Roman Letters

In the West, after Gregory’s death in 604, the surviving correspondence thins to almost nothing. The roads deteriorated. The postal system was gone. Literacy retreated to monasteries. The vast, interconnected world of Roman letter-writing, where a professor in Syria could write to a student in Athens, where a bishop in Africa could argue theology with a scholar in Bethlehem, fell silent in the Western provinces. The Eastern Roman Empire would endure for another eight centuries, but the world Symmachus, Sidonius, and Gregory had known was gone.

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitloginRoman Letters (romanletters.org)21 points by diodorus 4 hours ago | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments help Rendello 47 minutes ago [–] What a cool project, I like this one where Pliny the Younger complains about a no-show at his dinner party:https://romanletters.org/letters/pliny_younger/1015/replyCGMthrowaway 20 minutes ago | parent [–] Had to look up "sow's matrices."> A "sow's matrix" (or vulva in Latin) is a dish from ancient Rome consisting of the uterus of a sow (a female pig), often specifically from one that has never farrowed or that was slaughtered shortly after farrowing. It was considered a delicacy among the wealthy elite and was a common dish served at lavish Roman banquets and dinner parties, often used as a sign of luxury, wealth, and status.reply Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact Search:

In the West, after Gregory’s death in 604, the surviving correspondence thins to almost nothing. The roads deteriorated. The postal system was gone. Literacy retreated to monasteries. The vast, interconnected world of Roman letter-writing, where a professor in Syria could write to a student in Athens, where a bishop in Africa could argue theology with a scholar in Bethlehem, fell silent in the Western provinces. The Eastern Roman Empire would endure for another eight centuries, but the world Symmachus, Sidonius, and Gregory had known was gone.