Creating this blog was such a life-changing experience when I first set it up in June 2013 to trace where the time went. I had deep fears that writing wouldn’t happen and that I couldn’t accomplish what I set out to do. More and different work was accomplished, all of which made the work between then and now richer and more meaningful. I’m excited to see what this period of time brings. I have none of those fears. I know that even if my goals shift and change, I will always be collecting new knowledge and ideas, enough to sustain me for another decade or so.
Practically, what is a sabbatical? I’m given the privilege of working on my research for Spring 2023 (and Spring 2024) in exchange for a 20% pay cut. I’m sad I won’t be at the AIA-SCS, but it isn’t in the cards. I’m calling it a “stay-batical”. I have made a very nice home office for myself and much of the work I want to do can be done right here. I put in some applications to travel for Spring 2024 so hopeful something will come up.
What is the work I hope to do?
I’m finishing footnoting a chapter on Dionysius’ thoughts on the Republican Constitution for an edited volume. That should be off my desk in 1-2 weeks all going well.
I need to crunch data from metallurgical testing of aes grave at Yale and Lafayette and compare with BM results and see if I could fit in another local collection or two before presenting my findings in Rome in mid February. (I also have to sort logistics around that trip.) Logistics need to be done ASAP, but the data crunching is last half of January along with some write up. I don’t think it will take four weeks but I’m allowing it just to be safe.
After that my hope is to keep the calendar nice and clear so as to plow through the edits of single-author Book No. 3. I’d love to have fully revised manuscript by June but that’s a pipe dream I’m sure. Maybe June 2024? We’ll see. Almost all the chapters are drafted. What is needed in intellectual rigor and footnoting. (AND not to get too distracted along the way).
Working Title: Making History: Coins, Texts, and the Late Republic
A richly illustrated exploration of what those living within the Roman republic knew, or thought they knew, about their own past and how they made that past meaningful to their contemporary lives. Chapters: (1) How to Read this Book (2) What Sort of Thing is a King? (3) Numa’s Memory (4) Celebrating Apollo (5) The Cost of Grain (6) Sulla’s Legacy (7) The Opimian Myth (8) A Fashion for Kings (9) After the Ides (10) The Relevance of Ancient History (11) Witnessing the Past (12) Who cared about the coins?
That’s the major stuff, but other things particularly, collaborative work, that may need to come to the foreground and may delay this work here and there.
I also wouldn’t mind writing up some of my Papius and Fabatus stuff for real and perhaps even diving into other thorny control marked issues…
There will also be proofs to review at some point and I really must get to the Nemi material in Nottingham. I hope this year…
More tomorrow..
Liv Mariah Yarrow 