I'm re-readintg Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint for about the third time. I love this book. It's in the SF/fantasy section of the library, but there's nothing really supernatural about it. Love, lust, betrayal, politics, intrigue in Renaissance-type setting. I love it.

I just read that a few weeks ago Connie - really liked it.

Which actually makes me wonder whether the Romans were aware that their gods were constructs, or did they say "He really exists, but since we aren't given to know gods' names, we made them up" ?

I would think they would have to have been, given how closely most of them are modeled on the Greeks. But it's been a long time since I read or studied any of this stuff, so I could be talking out of my ass.

My impression has been that a lot of the Romans paid lip service to religion whereas Greek culture tended to be more devout. I've always heard it lectured that Vergil's Aeneid, for example, was a literary work rather than a sincere religious work like its Homeric forebears.

HPHBP is going to be 672 pages long. And the deluxe edition will be 704 pages long.

Deluxe edition?

From Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator.

I don't suppose the deluxe addition has the missing scenes where Sirius comes back and has a lovely little "reunion" scene with Remus?

Edit on reading the article: Guess not.

Matt and Brenda are correct. The Romans were really practical about encountering a new culture's gods, and simply assigning them a place, at least in the early parts of the Roman empire. Look at the Celtic gods. It was all about tradition.

They did get a little upset about Isis, though, but mainly that's because her followers were just too luxurious, emotional and so darned un_Roman.

Early Romans were like the Borg when it comes to gods: We Will assimilate.

Now, after Constantine turned the Empire Xian, things were a little different.

Not all that different. St. Brighid looks a lot like the Celtic goddess who preceded her. Heck, Christianity has a certain amount in common with Mithraism, or so I've been told.

Syncretism is an excellent survival strategy for a religion.

Now, after Constantine turned the Empire Xian, things were a little different.

Oh, I meant in that religion became a little more religous to the Romans with Xianity, than it had been with the pantheon. Course, Romans were pretty pragmatic and a lot of them converted easily, with no real qualms...but many were mightily worried about the Emperor taking religion so seriously.

Disquieting in its resonance. Though I don't really believe...well, maybe that's a thought best expressed somewhere else.

Now I"m curious, Erika.