A War Like No Other

For anyone who's interested, William Grimes in the New York Times has a review of Victor Davis Hanson's latest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

(Lvrogueclassicism.)

Ostia Antica 2

Ok, here's the second batch.

Another shot of the theater, which originally had 3 tiers of seating divided into five cunei (wedges) and a seating capacity of around 2,700; two of the tiers survive
Theater masks
A painting of fruits and vegetables from a Thermopolium, which is very well preserved. The marble countertops are in excellent shape, and two seats flanking the door also survive
The Capitolium in the Forum. The temple was dedicated to the Capitoline triad (Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva)
My wife Allison and brother Ryan in the doorways of some buildings on one of Ostia's side streets

If anyone is interested in other pictures of Rome that are not necessarily classical, my wife and I have been posting some at another website.

Dennis: how did the teaching go?

Ostia Antica

Ok, I'm back. My brother, wife, and I visited the ancient Roman port town of Ostia today and I just wanted to post some pictures for y'all. I have a few more pics to post, but blogger won't let me put them all in this one, so see above.

Via Ostiense

Porta Romana

Fragments of the inscription once adorning Porta Romana. Notice 'P. Clodius...', and I believe the 'M' may be from Marcus Tullius Cicero

Neptune mosaic from baths

Theater

A lot to say...

I have a lot to say, so let me get started by giving Dennis the virtual high five for entering the classroom. I have to say that my life has never before made more sense than it does at the present time. I love being in that classroom and I hope that even as tomorrow strikes you, you will have some ember of an appreciation for the magic of being a GOOD teacher. As for the little snots (shites is a great term, too), let them sit in the bathroom for as long as they like. Let them smoke weed in the stalls, let them smoke crack; as long as they will be sure to OD before coming back into my ROOM. I want them out of my class! Don't waste my precious time! I advise you generally not to smile much at ALL, if you are able, since you are a sub. Try not to listen to their murderously sub-neanderthal conversations (if you are in study hall duty). Youths have to be trained to have decent conversations and no one is training these kids. Oh, but you are proctoring tests! Keep an eye on them as they do those tests. They know the system and they know where to put a little index card (right between their legs) with all the 3rd principle parts written in the tiniest letters you've ever seen. I love them, but they are who they are.
I will check out those websites. I am right now generally looking for Latin texts that are REAL, on the internet, can be read by students of lower levels (with some degree of support), and show the language being used artfully. I found this one fantastic set of readings (gesta Romanorum) and I also like to try Publilius (that's what they call him on the Latin Library.com, but I thought his name was Publius) Syrus. We also do Vulgate Latin and Thomas Aquinas because generally, it's just easier stuff. I hunger for material that has less passive constructions and less subjunctives. It's basically impossible to find that kind of stuff, bu I am finding ways to help my students along in passages with Latin constructions they've never seen before. The truly unfortunate thing about Latin textbook series overall is that they do not vary the word order in the readings enough for it to make sense for the students to memorize proficiently those noun endings. Furthermore, the style of the textbook writers is just simply atrocious, because quite obviously they have no CONCEPT of style. But students do, and the book (Oxford Latin) is a bore for them. These are students with a whole IPOD full of artists expressing complex emotions and ideas. Do you think they want to read about Scintilla and Flaccus going to market? These textbook series, I believe, are seriously crippling the progress of student interest in Latin in the country. When I work with the word order and the students use their dictionaries on a daily basis (from the very first year), suddenly the language is extremely FUN for them. It's like another world suddenly. Suddenly, suddenly.

I wrote Reggie a small note a few weeks ago, saying something like:

Dear Reggie,
I am teaching Latin by your method as best I can. I taught last year using those textbooks you used to rage about in class. I see now what is wrong with them. I am teaching Latin your way, and I am really DYING for the language. I don't sleep anymore. You sent me out as Father Zosima sent out Alyosha. I miss you a lot. I hope your health is better and that the surgery went well. If you need money for photocopies or anything else, please let me know.
Aaron.

This is what he wrote back on a postcard (I just got it tonight...) in four different colors of ink:

Pridie Kalendas Octobres m m v.
AARONI SUO
REGINALDUS
SALUTEM.
TUA MIHI SALUTATIO SIMULQUE
LAMENTATIO PLURIMUM SANE
ADTULIT IUCUNDITATIS ET CONSOLA-
TIONIS. I am happy you are sharing
with others in the classroom and are
on fire with Latin. The time has passed
and after our 20th "AESTIVA" and vacation (aestiva is the summer program)
in Wisconsin, I am back waiting for the
pope to do something AND preparing also
for a full year of 5 experiences at the (experiences are the levels of Latin -
University in a few weeks. My health he teaches five preps.)
is fine, as my legs and feet have by
nature healed. I am better = worse than
ever, and have energy and ideas for a
long time to come. The no-Latin crisis
in the Catholic church will grow, and I
do not know what THEY will do about it.
I always speak about more interest-study
of Ltin outside than inside. SO you must
continue your zealous no-sleep efforts.
TIBI FAVENTES ADSUMUS PECUNIA NON EGENTES.
-Reginaldus

The only thing that bothered me about the letter was that he put a macron over the A in PECUNIA. Did I seem that stupid in his class?
But otherwise, the letter took me to the third level of Nirvana. When I got the letter, my heart was pounding. I am actually going to stay up tonight and finish grading my homework assignments, just as I know that Reggie does. The whole night. I am pulling an all-nighter as a teacher. Well, unfortunately, my workaholic habits have done more than made me lose sleep. I have lost 15 pounds in the last three months. I work like a raving madman. I am actually dying for the Latin language. I don't really care, because I actually feel happy. I think I won't mind dying like this. When I tried to DIE for graduate school, I was always miserable. Perhaps I have found my true home...
Anyway, either I will die or something beautiful will come out of all of this. I am betting on the second of the two. I guess I better get started grading now.
AARON EIUS

Taking a stroll

Sarah and I took a nice walk around campus this afternoon, and though I'm in my third year here (!) I saw lots of things I hadn't seen before.

Like the pond. Where did that thing come from?

I imagine a lot of people haven't seen them because they're off the paths, but they're the most beautiful and interesting angles and bits architectural oddities.

I'm going to bring a camera soon and share some of this stuff.

I think I may also locate the fabled Latin inscriptions left by former students, such as the one that apparently translates 'death to squirrels.'

But for now it's back to work.

Bibliophiles Unite! etc.

If you haven't already heard (and where have you been, I might ask), be sure to check Library Thing, brought to you by Tim Spalding, whose other sites, Isadore of Seville and the Ancient Library, have been discussed here before.

It's an easy-to-use online database of your books. Now you don't have to invite people to the apartment to show off your book collection. That means more beer and food for you.

On an unrelated note, I'm looking at a copy of Graham Zanker's Realism in Alexandrian Poetry, and it makes me wonder if there's anything realistic in my hope to re-read all the Greek epic I can get my hands on this week (and by epic I don't mean just 'heroic' epic).

And on another unrelated note, I have my first teaching duties this Friday, filling in at a local private school. I'll mainly be proctoring tests, thanks to the kindness and planning of the usual teacher, but I'll have my hands full with one eighth grade class dealing with the 3rd and 4th conjugations.

That I can handle. But do you have any encouraging words for a guy stepping in front a class of kids for the first time?

Magister Coke?

Siculate Sigma?

A few weeks ago Michael Hendry was wondering about certain orthographical conventions (adscript iota and the like) and was surprised to find that 'siculate sigmas' hadn't caught on.

I tried to post a comment asking for more information, but it doesn't seem to have taken (apologies if it does, and this is redundant), so I thought I'd ask our readers for input.

Does anyone know what a siculate sigma is?

The way I see it there are three possibilities:

1) A sigma which resembles a Sicilian girl (from Siculus, -a, -um)
2) A sigma which resembles a small curved dagger, with handle (final sigma, ς)
3) A sigma which resembles a small curved dagger, sans handle (lunate sigma, ϲ)

Little help? I know others (such as Caelestis at Sauvage Noble) have been wondering.

Hera has lost her head!

Statues of Athena and Hera have found at Gortyn in Crete:

The works, representing the goddesses Athena and Hera, date to between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD – a period of Roman rule in Greece – and originally decorated the Roman theatre in the town of Gortyn, archeologist Anna Micheli from the Italian School of Archaeology told the Associated Press.

“They are in very good condition,” she said, adding that the statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, was complete, while Hera – long-suffering wife of Zeus, the philandering king of gods – is missing her head.

Philandering? Not φιλογύναιος? In one sense, but not the other.

Ithaka post update

Here's the full citation for the article on the excavations of the mask and the tripods & cauldrons at Ithaka:

Benton, Sylvia. BSA (The Annual of the British School at Athens) 35 (1934-1935): 45-73.

(It was actually published in 1938 by Macmillan & Co., and 1934-1935 marks the session, but it should be catalogued under the latter.)

The description of the mask is on page 54, with a plate on 55 showing a black and white photograph and a line drawing.

The top of the mask reads horizontally
ΕΥΧΗΝ Ο
ΔΥΣΣΕΙ

while the lower portion, of which the surface is completely gone, yields only Η and Ν at the ends of two vertical lines.

Based on this the following was proposed:

εὐχὴν Ὀδυσσεῖ, [ὁ δεῖνα ἀνέθ]η[κε]ν.

i.e., 'Votive offering to Odysseus, so and so dedicated it.'

It seems to me a poor translation. If the reconstruction is at all correct it should say, '(so-and-so) set (this object) up (as) a vow to Odysseus.'

Anyone with anything to contribute? An updated bibliography? Thoughts on the controversy?

Ithaka found in Odysseus Unbound?

Roger Cox at Scotsman.com writes about the new book by businessman Robert Bittlestone, (written with the aid of geologist John Underhill and Euripides scholar James Diggle, who doesn't appear to have a decent on-line bio).

Essentially they argue that the western peninsula of Kefalonia was once an island, now joined to its neighbor by rockfalls and deposits, and that it better accords with Homer's description in book 9 than does the island now called Ithaka:

In book nine of The Odyssey, Ithaca is described as "low-lying" and "furthest towards dusk [i.e. west]" of all the nearby islands. However, the island now known as Ithaca is mountainous, and lies to the east of its neighbours.

Here's the Greek for some context:

αὐτὴ δὲ χθαμαλὴ πανυπερτάτη εἰν ἁλὶ κεῖται (25)
πρὸς ζόφον, αἱ δέ τ’ ἄνευθε πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε,
τρηχεῖ’, ἀλλ’ ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος·

History writer and 'television presenter' (sorry, but U.K. English always makes me smirk) Michael Wood isn't buying it, citing the fact that Mycenean finds have surfaced on what we now call Ithaka, so by golly it must be Ithaka!

But there's more to it than that. He cites the work of archaeologist Sylvia Benton who reportedly found tripods and cauldrons as well as a mask inscribed 'my prayer to Odysseus'

In Book 8 of the Odyssey, Homer tells how Odysseus receives gifts from King Alkinoos of Phaeacia before he sails back to Ithaca. The gifts were from "12 noble lords ... and I myself the 13th", says the king. What were the gifts? Later in Book 13 we read: "Come let each of us man by man give him a large tripod and cauldron..."

So 13 men gave Odysseus gifts, and the finds in the 1870s and 1930s add up to 13 cauldrons. When dated, they are proved to be from before Homer.

I should mention that he cites Benton without giving a citation, so I'll do it for him:

Benton, Sylvia. BSA (The Annual of the British school at Athens) 35 (1934-1935).

You're on your own for page numbers, unless I get around to finding more info once I'm on campus.

Campus Update

I've added a number of blogs to the sidebar (each of which links here):

Por las tierras de los Banu Qasi, en Español. This blog appears to cover an interesting range which includes Mongolian history, Linux, and fiction.
hobbyblog, for all you numismatists.
AVE, by a self-described 'Ancient Roman history geek' in Vancouver.
Netlex News, with posts divided among 46 categories, covers art and music among many, many other things.
Memento Vivere, which I've linked to before, now makes the sidebar: 'Classicism for the 21st Century.'
The Hellenophile, where a commercial property examiner from Ohio--with degrees in classics and history--shares his love of Greece. (Seems dormant, but blogs go that way now and then.)
Frequent Citations, 'musings and misadventures of a would-be lawyer' who must have a background in Classics if she bothers with this here blog.

That's it for now. There's no hierarchy there -- just listed in the order I found them.

Also, our e-mail address has changed: it's now campusmawrtius@gmail.

Bring on the spam!

p.s. I was too lazy to put the addresses here in the post, so you'll just have to use the sidebar. Sorry.

Archaeological Finds in Jerusalem

Who says scholarship doesn't have any impact on the real world?

Israel unveiled an underground archaeological site near a disputed Jerusalem holy shrine on Tuesday, nearly a decade after the opening of an exhibit in the same area sparked widespread Palestinian rioting.

The latest discovery included a ritual bath from the period of the second Jewish Temple, destroyed in 70 A.D., and a wall that archaeologists said dates to the first Jewish Temple, destroyed in 586 B.C. The findings strengthen Jewish ties to the shrine also claimed by Muslims.

fio magister

I am doing it! I am following Reggie's methods! They said it could not be done! All of his students would say, "The old man's impractical. You can't teach Latin like THAT to a bunch of highschoolers!" That's because they were all idiots. It is working well, and for the first time, my job seems to MAKE SENSE. My students LIKE LATIN and they understand why the cases are important. We look at the real Latin stuff and my students LOVE IT. Okay not all of them. Some kids are only pleased by stupid video games and chocolate.
quodcunque ostendas eis, increduli oderunt. Verum universa non est turba ac iam eas auras mentes vidi meis cum oculis
vita mea nunc vivit.
Hey Dennis, am I allowed to write in Latin on this blog as much as I like? Is it annoying to the readers? I like to write in Latin, and most certainly my Latin is not the best, but where else would I find an audience to critique my work or give me suggestions on word usage and finer points of grammar?

Spam no more

We've been inundated with comment spam recently, and I just noticed that Blogger has word verification to ensure that real people and not robots are entering comments.

So I apologize for the inconvenience but it's better than reading (and deleting) unwanted advertisements.

Paging Dr. House ...

James Le Fanu at the Telegraph has a column on something called the Ulysses syndrome which might have interest for classicists and which reminded me of a scene from my favorite show, House:

Medicine is full of classical allusions, a faint echo from the days when doctors knew more of the world than just the narrow horizons of science.

So, famously, we have the Achilles tendon, after the young warrior was dipped in the river Styx by his mother to ensure his immortality, while the atlas, the first of the vertebrae at the top of the spine, like its namesake, balances a globe - the skull - on the shoulders. There is the iris, after the Greek goddess of the rainbow, and the hymen, in honour of Apollo's son, so beautiful he was thought to be a girl.

More recently, the paediatrician Charles Essex, writing in the British Medical Journal, has drawn attention to the Ulysses syndrome, a reference to the Greek hero's 10-year odyssey following the Trojan war, with its many dangerous and occasionally pleasurable adventures - before he eventually returned to his point of departure. Similarly, those with the Ulysses syndrome, though healthy enough at the start, undertake a long journey with many disagreeable adventures on the way - before ending up where they started.

The conclusion here is a happy one, but the road to it isn't very pretty.

X-Rays reveal Draconian Measures!

Researchers at Cornell have used x-ray fluorescence to recover a number of illegible inscriptions, and apparently Draco's laws are among them.

The article is found in ZPE 152 (2005): 221–227, 'X-ray Fluorescence Recovers Writing from Ancient Inscriptions.'

Unfortunately our copy is currently in 'labelling' which means I may never see it. I'll have to make do with short-on-content articles that feel the need to translate the names of publications.

(Zeitschrift fuer Papyrologie und Epigraphik is translated--Journal for Papyrology and Epigraphy--and given with no further citation other than 'the August issue,' so that lots of people who might want to read the article--and not the article about the article-- might have a hard time finding it.)

Ancient Egyptian Secret

Here's something that might actually get me out of the Philly area for a day: the Edwin Smith papyrus:

What researchers call the world's oldest known medical treatise, an Egyptian papyrus offering 4,000-year-old wisdom, has long dwelled in the rare books vault at the New York Academy of Medicine.

It is an extraordinary remnant of a culture that was already ancient when Rome was new and Athens was a backwater - Egypt's stone monuments endure, but the scrolls made of pulped reeds have mostly been lost. One expert, James H. Breasted, who translated the papyrus in the 1920's, called it "the oldest nucleus of really scientific knowledge in the world." Yet relatively few people know of it, and fewer have seen it.

It is about to become much better known. After a short trip down Fifth (insert down-the-Nile metaphor here) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the papyrus will go on public display, probably for the first time, on Tuesday, as part of the Met's exhibition "The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt." The show will also include items like a CAT scan of a mummy, surgical needles and other medical artifacts.

I guess spending a few months with Nicander makes medical history seem not so unappealing as it might otherwise have been.

MedGadget has more, including a previous post which links to an interactive translation (click the symptom and read the suggestion).

Congratulations, Eric.

Today Eric completed the oral examination for his PhD prelims and will be heading off to Rome next week to begin work on his dissertation as the first Marti Fellow to the American Academy.

As Professor Scott told us today over champagne following Eric's exam, Berthe Marti was partial to three institutions: Bryn Mawr College, UNC Chapel Hill, and the American Academy. Her dream was to send one Bryn Mawr and one UNC graduate to the Academy each year on a fellowship, a dream which the changing times and financial constraints have forced to compromise.

All of us here know that Eric will do everyone proud.

Here's a biographical sketch of Berthe Marti written by Bryn Mawr alumn Eleanor Dickey (A.B./M.A. 1989) while still an undergraduate:

Berthe Marti, a graduate of the University of Lausanne, came to Bryn Mawr as a graduate student in 1925, wrote her dissertation with Lily Ross Taylor, and received her Ph.D. in 1934. She began teaching in 1930 and remained at Bryn Mawr until 1963. Although most famous as a medievalist, she also taught classical Latin and sometimes French.

What that doesn't tell you (but what Professor Scott told us) is that she was forced to leave by the strict retirement laws in effect in those days. That led to her tenure at UNC, where the laws were freer.

Once again, congratulations. As Jason once told me, 'Eric is the only one of us well on his way to becoming a true scholar.'

Google Earth Roman Villa Update

I found this at Slashdot:

(Make sure you're on satellite view and not map.)

Old Timey Scholars

I am thoroughly enjoying (very occasionally) browsing through Briggs and Calder's Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia (and I do take Rusten's caution to heart, especially since I noted a few glaring omissions myself).

You can read about former Bryn Mawr professors Paul Shorey, Tenney Frank, and Lily Ross Taylor. I see via the department's site that Briggs's Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists contains entries on Paul Shorey, Herbert Weir Smyth, Gonzalez Lodge, Arthur Leslie Wheeler, Tenney Frank, Lily Ross Taylor, Louise Adams Holland, and T. Robert S. Broughton.

But the reason I started this post was simply to say that I envy the old-timers who knew these languages better than many of us ever will. I've just gotten my hands on J.G. Schneider's edition of the Theriaca of Nicander (1816) which has been highly praised by those in the know (one modern scholar once called it the only useful edition, a direct slap to Otto Schneider's edition of 1856 and an acknowledgment of the limitations of Gow-Scholfield). I haven't time to do much with it yet, but the most promising thing is J.G. Schneider's prose: his Latin is the clearest academic Latin prose I've come across.

That's high praise.

Google Earth helps to find Roman Villa?

The following story has relevance for those interested in classical civilization and archaeology, as well as the internet (hat tip to Sarah):

A computer programmer looking at Google Earth satellite images has reportedly discovered the remains of an ancient Roman villa near Sorbelo, Italy.

Luca Mori of Sorbelo was looking at a satellite image of his area, located near Parma, when he noticed unusual shading near his home, the London Telegraph reported Wednesday.

He said the area had an oval shaded form more than 500 yards long, with some unusual rectangular shadows nearby.

Archaeologists subsequently determined the rectangular lines were, most likely, a buried structure and the oval area was likely the course of an ancient river.

Mori contacted the National Archaeological Museum of Parma, which investigated.

"At first they thought the site might be Bronze Age, but a closer inspection turned up ceramic and stone pieces that showed it was a Roman villa built some time just before the birth of Christ," he told the newspaper.

Mori said he was happy with his discovery. "I have managed to get people talking about the Internet because of something interesting rather than pedophiles and viruses," he told the Telegraph.

That last bit is my favorite, I think.

On the German verb

This will probably seem silly to anyone who actually knows German, but I've been working on my reading competence and I'm finding it much easier to deal with compound verbs by thinking of a hierarchy of compositional elements.

The second position in the sentence of course takes the finite verb, and the other parts get kicked back to the end of the sentence.

The rank goes like this:

(1) Futurity (2) Perfectivity (3) Passivity (4) Verbal idea

Their ordering goes like this:

... A ... (D,C)B

It's that final position which moves right to left that seems tricky at first.

In English we have the same hierarchy but for the fact that ours reads from left to right.

Compare the following:

G. ... wird ... gesagt worden sein.
E. ... will have been said ....

If you remove any element, the hierarchy requires that the other elements take their proper place. If you wanted to remove the passivity, worden and been would both be dropped and their place would be taken up by gesagt and said, and the auxiliary of sagen (haben) rather than of werden (sein) would take final position:

G. ... wird ... gesagt haben.
E. ... will have said ....

In neither language is there any flexibility in the position of each element. If any of them is present it will take its place in the hierarchy.

Again,
German, ... A ... (D,C,B)
English, ... A (B,C,D) ...

Then again, I'm just a classicist struggling through this language. Go ahead and trash and/or correct me in the comments.

The Greek textbook chugs along

I've been working on a new edition of an old Greek textbook, as some of you know, and I've made my share of contributions--mostly of the negative variety, like successfully lobbying to delete unsound linguistic arguments.

But yesterday I was greeted with the note 'NEED EXAMPLE' on the accusative absolute.

I wrote:

(e.g., δέον ἡμῖν ἀπιέναι, ‘it being necessary for us to depart’ ; δέον is the neuter accusative participle of the impersonal verb δεῖ. Compare the genitive absolute ἀπερχομένων ἡμῶν, ‘with us departing’).

He said he liked it and thanked me for the addition.

It's a small thing, but it sort of made my day.

I'd say we're about two-thirds of the way through the new edition, but it'll doubtless spend at least a year being tested in classrooms here and elsewhere. (Our students already want the Greek to be bigger. But what's worth more? Printing costs, or their eyes? Bah!)

On the Field of Mawrs

Let's see what's on the agenda here at the Campus ...

Finish long-overdue thesis

Correct the next 80 pages of the Greek textbook

Write a review of Bolchazy-Carducci's reprint of Dover's Theocritus for the blog (not surprisingly the one I look most forward to)

Really work on my German

Post daily!

Now that last one's going to be tough. One of the worst things about blogging is the permanence, the fact that parts of you are cryogenically frozen, and they're just as often parts you'd rather forget, like unwarranted confidence in an area of relative ignorance or meanness on a bad day.

I can report though that my French has improved dramatically recently and I've been enjoying Masqueray's Traité de Metrique Grecque (1880) as well as Koster's (4th ed., 1966). The latter is particularly fun when he has occasion to mention trends in German scholarship. Both are more complete than Rosenmeyer, more useful than West, and easier to read than any of the Germans because I can't read German very well.

And that's good enough for me.

(n.b.: Masqueray is impossible to find used so I've resorted to photocopying the whole thing, and Koster is only available in over-priced earlier editions. I may end up copying that as well. I think they're both worth it.)

I've just acquired my own copies of the first and second editions of the OCD (which have many articles superior to the third) and I've just gotten a job as a substitute Latin teacher, so there should be plenty to blog about.

Now if only Eric could find some time between prelims, travel plans, and marriage ...

New Sappho? Where have I been?

Thanks to Sarah I've just found out that the Times Literary Supplement published a new fragment of Sappho discovered on a papyrus roll at Cologne.

The fragment was originally published June 24 with conjectural emendations and a translation by M.L. West, and now they offer a few different renderings.

Unfortunately you need to get your hands on the print version to read the Greek.

West says:

The poem is a small masterpiece: simple, concise, perfectly formed, an honest, unpretentious expression of human feeling, dignified in its restraint. It moves both by what it says and by what it leaves unspoken. It gives us no ground for thinking that Sappho’s poetic reputation was undeserved.

UPDATE: I really should keep up on all of the excellent classics blogs out there. Then I wouldn't show up so late to the party. The new Sappho has been discussed in many places with great enthusiasm, and I found the Greek text in Unicode at Glaukôpidos:

῎Υμμες πεδὰ Μοίσαν ἰ]ο̣κ[ό]λ̣πων κάλα δῶρα, παῖδες,
σπουδάσδετε καὶ τὰ]ν̣ φιλἀοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν·

ἔμοι δ᾽ἄπαλον πρίν] π̣οτ᾽ [ἔ]ο̣ντα χρόα γῆρας ἤδη
ἐπέλλαβε, λεῦκαι δ’ ἐγ]ένοντο τρίχες ἐκ μελαίναν·

βάρυς δέ μ’ ὀ [θ]ῦμο̣ς̣ πεπόηται, γόνα δ’ [ο]ὐ φέροισι,
τὰ δή ποτα λαίψηρ’ ἔον ὄρχησθ’ ἴσα νεβρίοισι.

τὰ <μὲν> στεναχίσδω θαμέως· ἀλλὰ τί κεν ποείην;
ἀγήραον ἄνθρωπον ἔοντ᾽ οὐ δύνατον γένεσθαι

καὶ γἀρ π̣[ο]τ̣α̣ Τίθωνον ἔφαντο βροδόπαχυν Αὔων
ἔρωι φ̣ . . α̣θ̣ε̣ισαν βάμεν’ εἰς ἔσχατα γᾶς φέροισα[ν,

ἔοντα̣ [κ]ά̣λ̣ο̣ν καὶ νέον, ἀλλ’ αὖτον ὔμως ἔμαρψε
χρόνωι π̣ό̣λ̣ι̣ο̣ν̣ γῆρας, ἔχ[ο]ν̣τ’ ἀθανάταν ἄκοιτιν.

UPDATE 2: The text has been modified to fix two typoes spotted by William Annis in the comments to languagehat (he has a PDF here, which is not Unicode, but pretty nonetheless). Also, I reckon languagehat's observation should be noted: 'to be more accurate, filled-out version of Lobel-Page's fragment 58'.

UPDATE 3: Here's an effort at Lobel-Page 58 for comparison (I hope the spacing works -- fingers crossed):

[                                           ].[
[                                          ].δα[
[                                        ]
[                                          ].α
5 [                                        ]ύ̣γοισα̣[   ]
[                       ].[..]..[          ]ι̣δάχθην
[                   ]χ̣υ θ[´̣]ο̣ι̣[.]αλλ[.......]ύταν
[                      ].χθο.[.]ατί.[.....]εισα
[                     ]μένα ταν[....ώ]νυμόν σε̣
10 [                      ]νι θῆται στ[ύ]μα[τι] πρό̣κοψιν
[                     ]πων κάλα δῶρα παῖδες
[                       .]φιλάοιδον λιγύραν χελύνναν
[                      ]ντα χρόα γῆρας ἤδη
[                         ]ντο τρίχες ἐκ μελαίναν
15 [                       ]α̣ι, γόνα δ’ [ο]ὐ φέροισι
[                          ]ησθ’ ἴσα νεβρίοισιν
[                        ἀ]λ̣λὰ τί κεν ποείην;
[                            ] οὐ δύνατον γένεσθαι
[                              ] βροδόπαχυν Αὔων
20 [                                ἔσ]χατα γᾶς φέροισα[
[                                ]ο̣ν ὔμως ἔμαρψε[
[                                    ]άταν ἄκοιτιν
[                                 ]ι̣μέναν νομίσδει
[                                   ]αις ὀπάσδοι
25 ἔγω δὲ φίλημμ’ ἀβροσύναν,         ] τοῦτο καί μοι
τὸ λά[μπρον ἔρος τὠελίω καὶ τὸ κά]λον λέ[λ]ογχε.

Greek & Latin for sporting folk

For the football fans out there (or anyone else on T.O. watch), I spotted two classical references in Len Pasquarelli's ESPN.com article on Terrell Owens's return to camp with my Philadelphia Eagles:

... Owens sprinted past the gauntlet of minicams and the phalanx of reporters ...

Interestingly enough, phalanx is the root in the ancient Greek word for the Mediterranean black widow: φαλάγγιον. But I digress.

Pasquarelli also has this gem:

More than a mea culpa, the return of Owens was mostly about the first two letters of that Latin term.

The next isn't classical but sure is classic:

he best moles we've got here, squeezed hard for any nugget of inside information, offered up nothing sexy. So the Reid-Owens meeting, it seems, will never be mistaken for the Yalta Summit.

I think I've just found my new favorite sports writer.

New classics blog

Robert Larity, a recent grad of the College of the Holy Cross writes to promote his new classics blog, Memento Vivere: Classicism for the 21st Century.

He's been kind enough to link to the Campus, and we're always glad to see the classics represented in the blogosphere. And this cat's got loads of enthusiasm, posting sometimes more than once a day! That's a mere dream 'round these parts.

But beyond that there's loads of content, so step lively.

Welcome aboard!

No news here!

This is just to say that I've been moving over the past few days and won't have an internet connection at the new place for the next few, so blogging will be light.

But soon enough we'll have a new feature at the Campus: book reviews. I'm pretty excited about that, and with any luck I won't be alone in writing them. There's a slim chance that Eric's impending marriage and overseas studies won't prevent him from participating.

Stop laughing.

Metaphrastical!

Here's an odd bit of translationese about translation of 'Latin and Greek Plato's texts':

If the first modern translators of Latin and Greek Plato's texts had worried to translate the texts adjusting the possible maximum to the own written words, to their true meaning etymologises and contextual, he is to say to translate metaphrastical and not to interpret on which he assumes that he meant Plato, because probably never so many fantasies would have been written and speculations on the Atlantis neither would have been tried to look for their rest by almost all the Earth corners, until in the absurd and remote points the more of “Columns of Hercules” or Straits of Gibraltar.

One more reason why machines haven't yet risen.

Books to dust off

After the turn of the last century J.W. Mackail served at Oxford in the same position once held by Matthew Arnold: Professor of Poetry. His light does not shine as brightly but he has left some fine specimens of criticism and prose style, exemplified perhaps in his delightful Lectures on Greek poetry. The the book begins and ends, oddly enough, with selected verses from Whitman. He begins, 'O a new song, a free song.' And at times that's what his prose becomes.

His sympathy for the Alexandrians seems almost modern:

The whole history of early Alexandrianism, a steady laborious poetical movement which went on at full pressure for something like half a century, is the history of an attempt to bring poetry back into touch with life, to reinstate it as a living art. This statement of the case may at first sight appear paradoxical. The Alexandrians are dismissed in common surveys of Greek literature, as little more than pedants. They are called artificial poets, as though all poetry were not artificial, and the greatest poetry were not the poetry of most consummate artifice.

I think it's worth reading. It's easy reading, enlightening, unapologetic, and uncluttered by appeals to theory.

nuntiorum errare est?

For those of you who take pleasure in the endless errors that plague purveyors of print, UPI writer James J. Kilpatrick has collected a bunch but committed an error of his own:

This past December, two AP writers provided a feature story about a midnight hike through a botanical garden. "At the end of the trail was a beautiful opening in the canapi." An opening in the what? Perhaps those hungry campers saw cheese and caviar. The word the writers wanted was "canopy," a noun rooted in ancient Greek and Latin. The plural "canopies" may be purchased in grocery stores throughout the world.

I sent him the following:

"The word the writers wanted was "canopy," a noun rooted in ancient Greek and Latin."

Which is it?

The answer is Greek. The Latin form is merely a transliteration of the Greek (drawn from the word for 'gnat' or 'mosquito,' which means literally 'cone face'). An example of a noun rooted in ancient Greek *and* Latin is 'television,' the second element presumably drawn from Latin because '-scope' was already taken.

I think now tht 'needle-face' would have been more to the point.

I can't think of any other words at the moment derived from both languages, so if you can please leave a comment.

So *that's* where I left that blog!

I'm going to try not to jinx this, but I think I'm back here at the Campus after a long hiatus. My compatriot Eric is in another state getting hitched and he'll be busy with prelims and world travel in coming months, so I may just be going it alone.

But go it I shall.

And the thing I really don't want to jinx is my thesis, which is finally taking shape and morphing into something exciting. Naturally I won't mention the details--the chance is always out there that it's garbage, and blog posts are a very accessible and relatively permanent (think: Google cache) mode of embarrassment.

If all goes according to plan you may begin to see book reviews posted and archived here, and more, but again I don't want to ruin anything by making announcements.

On a professional note, I hope everyone is seriously considering the candidates on this year's APA ballot. The tendency would be to go for this most recognizable name but there there are some hidden gems (including a few Bryn Mawr alums).

My favorite bit of the whole election supplement (download if you haven't gotten yours in the mail) was Holt N. Parker's seven point plan (he's running for the program committee):

My seven point plan. I promise that:
1) you will hear nothing you haven’t heard before,
2) all papers will be undertheorized and/or contain no new
insights that you can apply to your own work,
3) all papers must consist of people reading their Powerpoint
slides,
4) session chairs will allow each paper to run a minimum of ten
minutes over,
5) all the really interesting papers will be scheduled opposite
each other,
6) during lunch,
7) and your paper will be on the last session of the last day,
when everyone has gone home.

I don't know Professor Parker, but I think he just earned my vote.

Wherefore aren't thou Rome?

Peter Jones reviews two books on the fall of Rome, if that's the sort of thing you're in to.

Classics in the News

Remember the lonely, retired classics teacher in Italy who asked to be adopted by a family in need of a grandpa? A heart-warming story of a man loved by all. Well, the old pedagogue is apparently on the lam:

I remember grandpa's smile: he never paid for it

Jun 17, 11:01 AM (ET)

ROME (Reuters) - A lonely Italian pensioner who was "adopted" by a family last year after his pleas for company in classified ads, has absconded leaving behind a big dentist's bill and bounced checks.

Giorgio Angelozzi, 80, skipped out on the family in Bergamo, northern Italy, before a dentist's bill for 2,360 euros ($2,860) arrived. Two checks Angelozzi sent to cover the costs turned out to have been stolen from another family that took him in.

"He wasn't the granddad we wanted. He got on well with mom, but when we talked to him about our stuff, he got bored," said Dagmara Riva of the retired classics teacher her parents gave a home to.

Angelozzi was inundated with offers from as far away as New Zealand, Brazil and the United States before he opted to live with the Riva family.

Police are now hunting for the man who used to live alone with seven cats. The pensioner's story has also caught the eye of a movie producers who have been in touch with the Rivas.

Now who's going to risk taking me in?

If your interested in more positive news you can read the exciting tale of a high schooler who enjoys Latin so much she's actually considering studying Greek. No, seriously. It was a slow news day in Framingham, MA.

Either A, B, or C

Here's a specimen of bad English if I've ever seen one:

Greek and many other languages have grammatical gender: a noun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter (and must have its article and adjective in agreement with that gender), sometimes quite regardless of its sex or lack thereof.

It was found in a Greek textbook shortly after a glowing endorsement of the study of grammar toward speaking and writing 'correctly, clearly, elegantly.'

Indeed.

More on Greek meter

I don't know how I've missed this till now, but I've just discovered C.M.J. Sicking's Griechische Verslehre (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 2.4, 1993).

It appears upon a cursory inspection to be the most up to date, clearly layed-out, and well-documented handbook I've seen yet. Just browsing through the section on the dactylic hexameter I see all the names I'd like to see in the footnotes:

Van Raalte, La Roche, E.G. O'Neill, H.N. Porter, Keydell, Nagy, Wifstrand, Harry Barnes, Devine & Stephens, West, et al.

What I've read so far (my German isn't the best) has been clear and helpful, so I've got high hopes for this one.

The textbook has begun

Today I started editing a new edition of an introductory Greek textbook. A brand new iMac was purchased for the project, and despite all of my past dislike for snobbish Mac culture I find myself drawn to it ... it's like the Dark Side. I have to admit, it's very stylish and elegant -- as long as you know how to use.

There's a common myth about Macs that they're more user-friendly than PCs. Most things that can be done on a PC with a click of the right mouse button require secret codes or an annoying amount of clicking and moving of tiled windows. Things get lost easily. But boy, the sound is nice, and it sure is purty to look at.

The whole thing consists of a monitor! Check it out.

http://www.apple.com/imac/

That little slit in the side is for CDs. There's a USB port on the keyboard, and a number of others ports behind the monitor.

Not that I'd ever buy one, but if the school wants to, well ...

Grumble grumble ...

It strikes me that no general reference on Greek meter answers the questions that come up most often when actually dealing with meter. I know that in the past I was chided by one commenter for complicating an issue supposedly deftly handled in Raven's Latin Metre, but truth be told, I wouldn't recommend Raven's second-rate texts to anyone (though it's his work on Greek that is especially troublesome). I pour through Maas's still largely sound handbook (though it was originally published as part of a student's companion), West's disordered mass of undocumented observations (which is heavily Maasian), Snell's concise notes (or Rosenmeyer's, which are based on Snell's), Wilamowitz's unwieldy tome, the equally enlightening and infuriating French handbooks by Dain and Koster, and I still have doubts or find the same ambiguity spread about equally.

Then when it comes to actual analysis I find that the statistics which many arguments rely on are flat wrong.

And I can only conclude that it has been among the discipline's gravest errors to tuck metrical studies away in favor of things like speech-act theory.

Or maybe I'm just becoming a curmudgeon before my time.

What's wrong with men?

Reviewing Donald Lateiner's update of Macauley's Herodotus in the BMCR, David C. Noe has this to say:

"[T]here dwell in the skirts of lofty mountains men who are said to be all bald-headed from their birth, male and female equally..." (205).
The problem with this of course is that, as English usage has changed, "men" no longer regularly stands for "mankind," which is itself considered by many outmoded, archaic, and even offensive. That realization renders the appositive "male and female" even more ridiculous. It would have been better to replace "men" with people or mankind.

To which I say, 'nonsense.' Literally. "[T]here dwell in the skirts of lofty mountains mankind who are said to be all bald-headed from their birth, male and female equally...?"

If you have Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence, check out 81 ff. under 'A digression on a word.' You'll find a man (who happens to be male) making good sense about language. It reads in part:

it is unwise to give up a long-established practice, familiar to all, without reviewing the purpose it has served. In Genesis we read: "and God created man, male and female." Plainly, in 1611 and long before, man meant human being.

Barzun rightly defends man not only for its history (with ample examples) but for its usefulness and facility in a number of situations. Those who choose to be offended, or are offended out of sheer ignorance, shouldn't dictate every text in our possession. Stop the inanity.

If you're interested, the original Greek follows:

Διεξελθόντι δὲ καὶ τῆς τρηχέης χῶρον πολλὸν οἰκέουσι ὑπωρείην ὀρέων ὑψηλῶν ἄνθρωποι λεγόμενοι εἶναι πάντες φαλακροὶ ἐκ γενετῆς γινόμενοι, καὶ ἔρσενες καὶ θήλεαι ὁμοίως, καὶ σιμοὶ καὶ γένεια ἔχοντες μεγάλα, φωνὴν δὲ ἰδίην ἱέντες, ἐσθῆτι δὲ χρεώμενοι Σκυθικῇ, ζώοντες δὲ ἀπὸ δενδρέων.

Men, both and male (men) and female (men) alike. The Greek ἄνθρωπος means precisely what English man means: human being. Man is the native English word, while human is really an adjective (humanus) derived from Latin homo (which is equivalent to man and ἄνθρωπος as a non-gendered term for the human animal). To reject man as sexist is as silly as to reject history or promote herstory.

Catholicism rides the Latin wave?

Something called the World Peace Herald has a piece on classical languages which cites Pope Benedict's predilection for Latin homilies as well as the classics program of E.'s alma mater, Hillsdale College.

The piece is riddled with tiny errors ('Cesar's De Bellum Gallicum'?), but check it out anyway.

App. Crit. glossary

Reader dave just recommended this quick and dirty glossary of abbreviations and signs used in classical texts. I haven't looked at it too closely but it should be helpful.

It's now been added to the Cheetsheet.

Modern Language Review

paul cites aratus in Acts 17:28. (in addition, the first part of the verse seems to be a citation of epimenides of crete, also cited by paul in Titus 1:12. Acts 17:28 will be today's verse for reviewing modern languages.

...for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.'

Denn in ihm leben, weben und sind wir; wie auch etliche Poeten bei euch gesagt haben: "Wir sind seines Geschlechts."

car en lui nous avons la vie, le mouvement, et l'être. C'est ce qu'ont dit aussi quelques-uns de vos poètes: De lui nous sommes la race...

Poiché in lui viviamo, ci muoviamo e siamo, come persino alcuni dei vostri poeti hanno detto: "Poiché siamo anche sua progenie".

'puesto que en él vivimos, nos movemos y existimos.' Como algunos de sus propios poetas griegos han dicho: 'De él somos descendientes.'

Oxyrhynchus Update

A friend pointed me toward this expanded article on the latest developments. Here's an excerpt:

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".

Get ready, kids. Looks like we up-and-comers will one day have our hands full editing new OCTS and commentaries. Whay intrigues me most is this lost epic of Archilochus. Is that a typo?

Here's someone's translation of the fragment of Sophocles' Epigonoi:

Speaker A: . . . gobbling the whole, sharpening the flashing iron.

Speaker B: And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wakes up those who are asleep.

Speaker A: And he is gluing together the chariot's rail.

'In summation I have only one question: Is Latin dead?' -- Max Fisher

Well, maybe. But Greek is doing just fine.

Oxyrhynchus--invisibile inkus? ... follow the linkus!

Eureka! Extraordinary discovery unlocks secrets of the ancients
By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke

17 April 2005

Thousands of previously illegible manuscripts containing work by some of the greats of classical literature are being read for the first time using technology which experts believe will unlock the secrets of the ancient world.

Among treasures already discovered by a team from Oxford University are previously unseen writings by classical giants including Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod. Invisible under ordinary light, the faded ink comes clearly into view when placed under infra-red light, using techniques developed from satellite imaging.

The Oxford documents form part of the great papyrus hoard salvaged from an ancient rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus more than a century ago. The thousands of remaining documents, which will be analysed over the next decade, are expected to include works by Ovid and Aeschylus, plus a series of Christian gospels which have been lost for up to 2,000 years.

It's all Greek to me!

τοσοῦτον δ' ἀπολέλοιπεν ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν περὶ τὸ φρονεῖν καὶ λέγειν τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους, ὥσθ' οἱ ταύτης μαθηταὶ τῶν ἄλλων διδάσκαλοι γεγόνασι, καὶ τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ὄνομα πεποίηκε μηκέτι τοῦ γένους ἀλλὰ τῆς διανοίας δοκεῖν εἶναι, καὶ μᾶλλον Ἕλληνας καλεῖσθαι τοὺς τῆς παιδεύσεως τῆς ἡμετέρας ἢ τοὺς τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως μετέχοντας.

- Isocrates, Panegyricus 50

"So far has our city left behind other men in thought and speech that her students have become the the teachers of others, and she has made the name 'Greeks' seem to be no longer that of a race but of intelligence, and that those be called Greeks who partake of our education rather than of our common nature."

New Online Reference

Tim Spalding of www.isidore-of-seville.com e-mailed me just the other day to suggest that we add his new site to the Cheat Sheet.

I highly recommend the site. It currently contains scans from Smith's monumental work on Greek and Roman Antiquities and much more. There's also a new Wiki Classical Dictionary which could benefit from the input of some of our readers (hint).

You can find the link above or in section 4 (Reference) of the Cheat Sheet.


PS: I've fixed the links to the Romance and German dictionaries as well.

PPS: I've also just added a number of online dictionaries including the Monier-Williams Sanskrit Lexicon.

Modern Language Review

today's verse for review is Psalm 37:7.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Sei stille dem HERRN und warte auf ihn; erzürne dich nicht über den, dem sein Mutwille glücklich fortgeht.

Garde le silence devant l'Éternel, et espère en lui; Ne t'irrite pas contre celui qui réussit dans ses voies, Contre l'homme qui vient à bout de ses mauvais desseins.

Sta' in silenzio davanti all'Eterno e aspettalo; non affliggerti per colui che prospera nelle sue imprese, per l'uomo che segue i suoi malvagi disegni.

Guarda silencio ante el Señor,
y espera en él con paciencia;
no te irrites ante el éxito de otros,
de los que maquinan planes malvados.

New Oxyrhynchus Papyrus

a professor sent a link to a new papyrus that has now been identified as containing archilochean elegiacs. the site has a nice photograph of the fragment and says that it's 'the first known instance of a mid-length mythical narrative in elegiacs'.

A cultural question

I haven't had much to say for this blog (and I still don't) but I do have a PRESSING question I want to present to our readers:
One of the first words we English speakers use (generally) as children is "mine" - a thing which I find truly fascinating. Do you think this is true for other cultures? And for the Romans? And if so (and here is where I am really puzzled), which gender do you think they would use first?
thanks for any input you might have.

Modern Language Review

today's verse for review is Psalm 35:28.

And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness
And Your praise all day long.

Und meine Zunge soll reden von deiner Gerechtigkeit und dich täglich preisen.

Et ma langue célébrera ta justice, Elle dira tous les jours ta louange.

La mia lingua celebrerà la tua giustizia e canterà la tua lode tutto il giorno.

Con mi lengua proclamaré tu justicia,
y todo el día te alabaré.

Modern Language Review

it's time to start working on modern languages. we're going to do this by using the Bible, found in a multitude of languages here. today's verse is Psalm 34:4. we will give the verse in english, german, french, italian, and spanish (yes, i realize that more modern languages exist than these five; perhaps we shall add more later).

I sought the LORD, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.

Da ich den HERRN suchte, antwortete er mir und errettete mich aus aller meiner Furcht.

J'ai cherché l'Éternel, et il m'a répondu; Il m'a délivré de toutes mes frayeurs.

ho cercato l'Eterno, ed egli mi ha risposto e mi ha liberato da tutti i miei spaventi.

Busqué al Señor, y él me respondió;
me libró de todos mis temores.

Dennis the Apostate

I suppose it's time I come clean: I no longer have faith in the oral composition theory of the homeric poems.

I highly recommend Douglas Young's epic-length essay 'Never Blotted a Line? Formula and Premeditation in Homer and Hesiod' from Arion 6 (1966) (also reprinted in Niall Rudd's Essays in Classical Literature, 1972).

It just may change your life.

Also a good (and more current) read for those teetering on the fence is M.L. West's reply to reviews of his Homer Teubner by Nagy and Nardelli in the BMCR:

My critics are both (though it takes them in different ways) devotees of the Oralist faith, and they reproach me for not paying sufficient regard to the Good News. Thus Nagy remarks disapprovingly that in my Praefatio I "ignore altogether the work of Parry and Lord", and that throughout my edition "there is a noticeable lack of engagement with oral poetics". Nardelli finds that I "refuse the critical consequences of the Parry-Lord theory"; I show this by marking as spurious a number of verses "which, in their great majority, are easily accounted for in the oralist framework". I have "a keen feeling for Homeric Greek but no sound command in oral linguistics." "He cannot be well acquainted with Parry's principle that rhapsodes would modernize their diction wherever meter does not prevent it since it is his contention that 'Homer' wrote."

Let me take up the last point first. I do not actually commit myself as to whether the poet wrote with his own hand or used an amanuensis, but I do make him responsible for the writing down. Both reviewers imply that there is something controversial, even extreme, in this view. But it is an inescapable fact that we are dealing with a written poem, a text fixed in the course of the writing process (in Parryist theory it could not be otherwise). It cannot be treated as the transcript of a series of oral performances, for even if the poet was capable of creating our Iliad in performance, the means to capture it were not available in antiquity.

Working on the late hexameters of Nicander and Aratus I find myself becoming more and more aware of the individual poets compositional technique and consciousness of a predetermined scheme seems undeniable. Further, the so-called pseudo-hexameters that we find occasionally in Homer abound in Stesichorus who was writing complex strophic compositions often built upon the hexameter's recognized cola, the hemiepes and the paroemiac.

Oralists use these 'pseudo-hexameters' as evidence for the kinds of mistakes that might be made and forgiven in oral composition but the fact that they were viable hexameter lines in an accomplished, literate, and complex poet like Steishorus argues the opposite. In fact, these 'pseudo-hexameters' are exactly the result of joining acceptable first and second cola of different type e.g. D|uD—, which shows a 1st colon with masculine caesura and 2nd resulting from feminine, and Du|D— which shows a 1st colon with feminie caesura and second resulting from masculine (D=hemiepes and u=breve, see West Greek Metre 35).

(If anyone cares to learn more about the hexameter beyond feet I can prepare an annotated bibliography, which might actually be helpful for me.)

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

There are things which the classics teach us, and about which I could not lightly express myself in public.

Constantine's Vision and Dream(s)

max over at in hoc signo vinces has a post on constantine's vision and the sign which constantine was instructed to use as protection in battle, so i thought i might say a little something about it here.

the first thing that should be said is that the separate accounts of constantine's vision/dream must be kept strictly separate, for they do not recount the same event. lactantius (who has a dream, but no vision) includes instructions for the chi-rho at De Mortibus Persecutorum 44 (text; translation):

Commonitus est in quiete Constantinus, ut caeleste signum dei notaret in scutis atque ita proelium committeret. Facit ut iussus est et transversa X littera, summo capite circumflexo, Christum in scutis notat. Quo signo armatus exercitus capit ferrum.

Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He did as he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter X, with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top, being the cipher of CHRIST. Having this sign, his troops stood to arms.

lactantius' dream seems to occur in the vicinity of rome, shortly before the battle with maxentius. eusebius' version in the Vita Constantini, in contrast, occurs before constantine marches his troops to rome, and includes both a vision and a dream. eusebius claims that constantine himself told him the story 'a long while after'; no vision is included in eusebius' account of the battle at HE 9.9.2-8. here is cameron's translation from VC 1.28-31:

About the time of the midday sun, when day was just turning, he said he saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it whichsaid, `By this conquer' (τούτῳ νίκα). Amazement at the spectacle seized both him and the whole company of soldiers which was then accompanying him on a campaign he was conducting somewhere, and witnessed the miracle. 29 He was, he said, wondering to himself what the manifestation might mean; then, while he meditated, and thought long and hard, night overtook him. Thereupon, as he slept, the Christ of God appeared to him with the sign which had appeared in the sky, and urged him to make himself a copy of the sign which had appeared in the sky, and to use this as protection against the attacks of the enemy. 30 When day came he arose and recounted the mysterious communication to his friends. Then he summoned goldsmiths and jewellers, sat down among them, and explained the shape of the sign, and gave them instructions about copying it in gold and precious stones. This was something which the Emperor himself once saw it to let me also set eyes on, God vouchsafing even this. 31 (1) It was constructed to the following design. A tall pole plated with gold had a transverse bar forming the shape of a cross. Up at [31] the extreme top a wreath woven of precious stones and gold had been fastened. On it two letters, intimating by its first characters the name `Christ', formed the monogram of the Saviour's title, rho being intersected in the middle by chi. These letters the Emperor also used to wear upon his helmet in later times. (2)From the transverse bar, which was bisected by the pole, hung suspended a cloth, an imperial tapestry covered with a pattern of precious stones fastened together, which glittered with shafts of light, and interwoven with much gold, producing an impression of indescribable beauty on those who saw it. This banner then, attached to the bar, was given equal dimensions of length and breadth. But the upright pole, which extended upwards a long way from its lower end, below the trophy of the cross and near the top of the tapestry delineated, carried the golden head-and-shoulders portrait of the Godbeloved Emperor, and likewise of his sons. (3) This saving sign was always used by the Emperor for protection against every opposing and hostile force, and he commanded replicas of it to lead all his armies.
32 (1) That was, however, somewhat later. At the time in question, stunned by the amazing vision, and determined to worship no other god than the one who had appeared, he summoned those expert in his words, and enquired who this
god was, and what was the explanation of the vision which had appeared of the sign. (2) They said that the god was the Onlybegotten Son of the one and only God, and that the sign which appeared was a token of immortality, and was an abiding
trophy of the victory over death, which he had once won when he was present on earth. They began to teach him the reasons for his coming, explaining to him in detail the story of his self-accommodation to human conditions. [32] (3) He listened
attentively to these accounts too, while he marvelled at the divine manifestation which had been granted to his eyes; comparing the heavenly vision with the meaning of what was being said, he made up his mind, convinced that it was as God's own teaching that the knowledge of these things had come to him. He now decided personally to apply himself to the divinely inspired writings. Taking the priests of God as his advisers, he also deemed it right to honour the God who had appeared to him with all due rites. Thereafter, fortifed by good hopes in him, he finally set about extinguishing the menacing flames of tyranny.

thus, what constantine saw in the initial vision, according to eusebius, was a cross-shaped trophy with a text attached to it. when instructed in the dream to make a copy of the sign he had seen, a chi-rho is included at the top of the cross (of course, this too could have been a part of the initial vision which is simply not included in 1.28), but is not the sign itself; it is part of the sign. this cross-cum-banner-cum-chi-rho is the sign commonly referred to as the labarum. as cameron comments (p.210),

Eusebius saw the labarum in its established form, as depicted on Constantine's late coins, and here describes what he had seen later... . Even in this form it could be described as cross-shaped, and resembled a military vexillum; Firm. Mat., Err. prof. rel. 20.7 refers to it as the vexillum fidei.

on 'the shape of a cross' in 31.1, she comments (p.210) that

The whole structure is cruciform. The fact that the military vexillum was cruciform had been noted by Methodius, Porph. 1, who claimed that earthly emperors thus used the cross 'for the destruction of wicked habits'. The description of the wreath and the first two letters of the name of Christ point clearly to the later labarum, as it was depicted on coins.

and, finally, an interesting bit on the chi-rho itself (p.210):

Like other Christian signs, the chi-rho emblem is in fact rare on Constantine's coins, and the early silver medallions of 315 from Ticinum (Pavia) showing the Emperor wearing a high-crested helmet with the Christogram are exceptional (Fig.3). See P. Bruun, 'The Christian Signs on the Coins of Constantine', Arctos, NS 3 (1962), 5-35, against A. Alfoeldi, 'The Helmet of Constantine with the Christian Monogram', JRS 22 (1932), 9-23; though the form of the chi-rho is attested before Constantine, there is no certain Christian use (E. Dinkler, Signum Crucis (Tuebingen, 1967), 134-5).

i've not read any of these articles on the frequency and use of the chi-rho and have no position on the matter at present.

How people are finding the Campus

Quaint, I'd imagine.

But here's the latest odd search request to catch my eye:

priestly, brain detroit computers

Please comment freely with your twisted psychological profiles and best guesses.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

When something great appears and lasts for some time, we can presuppose a careful training, e.g. among the Greeks. How did so many men among them achieve their freedom?

Educate educators! But first educators must educate themselves. It is for these I write.

Aetas Claudianea

i've been reading some claudian lately. perhaps someday i'll have something intelligent to say about it.

but i wouldn't hold my breath.

in the meantime, i direct your attention to someone who does. here is bret mulligan's review of the recently published Aetas Claudianea. Eine Tagung an der Freien Universität Berlin vom 28. bis 30. Juni 2002, edited by Widu-Wolfgang Ehlers.

mulligan states:

This volume will be required reading for students of Claudian, and offers much of value to scholars of late antique literary culture and the Classical Tradition in general. In their inclusion of extensive references and supplementary material, most contributors appear to be aiming at an audience beyond that of the Claudian specialist, and taken together the twelve contributions in this volume provide a valuable introduction to the current questions and challenges of Claudian scholarship, as well as a useful overview of its bibliography. Of the twelve contributions, six are in German, four in English, and two in Italian.

indeed, there are a couple of essays herein i'm looking forward to reading, especially 'Das Orpheus-Thema in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae' by christine schmitz, in which she examines the function of the prefaces to books 1 and 2 in the rest of the work (a topic in which i'm quite interested myself).

and those interested in the interplay of hellenistic and late antique literature might enjoy isabella gualandri's essay 'Claudian's Greek World: Callimachus'. here is how mr. mulligan describes it:

In "Claudian's Greek World: Callimachus" (pp. 78-95), Isabella Gualandri reassesses the difficult topic of Claudian's use of Greek models, focusing on a few points of apparent contact between Claudian and Callimachus. She demonstrates how allusions to the Hymn to Delos structure the arrival of Mars in In Eutropium and inform the predicted destruction of the Giants in his Greek Gigantomachy. This last reference leads Gualandri to discuss other instances where Claudian exploits similarities between ancient Gallic and contemporary Gothic invaders, in particular the preface to the second book of the In Rufinum, where the anachronistic interest in Delphi is best explained as a reference to the Hymn to Delos's treatment of the Gallic invasion of 279 BCE. Although Gualandri cautions that "nothing conclusive can be inferred from these few examples," she ventures that Claudian's references to Greek models are not allusions -- i.e. aemulatio intended to be recognized by a learned audience -- but simply material "to be freely exploited and exhibited as if they were the result of his own inventio," an "elusive use of his literary models." In this well-argued essay, Gualandri is meticulous in documenting her sources and providing interesting supplementary information. She thoroughly treats other possible sources and avoids the pitfalls of overstatement that often plague the exposition of poetic models.

finally, here is a complete list of the papers included:

Lucio Ceccarelli, "Osservazioni sull'esametro di Claudiano"

Franca Ela Consolino, "Poetry and politics in Claudian's carmina minora 22 and 50"

Siegmar Döpp, "Von Napoleon zu Ludwig XVIII.: Der Claudian-Cento des L.A. Descampe"

Manfred Fuhrmann, "Claudian in der Neuzeit"

Isabella Gualandri, "Claudian's Greek World"

Jacqueline Long, "Claudian and the City: Poetry and Pride of Place"

Jens Michners, "Spott und Ironi in Claudians carmina minora"

Claudio Moreschini, "Paganus pervicacissimus religione e 'filosofia' in Claudiano"

Claudia Schindlerm "Tradition - Transformation - Innovation: Claudians Panegyriken und das Epos"

Peter Lebrecht Schmidt, "Rezeptionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zur Claudianüberlieferung"

Christine Schmitz, "Das Orpheus-Thema in Claudians De raptu Proserpinae"

Catherine Ware, "Gildo tyrannus: Accusation and Allusion in the Speeches of Roma and Africa"

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

first of all, it's nice to see dennis back again! i was beginning to wonder whether he'd abandoned us for fairer campi. if anyone else is glad to see his return, they are warmly invited to express their delight in the comments.

and now on to our citation for the day--

Classical scholarship as knowledge of the ancient world cannot, of course, last forever; its material is exhaustible. What cannot be exhausted is the perpetually new adjustment of our own age to the classical world, of measuring ourselves against it. If we assign the classicist the task of understanding his own age better by means of the classical world, then his task is a permanent one.--This is the antinomy of classical scholarship. Men have always, in fact, understood the ancient world exclusively in terms of the present--and shall the present now be understood in terms of the ancient world? More precisely: men have explained the classical world to themselves in terms of their own experience; and from what they have acquired of the classical world in this way, they have assessed, evaluated their own experience. Hence experience is clearly an absolute prerequisite for a classicist. Which means: the classicist must first be a man in order to become creative as a classicist...

Greek and Latin spotted on the radio

The other day I heard a caller to the lcoal sports radio station offer big kuh-DOOZ to the host (and yes, kuh-DOOZ rhymes with 'the news'). Never have I heard kudos butchered so badly.

This morning on Howard Stern I briefly heard the gang repeatedly saying, 'Latin gravitas' apparently in mockery of James Lipton.

Now that I can get behind. The man makes a mean iced tea though.

At the moment I'm working on a new thesis which also was not on our earlier poll. Sorry about that. But the good news is that I have under two months to complete a thesis on meter in Aratus and Nicander, and I'm currently convinced that Nicander's Alexipharmaca is the most underappreciated poem in the history of the world of mankind ever. It's--dare I say it?--really really ridiculously good.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

The consistency which is honored in a scholar is pedantry when applied to the Greeks.

As Seen in From Dawn to Decadence

The new degree of Bachelor of Science does not guarantee that the holder knows any science. It does guarantee that he does not know any Latin.

--Dean Briggs of Harvard College (c.1900)

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

In the average Greek we encounter the qualities of genius without originality--in short, all the dangerous qualities of spirit and character.

Magister Coke is all around in big trouble!

Besides shirking my duties on this website, I have been extremely neglectful concerning graduate school. I got an email a few days ago from Bryn Mawr's bow-tied Godfather, Darby Scott, scolding me for not responding to any emails from professors regarding my UNFINISHED THESIS. I know, I know, I am BAAAAD. Sed quid dicam? I mean seriously, in my first year of teaching, when will I have time for writing? When I am not planning lessons, I am sleeping and maybe even eating. Nonetheless, I haven't emailed him back, which is definitely in bad form.

On a lighter note, I have written two songs to help my students with the cases. I'm sure that this will help all of you Latin tutors out there. Maybe I should put out an mp3 with the songs recorded.

The first song is from the Adam's Family theme song:
They're crazy and they're KOOKy
they're marvelous and spooky
it won't be long 'till you see
the case as family!
nominative (click click)
the genitive (click click)
dative and accusative, the ablative (click click)

The second song takes its melody from The Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg: "Singular is US A UM, I AE I, O AE O..." and so forth. It gets complicated with the plurals, so you'll have to wait until I come out with a CD to hear the rest of it.
Kids love it. 9th graders are finally getting a handle on the cases. You'd be surprised how differently a 9th grader's mind works from the mind I was using when I learned Latin my junior year of college. Maybe if they were not taking seven or eight other classes, it would be easier for them to focus!

Calling Magister Coke

guess what? someone found the campus today by googling 'aaron kook'. and i don't blame them.

i figured this was the explanation: aaron forgot the address of the blog to which HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE CONTRIBUTING, and googled himself to find it. well done.

but then i wandered over to the dave, the other blog into which i insinuate myself, and someone had found THAT by googling '"aaron kook"'!

this, friends, i cannot explain.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

It is not true that culture can be acquired only from the classics. We can get something from them, but not "culture" as that word is understood nowadays. Our own culture is based upon a completely castrated and mendacious classical curriculum. To see how little effect this curriculum has, just take a look at our classicists. Thanks to the classics, they should be our best educated men: are they?

More on Scarborough

via rogue classicism, i came across this interview in the chronicle of higher education with michele ronnick, responsible for the publication of william sanders scarborough's autobiography, mentioned previously on the campus.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

My purpose is: to create complete hostility between our modern "culture" and classical civilization. Whoever wants to serve the former must hate the latter.

What's In a Name?

i'm becoming more and more glad that we have a wider variety of names to choose from in modern times than did the ancient romans.

for example, constantine, whose father was named constantius, had three sons besides crispus. their names were constantine II, constantius, and constans.

seriously.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

One of the greatest values of classical antiquity is the fact that its writings are the only ones which modern men still read carefully.

Overstraining of the memory--very common among classicists--and underdeveloped judgment.

Ruling the Later Roman Empire

here is michael kulikowski's review of christopher kelly's book Ruling the Later Roman Empire. here are the first two paragraphs:

This book has been awaited since Kelly's contribution s on the subject to the Cambridge Ancient History and Bowersock, Brown and Grabar's guide to late antiquity. Very much a book of two parts, Ruling the Later Roman Empire deals chiefly with the administrative and bureaucratic elites of the late empire, first through the prism of the De magistratibus of John Lydus, then through three long chapters on the symbolic and actual meaning of late Roman bureaucracy and its contrast with the early empire. Kelly's sources are familiar, at least until the short epilogue in which he adduces sermon literature envisaging heaven in imperial terms. His approach is expository and analytical, resolutely traditional: the shrine of Bourdieu is by-passed without modish genuflection, and a topic seemingly made for thick description does not get it. All of which is to say that, to those for whom such things matter, Ruling the Later Roman Empire will seem woefully under-theorized.

But the book is conceptually modern in other ways. Kelly is laudably unwilling to surrender administrative history to German dissertations and gigantic French thèses exhaustively cataloguing the legal minutiae of individual departments. Instead, he searches to find the personal and affective side of Roman bureaucracy, with great success: this is a fundamentally humane book. Kelly can show imaginative feeling both for an invented ageing bureaucrat, gasping with relief when the emperor insists on promotion strictly by seniority, and for canny operators slowly weaving intricate webs of shadowy power and perquisites. Time and again, the book conjures the image of a late Roman Sir Humphrey Appleby, ranging self-interestedly through bureaux every bit as tiresome as the Department of Administrative Affairs, lacking only a sense of humour to complete the picture.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

the following is (in)appropriate, since we just talked a little about the history of classical scholarship.

Ah, it's a miserable history, the history of classical scholarship! The most nauseating erudition; the sluggish, passive indifference; timid acquiescence.--Who has ever possessed any freedom?

Stephanme, Stephanyou, Stephanus

ever wonder why texts of plato have that funny page-numbering system? you know, 'stephanus pages'? well, i wondered, too.

they are due to the edition of scholar and printer henricus stephanus (henri estienne) (1528-31--1598), son of scholar and printer robertus stephanus (robert estienne). henricus has a number of notables to his credit, including discovering ten new books of diodorus while on a trip to italy, which were printed in 1559, the same year in which he took over his father's business in geneva.

moreover, he was responsible for the printing of editions of myriad ancient works: 58 in latin and 74 in greek, of which 18 were editiones principes. his aeschylus, edited by victorius (1557), was the first to include the complete Agamemnon.

he is perhaps best-known for his Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which, as of 1908, was still unsurpassed as a Greek lexicon on a large scale, and for his edition of Plato, issued in 1578, which held its ground for two centuries until the bipontine edition of 1781-87.

(the foregoing information is taken from sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol.II.)

Centralization and Its Discontents

Centralization in the end defeated itself. The clerks of the central ministries were by no means proof against corruption and would, for a consideration, draft and submit illegal petitions to their chiefs. The ministers of the comitatus themselves, even if they were incorruptible--and they were, it would appear, often susceptible to influence and bribes--found it difficult to keep a check on the vast mass of business which passed through their hands. The emperor himself, snowed under with papers, could not examine every document submitted to him. He regularly threatened with penalties the clerks who prepared illegal rescripts and sometimes the ministers who submitted them. But he openly admitted his impotence by declaring invalid in advance any special grants in contravention of the law, even if they bore his own signature.

(A.H.M. Jones, The Decline of the Ancient World, p.153)

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

Where do we see the effect of classical antiquity? Not in language, not in the imitation of this or that, and surely not in the absurdity displayed by the French. Our museums are crammed; I always feel nauseated when I see statues--pure and naked in the Greek manner--confronted with this mindless Philistinism which wants to swallow everything.

i wonder whether nietzsche saw portents of continental things to come in his dreams. what would he have seen the in the department of french absurdity? derrida? lyotard? foucault?

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

*please note that the nietzsche entry for 9 february has been removed by necessity due to a scribal error on my part. you see, my photocopy had cut off the bottom of a page, thereby eliding the end of one excerpt and the beginning of the next, which caused me to believe i was looking at one excerpt when, in fact, i was looking at parts of two. the next two entries, then, will be the two that i inadvertantly combined. as separate entities, they will, i'm sure you'll agree, make much more sense.

Origin of the classicist. When a great work of art makes its appearance, it always finds a corresponding spectator who not only experiences its influence but wants to immortalize it. The same applies to a great state, to everything, in short, which raises mankind. In the same way classicists want to immortalize the influence of the classics, which they can only do as imitative artists. Not as men who model their lives on the classics?

i wonder if his jab at classicists as 'imitative artists' is at all related to his dislike of aristotelian poetic theory.

Some Rules for the Tragic Poet

contra Nietzsche, i actually find some of aristotle's observations stimulating, such as the following:

As far as possible, too, the dramatic poet should carry out the appropriate gestures as he composes his speeches, for of writers with equal abilities those who can actually make themselves feel the relevant emotions will be the most convincing--agitation or rage will be most vividly reproduced by one who is himself agitated or in a passion. Hence poetry is the product either of a man of great natural ability or of one not wholly sane; the one is highly responsive, the other possessed.

(Tr. T.S. Dorsch)

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

The desire for some sort of certainty in aesthetics led to Aristotle-worship. It will gradually be seen, I think, that he knew nothing about art, and that what we admire in him is merely an echo of clever Athenian conversation.

More Jones

since i'm still going through some of a.h.m. jones's the later roman empire, you get to, too. today we will learn that the arabs used greek as their administrative language for a fair chunk of time.

In Syria and Egypt Greek does not seem to have outlived the end of Roman rule by more than about a century. It was maintained by the Arabs as their administrative language until the middle of the eighth century, but when the caliphs ordered the use of Arabic in the government offices it quickly died out.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

The shades in Homer's Hades--what sort of existence are they really modelled on? I think it must be a portrait of the classicist. Surely it is better to be the "lowest serf on earth" than to have such a bloodless recollection of the past--of things great and small.

The Postmodern (De)generator

i'd never used our link on the left to the postmodern generator before, but i just did, and i must say--it's quite fun(ny)!

wait--maybe i should put some scare-quotes in there:

i'd never 'used' our 'link' on the left to the postmodern 'generator' before, but i just did, and i must 'say'--it's quite fun(ny)!

for example, see
this from an 'essay' titled 'surrealism in the works of spelling':

1. Spelling and dialectic pretextual theory
"Class is part of the futility of reality," says Foucault. The characteristic theme of von Junz's[1] essay on posttextual nationalism is not appropriation, as neosemanticist nihilism suggests, but preappropriation.

It could be said that surrealism states that narrativity, paradoxically, has significance, given that sexuality is interchangeable with language. The primary theme of the works of Stone is the genre, and some would say the collapse, of material society.

Therefore, the subject is interpolated into a postcapitalist paradigm of discourse that includes culture as a whole. Derrida promotes the use of dialectic pretextual theory to read reality.

and
this one talks about 'postpatriarchial constructivism'.

or this one:

"Sexual identity is unattainable," says Sartre; however, according to Dahmus[1] , it is not so much sexual identity that is unattainable, but rather the genre, and subsequent stasis, of sexual identity. The characteristic theme of the works of Madonna is the role of the artist as poet. In a sense, Sontag uses the term 'subdialectic narrative' to denote not demodernism per se, but predemodernism.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

Very little can be gotten by sheer violence of industry, if the mind is obtuse. In the case of Homer, numerous classicists think that violence achieves results. The classics speak to us when they feel like doing so; not when we do.

After this, I'm off for a spittle bath

i thought this was going to be the most bizarre thing i read yesterday:

Theodoret personally met an aged Marcionite who had all his life washed his face in his own spittle to avoid using water, the creation of the demiurge.

but then i read the next four sentences:

Augustine records from personal knowledge the practices of the Abelonii, a sect which survived to his own day in a village of his own city of Hippo. They held that marriage and continence were obligatory on all believers. Each couple adopted a boy and girl, who on the death of both foster parents, succeeded to the family farm and in turn adopted a boy and a girl. There was never any difficulty, Augustine tells us, in maintaining the sect, as neighbouring villages were always ready to provide children to be adopted in the certainty of ultimately acquiring a farm.

(a.h.m. jones, LRE 953)

The Poetics of Confusion

right now i wish that aristotle were more intelligible.

then again, i suppose that if some speaker of an alien tongue tried to read my notes 2300-odd years from now, he wouldn't fare much better. and the fruits of his labor would be much less, well, fruitful.

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

When classicists discuss their discipline, they don't get down to the root of the matter: they don't adduce classical scholarship itself as a problem. Bad conscience? Or simple inadvertance?