1099
A Roman commander facing court martial took refuge in politics, and for ten years London was an imperial capital.
Roman Britain was no backwater: it was prosperous and civilised, and its people were critical of Rome’s bungled wars in the East and porous borders in Europe. In fact, her people felt ready to govern themselves, making Britannia a good place to start for would-be Emperors.
Posted May 22 2017
1100
A princess covets the belt of a warrior-queen, so Heracles is despatched to get it for her.
The Ninth Labour of Heracles follows a break in the Labours, during which Heracles has been travelling with Jason and his Argonauts. It must also be told in two parts. Later we will follow Heracles to Troy, but first his jealous cousin Eurystheus sends him from Tiryns, near Athens, to the land of the fearsome Amazons.
Posted May 21 2017
1101
The earliest Christians longed to celebrate the resurrection together at Passover, but that was not as easy as it sounds.
To keep Easter together during the Biblical festival of Passover was the shared dream of all the earliest Christian churches. But everyone seemed to have questions about how and when to celebrate the most important feast of the year, and no one seemed to have answers.
Posted May 17 2017
1102
For Jane Austen, the best education a father can give to his child is to befriend her.
Sir Thomas Bertram has lost both his daughters to unhappy marriages, and now has the unwelcome leisure to reflect on where he went wrong. He gave them a progressive education, he laid down the law; but what he should have done was to get to know them, and to win their trust.
Posted May 11 2017
1103
Jane Austen wrote as a Christian, but all the better for doing so unobtrusively.
Jane Austen’s novels are not fluffy romances, but profound modern fables, leaving the reader amused but also thinking about serious subjects. Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was one of the first reviewers to recognise what Jane was hoping to achieve, and appreciate her way of achieving it.
Posted May 11 2017
1104
A mysterious knight and an equally mysterious outlaw agree to preserve one another’s incognito.
The Black Knight has liberated the wounded Ivanhoe and his friends from Torquilstone, the castle of wicked Norman baron Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. Assistance came from an outlaw and his band of merry men, and though the two heroes each suspect they have penetrated the other’s disguise, they agree to drop the potentially embarrassing subject.
Posted May 10 2017