A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities
A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities

Author: J. C. McKeown

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0199752788

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Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans. Classicist J. C. McKeown has organized the entries in this entertaining volume around major themes--The Army, Women, Religion and Superstition, Family Life, Medicine, Slaves, Spectacles--allowing for quick browsing or more deliberate consumption. Among the book's many gems are: BL Romans on urban living: The satirist Juvenal lists "fires, falling buildings, and poets reciting in August as hazards to life in Rome." BL On enhanced interrogation: "If we are obliged to take evidence from an arena-fighter or some other such person, his testimony is not to be believed unless given under torture." (Justinian) BL On dreams: Dreaming of eating books "foretells advantage to teachers, lecturers, and anyone who earns his livelihood from books, but for everyone else it means sudden death" BL On food: "When people unwittingly eat human flesh, served by unscrupulous restaurant owners and other such people, the similarity to pork is often noted." (Galen) BL On marriage: In ancient Rome a marriage could be arranged even when the parties were absent, so long as they knew of the arrangement, "or agreed to it subsequently." BL On health care: Pliny caustically described medical bills as a "down payment on death," and Martial quipped that "Diaulus used to be a doctor, now he's a mortician. He does as a mortician what he did as a doctor." For anyone seeking an inglorious glimpse at the underside of the greatest empire in history, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities offers endless delights.

A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities
A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities

Author: J. C. McKeown

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0199982104

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A miscellany of odd stories and facts about the ancient Greeks, demonstrating how much they were--and were not--like us.

A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities
A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities

Author: Anthony Kaldellis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-09-01

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0190625953

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Weird, decadent, degenerate, racially mixed, superstitious, theocratic, effeminate, and even hyper-literate, Byzantium has long been regarded by many as one big curiosity. According to Voltaire, it represented "a worthless collection of miracles, a disgrace for the human mind"; for Hegel, it was "a disgusting picture of imbecility." A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities will churn up these old prejudices, while also stimulating a deeper interest among readers in one of history's most interesting civilizations. Many of the zanier tales and trivia that are collected here revolve around the political and religious life of Byzantium. Thus, stories of saints, relics, and their miracles-from the hilarious to the revolting-abound. Byzantine bureaucracy (whence the adjective "Byzantine"), court scandals, and elaborate penal code are world famous. And what would Byzantium be without its eunuchs, whose ambiguous gender produced odd and risible outcomes in different contexts? The book also contains sections on daily life that are equally eye-opening, including food (from aphrodisiacs to fermented fish sauce), games such as polo and acrobatics, and obnoxious views of foreigners and others (e.g., Germans, Catholics, Arabs, dwarves). But lest we overlook Byzantium's more honorable contributions to civilization, also included are some of the marvels of Byzantine science and technology, from the military (flamethrowers and hand grenades) to the theatrical ("elevator" thrones, roaring mechanical lions) and medical (catheters and cures, some bizarre). This vast assortment of historical anomaly and absurdity sheds vital light on one of history's most obscure and orthodox empires.

A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities
A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities

Author: J. C. McKeown

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0199750521

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Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans. Classicist J. C. McKeown has organized the entries in this entertaining volume around major themes--The Army, Women, Religion and Superstition, Family Life, Medicine, Slaves, Spectacles--allowing for quick browsing or more deliberate consumption. Among the book's many gems are: · Romans on urban living: The satirist Juvenal lists "fires, falling buildings, and poets reciting in August as hazards to life in Rome." · On enhanced interrogation: "If we are obliged to take evidence from an arena-fighter or some other such person, his testimony is not to be believed unless given under torture." (Justinian) · On dreams: Dreaming of eating books "foretells advantage to teachers, lecturers, and anyone who earns his livelihood from books, but for everyone else it means sudden death" · On food: "When people unwittingly eat human flesh, served by unscrupulous restaurant owners and other such people, the similarity to pork is often noted." (Galen) · On marriage: In ancient Rome a marriage could be arranged even when the parties were absent, so long as they knew of the arrangement, "or agreed to it subsequently." · On health care: Pliny caustically described medical bills as a "down payment on death," and Martial quipped that "Diaulus used to be a doctor, now he's a mortician. He does as a mortician what he did as a doctor." For anyone seeking an inglorious glimpse at the underside of the greatest empire in history, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities offers endless delights.

Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance
Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance

Author: Julius von Schlosser

Publisher: Getty Research Institute

Published: 2021-01-19

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 160606679X

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For the first time, the pioneering book that launched the study of art and curiosity cabinets is available in English. Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance (Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance) is a seminal work in the history of art and collecting. Originally published in German in 1908, it was the first study to interpret sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cabinets of wonder as precursors to the modern museum, situating them within a history of collecting going back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In its comparative approach and broad geographical scope, Schlosser’s book introduced an interdisciplinary and global perspective to the study of art and material culture, laying the foundation for museum studies and the history of collections. Schlosser was an Austrian professor, curator, museum director, and leading figure of the Vienna School of art history whose work has not achieved the prominence of his contemporaries until now. This eloquent and informed translation is preceded by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s substantial introduction. Tracing Schlosser’s biography and intellectual formation in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, it contextualizes his work among that of his contemporaries, offering a wealth of insights along the way.

The Classical Tradition
The Classical Tradition

Author: Anthony Grafton

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-10-25

Total Pages: 1188

ISBN-13: 9780674035720

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The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science.

Museum of the Americas
Museum of the Americas

Author: J. Michael Martinez

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 0143133446

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Longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry Winner of the National Poetry Series Competition, selected by Cornelius Eady--an exploration in verse of imperial appropriation and Mexican American cultural identity "Marvelous, argumentative, and curiosity-provoking" --The New York Times Book Review The poems in J. Michael Martinez's third collection of poetry circle around how the perceived body comes to be coded with the trans-historical consequences of an imperial narrative. Engaging beautiful and otherworldly Mexican casta paintings, morbid photographic postcards depicting the bodies of dead Mexicans, the strange journey of the wood and cork leg of General Santa Anna, and Martinez's own family lineage, Museum of the Americas gives accounts of migrant bodies caught beneath, and fashioned under, a racializing aesthetic gaze. Martinez questions how "knowledge" of the body is organized through visual perception of that body, hypothesizing the corporeal as a repository of the human situation, a nexus of culture. Museum of the Americas' poetic revives and repurposes the persecuted ethnic body from the appropriations that render it an art object and, therefore, diposable.

The Origins of Museums
The Origins of Museums

Author: Oliver Impey

Publisher: Ashmolean Museum Oxford

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 9781910807194

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The Origins of Museums is an extensive account of the first great collections in late sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe. The collections, then called 'cabinets of curiosities', were the beginnings of museums as we now know them. The discovery of the New World saw a huge influx of exotic and rare exhibits arrive in from distant lands. These discoveries revolutionised the European view of the wider world. Scholars from all over the globe describe in thirty- three essays the achievements of numerous significant collectors, the range of material gathered and the impact these collections had on Late Renaissance society. With a comprehensive bibliography, the papers provide expert insight into this fascinating period of collecting history, a generally neglected subject.--Amazon.com

Classical Latin
Classical Latin

Author: JC McKeown

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 2010-03-15

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1603842993

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Extensively field-tested and fine-tuned over many years, and designed specifically for a one-year course, JC McKeown's Classical Latin: An Introductory Course offers a thorough, fascinating, and playful grounding in Latin that combines the traditional grammatical method with the reading approach. In addition to grammar, paradigms, and readings, each chapter includes a variety of extraordinarily well-crafted exercises that reinforce the grammar and morphology while encouraging the joy of linguistic and cultural discovery.