Finished reading Pompeii by Robert Harris in the past week. A most excellent read -- history, adventure, mystery, Roman plumbing and aquaducts and even Pliny the Elder -- what more could one want?

Seriously, Harris writes well, and the historical detail is amazing. One of the things that impressed me about that was not simply that these details were included but that he did a fine job of working them in as a natural part of the story, describing activities, the countryside, politics (without being onerous about it), the everyday life things that go on, people's status, etc. And of course you know from the get-go that Vesuvius is going to blow in 4 days, but what happens in the time leading up to it is a fantastic read.

Our primary protagonist is Marcus Attilius, the aquarius (person in charge of the aquaduct, in Misenum in this case). He's been sent from Rome to replace the previous aquarius, who has mysteriously disappeared. There are mysteries to solve, both natural and man made; is Marcus Attilius up to the task?


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We're now reading SPQR I: The King's Gambit, by John Maddox Roberts, courtesy of loosecanon, who passed on a few books from this fellow for us to try out. Quite different style of writing, but Roberts is also good at including many details of Roman life. This is a mystery, and I'm assuming at this point that the others in the series are also mysteries.

Our protagonist is a junior administrator in Rome, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger. He's in charge of one of the districts in Rome, overseeing legal issues, including dealing with crimes. There is a murder in his district, then two, which seem to be connected, as well as a warehouse burning down. High-powered politicians don't want to appear to be stopping the investigation and yet they're making it difficult for the murders to be solved. And then there seems that there is more than one interested party, and that these parties may agree in some things but not in others.... We're only about a third of the way through so no worries about me giving away the ending on this one :D

Decius is telling this story to the reader as something that happened when he was younger -- handy for fitting in a few bits of history that can help to place some things in better context. He definitely has opinions, which he expresses pretty well even when he doesn't realize it. We've been finding some of his ways of expressing his thoughts to be pretty funny too.

At one point he is explaining briefly about the infighting (during the time that the story takes place) as being primarily between two parties: "the Optimates, who thought themselves the best of me, an aristocratic oligarchy; and the Populares, who claimed to be a party of the common man." And of course they're led by typical politicians of the time, although it's never quite that simple... but he goes on to say "With leaders like these, the fact that Rome was not easily destroyed by foreign enemies must prove that we enjoy the unique favor of the gods."

When he and his guide (a rather strong and capable fellow) are on their way to the docks to take a boat to Ostia (the guide is familiar with Ostia and Decius is not), they're waylaid by a political wannabe and his thugs. Our hero is told to get the investigation overwith and file his reports as inconclusive and lying about the various murders (3 at this point). Verbal threats are followed up with physical ones, but Decius' guide, Titus Annius Milo, takes care of the thugs.

He pointed to Publius, who stood trembling with frustrated rage. "This one, too?"

"No, he's a patrician. You can kill them, but they don't take humiliation well."

I'm not sure if others will find this as funny as we did, without having been reading quite a bit before, but as we'd quite gotten into Decius' head and way of thinking, L and I laughed quite a bit at that point. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of it, and the next books as well. My thanks to loosecanon for sending them on to us!

Here a couple I found when I was reading peregrinning post and clicked on the wrong Friends link. Instead going to my friends page I went to his and discovered the official Neil Gaiman journal. These are from Mr. Gaiman's post of Dec. 31

Obituary for Colonel Michael Singleton (One of Gaiman's favorites)

Viking Swords - the Good and the Bad


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Here's a good site to go to when you get an email notice about something (virus, amber alert, etc.) and want to verify whether or not it's true and/or still valid

Snopes


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Pompeii and the Roman Villa This is an exhibit that's currently at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., now through March 22, 2009.

Too far away for me to see in person, but there is a link for a slide show on the above page, just page down to find it.


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At the Met in NYC, the Greek and Roman collection re-opened in April 2007. An interesting page to peruse on some of what's there might be Here and also Here. (went to metmuseum.org and did a search for Pompeii actually).

Enjoy!

Two weekends ago we had our Bergental 'town meeting', and I tried out wearing my chiton. No stola yet because I still need to choose fabric for it and because I'm brain-dead and can't remember if it's closed up the sides or not. I remember how the neck opening works and the pleating at the shoulders....

Since the meeting was kind of outdoors (I made several trips between the house and the sugarhouse), I grabbed one of my scarves/wraps to use as a palla, which worked pretty well. I used a combination of my fibula from Crossroads at Canterbury, my laurel wreath fibula, and some little jeweled pins to attach the chiton along the top edges. Need a wider piece of cording for comfort I think, but it was still pretty decent. Very comfortable clothing.

I tied the cord the way rufinia showed me at Coronation, but had it a bit looser I think, so one loop of the cord wanted to go down to the waist. I've seen statues with tying below the breasts and around the waist, so I just fiddled with the fabric to puff and drape it over the lower band and it worked pretty well. I also got to demo the cord tying for a few of the ladies there, so they could see how easy it was.

I may make a few more chitons for Pennsic, although they may be from some cotton I have, because, well, I have it... gauze cotton, so should be cool enough on hot days. Although might need to wear a stola over them so I don't scandalize folks ;)

Rectangles fold up very neatly and take little space. I'm thinking my Norman clothing will be staying home this year!

Spent a little time today trying to figure out Roman clothing again.... figure L will be from around Hadrian's time (do I remember when that is? No, of course not. Will have to look for that again...) -- because of the beard. Hair will still be too long, oh well. It's likely we'll only be doing Roman for the Runnymede dinner, so we don't have to go completely crazy. Although if we can do the seating I'd like, that would be nice :) Speaking of hair, a number of the styles of Roman women I'm really not too crazy about :p

http://www.costumes.org/HISTORY/100pages/ROMANLNX.HTM is a decent place to look at for clothing ideas -- they reference other people's sites, and one of them is vroma, which I liked.

Since we're doing a dinner, not going to court, L won't need a toga. Although he could wear something called a synthesis over it (no, I'm not making that up).... well, he could if I knew what it was.

And I probably don't need a palla, since again that's outside-the-home-wear.

Still have questions though, especially on the stola today... like according to one site the stola apparently has short straps instead of fibulae or buttons like the chiton. Basically, it looks like a wrapped-around rectangle that attaches at the top only at the shoulders -- kind of like a peplum only with no fold-over.... although another site says that it was like a tunica, with big armholes down to the waist, and sometimes pleated at the shoulders, with the pleats being held in place by brooches or some braid sewn over them.

Then the first site says that the stola were worn by married women, and that they were usually white. But the other site says that the stola were often in colors more intense than the tunica or chiton. ???

I am being a little evil and taking advantage of the fact that I'm short. I've taken some lovely sage/leaf green linen and turned it sideways, so that I can use the selvages for the open top edges of the chiton and the hem... only have to do handwork to finish the 'sleeve'/armholes. Time is precious, especially this year!