I’m sad to say that it’s been a while since I’ve thought about what the title of this post implies. Initially the idea came to me when I was an undergraduate in History at Lee University, as part of a paper on Rome battle tactics. Since graduating with my BA, I have had little time to devote to historical endeavours. Even though I still plan on getting my PhD at some point, the incessant need of people to take my money for things like rent, has caused me to find work outside of the academic realm of history.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wholelly acknowledge that this removal from academic engagement to be of my own doing. Up until a few years ago, this blog itself was a place of academic investigation, drawing the attention of the likes of Rook Hawkins of the Rational Response Squad. Of my own ill planning and discipline did this small nook of the blogosphere (do people still call it that?) become home to nothingness and twitter-updates. 

Sunday, after church, I was talking to some new friends about the direction that life was taking them for their MFAs in creative writing. After talking about their Master’s Thesises (thesi?), the attention turned to what I would want to do for my MA in Classics/Ancient History. I explained to them the theory that I hope to begin to piece together here for you in the coming posts. I’ve had some friends discourage me from posting my theories before my thesis is completed, but, I think that writing about it here and getting some honest feedback could help it more than hiding away.

The theory that I am going to post about in the next few days deals with how we interpret cultures of the ancient world. We’ve all, even if we aren’t historians, had classes or seen documentaries in which paintings or literature were offered up as examples of a particular culture.  It makes sense: the stuff we produce says a lot about who we are and what we value, why wouldn’t it be the same for those before us? It seems like a no-brainer to assume that a piece of Athenian pottery dating from the 5th century CE tells us about ancient Athens. But what if we examined their weapons in the same way? What if these items designed for warfare told us more than just how many men they could kill. Join me over the next few weeks as we explore this question.