Referenda ad Senatum: November 1, 2024: Ancient Weapons, Lost Works and Roman Spooky-Stuff!

Welcome back! At last, the hiatus has ended and we are back to regular weekly posts. As we’ve done a few times before, this week I am breaking the hiatus by taking a chance to answer a few shorter questions posed by my patrons over at Patreon who are the Patres et Matres Conscripti of the ACOUP Senate. It’s been a while – too long, to be frank – since we’ve done one of these, so let me reiterate that as with previous responses, the answers here may not be as exhaustive or careful as they would be as a full feature post but reflect roughly what you would get asking the same question in my office hours or after class.

Just as a quick advisory before we dive in, one of these answers is going to involve discussing apotropaic (magic protective) objects, which are frequently *ahem* shaped like human anatomy, so if you read with little ones, you may want to give the final question-and-answer a read over before sharing it with them.

And of course if you like what you are reading here, please share it; if you really like it, you can support me on Patreon; as mentioned patrons who join the Patres et Matres Conscripti get to propose questions that I answer here. If you want updates whenever a new post appears, you can click below for email updates or follow me on twitter (@BretDevereaux) for updates as to new posts as well as my occasional ancient history, foreign policy or military history musings, assuming there is still a Twitter by the time this post goes live. I am also on Bluesky (@bretdevereaux.bsky.social) and (less frequently) Mastodon (@bretdevereaux@historians.social).

Leave a Comment