This is too much. I was doing a little bit of research for an assignment in Roman History class, and I came across a review of a book by Michael Parenti. This guy is a little over the top, relentless in his ideas about justice along class lines. I think that's what I want to say. Anyway, I found the book, even though I promised myself I would wait for the end of the semester, because I really don't have time to be reading something that is going to take time I could use for studying. I found it, and just started reading the intro. He talks about..... oh, the book is called, The assassination of Julius Caesar. It's all about how historians pay too much attention to the elite point of view when dealing with ancient Rome, or ANY history for that matter. He mentions a play written by Bernard Shaw, and a little known prologue to the play, specifically a quote from that prologue. It's little known alright, I had to google the phrase to find it, none of the sources I use to find old stuff had the prologue, not even Gutenberg! I found it though, and plan to hit my Roman history professor with it when I get a chance.....

This is the God Ra, talking to a modern (1900s) audience.....

So they robbed their own poor until they became great masters of that art, and knew by what laws it could be made to appear seemly and honest. And when they had squeezed their own poor dry, they robbed the poor of other lands, and added those lands to Rome until there came a new Rome, rich and huge. And I, Ra, laughed; for the minds of the Romans remained the same size whilst their dominion spread over the earth.

I said he was over the top. At times he seems almost maniacally paranoid! In the appendix of the book he gives an indication of this, talking about how historians use a mode of Latin citation to boggle the mind of the layman......

Most present day historians of antiquity seem determined to make them (the sources) inaccessible, a fact that itself might be indicative of the pedantic and elitist nature of their training.