“... second time, according to an estimate quoted by Mattern, a quarter of the empire’s inhabitants may have been killed. Even when infection was kept at bay, wars and gladiatorial combat dealt horrific wounds to adult males. The city of Rome, despite its architectural beauty and cultural sophistication, was a cesspool of disease. Into this world strode ...”

“... Sylvie’s life continues to flow, and finally there is a veiled suggestion of movement that may or may not become an escape. ‘Something is pushing them/To the side of their own lives,’ Larkin observed of a group of young mothers gathered on a recreation ground. Motherhood and death, often juxtaposed, shape the ...”

“... detect the ultraviolet spectrum, see something very different when they look at one another. Wires may be right to invoke the biblical notion of uncleanness, though not for the reason she gives. In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas identifies ‘unclean’ creatures as those that inhabit multiple realms and live between categories. That’s the source of their ...”

“... parties? Lucas has been a successful MP, but if the Greens do gain seats in this election, she may discover that some things are more easily achieved on one’s own: one of them is maintaining an ‘anti-party’ image. In 2011, the Greens took minority control of Brighton and Hove City Council. The results have left the party open to questions about its ...”

“... of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome were reported that seemed to be associated with the virus. In May 2015 the first confirmed indigenous cases of Zika virus infection were reported in north-east Brazil. Since then it has spread across the country, and so far has appeared in Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Central America, Paraguay and other South ...”

“... of a potash mine in the Thuringian forest. This is where American troops found the coffin in May 1945; in Operation Bodysnatch, they discreetly transported it to Marburg and then, seven years later, allowed it to be quietly buried in the chapel of a castle near Hechingen. Following the reunification of Germany, Frederick could finally be interred where ...”

“... for his Republican rivals during the primaries, but then they were talking to Republicans, who may see bullying as a fact of life, feel a bit bullied themselves, and indeed nominated the candidate who sold himself as a national bully. The Democrats ask: do you want your children looking up to a president who’s a bully? Children were ever part of the ...”

“... of his portrayal of objects and rituals indicating the Jewish origins of Christianity – it may well be because of his friendship with Van Almaegien. He appears to have been very knowledgeable about the Jewish gnosticism from which early Christianity arose. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was an adept of the radical heretical Movement of the Free ...”

“... such as Gerrit van Honthorst responded to Caravaggio. Christ before the High Priest (1617) may be a familiar fixture of the National Gallery but in this company its candlelit Jesus shines out as a beacon of intelligent non-violent resistance. The relation of this Dutch positivity to developments in Rome may be partly ...”

“... in justice.’ It is, however, perfectly possible to produce crime fiction without that faith. It may even help not to have it. What if all the reasons Monsiváis gave for the non-existence of crime fiction in Mexico turned out to be its enabling conditions? There have been successful Mexican crime writers both before and since Monsiváis’s essay – Rafael ...”

“... surges up out of almost nowhere. Sometimes it is the only sort available, and to believe in it may be the only way of getting things done. The existence of Crudo, the first novel by Olivia Laing, who has written three books of non-fiction, was first announced on Twitter on 1 August 2017: Tipsy over dinner, I have come up with a quartet of novels which I am ...”

“... the capacity of historians to do their work and exerts a wider chilling effect. It may deter – it may be intended to deter – historians from embarking on difficult or sensitive research.’ There is also evidence of interference in the museum sector, where trustees have apparently been threatened by the ...”

“... idea that structures of knowledge are multiple and simultaneous is repeated across the book:Peace! May all glory be to thee, Giver Supreme.Peace! May all glory be to thee, Giver Supreme.In some parts of Africa, they call it Mulungu, but it is the same Giver.The Zulu call him Unkulunkulu, but he is the same Giver.Others call ...”

“... hotels with sea views whose faded grandeur make them ideal for conversion into care homes. Last May, seventeen residents died from Covid-19 in one such care home in Margate, but mass deaths in care homes were a scandal all over Britain and hardly peculiar to Thanet.A more likely reason for the rapid spread is that many people had good reasons for not ...”

“... than the ruins of Ephesus or Leptis Magna.Walcott imagined Port au Spain as ‘how Athens may have been before it became a cultural echo’, but in Trinidad too, the neoclassical echo of imperialism obtrudes on the green lawns and pink blossoms of Queen’s Park Savannah. Architraves in the tropics are no more inauthentic as evocations of antiquity ...”