orichalcum

I was looking for some information for my section today, and came across a cool virtual reconstruction of ancient Rome site from Japan. Of course, then I read the following text:

The fall of the Roman Empire came during the reign of the Emperor Constantinus. Rome was driven away from the political and economic center and became a declining city with only the glory of its past. The town of Rome, which had boasted of its prosperity, could not adequately perform the repair work on the sturdy water works, once the symbol of the city, when they became cracked and leaking. Thus the 1,000- year empire of Rome met with destruction. That no city can maintain its prosperity without maintaining its roads and water works is the lesson that Rome has bequeathed to us.

Ah, yes, it's repairing the sewer system that keeps a city strong. And here I thought the Goths, Vandals, Huns, or Quadi might have had something to do with it...

Also, it's continually amusing how much the British view Roman conquest as one of the best things that ever happened to them. I was just looking at a BBC site which talks about how the Romans created a unified Britannia and civilized those backwards, barbarian tribes.

So, the morning paper at the conference went well, despite it being early; I think I unfortunately benefited from two of the other three papers having bad deliveries. My colleague V.G., who's a really dedicated numismatist, spoke way too fast - I wish I could have gestured to her to slow down, and one of the other presentations was given by three undergrads back from an archaeological dig and their professor. They were nice young things, but, well, they gave presentations like undergrads. I don't mean to sound snobby here - I don't think I could have done any better when I was a college junior, but, well, grad school _has_ taught me something in the last four years. I go back again to being grateful for my public speaking classes.

Then I ran off to the Literature-Humanities job explanation/meeting, where I had the multiple awkwardnesses of:

• being 45 minutes late, which the organizers had forgotten that I had warned them about 3 weeks earlier;


• being an alternate among a group of people who already had the job;


• being one of two classicists among a bunch of English and history grad students;


• being one of the only grad students there not currently on strike.

Still it went well, and there are some cool aspects I didn't know about, like 1000 free copies a semester, $250 of spending money for classroom activities (I'd totally use it to take them to a great local Greek restaurant called the Symposium and read Plato's Symposium aloud there, sadly without wine because they're all 18), free copies of all the books, and so forth.

OTOH, it's unclear that it actually pays more money than regular teaching, which given that my alternative is spending the semester not teaching and working on my dissertation seems, well, dubious, and there are 8 classroom hours a week - 4 teaching and 4 in pedagogy seminars. I'd learn a lot, undoubtedly, and it would make a nice resume line, but finishing my dissertation would make a nicer one. I think it's going to all hang on A's job prospects, and, of course, if I get the job at all.

Then I ran back to the conference, didn't get to make more than a comment at the 3 hour Jews in North American Classical Studies panel, ran home, packed, got on the train to D.C. with A., and went into gaming mode, after having both a late train (Day of Lateness!) and a late-for-other-people restaurant wait. Gaming was fun - will expound on game theory thoughts at some other point. More tragicomedy resumed on the return trip, but all is basically well.