tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12283119.post5649632732667337818..comments2024-03-08T12:19:01.827+02:00Comments on Fascinating History: Forum Romanum (The Roman Forum)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12283119.post-8446269720136385652008-06-28T09:05:00.000+03:002008-06-28T09:05:00.000+03:00I just saw the Peter O'Toole(Old Augustus) TV and ...I just saw the Peter O'Toole(Old Augustus) TV and film version of "Augustus"(2003). I then wrote the following prose-poem. I'd be interested in your comment on both the film and my poem.-Ron Price, Tasmania<BR/>__________________<BR/>A SET-UP<BR/><BR/>After watching the two part series “Augustus” on SBS TV(17 and 24 June 2008--11:40 p.m. to 1:15 a.m.) in the last two weeks as another academic year was coming to an end in school systems across the northern hemisphere; after teaching Roman history at a post-secondary technical college in Western Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s; after studying Roman history in high school as part of the grade eleven curriculum in Ontario in 1960-1961 and in the first year of my liberal arts degree in university in 1963-1964 forty-five years ago; after taking an interest in the field of classical studies since those 1960s, albeit a peripheral one among the many subjects that were part of the general and interdisciplinary studies I taught and the general studies in the social sciences and humanities that I read—after all this, in the early evening of my life, as the years of my late adulthood crept along incrementally more quickly, it seemed, with every passing year, I felt like writing this prose-poem. I wanted to try to fit Augustus, Octavian as he was also known, the first Roman Emperor, into a historical context relevant to today, at least relevant to how I had come to see the comparisons and contrasts between Augustus and his time as well as my time, my age and my life. -Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, 27 June 2008. <BR/><BR/>Rome had conquered the world,<BR/>well, a big chunk of it in the middle<BR/>East, north Africa and what is now<BR/>Europe, in the quarter millennium<BR/>from 250 BC to the time of Christ.<BR/><BR/>Was it a set-up? Setting the world<BR/>up for the periodic intervention of<BR/>the divine into human affairs, giving<BR/>a stage for the spread of the message<BR/>that would and did change that mise<BR/>en scene forever. And are we being<BR/>set up again, in our age and time in<BR/>the midst, now, of this greatest of <BR/>spiritual dramas in the world’s history, <BR/>so very unbeknownst to the generality <BR/>of men, creeping, as it now is, along <BR/>the edges of society as that message <BR/>did 2000 years ago before it captured <BR/>western civilization for a 1000 years?<BR/><BR/>The most precious Being ever to appear <BR/>in the world of creation appears from time <BR/>to time and the light of the Unseen shines <BR/>above the horizon of celestial might only <BR/>to be denied, opposed and disputed with<BR/>in vain words to try to invalidate His claim.1<BR/><BR/>1 Baha’u’llah, Kitab-i-Iqan, Wilmette, 1950(1931), p.5.<BR/><BR/>Ron Price<BR/>27 June 2008<BR/>---------------<BR/>End of Story...RonAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13459686900548904521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12283119.post-81269380945985049172008-04-14T14:55:00.000+03:002008-04-14T14:55:00.000+03:00Well, the 2 year wait was worth it. Lovely pics! T...Well, the 2 year wait was worth it. Lovely pics! Taa.peacayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03997731249622552311noreply@blogger.com