Male Graduate Students:
un-serious in terms of studies since 1931.
'Landscape with She-Wolf Suckling Romulus and Remus', by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), c. 1590. Pen, brown ink and brown wash, retouched in black ink, on white paper. Paris, Louvre.
Somebody recently traveled to the Campus after reading a post at Laudator Temporis Acti from 2004 in which Michael Gilleland wondered about a new coinage to capture the idea of hating one's own race. He ended up unhappy with misautogeny.
I think αὐτός feels out of place here. What you want is 'same,' not self.
I humbly submit misomophyly (secondary accent on the first syllable, primary accent on the third).
The phrase μισεῖν τούς ὁμοφύλους would mean 'to hate those of one's own race.' Racism, on the other hand, could find a synonym in misallophyly.
I like the way misomophyly sounds -- there's a certain pleasant sensation in the speech organs. Funny for such an ugly word.
Once upon a time I said that I was tired of Athena and off she went, and the Campus had nice facelift in her absence. Now she's returned and brought some more changes with her. (Notice her, hiding up there in the header? But what has she done with Homer Boy?)
The changes were brought about by Eric's suggestion that we move over to Google's new Blogger system. This necessitated a change in the template, and though I've fancied myself a web designer of sorts since the mid-90s, I kind of like the simplicity of this setup.
You'll notice that I've stolen Laura Gibbs's Roman Calendar, and I've added the year (A.V.C., a change I'll only need to make once a year).
In addition we've now got an RSS feed of YLE's Nuntii Latini.
More relvant to the Campus, though, you'll next see in the sidebar that we've got a more navigable 'back catalogue' (archive) and a nifty 'filing cabinet' (post labels).
We're slowly adding labels to old posts, and while this has never exactly been a juggernaut, we do have several hundred.
Which brings up an advancing milestone: the Campus will turn three on April 4th (begun with an in-joke as humorous now as it never was). In just over two months Eric and I will have been intermittently mining homework, grasping at intellectual straws, and promising to post more often for a full three years. That's one for each of our readers. You guys deserve it.
'Romulus and Remus Given Shelter by Faustulus', by Pietro Berrettini, called Pierre de Cortone (1597-1669), around 1643 (Paris, Louvre)
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday -- the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Watched by curious onlookers, some 20 worshippers gathered next to the ruins of the temple for a celebration organized by Ellinais, a year-old Athens-based group that is campaigning to revive old religious practices from the era when Greece was a fount of education and philosophy.
The group ignored a ban by the Culture Ministry, which declared the site off limits to any kind of organized activity to protect the monument.
But participants did not try to enter the temple itself, which is closed to everyone, and no officials sought to stop the ceremony.
Dressed in ancient costumes, worshippers standing near the temple's imposing Corinthian columns recited hymns calling on the Olympian Zeus, "King of the gods and the mover of things," to bring peace to the world.
"Our message is world peace and an ecological way of life in which everyone has the right to education," said Kostas Stathopoulos, one of three "high priests" overseeing the event, which celebrated the nuptials of Zeus and Hera, the goddess of love and marriage.
To the Greeks, ecological awareness was fundamental, Stathopoulos said after a priestess, with arms raised to the sky, called on Zeus "to bring rain to the planet."
A herald holding a metal staff topped with two snake heads proclaimed the beginning of the ceremony before priests in blue and red robes released two white doves as symbols of peace. A priest poured libations of wine and incense burned on a tiny copper tripod while a choir of men and women chanted hymns.
'Les Sabines', by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), 1799 (Paris, Louvre)
As I sit at my desk lethargic kids wander in and out. Only three have yet taken their seats and each is listening to his iPod, staring blankly at the agenda on the board. It's one day until the final exam and they're feeling uneasy (or worse) at the prospect of answering 250 questions and still having time left to write a translation unseen.
The coffee isn't bad this morning. The administration can't afford the best, but some kind soul among the faculty occasionally brings in little packets of half-and-half in abundance, and that makes all the difference. I suspect that somewhere a 7-11 manager is scratching his head: 'I thought I'd just refilled that.' It's a good thing, too, because it's helping me to forget my hunger and the fact that I haven't brought any money today.
So what's on the agenda today? We'll have no Channel 1, no school news broadcast either, because of the principal's noble effort of promoting reading every Wednesday morning. They'll probably read the latest texts from their friends.
But today it's review. Practice with verb tenses, cases of nouns, and a new game of team translation: the kids with the highest grades will lead teams, but may not write anything. This should help to keep the other kids active while the captains coach. Maybe we should call them coaches instead.
It's just about time for the Pledge, so I'm out.
I came home today, made myself a nice bowl of soup, and caught the end of some documentary on Roman engineering when lo and behold I see Peter Weller.
When I see Peter Weller I can only think of RoboCop, and to Peter I apologize for that. It's just that I was an impressionable kid when he made that movie. I had no idea that Peter teaches at Syracuse and is pursuing a PhD:
Weller, 58, who holds a master's degree in Roman and Renaissance art and is working toward a Ph.D., has become one of Syracuse University's most popular professors.And he even has a good sense of humor:"My fascination with ancient Rome started as a kid back in Texas when my father turned me on to Robert Graves, who wrote 'I, Claudius,'" says Weller, speaking from the South African set of the adventure movie "Prey." "I was always reading about the great emperors of Rome and then I started collecting first-century coins."
Last year, Weller taught a course called "Hollywood and the Roman Empire."That was written in September of 2005. Does anyone have an update on Master Weller?
"It's a classics course posing as a film course," he says. "Eighty kids signed up thinking they'd get an easy A from RoboCop. When they saw the reader was 450 pages, including Homer and Suetonius, a quarter of the class dropped out."
'The Introduction of the Cult of Cybele at Rome', by Andrea Mantegna (about 1430/1-1506), 1505-6. Glue on Linen. Housed in National Gallery (London).
The National Gallery's page on this picture says the following:
Inscribed in the centre: S HOSPES NUMINIS IDAEI C [By decree of the Senate host to the Idaean deity]. Various other inscriptions on the tombs.
In 204 BC the Romans brought the cult of Cybele, the eastern goddess of victory, from Pessina, Asia Minor, to Rome. Mantegna has combined the accounts of Ovid, Livy and Appian. Cybele is represented by her sacred stone - 'she fell to earth as a meteor' - and as a bust with a mural crown (associating her with a city state). According to Juvenal, Cornelius Scipio (probably in profile gesturing with his right hand) was the most worthy Roman citizen to receive Cybele.
This is one of four pictures commissioned in 1505 by Francesco Cornaro a Venetian nobleman, who claimed descent from the ancient Cornelii family (prominent in the picture). Mantegna only completed one before his death and Bellini supplied another (Washington, National Gallery).
'Marcus Curtius', attributed to Bacchiacca (1495-1557), probably about 1520-30. Oil on wood. Housed in National Gallery (London).
