“It [is] all too easy for any historian, whatever his bias, to go to the past with the present in mind and to produce an oversimplified abridgement primarily geared to the demands of his own age.” – Herbert Butterfield
This is where I spend most of my time, engaged in historical pursuits. At the moment, as you can see, I’m spending a lot of time on Roman Britain and Julius Caesar, but you can also find me discussing the Bronze Age and Greek mythology. I’m mostly interested in the period from the later years of the Peloponnesian Wars and the early fourth century BC. However, I’m also interested in the entire Hellenic world and the cultures that border it.
All too often, Greek history is taken to mean the same thing as Athenian history, but the Hellenes were spread from the north coast of the Black Sea to the Costa del Sol in Spain, all across the islands of the eastern Mediterranean and in Egypt and Libya. I want to do my part in reminding people about the rest of the Greek world and bringing those other regions and their influence on the mainland into focus.
And of course, there’s Sparta. We had some interesting discussions about the “other city-state” back in the old days, and not just her military history. Hopefully, we can get some of those discussions started again.
