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No Hard Line

There is no reason, I feel, to object when antiquity draws no hard line between the human and the supernatural.

- Livy, The Early History of Rome

 

 

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17
Feb 2012
AUTHOR Mark Newton
CATEGORY

writing & publishing

COMMENTS 2 Comments
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  • TheBrett

    Poor Livy. He was living in an era with far fewer tools and resources for doing proper history than we have today. Even factoring the loss of works over time, I suspect he was as much hindered by a near lack of any written records from Rome before the Third Century B.C.E. as we are today.

    That’s something that tends to get under-used in fantasy, in my opinion (George R.R. Martin makes a few nods in that area). If you’ve got a society with low literacy and perishable means of storing information, then even events that happened 300-400 years ago could be muddled and distorted by folklore, religion, and myth. 

  • http://markcnewton.com Mark Newton

    It’s something that fascinates me, I must say, and increasingly so for the new project: separating the fantastical elements from logical reality.

    That said, there are creationists today who still believe the world was created in a short period of time etc, despite the resources available – in fact, perhaps its worse to completely ignore such resources?