Students you should make deliberate (not casual ‘quiz-show’ expert/ competitive egotist child actor oeuvre) note that classical textual punctation is utilised in the formatting of the following transcript from RH Barrow 1949 by myself strictly for linguistics education\ Other-branded & diagnosed disturbing element cum bad actor

‘s whoowhoo 1960s\ and I hope to arouse if not ideationally-activate your new era 2-5set series maths-logic “learnings” (it’s a ‘trip.’ ..enjoi).

“Later, these same hill-men moved down to the plains and settled upon the site of the ‘Seven Hills’ of Rome. They were a pastoral folk. Their earliest festivals were concerned with the interests of shepherds ; milk, not wine, is the earliest offering, and wealth was reckoned in cattle ; the very word for ‘money’, pecunia (whence ‘pecuniary’), means ‘head of cattle’. They found other men of kindred race, Sabellian and Sabine, moving upon the plain and settling upon the higher ground; from the fusion of these settlements Rome took her origin. From her central position her soldiers could move north and east and south – along the valleys north and east, and down the plain to the south ; they soon learned the value of ‘interior lines’ .”

[Students, your lovely drawing of a kangaroo and the flag of Great Britain that we all so cherish we’d like to wrap around ourselves and quite possibly do naughty ‘things’ ‘in’ were inserted by virtue of operator error but i thought hey that’s good – and it’s only taken me another 9 1/2 minutes to jemmy it up and do a brief but not at all perfunctory or peremptory Welcome-to-my-country not wanting to get in trouble with the Professors of English Literature in 42 universities, ncldng 37 public, 3 private & 2 private international uh-oh make that 16mins 14, 15, 16 .. Will you stop being so naughty Kevin?! .. 47. 56.. But it’s highly pedagogic, Mother. The students are getting well and truly to grips with the differentiated but intimately intertwined 6, 8 or perhaps even10 psycho-culturally generated constructs of time. You’re as mad as a meat-axe, Kevin ;\: you’re worse than your father.]

“Indeed, some have thought that the site of Rome was chosen from the first as an outpost against the Etruscans from the north. And here, for the moment, we leave the Romans, as they join with outlying settlements, and turn to agricultural pursuits and trade with Etruscan and Greek merchants.

“To the north of the Tiber lay the Etruscan empire. The Etruscans were probably sea-wanderers (from the East?) settled at last in etruria, or Tuscany – cruel, overbearing, worshipping gloomy gods of the underworld and divining the future from the organs of slaughtered animals. They built enormously solid walls to defend their cities, and they traded with greek cities and with Carthage in Africa, and thus ‘borrowed’ fro civilisations superior to their own. From the sea they penetrated into the Campanian plain, and in the seventh century tried to move south to occupy it, circling round the hills to the east to avoid the swamps, and seizing some of the Latin towns on the high ground.

“About the time of the Latin migration to the ‘Seven Hills’, Greeks began their long process of seizing the best harbours on the south and west coasts of Italy and the eastern side of Sicily ; the Carthaginians, too, occupied the western half of the island. At first the Greeks wanted only trading stations, but in time colonies were sent from Greece to establish cities which soon became among the fairest of the Mediterranean. Perhaps the earliest Greek settlement was Cumae, on the bay of Naples, in the eighth, and of great moment to Europe ; for from the Greeks of Cumae the Latins learned the alphabet ; the Etruscans too adapted the same letters to their purpose, and passed them on to the inland tribes. From Cumae, also, Italy may first have learned of Greek gods, such as Heracles and Apollo. But the chief settlements of the Greeks werer in the extreme south of Italy and in Sicily. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, and Tarentum, Sybaris, Croton, and Rhegium in South Italy are all Greek in origin. They are most important in Roman history, for through them Rome came into full contact with the Mediterranean world.

” The Etruscans and the Greeks were the two most powerful influences during Rome’s early years. The rest of Italy was sparsely inhabited by tribes, many akin to the Latins. They lived in comparitive isolation in their hills, tending flocks and tilling the land and grouping together into settlements, as geography allowed, for defence and trade and worship.

“Now let us return to the Romans. The first three kings were Latins, the last three were Etruscan. The last of these was ejected by violence (traditionally 510 B.C.), and the word ‘king’ became anathema to the Romans. Yet the Etruscan influence remained. Temples and rites survived ; Jupiter was still enthroned on the Capitolene Hill, Diana on the Aventine. The insignia of Etruscan rulers became those of Roman magistrates, the ‘ivory chair’, the bundles of rods with two axes bound up with them (fasces). But, more important, Rome acquired an organisation which was to turn her into an imperial power.

“Till about 270 B.C. Rome fought perpetually for existence in Italy, and her fight could not cease till she was recognised as a leading power. The highest qualities of courage and resourcefulness were called for ; one tribe after another was overcome, and was incorporated on varying terms into the Roman state or sphere of influence. Leagues and alliances were created. At one crisis, the sacking of Rome by roving Gauls in 390 B.C. – the Latin cities failed to aid her ; they suggested federation, and Rome made up her mind that safety lay only in their conquest. At great self-sacrifice she reduced them to obedience, and then went forward as tribe after tribe appealed to her for aid, and eventually for alliance and the extension of her ‘rights’ to their cities. At last, Thurii, in the ‘instep’ appealed for aid against Tarentum. Rome hesitated – and agreed. Tarentum brought in Phyrrus, King of Epirus across the Adriatic ; and Rome emerged from his invasion of Italy the leader of the Greek states in South Italy. Thus, she passed into the sphere of the Carthaginians whose trade covered the seas of Sicily aand thge Western Mediterranean After half a century of struggle (264 – 202 B.C.) it was decided that Rome should become a ‘world power’, and that the lands of the West should be ruled by an Aryan, not a Semitic race.”

Oh hoodly-doodly young people we have really or at least virtually

– KEVIN, will you stop playing the class clown ?!

Mum it’s just a bit of a gag – i’ve been trying to teach our manly but largely vile priapist sheeple mweeple freeple, the St John the galaxy-scale bonghead of the Isle of Patmos – or Nova Scotia or was it Newfoundland – there be dragons and were icebergs floating by – the Bernaysians & the Lost-it Friedmanites about the Dialectics of the Damned which do they believe it or not don’t actually trade off or read out neatly or at all for goodness’ sake either with Quantum-relation qubits or Noah’s Freaking Arc – of the Covenant, you what – carpenter’s cubits since I wrote that one and only neat succinct short essay of the name for Green Economist newsletter in i believe1994.

Perhaps a note on the ontology of belief – to touch lightly on the questions of time at the beginning of this essay for I don’t want readers trampling any primary schooler’s or teenagers dream I do believe 1994 (and a heap of other years back to 1912 when my late father was born), no?

And a note – it’s a government-breaker this one. “Getting Franklin’s story right is crucial, because she has become a role model for women going into science. She was up against not just the routine sexism of the day, but also more subtle forms embedded in science — some of which are still present today…” so coy it’s Yogi Bear, Barny Rubble & Buffy Vampire-slayer cute, huh? Erp. Thank you for your readership. – You didn’t sign any paper? Oh yeh…

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01313-5

John Blundell

Australia