Speaking about Rome

As most of this summer has been exceptionally wet and dull, I have had no real qualms about spending a good part of it inside a small recording studio reading –and getting paid for doing so. The current volume I am recording as an audiobook is "Roman Sculpture" –which contains over 450 pages of text in two columns, and is quite a trial because it contains a multitude of Roman and Greek names –some quite obscure– that need to be researched for pronunciation purposes. Juicy names like Flamininus, Epaminonades and Zeuxis. Nobody in Rome seemed to have simple names, like Fred or Bob, no, they had to have long double and triple names that rolled about one’s mouth like marbles, with little regard or thought for the future recorder of audiobooks... Try saying Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces or Domitius Ahenobarbus a couple of times in the middle of a sentence and you realize that Romans must have had pretty good diction. My reasoning is that reading and recording this book is going to improve my diction too!