Yesterday we mentioned the soon-to-be-online online game Gods and Heroes ... today we read of yet another one. From Gamespot comes news of Imperator:

We had a chance to sit down with Mythic Entertainment president Mark Jacobs and executive producer Matt Firor to discuss the studio's upcoming online game, Imperator. While Mythic has made a name for itself with its team-based "realm-versus-realm" combat game Dark Age of Camelot, the studio's executives were quick to point out that Imperator won't simply be limited to player-versus-player or player-versus-environment play, though it should include some forms of both.

Jacobs and Firor explained that as part of the game's unusual premise, which posits what might have happened had the Roman empire never fallen and instead persisted into future times, your character's development will not follow the typical path that most such games use. That is, you won't choose a character from a selection screen of races, then allot skill and attribute points you don't even understand. You'll instead begin the game with an opening cinematic that shows your character on his or her last legs of training at the Roman academy (on a huge space cruiser, no less).

Every character in Imperator is a superior physical specimen with some kind of exceptional attribute (such as strength, speed, or intellect), and as such, all characters begin their lives on the fast track to the high rank of Roman praetor (no time in the legionnaires necessary). You'll play out your first 10 levels of the game in this introductory area where you'll receive elite training in the game's combat system and learn its unique technology, rather than killing 40 rats with a rusty dagger to gain a level. Unfortunately, your cruiser is attacked by the Roman empire's great nemesis...the Mayans, who have also emerged in the future as a force to be reckoned with. As such, your training will actually take place as your space cruiser attempts to defend itself, and you'll emerge from it as a level-10 character. Mythic plans to make sure that the first 10 levels will pass by relatively quickly, considering that the game is planned to have a character-level cap of 100, and considering that the studio plans to make this training area in levels 1 to 10 completely playable on the show floor at E3 for anyone who happens to pass by. (GameSpot reporters will definitely be doing so.) [more]

::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:49:58 AM::
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New Kerala informs us of another Alexander flick (of a sort) in the works:

The famous seventh century play by Vishakadutta, 'Mudrarakshasa', which sketches moments in the lives of Chandragupta and Alexander The Great, will now be captured on celluloid in Sanskrit.

With BJP legislator Nathu Singh Gurjar in lead role, the film, to be directed by Shyam Soni, will be shot in various locations in Jaipur and surrounding areas, Director of Vyas Balabux Sodh Sansthan, Acharya Umesh Shashtry, who has written the script of the movie, told reporters here today.

Gurjar, who had acted in a Rajasthani film in the past, will play the role of King Chandragupta in the historical movie, Shashtry said.

The shooting will start from Monday.

Four of the six songs to be picturised for the film have already been recorded in Chennai and Jaipur by music director Bhagwan Das Porwal. Noted Tamil singer Brahma Bhatt, Malayali singer Nalini and Rajasthani Sanjay Raizada have lent their voice for the movie.

::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:46:15 AM::
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Coverage of a recent JCL field trip in Mobile, Alabama (from the Advocate):

Jason Rose said he was surprised when he saw how minuscule some of the Dead Sea scrolls are.

Rose visited the exhibit on a Junior Classical League trip on Feb. 22.

"The fragments were a lot smaller than I imagined," Jason said. "I didn't know there were so many fragments that they had to put together."

He was not alone.

"Such tiny fragments," The Runnels School ninth-grader Jourdan Iseral said. "It's amazing that we still have them."

Jason, a senior, had briefed his fellow club members about the historical background of the scrolls before the group's trip.

With his career goal as an archaeologist, Jason concentrated his talk on the scrolls' discovery and their significance.

"They're an important link between late Judaism and early Christianity … the oldest-surviving manuscripts of their kind by thousands of years," Jason said.

Senior Stefanie Gilliam said the detail in the 2,000-year-old pottery and the sandals' intricacy amazed her.

"I was surprised at how modern they looked," Stephanie said, pointing out the ankle tie and toe straps.

Senior Eric Pavlovich, who serves as Junior Classical League first vice president, was impressed at the large turnout for the exhibit.

Other school groups as well as several tour groups of older people shared the exhibit hall with the Baton Rouge students that day.

"It was an amazing experience," Eric said.

Senior Amanda Lambert, JCL president, found the exhibit "easy to understand."

"They did a good job of interpretation," she said.

Eighth-grader Blake Ballenger said he was excited about "seeing something so old and being right up close to it."

::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:43:29 AM::
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::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:42:08 AM::
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Waldemar Heckel, Lawrence A. Tritle, Crossroads of History: The Age of Alexander.

Tim Rood, The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination.

Peter Michael Swan, The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History, Books 55-56 (9 B.C. - A.D. 14).

David Depew, Takis Poulakos, Isocrates and Civic Education

Donna Kurtz (ed.), Reception of Classical Art. An Introduction. Studies in Classical Archaeology, III. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 1295.

Robert Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic.

Rüdiger Kinsky (ed.), Diorthoseis. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Hellenismus und zum Nachleben Alexanders des Grossen. BzA, 183.

::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:41:22 AM::
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::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:36:45 AM::
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::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:33:18 AM::
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8.00 p.m. |DISCC| Superweapons of the Ancient World: The Claw
History says that Archimedes created a terrifying secret weapon that plucked Roman warships from the sea and smashed them against the rocks; could such a devastating weapon have been built using available technology in 213 BC?
 
9.00 p.m. |DISCC|Superweapons of the Ancient World: The Ram
The team, including top military engineers from the U.S. military academy at West Point, re-creates a Roman tortoise ram and tests it by trying to demolish a specially re-created replica of an ancient six-metre-high, 3.5-metre-thick city wall.

DISCC = Discovery Channel (Canada)

::Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:32:28 AM::
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