{"id":6474,"date":"2012-07-10T18:36:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T22:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=6474"},"modified":"2012-07-10T18:44:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T22:44:51","slug":"lets-go-a-roman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lets-go-a-roman","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Go A-Roman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I got back from that Piraeus seminar in Annapolis in early June (part 1<\/a> and part 2<\/a>), I’ve found myself recharged. Now that I’ve wrapped up the Top Companies issue of my magazine, which occupies my June-into-July every year, I feel like I’m ready to get at a lot of reading and writing. While still juggling the podcast, of course.<\/p>\n

I thanked both of the tutors who ran the seminar and also asked Tom May for some suggestions for a “mini-curriculum” on the Romans. I’ve always neglected them, and I think it was largely due to my uninformed notion that they were a pastiche or a degradation of classic Greek culture. By extension, I must have assumed that every last member of that world was as decadent as the empire was in its fallen days. I’m not sure how I stumbled across that idea, and why I left it untested for so long. I’m a yutz. Perhaps my enjoyment of Homer made me reticent to even give Virgil a shot.<\/p>\n

In fact, when I was out with an old college pal of mine in San Francisco a few months ago, I was actually irked when she mentioned that she’d never been able to get into Homer, but that the Aeneid<\/em> rocked her world. Keep in mind<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I have never read Virgil and have no basis for comparison, and<\/li>\n
  2. I’m a 41-year-old man.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    WTF, right?<\/p>\n

    So I began reading the Aeneid<\/em> on Sunday, and am enjoying the heck out of it. It’s not Homer, but it’s not Homer. It’s Virgil.<\/p>\n

    Meanwhile, I thought I’d share with you the list that Mr. May e-mailed me, along with his disclaimer:<\/p>\n