The Song of Achilles is the story of the Greek hero of the Trojan War told from the point of view of his lover Patroclus. It was an unlikely friendship. Patroclus, whose name means Honor the Father, was the son of a king of a small Greek kingdom, and a great disappointment to his father. […]
Book Review: 300, The Empire, by Theo Papas
August 9, 2015 By Leave a Comment
In 300. The Empire, Theo Papas tells the story of how the Greeks of the 5th century B.C. united to fight off the encroachment of the massive and powerful Persian Empire, ruled by King Xerxes. King Xerxes’ father, Darius I, was defeated at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. by the Athenians under General […]
Book Review: Palatine by L.J. Trafford
July 31, 2015 By 2 Comments
The Roman writer Juvenal wrote that the Roman Empire provided its citizens with bread and circuses. In A.D. 67 the most entertaining circus in town, although most citizens were not privy to it, was the imperial court of Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, commonly known as Nero. In her book Palatine, L.J. Trafford brings […]
The Battle of Trasimene: Excerpt from WIP In the Wake of Hannibal
June 21, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Today, June 21st, is the anniversary of the Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217 B.C. in which Carthaginian forces under Hannibal trapped a Roman Army under the command of Gaius Flaminius in a defile and slaughtered some 15,000 Romans. It was to be the third of four set-piece victories for Hannibal as he moved down […]
Book Review: Taken At the Flood; The Roman Conquest of Greece, by Robin Waterfield
May 25, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Ph In my research about the third Punic war, the one in which Rome destroyed Carthage, I ran across an intriguing quote by the Greek historian Polybius. “The ruin of Carthage is indeed considered to have been the greatest of calamities, but when we come to think of it the fate of Greece was no […]
Exerpt From In the Wake of Hannibal-A Work in Progress
April 16, 2015 By Leave a Comment
I felt the baby kick today for the first time. I am excited but also afraid. Many women do not survive childbirth; so much can go wrong, and I’ve heard that it is exceedingly painful. But I really do want this baby; it will be so wonderful see at his little face, his tiny hands. […]
Epicurus, History’s First Atheist.
April 7, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Epicurus, History’s First Known Atheist. Epicurus, an Athenian philosopher who lived from 341 to 270 BCE, was not really an atheist as we understand the term today. He was raised in a polytheistic culture and he acknowledged the existence of gods, but he believed that these gods did not interact with humans or interfere in […]
The Athenian Empire-A Guest Post. By Van Bryan in Classical Wisdom Weekly
April 6, 2015 By Leave a Comment
I found this account of the history of the Athenian empire very interesting and asked permission from the author to share it with readers. “You might remember two weeks ago we had something of a chat about a rather interesting bit of history. How is it that an alliance of cities with the unobjectionable goal […]
Book Review: Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman
March 31, 2015 By Leave a Comment
Every time I read one of Sharon Kay Penman’s novels I’m awed by her writing. I’d give my soul if I could write historical fiction the way she does. Falls the Shadow is the second book of her Welsh Princes Trilogy and continues the story where Here Be Dragons leaves off. Llewellyn Ap Iorwerth dies […]
Did the Carthaginians Actually Practice Child Sacrifice?
March 6, 2015 By 2 Comments
In my work in progress, The Death of Carthage, my protagonist, Gisco, is informed by Indibal, the priest of Tanit and Ba-al Hammon that he must surrender his five month old son, Hanno, to be sacrificed to the gods. Aghast, Gisco seeks to avoid the sacrifice by taking his wife and three children to Roman […]
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