Autumn is here. And winter is coming.

The fresco to the left is the cover jacket illustration for Why we’re all Romans, a new cultural history which attempts to argue for the unique debts of Western civilization to Rome (in particular as a mediator of the wisdom of the Greeks and Hebrews). If you’re on the culturally conservative side it might be of some interest, it sports endorsements from a Fellow at the Hoover Institute and E. Christian Kopff. The fresco is from Pompeii, explaining its good state of preservation and present day fame and ubiquity. The man’s name is Terentius Neo, a wealthy merchant or magistrate apparently. The woman is presumed to be his wife. A strange question to throw out: am the only one who thinks that he resembles Laurence Fishburne? The fresco is used a lot because of its quality and prior fame, but I always start thinking of something ludicrous like The Matrix when I see it.