Classics Watch

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer there are at least two Classics references. The first is from a letter to the editor:

It's quite a commentary on the state of America today that a major network feels a race-baiting reality show is good for prime time and a newspaper's Editorial Board tells its readers they "shouldn't be reluctant to watch" it.

The real question is: Why is such a blatant prime-time racial provocation any worse than much of the garbage American TV viewers already support with their viewing and consumer habits? The Romans had gladiator matches as part of the "bread and circus" that kept the Roman citizenry from asking too many questions about what was really going on. Survivor and other TV reality competitions may not be as violent as Roman gladiator games, but they seem to serve the same purpose.

Maybe it's only a matter of time before the impresarios of wrestling link up with the impresarios of reality TV to meld into a modern gladiator show as in the days of old, featuring strapping representatives of all the races beating the hell out of each other.

As the nation heads for its destiny - avoiding engagement with its tremendous indebtedness, its addiction to oil and its militaristic hubris - let the games begin!

The second is in the crossword puzzle, where the answer for the clue 'Roman magistrates' is 'praetors', except they make you spell it 'pretors'.

The Classical Tradition Lives On in Modern Greece

This is from an article about Greece tearing up the U.S. in the current basketball world tournament. Notice Baby Shaq's first name:

The Greeks don't have an NBA player on their roster, although guard Vassilis Spanoulis is headed for the Houston Rockets. Spanoulis led Greece with 22 points, Mihalis Kakiouzis added 15 and 6-foot-10 Sofoklis Schortsianitis -- nicknamed "Baby Shaq" -- bulled his way to 14 on 6-of-7 shooting.

The Cost of Sea Travel in Ancient Greece

Near the end of the Gorgias, in the midst of his effort to convince Callicles of the relative unimportance of oratory, Socrates makes the following interesting remark about the price of ferry tickets (511, trans. Walter Hamilton):

Navigation is a modest art that knows her place; she does not put on airs or make out that she has performed some brilliant feat, even though she achieves as much as forensic oratory; she brings a man safe from Aegina for no more than two obols, I believe, and even if he comes from Egypt or Pontus or ever so far away the utmost she charges for this great service, for conveying in safety, as I said, a man and his children and property and womenfolk, is two drachmae when he disembarks at the Piraeus; and the man who possesses this skill and has accomplished all this lands and walks about on the shore beside his ship in a quite unassuming way.

Today's Quintilian: 8.6.21-22

XXI. Quod genus non orationis modo ornatus sed etiam cotidiani sermonis usus recipit. Quidam synecdochen vocant et cum id in contextu sermonis quod tacetur accipimus: verbum enim ex verbis intellegi, quod inter vitia ellipsis vocatur: "Arcades ad portas ruere". Mihi hanc figuram esse magis placet, illic ergo reddetur. XXII. Aliud etiam intellegitur ex alio: "aspice, aratra iugo referunt suspensa iuvenci", unde apparet noctem adpropinquare. Id nescio an oratori conveniat nisi in argumentando, cum rei signum est: sed hoc ab elocutionis ratione distat.

21. This mode of expression not only adorns oratorical speeches, but finds its place even in common conservation [this must be a typo for 'conversation']. Some say that synecdoche is also used when we understand something that is not actually expressed in the words employed, as one word is then discovered from another. But this is sometimes numbered among defects in style under the name of ellipsis, as,

Arcades ad portas ruere;

The Arcadians to the gates began to rush;
22. I consider it rather a figure, and among figures it shall be noticed. But from a thing actually expressed another may be understood, as,

Aspice aratra jugo referunt suspensa juvenci,

Behold the oxen homeward, bring their ploughs
Suspended from the yoke,
whence it appears that night is approaching. I do not know whether this mode of expression is allowable to an orator, unless in argumentation, when one thing is shown to indicate another. But this has nothing to do with elocution.

Today's Quintilian: 8.6.19-20

XIX. Quod [aliquando] paene iam magis de synecdoche dicam. Nam tralatio permovendis animis plerumque et signandis rebus ac sub oculos subiciendis reperta est: haec variare sermonem potest, ut ex uno pluris intellegamus, parte totum, specie genus, praecedentibus sequentia, vel omnia haec contra, liberior poetis quam oratoribus. XX. Nam prorsa, ut "mucronem" pro gladio et "tectum" pro domo recipiet, ita non "puppem" pro navi nec "abietem" pro tabellis, et rursus, ut pro gladio "ferrum", ita non pro equo "quadrupedem". Maxime autem in orando valebit numerorum illa libertas. Nam et Livius saepe sic dicit: "Romanus proelio victor", cum Romanos vicisse significat, et contra Cicero ad Brutum "populo" inquit "imposuimus et oratores visi sumus", cum de se tantum loqueretur.

19. What I say of metaphor may be applied, perhaps with more force, to synecdoche, for metaphor has been invented for the purpose of exciting the mind, giving a character to things, and setting them before the eye. Synecdoche is adapted to give variety to language by letting us understand the plural from the singular, the whole from a part, a genus from the species, something following from something preceding, and vice versa, but it is more freely allowed to poets than to orators. 20. For prose, though it may admit mucro, "a point" for a sword, and tectum, "a roof" for a house, will not let us say puppis, "a stern" for a ship, or quadrupes, "a quadruped" for a horse. But it is liberty with regard to number that is most admissible in prose. Thus Livy often says, Romanus praelio victor, "The Roman was victorious in the battle," when he means the Romans. Cicero, on the other hand, writes to Brutus, Populo imposuimus et oratores visi sumus, "We have imposed on the people and made ourselves be thought orators," when he speaks only of himself.

Today's Quintilian: 8.6.17-18

XVII. sunt et durae, id est a longinqua similitudine ductae, ut "capitis nives" et "Iuppiter hibernas cana nive conspuit Alpes". In illo vero plurimum erroris, quod ea quae poetis, qui et omnia ad voluptatem referunt et plurima vertere etiam ipsa metri necessitate coguntur, permissa sunt convenire quidam etiam prorsae putant. XVIII. At ego in agendo nec "pastorem populi" auctore Homero dixerim nec volucres per a‰ra "nare", licet hoc Vergilius in apibus ac Daedalo speciosissime sit usus. Metaphora enim aut vacantem locum occupare debet aut, si in alienum venit, plus valere eo quod expellit.

17. Some are harsh, that is, based on a resemblance not sufficiently close, as "The snows of the head," and,

Jupiter hibernas canâ nive conspuit Alpes,

Jove over the Alps spits forth the wintry snows.
But the greatest source of error in regard to this subject is that some speakers think whatever is allowed to poets (who make it their sole object to please and are obliged by the necessity of the meter to adopt many metaphorical expressions) is permissible also to those who express their thoughts in prose. 18. But I, in pleading, would never say the "shepherd of the people" on the authority of Homer, nor speak of "birds rowing with their wings," though Virgil, in writing of bees and of Daedalus, has used that phrase with great happiness. For a metaphor ought either to occupy a place that is vacant, or, if it takes possession of the place of something else, to appear to more advantage in it than that which it excludes.

Today's Quintilian: 8.6.14-16

XIV. Vt modicus autem atque oportunus eius usus inlustrat orationem, ita frequens et obscurat et taedio complet, continuus vero in allegorian et aenigmata exit. sunt etiam quaedam et humiles tralationes, ut id de quo modo dixi,"saxea est verruca", et sordidae. XV. Non enim, si Cicero recte "sentinam rei publicae" dixit, foeditatem hominum significans, idcirco probem illud quoque veteris oratoris: "persecuisti rei publicae vomicas". Optimeque Cicero demonstrat cavendum ne sit deformis tralatio, qualis est (nam ipsis eius utar exemplis): "castratam morte Africani rem publicam", et "stercus curiae Glauciam": XVI. ne nimio maior aut, quod saepius accidit, minor, ne dissimilis. Quorum exempla nimium frequenter deprendet qui scierit haec vitia esse. Sed copia quoque modum egressa vitiosa est, praecipue in eadem specie.

14. But as a moderate and judicious use of metaphors adorns language, so a too frequent introduction of them obscures it and renders the perusal of it fatiguing, while a continuous series of them runs into allegory and enigma. Some metaphors, too, are mean, as that which I recently mentioned, "There is a wart of stone, etc." 15. Some are repulsive, for though Cicero uses the _expression sentina rei publicae, "sink of the commonwealth," with great happiness, to signify a herd of bad characters, yet I cannot for that reason approve of the saying of an old orator, Persecuists rei publicae vomicas, "You have lanced the ulcers of the commonwealth." Cicero himself excellently shows that we must take care that a metaphor be not offensive, as in his own examples that "the republic was castrated by the death of Africanus," or that "Glaucia was the excrement of the senate"; 16. that it be not too great, or, as more frequently happens, too little for the subject; and that it be not inapplicable. He who knows that they are faults will find numerous such examples. But an excess of even good metaphors is vicious, especially if they are of the same kind.

Today's Quintilian: 8.6.11-13

XI. Praecipueque ex his oritur mira sublimitas quae audaci et proxime periculum tralatione tolluntur, cum rebus sensu carentibus actum quendam et animos damus, qualis est "pontem indignatus Araxes" et illa Ciceronis: XII. "Quid enim tuus ille, tubero, destrictus in acie Pharsalica gladius agebat? cuius latus ille mucro petebat? Qui sensus erat armorum tuorum"? duplicatur interim haec virtus, ut apud Vergilium: "ferrumque armare veneno", nam et "veneno armare" et "ferrum armare" tralatio est. XIII. Secantur haec in pluris partis, ut a rationali ad rationale et idem de inrationalibus et haec invicem, quibus similis ratio est et a toto et a partibus. Sed iam non pueris praecipimus, ut accepto genere species intellegere non possint.

11. From the last kind of metaphor, when inanimate things are exalted by a bold and daring figure, and when we give energy and feeling as it were to objects that are without them, extraordinary sublimity is produced, as in Virgil,

Pontem indignatus Araxes,

Araxes that disdained a bridge;
12. in Cicero, "What was your drawn sword, Tubero, doing in the field of Pharsalia? At whose body did its point direct itself? What was the meaning of your arms?" Sometimes this beauty is doubled, as in Virgil,

Ferrumque armare veneno,

To arm the steel with poison,
for to arm with poison and to arm steel are both metaphors. 13. These four might be distinguished into more species, as a word may be taken from one sort of rational animal and applied metaphorically to another, and the same may be done with regard to irrational animals. In like manner, we may apply a metaphor from the rational to the irrational, or from the irrational to the rational, and from the whole of a thing to a part, or from the part to the whole. But I am not now giving directions to boys, or supposing that my readers, when they understand the genus, cannot master the species.

Gleek Ranguage

That title doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I saw this on a t-shirt at Sears today and it reminded me of Engrish.com: