Underbelly

We were playing an amiable conversation game around the TG dinner table last night when I faced the question: is there something that you h...

Just about everything this guy writes is worth a stop, but this one is really good.

The Roman historian Sallust blamed the decline of the republic on luxuria and licentia --luxury and licentiousness. Peter Turchin thinks...

Well actually, I did read Ronald Syme's Roman Revolution a couple of years back with profit and a somewhat qualified pleasure. Syme i...

Chris Wickham identifies what he sees as a critical juncture in the transition away from the Roman Empire--the shift from what he calls a ...

Boy, we take a lot of vacations. But give us this: at our age, there is no putting off to tomorrow--at our age this is tomorrow. Anyway, we...

I suppose the only reason to create a list like this one is to start an argument, but on the whole, I'd say that this particular instan...

Another France travel note: before Paris, we spent some time tromping the Roman ruins in Provence. Executive summary: on the off chance tha...

HBO’s Rome played to great acclaim lately on the big screen at Il Teatro Buce, so we decided we’d take a flutter on “the rest of the story”...

The Wire, The Sopranos , Rome --has everybody but me noticed how the three hottest shows on HBO are about state failure? I concede they ...

As I get older, I tend to admire brilliance less and kindness more. This may be just selfishness: I am less and less likely to be brillian...

Who is it? He was one of those men whom it is an honour to meet, in whom Nature seems to have achieved a masterpiece, not so rare as might...

Having caught a bit of HBO’s Rome (on DVD), I hauled out my old copy of The Roman Revolution by Sir Ronald Syme. First published in 1939...

I guess I’m in debunking mode this week. Anyway, factoid: topic is the seven hills of Rome. Apparently the Romans themselves did not know ...

I picked up my copy of Evelyn Waugh's Helena -- I don't know where, probably in Palookaville's premier used bookshop. I gues...

Epitherses ... said that designing a voyage to Italy , he embarked himself on a vessel well laden both with goods and passengers. About th...