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?