Sophia’s Visions, Part 12. Rome’s great rival in the east: Carrhae, the meeting on the Euphrates in 1 CE, Trajan’s war and the Jewish revolt of 115–117 that devastated Alexandria. A C1 English lesson on nominalisation, with a gamebook.
Alexandria · the 754th year since the founding of Rome · 1 CE
Sophia’s Visions, Part 12 · Nominalisation: writing like a historian · C1
Think first. Why do great powers so often believe they can conquer everything, even when history tells them otherwise?
While you read, notice how Philo, when he talks like a scholar, turns actions into nouns: the defeat of Crassus, the return of the standards, the destruction of the community.
Philo: “That day the news came from the Euphrates, and Marcos was the proudest Roman in Alexandria. Read what came after.”
Marcos burst into the reading room waving a letter. “Gaius Caesar has met the king of Parthia!” he shouted. “On an island in the middle of the Euphrates! The Roman army on one bank, the Parthian army on the other, and the two of them in the middle, eating dinner together like brothers! My uncle was there!”
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