The Adjustable Cosmos

Works such as The Adjustable Cosmos are one of the delights in my work and learning.  It elides top-notch animation to good storytelling (not to mention fine adaptation from a short story, 'Space Operetta' by Adam Browne) and swings round some agreeable research/understanding of the late-medieval understanding of the universe (with Latin seeded throughout in case you thought I'd gone soft).

If ever I need to demonstrate the underpinnings of Roman/medieval cosmology and the importance that astronomy/astrology (same thing really at that point) played in the late-medieval/Renisance, this will be my go-to.

I found the short, and some initial information, via a post on io9, where you can view it directly on an embedded player, but I also found some more historically critical analysis over at Kuriositas.  Either way, you could avoid the whole talking/writing/thinking part and skip to the film itself over on Vimeo.

Or if YouTube's your preference... Ecce!

Finally, I want those freaking ships; SO COOL!  ;)

Online summer support

I am at school right now. 

Yes, I know it's summer but, until the end of July, I will be at school Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am-2pm to aid and abet students taking online courses over the summer.  The idea is that since many students prefer to come in to the school's computer lab to work, why not give them a teacher to support them? 

I will be continuing to annoy y'all through the summer with both random tidbits and important announcements about NCVPS. 

Blood from a Stone or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Historical Fiction

I like to read; I like to read fiction and non-fiction...  But what about historical fiction?  How much is real, "real" and just plain made up?  These are tricky questions but a good author will do his or her due diligence and, if you're lucky, tell you about it.

I was a the library a couple days ago and came across Ben Kane's Spartacus: Rebellion.  Ok, it's a novel but so what?  I am not averse to using the odd fiction in class (Saturnalia, See Delphi and Die, etc.) to educational effect but...  It's a case by case kind of thing.  In the case of this book, Kane kindly included a glossary and lengthy author's note. He includes details which are both helpful to suss out what he has embellished versus what is established fact, e.g.

It was my decision to describe the young Julius Caesar as one of Crassus' officers, bu the suggestion is not unreasonable.  He served as one of the twenty-four military tribunes in either 72 or 71 BC, and there is no mention of him going overseas, which means that he could well have been posted within Italy.  Given the slave rebellion that was raging at that time, it's likely in that case that he could have served in Crassus' army. (p. 432-433)

More to the point, his glossary is  simple and informative, even to someone who isn't reading the book.  Among the data I have yet to confirm or deny is that "The gladius was worn on the right, except by centurions and other senior officers who wore it on the left." (p. 443).  Some of his other facts check out, so...  One wonders where this information might have come from.

Quickly Robin, to the internet!  The Wikipedia entry says (basically) the same thing, buuut does give a citation: page 256 of A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities by Oskar Seyffert.  But hark!  Said codex hath been puteth unto thine interwebs by AncientLibrary.com.  According to Seyffert, the reason for this sinister behavior was that the officers did not have a shield to carry.  But while he often cites where specific information comes from in other entries, he does not give us any source for this...  And I begin to suspect the double-edged gladius of 'received wisdom.'  :\

At what point does the preponderance of logic and expert pontifications overrule the absence of hard sources?  Or do you just dig more?

Text citations:

• Kane, Ben. Spartacus: Rebellion. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013.