bookandswordblogNew post: the great rebalancing. Google's declaration of war on the web is yet another sign that its time to find alternatives in case it all collapses, and historians of empire know the importance of diversification. https://www.bookandsword.com/2026/06/06/the-great-rebalancing/ #google #ancMedToot
I am back from Rome and I have thoughts on two remarkable public spaces, the Basilica of Maxentius and the forum https://www.bookandsword.com/2026/05/03/two-public-spaces/ #histodons #ancMedToot #archaeology
Rome was one of the biggest republics west of India. After a few hundred years of tyranny, its assemblyplace was reduced to a space the size of a soccer pitch hemmed in by the monuments of big men. Edit typos #ancMedToot #histodons #rome #historyOfDemocracy
Juvenalia, or blast from the past: Some Thoughts on Wealth in Greece and Mesopotamia (2007) https://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/showthread.php?tid=8973 #economicHistory #economics #histodons #antiquidons #cuneitoot #ancMedToot
W.V. Harris "Revisionist View of Roman Money" Jnl. Rom. Studies 2006 is very good, although the first section is a catalogue of learned people saying things which are contracted by most of their sources (Aristotle and the Roman jurist Hermogenianus are explicit that money can be coins, goods valued in coins, or a promise). #antiquidons #economics #ancMedToot #economicHistory
An article in the Roman praetor Quintus Antistius Adventus Postumius Aquilinus https://www.livius.org/articles/person/antistius-adventus/ #romanEmpire #histodons #antiquidons #ancMedToot
In the last winter of the Before Times, I told a cheerful winter story about a hundred years of scholars repeating what a German professor told them not what any ancient source actually says https://www.bookandsword.com/2019/12/21/herodotus-meyer/ #histodons #antiquidons #ancMedToot
Parenthically to the above, it is just possible that Socrates was present at the first siege where Greeks used rams and tortoises like civilized people in 441/440 BCE https://www.bookandsword.com/2020/01/11/how-the-greeks-got-battering-rams/ #ancMedToot #histodons #philosophy #militaryHistory
A quick note on "two battles in three years" https://www.bookandsword.com/2026/01/18/a-quick-note-on-two-battles-in-three-years/ #histodons #researchHistory #ancMedToot #antiquidons #militaryHistory
What if we take Bret Devereaux's argument about the Roman Republic engineering Italy and run with it? There was no typical polis in ancient Greece https://www.bookandsword.com/2026/01/11/there-was-no-typical-polis/ #histodons #antiquidons #ancMedToot