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Location: Seattle, Washington, United States

What you have here is an old guy. In education for 30 years, started teaching elementary, ended as library and media director of community college. I've enjoyed mountain climbing, sports car rallying, was pipe major of a bagpipe band, played guitar and sang during the folk revival, walking and hiking later in life. Now fairly sedentary. Enjoy reading, esp. mysteries and fantasy, but my reading is pretty eclectic. Enjoy movies, giving Netflix a workout.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Caesar, Mundy & Kamm

I’ve been reading The Last Frontier, the Roman Invasion of Scotland by Antony Kamm. This morning I read part of the chapter which has Julius Caesar’s first invasion of Britain. I was interested particularly because I had recently finished reading Tros of Samothrace by Talbot Mundy. I was struck by how close Mundy’s fictional account, published between 1925 and 1934, tallied with Kamm’s account. I don’t know whether Mundy went to Caesar’s own account or whether Caesar’s account was entirely truthful. Terrific storms damaged many of Caesar’s ships and prevented the Roman cavalry from joining his infantry in his first attempt. In the second attempt another storm destroyed forty of the eighty ships Caesar used. Of course in the end Britain was Romanized. But long after Caesar’s death at the hands of Brutus. It was nice to see that the very long fictional account of Tros (949 pp.) hued close to fact.

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