tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5240391176821272172024-02-19T14:22:18.836+11:00A dead man fell from the sky...(...was the opening line of the first Athenian murder mystery. Somehow it's turned into the name of this blog.)Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.comBlogger598125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-83728114768431446142016-03-07T12:05:00.001+11:002016-03-07T13:01:45.888+11:00Moving home! or "Dad, your blog looks so 2010."This blog is moving to a new home!<br />
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I've been totally silent over the last couple of months for a few reasons, one of which was that we were traveling around Greece and Italy. (Yes, it really was book research. Honestly!)<br />
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I'll be writing more about that soon. <br />
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Another reason is that I've been intermittently working on a new home for my web site. <br />
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Some time ago my elder daughter looked at this site and said, "Dad, your blog looks so 2010."<br />
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Well, I certainly wouldn't want to look so old-fashioned. <br />
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The new site is a bit different, though it's hard to make a basic blog look much like anything other than a basic blog. I got the blog posts migrated over the weekend, which was lots of fun since there are 500+, believe it or not. There are still more broken links than I would like, but I think it's good enough to move.<br />
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The new site should be a lot more phone-friendly, which is a bonus. <br />
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At some point in the next couple of days I will redirect GaryCorby.com to the new home. Everything else will happen auto-magically.<br />
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As Nico would say, "Of course it will work. What could possibly go wrong?"<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-45470608038391708832015-12-23T09:38:00.001+11:002015-12-23T10:03:08.081+11:00Gary in Greece, on Tripod RoadBook research has its advantages when you're the author of The Athenian Mysteries. I and my family have been in Greece, and it's been a fun and very hectic time. Here's the view from our hotel room. That's the Acropolis. It was dusk when we arrived and the first thing we did was take a picture.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaExfU4k0HpAVQgUl-GssYdYhTcXafqPzEvH0KIZFLegmreefri_2jmWCwEsKcUulhBCHsKks0qNXqR8aCHhjyPQV8XKnlI6H2GMplQg_BmBd8scNvobqEtGK68cdYKEPyaXgkBm_fQ80k/s1600/Acropolis+at+dusk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaExfU4k0HpAVQgUl-GssYdYhTcXafqPzEvH0KIZFLegmreefri_2jmWCwEsKcUulhBCHsKks0qNXqR8aCHhjyPQV8XKnlI6H2GMplQg_BmBd8scNvobqEtGK68cdYKEPyaXgkBm_fQ80k/s320/Acropolis+at+dusk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So now in the posts to come I will deliver some photos, descriptions, and random thoughts. Let me begin with Tripod Road.<br />
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When I told my literary agent that we were in Athens she replied, "Walking in the steps of Nico and Diotima!"<br />
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I replied, "It's funny you should say that, because the hotel we're staying at is on Tripod Road."<br />
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In the books, my hero Nicolaos and the lovely Diotima have to walk up and down Tripod Road almost every day. It's the main road from their house to the agora.<br />
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Tripod Road was lined with victory tripods, put up by the winners of the choral contests at the arts festival called the Great Dionysia. Pericles himself had a victory tripod on Tripod Road, because he funded a winning play. <br />
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These days Tripod Road is called Nikodimou Street, but we know it was the original Tripod Road, because there's a single surviving tripod. It's called the Lysikrates Monument, erected by a very happy fellow named Lysikrates to celebrate a victory at the Great Dionysia some time around 334BC, and it's known to have been built on the west side of Tripod Road. Here it is, and it's about 100 meters down the road from where we're staying. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlic0GOn60ONaX5cbruvJU6YacKK3Xz5hKnr5ge7XJlSMpsIwXF72pRU_y0Br-6V4mRra0GEw6Y5OvYEjbDgymIkio02Wf5bj37Fw76dfYnI1ugq0IVzUI7DIeJtO3Y6vWgUtDPNnBb4fx/s1600/Lysikrates.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlic0GOn60ONaX5cbruvJU6YacKK3Xz5hKnr5ge7XJlSMpsIwXF72pRU_y0Br-6V4mRra0GEw6Y5OvYEjbDgymIkio02Wf5bj37Fw76dfYnI1ugq0IVzUI7DIeJtO3Y6vWgUtDPNnBb4fx/s640/Lysikrates.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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Yes, I know it doesn't look remarkably like a tripod. The victory monuments became very ornate over time.<br />
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So this means every time we walk down the road for the inevitable evening dessert of waffle and chocolate sauce, we are in fact walking in the footsteps of Nico and Diotima.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-74039674841518896612015-10-08T23:46:00.001+11:002015-10-08T23:51:16.650+11:00Classical Greek musicMusic is a Greek word and comes directly from the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus who inspired men in the arts. <i>Mousike techne</i> was the technique of music. The particular Muse who inspired music was named Euterpe, a name that will be familiar to readers of my books since it's also the name of my heroine Diotima's mother. <br />
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As it happens, we have some surviving notated ancient music. Which means we can play it.<br />
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The ancient Greeks created a tuning system that was the
direct ancestor of our major scale. Their idea was to use a sequence of
perfect fifths that wrap around at the octave boundary. This idea was so successful that we still use it today, slightly modified.<br />
<br />
If you check the sequence of major
scale notes in our modern tuning system, you'll find that the sequence of
root -> fifth -> second -> sixth -> third -> seventh
-> fourth is indeed a sequence of fifths (7 semitones each jump), except
for the fourth, which is only a 6 semitone jump so that the gap from fourth
to the octave would be a perfect fifth and thus complete the cycle. This was squeezing the ancient system onto a modern instrument with
twelve equally spaced pitches, but it works well enough.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Seikilos2.tif/lossy-page1-411px-Seikilos2.tif.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Seikilos2.tif/lossy-page1-411px-Seikilos2.tif.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
So the Greeks invented the white keys on the piano, but they had no idea
that the black keys existed. The old tuning system is called
Pythagorean, because the first person to write about it was Pythagoras.
That's the same Pythagoras who did the theorem about triangle sides
that you learned at school. Pythagoras's book is lost, but we know bits
of it because Plato, Aristotle and a few others quoted Pythagoras in
their own books.<br />
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Thus the major scale is at least 2,600
years old (and is probably much older). <br />
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There's also a surviving gravestone on which was written a
short piece of ancient music. It's called the Song of Seikilos. That's it to the left.<br />
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The first section is a standard inscription. It says something like: <span style="color: purple;">I am a gravestone. Seikilos placed me here, an everlasting monument of deathless remembrance</span>.<br />
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Then the next section is a song! This is hugely important because it's the oldest known complete song for which there is no doubt whatsoever what the notes are. The lyrics are the engraved words (of course). But just above the letters you'll see funny, smaller symbols. That's the music notation. The position of the symbol above the word shows when to play the note as you sing. Since it has the lyrics and the melody, this is a lead sheet, in modern parlance.<br />
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This gravestone dates to zero AD, give or take a hundred years. There are fragments of music that are very much older, but none complete, and everything older than the Song of Seikilos requires some educated guess work to reconstruct it.<br />
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The lyrics say this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="color: #990000;">While you live, shine,<br />Have no grief at all.<br />Life exists only for a short while,<br />And time demands its toll.</span></b></blockquote>
There have been lots of renditions of the song. Here's an instrumental only version that I suspect is very close to what you would have heard if you'd met Seikilos. This is played by researcher Michael Levy, who built a period instrument.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7KRnAKzFMhk" width="420"></iframe>
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-77552674025424004192015-09-25T21:55:00.000+10:002015-09-26T10:34:44.792+10:00Honey of TrebizondI wouldn't recommend putting this on your morning toast, but here is how to make <span style="color: #38761d;"><b>honey of Trebizond</b></span>.<br />
<ol>
<li>Plant an entire field of deadly poisonous plants. </li>
<li>Introduce a bee nest.</li>
<li>Let the bees collect the pollen.</li>
<li>Collect the honeycomb.</li>
</ol>
The honeycomb and the honey will be toxic. This really works. How do we know that? Because it happened in real life.<br />
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Back in ancient times, toward the end of the Roman Republic, the great General Pompey led an army into Asia Minor where he faced the rather competent local ruler Mithridates. One of his detachments passed through Trebizond, or at least, they tried to. The locals knew that the honey thereabouts was poisonous, due to the large number of toxic rhododendrons in the area. But the Romans didn't know that. They ate the honeycomb and became ill. The locals immediately attacked and slaughtered the Romans.<br />
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Here's what it says in Strabo's <i>Geography</i> (from the Perseus version):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: blue;">The Heptacomitae [those are the locals] cut down three maniples of Pompey's army when they were passing through the mountainous
country; for they mixed bowls of the crazing honey which is yielded by
the tree-twigs, and placed them in the roads, and then, when the
soldiers drank the mixture and lost their senses, they attacked them and
easily disposed of them.</span></blockquote>
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Alas, if only they had paid attention to the classics. Three hundred and fifty years earlier, the famous mercenary captain Xenophon had written about his men falling ill after eating honeycomb in <i>the same area</i>.<br />
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Here's what Xenophon had to say:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #351c75;">Now for the most part there was nothing here which they really found
strange; but the swarms of bees in the neighbourhood were numerous, and
the soldiers who ate of the <span class="search_result">honey</span> all
went off their heads, and suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, and not
one of them could stand up, but those who had eaten a little were like
people exceedingly drunk, while those who had eaten a great deal seemed
like crazy, or even, in some cases, dying men. <span class="english"></span>So they lay there in great numbers as though the army had
suffered a defeat, and great despondency prevailed. On the next day,
however, no one had died, and at approximately the same hour as they had
eaten the <span class="search_result">honey</span> they began to come to their senses; and on the third or fourth day they got up, as if from a drugging.
</span></blockquote>
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Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-78389170623032006532015-09-09T23:02:00.002+10:002015-09-09T23:10:51.451+10:00The catharsis of DelosIn classical times, it was illegal to die on the sacred isle of Delos. It was also illegal to give birth there.<br />
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Delos was the birthplace of two gods: Apollo and Artemis. That made the tiny island incredibly holy.<br />
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There had been a sacred sanctuary on Delos since Minoan times. There had also been a village of priests and priestesses who served the temples. The priestly village was on the coast right next to the sanctuary, which was natural enough. That made it a short walk to work.<br />
<br />
But then some time around 540BC, something interesting happened. The Athenians, who supported Delos with gifts and supplies, took it into their heads to remove all the dead people from around the sanctuary. Nobody knows exactly why they decided to do this, but it's too weird to have been anything other than an oracle received, either from Delphi or maybe from Delos itself.<br />
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Either way, the Athenians turned up at Delos <i>en masse</i>. They dug up every body in the village cemetery and relocated the corpses to a new cemetery on the other side of the island. (This must have been fun.)<br />
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Then they dismantled the village and relocated it to the other side of the island too.<br />
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This was a <span style="color: #cc0000;">catharsis</span>. We use catharsis for plays and books, but the original meaning was ritual purification. <br />
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From that moment on, it seems, it was illegal to die or be born on Delos. Fortunately the much larger island of Mykonos was not far off, so if you felt one event or the other coming on, then you could be ferried off the island. For emergencies there was an even smaller islet called Rhenia, so close by you could almost wade there. <br />
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You're probably wondering what the penalty was for dying, and so am I. Presumably things couldn't get much worse for you anyway. Alas we'll never know.<br />
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But we're not done yet. In 426BC, the Athenians decided their ancestors of a hundred years ago hadn't done a good enough job. They returned to Delos, dug up the bodies from the new cemetery, and carried them off the island completely. <br />
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At that point there was not a single corpse left on the island (<a href="http://www.garycorby.com/2015/06/the-hyperborean-problem.html">except for the two Hyperborean women</a>), and this odd game of move-the-bodies ended. Delos remained ritually pure until after the death of Alexander, when people became less fussed about such things, and a thriving community moved in.<br />
<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-1749242269789192462015-06-22T23:59:00.000+10:002015-06-22T23:59:45.689+10:00The Hyperborean ProblemHyperborea will be known to you if you're a Conan the Barbarian fan. What is less well known is that this fantasy land <i>might</i> have existed for real.<br />
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Hyperborea in Greek means "beyond Boreas". Boreas was the name of the cold north wind that blew across central Europe. So Hyperborea is a land far to the north, beyond the cold. (Which is how it ended up being stolen for Conan).<br />
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At first glance Hyperborea has about as much reality as Atlantis. There isn't a shred of archaeological evidence for any such place. <br />
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The difficulty is that, unlike Atlantis, a lot of very credible men talk about Hyperborea as if it exists. Herodotus says that Hesiod wrote about the Hyperboreans. Unfortunately that piece of Hesiod has been lost, but Hesiod was Europe's first non-fiction author. If Hesiod wrote about them, then he <i>thought</i> they existed, rightly or wrongly.<br />
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There's also an archaic poem that talks about Hyperboreans, that probably wasn't written by Homer but which is the same sort of time period.<br />
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Herodotus himself provides the best evidence, with a short tale that is quite bizarre. Apparently the Hyperboreans decided to send gifts to the sacred isle of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis and possibly the most holy sanctuary in all of Greece. <br />
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Their gifts were carried by two young women, who were sent on the long journey with five male warriors to protect them. The young women died while on Delos. It's not clear what killed them, but disease rather than violence is kind of assumed since the women were greatly honoured. Herodotus states point blank that their tomb is on the left as you enter the temple of Artemis at Delos, and that teenage boys and girls sacrifice to them. <br />
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Now this is a very precise detail! There might not be two Hyperborean women in that tomb, but the Greeks <i>think</i> there are. If you ever visit Delos, by the way, you'll be able to go to exactly where the tomb was, because the ruins of the Artemis temple are well known. Just walk to the entrance and look left. Sadly there's nothing there now, but you'll also be standing on a spot where Herodotus himself certainly stood.<br />
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Herodotus states that when the Hyperboreans realized that their emissaries might not return, they decided to continue to send gifts every year, but to pass them on from one people to the next. To protect their gifts the Hyperboreans wrapped their gifts in sheathes of wheat. Then they gave the gifts to their neighbours, with a request to hand them on to the next people to the south.<br />
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The Hyperborean Gift thus turned into an international game of pass-the-parcel. The gift was handed along until it reached Delos. Multiple authors speculated about the paths the gift took, in an attempt to work out where exactly was this Hyperborea. The ancient people themselves were none too sure.<br />
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But what is undeniable is that the gifts were arriving from somewhere! Herodotus states, very clearly, that the Hyperborean Gift was still turning up on Delos right up to his present day.<br />
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This is a detail impossible to ignore. Herodotus first "published" his work at the Olympics of 440BC. There were obviously people from Delos present. If the gift was not turning up as described, they surely would have put up their hands and pointed out that he was wrong. It doesn't absolutely prove that Hyperborea existed. But if not, then someone was playing a strange game (which might be the case). <br />
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I think the general consensus among sane people is that the whole thing is a myth. Personally I have trouble getting past the apparent fact that the gift was arriving in classical times. Yet Herodotus himself seems doubtful. I speculate that a quite different and probably well-known tribe was sending the gift and being mislabeled Hyperborean. But either way, there's a puzzle there for someone to solve!<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-42003292648554974142015-06-05T10:02:00.003+10:002015-06-05T10:02:53.016+10:00A fun TED-ED animation about tragedyThanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/monty918" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Monty on twitter</a> for pointing this out! It goes rather well with Death Ex Machina, and talks about three of my characters.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-57874711830768921282015-05-31T17:04:00.002+10:002015-05-31T17:07:14.774+10:00Book stand as artThis looked so nice, I couldn't resist ripping it off my editor's facebook stream. It's the Soho Press book stand at a recent conference, and it looks like a work of art.
This is the creation of Rudy Martinez, Abby Koski, and Meredith Barnes. Well done, ladies and gent.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8dHdMibahIDJUO2HQz3xhGfvKLjoGU8wIqSsAF17XltNuqQZJ1exouq37UxBxaF4TyEe3kNK2Ew1qCCWODIBHlsfwm4O5XGTw2u8_FBBPDg2kJv5k-XiKDJtlAn2v2OKpMS_BngxK22Nm/s1600/Soho-Bookstand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8dHdMibahIDJUO2HQz3xhGfvKLjoGU8wIqSsAF17XltNuqQZJ1exouq37UxBxaF4TyEe3kNK2Ew1qCCWODIBHlsfwm4O5XGTw2u8_FBBPDg2kJv5k-XiKDJtlAn2v2OKpMS_BngxK22Nm/s640/Soho-Bookstand.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-62288458335734158682015-05-27T09:55:00.000+10:002015-05-27T09:59:28.121+10:00A lovely review of Death Ex MachinaThe American Library Association has a magazine and a web site where they post reviews of books.<br />
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<a href="http://www.booklistonline.com/ProductInfo.aspx?pid=7388127" target="_blank">This review of Death Ex Machina just came online, and it is rather nice for the book's author to read!</a><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #351c75;">Corby is adept at delineating ancient Greece without sounding professorial. Having Nicolaos as a first-person narrator helps; he’s the ideal tour guide to the theater and the city around it. The characters are a mix of fictional and actual, with the latter including Pericles, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and the child Socrates, who drives everyone crazy with his questions. </span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">This works on every level.</span></blockquote>
<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-48289822541596600992015-05-20T00:25:00.000+10:002015-05-20T00:25:31.123+10:00Death ex Machina Happy Release Day to me!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge_EujV-FyuKsPc7lq2WaqfFgvMPqjPORCGxSerfNZ_Zxd7hmwd0b99pksp94MU-s0eot02WUeO6enjYzz78ZgWEuUPimxLMsvVP-1htmfaWMKmkRg4oQk0GvubgOUn_s7ZKiCJWcJ5qj8/s1600/DeM-icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge_EujV-FyuKsPc7lq2WaqfFgvMPqjPORCGxSerfNZ_Zxd7hmwd0b99pksp94MU-s0eot02WUeO6enjYzz78ZgWEuUPimxLMsvVP-1htmfaWMKmkRg4oQk0GvubgOUn_s7ZKiCJWcJ5qj8/s320/DeM-icon.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>
If murder mysteries set in the ancient world are your thing, then the good news is Death Ex Machina went on the shelves today.<br />
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I'm very pleased with this one. It's the first adventure for Nico and Diotima as a married couple. For a running series that's a big transition! How will they cope with the marital state?<br />
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The murder is decidedly theatrical, as you can tell from the cover. Since our heroes are living right at the birth of theatre, there are plenty of big names to make an appearance.<br />
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Plus I'm always fond of a good pun, and Death ex Machina was too good to pass up.<br />
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I hope you enjoy it.<br />
Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-83973257344560922272015-04-05T00:17:00.000+11:002015-04-05T00:17:12.105+11:00What do bunnies have to do with Easter?Happy Easter to you all!<br />
<br />
I thought I'd talk about that very important subject: what do bunnies have to do with Easter? <br />
<br />
Actually, bunnies have everything to do with Easter. Bunnies are very fertile little creatures, as we all know, and Easter began life as a Germanic fertility celebration. <br />
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The first mention of pagan Easter was in a book written in 703AD by the famous English mediaeval monk The Venerable Bede. Bede mentions that in Eostre's Month the people celebrated with feasts in honour of the Goddess Eostre.<br />
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Eostre was a Germanic goddess, (definitely not classical), possibly also known as Ostara. It's slightly odd that she doesn't get a mention anywhere else other than Bede, but it's not a huge problem. Early Germans weren't exactly literate, early Christians weren't exactly fond of pagans (and in any case were very busy expropriating their festivals), and the fact that Easter got taken over complete with original symbolism demonstrates the existence of the original festival.<br />
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It didn't take long for Eostre / Ostara to morph into Easter. Eggs are also a fertility symbol (obviously). Somewhere along the line the two got mixed together and the Easter Bunny ended up dealing out eggs. <br />
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And so here we are, painting eggs and eating chocolate bunnies. There are worse fates for a goddess.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-80188836425040472102015-04-01T12:07:00.001+11:002015-04-01T12:17:25.779+11:00Death Ex Machina: Publisher's Weekly starred review!<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">I woke this morning to find congratulations emails in my inbox, because <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-61695-519-9" target="_blank">this lovely review has just appeared in Publishers Weekly</a>. Here it is:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">In Australian author Corby’s superior fifth whodunit set in ancient Greece (after 2014’s </span><em style="color: #351c75; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">The Marathon Conspiracy</em><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">), the city of Athens is preparing to host the Great Dionysia, “the largest and most important arts festival in the world.” </span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">But the success of the event is in doubt after a series of accidents on the set of Sophocles’s play </span><em style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Sisyphus</em><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">. The cast members believe this is the work of a ghost. Pericles, the city’s most powerful man, asks Nicolaos, his inquiry agent, to get rid of the ghost. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Unfortunately, not long after Nico arranges for an exorcism ritual, one of the actors is murdered, suspended from the machine designed to hold the character of Thanatos, the god of death, in midair during the performance. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Under pressure to find the killer quickly as the festival start date looms, Nico resorts to a clever and amusing ploy to buy more time. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px;">Corby again manages to effortlessly integrate laugh-out-loud humor into a fairly clued puzzle.</span></span><br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-19848841453901616362015-03-20T23:17:00.000+11:002015-03-20T23:20:49.257+11:00The Silk Road, and the earliest silk out of ChinaThe Silk Road officially opened some time around 200BC, when ambassadors from China turned up in Bactria and Parthia. They were looking for allies in a war, but they returned to China with tales of strange lands further to the West. Shortly after that Chinese merchant caravans started arriving in Persia, and the most fascinating trade route in history was well and truly in business.<br />
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Two things made the Silk Road possible. The first was the highway system that the Persians built. I've previously written about <a href="http://www.garycorby.com/2009/09/kings-messengers.html" target="_blank">the King's Messengers</a>. They could get a message from one end of the Empire to the other in an incredible three days. The main east-west arterial was called the Royal Road, but it wasn't long before it turned into the Middle East section of the Silk Road. The other building block was that the Han Dynasty took over in China. The Han assigned troops to keep the roads safe, so that traders had a chance to cross the steppes without being hit by nomad bandits.<br />
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By far the biggest trading item was the Chinese wonder-material, an astounding item called silk. Persians, Greeks, and later on, Romans, were willing to spend very large amounts of gold to get silk. (Or more accurately, the wives were willing to spend very large amounts of their husbands' money.) <br />
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My heroine Diotima acquires some silk in <i>The Ionia Sanction</i>, which she later uses to make a dress. I made a comment at the time that this made her the first woman in Europe to wear a silk dress. But my stories are set in the fifth century BC, and the Silk Road didn't open until the second century. Can Diotima possibly get silk 300 years before the Silk Road exists?<br />
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Yes she can. There was informal trading before the famous road opened. The reason we know this is rather interesting. <br />
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Wherever you find silk in an ancient site, you know for sure there's been contact with China, one way or another. Because China was the <i>only</i> source of silk. <br />
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The earliest known silk outside China occurs in the grave goods of four people in Uzbekistan (Bactria, as it was back then). The date on those graves is an incredible 1200BC. That's a minimum, they might be a few hundred years older. <br />
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Now Uzbekistan is not far from China, but it's definitely not a silk-producing region, so the silk only got there by trade. Whoever got that silk to Bactria was a serious adventurer, but it's certain someone did it. From about 500BC onwards, once the silk makes it to Bactria it can get onto the Persian road system.<br />
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The next appearance of silk comes in 1070 BC. In 1993, a team reported that they had found traces of silk in the hair of an Egyptian mummy. That's an <i>Egyptian</i> mummy, with <i>silk</i> in <i>1070BC</i>! <br />
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I personally rate the abilities of ancient people highly, but even I found this hard to believe. I traced the claim. It appears in correspondence to the science journal <i>Nature</i>. It's correspondence, not a refereed paper, but as far as I know the claim was never refuted, but nor was the test confirmed. Nevertheless that makes the idea highly credible. That's good enough if you're a writer of historical fiction. <br />
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So it seems possible if not likely that Chinese goods were trickling into Persia and Egypt starting five hundred years before the time of Nico and Diotima. Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-42967599636939700832015-03-20T21:50:00.000+11:002015-03-20T21:50:15.659+11:00The Marathon Conspiracy on sale for $1.99<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioW073ehGwh7weKbqKZqPUvpIcBb1mJl7P0Kr-5jjFfAo94h6FO9_BzUb-jO3iRb6Hw5AKm3q_kJjZh5o9KQmX0zOzhdMXwSbJG5dOjHzcLEucHFRAZnS-O3P9BF-AxrnHDuo4PbgyZCo-/s1600/Marathon+Cover+Icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioW073ehGwh7weKbqKZqPUvpIcBb1mJl7P0Kr-5jjFfAo94h6FO9_BzUb-jO3iRb6Hw5AKm3q_kJjZh5o9KQmX0zOzhdMXwSbJG5dOjHzcLEucHFRAZnS-O3P9BF-AxrnHDuo4PbgyZCo-/s1600/Marathon+Cover+Icon.jpg" height="200" width="132" /></a>The Marathon Conspiracy ebook version is on sale at both <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-marathon-conspiracy-gary-corby/1116779705?ean=9781616953874" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Marathon-Conspiracy-Mysteries-Ancient-Greece-ebook/dp/B00GEYKWPE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=" target="_blank">Amazon </a>for a mere $1.99.<br />
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Believe it or not, I didn't know this was happening until people mentioned it on twitter. It's part of a promotion of detective stories, that ends on 23 March 2015.<br />
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Hurry now while stocks last!<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-62044319861245482162015-03-13T23:43:00.000+11:002015-03-16T12:50:19.422+11:00A Corinthian helmet with a skull inside, found at MarathonThis picture has been doing the rounds on twitter. It was pointed out to me by the excellent <a href="http://lorettasueross.com/" target="_blank">Loretta Ross</a> (who as it happens is a debut author!), taken from the twitter account of @History-Pics.<br />
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The skull at bottom was found <i>inside</i> the helmet! It was found on the plain of Marathon, where as you surely know was once fought a famous battle. The helmet and skull therefore is usually described as being from the Battle of Marathon.<br />
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So are we looking at one of the heroes of Marathon? Well, probably not. But maybe. Since my book <span style="color: blue;">The Marathon Conspiracy</span> recounts the battle at once point, I thought I'd go through the pros and cons of this rather remarkable find:<br />
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First off, it's genuine. This is a for-real Corinthian helmet that dates to the time of Marathon, plus or minus a few decades. We are absolutely looking at a classical Greek warrior. <br />
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The Corinthian style was very popular so it's no problem that it was found at a place where only Athenians fought.<br />
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This helmet and skull is old news. It was discovered in the 1800s by inquisitive amateurs. They claimed they found it at Marathon. By modern standards the provenance is horribly broken. By the standards of Victorian England there's no problem; they're probably telling the truth.<br />
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After the battle the Athenians counted their dead. There were 192 fallen heroes. They were buried under a mound at the southern end of the battlefield. The dead were cremated, a little unusually for the time but not outrageously so. This skull was found elsewhere on the battlefield. The only way this could be an Athenian from the famous battle would be if the Athenians somehow managed to miss one of the dead. Since they also buried the Persian dead (their bones were found underneath a vineyard to the north of the battlefield) and since the site was revisited several times over the following days, it seems hard to believe they missed one of their own. <br />
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The Athenian casualty list was made public at the time (and parts have been recovered). If a casualty wasn't on the list, but never came home, someone was bound to say, "Where's Uncle Bob?" Bob would have been found for sure, because the men who fell at Marathon were treated like Trojan Heroes. <br />
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Here's a big problem: in those days, armour was <i>always</i> recovered before a burial. This was expensive stuff. It would typically go to the warrior's heir, or be snaffled by someone from the other side. It might seem a little creepy to go into battle wearing armour that someone had died in, but that's how they did it. <br />
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So for those reasons it's far from obvious that this guy fought at Marathon. He might have died on the plain any time from a few decades before to a few decades after. He probably wasn't murdered (though that thought crossed my mind) because the helmet is still there. Any criminal would have taken it. <br />
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So the skull in the helmet remains a mystery!<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-55823279124384396392015-02-19T20:35:00.002+11:002015-02-19T20:35:17.292+11:00A quiz about Sacred GamesSomeone on GoodReads created a quiz about my book <span style="color: #990000;">Sacred Games</span>. Incredibly, I managed to get a question wrong about my own book. <br />
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I scored 9/10! See if you can beat me. <br />
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/results/1077002" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here's the quiz</a>.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-81333970113545065872015-01-28T10:29:00.002+11:002015-01-28T14:23:05.921+11:00Death Ex Machina, and a giveaway!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large; font-weight: normal; text-align: left;">A theatrical murder sends classical Athens into uproar!</span></h3>
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This is the fifth adventure for Nico and Diotima. I'm afraid life isn't getting any easier for the only private agent in ancient Athens, but at least he has a chance to get into show biz.</div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">In bookstores on May 19, 2015</span><br />
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My astoundingly excellent publisher Soho Press is doing a giveaway on GoodReads. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/120032-death-ex-machina" target="_blank">Click here to enter the giveaway!</a><br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-11870460398861562432015-01-08T19:21:00.000+11:002015-01-08T19:21:44.768+11:00Are things getting worse?With the depressing news of yet another atrocity, this time against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, I thought I'd take a moment to ask whether the world is becoming a worse place, at least in terms of mass murder. Note this is different to serial murder. A serial killer kills one person, then waits a long time before killing another. Mass murder is killing many in a short space of time.<br />
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I think it <i>is</i> getting worse. The solo mass murderer, or death delivered by a handful of deranged people, is a modern phenomenon. <br />
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I can't recall from the ancient world, or even the mediaeval, or the Renaissance, or even in Elizabethan times, a single instance of mass murder being conducted by one man acting on his own.<br />
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The reason is easy to see. In the time of my hero Nicolaos, the most powerful individual weapon available was a bronze sword. A nutter could kill at most a few people in the street before being taken down. <br />
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And a mass murderer would be taken down quickly. In a world without a police force, citizens were naturally inclined to intervene when they saw a crime being committed. Surviving court cases from classical Athens that involve violence in public <i>always</i> mention passers-by running into the action. Not something you see much these days.<br />
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But a modern mass murderer can do a whole lot better than a bronze sword. The growth in power of lethal force that can be carried by a single individual is incredibly important.<br />
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The same nutter today would have a couple of automatic weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammo, a pouch of grenades, and maybe a few bombs to plant. He could kill hundreds.<br />
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Then there's the unfortunate fact that there are more people inclined to mass murder.<br />
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The population today is 7 billion. In Nico’s time it was roughly 200 million. The percentage of the population inclined to mass murder is small and probably hasn't changed, but population growth means there are <i>thirty-five times</i> more dangerous maniacs walking the planet today than in the ancient world. <br />
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Never mind that there are also thirty-five times more good guys. Good guys don't commit crimes, good news never moves, and bad news spreads like wild fire.<br />
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When you add that many potential mass murderers to the extra lethal technology they can carry, it doesn't look good.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-38380077764735612502015-01-08T13:58:00.003+11:002015-01-08T13:58:42.478+11:00Sacred Games for $1.99 on NookBarnes & Noble has price-matched the Amazon offer for Sacred Games. So if you're a Nook reader then don't feel left out!<br />
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<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sacred-games-gary-corby/1110504433?ean=9781616952280" target="_blank">You can get Sacred Games for $1.99 here</a>.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-64190710327967164692015-01-02T10:05:00.000+11:002015-01-02T10:05:23.272+11:00Sacred Games for $1.99 on Kindle<span style="color: red;">Sacred Games</span> is a kindle monthly deal this month. That means if you're a kindle reader then you can buy it for the grand total of $1.99.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Games-Athenian-Mystery-Corby-ebook/dp/B008ADEHVW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=" target="_blank">Here's a link to the Sacred Games kindle discount page.</a></div>
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If political shenanigans and a sports murder at the ancient Olympics are your thing then this is the book for you. <br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">"Corby integrates the political intrigue of the day with fair-play plotting and welcome doses of humor. Fans of Steven Saylor's Gordianus novels will be enthralled."</span></div>
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<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">—Publishers Weekly, starred review</span></div>
Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-6800449633930940292014-12-13T16:21:00.000+11:002014-12-13T16:28:25.179+11:00The perfect Christmas giftIf you enjoy ancient murder mysteries, that is. <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">This will have the wealth of historical mystery buffs jumping up and down for joy.</span>"</span><br />
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Here's a lovely review of <i>The Marathon Conspiracy</i> that appeared a few issues back in <a href="http://www.suspensemagazine.com/" target="_blank">Suspense Magazine</a>, which is <a href="http://www.suspensemagazine.com/secureorderform.html" target="_blank">well worth subscribing to</a>. <br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“The Marathon Conspiracy” By Gary Corby </span></div>
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Corby has most definitely brought to readers three amazing tales they will not soon forget. And now comes a fourth historical mystery set in Greece that, yet again, is so well-written you will feel as if you are truly part of the Ancient World. </span><br />
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The elections are about to be held in the city of Athens and the city’s (wise) statesman, Pericles, asks his inquiry agent, Nicolaos, to look into a matter that could undermine all of the political elections. It seems that a skeleton has been found at a girls’ school located not too far from Athens. </span><br />
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Nico is the super sleuth, to say the least; a sleuth who has just taken time off to wed his investigating partner, Diotima. Of course, Pericles and the case put that happy occasion on hold. Especially when the remains just happen to be those of Hippias. This was the massive traitor to the Greeks and, in the Battle of Marathon, was killed and left behind in Persia. The veterans of that battle are beyond angry. They have always claimed they were the men who thwarted the traitor, and they need to gain favor and political power, not stones to the head. And if this is not enough trouble, one of the girls who found the bones is dead, and the other has gone missing. </span><br />
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Shocking surprises arrive to the Athenian world, as they wonder why and how the traitor is ‘back.’ There is no obvious reason behind the bones finding their home in Athens, and Nico and Pericles must solve the mystery as fast as possible before Athens becomes a bed of power hungry, angry, willing-to-do-anything tyrants. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">This will have the wealth of historical mystery buffs jumping up and down for joy. As with Corby’s other works, the tale is full of humor, suspense-filled plots, subplots, and characters that are unforgettable. It is no overstatement to say that Corby most definitely knows his history backwards and forwards, providing stories that are beyond exciting. </span></span><br />
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Reviewed by Mary Lignor, Professional Librarian and Co-Owner of The Write Companion</span><br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-67677211365948674542014-12-09T16:36:00.001+11:002014-12-09T16:36:30.738+11:00Don't let the bedbugs bite!In addition to deep and profound philosophy, classical Athens also scores in a slightly more prosaic subject: the earliest documented mention of bedbugs comes from them. It's in a play called <i>The Clouds</i>, written by Aristophanes. <br />
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In it, no less than Socrates is instructing a young man named Strepsiades. Socrates asks his student what deep thoughts he is thinking. Strespiades replies, "Whether there'll be anything left of me after the bedbugs have finished chewing."<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-71149925380323898992014-10-22T14:16:00.000+11:002014-10-22T14:16:18.684+11:00Yep. it's Hades and Persephone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The archaeologists have uncovered the rest of the mosaic. And there, sure enough, is Persephone.</div>
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Which means the guy carrying her off is Hades. Which means you can't use this picture to predict who's inside. It's a stock image, like putting Jesus on the cross over a modern tomb. <br />
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Of course, this one's a particularly exquisite stock image! The intriguingly round damage in the centre is a bit of a bummer, but even so this mosaic will be gracing art history textbooks for the next century or so. <br />
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The press release on this mentioned the same thing I did in my last post: the style of this picture is <i>very</i> similar to one at the royal Macedonian burial ground at Vergina. That other tomb is believed to be Philip II's, the father of Alexander. <br />
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Let me take a moment to talk about why the guy on the chariot could be called either Hades or Pluto. In the original Greek religion he was Hades. His underworld realm of the dead came to be known by the name of its ruler, but that wasn't originally the case.<br />
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By the time of Nicolaos and Diotima, the dead go to Hades, which is ruled by Hades. This is kind of confusing. In my books therefore I usually distinguish by calling the place Hades, and its ruler Lord Hades, which isn't technically correct but means you have some idea of which Hades is meant when my characters are talking.<br />
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Real classical Greeks had the same problem, so sometimes referred to the god Hades by his epithet Plouton. The Romans picked that up and changed it to Pluto.<br />
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So technically I <i>could</i> call him Pluto in my books, but if I did, too many readers would imagine a lovable puppy dog, which isn't quite the reaction I want when discussing the feared Lord of the Dead.<br />
<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-23586126433630543202014-10-13T00:57:00.001+11:002014-10-14T10:36:28.615+11:00More on that tomb in AmphipolisA while back I wrote about the increasingly famous dig at Amphipolis, and <a href="http://www.garycorby.com/2014/08/the-tomb-of-alexander-great.html" target="_blank">explained why Alexander the Great is <i>not</i> in there</a>. <br />
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The plot thickened slightly a few hours ago, when <a href="http://www.yppo.gr/2/g22.jsp?obj_id=58792" target="_blank">the Greek Ministry of culture released pictures of a terrific mosaic</a>. <br />
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Here's the mosaic (I've taken all these from the press release):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZXE4-ZH7uu9OGtWO_VYuaYY4uDtR76xEcRAvjHaeewZDorV7VHf_AXMIYO_ef_PEf0LlUEs6tzyvMxHlFScLko_jQrLZ1pdkwFaMtexYvpoF3I0O9FyZ57ZZPLXw2f89dce2PMzhNzJp/s1600/Amph-BigPicture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieZXE4-ZH7uu9OGtWO_VYuaYY4uDtR76xEcRAvjHaeewZDorV7VHf_AXMIYO_ef_PEf0LlUEs6tzyvMxHlFScLko_jQrLZ1pdkwFaMtexYvpoF3I0O9FyZ57ZZPLXw2f89dce2PMzhNzJp/s1600/Amph-BigPicture.jpg" height="400" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIaED1KSN3CLVQWZ-pQZvA4peLQffoVZJ9h7R_Vo6Nqr5llldtxSZHvUFIntgvGrJOoHYjRmZuoA3SzydqLsTAHj49ZxP9vFszUdsWjx8eErzgm0-g8ZHLG2A63nRuYbRKhspXmad3Fe4/s1600/Amph-Hermes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIaED1KSN3CLVQWZ-pQZvA4peLQffoVZJ9h7R_Vo6Nqr5llldtxSZHvUFIntgvGrJOoHYjRmZuoA3SzydqLsTAHj49ZxP9vFszUdsWjx8eErzgm0-g8ZHLG2A63nRuYbRKhspXmad3Fe4/s1600/Amph-Hermes.jpg" height="320" width="201" /></a>Yes, the centre is damaged. But the rest of the image is remarkably clear.<br />
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The guy on the left is Hermes. He's got the staff in his left hand (it's called a caduceus). He's got the wacky hat. The hat is because Hermes travels a lot. He wears the wide-brimmed affair to keep the sun off. <br />
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He won't need it where he's going on this trip though, because Hermes is leading someone to the afterworld.<br />
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In addition to being Messenger of the Gods, Hermes also leads dead people to Hades. In that guise he's known as Hermes Chthonios. If you're an H.P. Lovecraft fan then you'll be familiar with that last word. It simply means "underground".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEAHuq6TDcnx0bwdd08FXLW9zfKRJGT7BHcrnNd8yn-t_K8UIDkPYJKH1e1QflDTJUmIf_NTbzVNG3_6M_P5wLe0kmQTr75twOt6xgpS-J_grnqVaarE_s1sbZx1NA-D8_96EHMyxGpfA/s1600/Amph-Driver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLEAHuq6TDcnx0bwdd08FXLW9zfKRJGT7BHcrnNd8yn-t_K8UIDkPYJKH1e1QflDTJUmIf_NTbzVNG3_6M_P5wLe0kmQTr75twOt6xgpS-J_grnqVaarE_s1sbZx1NA-D8_96EHMyxGpfA/s1600/Amph-Driver.jpg" height="273" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ltuKK6Arn6FpoPfkyvQkKbfeBaLQHcHCwDOCR8n0fCeF_JTt3RxR6Z9uW6CzIu0r8oN1yOc7IKkM0FD4TmhTllhihoIZL20Hs4MP9O5hgzwTzyfHFgFyfiANV-t66lkljSyxeJ9kLBXL/s1600/Amph-Horses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ltuKK6Arn6FpoPfkyvQkKbfeBaLQHcHCwDOCR8n0fCeF_JTt3RxR6Z9uW6CzIu0r8oN1yOc7IKkM0FD4TmhTllhihoIZL20Hs4MP9O5hgzwTzyfHFgFyfiANV-t66lkljSyxeJ9kLBXL/s1600/Amph-Horses.jpg" height="320" width="309" /></a><br />
Weirdly, the guy on the chariot is probably Lord Hades himself. It might seem odd that Hades needs a guide to get home, but this is a standard motif. He's sometimes depicted on a chariot racing home with a very reluctant Persephone in tow.<br />
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The extremely erudite and in this case well-informed PhDiva <a href="http://phdiva.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/amphipolis-mosaic.html" target="_blank">has suggested the guy on the chariot might be Philip II</a>, who was the father of Alexander. <br />
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Don't get excited. This isn't the tomb of Alexander's father, unless there's something hideously wrong with the identification of another tomb at a place called Vergina. <br />
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Personally I think the jury will be out for some time on the identification of the driver. If it's Hades, then it really doesn't say much about who's inside.<br />
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What is very interesting is that the picture looks much like another one at Pella, which was the capital of Macedonia in the time of Philip and Alexander. The Pella mosaic shows an Abduction of Helen by Theseus. <br />
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If you told me the same artist did both, I wouldn't argue. More likely it was a standard style of the times. But it makes identical dating and the link to Pella very strong.<br />
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It also raises the probability that the tomb holds someone closely associated with Alexander. But that's just a guess. Who it is remains a mystery.<br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524039117682127217.post-73150568646196131442014-09-08T13:22:00.001+10:002014-09-08T13:22:54.638+10:00Ancient SausagesThe classical and ancient Greeks had sausages. Just thought I'd mention that piece of trivia.<br />
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How do we know this? Because one of the main characters in <i>The Knights</i> by Aristophanes is a sausage seller who plies his trade in the agora. <br />
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However the earliest known mention of sausage is in the Odyssey, believe it or not. At one point our heroes make sausages from pork stomach filled with blood and fat. This is described as a tasty meal that the warriors can't wait to tuck into.<br />
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Personally, I'd run away screaming. I am not keen on blood sausage. <br />
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<br />Gary Corbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14759372069119740227noreply@blogger.com4