2019-06-03

June is busting out all over

We have four very pronounced seasons here in the mountains, and each comes with its own set of challenges. Summers are hot, full of bugs and with the threat of wildfires lurking in the background. Autumn is short, colourful and packed with preparations for the winter (which lasts five months of the year). Winter, with six feet of snow in the garden and temperatures hitting twenty below speaks for itself, or rather howls around the chimney in boreal gales.

Each season has its demands and temptations luring me from my keyboard. Winter is snowshoeing through deep forest and up mountainsides amid jaw-dropping beauty. Summer is kayaking on mountain lakes and berry-picking in the woods.

Then there's spring.

Spring is our short growing season, when the plant life goes mad trying to get maximum foliage out before the summer drought. This means mowing the lawn three times a week, and wondering how the dandelions still manage to blossom between times. It's repairing fences, and cutting tree branches damaged by snow. It's restacking the wood we didn't use for the stove, and hunting down wasps trying to nest in the eaves. It's when mama bear drives her cubs away to prepare for the babies she plans on having in summer, leaving confused ursine teenagers raising havoc in the garden and trying to set up home in the garden shed.

In summer and winter, distractions from writing are at least great fun. With spring, for all the blossoms and honeybees, the distractions are hard work.

2019-05-04

The Hellenistic Queens - a real-life soap opera

The more I get into Hellenistics, the more I wonder why no-one has turned these people into a TV drama. For example - and there's lots of other examples - hands up everyone who has heard of Berenice of Cyrenica. All none of you? Thought so. Yet she's part of a story that you'd be hard pressed to turn into credible fiction.

Berenice (born around 266 BC) was the daughter of King Magas of Cyrenica. She was a keen horsewoman and a good cavalry commander who fought alongside her father in battle. When her father died, her mother arranged for her to marry the so-called Demetrius the Fair of Macedonia. So 'fair' was this Demetrius that the mother was unable to resist his charm and started an affair with him.

The affair ended when an exasperated Berenice entered the couple's bedchamber with a pair of assassins who proceeded to butcher Demetrius while Berenice stood in the doorway critiquing their work. She afterwards married Ptolemy III of Egypt. Ptolemy then went to war with Syria because the Seleucid king had married Ptolemy's sister after divorcing his previous wife. However, the Seleucid king decided he preferred his first wife, went back to her and was promptly poisoned by her. The first wife then killed Ptolemy's sister and her infant son, causing an enraged Ptolemy to invade Syria, leaving Berenice to run Egypt.

Berenice later participated in an equestrian event in the Nemean games and allegedly was also an Olympic competitor. She then retired to raise a family, including the ungrateful Ptolemy IV, the son who had her assassinated when Berenice's pharaoh husband died. (Her other son, Magas, was killed at the same time - scalded to death in his bath.)

I would write her biography as a screenplay, except a number of historians in antiquity already have the copyright.

2019-04-04

Older than you think

Lately I've been doing quite a lot of ancient history. Now you might not think that's unusual because antiquity is my job. But there is a difference between ancient history and classical history, and classical history is where I spend most of my time. The classical era is usually reckoned to have begun around 800 BC with writers such as Homer and Hesiod. Ancient history begins around 5200 years before that.

To put that into perspective, consider the Egyptian calendar. It had 365 days, but no leap year, so it lost a day every four years. (In modern parlance, Dec 31 became Dec 30 and another four years later it became Dec 29, and so on all the way back until the same day became January 1.) By the time of Julius Caesar, that lost day had cycled right through the calendar - twice.

It's odd to think that the Greeks and Romans- whom we think of as ancient - were actually part of a Mediterranean culture that was thousands of years old when Homer was still a baby. These days we remember almost nothing of the wars of the Akkadians and the Elamites, yet those civilizations lasted longer than the USA has existed. Sargon the Great developed the idea of a nation state where previously the largest governmental unit was the city. Hammurabi wrote one of the world's first law codes. Yet a recent internet poll of the '100 most important people in history' mentioned neither of these men. Justin Bieber was there though.

2019-03-04

The Milky Whey

Those who follow this blog - and a goodly number of you do, according to our server statistics - will know of my interest in cooking Roman-style. There's something about cooking from scratch that appeals to my primitivist instincts.

I've acquired a cast-iron pot that handles most Roman 'dutch-oven' style recipes, and much of last year was spent on bread products. As well as Roman-style buns, breads and cakes, I started making homemade pasta and pizza just to keep my Italian up to date.

This year, I've added a cow to my virtual cornfield. That is, I'm seeing what a peasant can make from a gallon of fresh milk. So far I've discovered that making whole milk ricotta cheese is slightly easier than making toast. (Add lemon juice to milk and heat. Once the curds and whey separate, drain and store.) Likewise, if you don't make your own yoghurt, you should consider starting - it's straightforward and the results are delicious.

Mozzarella is more tricky, but apparently once you know what you're doing it takes just 30 minutes to go from a gallon of milk to a half-kilo of cheese. It takes me three times as long, but now when I make a pizza, I *make* a pizza, starting with just flour and milk. There's also a cheesecake in the fridge made from home-made cream cheese.

There's a cheddar at the drying stage, and provolone is the next project. However, my research already makes one thing abundantly clear. Left to themselves, Roman peasants with a decent bit of farmland could eat way better than the average takeaway-fuelled modern Brit.

2019-02-04

Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur

'Well', says the doctor. 'My initial diagnosis is nullus concepto, with suspected involvement of the res rosata serpenta located by computerized axial tomography. For the moment we'll treat your condition as probabiliter innocens and medicate you for non-specific analgesia.'

This sounds weighty and reassuring, unless the doctor has the misfortune to be treating a classicist. Translating as he goes along, the classicist hears the doctor saying, 'Right now I have no idea. It may be something to do with that wriggly pink thing on the pictures taken when the computer looked at you from various angles. I'll regard your condition as probably harmless, and give you a general painkiller.'

One of the reasons the classics are regarded with suspicion by members of the general public is because for centuries Latin and Greek have been used by professionals to intimidate the grex vulgus (the unwashed peasantry) by making rather mundane ideas and things seem profound and impressive. For example The Gluteus Maximus muscle upon which you are now sitting is the Latinized form of the Greek for 'Big Bum'.

It is not just the medical profession which is guilty here. The law and the church also have to plead nolo contendere (It's a fair cop), though to give credit, most Latin is now gone from even the rites of the deeply conservative Catholic church. These days we pray to 'Our Father' rather than 'Pater Noster'. Now we need the law to catch up. For example, a lawyer demanding his client be either released or charged will serve a writ of Habeas Corpus on the police. This stops people from just disappearing into police cells, because 'habeas corpus' means 'I know you've got him.'

With religion a touch of mystery might add to the experience. Lawyers and doctors have less excuse.