Thomas Hendrickson
thomashendrickson.bsky.social
Thomas Hendrickson
@thomashendrickson.bsky.social
Latin philology. Latin teaching/learning. Book history. Latin in the early modern era (and other eras).
Every time I hear someone say a given "crisis" is really an "opportunity," I think of Littlefinger saying "Chaos is a ladder!"
November 7, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Johannes Kepler (1608) describing what he thinks it would feel like to be launched into space. The Somnium should totally be taught in Latin classes.
November 7, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Do YOU have any Neo-Latin teaching materials?

Seriously, do you?
October 28, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Favorite library: Bibliotheca Incognita
October 10, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Sometimes, it is so so helpful going back to my notes.

Other times:
October 10, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Booklist found in a will from 837 CE. Kind of notable that the daughters are all given books (the sons too, though that's less notable).
October 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
I've gotta say, it would be hard to live up to a name like Exsuperius.

(from Gallagher and Meade "Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity")
October 1, 2025 at 7:45 PM
In one of my classes we were just talking about the bit of Exodus where the Israelites were worshipping the golden calf. (There had been an allusion to it in a text we're reading.) Anyways, apropos of nothing, several different companies are now offering an AI Jesus:
September 18, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Digital Neo-Latin Studies conference-- registration deadline is tomorrow.
September 16, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Galen's medical theories may be out of date, but it turns out that not much has changed about academic writing.

(-from "On the Order of my Books" trans. Singer)
September 16, 2025 at 12:36 AM
"Anything you can find of Homer, Menander, Euripides, Aristophanes...."

-an apparent wish-list from third-century Egypt

PSI.Laur.inv.19662v (Images from R. Otranto "Antiche liste di libri su papiro")
September 12, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Booklist for the 10th century library at Bobbio.

Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)
September 12, 2025 at 12:53 AM
(rubbing my greedy little hands together)
September 11, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Happy Birthday to Claudia Severa!

Born on this day in the late first century CE. She wrote a birthday invitation to her friend, Sulpicia Lepidina, which survives among the Vindolanda tablets.
#classicssky
September 11, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Favorite entry in the 9th-century catalogue of the library at Bobbio: "some Scottish (Irish?) book translated into Latin" (librum quendam Latine Scotaicae linguae)
September 8, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Well, in a concession to aging, I have made a new addition to my dictionary-lectern. A magnifying glass.
September 2, 2025 at 6:31 PM
"It would not be hard to set up a tent, he thought."

Me, at the start of any writing project.
August 25, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Really interesting piece on Suetonius. Did he write a "De Viris Illustribus"? Maybe not? www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
August 25, 2025 at 1:36 PM
(Reading the wikipedia page for "Cornelia, mother of the gracchi"):

Rejected Ptolemy, uh huh, scolded Gaius, sure..."Cornelia also serves as the feminine personification of the state of Ohio" wtf????
August 22, 2025 at 1:04 AM
I first read Lucretius in the doorstop edition of Leonard/Smith. Looking back at it now, I still love the look/feel of the book, but those notes are.... a little digressive? (Spenser's Fairie Queene???)
August 19, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Looking forward to new titles in the Experrecta Series (student editions of Latin texts written by women):
August 18, 2025 at 3:49 PM
The road to fig compote:
August 16, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Figs ripening right up...
August 14, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Me? Just spending the morning with a Stephanus edition. No biggie.
August 13, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Oh no, I planted too many cherry tomatoes!

Quick! Does anyone here want ten thousand ripe cherry tomatoes?
July 31, 2025 at 5:29 PM