,037 ft by 387 ft and there was for a while an even bigger one near the present central train station. The well preserved Circus of Maxentius on via Appia of Rome has a spina barrier alone of exactly 1000 Roman feet: P.S. for those concerned about unprecedented tourist crowds in Rome, I have only ever seen at most a couple of visitors at this atmospheric site. One in a cluster of many undervisited sites.

I'm gonna try embedding a youtube "short" here, to lessen inflicting my taste on folks. In this case and maybe others you can click on link of longer version if you like:

So limes means frontiers. Those Roman frontier books as well as many other archeo ones are available on free (slow) pdf downloads at https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Open-Access/Open-Access . Some have great photography; I will post a few examples:

Some may not be subscribed to this alternate T.I.S. channel, so am posting a pretty juicy video on Herculaneum. I don't agree that Herc outshines Pompeii, but almost every voice of the internet does so. Note how it's most prominent person is a rich ex slave; think of that when Rome is getting stereotyped for slavery. While waiting for part 2, let me concede that Herc. may eventually outshine Pompeii when it's vast outer footprint is dug up. Everyone assumes it will take centuries to push residents off that land, but here is a video showing how depopulation is sweeping Italy now; they are turning the lights off in Genoa for instance. Some complain about Zeihan's sweeping generalizations, and it is true that his value comes from being a provocative brainstormer, novel yet plausible. Here is wise myth punching spin about his most famous claims, and hopefully that allows more optimism for Italy:

The above rules are enforced by forum software. As you can see by clicking on this "Ask the Expert" directory, there have been no replies to questions allowed here for 13 years. Any ungrateful person that objects to me being anointed as the sole giver of answers and receiver of ad revenue must reply to this post. 😬

I had listened to his much longer recent podcast on the subject, but I'm not sure it's for everyone (thus he uses his alternate channel):