We need this, as every forum!

What is the most important instance of drunkedness in history? I don´t know. How about Rasputin´s last drinks? I need help from you guys.

How beer saved the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf3YvXM9j5o

Fairly interesting show, but a little silly at times. It documents the history of beer from mesopotamia to the modern day

great idea for a forum, hopefully it generates enough traffic and worthwhile threads

I have been rewatching the HBO series Rome recently and I realized how bad they make Cicero look in it. He is a sniveling little bitch basically. I had always heard of his great oration and how he was a great citizen etc. I wonder if he is presented that way to tell the story or if there his any evidence of his bitch-assness in history

"Rome":History :: Star Trek:Science. I enjoyed the show, though, and it's better than a lot of stuff (Gladiator, for example). Can't say much about Cicero's personality as portrayed, except that it's probably meant to reflect the general consensus on his political career - he's seen as a flip-flopper.

So I am preparing to transfer to Texas A&M-Commerce to complete my Bachelors in History with the plan of teaching High School and continuing on to my Masters. Now I'm starting to freak out with budget cuts left and right in education and no one is hiring teachers, at least here in Texas. Should I just relax and see how it plays out in the next two years or plan to move out of state after graduation and certification? It kinda sucks finding a profession you want to be active in and suddenly the employment prospects dry up before you can get to the starting line.

oh, i know its not 100% accurate, but I was just wondering if the portrayal had anything to do with historical evidence. however, i did not know of his flip-flopping

edit: just looked up "cicero flip flopping" on google and came across a couple of his quotes:

for persistence in a single permanent opinion among men [sic] active in the governance of the republic has never been praised

and

No educated person has ever said that a change of mind was inconsistency

With the accuracy I mean more the details - they're not too bad at all on broad brushstrokes. Like Cicero's death, for example. It's annoying because the historical version is actually far cooler than what they did.

I read this biography of Cicero a number of years ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Cicero-Times-R...9291400&sr=1-1


Well researched and written it does not portray Cicero as particularly conniving, as usual; strong intelligent characters are much more complex. They can't be reduced to simplistic terms- which is almost a necessity for most TV programming and why it should be taken with a grain of salt.

-Zeno

PS: It is Friday night, everyone should be drinking Something!

Nice job, Zeno. Just for History: my original title was "Teh Low Content thread of H"

Yay! Hi new forum

Cicero could make his own thread, but anyhow. I was "forced" to learn Latin for 8 long years and as there aren't that many cool movies in Latin nowadays, we also had to read a vast majority of the old works.
Well, it's not a pleasing reading experience. Language and therefore communication worked very different than today.
I honestly couldn't care less about these Latin books with 10, while realizing I can't even order a pizza in Italy. But years later, I had to chose some works for my exam and I picked 3 works of Cicero, of which one will be picked by the jury for the exams and you have to answer any question about the content and the next day would be 4 hours of translating the stuff. So i dived a little deeper into his works and was a bit older, so I understood at least a small fraction of the philosophical parts.

Cicero was a pretty pessimistic and a dull philosopher imo, but an outstanding rhetorician (compared to other works from that time, not by todays standards). He stopped asking the important questions regarding physics, logic and ethics, or better said to think about them deeply and just agreed with what any stoic would come up with very early and just focused on the prose. Very stubborn and close to narrow-minded, even considering the fact that with the knowledge the mankind had in these days, everyone was very narrow-minded.
Made it much easier to learn and understand if you didn't care tho.

//edit: Cicero did make Marie Antoinette look very down to earth.

Have you guys ever seen the movie Caligula? Very dark portrait of the Roman Empire at a given time.

It's tough for folks who want to be history teachers. Lots of need for math and science teachers, but just about anyone can teach history, so the need isn't very great.

I'm sure you'll be able to find something, though, it'll just be hard.

That is a pretty sad statement. I guess we can thank No Child Left Behind for the lack of emphasis on the Arts and Humanites.

This forum is going to be awesome

Yes. That was a High Content opinion.

I have friends who teach HS math that are being laid off in California. It is a sad state.

Anybody have any interest in an "Ask a Professional Historian Thread"? Not sure if it would just be lame, but I thought some history buffs might be interested in this. I'd be happy to do it, if there's interest.

Honestly, with the economy as it is, there are really no good options. My suggestion would be to try to do what you really want to do, but be prepared with a plan B and C in case you can't do plan A. Maybe plan B or C could at least hold you over until you get a job doing plan A. And, yes, I would think you would have to be very flexible about moving, even all the way across the country and away from friends and family if you really want to be a teacher.

Good luck.

I'd like to hear your opinions on Lincoln :P

It would not be lame

Good idea. It would kind of be your Well.

I think this is a good idea. I will start one using the title suggested. My only request is that it not turn into a self-aggrandizement type thread (not meet to be accusatory, simply a stated preference to keep the forum focused and on an even keel). And I hope we can have multiple professional historians contribute.

-Zeno

Nice mod job once more! Especially when the structure of the forum is established, there´s need for it.