“The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold” (L. Cohen, The Future)

2016 has not been a year I wish to repeat:

• An old evil is at large again: black of shirt, black of heart; blood has been spilled.
• I have been robbed against my will and consent of the only part of my citizenship that matched who I am culturally, intellectually and ( Read more... )

Profoundly depressed and alienated by the increasing divisiveness here in the real world, which seems to have no place for people like me who do not fit easily into either/or neat tick-boxes, I have applied for citizenship of the global online 'microstate' Byzantium Novum.

ggreig drew my attention to this piece by Andrew Selkirk on the Current Archæology blog. While it's sympathetic to Jules, the comparison is most off-putting. I have responded. ( Read more... )

Constantine the Movie. By the screenwriter of Gladiator and King Arthur.

Be afraid...

My friends in the Julian Society alerted me to this excellent piece in La Stampa (in Italian) on the forthcoming beanfeast for Constantine on the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan: "Costantino simbolo della tolleranza religiosa? Una truffa, vero il contrario". Rabbi Di Segni praises instead another Emperor: "l'ottimo imperatore Giuliano ( Read more... )

The Mediæval Journal has just published my article: Getting Away with Murder: Runciman and Conrad of Montferrat’s Career in Constantinople, in which I dissect Runciman's creation of the myth that Conrad of Montferrat left Constantinople as a fugitive murderer, and its perpetuation by popular writers over the last 60 years.

(x-post to oltramar)