Ah, my friends, we think we're sitting in our happy and comfortable tricliniium debating facts of Roman history, but there's a web world out there, and occasionally IT finds US.

To my vast delight, I was contacted by Tom Holland (author of the well-received Rubicon and the new Persian Fire) a couple of weeks ago, with compliments for the discussions of Rubicon that he'd read here, at ADI. (And Cimon, I should note, he also knows someone didn't like it much - but I think you're safe rotfl).

Mr. Holland has agreed to come be our guest at AncientWorlds for a week-long discussion and a chat, probably (this is literally hot off the e-mail presses) sometime next month.

I would like to suggest that ADI be one of the groups to sponsor the discussion of Rubicon, but we will probably also want to invite our Greek friends, as his superb new book deals with the Persian Wars. (see my review over in Hellas).

Anyway, out of the blue, I thought our members would enjoy not only thinking of intelligent questions to put to Mr. Holland on RUBICON, but just generally delight in the fact that the Web is full of the delightfully unexpected!

P.S. And I cannot BELIEVE that, after nearly 3 years, we didn't have a plain 'ol announcement thread - my apologies!