A Classicist in Verona

Like a true Classicist, on a recent trip to Verona I spent most of my time attempting to avoid the city’s never-ending “Romeo e Giulietta” obsession (not an easy task) and instead visiting as many Roman sites as I could. Obviously the first port of call was the Arena, home of Verona’s famous summer opera festival, whose stage sets were actually under construction at the time.

It’s nice to see an ancient amphitheatre still being used for performances, even if Aïda and Carmen aren’t exactly what its builders had in mind.

Overheard in the Common Room

A grad student attempts to address the fundamental problems of epistemology:

“I’m just generally ignorant about the things I don’t know”

Overheard in the Common Room: A Play

Scene: The Graduate Common Room. Lunchtime.

Two LINGUISTS are sitting in the Common Room. The FIRST LINGUIST is producing a series of incomprehensible noises.

A NON-LINGUIST enters, hears the FIRST LINGUIST, and assumes an alarmed expression.

The SECOND LINGUIST attempts to reassure the NON-LINGUIST that the FIRST LINGUIST is not, in fact, suffering from some kind of fit.

SECOND LINGUIST: Don’t worry; it’s Bactrian.

The NON-LINGUIST unaccountably fails to look reassured.

ORBIS: Google Maps for the Roman Empire

I’m sure many of you have often felt frustrated at the inability of Google Maps to accurately represent journey times within the ancient Roman Empire. Happily, a new online resource has been created for just such a purpose.

ORBIS, the Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World, will calculate the fastest, shortest, or cheapest route between any two major cities across the empire, based on a range of factors such as time of year, whether you are a member of the military or merely a civilian, and your chosen mode(s) of transport (options range from “rapid military march” to “horse relay” by way of “ox cart”, “fully loaded mule”, “private travel (routine, vehicular)” and a host of others. It even tells you the price (in denarii) per kilogram of wheat transported via your chosen route.