Milo and the Calf

Tag: ancient rome

  • Harris’s Dictator

    Dictator: A Novel Robert Harris The final volume in Harris’s novelization of the life of Cicero, this one covering his actions during the time of the assassination of Caesar up to his death on the orders of Marc Anthony. Cicero is one of Rome’s most memorable senators. A brilliant lawyer and rhetorician who was also…

  • Greece Over Rome: My Thoughts on Being Underwhelmed by the Aeneid

    The Aeneid Virgil (Trans Fagles) In most things of the mind, Greece beats Rome. The Greeks philosophy is better, as are its dramas, and it epic poetry. While the Aeneid is perhaps the best piece of epic poetry Rome has to offer, Virgil was no Homer and this is no Iliad.  That Homer’s superiority to…

  • Review: Beard’s Confronting the Classics

    Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations Mary Beard This is a collection of Beard’s reviews and essays from a number of publications, including many from the New York Review of Books. Organized in rough chronological order from Greece to the present, it is a bit of a hodgepodge. But what a wonderful hodgepodge it…

  • Review: Saylor’s Roman Blood

    Roman Blood: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Novels of Ancient Rome) Steven Saylor Roman Blood is a fun little mystery set in the last days of the Roman Republic. The book is modeled on the actual killing of Sextus Roscius and Cicero’s defense of his son for the crime. Saylor has taken many a liberty…