The Nature of Things

With the passage of time, history often gives way to legend and legend becomes myth. Thus it is with the story of what happened to Pompeii in 79 C.E. It is so far removed from us that it  seems  almost a myth. And yet it did happen. Vesuvius exploded and erupted and covered the prosperous cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and, in the process, preserved them so that we can actually see the incredible riches that existed there as well as the casts of the bodies of people and animals that died there during those horrible days of late August. Unlike Atlantis, we can actually walk the streets of Pompeii. It is no myth. The story of Pompeii has long fascinated me. I well remember the first book I ever read about it,  The Last Days of Pompeii  by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, he of "It was a dark and stormy night" fame. I was sixteen years old at the time, a very impressionable time in my life and the book certainly made its mark on me for life.  More recently, I have also...

In the Rome of 63 B.C.E, there occurred a series of incidents which were to cast a shadow over the remaining days of the Republic, and indeed, to lead almost inevitably it now seems to its destruction and its remaking into the power that bestrode the ancient world as its master. At the center of these events was a man named Catalina, a populist who stood against the power of the Senate and sought to supplant it with the "power of the people." With him, of course, at its head.  There was a vast conspiracy, involving many men of wealth and power, members themselves of the Senate, as was Catalina. There was a suspicion that among the conspirators was one Gaius Julius Caesar, although that was never proved. He was certainly friends with many of the conspirators, but then Caesar's political friendships were always opportunistic. He was always willing to make common cause with anyone who could further his aims.  Cicero certainly believed that Caesar as well as Crassus and Pompe...