Not Meant To Be Mythic

I was in Venice the other day, strolling past the Basilica of St. Mark's - as one does - when I stopped in at the Doge's Palace.

The place is mind-blowing. Not just for the quality of the decoration, but for the sheer amount of insanely detailed murals that cover the walls, the ceiling, everything.

Also, stone filigree.

But despite the crazy magnificence, the stuff inside is...chilling. Because the Republic of Venice was *not* a democracy, because it invented mass production centuries before the Industrial Revolution, and because this gave Venice control of the Eastern Mediterranean for the next 400 years.

At the height of its power, Venice was able to produce an entire warship - from hull to sails to oarlocks - in a single day. [For other realms, a warship took months.] Venice had reserved forests on the mainland for timber, mines for iron, copper, and tin, and developed assembly lines Henry Ford would have envied to create hulls, sails, powder, and shot. Its rope-making was so efficient that it sold the excess to other maritime powers. It also locked up residents it considered to be vital to its commercial interests - like glassmakers and Jews. [Venice invented the ghetto as well as the assembly line.]

And it mass-produced the items that we fantasy writers think of as unique artisanal products: swords and armor. Take a look at the pommels of the swords in the Venetian armory. Look at the black-powder pistols. Look at the helmets. Mass-produced, all of it. No individual flourishes. Not created by some mythic craftsman, but by assembly lines. And all the more deadly for it.

Not a "helm" - a helmet. They all look like that.

See how all the pommels are the same? Those are VI swords...Venetian-issue.

Not pretty, but effective.

Thank You for Your Patience. Let's Talk Rome.

Hey, gang, sorry it's been a while. But life, right?  I've been rewriting the second novel, working on a sequel to TWS, working on a couple of short stories, not to mention life stuff with which I shall not bore you...I know, excuses, excuses.
So...I'm still not completely up to speed, but I've got some fun facts about Rome. Rome's cool, right? So let's TIL Rome.

The Roman legionary camp was essentially a city that they carried with them and then built wherever they needed it. The  plan was unvarying and included a market square, a space for sacrifices, and a giant surrounding wall. Every soldier knew where he bunked in that camp - even when the camp didn't yet exist. It was a model in their minds.

Also, five hundred years after the fall of the Western Empire, and even though their daily language and culture were medieval Greek, the Byzantines referred to themselves as Romans. So did the Muslim world.

Today "All roads lead to Rome" means a lot of different routes can lead to the same place. Originally it wasn't a proverb; it was the literal truth. The Romans were the best road builders the Western world have ever seen to that point, and all their roads - even those as far away as Britain and Turkey - were measured from the "Golden Milestone" set up in Rome's main market. A Roman road was basically a well-built stone wall buried dozens of feet in the earth so travelers could walk on top of it. They're still around.


Judas may have been called Iscariot because he carried a sica, a curved short sword that was considered dishonorable by Romans. Because it was light, concealable, and made it easy to carve an unarmored opponent, it was considered the weapon of assassins, cutthroats, and domestic terrorists. Iscariot = knifeman. And these days, sicario still has that meaning, kind of.

There.

Those are things you know now.

Welcome back!