While it's been gestating ever since I took my first Latin class in high school, recent events have convinced me to make good on that interest and study up on Classical Civilization. Given the myriad achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans--from inventions like the Antikythera mechanism, to philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, to legal systems that have since become a template for the Western legal tradition in the centuries since their time--I'd think that this curiosity of mine is well-founded.
So, going beyond the noncommittal online searching I've been doing whenever I had a free moment or two, is there any recommended reading on Classical Antiquity that people could point me towards? Comprehensive books that provide a thorough, but general outline of their history and society are my preference to start out with, though other suggestions that people have are also welcome.
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
So, going beyond the noncommittal online searching I've been doing whenever I had a free moment or two, is there any recommended reading on Classical Antiquity that people could point me towards? Comprehensive books that provide a thorough, but general outline of their history and society are my preference to start out with, though other suggestions that people have are also welcome.
To recapitulate what I've already said elsewhere, I’m contemplating writing an ASB TL to be titled Scattered Antiquity (or something like that). Drawing inspiration from the likes of Harry Turtledove’s works, the premise is that a smorgasbord of ancient Greeks and Romans from important points throughout Classical Antiquity--everywhere from the Greek Dark Ages to the fall of the Western Roman Empire--are sent thousands of years forwards in time. Multiple decades after 2020, in fact.
Depending on the exact time and place they’re all sent from, the downtimers will be situated on their own chunks of land that materialize across the world; Julius Caesar and his legions on a new island in the Ionian Sea, a swath of Hadrian’s empire showing up off the coast of North America, and so on and so forth. So pretty much every major nation will have their own set of confused Greeks and Romans to deal with, though given the tenuous geopolitical situation that’s been simmering for a while at this point, odds are they won’t be able to clean up the mess right away.
For obvious reasons, there will be various real-life Greeks and Romans who make appearances here--Plato, Augustus, and Constantine almost assuredly among them. However, I’ll also include plenty of original characters in the story as well. Fictional politicians and downtimers aside, the main cast of this story will be Dr. Jack Lancer--an easygoing, but cynically paranoid archeologist and history professor who once served in a time-traveling U.S. Army Ranger unit--and the other members of his household. He has an eighteen-year-old adopted daughter named Astrid, who was originally born in ninth-century Scandinavia and rescued by Jack as a baby. She’s been raised American ever since, and her inventing skills will lend itself will to the fact she’s an incoming engineering major at a local university. He also has a nephew the same age named Ryan, an awkward child prodigy who graduated from college early with a chemistry degree and works as a lab technician for a local R&D company. Then there’s Domitia, a shy Roman girl from an aristocratic family who lived during Hadrian’s reign, and has since found herself in the Lancers’ care. There will certainly be more (as was mentioned upstream), but it’s probably best I keep them under wraps for now.
Setting-wise, this will again take place in at least a few decades into the future (probably the mid-21st century, at the earliest). Technology will have had time to progress considerably in the interceding years, with big advancements in 3D printing, urban farming, robotics, nanotechnology, holograms, virtual reality and digital networks/interfaces; more military-centric versions will receive plenty of spotlight here, too. I won’t divulge too much about global geopolitics at this time apart from a sense of baited precariousness and certain countries having recently emerged from big crises. However, you might see some loose extrapolations based on recent trends baked into the future being depicted here (but not enough to intrude onto ‘Chat’ territory). As I’ve said before, though, conditions will be such that major nations with an army of Greeks and Romans in their backyard won’t be able to take care of the problem overnight; make of that what you will for now, insofar as what it implies about the troubles they're currently embroiled in.
Otherwise, that’s basically the meat and bones of what I wanted to summarize here; now I just need to get started on reading and research. And brush up on my art skills and online presence too, since I hope to publish artwork--drawings, comics, animatics, et al--depicting the characters and setting at large.
Depending on the exact time and place they’re all sent from, the downtimers will be situated on their own chunks of land that materialize across the world; Julius Caesar and his legions on a new island in the Ionian Sea, a swath of Hadrian’s empire showing up off the coast of North America, and so on and so forth. So pretty much every major nation will have their own set of confused Greeks and Romans to deal with, though given the tenuous geopolitical situation that’s been simmering for a while at this point, odds are they won’t be able to clean up the mess right away.
For obvious reasons, there will be various real-life Greeks and Romans who make appearances here--Plato, Augustus, and Constantine almost assuredly among them. However, I’ll also include plenty of original characters in the story as well. Fictional politicians and downtimers aside, the main cast of this story will be Dr. Jack Lancer--an easygoing, but cynically paranoid archeologist and history professor who once served in a time-traveling U.S. Army Ranger unit--and the other members of his household. He has an eighteen-year-old adopted daughter named Astrid, who was originally born in ninth-century Scandinavia and rescued by Jack as a baby. She’s been raised American ever since, and her inventing skills will lend itself will to the fact she’s an incoming engineering major at a local university. He also has a nephew the same age named Ryan, an awkward child prodigy who graduated from college early with a chemistry degree and works as a lab technician for a local R&D company. Then there’s Domitia, a shy Roman girl from an aristocratic family who lived during Hadrian’s reign, and has since found herself in the Lancers’ care. There will certainly be more (as was mentioned upstream), but it’s probably best I keep them under wraps for now.
Setting-wise, this will again take place in at least a few decades into the future (probably the mid-21st century, at the earliest). Technology will have had time to progress considerably in the interceding years, with big advancements in 3D printing, urban farming, robotics, nanotechnology, holograms, virtual reality and digital networks/interfaces; more military-centric versions will receive plenty of spotlight here, too. I won’t divulge too much about global geopolitics at this time apart from a sense of baited precariousness and certain countries having recently emerged from big crises. However, you might see some loose extrapolations based on recent trends baked into the future being depicted here (but not enough to intrude onto ‘Chat’ territory). As I’ve said before, though, conditions will be such that major nations with an army of Greeks and Romans in their backyard won’t be able to take care of the problem overnight; make of that what you will for now, insofar as what it implies about the troubles they're currently embroiled in.
Otherwise, that’s basically the meat and bones of what I wanted to summarize here; now I just need to get started on reading and research. And brush up on my art skills and online presence too, since I hope to publish artwork--drawings, comics, animatics, et al--depicting the characters and setting at large.
Thank you in advance,
Zyobot
