Category: We Have Thoughts On That…

Holy Gladiators, Batman! As everyone connected to the internet now knows, Gladiator II, the not-awaited sequel to Gladiator, will be riding into your movie theater arena in November. But you don’t have to wait until then to get your fix of “always fighting to the death, although that is a terrible business model to kill off at …

It’s finally here! Twenty-four years after absolutely no one watched Gladiator and thought “Now that is a movie that needs a sequel!,” the trailer for Gladiator II has dropped, and it is…something. Maybe all the things? For those of you who weren’t part of the movie-going public in the year 2000, the original Gladiator slammed into theaters …

This is a summer of travel for Classical Studies faculty: Dr. Andy Findley went to Rome, and I, Dr. Liz Thill, unintentionally took a tour of small towns in upstate New York with classically inspired names (places visited or at least spotted: Seneca Falls, Ovid, Aurelius, Romulus, Camillus, Marcellus, Macedon, Palmyra, Tyre, Cato, and Victory). …

At the time of writing, Dr. Andy Findley is escorting a group of IU-Indy students through Rome as part of Herron’s Italian study abroad experience. Presumably, he at some point shared their itinerary with me (Dr. Thill), but I don’t remember, because my life is chaos and my mind is an often-cleaned whiteboard with no …

It’s been a banner year for our IU-Indianapolis Classical Studies Professors: five faculty members received promotions and prestigious prizes. As our semester draws to a close, we take the time to celebrate our faculty’s achievements, in the great tradition of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who deeply, deeply believed that nothing was more important than …

This post was written by student Bailey Evans, as part of her Spring 2024 Honors Project in CLAS-C 414 Art and Archaeology of the Roman World. More about Bailey at the end of the post. Let me preface this post by saying that I would never promote stealing. However, the Romans really seemed to exemplify …

Did you know that there is a 1-to-1 reconstruction of the Parthenon in Nashville, TN? Dr. Elizabeth Thill sure as Hades did not, until she moved to Indianapolis and was told about it by a student. Fast forward 10 years later, and she finally got the opportunity to see the building in person. She recently …

Recently Dr. Thill was working in her dark cave of academia, having brilliant thoughts about people who have been dead for 1800 years, when she received an email from IU-Indianapolis Social Media. This email informed her that there was a huge hot trend on social media about the Roman Empire, and the IU-Indianapolis Social Media …

Recently, Classical Studies Program Director Dr. Elizabeth Thill did something she had not done in years: she attended a newly released movie, in the theater, where the aim was not to keep her children entertained (although she did bring her children, a somewhat questionable decision). What movie could coax her out of her self-imposed movie-theater …

This photo was shared by student Corran Goodart. More about Corran at the end of the post. One of the lesser known facts about ancient people in Pompeii is that they were really, really into doodling. So into doodling, that they regularly scratched doodles into the walls of pretty much everything: public buildings like temples or …