theorywatch

Rome Reborn is such an amazing project— why am I disappointed that it has no avatars? Poor dear Mr. Rowan at Bridgewater-Raritan West would have had a lot less trouble attracting people to Advanced Latin class way back then if we’d had something like that to go along with translating the orations of Cicero. The Junior Classical League is apparently missing the navicula here, by not making use of it. (Hmm, obviously the avatars would have to communicate in Latin to make this worthwhile, wouldn’t it? And none of us would be Roman senators, anyway, given the hypothetical demographics — perhaps this would be a little too educational an experience!)

On the other hand, Rome Reborn clearly does provide another striking (and possibly unintended) example of “the city as avatar of itself” thinking. Maybe adding avatars would be too much: it would probably just end in a toga party.