Gupta empire in India was deteriorating
Closer at hand, the Gupta empire in India was deteriorating, but the states that succeeded it were, if less coherently gathered together, doubtless more...
Mesopotamia is the heart of modern Iraq
Mesopotamia is the heart of modern Iraq. The lands to its east over the Zagros Mountains—the highlands of classical Persia and modern Iran— are...
Destroyed by a Mamluk sultan in the thirteenth century
In Cosmas’s day, the prosperity of that world was enough to make a businessman’s mouth water. Gaza on the Mediterranean coast was already a...
When Sopatros the Roman
Cosmas tells a story from that end of the world going back to his own early days, around 515 CE, when Sopatros the Roman,...
Just a Christian
He, “just a Christian,” as he described himself, was shocked by the existence of “false Christians” who did not understand how the world isconstructed,...
Ellatzbaas launched his invasion from Ethiopia
Then Ellatzbaas launched his invasion from Ethiopia, beginning with a solemn Mass in Axum cathedral, followed by the blessing of a fleet of seventy...
Neither Cosmas nor his contemporaries
Neither Cosmas nor his contemporaries would have spoken of the Roman empire as a free-trade zone, or praised the blessings of a single currency...
Science measures boldly the unimaginably large
Small wonder that they understood their world so poorly. Small wonder as well that even when we know better in principle and when we...
Unscholarly duties as provost of a great university
I have meditated and written this book in some unusual places, on travels to every continent save one, in the intermissions of my unscholarly...
A single piece of gleaming white marble
The throne was cut from a single piece of gleaming white marble. The visitors were surprised to see this, because they knew of such...
