And on the academic front...

So it may seem like all we ever do around here is gallavant around the country - that's partially true. :) But I still find some time for school, too, so thought I'd do a quick update on what's going on with me academically.

The clear winner for favorite lecture this term is Religions of the Roman Empire, and last week's class was as interesting as ever. You all know how much I enjoy learning about religious places and artifacts (thus the website devoted to such things), and this class has a lot to do with that, plus fascinating stuff about Roman religion. The handouts have lots of pictures (pictures are always good!) of temples and carvings of Roman gods and such, plus maps and quotes from ancient descriptions of Roman religion that are really interesting. The professor is great too, with a crazy hairdo and a wonderfully dry and weird British sense of humor.

Last week we learned about a temple in Heliopolis (or Baalbeck), which is in modern Lebanon. I had somehow never heard of it, but it was the largest classical temple built anywhere! Some ruins of it still survive. The area is now inhabited by conservative Muslims, and apparently a group of radicals recently attempted to destroy what was left of the pagan temple - but the townspeople (all very conservative Muslims, too) wouldn't have it! Despite its pagan-ness, they wanted to preserve it as a monument to the great civilization of their area. Neat. More info on the site (though no mention of the professor's story) here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baalbek.

I sure would like to see it, but I'm not super thrilled at the prospect of sightseeing in the Islamic world, with the exception of the fairly westernized Turkey. (I'm not yet as intrepid as Brenda Going-to-Nepal-Again Wilson!) It's a shame, as there's wonderful stuff to be seen in the Islamic world - remnants of the great Persian Empire, the Byzantine Empire, biblical sites, etc. I sure hope one day it might be possible, like tourists visiting Russia today - no big whoop now, but unfathomable not so long ago.

Last week's tutorial (on Wednesday) was continued work on Greek. I'm getting a little faster all the time at the translation, and more words and grammatical forms are becoming familiar. But my reading aloud is still terribly slow and painful, simply because I don't practice pronunciation enough. Maybe I should start reading Greek to David... he'd love that!

Right now I'm working on my third essay, due this Wednesday. This one is on the Roman emperors Julian "the Apostate" and Theodosius I, and their effect on paganism and Christianity. Emperor Julian (332-63 AD) was Constantine's nephew and became emperor after the reigns of Constantine's sons. (That's him, with philosophical beard, on the coin above.) Although he was raised as a Christian, Julian revealed himself to be a firm pagan as soon as he became emperor, and sought to restore traditional Roman temples, sacrifices and worship throughout the empire.

He tried to organize paganism along the lines of the Christian church, including high priests functioning like bishops over dioceses, readings of sacred texts, charity to the poor, etc. He didn't persecute Christians much, mainly just ridiculed them and took away their privileges. He fancied himself a philosopher and wrote a treatise called "Against the Galileans." But he only reigned for two years before he was killed in battle in Persia, a moderate Christian emperor succeeded him, and that was the end of that.

Theodosius I (347-95 AD) is the emperor who made Christianity the official religion of the empire (Constantine only made it legally recognized and privileged). He basically outlawed all forms of paganism, although of course this wasn't enforced consistently across the huge empire. His reign was thus a major step towards the almost pagan-free "Christendom" of the Middle Ages.

And finally, I'm very pleased to say that last week I got my first "report card" and I did well! It is a Supervisor's Report for Michaelmas Term 2005, which was based on comments from the leaders of the historiography seminars I went to last term. The report was just a few Yes or No questions on whether I was satisfactorily progressing, followed by a brief written summary by my supervisor. Here's an excerpt:

"Holly has attended a series of eight classes on historiography this term, led by a variety of tutors. I have received a report on Holly from each of them and they are uniformly favourable, all commenting on her thoughtful and constructive contributions to class discussion. Her written work has also been good, particularly in the periods of history closest to her own interests."

YAY!!! I was so pleased and grateful to receive this feedback, as I feel that any day now they'll realize I'm not smart enough to be at Oxford! And this is the first thing to go in my official record, so I'm so thankful that it was positive.