caesar novus

Here is a new explanation of how the effort will be to restore continuity from the current disjoint messiness. Since the forum was dug out in separate stages, there are all kind of artificial boundaries and obstacles between them that will be eliminated. Also from the time the forum went from free to paid, there are clunky "jail" borders that can be made more subtle and enticing to lure folks in. This not only for tourists but the casual strolling Italian taxpayer who may or may not fund further support.

Needn't read reuters; those 2 articles are word for word the same, except the reuters one only posts a generic photo.

One evening in narrow passages of Rome I ran across a wine fest. For eu5 they gave a wineglass with strap around your neck, good for unlimited visits to tasting stations. I'm not big on wine or any alcohol, but was seduced by their sweet wines in fancy bottles maybe similar to above. Be prepared for serendipity (and disappointment) in Rome. P.S. I ran across claim that Rome had a racetrack larger than Circus Maximus but it was abandoned after a decade. Traces east of central train station.

Time Team regular Guy de la Bédoyère outlines the disturbing fate of most artifacts and even basic archeo site info after the initial headlines. Site reports are either not written or pulped; computer formats go obsolete. Museums put stuff in irretrievable storage, uncataloged. This in the most well meaning of places such as UK, he maps out the inevitable incentives leading to this. Even in the headlines, unwarranted claims are typically made such as ownership of villas or ID of sculptures. He has made great efforts to counter this with no joy:

Wow, this book looks good about Rome's everyday folks by a prolific author, historian, and documentary regular. Not a marxist moan about the downtrodden but a celebration: "A cavalcade of noise and confusion in an ancient temple". My library has it on order. His youtube channel is a treasure https://www.youtube.com/@ClassCiv/videos and who better to review the book but Guy de la Bedoyere himself:

Well, that explains to me why the nearby Antalya archeo museum seems much better endowed with Roman sculpture than the Istanbul Archeo museum, the latter not having a youtube video worthy of putting in my signature museum playlist. Next I would like explained what activities went on in a stadium of that type - seems the wrong shape for horse racing, plays, or gladiators.

Thru examples of runaway destruction of Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and the Aztecs "The book—and this conversation—charts how and why some societies choose to utterly destroy their foes and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time."

These songs age better with the mock-sinister lyrics removed. P.S. I am not part of the growing "Brian" cult, but appreciate his eclecticism. Not the first time I have featured tanpura here, something you can load on a tablet and synth-drone yourself to sleep.

I was surprised to learn that squirrels host the same bubonic plague flea as rats. Someone recently died in NM of plague. A lot of people are attracted to squirrels and want to hand feed them etc, unlike rats. A surprising number of folks think reptiles are cute to handle. Nih.gov sez:

The story behind the images by Goldsworthy:

Timgad: idyllic retirement village on African frontier... P.S. don't miss my previous posted video, a mere 2.5 minute atmospheric gem.

Crispina is thinking of GhostOfClayton, who last described upheaval of direction due to brexit/covid in:

The geography of the Med gives the following ferocious seasonal winds, usually oriented to push sailors away from sheltering shores. Except for the boot of Italy which may be placid to a fault (promoting Roman development?).

day-dreamy vibes

I would say these articles show that more is needed to verify even 5% that any particular elite of that time period lived there. Sounds like the so-called Villa Poppaea nearby which was associated with Nero's wife of that name on the barest random clue and lots of hope. There may be more to the story, but the Poppaea one is only 5%

Kathy Sledge performs well in the Verona Arena, which is also featured in toldinstone video (3:43) on faked Roman reconstructions:

I like his "introduction" video chats which encapsulate Roman figures based on actual evidence vs popular stereotypes: The British School at Rome has a good lecture on Roman house genealogy, sort of a blockchain of previous owners ancient Romans liked to trace:

I think phase 2 will be a spectacular win, linking the under visited Circus Maximus to under visited Baths of Caracalla to u. v. Via Appia. I think we discussed the Darya video on how the isolated new Map museum and sculpture garden is included too. Nobody but me makes the horrible walk between these relatively adjacent sites due to multi-lane fast roads, industrial vibe where you can hardly buy a hydrating drink, and poor signage/sidewalks/crosswalks. I hate the logistics and loss of context using wheeled travel instead. Phase 1 could turn out intrusive, but I think taps into the less busy side of the coliseum towards the weird grassy hill east side of the Forum. Not many go there since you can't see what's ahead and whether it is worth the climb; I stumbled around there only because of the new Nero dining room excavation, which I found practically deserted. It would be a plus even relieving pressure on the coliseum by offering alternative strolls. Crossing thru the Palace area to the racetrack could be intrusive, but folks need a little guidance there anyway because it isn't obvious you can get thru the palaces to the racetrack. It is such a maze that on my first visit back when the forum was free, I found myself walking on an exquisite decorated floor all wavy and fragile with poor options to avoid it or back off. It's not clear where the route will go due to the articles having paywalls, etc but I think phase 1 generally doesn't intrude except to give guidence in areas where there is a lot of random congestion and confusion. I include a picture that falsely looks intrusive, but depicts almost no change to the recent practice of closing off the horrible road Mussolini plowed thru the Forum. I would rather Via dei Fori Imperiali be torn out and excavated, but shutting out vehicle traffic with a few niceties seems fine: Other anecdotes: Now you can be walking quite close to the massive Baths of Caracalla and not see it. I made a rare exception and asked directions which just confused things since I accented the wrong syllable into gibberish. I looked for a street sign for a major road branching off another major one to shortcut to Via Appia, with absolutely none in sight in the industrial wasteland deprived of pedestrians. Another shortcut was super narrow and twisty with fast traffic barely scraping brick walls and each other with side mirrors. I was like a hunted animal who couldn't see when to creep thru the rubble safely. The only foot traffic was a couple stunning blondes walking with just wisps of clothing and cheap flip flops. Unlike me, they could obliviously walk in traffic lanes because the drivers stopped on a dime to stare. Ah, so much more I could pass on...

A UCSD history professor riffs on Mary Beard's new book as well as state of Roman study in both academia and popular culture. Quite articulate altho I find some of the points odd, as I usually do for Mary as well. See "The Crisis of Classical Studies" https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-crisis-of-classical-studies-on-mary-beards-emperor-of-rome/

to which I would add Roman historian Goldsworthy's very worthy youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AdrianGoldsworthytheAuthor/videos

Here is a malaria map of Italy 1882 but the hotspot returned in the 1940s when Germans sabotaged drainage canals from the Roman thru Mussolini era in deliberate biological warfare. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontine_Marshes for this swamp shaping the location of Via Appia, and how pre Mussolini: So for south of Rome it was solved in the 1930s, backfired cruelly in the 1940s, and: After benefiting from DDT tough love, the first world scaremongered third world countries out of even one time eradications.

I already had posted that video several days ago at https://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/19852-notable-videos-of-roman-misc/?page=3&tab=comments#comment-133696 . I also had put in the effort to go thru his catalog of videos which has countless Roman related ones, and featured 4 additional ones most likely interesting to this forum.

Granted, much of the age categories are uninteresting but that is just one of 10 ways to break it down, like whether self employed. Even aside of timeframes and breakdowns, I am amazed at some of the overall wealth levels in spite of housing or wuflu cycles. How representative are these survey responders? The main thing is the 25 or so types of financial issues, and secondarily to map across time. The tertiary age details do let'you examine for instance how are the recently retired faring or the middle aged. The 75+ group seems to be doing surprising well as in not running out of money. The young are struggling in various ways sensitive to interest rates, which the fed is setting. Other gov't may use these numbers to adjust social security. More example chart variations: Debt by current work status of reference person Net worth by current work status of reference person Debt by age of reference person

How are your neighbors doing? The US Federal Reserve offers interactive charts of income, net worth, debt, vehicles, real estate, etc from surveys the last 33 years. I about fell off my chair at the numbers, altho not so much the change over time. Best to leave it showing median rather than mean or else the crazy outliers will dominate. You can slice it many ways, like to see if folks were house-rich but cash-poor at a certain year and age group. I will show examples by age breakdown, but keep in mind that it's not the same people over time but the same age group at each year. One distortion is that a pension really means the custodian has to have a hidden million or so to fund it, while someone who retires only on their own savings looks deceptively well off especially when they will have to pay cap gains taxes on liquidation. Play with the charts as you like: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Before_Tax_Income;demographic:agecl;population:1,2,3,4,5,6;units:median https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/chart/#series:Assets;demographic:agecl;population:1,2,3,4,5,6;units:median