• review

    Alcestis: A Novel

    by Katharine Beutner Soho Press (2010) 7/10 Katharine Beutner puts a new twist on the ancient Greek myth of Alcestis, the wife so devoted to her husband she agreed to die for him. In the myth, Apollo persuaded the Fates to allow King Admetus of Pherae to live past the time of his appointed death if someone else would agree to die in his place. When not even the king’s elderly parents would do so, his wife, Alcestis, offered herself. She spent three days in Hades before her mourning husband sent Heracles to the underworld, where he won a wrestling…

  • review

    Technology Rebuilds the Cleopatra Myth

    by Paul Elston (Director), Neil Oliver (Presenter) BBC One (2009) Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer.  The very title of the latest BBC documentary draws instant connotations.  It’s not everyday that the most famous woman in history and a 19th century cut-throat villain would merge in the consciousness.  But that illustration floods into one’s head as the chosen BBC subtitle reminds of Patricia Cornwell’s famous 2002 Casebook on Jack the Ripper. The documentarian Neil Oliver would have us believe that Cleopatra the Seventh was capable of showing the very same malice and cold calculations as the unidentified killer.  To those of…

  • review

    Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art

    by Jeffrey Spier, Mary Charles-Murray, Johannes G Deckers, Robin M Jensen, Steven Fine, Herbert L Kessler Yale University Press (2008) It is impossible to imagine European art without the procession of Crucifixions and Madonnas, Baptisms of Christ and Christs in Majesty that have been produced over the centuries; nor to imagine a European city without at least one building that testifies to the overawing power and wealth of the medieval church: a Durham or Cologne cathedral, a Hagia Sophia. Western art and Christianity go hand in hand. So it comes as a shock to discover that there is another Christian…

  • review

    Warrior of Rome II: King of Kings

    by Dr Harry Sidebottom Michael Joseph, a Penguin imprint (2009) 9/10 The continuation of barbarian Marcus Clodius Ballista’s adventures in Roman Syria of the mid-third century AD does not disappoint. Picking up where Fire in the East dramatically left off, Harry Sidebottom takes his story by the scruff of its neck, hurling Ballista and his faithful familia – grumbling ugly-pug Calgacus, the ever-humping bodyguard Maximus and his youthfully winsome Greek secretary Demetrius – into a series of disasters amid a whirligig of political shenanigans; not to overlook several gruesomely described battles. Historical Fiction As It Should Be (Dan Brown, please…

  • review

    World’s Oldest Lads’ Mag: Erotic Hieroglyphs Recreated For History Channel

    by Wild-Dream Films History Channel (2009) The producers of an upcoming film for the History Channel – Sex in the Ancient World – Egyptian Erotica – claim they’ve recreated the world’s ‘earliest pornography’ – based on erotic Egyptian hieroglyphics. The hieroglyphics in question, held in the Museo Egizio in Turin, are known as the Turin Erotic Papyrus and were discovered at Deir el-Medina near the Valley of the Kings. The parchments in question are fragmented, so the film production company used computer graphics to ‘complete’ the images and – in the words of Sion Hughes, head of business affairs at…

  • review

    Stonehenge Mystery Solved

    The Secrets of Stonehenge: A Time Team Special by Tim Taylor Channel 4 (2009) It’s Britain’s favourite monument and has been attributed to Phoenicians, Romans, Vikings and even visitors from other worlds.  But a fascinating new programme by Channel 4’s Time Team claims to reveal the real secrets of Stonehenge for the first time. A Special Team The Secrets of Stonehenge: A Time Team Special is the televised culmination of six years of dedicated work by a huge team of archaeologists.  They began digging not only the prehistoric focal point itself but, crucially, the surrounding landscape. The hour-long programme is…