Lex regit, arma tuentur you fascists

In every academic book there is a secret second book hiding in the footnotes. Sometimes it is the first draft that had migrated there to escape the revisions. Sometimes it is the author's tortured secret rebuttal of their own claims, and sometimes it is the incipient form of the their next book.

I want this

Grades submitted. Little refreshment to celebrate.

the more I think about it, the more I feel like “Odysseus is from Boston” is true in a sort of ecstatic truth way

My learning management system.

I gave my last lecture of the year today, "The Roman Republic in Perspective." I have studiously avoided commentary on or even allusion to contemporary concerns in this course on the Roman Republic. Not today. Here's a bit of what I said (none of it particularly original). 1/5

"Pope Leo on Friday named a formerly undocumented immigrant who was smuggled into the United States in a car trunk to be bishop of West Virginia." Gift link 🎁 wapo.st/3RcUTj8

his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark

A 2025 study out of M.I.T. cautioned that “the integration of LLMs into learning environments may inadvertently contribute to cognitive atrophy.” This danger hasn’t slowed the advancement of A.I. in schools. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/03XNNJ

I feel like we are about to enter something like baseball’s steroid era, but in academia and for AI use. Lots of suspicions re who might be juicing their scholarship with AI on the horizon.

Spent rather a long time discussing this beautiful intaglio in my Roman Republic class. Octavian cosplaying Neptune in a hippocampus-drawn chariot that’s trampling Antony (or maybe Sextus Pompey)? Count me in. collections.mfa.org/objects/2425...

Some wisdom from Nick Cave. www.theredhandfiles.com/something-ha...

it'll be back in three days

Americano time.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon

Not a fan of Iran’s leadership, but wish any member of the US congress were historically literate enough to casually drop a reference to Plutarch’s life of Pyrrhus (21.9).

The death of a nearly blind refugee from Myanmar who was found on a Buffalo street in February — five days after Border Patrol agents left him at a doughnut shop — has been ruled a homicide, authorities said Wednesday. https://to.pbs.org/3NZGHsz

it's come to this ... on its 250th anniversary, America is now begging the Royal Navy to help out.

"The way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace... I think what’s going on in our country — what we’re doing to some of these amazing immigrants, is really unfortunate and it’s really sad." - Charles Barkley on CBS

This Chicagoan understands the assignment.

Luminous

‘I’ve learned first-hand how evil is tolerated’: Colm Tóibín on living in the US under Trump www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

“Sunsetting”, “reimagining”… Don’t let hand-wavy bullshit language distract you. This is the elimination of fields of academic study because the admins are afraid of the weakest and most disorganized president in modern history. Do not forget who the cowards were. dailyorange.com/2026/03/suns...

My message to today’s Wordle: no, no, no.

I was prepared for him to become a great mayor. I was not prepared for him to become a great *Irish* mayor.

They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me.

Not Brutus’ coin, but Galba’s ‘reboot’ in 68 CE. Galba didn’t know the aftermath of Caesar’s death would repeat in the aftermath of Nero’s (civil wars, heads on pikes). Galba didn’t survive it. Ppl love evoking the Ides in cries for revolution -maybe that’s a historical intertext we could do without

To lose one strait controlling the global oil supply may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. - Oscar Wilde

We finally did it, folks. Every facile argument about AI concentrated into a fine powder. Not a critical engagement in sight to blunt the ecstasy of the void.

Fortitude. Because you know you need it! By Sandro Botticelli, whose day is today, in 1470.

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

@zacharyherz.bsky.social explains his new book in this engaging conversation: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

❗️Petition to protest the planned closures of the Wincklemann-Institut (!) and archaeology programs at Humboldt University in Berlin ⬇️

About to lecture on Fulvius Nobilior’s temple of Hercules and the Muses. Will be using the Severan marble plan for all its worth, including this scrap of a 16th century drawing of a now lost chunk of the Forma Urbis Romae. Hoping this will help inspire the young with a sense of adventure.

Make America Paralyzed Again Fears of polio resurgence as US vaccine adviser questions need for childhood shots www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Open this link with caution. You’ll find yourself piecing together the past for hours. formaurbis.stanford.edu

In this 2024 interview, Jack Hughes, who just scored the game-winning goal for the US Olympic hockey team, explains why it was important for him to embrace Pride Night when many other NHL players refused to do so.

March 27, 1936: Portraits of the Führer are raised on official buildings across Berlin. This one at the Potsdamer Railway Station reads "Freedom - Peace"

Come, Sir Andrew, there’s no remedy

BREAKING: federal judge orders the Trump admin to restore slavery exhibits to the President’s House. The opinion opens with “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed…” With @fallonroth.bsky.social

Turning and turning in the widening gyre …

An important enabling structure that is helping slop makes its way into institutional life is several decades of built in bullshit bureaucratic bloat that is not meaningfully attached to advancing institutional goal but nonetheless has to be ground out week after week. It’s a natural home for slop.

US Olympic Curling Team member speaks out against ICE: "I'm proud to represent Team USA. But we'd be remiss if we didn't mention what's going on in Minnesota and what a tough time it's been. What's happening is wrong. There's no shades of gray."

Super bowl you say? How bout this artifact from the Catline’s run for the consulate in 63 BCE. Inscribed within is CASIUS LONGINV QUEI CATILINAE {SU} / SVFRAGATVR (“Cassius Longinus who is {su} supporting Catiline” (text and trans Berry 2020:21). Part of a get-out-the-vote food dole program.

Finally watched Das Leben der Anderen. Truly fantastic, and surprisingly cheering in the midst of our own dystopian present. The shots of Stasi HQ brought me right back to the oppressive bureaucratic nightmare of a building that a visited last May.

*Of course* he’s connected to Epstein.

Katherine McDonald’s truly marvelous “Four footprints, two languages, one tile”deserves your time: “Two slaves, working in conditions that were no doubt very difficult, taking a little time to mess about as friends and enjoy each other’s company.” katherinemcdonald.net/2016/01/14/f...

Something from a Connecticut insurance attorney to brighten your evening. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...