Roman History Books and More

upcoming book chats: the battle in the teutoburg forest

Our next two chats, March 18 & April 1, concern themselves with the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE and its consequences, as investigated by two authors, Peter S. Wells and Adrian Murdoch – the former's book is our main selection, the latter's optional for those who can lay hands on it:

The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest
by Peter S. Wells
Excerpts may be found in Google Books, including the Preface.
Review by N.S. Gill

Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest
by Adrian Murdoch
His blog
My Review

More to come in due course … stay tuned.

gladiators – once more

A request for information at the Ancient/Classical History Forum at About.com about morituri te salutant – and yes, it's most likely an urban legend and you also can read about it in the above forum – sent me to my books.

Here are the two most informative ones:

Emperors and Gladiators by Thomas Wiedemann (with an Amazon preview)
fairly expensive, but there are some used copies
well worth reading, dispensing with ancient myths and modern prejudices
Emperors and Gladiators preview in Google Books

JSTOR, limited access, has three reviews.

Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (Approaching the Ancient World) by Donald Kyle (with an Amazon preview)
unfortunately even more expensive
Spectacles Death preview in Google Books

JSTOR, limited access, has five reviews, including one by the above author Wiedemann, plus three smaller ones as part of related groups of books.

More books and posts on gladiators

the view from my window

9:1o AM

cornelia, mother of the gracchi

Rome's most famous mother.

Bingley posted on the blog in 2006:  cornelia, mother of the gracchi. (The Bibliotheca Augustana website linked in that post is not working as of this writing, hopefully this is temporary only.)

FEMINAE ROMANAE: The Women of AncientRome has CORNELIA CORNELIUS.

I just found a book:  Cornelia, Mother of Gracchi (Women of the Ancient World) by Suzanne Dixon, Routledge 2007.  It's small and expensive, however the informative Preface may be previewed at the above Amazon link.  Other excerpts are available in the corresponding  Google Book.

The Mother of the Gracchi
The Comic History of Rome by Gilbert Abbott Beckett, Table 08
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

gaius blossius, stoic philospher; the gracchi

As we continue with Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome, we get to the Gracchi.  One of our protagonists here, Lucius Pinarius, is a sometime friend of the Gracchi, as his mother Menenia mother is a friend of Cornelia, "Mother of the Gracchi."  The philosopher Blossius (Wikipedia, handle with care), is pictured as a former teacher of Tiberius Gracchus and lives in his household;  he is the lover of the widowed Menenia.

After Tiberius has been murdered, Blossus escapes death but is sent into exile, where he participates in the revolt of Aristonicus and perishes.

Plutarch relates this in Parallel Lives: Tiberius Grachus: