Murray > Recent Status Updates

Something different than a wizard of EarthSea I think 🌿 🌿 ties into my Roman and Greek and ongoing classical binge ⚔️🏺

…A story that was the subject of every variety of misrepresentation, not only by those who then lived but likewise in succeeding times: so true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity. TACITUS

Gone from GR for a year. Returning, I remember - all the imagery I may get of another is a minute photo or a picture of a cat.

My imagination has decided to make pencil sketches of the people I’m interacting with. It’s totally based on how they talk and write, their sense of humor, how they utilize simile or metaphor, how they articulate their thoughts & feelings.

The portraits are amazing 💖

Recommended and I’m looking forward to it. A uni class called Ancient Greek Epic & Drama introduced me to a lot that was good but not this play 🎭

The Vigiles led the way down the Palatine Hill and turned left on to the Via Appia as it ran alongside the huge, shadowy façade of the Circus Maximus and then passed under the inelegant but functional arches of the Appian Aqueduct to exit the city by the Capena Gate. The official escort and Antonia's ring were enough to persuade the centurion of the Urban Cohort to let them pass without question.

Ah c’est bien! A romcom with the best mix of heat and light! 🔥

'Caenis, I can't tell you how much I've dreamt of this moment -‘

'Quiet, my love,’ she said, pulling her hands from his. ‘I can't tell you either; that's why we shouldn't rely on words.’

She pushed him down on to his back. 'Lie still and let me finish massaging you, I'm getting to know your body again!’

She bent over him and kissed him full on the lips; he savored the touch and the taste of her.

I didn’t have any luck with my last romcom but Mariana typically has the right mix of heat and light so I’m hoping this will be an incandescent experience 💕🔥

‘I have never known it to be so calm for so long,’ Rhaskos moaned from his position next to the steering-oars. 'I sacrifice every evening to the mother-goddess Bendis but she does not listen to my prayers, even though in the past she has always looked kindly upon me. I'm beginning to worry that this voyage is cursed!’

audentes Fortuna iuvat!

Fortune favors the bold!

A saying cited by Virgil, quoted by Cicero and totally applicable to this story ⚔️🛡️🔥

⚔️🛡️🦅

Ice hockey. figure skating and an enemies to lovers trope all get the blood moving along swiftly through the arteries and veins.

The Thracians charged.

'Shields up!' bellowed Corbulo.

Vespasian felt the shield of the man behind him push over his head and connect at a right angle with the top of his own, leaving a small curved viewing slit.

Men’s breath became laboured as they fought back the rising panic induced by close confinement in stressful circumstances. The smell of sweat, fear and urine filled Vespasian's nostrils as they flared.

The season of goodwill, the Saturnalia, came and went with its round of feasting and gift-giving. Three days after its close, on 25 December, Sabinus had just finished celebrating the miraculous birth in a cave, witnessed by shepherds, of Mithras, a new god from the East into whose mysteries he'd been enrolled whilst in the army, when their father called the brothers into his study.

Beginning with the mythological and moving forward from there. Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf and Aeneas of the Aeneid who fled the sack of Troy.

It wasn’t that many years ago I began reading a few romcoms a year at the request of some of my friends. So this is my first of 2026. Hope to chill and have some fun.

Centurion Bestia laying about with all the ferocious efficiency of a veteran - an anguished expression on an enemy's face - the exotic pattern of the Britons' body paint - the stiffened spiky hair and strangely patterned tattoos. All these impressions burned into the mind's eye. For Cato, an inner calmness seemed to consume him as his mind divorced itself from his body and he fought by instinct.

“A man who has a passion that overrides logic can be trusted in his principles. Only a fool values logic above feeling; sophists can reason themselves to accept any and all principles and therefore cannot be trusted. You have a heart as well as a mind, Cato. Just be careful how you use it.”

“At the end of the day it's all down to whoever can offer the troops the most money. Ancestors, wisdom and integrity mean nothing any more. Money is the font of all power. If you have it then the world turns for you, if not then you are quite helpless!” ⚔️🛡️

🎶 We’re out here having fun 🎵

🎶 🎶 In the warm California sun ☀️ 🎵 🎵

Audiobook

Wonderful Oxon female reader.

Britannia the Romans called Britain.