The Ides of March, 44 BC

[strange_complex]

2050 years ago today, folks.


(If you're confused about how the maths add up, there, remember that there is no Year 0).

To mark this momentous occasion, let's see if you know more about Julius Caesar than the average first-year Ancient History student:

[Poll #947018]
Answers and explanations will be posted later today.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Not really, but I think that may just be because I don't tend to set essay titles that would bring it up. Julius Caesar comes up in all sorts of contexts, and is often incorrectly glossed when he does. But I guess the confusion you're referring to would only really emerge in an essay asking directly about ancient systems of rule.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I get it even on the ones that have to deal only with Rome. Sometimes, it's the adjective, which is irritating, but sometimes, it really is, "Julius Ceasar [sic] was a ..." Or Sulla, or Augustus, or ...

I should point out that I give about five minutes' very lecture, with much writing on the board, on each term, and on how they are very specific to their time and place, and cannot be used interchangeably. Of course, I also tell them that the may not use the term 'Dark Ages' to refer to anything but Greece/Ionia between 1100 and 800 (ish) BCE, or much of late 5th-early 6th c. Britain, but ...

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

of course, now that I think of it, an essay comparing the Gracchi and the Pisistradids might get some interesting answers ...