Roman women (ps. to last entry)

[lesbiassparrow]

PS. Rome

If you want to know the names of elite and politically important women outside of the two that you've decided are all we need to see I would be happy to send you some books. Also you can be ambitious as a woman and not have to shag everything in sight or hit your daughter on a repeated basis (though I can't really blame Atia on the Antony front).

Shall I give you a description of Cornelia, Pompey's last wife, just to get you started? "The young woman had many charming qualities apart from her youth and beauty. She had a good knowledge of literature, of playing the lyre, and of geometry, and she was a regular and intelligent listener to lectures on philsophy." (Plutarch, Life of Pompey)

Yours,

Me

pps. I don't care about historical accuracy really, I'm just a bit tired of the same old representation of ambitious Roman women as nasty sex-monsters who will boink anything that moves. Not every Roman matron was mommie dearest in a stola.

Comments

[squishysquidgy.livejournal.com]

This kind of Roman History is more interesting than I what I had to learn at school. We just learnt what Gladiators wore, what the colosseum looked like and aqueducts.

People's lives and their misfortunes makes for interesting history. Building structures do not. (Though I'm sure it does to some. I am not one of them however).

Then again, I was kind of bitter while learning about the Romans because we'd spent too long on the Greeks and the teacher decided to skip Medieval history to go to the Romans. Medieval history was the one I wanted to study the most :(

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Roman history is more fun than the Greeks (though the Greeks were better thinkers and writers) - all that mad political intrigue is just great to read about. It's a pity you skipped the Middle Ages as there's so much interesting stuff there. The crusades alone make you boggle. And the evidence is much more varied so you can have a bit more fun with that. And buildings are not really fun unless you can connect them with someone (though I love reading about Cicero's misfortunes with his house in Rome. Poor man he was so proud of it and his enemies would keep knocking it down - and burning his villas in the country). Rome's water supply impresses more than it interests, though.

Should this make it to your neck of the woods I'd sort of recommend it, though it has its flaws. It looks great, however, and that is something. There was no expense spared and the costumes are amazing. I so want to dress up as a Roman matron this halloween.

[squishysquidgy.livejournal.com]

The unsexy sex kind of has me a little scared. I could always close my eyes though.

The buildings do impress me more than interest me. I've been to the Vatican and saw the colosseum from the outside (didn't have time to go in) and it is rather amazing that these things (among other buildings) were built without any help from any of the machinery that we have today. Not to even mention the pyramids in Egypt with the secret passages and tombs. These people had alot of time on their hands to plan out such things!

I love looking at historical costumes. Especially the dresses worn in the Middle Ages. So much detail was put into them though I understand the working conditions were rather tough. I can't really pick a time period I find most interesting because there's just too many. I'm always happy to learn something new about them though :)