Privy to Livy ... Proviso-a-Go-Go?

Russell T.'s sight reading session is one of the few true joys of my week, outside of the Roche or course. He walked us through part of book one like a timeless tour guide on a gentle Autumn morn.

Let the world know that there's little in this world more soothing than Russell T.'s casual delivery. And the man knows good beer.

But there are many things in this world which stand in violent contrast both to Russel T. and to Livy.

Some of those things are the Latin letters of the Church fathers, one of which you've read about recently. But light finds a way even in the darkest of places, here in a letter of Augustine (who is infinitely more readable than Paulinus and quickly repairing my opinion of Late Latin).

On the first page of a letter written by Augustine to Jerome I found not one but two Proviso clauses, one positive, one negative, and each construed with a different adverb. So without further ado, the Proviso clause, stolen from A&G:

CLAUSES OF PROVISO

§528. Dum, modo, dummodo, and tantum ut, introducing a Proviso, take the Subjunctive. The negative with these particles is nē:

* ōderint dum metuant (Off. 1.97) , let them hate, if only they fear.
* valētūdō modo bona sit (Brut. 64) , provided the health be good.
* dummodo inter mē atque tē mūrus intersit (Cat. 1.10) , provided only the wall (of the city) is between us.
* tantum ut sciant (Att. 16.11.1) , provided only they know.
* modo nē sit ex pecudum genere (Off. 1.105) , provided [in pleasure] he be not of the herd of cattle.
* id faciat saepe, dum nē lassus fīat (Cato R. R. 5.4) , let him do this often, provided he does not get tired.
* dummodo ea (sevēritās) nē variētur (Q. Fr. 1.1.20) , provided only it (strictness) be not allowed to swerve.
* tantum nē noceat (Ov. M. 9.21) , only let it do no harm.

NOTE.--The Subjunctive with modo is hortatory or optative; that with dum and dummodo, a development from the use of the Subjunctive with dum in temporal clauses, § 553 (compare the colloquial so long as my health is good, I don't care).

The Hortatory Subjunctive without a particle sometimes expresses a proviso:--

* sint Maecēnātēs, nōn deerunt Marōnēs (Mart.Mart. 8.56.5 ) , so there be Mœcenases, Virgils will not be lacking.

The Subjunctive with ut (negative nē) is sometimes used to denote a proviso, usually with ita in the main clause:--

* probāta condiciō est, sed ita ut ille praesidia dēdūceret (Att. 7.14.1) , the terms were approved, but only on condition that he should withdraw the garrisons.

NOTE.--This is a development of the construction of Characteristic or Result.

For a clause of Characteristic expressing Proviso, see § 535. d.

nursery rhymes for old people

today we introduced our greek class to the fact that, in greek nouns of the first declension, etas turn into alphas after epsilon, iota and rho (or, rather, etas go back to the alpha found in other dialects, about which subject i'm sure dennis will have something to say). to help remember this, i came up with a little rhyme. i haven't shared it with the class yet, but i'm thinking about it. it goes like this:

epsilon, iota, rho,
etas all to alpha go.

classics from a different culture

it was recently Rosh Hashana. Thus, here is merriam-webster's word-of-the-day for 16 september:

shofar \SHOH-far\ noun

: a ram's-horn trumpet blown by the ancient Hebrews in battle and during religious observances and used in modern Judaism especially during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur

Example sentence:
The first blast of the shofar echoed within the sanctuary, announcing the beginning of the High Holy Days.

Did you know?
One of the shofar's original uses was to proclaim the Jubilee year (a year of emancipation of Hebrew slaves and restoration of alienated lands to their former owners) or the anointing of a new king. Today, it is mainly used in synagogues during the High Holy Days. It is blown during the month of Elul (the 12th month of the civil year or the 6th month of the ecclesiastical year in the Jewish calendar) until the end of Rosh Hashanah and again at the end of the last service on Yom Kippur as reminders to attend to spiritual matters. The custom is to sound the shofar in broken notes resembling sobbing and wailing followed by a long unbroken sound.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

and, in case you're interested, here is a little bit more about it:

ROSH HASHANAH:
Origins

By: Amy J. Kramer

Rosh Hashanah, which literally means the head of the year, commemorates the anniversary of the creation of the world. It is celebrated on the first and second days of the seventh Hebrew month, Tishri. Depending on the solar calendar, Rosh Hashanah occurs in September or October.

Rosh Hashanah, when all living things are judged, is often referred to as the beginning of the Jewish New Year. However, the Hebrew month of Nissan, in which Passover is celebrated, is the first month of the Jewish calendar.

Rosh Hashanah is actually only one of four symbolic Jewish new year celebrations. The Talmud identifies these as:

* Nisan: The Hebrew month of Passover marks the birth of the Jews as a free
nation. It was also the symbolic new year day for kings.
* Elul: The Hebrew month preceding Rosh Hashanah was the symbolic new year for
tithing animals, an ancient form of giving tzedakah, or charity;
* Shevat: The Hebrew month of the holiday, Tu Bishvat, was the symbolic new year
for trees.
* Tishri: The Hebrew month of Rosh Hashanah, was the symbolic anniversary of the
creation of the world.

The commandment to observe Rosh Hashanah is found in the second and third books of the Torah, the five books of Moses:

In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation... and you shall bring an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Leviticus 23:24-5

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a holy day; you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day when the shofar is trumpeted. Numbers 29:1

The first two days of Tishri were not called Rosh Hashanah until Talmudic times. Jewish leaders of the day may have been reluctant to promote large celebrations around a fall new year because moon festivals were common among pagan religions. Many Near Eastern religions, for example, celebrated divine coronation festivals in the Fall.

By the fourth century, B.C.E., when the Jews returned from Babylonian exile to build the second temple, Rosh Hashanah was well established. By the time of the Mishnah, the codification of Jewish oral traditon, Rosh Hashanah had developed a more serious tone. Now, having suffered the loss of the second temple, Rosh Hashanah emphisized the anniversary of creation, and of G-d as judge, dispensing mercy or justice to those who do or do not repent their sins.

The Torah refers to Rosh Hashanah as Yom Teruah, the day of sounding the shofar, the traditional ram's horn. It is also called Yom Ha'Din, the day of judgement as well as Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembering. Yom Hazikaron is a reference to the patriarch Abraham who offered his only son, Isaac, to G-d as proof of his obedience. As the result of his readiness to sacrifice Isaac, G-d caused a ram to appear and be killed instead. According to Jewish tradition, this sacrifice is believed to have occurred the first of Tishri.

Today, aside from liturgical additions and literary interpretations made by poets during the Middle Ages, the customs, traditions, mood and spirit of Rosh Hashanah remain basically unchanged.

don'tne you want your syntax lesson for the day?

continuing on the question theme from yesterday, here's today's syntax point (from AG):

When the enclitic -ne is added to a negative word,--as in nonne,--an AFFIRMATIVE answer is expected. The particle num suggests a NEGATIVE answer.

how does this rhetoric accentuate my figure?

that's right, kids--it's the moment you've all been waiting for. drumroll please...and today's rhetorical figure is...

HYPERBATON: violation of the usual order of words. for examples of this, read ANYTHING by ausonius or paulinus of nola. an example in english might be: 'read this really to letter hard is' instead of 'this letter is really hard to read'. to put a normal english sentence into hyperbaton, i recommend that you simply think about the sentence for a moment, then think about what it would sound like if yoda said it, and then write that down.

putting the 'syn' back in syntax

and here is a latin syntactical rule for you today (courtesy of allen & greenough):

A question of SIMPLE FACT, requiring the answer YES or NO, is formed by adding the enclitic -ne to the emphatic word.

as the day has gone on today and i have continued attempting to read the correspondence of augustine and paulinus, i have been further confirmed in my belief that 'quod' is the most difficult word in the latin language. perhaps this will warrant a post in futurum.

that is all for now.

trope time

here is today's rhetorical figure:

PARONOMASIA: the use of words of like sound. for example: 'dennis the menace'. or: 'the sound wound down'. you could say that at the end of a concert given by one of your heavy-metal jerks. remember: for the price of two of their CDs, you could get a thucydides OCT--in the words of JHG, a priceless treasure forever.

cui dono lepidum...

i'm too tired tonight to write my catullus post. in lieu of that, though, i'd like to inaugurate a new feature, which is shamelessly self-serving, but which i also hope is helpful to our loyal readers. to wit: we shall now commence our review of rhetorical figures and tropes, taking our starting point from the allen and greenough's 'new latin grammar'.

today's figure is ANTONOMASIA--the use of a proper for a common noun, or the reverse.

examples:

sint Maecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones: so there be patrons (like Maecenas), poets (like Vergil) will not be lacking, Flaccus (Mart. viii. 56. 5).

illa furia et pestis: that fury and plague (i.e. Clodius).

Homeromastix: scourge of Homer (i.e. Zoilus).

Catullus 50: Poetry 'Couched' in Erotic Terms

Many people seem intent on defending Catullus against charges of homosexuality, and apart from being stupid, it's unnecessary.

Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi
multum lusimus in meis tabellis,
ut convenerat esse delicatos:
scribens versiculos uterque nostrum
ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc,     5
reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum.
Atque illinc abii tuo lepore
incensus, Licini, facetiisque,
ut nec me miserum cibus iuvaret
nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos,     10
sed toto indomitus furore lecto
versarer, cupiens videre lucem,
ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem.
At defessa labore membra postquam
semimortua lectulo iacebant,           15
hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci,
ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem.
Nunc audax cave sis, precesque nostras,
oramus, cave despuas, ocelle,
ne poenas Nemesis reposcat a te.       20
Est vemens dea: laedere hanc caveto.

William C. Scott is typical. In 1969 he wrote a lot of romantic nonsense about a man of genuine taste and perception discovering a true soul and passionately recording the find for posterity. Many who followed him assumed the same and continued to rephrase his sentiments. These scholars tend to write about what the poem is not, ignoring what it is.

It is not, they say, about homosexuality. And after many pages stomping vainly along a path much tread they conclude that Catullus uses erotic imagery to express the depth of his passionate (heterosexual) friendship. Content with the old dust on their shoes they trot away accomplished critics.

We would have been better served had they simply written 'I concur' in Scott's margins and not bloated our journals with pap.

They are right to say that it is not about homosexuality, but that is all, and it is disappointing as Catullus has done his best to make things clear.

1) We traded dirty little verses yesterday over wine.
2) Here's a dirty little verse to tell you how much I enjoyed it.
3) Let's do it again sometimes.

It really is that simple.

This is a poem as much about Catullus' wit and charms as it is about Calvus'. Our poet's use of sexually charged terms that admit often of double meanings is dictated by the brief description of the previous day's activities.

Writing versiculi over wine points to one thing, and that is the erotic epigram. Recall carmen 16. It is precisely for a misinterpretation of his versiculi that Catullus threatens his critics with sexual humiliation. The power of the piece is centered in his declaration that the poet and his work are not one, and that 'it becomes a poet to be chaste,' but not his versiculi. As professor Gaisser noted the kind of poems he is referring are probably not the Lesbia, but poems such as carmen 48, which is a perfect erotic epigram on desire of a youth.

Accepting the versiculi to be what they are elsewhere in Catullus, dirty little verse or erotic epigrams, we can accept the sexual imagery suggested throughout. Ludo is often sex play of any kind, forms of convenio can stand in for coitus (cf. e.g. συνουσία), delicatus refers to illicit sex, jocus to dirty talk, labor first to the work of prostitutes then to sex in general, and membrum means genitals whether singular or plural.

The genius of the piece is in writing about the composition of a certain kind of poetry in its own terms. This is the charm of the piece, and it pretends to nothing more. The passion for a friend is no more expressed than the passion for a lover. The poet is simply having fun.

As scholars writing recently tend to parrot Scott, they overlook a 1979 piece by Maria Carilli which explores elements of Greek epigram in several of Catullus' poems. On poem 50 Carilli points to an epigram by the Alexandrian Hedylos (Carilli points to Gow-Page, but in my haste I couldn't locate it, though the text is taken from Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 11.45.19).

ἐξ ἠοῦς εἰς νύκτα καὶ ἐκ νυκτὸς πάλι Σωκλῆς
εἰς ἠοῦν πίνει τετραχόοισι κάδοις,
εἶτ’ ἐξαίφνης που τυχὸν οἴχεται. ἀλλὰ παρ’ οἶνον
Σικελίδου παίζει πουλὺ μελιχρότερον,
ἐστὶ δὲ δή, πολὺ <δὴ> στιβαρώτερος. ὡς δ’ ἐπιλάμπει
ἡ χάρις, ὥστε φίλει καὶ γράφε καὶ μέθυε.

Odd grammar aside (ὥστε + imperative?), the piece shows the some key themes of the writing session described by Catullus already in place among Alexandrian epigrammatists.

Oddly enough, this poem reads as a Callimachean program.

From dawn into the night and from night back into dawn, Socles, you drink from three-gallon vessels. Then suddenly, somehow, by chance it’s gone! But by the Sicilian’s wine you play much more sweetly, and it is in fact quite a bit stronger. How grace shines forth! So go ahead and love, and write, and get drunk!

The Sicilian, as Carilli reminds us, is Asclepiades, the purported founder of the Alexandrian erotic epigram. Here the poet Socles is encouraged to 'love, write, and get drunk' on the wine of Asclepiades, which is sweeter than his old stock, which has dried up anyway. This is reminscent of Callimachus' claim in the Aetia prologue that poetry is sweeter his way. 'Let others let fly their arrows far against the Mede.'

Asclepiades, however, is known to have praised the Lyde, so his apparent connection with a Callimachean recusatio is bot puzzling and potentially fruitful.

Carilli points out too that Nemesis is a stock figure at the ends of erotic epigrams, and that semimortua is a translation of Philodemus' ἡμιθανές, a reference to his half-limp penis (AP 11.30).

In addition, no one has paid much attention to the verb versarer which stands at the start of line 12, and which conjures the writing of verse as it describes the poets 'limbs' rolling around restless on his bed. This is an explicit clue from the poet that the poetry is meant by the image of the lover's body.

One last note before I go. The phrase 'illinc abii ... incensus' has led most people to assume that Catullus was returned from a party at Calvus' house, and this has even prompted one old editor to wonder whether the text should be emended to read 'in tueis tabellis.'

There is no reason for this. Illing need not be treated as a concrete term, 'from that place,' but can instead be treated metaphorically (it is even used to refer to people). I suggest 'and from that (experience) I have come away (into a state of being) inflamed by your wit.' Abii often means 'to come away' into a certain state, rather than to physically depart from a physical place. 'In meis tabellis' implies that the party took place at Catullus' house, and that our poets prayers in line 18 involve an invitation by Calvus.

today is 14 september

you heard me right. today is september 14. that means that on this day, drusus died in AD 23 and domitian became emperor in AD 81.

also, in honor of our alexandrian class, i thought i would post this brief review of lionel casson's book Libraries in the Ancient World:

In "Libraries in the Ancient World" Lionel Casson discusses all the important topics about ancient writing and libraries, and supplements the chapters on ancient Mesopotamian libraries, the Greek, Alexandrian, and Roman libraries, the evolution of codex from papyrus roll, and the beginning of the Middle Ages, with ample diagrams and useful photographs. Among other intriguing anecdotes, Casson explains the development of parchment from papyrus as the result of a rivalry between Ptolemy V and the king of Pergamum (whence the word parchment), both of whose cities held important libraries. It was parchment on wooden tablets that were later joined together to make the first books. Greek libraries housed scrolls, but provided no room for reading and contained only Greek literature. In Republican Rome, Greek literature was greatly admired, copied by booksellers, and imitated by early Roman writers. Roman libraries in the time of Augustus had two rooms, one for Greek literature and one for Roman, which meant there needed to be some degree of selectivity about what to store, and that, in turn, required competent librarians. In the late Republic, the first public libraries and reading rooms were introduced, and later some were connected with the social centers known as public baths. Although there is a wealth of information in "Libraries in the Ancient World," Casson writes so that a reader can breeze through Libraries in the Ancient World.

essays on demand

here is an article comparing alexander pope and eminem (thanks to classics in contemporary culture for the link).

New Weekly Feature!

Mark your calendars kids because by this time tomorrow you should find not one but two original contributions to Catullan poetics right here at the Campus.

Expect this feature to recur weekly, though we'll move beyond the Big Cat soon enough.

So on tomorrow's plate:

Eric on Carmen I
Dennis on Carmen L

Be there!

thoughts on euergetism

here are peter jones' thoughts on 'ancient and modern' from the spectator for 11 september 2004:

Today’s rich are not, apparently, giving enough of their wealth to good causes. The ancients would have known why.

Euergesia — ‘benefaction, philanthropy’ — had always been seen as a virtue of the well-born Greek (for Aristotle it was an act that characterised the ‘magnificent’ man). It was, therefore, highly popular among the great and good of the Hellenic world, as the vast number of inscriptions and statues attesting such ‘euergetism’ indicate, whether erected by the euergetist himself or a grateful people. The culture spread to Rome too. Pliny the Younger, for example, endowed his home town, Como, with a school and a library, and in his will bequeathed it a public bath and a capital sum to give everyone a free annual dinner. The emperor himself was the ultimate euergetist: public buildings, banquets, free bread, extravagant games, cheap baths, etc., were all treated as if they were personal benefactions to the Roman people.

In 5th-century bc Athens, however, where radical democracy reached its full flowering under Pericles, the culture of liberal benefaction was slightly frowned on. The reason was that the citizens saw each other as equals, and suspected any citizen who lavished benefactions on others of trying to gain political ascendancy. If benefaction, therefore, was not to dry up, it would have to be under the Assembly’s direction. As a result, Athenians invented the leitourgia system (our ‘liturgy’), under which the 300 richest citizens in each year were ordered to subsidise a number of state activities, like the annual drama festivals, equipping a trireme, and so on.

This sounds like a New Labour paradise, but unfortunately we already have a tax system that achieves the same purpose all too well. Is the state, then, the universal euergetist? No. It certainly sets itself up as the universal provider, but simply grabs our money and spends it how it likes. The point about ancient euergetism is that it was personal and reciprocal: it served the interests of the giver — everything from patriotic display to political self-advancement — as well as that of the recipient.

There will always be saints to whom the ‘what’s in it for me?’ mentality is anathema. In their absence, however, good causes will be properly served again only when the giver is as much the ‘good cause’ as the cause to which he is giving.

it's merMAN!!!

well, i didn't think i'd soon see the day where i would stumble across such an obvious connection between the roman 'neoteric' poets and the critically-acclaimed, ground-breaking film zoolander. but i just did, in t.p. wiseman's book Cinna the Poet. i quote (p.55):

Calvus' "Io" was about the girl whom amorous Jupiter made into a heifer, while the subject of Cornificius' "Glaucus" was presumably the fisherman turned merman whose inamorata Scylla was changed by Circe into a sea-monster.

the crucial word to note here is 'merman', which also appears in zoolander in the pivotal bar-scene involving derek and his estranged father. i did not know that this word had an existence outside of the movie.

but boy am i glad it does.

quote of the day

'Don't lose sleep over Greek. EVER. It's a nice language. Sort of.'
--RH, 9/13/04

runner-up:

'Adjectives--they're just like nouns! Yay!!!'
--RH, 9/13/04

Last night's Greek sight-reading went really well, and the pizza was well appreciated.

Thanks go out to Eric for organizing the new weekly event, and for preparing the material and conducting the night like a pro.

Odd looks go out to Jason for dressing like a professor.

a ground-breaking new theory

Not really, but I thought I should share my lunacy with our faithful readers lest they think sanity a cohort of the academy. Be warned. This is what a poor upbringing in Latinity and too little sleep produces.

It is my contention that the gerund and the gerundive are wholly unrelated.

I've been wondering for a while about the old Indo-European -r/-n stems and the Latin gerund. We know that the infinitive is used in place of the nominative and the accusative of the gerund. We also know that the infinitive and the gerund are both old verbal nouns. Even if they did not initially comprise a de-verbal -r/-n declension (e.g. Gk. u(dwr, u(datos wherein the -a- is a vocalized nu), it may be helpful to treat them so. A simple example:

N. amare, 'loving'
G. amandi, 'of loving'
D. amando, 'to/for loving'
Ac. amare, 'loving'
Ab. amando, 'by loving'

The one wrench thrown in the works here is the accusative with a preposition, which would befor example 'ad amandum.' This has doubtless arisen through comparison with the gerundive, which I think was originally the middle participle equivalent to Greek -menos. Sihler treats of this possibility briefly, though the evidence for a shift from *-mnos to -ndus is at best unclear.

But I find it helpful to think of it all this way because the gerund and gerundive are not given the attention due in early education and, much like the supine, are a source of endless difficulty for people like me who learned Latin from underprepared grad students through a high school textbook.

If we treat the Latin gerund in this way, its primary difference from the Greek infinitive is in that it expresses case through inflection while the Greek does so through the article.

If you think that's crazy, wait until I post my thoughts about the supine.

UPDATE: I found a document on my computer filled with things like this, and here's the section on -nd-. The Greek and the macrons require a good unicode font, so enter the 21st century already:

nd infix (as in the so-called gerundive—but not in the gerund.)

This is best treated as an old marker of the middle voice. The gerundive would then properly be a present middle participle [cf. verbal adjectives in (u)ndus, which are participial and often have reflexive force].`

A&G collect together with this the suffixes minus and mnus, which are found in some old participial nouns like fēmina and alumnus. This was prescient on the part of A&G as the most attractive formal explanation for the gerundive suffix is a syncopated middle participle ending of the ομενο type familiar from Greek. Why mn should result in nd at some stage of Latin development is presently beyond us, but some brave adherent of the comparative method may find a sliver of evidence in the following pair:

Gk. τέμνω, L. tondeō , “to cut”

In much the same way that the supine is compared with and taught alongside the perfect passive participle on the grounds of a formal coincidence , the so-called gerundive is named after the gerund on the basis of its ending alone.

The mysterious gerund, like the supine (and to a lesser extent the infinitive), is simply an old type of verbal noun gone defective and used only in special constructions.

quote of the day

on the interpretation of the use of the imperfect tense in ancient greek as a way to be able to make statements about an author:

'You'll find articles written on this: "His use of the imperfective tense there shows that...he was crazy, or that he had been drinking, or blah blah blah."'
--R. Hamilton, 9/10/04

runner-up:

'[The sentence] says, "Virtue is the origin of life for a man." Of course, chaos is the origin of life for a man, according to Hesiod.'
--R. Hamilton, 9/10/04

did you know?

did you know that the sinologist owen lattimore, brother of classicist richmond lattimore (who was a cryptographer for the U.S. in WWII) was accused of being in cahoots with the Communist Party and was denounced by Sen. Joseph McCarthy? I didn't. for more views, see also here and here.

i can't think of a title

since we had a calendar feature the other day, i thought i would also include this description of the roman calendar, found here, and perhaps also will soon post about the athenian calendar:

Prior to the reform (replacement is a better word) of the calendar by Julius Caesar, the Romans used a calendar which was made up of twelve familiarly-named months of varying lengths: Martius, Maius, Quintilis (later known as Julius), and October each had 31 days; Ianuarius, Aprilis, Iunius, Sextilis (later known as Augustus), September, November and December each had 29 days; Februarius had 28 days. That provided for a 355-day year which is, probably uncoincidentally, the length of a lunar year. Obviously it wouldn't take very long for such a calendar to get out of whack with reality, so it was the practice (apparently) to regularly 'intercalate' a month (i.e. insert a new month) of 22 (sometimes 23) days in alternating years after the festival known as Terminalia (Feb. 23). This month was referred to as Intercalaris and would have the last five days of February added onto it, resulting in a month of either 27 or 28 days. [Something I've never quite figured out: given the apparent importance of birthdays to the Romans (to judge by epigraphy), when they claimed to have lived 'x number of years, x number of months, x number of days', how long were the years?].

Unfortunately even with the provisions for intercalations, the calendar of the Roman Republic often went out of whack anyway and Julius Caesar decided to fix things once and for all (or so he thought). By virtue of his being pontifex maximus, he threw out the old calendar and replaced it with a calendar which had 365.25 days, which astronomers in Egypt and elsewhere had long known to be the actual length of a 'tropical year'. Caesar also fiddled with the number of days in the months to what we are used to, and made provisions for an extra day in February (February 24 happened twice; that would be handy if you had a term paper due, no?). Unfortunately, because the Romans counted inclusively and the folks who told Caesar about this calendar didn't, subsequent pontifices were adding a day every three years instead of every four, and so Augustus would later have to correct this.

The final thing to note about the Roman calendar is that they had a somewhat peculiar system of deciding the 'number' of the day. The first day of every month was known as Kalendae (the 'kalends'); the fifth day (or, in certain months, the seventh) was referred to as Nonae (the 'nones'), the thirteenth (or, in certain months, the fifteenth) was referred to as Idus (the 'Ides'). All other days were referred to by counting backwards from these fixed points in the month. And so, for example, while the Roman equivalent of January 1 would be Kalendae Ianuariae (often abbreviated Kal. Ian.), January 2 would be designated ante diem IV Nonas Januarias (IV Non. Ian). And since January is a day when the 'Nones' falls on the equivalent of the fifth, January 4 was designated pridie Nonas Ianuarias (pr Non. Ian).

The upshot of all this is that This Day in Ancient History provides the date equivalencies according to the calendar implemented by Julius Caesar, using the peculiar system of designating days described above. In some cases, this will be somewhat anachronistic, especially when providing day equivalencies for events which happened (or festivals celebrated) prior to this reform (e.g. there was no such thing as September 30 prior to Julius Caesar's calendar). As far as I'm aware, though, ceteris paribus, the days will only be one or two days off and I'm sure that won't offend the pax deorum.

Paulinus, don't malign us!

Erock has been keeping the Campus going strong for all our faithful readers, while in the meantime I've been trying to re-learn how to read Latin. It may not be the best idea to do that through 5th c. Latin written in three different meters and often with little regard for the comfortable conventions of Latin syntax.

The good thing is that I've hit a stride and have pounded through more than three hundred lines today.

The bad news is that I failed to pass both the Greek and Latin sight exams. I was congratulated 'for attempting both,' which I thought a bit odd, and was told that my Menander was fine but the rest of the Greek 'not so.' After spending a semester with Plato, Lysias, Thucydides, and Gil Prose, and having never so much as glanced at a page of Menander before the exam, I found that a little difficult to understand.

But there you have it. I'm tempted to change an option on the poll. I should probably add Menander since that's apparently all I can read well enough anyway.

On a completely unrelated note, this computer in the library saves information entered in forms on web pages, and when I tried to enter a title just now one entry in the list read, '26 yo in philly burbs looking for younger guys for a lt.'

Now, I don't know what 'a lt' means (a loose time? a little tender-lovin'-care? a laser-tag tournament?) but what I do know is this: some 26 year old dude in Carpenter library is trying to meet 'younger guys.'

Not that I'm here to out anybody.

quote of the day

'"War is to men as marriage is to women." That's the only smart thing Jean-Pierre Vernant ever said. [The idea of looking at cultures from the perspective of both genders] made him immortal. But he said a lot of stupid things, too.

--R. Hamilton, 9/8/04

the runner-up:

[After translating a sentence reading, 'The sun brings the beginning of life to men.'] 'Now, that sounds like philosophy. Some people say it's water. Others say it's earth. They're smart, because that's what Hesiod says.'

--R. Hamilton, 9/8/04

more old news

rogue classicism has a nice feature detailing what events of note happened on this day in the ancient world. today, september 7, is day 3 of the ludi Romani--the site links here for an explanation of the games. here it is:

The Ludi Romani

The Ludi Romani (The Roman Games), also known as the Ludi Magni (The Great Games) was arguably the major religious festival of the Romans, although it would appear that, as time went on, the religious elements were largely overshadowed by the various competitions. These games were originally held on September 13, in honour of the Romans' patron god Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose temple was dedicated on the 13th in 509 or 507 B.C. (depending on which source you believe). Over time, the festival was expanded up to the fifth of the month and down to the ninteenth, making for over a half-a-month's worth of festivities. After Julius Caesar's assassination, another day was added (September 4) as one of the many honours decreed to him. For most of the period of the Republic, the Ludi Romani were the responsibility of the curule aediles; later Augustus would transfer their organization to the praetor.

The Opening Procession

We are fortunate that Dionysius of Halicarnassus decided to use the Ludi Romani as an exemplum to demonstrate that the Romans weren't actually barbarians, but put on festivals 'just like the Greeks'. As part of this demonstration, he describes in great detail the opening procession (7.72 ff):


*The consuls (and other magistrates) led the procession from the Capitol down through the Forum to the Circus Maximus
*They were followed by young men (perhaps the collegia of iuvenes?), both on foot and on horseback
*Then came those who were presumably going to take part in the chariot races, with some driving teams of four horses, others driving teams of two, and singles
*They were followed by those who were to take part in the athletic competitions; in the procession they wore only a loin cloth
*Next came groups of dancers, made up both of men and boys. They wore red tunics and bronze belts, a bronze crested helmet, and a sword. They also carried a spear(This is all vaguely reminiscent of the Salii; is there a connection?). They were accompanied by assorted musicians
*They were followed by men dressed as hairy satyrs and Silenoi who impersonated (with obvious rustic humour) the flashy military dancers who preceded them (the Romans had a penchant for mixing the bawdy/obscene with the solemn). They too were accompanied by assorted musicians.
*At this point the procession takes on a more religious tone, with men carrying incense and gold and silver vessels
*Penultimately there came images of the gods, which were carried on fercula (something like a stretcher) on the shoulders of other men. The gods included the 12 Olympians as well as a mix of native Italic and imported divinities (e.g. Saturn, Ops, Themis, The Fates, Mnemosyne, the Muses, the Graces. etc.)
*Finally there came the sacrificial animals.

The Sacrificial Ritual

Dionysius also relates the sacrificial ritual. The consuls presided over the ritual and the attendant priests would ritually wash their hands, then purify the oxen with clean water. The priests also sprinkled the oxen with mola salsa, which was a sort of loose (possibly very loose) cake made from spelt which had been gathered and roasted by the Vestal Virgins (this was a standard feature of most sacrifices at Rome). Attendants were then ordered to carry out the sacrifice, which was done by holding knives beneath the throats of the animals, then thumping them on the temple, which caused them to fall on the knives and be slain [note in passing: this strikes me as having the same impetus as throwing criminals from the Tarpeian rock; in effect, the victim kills themself, thus absolving the sacrificer/executioner from blood guilt]. The animals were then butchered and a piece from the 'inward parts' and from each limb was 'seasoned' with mola salsa and carried in special baskets by the priests to the altar, where it was put on fire and wine poured over them while it was burning. This, of course, was the gods' share, the smoke from which provided them with their means of survival (and maintained the pax deorum). The remainder was cut up and presumably distributed amongst the participants present.

The Ludi Scaenici

From at least 240 B.C./B.C.E. on, ludi scaenici (theatrical competitions) were an integral part of the Ludi Romani. In that year, Livius Andronicus was commissioned by the aediles to translate scenes from Greek comedy and tragedy into different metres and perform them. In the following years, it would appear that a 'Greek style' theatrical competition evolved; the participation of actors as well as folks dressed as satyrs might suggest that some of the dramas might have been more ribald than a Greek like Dionysius of Halicarnassus would have liked. By the time we reach the empire, the performances appear to have been largely confined to mime and especially pantomime (the latter being somewhat akin to a modern ballet, with the participants generally having notorious, Nureyev/Isadora Duncan-like reputations).

The Ludi Circenses

Despite the stereotypical image of Rome's national sport being feeding assorted malcontents to the lions, the only sport which really could lay claim to being 'the national sport' was chariot racing. Given that the procession of the Ludi Romani went to the Circus Maximus, with its capacity of possibly 150,000, it's not surprising that ludi circenses, a.k.a. chariot racing, formed a large part of the festivities. Outside of the thrill of the races themselves the Circus Maximus was also one of the very few venues where seating was not segregated according to sex, and if we believe the poet Ovid, it was a great place to meet and rub shoulders (literally) with future spouses and persons one intended to have a less permanent relationship with.

The other attraction with chariot-racing was gambling. Although the magistrates would have paid for horses, chariots, and drivers for the Ludi Romani, the horses and drivers were still identified by their 'stables' (the Blues, the Greens, the Reds, the Whites -- the latter two possibly being a late Republic development) and the fans were pathologically loyal to their favourite stable (to the extent that they might even bury lead 'curse tablets' to ensure their favourite would win).

Dionysius relates that the first race was a sort of mixed thing, with a race between chariots with differing numbers of horses and equipment. We also hear of races in which there were two people in the chariot, and upon crossing the finishing line, one would jump out and run another lap. There were probably numerous other variations as magistrates tried to make their particular games memorable.

Between races (the number on the 'card' seems to vary), there were often other amusements: jugglers, acrobats, etc. the sort of thing we associate with 'circuses' like Cirque de Soleil). The races at the Ludi Romani seem to have been followed by assorted athletic events, such as boxing, wrestling, and footracing. It also seems likely that the so-called Lusus Troiae, a sort of precision equestrian drill put on by the iuvenes (generally the sons of the rich and famous) was part of these festivities. This ancient version of the "Musical Ride" (a little Canadian content there) supposedly had Etruscan origins and was 'revived' by Augustus.

September 13

As mentioned previously, the festival was originally held on September 13 to commemorate the dedication of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (509 or 507 B.C.). As might be expected, even though the festival expanded in length in both directions, this was the 'high point' of the whole thing and by the late Republic, there were a number of feasts (epuli) to honour Jupiter and/or assorted divinities closely associated with him (they are somewhat confusing). The earliest such epulum, which possibly dates from 509 B.C., if not earlier, seems to be the epulum Iovi which only involved senatorial types. Later we hear of an epulum Iovi, Iunoni, Minervae (i.e. the Capitoline triad) and one in honour of Minerva alone. By the turn of the second century A.D., however, these (and other) epulones required major organization (presumably because more people were allowed to take part in some of them) and so in 196 B.C. we hear of a college of three epulones -- three special magistrates -- whose sole task was to organize such banquets. By the end of the Republic,ten such magistrates were needed.

Returning to the epulum Iovis, it was, as mentioned, confined to senatorial types. It began with a sacrifice, and for the feast that followed, images of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva were set on a couch, dressed up as if they were actually participating in the feast (Jupiter reclined on a couch; Juno and Minerva sat on 'chairs', as proper Roman matrons would have done).

Down to the third century or so, we hear of another ritual being associated with this day (and probably incorporated into the festival). It was on this day when the praetor maximus (later, one of the consuls) would drive a nail into the wall of the temple of Jupiter. Supposedly this was originally done to avert plague, but it evolved into an important annual ritual -- so important that, if there wasn't a magistrate of sufficient rank to perform the ceremony a 'dictator for the hammering of the nail" might be appointed for the task. Later historians would claim to be able to count the nails and so decide when the Republic began.

The Probatio Equitum

In calendars from the Imperial period we read that on September 14, there was an 'inspection of the cavalry'. During the time of the Republic, this regularly had occurred on July 15; it had fallen into desuetude by the time of Sulla and was revived under Augustus. If the probatio equitum on September 14 was anything like the Republican version, the equites (i.e. those who were granted a state-supplied horse) would parade from the Temple of Mars (outside the walls), pass through various parts of the city, the Forum, past the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and possibly finishing at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. They would pause at the Temple of Castor and Pollus and be formally approved by the censors (in the Republic) or the emperor (in the empire). The horsemen wore their 'dress uniforms', as if coming home victorious from battle: wearing olive branches on their heads and purple robes with scarlet stripes (the trabea. They'd also wear whatever 'medals' they had won in battle. During the empire such parades had political overtones, insofar as this was one venue where their official status as an eques was confirmed in a very public way.

on this day in history

according to rogue classicism, on september 6, 1956, michael ventris, decipherer of the mycenaean language linear B, died, having driven his car at high speed into a parked truck. although trained in architecture, not philology, he made one of the most important and stunning discoveries in the history of the discipline. you can read a little bit about him here.
R.I.P.

Another change

I've made the poll more prominent and expect some votes ASAP.

With official business out of the way, I'd like simply to say that reading Late Antique Latin poetry is hell. The syntax stretches the limits of my Latin (or as Eric corrected me the other day, 'it stretches the limits of Latin') and the changes in meter in Paulinus 10 are beginning to give me a nervous tick. He moves from elegiac couplets to Iambic strophes, then alters the character of iambic lines in ways unfamiliar to me so that I wonder if I'm even scanning it correctly, and then I see he picks up with the hexameter about a hundred lines in. It's a good thing he announces early what his meters will be, and really, that's the most impressive part of the poem:

Such things, however, must be given their own place, and driven by the weightier sound of the avenging heroic (viz. hexameter). In the meantime the lighter iambic (iambic strophe) runs ahead for a short while bearing back borrowed words by a different foot. Now elegiac (couplets) wish you well, and the greeting given, as they've made the start and step for the other (metres), they're silent.

Packed in those few lines is battle imagery, and a sort of program of the events to come. I greet you in elegiacs, answer you in iambics, and fight you in epic. I just wish it was comprehensible.

Blogography

Jason remarked recently that he'd visited a blog which listed other blogs in a strict taxonomy: law blogs, literature blogs, film blogs, anthropology blogs, et al. And yet in the end they all wrote about politics.

We haven't had that problem here at the Campus, but without that political crutch posting has been spotty. So I'm challenging myself now (and hope others will follow suit, though Eric is to be commended for his excellent contributions) first to post more often, but more importantly to write meaningful posts within this blog's implied scope.

Struggling through the Epistles of Ausonius and Paulinus alone should afford enough material.

Changes at the Campus

Scroll down to see a new poll (on the left side of your screen, just past the other blogs), through which you just may be able to help me decide on a subject for my thesis.

One other piece of news: I've set up an account with SiteMeter, so I now I'll know exactly how few readers we have!

ancient and modern

did you know that '[e]very week in the London Spectator, Peter Jones compares something that has happened in the week's news with the way things were done in the ancient world'? well, he does, and you can find them here (thanks to classics in contemporary culture for the link).

i'll see your philology, and raise you a philosophy

as dennis will remember, several days ago i lamented to him regarding the following comment from allan bloom's essay 'the study of texts', which can be found in his book giants and dwarfs:

Almost all modern scholarship, beginning with classical philology, started from the assumption that its fundamental ideas were superior to those of the authors it studied and placed these authors in a context alien to them. Even such as idealist and realist, liberal and conservative are profoundly misleading although they seem to us as natural as night and day.

i was chagrined by the assertion that classical philologists, from the very inception of the discipline, saw themselves as prima facie superior to the ancients, for that, it seems, would make those scholars rather uncharitable and condescending toward their predecessors. while i am still not ready to accept this diagnosis in any holistic sense (though i am trying to keep my eyes much more open for evidence thereof), i cannot think it was mere coincidence that, almost immediately after reading bloom's words, i came across this statement in m.i. finley's book the ancient greeks (which, by clicking on the link, you may purchase for as little as $0.47) in his discussion on the dark age and the homeric poems:

Nothing can make up for the nonexistence of contemporary Greek writing, whether narrative or religious or administrative. And so we, like the Greeks, must fall back on the Iliad and the Odyssey. Here again, surprising as it may seem, we know far more than the Greeks, for not only has modern philology made its contribution....

i realize the parallel to bloom's words is not necessarily a close one --there is no use here of labels for the ancients such as 'liberal', 'conservative', or anything else, and he goes on in the same paragraph to rehabilitate the poems as more than 'merely poetic fiction'. but in spirit, perhaps there is a similarity in finley's statement to the very thing which bloom criticizes, viz., that it seems strange to say that we are more knowledgeable about the greeks' own poetry than the greeks were themselves.

chalk one up for brussels

this, via drudge, about who won the olympics, is rather interesting given our conversation last night while playing cards.

GSEMination

I'm just wondering if anyone can walk me through the implications of natality.

five man acoustical jam

dennis: per our conversation earlier today, i thought i would pass along that on the way home today, due to commercials on other stations, i flipped to 93.3, and do you know what came on shortly thereafter? that's right--tesla's version of 'signs'. your positions becomes an increasingly impenetrable citadel moment by moment...

a right angola is exactly 90 degrees

in honor of the sincere interst which dennis expressed to me yesterday regarding the US-angola basketball showdown, i decided to look up angola in the dictionary of cultural literacy. though it is not related to the typical themes of the CAMPVS, i will share it anyway. here's what it says:

'Republic in southwestern Africa on the Atlantic coast, bordered to the north and northeast by Zaire, to the east by Zambia, and to the south by Namibia. Its capital and largest city is Luanda.

'After achieving independence from Portugal in 1976, Angola was the scene of a civil war between its Marxist government, supported by the Soviet Union and Cuban troops, and a rebel organization known as UNITA, which was aided by the United States and South Africa. In 1988 the United States engineered a settlement that led to the withdrwawal of Cuban troops and to South African acceptance of black majority rule in neighboring Namibia.'

while prowling my way around the dictionary, i found myself in the 'business and economics' section. while there, i read the following definition of 'mixed economy':

'An economy that combines elements of capitalism and socialism, mixing some individual ownership and regulation. Some capitalist countries--for example, Great Britain, which has free markets but extensive governmental presence in the economy as an owner of industries and preserver of social services--have mixed economies.'

the second sentence strikes me as (oxy)moronic, since the idea of free markets is incompatible with 'extenisive governmental presence in the economy'. so i looked up their definition of 'free market':

'The production and exchange of goods and services without interference from the government or from monopolies.'

hmmm. and what do we find under 'monopoly'?

'The exclusive control by one company of a service or product.'

and if we, in our most reaganite fashion, conceive of government as a corportation or business, what do we have except a monopoly when the government is 'an owner of industries'? and since monopolies are antithetical to free markets, how can the idea of a 'mixed economy' be anything but silly doublespeak?

thus ends, for the moment, my foray into 'the dictionary of cultural literacy'.

this ain't no warrior princess

you will all enjoy merriam-webster's word-of-the-day from august 14 because of its greek roots, AND because of the 'did you know?' section which discusses new latin. thus, i present it to you:

xenophobia \zen-uh-FOH-bee-uh\ noun

: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

Example sentence:
I always thought it was odd that Gene, whose xenophobia precluded travel beyond the state border, chose to become a travel agent.

Did you know?
If you look back to the ancient Greek terms that underlie the word "xenophobia," you'll discover that xenophobic individuals are literally "stranger fearing." "Xenophobia," that elegant-sounding name for an aversion to persons unfamiliar, ultimately derives from two Greek terms: "xenos," which can be translated as either "stranger" or "guest," and "phobos," which means either "fear" or "flight." "Phobos" is the ultimate source of all English "-phobia" terms, but many of those were actually coined in English or New Latin using the combining form "-phobia" (which traces back to "phobos"). "Xenophobia" itself came to us by way of New Latin and first appeared in print in English in 1903.

Some thoughts on modern linguistics

There is nothing more distracting in modern academic prose than the overuse of quotes, or what the Brits call inverted commas.

I'll demonstrate:

There is nothing more 'distracting' in modern 'academic' prose than the 'overuse' of quotes, or what the 'Brits' call 'inverted commas.'

John Lyons's Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics abounds with inverted commas as in this sentence:

But in both Greek and Latin there are 'exceptions' to the 'sound laws.'

More often than not the author's motivation is clear, and he deserves the wrath of Dr. Fowler:

superiority. Much misplaced ingenuity in finding forms of apology is shown by writers with a sense of their own superiority who wish to safeguard their dignity and yet be vivacious, to combine comfort with elegance, to touch pitch and not be defiled. Among them are: To use an expressive colloquialism—in the vernacular phrase—if the word may be permitted—so to speak—in homely phrase—not to put too fine a point upon it—if the word be not too vulgar—as they say—to call a spade a spade—not to mince matters—in the jargon of today—or the use of depreciatory inverted commas. Such writers should make up their minds whether their reputation or their style is such as to allow of their dismounting from the high horse now and again without compromising themselves.

Lyons, like so many other academics, is too busy being superior by avoiding language that might be perceived as authoritative that his book ends up a bland soup of non-committal nonsense in which the only accepted terminology is that of contemporary theory. This has something to do with the fact that most academics today view the world as a series of binary oppositions and choose the novelty of opposing tradition in some hyper-extended effort to challenge daddy's authority. Along with this there is often necessary the fallacy of ascribing to one's opponent positions he has never taken. The shadowy tradition that modern academics are always railing against is guilty most often of intellectual hubris and the sin of certainty, yet under the dimmest light it often becomes clear that our forebears had better command of their language than modern scholars who trump up false ambiguity as a weapon.

Philologists of the past published what they termed laws (e.g. Grassmann's Law, or Rask's, which is improperly called Grimm's Law), and Lyons faults them for the presumption of truth or certainty because they themselves didn't qualify law by inverted commas. Perhaps someone should buy Lyons and his friends a dictionary. A law is not a universal and eternal truth discovered by man, but a technical formulation imposed or a general principal agreed upon by men, and is always open to modification, retraction, and replacement. That is the definition of the term, that's what it meant to the men who published laws, and that's what it will always mean in their texts even if the popular sense of the term has shifted today. (It seems to me that the inability of modern academics to understand texts written in the past few centuries makes a case for the corruption of language. But I digress.)

Lyons writes as though his predecessors actually believed in laws as active forces working in the universe rather than as models serving to illuminate phenomena. Positivists and 19th century philologists knew that. It's time to strip away from relativists the monopoly they would claim for common sense.

This is why theorists (I shouldn't call them critics -- Housman would turn in his grave) are so fond of deflated terms like truth value and senseless plurals like knowledges (a necessary consequence of the faith of the church of relativism). For them, there is no truth, and all claims to knowledge are equally valid. What matters, then, is tolerance of the 'truth value' and 'knowledges' of others while being sure not to offend. This means qualifying one's own 'truth value' and 'knowledges' by constant appeals to relativism (and yes, those are inverted commas of superiority).

Lyons even has a hard time conceding that the Latin language has a case system, putting case in inverted commas as if to say that the bourgeois Western system of classifying language is an artificial construct that is hardly representative of language as a living thing (though I suppose it will have to do), and moreover it is hardly the only or the best system of classification. Doubtless the persons (or is it peoples?) of Papua New Guinea developed a more noble and equitable system, stamped out by Anglo-Saxon oppressors.

When Lyons asserts that speech does in fact precede writing he pretends that this is a revelation. But when he says that writing is an attempt to represent speech he is showinig his prejudice and lack of understanding. Writing is not an attempt to represent speech any more than speech is an attempt to emulate writing. Writing and speech are two modes of communication, one durable the other ephemeral (excepting sound recording, which requires advanced technology and has little to do with speech as such). Writing and speech take on widely different characteristics in literate culture, and writing admits of countless specialized uses restrictive of speech. It also requires different modes of communicating the same non-lexical information (i.e. emphasis, emotional interest, tone of voice, grammatical relations, etc.). Writing and speech are different things, and language may actually be better understood through traditional writing than through speech because the lack of performative cues and clues requires the writer to use the native grammar to its fullest capacity.

This prejudice in favor of speech becomes clear when we consider sign language, which has more in common with writing than speech, and actually forms the basis for the early pictograms of many written languages. The hearing-impaired may have limited to no speech capacity yet be fully able to process and create language. Further, the primacy of sound in the study of language ignores high-level reading, or what may be truly termed silent reading, in which there is no subvocalization and no mental reproduction of the sounds represented in speech. It is possible to read and to write rapidly without the crutch of the phonetic middleman, just as one easily understands speech without visualizing the written word. The mental reproduction of sound often slows our reading and muddles our comprehension.

The insistance on sound as central to an understanding of language is at the very least immature. Sound factors so heavily in language because of its adaptability and facility, but it has little to do with the fundamental mental processes that constitute language. A community of deaf-mute individuals would be no less capable of language than anyone else, though the mode of communication would of necessity be very different.

leave your PC shoes at the door!

here is merriam-webster's word-of-the-day from august 17, which you will all find interesting, especially the etymological bit:

tartar \TAR-ter\ noun

1 capitalized : a native or inhabitant of a vast historical region in Asia and Eastern Europe roughly extending from the Sea of Japan to the Dnieper
*2 often capitalized : a person of irritable or violent temper
3 : one that proves to be unexpectedly formidable

Example sentence:
On the basketball court, Nate was a Tartar whose undisciplined behavior often got him in trouble with the referee.

Did you know?
Originally, their name was "Tatar," not "Tartar." Since at least the 1200s, the Tatar people have lived in Asia and Eastern Europe, and they were among the fiercest fighters of the Golden Horde of the Mongols. In the 13th century, they rode with Genghis Khan and became the terror of their day. Their name, "Tatar," is believed to come from Persian or a Turkic language, but in Europe it was associated with "Tartarus," the Latin name for the part of Hell reserved for the punishment of the wicked. Because of that association, English speakers began calling the Tatar people "Tartars." Over time, "tartar" came to be used for anyone considered as ferocious or violent as the Tartar warriors who had once ransacked the ancient world.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

Captian Kook is aboard!

And I couldn't be more excited.

I'm so excited that I'll actually post today. And here it is ...

I was reading Cicero's First Catilinarian just now and I came across a line that I thought rocked:

"ubinam gentium sumus? in qua urbe uiuimus? quam rem publicam habemus?"

It reminded me of a line in Churchill's speech following Pearl Harbor:

"What kind of a people do they think we are?"

The story goes that people rose to their feet and applauded for five minute. Now that's what I call oratory.

100,000 chomskyites can't be wrong (or can they?)

here is an interesting factoid from steven pinker's 'the language instinct' (1994):

'Chomsky is currently among the ten most-cited writers in all of the humanities (beating out Hegel and Cicero and trailing only Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, the Bible, Aristotle, Plato, and Freud) and the only living member of the top ten.'

interesting that two commies are among the ten most-cited people EVER by humanities professors.

somone tell me if their experience has been otherwise--but in scholarship on classics, i haven't come across too many references to chomsky. i've found i'm much more likely to happen upon foucault and derrida as the trendiest of all gurus to which one might nod (or, in many cases, offer obeisance).

a bit curious, i do say

i intend to have a post up here soon. but for the time being, i would just like to say that i question the timing of dennis's most recent post regarding gil prose's 'confessions'. i'm not sure WHY i question it, exactly, but, as i've been learning recently, that is of no great moment.

One more reason to develop an opium habit.

The following is an excerpt of Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and it makes me want to drop out of graduate school:

My father died when I was about seven years old, and left me to the care of four guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small; and was very early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease; and at fifteen my command of that language was so great, that I not only composed Greek verses in lyric metres, but would converse in Greek fluently, and without embarrassment -- an accomplishment which I have not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in my case, was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc. "That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one." He who honoured me with this eulogy was a scholar, "and a ripe and good one," and, of all my tutors, was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man's great indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and, finally, to that of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great school on an ancient foundation. This man had been appointed to his situation by -- College, Oxford; and was a sound, well-built scholar, but (like most men whom I have known from that college) coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miserable contrast he presented, in my eyes, to the Etonian brilliancy of my favourite master; and, besides, he could not disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and meagreness of his understanding. It is a bad thing for a boy to bet and know himself, far beyond his tutors, whether in knowledge or in power of mind. This was the case, so far as regarded knowledge at least, not with myself oniy; for the two boys who jointly with myself composed the first form were better Grecians than the head-master, though not more elegant scholars, nor at all more accustomed to sacrifice to the graces. When I first entered, I remember that we read Sophocles; and it was a constant matter of triumph to us, the learned triumvirate of the first form, to see our "Archididascalus" (as he loved to be called) conning our lesson before we went up, and laying a regular train, with lexicon and grammar, for blowing up and blasting (as it were) any difficulties he found in the choruses; whilst we never condescended to open our books, until the moment of going up, and were generally employed in writing epigrams upon his wig, or some such important matter.

when was the last time someone wrote saturnian verse for YOU?

i'd like to thank dennis for the grand poetic tribue composed upon my return. it fills my sails with wind.

but thankfully not with hot air. i've got enough of that on my own.

by the way, i'm trying to get the dave going again, so if any of our loyal readers are interested, feel free not to think twice, it's alright--just go there.

i'm hoping that dennis will indulge some more of his metrical fantasy here soon.

until then...

Saturnine Fever

The Campvs was graced today by Eric's presence as he has finally returned from Italy, so in his honor I shall now compose a Saturnian verse ... in English.

Eric was sorely missed / by the folks at the Campvs.
And now that he's back once more, / we'll surely rejoice.

Okay ... that wasn't very good. And someone else might read it with different stress accents.

I'm going to rad a bunch of articles on Saturnian meter and I'll get back to you.

the fabrication of historical mystery

for an update on keith windschuttle (author of 'the killing of history') and the stirs being caused by his recent book called 'the fabrication of aboriginal history', go the above link and look for the post entitled 'australian 'menace''.

Housmania!

This is my new mantra:

"The prime requisite of a good emendation," said he, "is that it should start from the thought; it is only afterwards that other considerations, such as those of metre or possibilities, such as the interchange of letters, are taken into account."

Moritz Haupt, quoted by AE Housman in "The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism."

who is your daddy and what does he do?

my favorite quote today from t.j. cornell's 'the beginnings of rome', on the somewhat jasonic (to coin a word) king pyrrhus of epirus after his defeat at beneventum at the hands of the romans in 275 BC:

'Pyrrhus then sailed back to Greece where he continued to waste his talents and the lives of his followers in fruitless enterprises. His brilliant but ultimately worthless career came to an end a few years later when he was struck on the head and killed by a rooftile during a street battle in Argos.'

and my favorite quote from plutarch for the day, from his life of tiberius gracchus (tr. scott-kilvert):

'Thus, when they addressed the people, Tiberius always spoke in a decorous tone and remained standing in the same position, whereas Gaius was the first Roman to stride up and down the rostra and wrench his toga off his shoulder, in the same way that Cleon the Athenian is said to have been the first of the demagogues to tear open his cloak and slap his thigh.'

the Dusty Old Textbook Spotlight

I'll pretend this is a recurring feature, like the Housman quotes that never show up.

L.L. Forman's A First Greek Book, published 1899, offered a very novel approach to the Greek textbook: lessons were comprised of headings (e.g. "Conjunction of Sentences") followed by references to the relevant sections in the chief grammars of the day (Goodwin and Hadley/Allen), and finally by Greek examples with few notes and no attempt to explain grammar.

He cautioned that only a teacher who really knows Greek should attempt to use the book, and that his goal was simply to help and not to hinder "the workers," both teacher and student.

What follows is a footnote from the Preface, which hints not only at the state of Greek education at the turn of the last century, but also at the richness of academic prose and the spirit of at least one educator.

Yet if Greek be swept utterly out of our education, the blame will lie not so much with the youth of the country as with us teachers, who yield to their importunities. Because the babe in the cradle cries, we permit it first Option of Study (or of No-Study), then Option of Method. These two Options were, I suspect, the two serpents carelessly allowed to invade the cradle of little Hercules, but strangled by that sensible young hero. Can we hope, however, for this happy issue now?

A text of this type has much to commend it. (I've heard recently about a course in Greek prose composition based on Smyth. Eric?) But this text in particular has many valuable notes in the appendix, "Hints For Teachers."

My only objection so far is his suggestion to omit the dual. It's so easy once you learn it, and only then can you say you have a command of all forms.

How I spent my summer vacation

I finished the Alcestis last night, and will begin reading Aristotle's Poetics with Jason this week. Between all this reading, looking for a place to live, and catching up on sleep I haven't had much time for the Campus. But I do have some choice quotes waiting to be posted, though unfortunately they're not here with me.

In the meantime though, Words of wisdom from the inimitable A.M. Dale:

"The argumentum ex silentio is never weaker than when it tries to make psychological deductions from what Euripidean speeches leave unsaid" (Intro. to Alcestis, xxvi).

I thought I'd be able to get work done in the library but it seems to be overrun with children in the summer. They have sports and music camps, and they come here for the computers and turn it into a party.

Whatever happened to librarians laying down the law?

etruria for sure-ia

my favorite quote from june 22, 2004: 'One of my peculiar areas of expertise is what happened to the Etruscans in the Renaissance' (from a lecture by Dr. Ingrid D. Rowland).

also, on june 22 i learned to read etruscan. ok, so i learned what sounds all the letters make and 4 or 5 words. but that's like 1% of all known etruscan vocabulary, so i figure that's not too bad.

I threw the book at 'im.

I've finally found a practical use for the Tutti i Verbi Greci: crushing spiders.

I was at my carrell yesterday reading the Alcestis when a large spider dropped quickly just in front of my face. Normally I'd leave it be, as spiders do us a great service by eating bugs, but I'd just watched Arachnophobia with my nephew the day before, and this thing looked mean. Luckily a well-timed and perfectly thrown Tutti Fruity (as Dr. K used to say) did the job.

Aside from that the book is largely useless -- at best a crutch and at worst an immense waste of time.

has anyone seen my hippocampus?

i saw the campus martius from afar today.

and it made me think of the CAMPVS MAWRTIVS.

i also met a girl yesterday who went to school with dennis.

the spilling of mystery

i recently received my copy of 'the killing of history'. i don't know when i'm going to have a chance to read it, but i was happy to see that there is a quote from mary lefkowitz on the back cover. i only hope that windschuttle remembered to discuss the issue of the 1st person voice in pindar in his book.

dennis heard about windschuttle via david stove.

roger kimball heard about david stove via keith windschuttle.

i heard about both via...

JEROME, who is, after all, a SAINT.

Hogue's my Hero

I'd like to alert all of our loyal readers to the greatest book ever published on the Greek verb:

Addison Hogue's The Irregular Verbs of Attic Prose: their forms, prominent meanings, and important compounds; together with lists of related words and English derivatives.

Here is a photo of a dapper young Professor Hogue looking not unlike Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday:



In Part I Hogue leads the reader through the principal parts of regular verbs patiently and skilfully, explaining how to form them, what use to make of them, and offering novel insights along the way such as reminding you that ēporēsa must be the aorist of an epsilon contract, and not an alpha contract (remember the eri rule!).

In 15 pages Hogue reinforces everything you've ever learned about regular verbs, teaches you to think about them more clearly, and prepares you to dive into the real meat of the book: the irregular verbs.

He has limited himself to the most common verbs encountered in Attic prose and reassures that we don't need anything more extensive, and I think he's right. The rarer verbs are frankly too rare to memorize and the variants of dialect forms, as Hogue notes, will not prove troublesome once the Attic forms are mastered.

Part II begins with a brief set of preliminary remarks on the logic of the entries to follow which is packed with more good sense about how to think about verbs. Hogue then dives right in to the verbs, and each entry gives the headword, a brief definition, the principal parts and any other forms of interest. This is followed by a series of notes which include points on inflection, usage, and derivative words.

One of the most impressive features is the treatment of compounds. How many times have you been stumped by compounds of histēmi? Here they're all laid out with clear explanations of all uses and shades of meaning.

Addison Hogue, we here at the Campus salute you.

Unfortunately the book is out of print and I am unable to find a copy for purchase ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE. A company called AstroLogos does a print-on-demand copy for over $100, but heck -- I could photocopy this library copy for $14.00 even.

Tearing Down the Hous(e), Man

This is long overdue, but we finally have a new Housman quote. This one is drawn from memory (it preceded an article we'd read for some seminar, probably Vergil's Aeneid).

Housman was quoted as saying that whenever he read Vergil in translation he would say,

Out, hyperbolical fiend! how vexest thou this man!

This, of course, is a quote from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, act 4 scene 2.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

(John Keats)

what is a classicist?

today i read t.s. eliot's essay 'what is a classic?' (given as lecture to virgil society in 1944, published 1945). much to the chagrin and scorn, i suspect, of most modern commentators, he actually has the audacity to make unabashed value-judgments about literature, calling some better than others! he wears his eurocentrism on his sleeve (a bit excessively at times, to my mind). there are a number of aspects to the essay which i enjoy--for example, his attempt to formulate positive definitional criteria by which one may recognize greatness in literature. the one word he centers on to define the 'classic' is 'maturity'. unfortunately, instead of further defining this word in any rigorous fashion, he resorts to the pornography definition ('you know it when you see it'--this line of thinking has always been a little unsettling to me) with a little touch of high-handed dismissiveness:

'To define maturity without assuming that the hearer already knows what it means, is almost impossible: let us say then, that if we are properly mature, as well as educated persons, we can recognize maturity in a civilization and in a literature, as we do in the other human beings whom we encounter. To make the meaning of maturity really apprehensible--indeed, even to make it acceptable--to the immature is perhaps impossible. But if we are mature we either recognize maturity immediately, or come to know it on more intimate experience.'

This is, in the end, though, rather a small point, i think, and does not destroy the essay as a whole. he has some intriguing comments on the development of a 'common style' in the writing of a culture ('A common style is one which makes us exclaim, not "this is a man of genius using the language" but "this realizes the genius of the language") and makes some interesting comparisons of latin literature with english literature (alexander pope being the closest approximation of a 'classic' in the english language).

he crescendoes toward virgil as the epitome of what a 'classic' is, and points toward his universality, over and against the 'proviniciality' (read the essay for his definition) of writers in any modern language (this is not necessarily seen as a detriment). he writes, 'It is necessary to go the the two dead languages: it is important that they are dead, because through their death we have come into our inheritance...'. he claims that individual writers (shakespeare, pope, etc.) may have exhausted one aspect and mode of expression in the english language, but not the whole language itself, whereas virgil exhausted latin's entirety, making it impossible not to work in his shadow in the post-virgilian world. eliot gives a good impression herein of the *feeling* one gets when reading virgil, that feeling of the sheer comprehensiveness of it all.

at any rate, it is well worth reading, if for no other reason than that eliot himself writes with a masterful facility. i leave you with a final comment from him (included mostly for his use of the word 'ruffians', and also for his calling horace a 'plebeian'):

'I think that we are conscious, in Virgil more than in any other Latin poet--for Catullus and Propertius seem ruffians, and Horace somewhat plebeian, by comparison--of a refinement of manner, springing from a delicate sensibility, and particularly in that test of manners, private a public conduct between the sexes.'

nothing to do with dennis

dennis, have you secretly been reading john winkler again?

Historical Document Reveals All!

As I arrived with coffee and breakfast at ye old grad lounge this morning I was met by a bevy of ants on the dining table. I quickly picked up my things, shuffling over to the stiff sofa with its little wooden table that has become somehow a repository of ancient issues of WiReD. Instead of another bold prediction about kitchen robots or cellophane underwear framing a cutting edge design which invariably incorporates neon green and fake terminal fonts, I found the Alumnae Association Reunion Songbook.

I had no idea I'd landed in a gold mine.

This book will doubtless entertain us all through this blog for a long time to come, and I'll begin with a few short snippets.

The first is perhaps more disturbing than amusing. This is the closing verse of the Freshman Show Song of 1980, sung to the tune of If I Only Had a Brain from The Wizard of Oz. It's theme is attaining that elusive perfect GPA, the 4.0:

Oh, I would not just be a dummy

With kids to call me "Mummy"

No, I'd be something more (doo doo doo doo doo doo)

I don't want a 3 point 7

Oh, I'd really be in heaven

If I only had a four!

For the record, your mother is an idiot because she had you. She could have done more with her life, like a Bryn Mawr woman who chases meaningless numbers and disdains the lives of others. This is at once the cult of the academy and the indoctrination of radical feminism. But then again, what would you expect?

My favorite song so far is the Bryn Mawr Girls' Song which one day will posted in full. Here are some choice excerpts:

Oh, you young college from far and near--

When you want some lovin' come flocking here,

And we'll show we do it at Bryn Mawr.

They get bonus points for using the word 'lest' in the next verse, but you'll have to wait for that.

why billy joel has written some of the most important music of all time

guess what? the emperor vespasian instituted a toll on urinals in the city of rome.

Nothing to do with Dionysus

Nor with this blog, but just too funny to let go ...

Echoes of Horace?

Stolen from the Onion:

City Maoist Visits Country Maoist
WUHAN, CHINA—City Maoist Xing Zhen Shengde returned Monday from a visit to Dunyang, where his country Maoist cousin Ni Yuxian resides. "The great Chairman Mao said we would build a socialist society based on agriculture and peasant farming, and that the peasant had the strength of the mountain and the wind in the trees," the urbane Marxist-Leninist reported Tuesday. "Nevertheless, I did not enjoy eating the rotting pig heads that pass for food in that hell-on-earth. Also, all of the peasants wore sandals." Ni said he understands that sturdy shoes must indeed be needed for escaping the muggers and prostitutes on every street corner in Wuhan.

I was in Pittsburgh for the past few days, and shall likely have more to say soon, but I thought I should mention that through Eric's recommendation of the late David Stove I was led to Keith Windschuttle's The Killing of History, which I finished on the train today.

And I highly recommend it. As much as I recommend John Vanderslice's Cellar Door. Up Above the Sea is my early favorite for jam of the year.

legally blonde is the best movie EVER

according to le glay et al., the emperor claudius was quite the writer--a history of rome in over 40 volumes, one of etruria in 20, and one of carthage in 8--and the last two were in greek!

surely, gil prose would be duly impressed.

i'm wearing the same sweater i wore yesterday

there is something i forgot to mention. remember yesterday, when i mentioned the song 'eric's trip' by sonic youth?

well: today i was going through the tower of myriad boxes in my parents' basement full of stuff from my yesteryears. in one box i FOUND MY COPY OF SONIC YOUTH'S 'DAYDREAM NATION', which includes that very song.

if you think that is SWEET, you are correct.

livy-ing it up in my parents' house

i was delighted to come across a future passive infinitive tonight while reading book 1 of livy. yes, this all-too-rare form in 'iri' always brings joy to the heart of american youth. tonight's gem was 'dicatum iri', 'would be dedicated'.

if it's been a while since you've read livy's account of the hercules/cacus episode...well, perhaps you should turn off 'friends' and check it out.

i will feed dennis's obsession

today while reading a general history of rome, i came across a reference to dennis's dude, philodemus. it comes in a section on epicurean teaching concerning the avoidance of involvement in public affairs in the context of the emergence of the empire. i quote:

'Several testimonies to that proposition have come down to us. One of the most striking consists of fragments of a political treatise, 'The Good King according to Homer', written by Philodemus of Gadara, possibly in 45 BC, demonstrating that good kings could exist. Enlightened by wise counselors, it is the duty of the good king to be moderate, to make sure that his personal conduct conforms to the rules of morality, to show himself to be just toward men and pious toward the gods, and to see that unity and peace exist between his subjects.'

(Le Glay, Voisin, Le Bohec and Cherry [tr. Nevill])

there, their and they're

the title of this post is neither here nor there.

still--i have have a hunch (though i am not certain) that one j. rawnsley might rather enjoy this article (which, alas!, i haven't finished reading yet).

i saw aaron kook wearing a wittgenstein costume

there are several reasons why dennis's last post is sweeter than you can shake a stick at.

the first is that the quote in the title mentions a stove, which can be both a late australian philosopher and something in which to burn wood or cook dead animals.

the second is that the band whence the quote comes is called 'eric's trip', and my name is eric.

the third is that sonic youth has a song called eric's trip.

thank you.

now i must go back to doing to doritos what the romans did to carthage in the third punic war.

tomorrow i hope to learn more about romulus and remus and why homer is more interesting than the intellectual sum of the last 200 years.

"Used to wonder if you understood the way I felt about the Stove..." - Eric's Trip

For some reason I couldn't add this as a comment to Eric's blog, but it's equally appropriate here at the Campvs. It's a quote about the late Australian philosopher David Stove, by Roger Kimball at the New Criterion:

With a combination of dazzling philosophical acumen and scarifying wit, Stove does for irrationalism in Karl Popper’s philosophy of science (and that of such illustrious heirs as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend) what the Romans did for Carthage in the Third Punic War: he assaults and destroys it utterly.

That'll pique your curiosity.

Man ... I love these BluBloggers

I hope our loyal fans appreciate the new look of the blog. It took me like 15 minutes of hard work.

(And be sure to check the link up there on the post title if you didn't get the brilliant joke therein contained.)

karate chops for everyone but us

Father Homer, thee,
Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes
Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues
That tease the patience of the centuries,
Thy sleazy scrap of story,--but a rogue's
Rape of a light-o'-love,--too soiled a patch
To broider with the gods.

Thee, Socrates,
Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive
Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies
That were but dandy upside-down, they words
Of truth that, mildlier spoke had mainlier wrought.

--Sidney Lanier, from 'The Crystal'

Everybody must(n't) get stoned ...

Back on the campus again (as well as the Campus, which I guess is pretty obvious) to take care of a few chores and find out why my final paper was "both stimulating and infuriating."

Wasting time between chores I stumbled upon the following from a review of Perseus written by the Rip:

"Perseus offers two features not otherwise available: a database of Greek texts in English; a morphological analysis program. For either of these to be research tools, we must imagine scholars not able to read Greek, a prospect that turns my heart to stone."

Which supports my decision to spend much of the summer on Hesiod and Thucydides. Wish me luck.

She blinded me with science!

I'm crashing at my parents' house untill I find a place to live and I've finally got my desktop PC back on the internet after nearly a year. I've been struggling to get the thing updated, with no luck. But I didn't happen to stumble onto this beaut on some web page's Word of the Day feature and thought I'd share:

CONVOLUTED
Definition:
intricate and complicated
Example:
Although many people bought A Brief History of Time, few could follow its CONVOLUTED ideas and theories.
Synonyms:
snaky, tortuous

Today is that day ... the suicide talk is coming.

The good news is that I've finished my work for the semester. The bad news is that today I get to tell the profs how I think I did, and then get their take.

I've got $10 that says I need to work on presentations.

More to come ... I've been saving up a juicy one from Housman, but now I've got to run.

when you're stuck in the rain in juarez...

speaking of bob dylan, i think i just found the source for the tag-line of 'shelter from the storm' ('come in, she said, i'll give you shelter from the storm'). it is in pindar, isthmian 7, lines 37-39: 'but now poseidon has bestowed on me tranquillity from the storm'. who knew dylan read pindar? i mean, i guess i should have assumed he loved ancient choral lyric as much as the next guy, but to be honest, i wouldn't have guessed his penchants for our dear boeotian. do you think he likes hesiod, too? i could definitely see him digging the old man. and, now that i think about it, i could definitely see bob road-tripping to boeotia and then throwing a reference about it into one of his songs--sort of like his mention of ashtabula.

are you SURE you want to study classics?

'The traditional charges against Classics are as old as Greek culture itself. You all know the litany: "Why would anyone want to borrow money to study that?" "Greek and Latin won't get you a job." The study of Greek is difficult, irrelevant to the modern world, impractical, it is said, and almost unhealthy. Television, the corporations, videos, the economy did it to us, Classicists explain. After all, when a mere B.A. can cost a hundred-thousdand dollars, who can blame today's students--or their tuition-borrowing parents--for confusing educations with job training, for scouring college catalogues for something that looks "practical"? Accounting, hotel management, recreation superivision, and Radio and Sports Reporting...do radiate an unexpected charm. "The Theory of Walking" and "Star Trek and the Humanities"...ensure higher grades with less work than Introductory Greek. As the school loans grow, so does an Aristophanic vision of the Classics graduate as an unemployable couch potato who wields his newly acquired Socratic dialectic to convince his father that money is virtue, virtue is knowledge, and knowledge comes from Star Trek reruns.' (Hanson and Heath, from 'Who killed Homer?')

waiting for dennis to turn over a new page...

is anybody else sad that dennis hasn't posted in a while?

good. i am too. i need my housman fix.

the western way of mawr

i thought dennis would appreciate the fact that a.e. housman is quoted at the beginning of chapter 2 of victor davis hanson's 'the western way of war':

Therefore, though the best is bad,
Stand and do the best, my lad;
Stand and fight and see your slain,
And take the bullet in your brain.

do YOU know what time it is?

well, neither do i. but do you know who manlius theodorus was? well, he was the dedicatee of augustine's dialogue 'de beata vita', written in 386 during a bit of otium liberale. manlius had set a precedent for such a retirement, according to peter brown in 'augustine of hippo', in 383, when he withdrew from public life for a time to write books on philosophy and a treatise on classical meter. he was an admirer of plotinus and a catholic. moreover, the discussions on which the 'de beata vita' is based may have taken place in his house!

what's that you say, han solon?

and now for today's bit of pithy solonic wisdom (as quoted by plato): 'happy the man who has loving sons, horses with uncloven hoof, hunting dogs and a guest from abroad' (fr. 23, as translated in the cambridge history of classical literature).

A.E., I.O.U.

This is the first installment of our newest effort: the not so random A.E. Housman quote.

I'd trade three Nisbets and an M.L. West for his rookie card ...

"Stand on a barrel in the streets of Bagdad, and say in a loud voice, ”Twice two is four, and ginger is hot in the mouth, therefore Mohammed is the prophet of God,” and your logic will probably escape criticism; or, if anyone by chance should criticise it, you could easily silence him by calling him a Christian dog."

yeah, ciminius mons!

and now for the random OCD fact! did you ever want to know what the Ciminius mons is? It's the range of volcanic mountains rising to just over 900 m (c. 3,000 ft.), which separate southern from central Etruria. A crater lake (lacus Ciminius: Lago di Vico) nestles amongst them. Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus won fame by penetrating their awe-inspiring, thickly wooded slopes in 310 B.C. (Livy 9.36-9). Sutrium and Nepete are keys to the region.

by the way: i remembered tonight how much i dislike reading scholarship on sappho.

Wainy. Weedy. Weaky.

I've argued often on the merits of restored classical pronunciation and have just stumbled upon the best defense:

si 'sub aqua sub aqua' ranae 'cecinere querelam',
    cur sessineere velis dicere, cur sub akway?
balat ovis 'be be', vocem effert noctua 'tu tu'?
    haec bee bee, tew tew posse sonare putas?

-- T.F. Higham, 1958 (cited in L.P. Wilkinson, Golden Latin Artistry p. 5)

Keep in mind that that's a short e. 'Bay bay' is no better than 'bee bee' (and for a great discussion on the pronunciation of Greek eta -- with this very same example -- check out Edgar Sturtevant's Pronunciation of Greek and Latin).

oh, how my gilded rose shines...

and here, friends, is the inimitable gil's translation of thucydides' comment on pericles' incredibly persuasive and powerful oratorical skill. when the athenians would get overly confident, pericles 'got them going in the direction of fear with his astounding downess'.

yes, i know--it is totally awesome.

i gots to flo like horace

and now for today's 'random OCD fact'!!!

do you know who marcus aurelius carus was? well, friend, he was a praetorian prefect from Narbo who overthrew Probus after rebelling in Raetia in AD 282. Leaving his elder son, Carinus, as Caesar in the west, Carus marched against Persia with Numerianus. He captured Ctesiphon, but, advancing further, was killed, perhaps by treachery (summer 283). He was the first emperor not to seek the senate's approval of his accession.

The Twenty-Seventh Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference

This post isn't really about that. I don't even know what that is. The web browser did an auto-completion when I typed "The," and heck if it wasn't better than my title.

So welcome to the Twenty-Seventh Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference.

The subject of my address is Eric's abandonment of the Campus. He apparently thinks his time is better wasted explaining why dave bergman is neat.

And so it's up to me to pass along Eric's favorite Gil Prose quote (which by now will surely have devolved into a poor paraphrase):

"Pericles was impressing them with his astounding downness."

All this talk of Gil reminded of something else. After the dinner which he made us pay for we were waiting for the train. Super J. Dawg was saying something about a fan letter he'd written to Jacques Barzun when we were interrupted by some kid with a guitar.

-- Are you talking about ideas?
-- Huh?
-- Are you guys talking about ideas?
-- ... Some ideas ... I guess.
-- That's really cool, man. No one does that anymore. [Ed. note: he was 15. Does he really remember those good ol' intellectual days of yore?] I'm writing this school paper right now on video games, and ... uh ... I just lost my train of thought. Sorry.

And so it went. A fitting end to a fine night.

"This is your last chance to be drilled by me."

While that sounds like a line from a Ron Jeremy flick, it was said, tearfully, today in Greek Prose Composition. And drill us he did. On grammatical forms.

Yep, there's nothing quite like an unintentionally funny collocation from the lips of Gil Prose. Like this gem:

"After Thucydides said that Pericles was all that ...."

But I'll let Eric fill you in on the ultimate Gilapropism. I'll miss 'em.

a hippy hankerin' for modalization

you'll all be pleased to know that today i heard an excellent use of the english subjunctive in a present contrary-to-fact condition in three dog night's 'joy to the world': 'if i were the king of the world, tell you what i'd do....'

i'll take THAT over hoobastank any day.

you like jargon, honey?

go here: http://hatemongersquarterly.blogspot.com/

and look for 'the academic superstars calendar'.