{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/207",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 207,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v004.n021",
    "messages": 3,
    "voices": 3,
    "first": "1997-09-16T14:45:56+00:00",
    "last": "1997-09-16T19:33:43+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0303@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at ny.playboy.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-16T14:45:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v004.n021",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "His real name is Lucius; he is a Latin; he was cursed by the Great\nMother Goddess for messing up her temple during a battle; \"Latro\"\nmeans both \"mercenary\" and \"pawn\" (game piece), and Lucius is\ndefinitely both; and, in the interview words of Gene Wolfe, Lucius\nhas a truly magic sword--\"It cuts things.\" <g>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's\nnearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the \"important\" periphal\ncharacters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the\nlike), are not. Latro gets caught up with these people, never quite\nunderstanding his role. The gods are the Greek versions; though Latro is\nRoman, this is early enough so that the Romans had not yet adopted (and\nadapted) the Greek pantheon---and of course the gods would necessarily be\nlocal, anyway.\n\nEheu fugaces!\n-alga-"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0305@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Derek Bell",
        "address": "dbell at maths.tcd.ie"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-16T19:33:43+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v004.n021",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0004-0303@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In message <199709161849.LAA13496 at lists1.best.com>, Alice Turner writes:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's\nnearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the \"important\" periphal\ncharacters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the\nlike), are not."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tI think I remember one scene sparked off a memory and I\nrealised that Latro was fighting Ulysses in hand to hand\ncombat. (Maybe with knives too?)\n\n\tTercel"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0308@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-16T15:52:36+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v004.n021",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0004-0305@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Spoilers for Soldier Series..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Alice Turner wrote:\nHis real name is Lucius; he is a Latin; he was cursed by the Great\nMother Goddess for messing up her temple during a battle; \"Latro\"\nmeans both \"mercenary\" and \"pawn\" (game piece), and Lucius is\ndefinitely both; and, in the interview words of Gene Wolfe, Lucius\nhas a truly magic sword--\"It cuts things.\" <g>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Plus, there are a lot of real people and real events in the books. Latro's\nnearest and dearest are fictional, of course, but the \"important\" periphal\ncharacters, politicians, royalty and such (as opposed to farmers and the\nlike), are not. Latro gets caught up with these people, never quite\nunderstanding his role. The gods are the Greek versions; though Latro is\nRoman, this is early enough so that the Romans had not yet adopted (and\nadapted) the Greek pantheon---and of course the gods would necessarily be\nlocal, anyway."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have a friend who is a Classics professor who specializes in this time\nperiod.  I thought he might enjoy these books, but when I described it to\nhim, he said that Latro's chronology doesn't work.  At the time of the\nevents of the novel, the closest thing to Latin in the world was a dialect\nspoken only by a few farmers in a ten-mile radius somewhere near what is\nnow Rome, and even then, who knows how close it was to what we know as\nLatin.\n\nThe best I could think of to make it work is that Latro is somehow one of\nthose farmers impressed into military service or gone off to seek his\nfortune as a mercenary, except isn't it implied that the language of the\npeople Latro rescues at the end (Phonecians?) is the same Latin he's been\nwriting?\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}