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Showing posts from July, 2010

Movie Review- Agora

I was surprised Saturday to learn via the web that Agora was showing in a small art-house cinema near my home. I was surprised because it has had such an underpublicized release as to go completely unnoticed in the USA unless you are looking for it. That aside let me assure you that if you have an interest in Roman history, philosophy, or the struggles of religious factions in early Christianity you will almost certainly enjoy this film. That is, if you can approach it without a tendentious viewpoint. It has received significant criticism for perceived defamation of Christianity (more specifically of the Catholic Church), and the Religious Anti-Defamation Observatory denounced the film; but the distribution company had insisted before its release on screening it at the Vatican, which offered no objections and actually assisted with some of the depictions. There is one scene in which the Bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, reads from the Bible about the proper place of women, and if you are

Alexander and Toxic Bacteria

Historians have long debated the cause of Alexander the Great's death, and theories, from septicemia to heavy drinking, abound. One persistant hypothesis, and one which some of his closest friends posited, is that he was poisoned; but by what and whom? This article  from MSNBC discusses a Discovery News report that suggests he was poisoned, and not by any common drug, but by water from the famous RiverStyx...

In Their Words - Persius

"Each man has his own desires; all do not possess the same inclinations. [Lat., Velle suuum cuique est, nec voto vivitur uno.]" - Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus)