Jeremy Simmons

Congratulations!

So, if humanities produce good job outcomes, humanities have a secure ROI that bring in more than they cost, and STEM now has an even lower ROI due to grant cuts…. shouldn’t we invest more in humanities where less $$ goes a longer way? Apparently not. We should ask why not. /9

as someone who doesn't have to imagine, let me tell you that it's ass

Looking forward to reading this!

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

A lovely ram on a tendril, Oplontis

A lovely painted pattern on columns, Oplontis

A lovely peacock with theater mask and architectural background, Oplontis

Lavish architectural fresco, Oplontis

Oplontis, by contrast, was deserted, which always shocks me given the richness of the site and its proximity to Pompeii. Simply stunning paintings and plasters—and the space to appreciate them fully

A fresco of a young girl holding a bird, Pompeii

Venus on a clam shell, Pompeii

Fresco of Silenus, Pompeii

A lovely little screen in the wall of an insula, Pompeii

We certainly did *not* have Pompeii to ourselves—hot, crowded, and too much touching (had to tell off someone reaching for plastered human remains in the antiquarium!). But we managed to see some old and new favorites, as well as a friend who is excavating there

A view of the Capua arena

The substructure of the Capua arena

Marble decoration from the Capua arena.

Mannequins playing gladiators.

And, finally, the imperial amphitheater at Capua. Something for everyone: romps in cryptoportici and substructure; adjacent Samnite tombs; wonderful sculpture. There was even an exhibit for those who come just for the gladiators

A fascinating clay vessel with etching meanders and inset bronze disks, Capua Museum

A lovely piece of bucchero, Capua Museum

Some pretty wild bronze fibulae with wild spirals and anthro-/zoomorphic figures. Still don’t know how these work!

A lovely terracotta head, Capua Museum

Then the archaeological museum in Capua, with its weird and wonderful finds, especially from before the Punic Wars. Such a mix of materials and influences: pottery with inset bronze, wild fibulae, imitative bucchero nero, and lots of terracotta

A lavishly decorated Hellenistic hypogeum, with painted walls, funerary couches (including pillows), and Medusa head. Also a lovely red cocciopesto floor.

Details of painted “legs” of funerary couches, imitating inlaid ivory of the real thing, and a rich yellow for the crossbeam of the couch

Faded details along the pediment of the upper level of a hypogeum, sporting masks

Part of a painted kline and painted base of a candelabra. The bases of two actual modern lamps stand right next to the trompe l'oeil candelabra.

We (amazingly) had a lot of ancient stuff all to ourselves today. First, a series of *spectacular* hypogea, tombs in (re)use from the fourth c. BCE on. Such amazing details preserved on the walls and funerary couches. I got a kick out of the modern lamp bases next to the ancient painted candelabra

A mushroom in the sea

View of Casamicciola harbor, Ischia

Trellises of the Villa Arbusto, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia

Took the afternoon to beat the heat on Ischia—just gorgeous!

A gorgeous pair of fish on a proto-geometric vessel, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia

The ancient city walls of Neapolis, sunken beneath the eateries of Piazza Bellini

Nestor’s cup, boasting the oldest known inscription using the Greek alphabet, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia (teared up when I saw it)

Pizza Napoli 😋

Had a bit of a time getting here (a wild flight delay), but started strong with some treats in Naples and on Ischia

We’re off to the Bay of Naples for some much needed R&R—with plenty of ancient sites and delectable eats @heintgestae.bsky.social

Congrats to the newly minted Dr. @heintgestae.bsky.social! So proud of her 😊

The linked article lists Classical Studies as one of the departments at Indiana University that "could lose its main offerings."

This is a major US university with a distinguished tradition in Classics.

Dire news.

In my book on the polis, I argue that despite of nativist ideology, the realities of citizenship, based on communal acceptance & successful performance of duties, meant a certain porosity. I.e. precisely not the maximalist cruelty of Miller's immigration policy, carried bout by ICE thugs.

YouTube video by rudderbucky Mercator - Development Demo Trailer

A few new followers, so wanted to mention that Mercator will be a part of the upcoming June Steam Next Fest! It's a shopkeeper game about ancient trade from India to Rome and in between. Check out the trailer and the Steam page:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1pp...
store.steampowered.com/app/3268870/...

The Erich S. Gruen Prize, the prize for the best graduate research paper on multiculturalism in the ancient Mediterranean.

We are pleased to announce that the 2025 Erich S. Gruen Prize is now open for submissions! All graduate students in North America are invited to enter the annual competition for the best graduate research paper on multiculturalism in the ancient Mediterranean www.classicalstudies.org/awards-and-f...

A student brought me baklava (yiayia-endorsed no less) 😋

Congrats!

For me it's em dashes 😅

In the midst of grading papers—lots of feral semicolons—so I just couldn't resist. 10/10

This is gonna sound weird, but I remember a moment in college where writing stopped being about completing assignments. In a History methods course, I realized footnotes weren’t just for citation. They could hold questions, commentary, & ideas. That essentially, you could "play" in the footnotes 1/2

My contribution to this volume, "Coining Koine: Reading Numismatic Images in the Context of Global Exchange," looks at how visual aspects of coinage contributed to an interconnected Indian Ocean world. Check it out—open access! #AncientBlueSky 🏺

Feels like years for sure 😅

Thanks so much!

Teaching my last classes at UMD. Having all the feels

James Tan The Role of the Economy in the Fall of the Roman Republic Abstract: For decades, historians argued that the Republic fell because landless proletar- ian soldiers saw civil war and land redistribution as their only path to economic security. That view is no longer accepted, yet no materialist explanation of political failure has re- placed it. In fact, the past three decades of scholarship has seen a disconnect between Roman economic and political history, with the result that economic historians have thought little about political destabilisation and political historians have thought little about the consequences of Rome's fast-changing economy. This chapter explores how the chasm between the two fields has opened, what effects it has had, and how we might begin to restore economic factors to the study of the Republic's fall. Recent economic re- search shows that the transition to autocracy occurred in a time of broad economic dyna- mism. This chapter suggests that we should see the economy as disrupting status systems, reshaping networks and reapportioning bargaining power. Moreover, the economy intro- duced new mentalities around innovation and risk-taking, which could not be insulated from political life. The result was a period of norm-cascades and political destabilisation which the Republic failed to survive.

James Tan brings the economy back in. Our understanding of the Roman economy has advanced hugely in recent decades, but that hasn’t (yet) affected how we interpret the politics of the Republic’s fall. He shows some paths to do that. doi.org/10.1515/9783...