My Happy Place

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  “The floor was carpetless. The whitewashed walls were in parts scrawled over with strange diagrams, and in others covered with shelves crowded with philosophical instruments, the uses of many of which were unknown to me. On one side of the fireplace, stood a bookcase filled with dingy folios; on the other, a small organ, fantastically decorated with painted carvings of medieval saints and devils. Through the half-opened door of a cupboard at the further end of the room, I saw a long array of geological specimens, surgical preparations, crucibles, retorts, and jars of chemicals; while on the mantelshelf beside me, amid a number of small objects, stood a model of the solar system, a small galvanic battery, and a microscope. Every chair had its burden. Every corner was heaped high with books. The very floor was littered over with maps, casts, papers, tracings, and learned lumber of all conceivable kinds.” “The Phantom Coach” By Amelia Edwards (1831–1892)

Trivial, but interesting (to me)

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I’m curious to see the new Gladiator movie coming out. The trailer looks amazing—but there’s this huge question about the rhinoceros in the “games.” Just this morning, reading some epigrams of Martial (38-104 AD), I came across this paragraph in his description of what we know as The Colosseum. Martial writes, “Shown along thy Arena's floor, O Caesar, a rhinoceros afforded thee an unpromised fray. what dreadful rage fired he with lowered head! How great was the bull to which a bull was as a dummy!” (Epigram ix, “On The Spectacles”)

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