Extensions and Weird Egyptians

Thank goodness we decided to give ourselves an extension on the deadline. I now have a chance of finishing the book. It's still going to be close though, I think I have about a hundred and fifty pages left to read and three days to read them. Doable but not easy.

So the Egyptians...yup...they were weird. It seems that Cleopatra was married to her brother. Gross! I read about this sibling sex phenomenon in the news recently because they have just done some genetic research on King Tut and found that he was a little disabled and that this particular kind of problem generally happened only when there wasn't enough genetic diversity. They said he was married to his sister or his mother was his sister or something like that. I thought it was news that the ancient Egyptians accepted that as normal, but apparently I was wrong. Mommsen knew about it, and put it in his book. They don't teach you that in high school world history. Incest! Yikes.

Deadlines

The deadline is looming for Mommsen and I have 300 pages left. I feel like I'm in school again, reading as fast as I can and kind of dreading opening the book.

His writing is engaging for a history text. I love his little asides about who he thinks is right or wrong, and the personal additions about the characters that are written as if they are his old friends. But MAN I can't tell a Lucianus Lacullus from a Marius Lucretanus (and I'm making those up because I can't remember actual names) for the life of me! Who are these people and where do they come from?!

My only hope for this text is that I can get some solid glimpse of Roman life and the way the world has been shaped by it. And that I can finish it in time for our discussion - which is kind of like climbing Everest.

Progress

I like to think that we, as a people, have made progress in the last two thousand years; that we're more diplomatic and less violent.

After reading more about Rome though I wonder if that's true. Maybe we don't put heads on spikes and drag dead bodies through the street but have we really made any progress? Lately I've been thinking that our progress has been all in weapons design. We don't have to physically fight, we just shoot 'em, or bomb 'em, or torpedo 'em out of the water. It's no less damaging to those involved and far more damaging to the earth.

Will we always fight? Have there ever been peaceful human beings on earth?

Blood and Guts

As I read farther into The History of Rome I'm amazed at the violence that existed in the Roman world. I wonder at how they could have sustained the wars and given rise to the culture that exists today when they regularly massacred so many people.

It's a different world than one I'm familiar with a world in which the decapitated bodies of statesmen are dragged through the streets while their heads hang in the forum. Can you imagine what would go through our minds if senators were being murdered and literally hung up to dry inside our halls of government? Horrible. And this is the foundation of our culture. Hmm...

I also wonder how they fed all of these soldiers and politicians and who was doing all of the work? I'm assuming it's the women and the slaves doing all of the actual labor to ensure survival, but Mommsens says nothing about that. He also mentions nothing about the daily life of your average Roman (or Latin, or Italian, etc.) just blood and guts.

Maybe it will get more sedate as I read farther, but somehow I doubt it. It will soon be March fifteenth, the Ides of March, and that makes me think of the bloody death of Ceasar. I haven't gotten anywhere near that in the book but I know it's coming and that makes me think that things don't cool off for the Romans.

Mommsen is Hard

Mommsen is proving to be more difficult to get through than I anticipated. I'm finding that I'm slow to make progress and staying motivated to read it is a challenge.

The problem is context. I don't understand any of the geographic places or the different populations he's talking about. There are the Romans, The Latins, and the Italians...Aren't they all the same? Guess not. Then there's Numidia and Numantia, are they the same? Is one a city and the other a country? I recognize Libya and there was one reference to Tunisia. These only sort of help, at least I can locate the general vicinity but otherwise it's the Jabberwocky of geography.

I got it!

Mommsen. Our second author. The History of Rome




I wasn't sure I would be able to get my hands on an abridged copy before our next meeting. Amazon only listed 2 available and those were gone before I could get them, ahem....

It's o.k though, thankfully I have a spouse in school with access to an excellent academic library containing a copy of the above.

Tonight we managed to get to the aforementioned library, locate the book and check it out before we got a parking ticket. Practically miraculous! Then to celebrate all of our hard work, and good luck, we went for beers and burgers. Was that smart? Perhaps not, but it was fun.

First Meeting

Last night we had our first meeting. It was an auspicious beginning to what, I think, will be a fulfilling marathon of reading.

Rene Sully-Prudhomme (pen name) was a writer who proved to be great fuel for conversation. I think he was a man divided between his heart and his head. It seemed that he tried to reason his way through matters of the heart, which always fails miserably, all while being so artistically mature. But he was young and we were reading his journals, which of course, are never meant to be read publicly. But poems...

At The Water's Edge

To sit and watch the wavelets as they flow
Two - side by side;
To see the gliding clouds that come and go
And mark them glide;

If from low roofs the smoke is wreathing pale,
To watch it wreath;
If flowers around breathe perfume on the gale,
To feel them breathe;

If the bee sips the honeyed fruit that glistens,
To sip the dew;
If the bird warbles while the forest listens,
To listen too;

Beneath the willow where the brook is singing,
To hear its song;
Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging
The hours too long;

To know one only deep over mastering passion -
The love we share;
To let the world go worrying in its fashion
Without one care -

We only, while around all weary grow,
Unwearied stand,
And midst the fickle changes others knows,
Love - hand in hand


Rene Francois Armand Prudhomme