…well, that's tried and true Christianity. What does that mean? A delusion grows more real over time. Peculiar notion, you know, Pliny the Younger, there's a fascinating book published in the last couple of years called the Christians as the Romans saw them.…

…translates the early texts of the roman imperium as it slowly became aware that this strange phenomenon was in its midst. And Pliny the younger, not the naturalist who was the elder, but Pliny the younger, was appointed governor of Armenia and his job was…

…became aware that this strange phenomenon was in its midst. And Pliny the younger, not the naturalist who was the elder, but Pliny the younger, was appointed governor of Armenia and his job was to go out there and administer roman law and so forth.…

…And the emperor was quite interested and wrote back and said, tell me more. And he said, is this a new religion? And Pliny the Younger wrote, and he said, no, this is not a religion. Religions are concerned with the great issues of cosmic fate and…

…you that again. End. But you know, it does have a really nice ring to it, don't you think? After all, ancient Rome had Pliny the elder and pliny the younger. A millennium or so from now, some writer, I think, is going to be talking about ancient…

…There seem to be notable exceptions to this where we don't quite understand what's happening. For instance, the roman historian Pliny describes roman wines so strong that when they were thrown onto fires, they burned. This seems to indicate some kind…

…than that, but the documentation. It is well known that the sahara was wetter in the past, even as recently as roman times. Pliny called it the bread basket of Rome. And we know that human populations were out there. We. In the Tissella plateau of…