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Last night was fairly awful. I'd just gotten to sleep when I woke myself up coughing - hacking - a phenomenon which rapidly thereafter disappeared. Just as soon as I was completely and miserably awake. So not a great night's sleep.
As it's now five o'clock and I've yet to make any great achievements, I think this qualifies as a Day Off. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...
Achievements:
Reading, four chapters Goodman. (Done.) Latin, six sentences, pronunciation.
Walking: somewhere between three and four miles, the latter half with six kilos of shopping on my back. I don't know how some people go hiking with twenty kilo packs. Seriously.
Books 2008: 102, non-fiction
102. Martin Goodman, The Roman World: 44BC - AD180 (London and New York, 1997)
Goodman, as a scholar, has most recently been acclaimed for his treatment of the relationship between Rome and Jerusalem in antiquity (Rome and Jerusalem, 2007). His particular research interests are quite visible in The Roman World, particularly in the final section, "Humans and Gods", but that's by no means a criticism: it's very useful to see a wider range of perspectives than, say, the Wells book incorporated.
The Roman World is divided into five sections, the "Introduction", which includes a brief discussion of the sources and the Roman world c.50 BCE; "Élite politics", which discusses political life and attitudes in Rome from Augustus down to Marcus Aurelius, although with less emphasis on the later emperors; "The state", which discusses the military autocracy, the operation of the state machinery, so to speak, imperial imagery, and the extent of political/cultural/economic unity; "Society", which discusses various different reactions to imperial rule**, the social and cultural organisation of the city of Rome, and a chapter dedicated to discussing in brief each of the major regions/provinces controlled by Rome; and the final section on "Humans and Gods", which is not as balanced as it could be: the chapters dealing with 'paganism', Judaism and Christianity are roughly equivalent in size, which is rather disproportionate to the relative significances of the latter two to the former in the period of the early principate. But I suspect the disproportionate weighting has more to do with Goodman's research interests than anything else.
It's an excellent overview of the early principate, with a good bit more social and economic analysis than the Wells book, well written, clearly laid out, with a number of helpful maps and a few useful illustrations. If you want a really solid introduction to the early Roman empire, this is it.
Hell and Earth came in the post yesterday. But my brain has informed me (emphatically) that it's not in the fiction place. I seem to remember this from the last time I did intensive non-fiction reading: I seem to have trouble switching back over.
I'm torn between trying to write and going to sit in a comfy chair and watch some DVDs. Maybe I'll watch some S3 M:I and come back to write when my shoulders stop hurting.
(Maybe I'll take a painkiller, too.)
*The souls of dead men live amid darkness under the earth.
**Accommodation, dissociation, and opposition: the chapter only gives the briefest overview, but reaction to empire by individiuals, communities, and lesser kingdoms is one of the most fascinating areas of study in the ancient Mediterranean, not least because in the Levant and in Egypt documentary and literary survivals make it possible to reconstruct a somewhat more extensive picture than usual.
As it's now five o'clock and I've yet to make any great achievements, I think this qualifies as a Day Off. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...
Achievements:
Reading, four chapters Goodman. (Done.) Latin, six sentences, pronunciation.
Walking: somewhere between three and four miles, the latter half with six kilos of shopping on my back. I don't know how some people go hiking with twenty kilo packs. Seriously.
Books 2008: 102, non-fiction
102. Martin Goodman, The Roman World: 44BC - AD180 (London and New York, 1997)
Goodman, as a scholar, has most recently been acclaimed for his treatment of the relationship between Rome and Jerusalem in antiquity (Rome and Jerusalem, 2007). His particular research interests are quite visible in The Roman World, particularly in the final section, "Humans and Gods", but that's by no means a criticism: it's very useful to see a wider range of perspectives than, say, the Wells book incorporated.
The Roman World is divided into five sections, the "Introduction", which includes a brief discussion of the sources and the Roman world c.50 BCE; "Élite politics", which discusses political life and attitudes in Rome from Augustus down to Marcus Aurelius, although with less emphasis on the later emperors; "The state", which discusses the military autocracy, the operation of the state machinery, so to speak, imperial imagery, and the extent of political/cultural/economic unity; "Society", which discusses various different reactions to imperial rule**, the social and cultural organisation of the city of Rome, and a chapter dedicated to discussing in brief each of the major regions/provinces controlled by Rome; and the final section on "Humans and Gods", which is not as balanced as it could be: the chapters dealing with 'paganism', Judaism and Christianity are roughly equivalent in size, which is rather disproportionate to the relative significances of the latter two to the former in the period of the early principate. But I suspect the disproportionate weighting has more to do with Goodman's research interests than anything else.
It's an excellent overview of the early principate, with a good bit more social and economic analysis than the Wells book, well written, clearly laid out, with a number of helpful maps and a few useful illustrations. If you want a really solid introduction to the early Roman empire, this is it.
Hell and Earth came in the post yesterday. But my brain has informed me (emphatically) that it's not in the fiction place. I seem to remember this from the last time I did intensive non-fiction reading: I seem to have trouble switching back over.
I'm torn between trying to write and going to sit in a comfy chair and watch some DVDs. Maybe I'll watch some S3 M:I and come back to write when my shoulders stop hurting.
(Maybe I'll take a painkiller, too.)
*The souls of dead men live amid darkness under the earth.
**Accommodation, dissociation, and opposition: the chapter only gives the briefest overview, but reaction to empire by individiuals, communities, and lesser kingdoms is one of the most fascinating areas of study in the ancient Mediterranean, not least because in the Levant and in Egypt documentary and literary survivals make it possible to reconstruct a somewhat more extensive picture than usual.
