added the highlighted line to my syllabus after coming across the same hallucinated details in students' analyses of texts

Pasts Imperfect is back from break! This week, we focus on AI ethics and labor with @illdottore.bsky.social, Christine Johnston & Leigh Anne Lieberman. Then, ancient bees in jawbones, Roman camels in Basel, a book on temple robbery, new ancient world journals @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & much more

This workshop has not been advertised that much, but for anyone interested in Late Antique Latin historiography and recent groundbreaking developments in our understanding of it this looks extremely interesting. I am really sad I will not be able to attend.

DFG erlaubt Einsatz von KI in der Begutachtung. Wenn wir jetzt noch die AI dazu kriegen, die komplette Forschung zu machen, haben wir den Menschen komplett von der Last des Forschungsprozzeses befreit und er kann sich komplett auf wichtige Dinge wie Reisekostenerstattungsanträge konzentrieren.

German national research funding agency allows the use of AI in evaluating projects. What could possibly go wrong?

That widespread defunding of higher education "because the universities do not serve the wide population and they do not answer to the needs of the people"? Well, yes, this was always about restricting access to knowledge and skill. AI tutors for you peasants, university degrees for the few!

They are *hilarious*. I mean, please, let us call them what they are, laughable. None of them knows how this works and will just continue to get more and more drunk on imperialism.

Medieval legal manuscripts don't often contain illustrations, but this collection (Vatican lat. 1339) made in central Italy in the mid-11th C features depictions of 6 ecumenical councils and 44 portraits of canonical authorities. Here's the 431 council of Ephesus, convened by Theodosius II:

Gonna end my papers this way

There is time to apply until 30 January for this opportunity sponsored by Early Medieval Europe to spend one month at the British School in Rome

They always want to “save classics!” until they find that it’s only by heavily redacting Greco-Roman literature (e.g. cut out the gayness!) that they get what they call “western civ.” It’s all a ridiculous game of omission.

Now taking place tomorrow, Thursday, January 8th, at 4:45 PM CET! Message me or Robert if you are interested in joining in person or online

We are an empire! But we don’t do imperialism!

But the most interesting thing is that… those are not the iron laws. Empires rely on resource extraction and, shockingly, there is actually a limit of how much of this can be done by force (in the understanding of the tin can Napoleon here).

Empires need to balance the threat of internal instability with external involvement. It’s a tough act. It is easy to get it wrong. But not doing it is not an option. This kind of intervention is what makes empires, well, empires.

new yorkers, imagine a bodega but it's good.

I keep thinking of these lines. Historically, successful superpowers knew the importance of making concessions. I can't think of any that pursued unrestrained power and lasted more than a few years. Subordinate powers always have some agency and they can/do find ways to wriggle out.

Honestly, really good takes from historians on here on hegemony, power and empire in recent days.

Great power hegemony is something that has been going through my mind recently for obvious topical reasons. Historically it’s something that only a handful of empires have managed to achieve for more than a couple of generations (imperial Rome, Ming China etc), because it’s very hard to do 🧵

I think part of the problem here is language. The past (one damn thing after another) is not very instructive but history (theoretically and methodically backed study and analysis of the past) very much is. But then again this understanding of history shares much with the subjects that Max mentions.

Such a pity bathing hadn't been invented yet.

still no trace of the sun in the Middle Ages, I see

Obviously, when it comes to to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the correct answer is 3 October 1283, the execution of Dafydd ap Gruffudd.

I'm only six months in, but I have to say: I am floored at the high yes rate from early Christian studies peer reviewers---when I started I braced for things to be much much worse, but it's been truly rare to have someone decline. I have no idea why this little corner of academia is how it is, but

I think part of the problem here is language. The past (one damn thing after another) is not very instructive but history (theoretically and methodically backed study and analysis of the past) very much is. But then again this understanding of history shares much with the subjects that Max mentions.

It never ended. The Roman Empire continues to rule us today (Morley 2010: 13).

This is the age of Stupid Thucydides. Thucydides misinterpreted and reduced to a slogan, which is then rendered down to a bumper sticker.

Don't do it!! Don't poke the bear!!! Just when we were all getting along so well and the echos sounded like a heavenly chorus!!

Lecture 1 Early Medieval Art

Nature is healing

Obviously, when it comes to to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the correct answer is 3 October 1283, the execution of Dafydd ap Gruffudd.

Guys, we have failed Bluesky. We have failed utterly. In the days of yore it was clear that if you got two historians into a room and asked them when did the Roman Empire fall you would get three opinions.

Date of the fall of the Roman Empire really not a consensus among historians…

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It’s an empire and it‘s doing empire things. The peace rhetoric is an *inherent part* of imperial war machine. Some people need to brush up on history. And yes, this will get worse.

In 1990, Crayola "retired" several classic colors, including BLUE GRAY, GREEN BLUE, and an all-timer, RAW UMBER, replacing them with "fun" new colors like VIVID TANGERINE and WILD STRAWBERRY. We didn't know it at the time, but this was the beginning of the end. In this essay, I will

My heart is with a different article that came out this year, but I am pleased to have pulled off a citation of Tolkien's 'Return of the King' as if it was some sort of source. archive.org/details/DOP7...

I am so happy I got the article on the knapped lithics from the Nepi survey written! It does not come out until 2026, but it means I have pretty much published the material from the survey. Several articles finished but mainly book reviews published, e.g. rheaclassicalreviews.com/2025/10/16/r...

My annual list of blog posts, articles and other internet things that I enjoyed or found especially interesting this year: thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/29/b...

@calthalas.bsky.social this has published date 2025, though I got my copy a couple of months earlier - so it just about counts!

The year is coming to a close! What are you most happy to have written, achieved, created in 2025? I want to see your books, articles, podcasts, all sorts of creations! (If you want to post your full grant application, by all means, we do not judge here!)

Issue 23 (2025) of I Quaderni del Maes is finally out #openaccess! You will find scientific papers, source editions, a monographic section on sermons and several book reviews. maes.unibo.it #UniversitàBologna #AlmaJournals #medievalsky

Geruchia, a widow in Southern Gaul, wrote to Jerome for advice. Her letter is lost but we can reconstruct her motives,prompting Jerome to paint one of the most entrenched images of a "barbarian invasion", mostly through imagination and literary repetition. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Gregory of Tours describing a historical event ▶️🔘───────── 00:07 Gregory of Tours about that one guy miraculously healed from hiccups, St Martin be praised ▶️🔘───────── 7:35:12

The year is 2037. A fearful party of journalists braves a long pilgrimage called „The Fact Check“ to a remote location known as „The Campus“. In a lonely brutalist building they enter, warily, an office in which a person sits. Known as „The Historian“, the legend has it they can tell fact from slop.

there's to be a Christmas court!

hey i made a starter pack of cutting edge humanists (broadly defined) doing cool stuff inside and outside academia. check out these folks and repost to signal boost! let's see if we can't "network" better than conferences!

How delicately a Romanesque angel uses the lightest touch of a finger to wake one of the magi, snuggled with the other 2 under their embroidered circular blanket at St Lazare, Autun, c1130 (& how beautifully the textures of pillow & blanket are represented). Season's greetings to you all!