2023 Year Ender
A lot of things happened in 2023! Because I am tired I am going to list them briefly.
I applied and interviewed for some professional jobs and found one last group of academic possibilities which still seems worth trying.
Read moreMonth: December 2023
Who Said “Technology Makes the World Smaller”?
Today I will put on my Quote Investigator hat to ask a simple question: where did the cliche that technology makes the world smaller comes from? Back in 2005 Thomas Friedman had to torture metaphors to declare that The World is Flat because ‘the world is small’ was too common a topos in the business press. As I was refreshing my memory of the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three German Intellectuals defending Kaiser Wilhelm’s invasion of Belgium, I noticed a familiar phrase in the pacifist counter-manifesto. That sent me to Google Books to look for parallels.
Read moreWhitening Shields and Panels
Xenophon once uses the verb λευκόω “to whiten” to describe how anti-Spartan Athenians made shields to fight the pro-Spartan oligarchs:
The Thirty thereupon retired to Eleusis; and the Ten, with the aid of the cavalry commanders, took care of the men in the city, who were in a state of great disquiet and distrust of one another. In fact, even the cavalry did guard duty by night, being quartered in the Odeum and keeping with them both their horses and their shields; and such was the suspicion that prevailed, that they patrolled along the walls from evening onwards with their shields, and toward dawn with their horses, fearing continually that they might be attacked by parties of men from Piraeus. [25] The latter, who were now numerous and included all sorts of people, were engaged in making shields, some of wood, others of wicker-work, and in whitening them (ἐλευκοῦντο).
Xen. Hell. 2.4.24-25
As I was studying Aeneas Tacticus before the conference on Stadtbelagerungen zwischen Ost und West (Innsbruck, 12-13. October 2023) I found a passage which helps interpret this one!
Read moreFiore dei Liberi Talked Like Cennino Cennini
In the before times, I explained how Fiore talked about fencing the way shopkeepers talked about their wares and armed men talked about armour. But this is just one example of how his language comes out of a world of shops and skilled workers who judged each other by their skills and business practices. Here is another example from a painter’s manual (medieval books on painting are very similar to medieval books on fencing).
Read moreBattering Rams and Bores
For the conference on city sieges in Innsbruck in October 2023, I have been reading or skimming all the ancient Greek and Roman manuals of siege warfare. This let me finally see another theory about how the Greeks got battering rams.
Read moreCross-Post: Dinthwaite Medieval Village Foundation
