Perfect Winter Time Reading

[David Atherton]

As I type this outside it is snowing and in the mid 20s - the kind of weather to make you want to curl up by the hearth with a good book (yes, I'm still reading physical books!). My most recent acquisition is John Humphrey's Roman Circuses, at 700 pages it seems to be the perfect thing to while away the long winter evenings. When I'm finished with it I'll post a short review.

So, any Forvm members cooped up inside for the winter have any good recommendations?

[AncientJoe]

For those who haven't read it, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" are beautifully written books, to say the least. The content is deep and thorough but I am most impressed with the artistry with which Edward Gibbon constructs his sentences. I'm making my way through it beneath a still-thin layer of Chicago snow.

[SC]

You read my mind Joe.  I was suggesting Gibbons' Decline and Fall to my kids as a possible present for me as I have never read it through.  However, when I started doing research I found that all of the unabridged versions are fairly expensive.  I gather the standard versions out there are very abridged, something like 28 out of 75 chapters.  So I will try my luck with an older unabridged multi-volume set on ebay one day.

I am currently working my way slowly through Josephus' Jewish Wars which is another text I have never read in its entirety.   

And lurking on the bookshelf, as it has been for years, is a leather bound copy of Augustine's Confessions.  Although I gather it provides some insight into life in the late Roman era I have never braved it.

Shawn

[Andrew McCabe]

For those who haven't read it, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" are beautifully written books, to say the least. The content is deep and thorough but I am most impressed with the artistry with which Edward Gibbon constructs his sentences. I'm making my way through it beneath a still-thin layer of Chicago snow.

At the other end of time, Mommsen's History of Rome is so beautifully written that he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for it. It's commonly available in an abridged version that only covers the late Republic, but the full version can be downloaded on a kindle for free. I would compare his style to that of Churchill in his war memoirs, which, not coincidentally, also won a Nobel Lit prize for a work of history. It is very beautifully written.

[SC]

Not that I ever doubt you Andrew but I had to look that one up myself.  I never knew Mommsen won the noble prize.  I was quite surprised.  Turns out he won in 1902, its second year.  I also knew him as Theodor Mommsen and had know idea he was actually Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen.

Shawn

[drifter182]

For those who haven't read it, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" are beautifully written books, to say the least. The content is deep and thorough but I am most impressed with the artistry with which Edward Gibbon constructs his sentences. I'm making my way through it beneath a still-thin layer of Chicago snow.

Getting through the unabridged Decline and Fall is on my bucket list. I was about a third of the way through the first volume when I last read it a few months ago, but it was shoved aside in favor of Don Quixote. I've also been meaning to read Richard Miles's Carthage Must Be Destroyed, if only because some of the reviews I've read say he uses numismatic evidence in his history.

[slokind]

I recently found that as a student I had failed to appreciate Apuleius "Golden Ass".  Also, the old, however classic', translation is not really so good.  I recommend the Penguin Classics in its own 2nd edition, 2004.  It isn't its being naughty that makes it too mature for the young (the young can handle Homer Simpson, if I remember that name right).  Apuleius can teach you much, much more than sex!  And he is very, very entertaining, besides letting you in on the literary world of the 2nd century AD.  Just try him!  He's not bitter like Juvenal or grubby like Petronius.  
Pat L.
http://teegeeoperanobilia.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-famous-eros-and-psyche.html
http://teegeeoperanobilia.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-festival-of-isis.html

[rennrad12020]

Not ancient, but I've been reading Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin.  A little tedious, Sauve qui peut.