Category Archives: Prose

Sorting Out Pompeii

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Reports on the crumbling state of the Campanian excavation site of Pompeii – incidentally a UNESCO heritage site as well– come up every few months: they tend to point out that, following a period of bad weather, some structure collapsed … Continue reading →

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Grand Theft Pompeii

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Just off Pompeii’s principal street, the so-called Via dell’Abbondanza (‘Street of Abundance’), painted onto a pilaster between two doorways, the following (somewhat fragmentary) inscription was discovered (CIL IV 64): Vrna aenia pereit de taberna. Sei quis rettulerit dabuntur HS LXV, … Continue reading →

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When it rains, it pours (Or: Don’t just do something, stand there!)

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

The Roman historian Tacitus, in his work Agricola in the context a passage that comments on the British isles’ multus umor terrarum caelique (‘the excessive moisture of the soil and of the atmosphere’) famously writes (Tac. Agr. 12): Caelum crebris … Continue reading →

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Lecture: ‘Aufidius was here. (Really? And where exactly?)’

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Today I had the great pleasure to open the ‘Pompeii: The Present and Future of Vesuvian Research‘ seminar series at the University of Leeds, organised by Dr Virginia Campbell and Dr Rick Jones. A video of my lecture is now … Continue reading →

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An Olympic Shitstorm

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Poking fun at Russia and its organisation of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi has become a new pastime. Among the more recent entertaining news feature stories of loos that lack dividing walls between individual toilets – a gaffe that … Continue reading →

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Gay Weather

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Weather prediction appears to be a difficult and complex task that, in order to arrive at reliable results, should not be left to a single amateur. Or so I thought… (After all, there had to be a good reason as … Continue reading →

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The Uses and Benefits of Multilingualism

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

The L’Africa Romana series is both a treasure trove and a complete nightmare. It comprises the proceedings of a series of broad international conferences, co-ordinated by the University of Sassari, dedicated to the study of Roman North Africa. They cover … Continue reading →

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Imperialism, Linguistic Diversity, and Common Language

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

A few thoughts on occasion of Language Festival 2013. By the mid first century AD, when the Roman author Pliny the Elder wrote his monumental Natural History, Rome had become an empire of global significance and enormous dimensions. It held … Continue reading →

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Cicero, On Sustainable Government

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Cicero’s work De Re Publica (‘On Commonwealth’) does for Classicists what Shakespeare will do for the Anglophone: it is so full of famous quotes that one begins to wonder if it is an authentic work, or just a string of … Continue reading →

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Seneca on Higher Education in the Arts and Humanities

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Originally published on the University of Reading’s Engage in Teaching and Learning blog: Seneca the Younger (4 B.C. – A.D. 65) was a famous Roman statesman and stoic philosopher. As the young Nero’s tutor, he at some point was de … Continue reading →

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