Category: Uncategorized
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Carthāgō iterum dēlenda est: Salammbô and The Mercenary War
“The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: ‘They are not men but oxen!’ and the multitude round about repeated: ‘Oxen! oxen!’ The…
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Love Consumes All: Mary Herbert’s Antonius & Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra
“The less her wrong, the less should be my woe;/ Nor she should pain, nor I complain me so.” – Antony, Antonius (III, line 229-30) [couplet by Mary Herbert added to the Garnier text] Back in November, I made you all listen to me natter on about Mary Wroth’s Urania and in the course of that discussion, I introduced…
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Obligatory Sales Post (+ a Preview!)
I know I’ve been doing a lot of sales pushing here recently, and I promise that’ll settle down again after this week, but I’m so excited to say that my third book, Children of Actium, is live and available for purchase at the digital provider of your choice and in paperback via Amazon! Links are below,…
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Sanity and Succession: Pre-Modern Mental Health and Courts in Crisis
“On the thirteenth day, Heaven and Earth clashed and the sun and the moon turned black. When this calamity happened, how could I desire to live one second longer!” – Lady Hyegyong, The Memoir of 1795 “Dispute not with her, she is a lunatic.” – the Marquess of Dorset on Queen Margaret, Richard III (I, sc. 3) Oy,…
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Curses, Corpses, and Cheops: The Surprisingly Feminine Origins of Mummy Literature
“He saw it rise gradually—he heard the dry, bony fingers rattle as it drew them forth—he felt its tremendous grip—human nature could bear no more—his senses were rapidly deserting him; he felt, however, the fixed steadfast eyes of Cheops still glowing upon his failing orbs, as the lamp gave a sudden flash, and then all…
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Better Writing Through Chemistry: Ancient Scents and Experiencing the Past Through the Senses
“[H]e will be cured, unless God does not wish it.” – Hildegard von Bingen, Physica Because I’m still waist-deep in the final push for Children of Actium (hoping for a February 1st release date, but that might be subject to change because of some minor slowdowns with vendors coming out of the holiday break), I was looking for…
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Scribbling in the Wild: Creative Writing, Self-Publishing, and Finding Your Inner Author in 2022 (Part 2)
Last we talked about the writing process and getting past the mental mind blocks to getting your authorial groove on. After all of the actual writing, let’s say you beat the odds and have a finished manuscript you don’t completely hate… now what? That was a question I sat on for three years because I…
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Scribbling in the Wild: Creative Writing, Self-Publishing, and Finding Your Inner Author in 2022 (Part 1)
As we reach the end of another fraught year with unfortunately more of the same looming on the horizon, I thought I’d take a break from telling all of you things you’d rather not know about the ancient world and talk a little about my main gig, writing. When I talk to people about writing…
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Vives Annos: Foreign Influences on the Saturnalia
“Well (since our ancestors would have it so), use the freedom of December [and] speak on.” – Horace to his slave, Davus, on the Saturnalia (Satires, II, 7.4) I’m writing this up on the Sigillaria (December 23rd), the last day of the best known of the Roman festivals, the Saturnalia. The Sigillaria was devoted to…
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When Memes Attack: Medieval Deep Fakes and the Fabulous Reign of Prester John
“I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How’s that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn… but the troops were dazzled…” – Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Lion in Winter As the heart of the increasingly-lengthy…
Sarah Holz 