Interesting, Frybabe, thank you. It appears to me that de Bedoyere is saving his readers a lot of time and expense by saying things you ordinarily would have to spend a good bit of time and money finding out.
The bit about granaries, for instance. I've seen that at The Saalburg Roman Fort but I had to go to Bad Homburg Germany to do it. So that's a real service to his readers. One does not have to spend eons of time and money to see it first hand, although I wouldn't give anything for the experience, still it's a great alternative.
Good point on the baggage train. I might like to hear more about that. My understanding is every man carried that pack on the march, regardless, that's one of the amazing things about the Roman infantry.
I will be very interested in his comments/ summaries about Pliny's Letters to Trajan as I've got a class in that now in person. We are reading all the Bithynia et Pontus letters in Latin and are up to 40 I think out of 120. It's fascinating.
If you like Pliny you may want Roy Gibson's
Man of High Empire, very readable and new, and Gibson is IT right now in Pliny scholarship. Or Daisy Dunne's
The Shadow of Vesuvius which is about that eruption. Especially if you like oysters.
Tomereader, I am feeling some anxiety because I don't recognize any of those names from SeniorNet, do you recall (It's only been, what, 20 years? hahaha) where they posted? Perhaps Marcie remembers them, I may send that to her.
OMG, the "Organ Recital," I never heard that phrase!!!!!!! What a HOOT!! Have been laughing ever since. ahahaha
My husband and I , in our late 30's went on two cruises and never went on one again. He HATED it. Just absolutely HATED it.
But on the 2nd one, which was on the QEII, I was trying to read in one of the large rooms, the library being too small and the room being cleaned, and all I heard around me was "if you think THAT'S a condition...or......you think THAT operation was long, my Milt had ...." and such a recital of medical things, conditions and doctors you never heard, and it was THE conversation, no matter where you turned. I was stunned and reported same to husband....flash forward many years, and NOW it sounds like something I could totally join in, and be interested in as well!!! I'd like to hear about Milt's condition now.
One thing I took from it was that every single person's story featured the BEST DOCTOR in the WORLD, who normally only saw special patients, etc. Every single one of them had THE BEST, and that has not changed either, in the last 40 years.
Barbara,
Frybabe are you saying you never read any of the Narnia stories or saw the movie of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.. I didn't, either, and I love C.S. Lewis's writings and did enjoy The Screwtape Letters and often think of them.
Maybe we should list the Famous Childhood Books We Never Read and Movies We Never Saw. This to me is interesting because I was a voracious reader (and have the extreme myopia to prove it, they were right, you know, about too much reading, but who can ever get enough?) and my mother had been a first grade teacher, there's not much we didn't read. But no Narnia, no Wardrobe. My father read Little House on the Prairie to me. I can't recall too many others. I have an original first edition Mother Goose and can quote most of it, verbatim, it was my mother's. But some of those Grimms Brothers things still horrify me.
Movies: The thing about the bells and the angels wings with Jimmy Stewart. What's it called? My grandson is astonished I never saw it. Can't seem to stand it, actually, and never got far in it. Have tried many times.
Anything with...what's his name...the Genius....Orson Welles... the sled thing.....
