Looking back at The Scholarly Kitchen over the years, it becomes clear that rather than a blog about scholarly communications, it’s true purpose is to prepare readers for the eventualities of time travel. Previous posts include a review of Ryan North’s guide to reinventing civilization for the stranded time traveler, videos giving an overview of the English language through 13 centuries and showing how far back you could go and still understand people, and one offering a system for diagramming your temporal adventures.

All important subjects, but what if you want to travel back to Ancient Rome? Don’t worry, author and historian Garrett Ryan has you covered, with just the necessary video series. In Part 1, below, you’ll learn all the essentials for fitting in like a native, because as he puts it, “It’s gauche to explore Rome in sweatpants.” Instructions include when to go visit (not during plagues or the reign of Caligula), how to dress (tunics, not togas), what to bring (spices like cinnamon, worth its weight in gold at the time), and important Latin phrases (“Ubi est latrina?”). The series continues, but hopefully this will get you started, and I look forward to seeing you around the Colosseum.

David Crotty

David Crotty

David Crotty is a Senior Consultant at Clarke & Esposito, a boutique management consulting firm focused on strategic issues related to professional and academic publishing and information services. Previously, David was the Editorial Director, Journals Policy for Oxford University Press. He oversaw journal policy across OUP’s journals program, drove technological innovation, and served as an information officer. David acquired and managed a suite of research society-owned journals with OUP, and before that was the Executive Editor for Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, where he created and edited new science books and journals, along with serving as a journal Editor-in-Chief. He has served on the Board of Directors for the STM Association, the Society for Scholarly Publishing and CHOR, Inc., as well as The AAP-PSP Executive Council. David received his PhD in Genetics from Columbia University and did developmental neuroscience research at Caltech before moving from the bench to publishing.

Discussion

3 Thoughts on "A Time Travel Guide to Ancient Rome"

I think the email announcing this post wins the ‘marketing copy of the month’ award, for opening with:
“The Scholarly Kitchen has, over the years, offered significant resources for the potential time traveler…”

And of course the Ian Mortimer Time Traveler Guides to medieval, renaissance and Restoration England….

Comments are closed.