Male Graduate Students:
un-serious in terms of studies since 1931.
One of the surprising things to me about the museum was their impressive and substantial collection of antique bronze sculptures and ornamention. By far their most famous bronze is this incredible Winged Victory from the Capitolium.
In Act III, Scene II, another suitor-scene in front of the caskets (as was the previous scene recently discussed on the Campus), Hercules comes up twice. The first is in a speech of Portia:
...Now he goes
With no less presence, but with much more love
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute, paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages come forth to view
The issue of th' exploit: go Hercules!
Live thou, I live--with much much more dismay,
I view the fight, than thou that mak'st the fray.
(53-62)
How many cowards whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chings
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
Who inward search'd, have livers white as milk?--
And these assume but valour's excrement
To render them redoubted.
(83-8)
There was another sale at the library here today. Not tons of stuff that I was interested in, but I did get a couple of Classics-related things--Oliver Strunk's Antiquity and the Middle Ages from the 'Source Readings in Music History' series and a book by Edward W. Spofford called The Social Poetry of the Georgics. But the grand prize of the day was the Alfred Rahlfs' 1935 edition of the Septuagint, voll. 1 and 2.
A reader has e-mailed to ask about the correct Latin translation of the phrase 'is nothing sacred?', made famous in Wes Anderson's classic Rushmore as 'nihilo sanctum estne?'
The problem with that translation was discussed here previously, but I thought I'd post my reply to this latest question, which may be inadequate so feel free to add your two cents on the issue in the comments.
It's almost a philosophical question. You have to think about the meaning behind the idiom rather than the literal translation.
Nihilo sanctum estne is close to a literal translation, but it's grammatically incorrect. A literal translation might be "nihilne sanctum est?" The interrogative particle (-ne) attaches to the first word (which is why "estne" would be a question unto itself in the Rushmore version). The verb "est" isn't technically necessary, so: nihilne sanctum?
This could work, but it's not said anywhere in Latin literature, though similar statements exist, e.g., "dictitat ... nihil esse tam sanctum quod non violari ... possit," i.e., "he asserts that ... nothing is so sacred that it can not be violated" (Cicero, In Verrem I. 2). This same thought is expressed elsewhere in nearly identical terms.
So it's possible to use "nihil sanctum (est)" to say "nothing's sacred." But still, the question "is nothing sacred" isn't asked.
It can be difficult to pinpoint the essential meaning of an idiom and then to translate it into the idiom of another language in a way that would be culturally relevant. In the same context that an English speaker says "is nothing sacred?", a Roman might have said, "mehercule!", an exclamation like our "my god!" which originally meant "by Hercules!" It expresses disbelief, maybe even disgust. But then again, there are probably better Latin idioms that I can't think of that would suit in different contexts.
The earliest reference I can find to Hercules and Lichas occurs in Hesiod fr. 25, which mentions Lichas in the same context that Ovid does, i.e., Deianara 'having besmeared the tunic, gave it to the herald Lichas to bring" (21-22). This is, of course, treated in the Trachiniae, so both characters are present, but there are no dice games.
Shakespeare knew this story well because he used it in Antony and Cleopatra. Antony says the following after dismissing Cleopatra in anger (Act IV scene 8, 53-61):
... ‘Tis well th’art gone,
If it be well to live; but better ‘twere
Thou fell’st into my fury, for one death
Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage.
Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o’ th’ moon,
And with those hands that grasp’d the heaviest club
Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.
O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.
"All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll'd:
Fare you well; your suit is cold."
In The Merchant of Venice today I read the following, spoken by Morocco (Act II, Scene I, 32-8):
If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
Which is the better man, the greater throw
May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
So is Alcides beaten by his rage,
And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
And die with grieving.
'the attendant who brought Hercules the poisoned shirt of Nessus (see Ovid, Met., IX); no story of a game at dice is known [my emphasis].'
Two more late antique milestones:
A mosaic floor from a Roman house discovered underneath the monastery--a site later reused by the Lombards to build their huts, as the post-holes cut into the mosaic indicate. I've included a shot (unfortunately blurry) of the didactic plaque:
This past weekend I visited the Museo della Citta' in Brescia (Northern Italy), and am convinced that it is one of Italy's best-kept secrets. The museum, housed in a former monastery and a couple of church buildings and located on a street that follows the path of the ancient Decumanus Maximus of the Roman city Brixia, is enormous. It has two itineraries: one which takes you through the history of the town and its surroundings from the prehistoric period all the way through the Venetian period. The other itinerary takes you through the history of the monastery. This post and the next (at least) will focus on some highlights of the first itinerary, and I'll try to do another post on the second. For interested parties, here are some links for the museum: one, two, three.
(Some of these photographs will be blurry, since parts of the museum were a little dark and the use of a flash is not allowed.)
The exhibit on the Roman period had several milestones from the area from the late antique period (Constantine, Valens, Valentinian, etc.). Here is one example:
They also had fragments of fresco from a Republican temple on display. I especially like the second with it's imitation of different types of marble veneer:
That's all I have time for at the moment, but I'll try to continue the series soon.
This is the first I've heard about this...
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Archaeologists repairing a Roman catacomb have discovered an unusual network of underground burial chambers containing the elegantly dressed corpses of more than 1,000 people, a Rome official said.
The rooms appear to date back to the second century and are thought to be a place of early Christian burial. Because of the large number of bodies deposited over a relatively short period, experts believe a natural disaster or epidemic may have occurred at the time.
The corpses, dressed in fine clothes embroidered with gold thread, were carefully wrapped in sheets and covered in lime. Balsamic fragrances were also applied, according to Raffaella Giuliani, chief inspector of the Roman catacombs, who spoke with Vatican Radio May 1.
The discovery will be officially presented in June by the Pontifical Roman Academy of Archaeology, which excavated the site in collaboration with Rome's Ecole Francaise and the University of Bordeaux in France.
Giuliani said the burial chambers were found accidentally in 2003, when experts were repairing a cave-in located in the Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, one of Rome's lesser-known catacombs that is closed to the public.
The archaeologists discovered a large room behind one of the painted walls of the catacombs, then a series of similar rooms.
"These were not galleries or cubicles, but big rooms completely full of skeletons. We had to work very carefully to excavate them without destroying them," Giuliani said.
"We were amazed at the high number of individual corpses found in these rooms," she said. The rooms appear to predate the catacombs, which were built in the third century.
Giuliani said the experts believe they were Christian burial places, in part because Christians of that time dedicated great care to burial. Early Christians buried rich and poor with great dignity, in expectation of the resurrection of the dead -- a fact that helps explain the presence in Rome of more than 50 miles of underground catacombs.
Heck ... Eric just keeps on posting away and apologizing about no posting more often, and here I am keeping quiet.
Let's see what kinds of excuses I can come up with, but first I'll list some recent booksale acqusitions (recent meaning Sunday morning):
Sorry for the lack of posts around here lately. In the meantime, here's an image of Vergil from the manuscript Vat. lat. 3867 (folio 14, recto).
Not much survives from the decoration of the so-called Basilica of Junius Bassus on the Esquiline, but there are four panels located in two different museums in Rome: the Museo Nazionale Romano located in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme and the Palazzo dei Conservatori in the Capitoline Museums. 
The Electa guide book for Palazzo Massimo gives us the following helpful information:
Two panels from the Basilica of Junius Bassus, consul in AD 331, show the extraordinary luxury that characterised the private residences of the artistocratic urban class of the 4th century AD. One panel represents the myth of Hylas abducted by the Nymphs and the other shows the beginning of a race at the circus. Along with two other panels which are now part of the collections at the Palazzo dei Conservatori, this panel belongs to the wall-decoration of a large hall which was a private baslica in a luxurious structure near the Esquiline. The existence of an inscription allows us to identify the hall as the property of the consul Junius Bassus, father of the Roman prefect of the same name. The latter, a Christian, died in AD 359.
After the hall was discovered in the 15th century it was destroyed, but all of the panels in opus sectile were seen and drawn by the well-known Renaissance artist Giuliano da Sangallo, who described them as a 'cosa meravigliosa' (thing of wonder).
From Rogueclassicism I have gotten a link to a page of online dictionaries and language and paleography resources, which includes a Medieval Latin dictionary. Thanks to the Rogue for posting it. Enjoy!
I think Dennis should appreciate Merriam-Webster's 'Word of the Day' for 18 April, even though it doesn't actually mention Nicander:
theriac \THEER-ee-ak\ noun
1 : a mixture of many drugs and honey formerly held to be an antidote to poison
*2 : cure-all
Example sentence:
Garlic has been called the poor man's theriac.
Did you know?
There really is no such thing as a single remedy for all that ails us. But that hasn't kept English speakers from creating, not just a single word, but several words, that mean "cure-all" — "catholicon," "elixir," "nostrum," "panacea," and today's word, "theriac." When we first used "theriac," it meant "an antidote for poison" — for any and all poisons, that is. That's how our Roman and Greek forebears used their "theriaca" and "thēriakē," which derive ultimately from the Greek word for "wild animal." The first theriac was supposedly created by the first-century Greek physician Andromachus, whose concoction consisted of some 70 drugs pulverized with honey. Medieval physicians created even more elaborate theriacs to dose a plague-dreading populace, for whom the possibility of a cure-all didn't seem too wild a notion at all.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
Here is, in my opinion, the top recent search that brought someone to the Campus:
what's wrong with guys
argosy grad school is bad
"anyone owns a song"
"aaron kook"
In honor of Good Friday/Easter, I thought I'd post a couple of photographs of a Christian sarcophagus currently on display in the Vatican Museums.
Regarding the type of symbolic centerpiece used in this sarcophagus, Andre Grabar writes the following:
'This first type of image of the Resurrection [i.e. the type he has been discussing in the foregoing paragraphs, not the type shown in the photographs here], which I call juridical and evangelical (because, like the Gospels, it evoked dogma by showing the story of the eyewitnesses of the Resurrection), was not the only one that the image-makers invented. It outweighed all the others, however, from about 400 until the eleventh century in the West and until modern times in the Byzantine world. But in the fourth century, probably in Rome, another image was invented, symbolic in its iconography, that had great success but was abandoned a hundred or a hundred and twenty years later, perhaps because its meaning had become obscure. It was a figuration inspired by the art of military triumphs of pagan Roman tradition, and as it became further removed from pagan times, it must have appeared less explicit. It is on Roman sarcophagi of the fourth century that we find almost all the examples. Here we see the military trophy, and in it the phoenix--symbol of the Resurrection--with seated or standing figures on either side. The origins of this iconography are recognizable in the reliefs of a pagan sarcophagus where the usual military trophy, displaying the arms of the vanquished, is represented, along with the barbarians beneath it who were conquered by the Romans. The Christian formula replaces the trophy by the Cross, on which is suspended a triumphal crown, and substitutes for the captured barbarians two armed but sleeping soldiers--in an allusion to the guardians of the tombe of Christ: their arms are as powerless to prevent the victorious Resurrection of Christ as the arms of the barbarians were powerless before those of the Imperial armies.'
--from Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (Princeton 1968), pp. 124-5
In the Michelangelo-designed piazza on the Capitoline hill is a giant bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback:
The above sculpture, however, is a copy. The real one has been moved inside the museum and is no longer exposed to the elements. It is now housed in the same room as the giant bronze of Constantine, a photo of which I posted the other day:
The sculpture, justifiably famous, has long provoked comment. Here are Henry James' thoughts, taken from his essay 'A Roman Holiday', which is collected in Italian Hours:
The legendary wolf of Rome has lately been accommodated with a little artificial grotto, among the cacti and the palms, in the fantastic triangular garden squeezed between the steps of the church and the ascent to the Capitol, where she holds a perpetual levee and "draws" apparently as powerfully as the Pope himself.
Above, in the piazzetta before the stuccoed palace which rises so jauntily on a basement of thrice its magnitude, are more loungers and knitters in the sun, seated round the massively inscribed base of the statue of Marcus Aurelius. Hawthorne has perfectly expressed the attitude of this admirable figure in saying that it
extends its arm with "a command which is in itself a benediction." I doubt if any statue of king or captain in the public places of the world has more to commend it to the general heart. Irrecoverable simplicity--residing so in irrecoverable
Style--has no sturdier representative. Here is an impression that the sculptors of the last three hundred years have been laboriously trying to reproduce; but contrasted with this mild old monarch their prancing horsemen suggest a succession of
riding-masters taking out young ladies' schools. The admirably human character of the figure survives the rusty decomposition of the bronze and the slight "debasement" of the art; and one may call it singular that in the capital of Christendom the portrait most suggestive of a Christian conscience is that of a pagan
emperor.
'Instruction in grammar...comprised language and literature. The selection of authors studied in the medieval schools includes pagan and Christian writers. The Middle Ages makes no distinction between "gold" and "silver" Latinity. The concept "classical" is unknown to it. All authors are, as it were, authorities. Let us examine a number of medieval documents as to curriculum authors. When Walter of Speyer was in school about 975, he read Virgil, "Homer" (that is, the so-called Ilias Latina, a crude condensation of the Iliad in 1070 hexameters, of the first century A.D.), Martianus Capella, Horace, Persius, Juvenal, Boethius, Statius, Terence, Lucan. This is not a casual selection, it is a normative one. It recurs as the basis of later lists.'
--E.R. Curtius, from European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Willard R. Trask, pp. 48-9
The first (created, I believe, by Bryce Walker and Bret Mulligan) is the page for the Bi-College (i.e. Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College) 'ORALi-Tea', an event dedicated to the oral performance of ancient poetry. The page has some handy links to recordings of modern renditions of ancient lit by Stanley Lombardo and others and a nice bibliography on reading aloud and related topics.
The second will be especially useful if you live in the Philadelphia area or in relatively close proximity thereto. Bret Mulligan has put together a page listing all the Classics events going on in the area. From that page we learn that Carole Newlands will be speaking at Penn tomorrow (13 April). Her topic (as listed on Penn's page) appears to relate to a character mentioned just yesterday on the Campus: 'Problems of Violence in Ovid: Philomela and Marsyas'.
Kudos to the creators of these pages!
Recently I posted about the mystery of the Bryn Mawr College motto: is it VERITATEM DILEXI or VIRTVTEM DILEXI?
I showed that the inscription on Pembroke Arch, which is said to read 'veritatem,' actually reads 'virtutem.'
I'd heard from a faculty member that there were two explanations, described as apocryphal. One that a change occurred with the rise of feminism, what with virtus meaning 'manliness' and all (but would that have happened as early as 1908, when M. Carey Thomas quoted the motto in its modern form?). The other explanation wasn't mentioned, left off with a laugh that implied improbability or perhaps something unspeakable. I can't imagine what it might be, but it's probably more exciting to wonder.
I happened by the entrance to the Quita Woodward wing of Thomas Hall the other day and found something interesting. Here's the entrance:
And here's the inscription above:
It looks like a much newer inscription to me (up close it looks as though the whole center section above the arch of the doorway is done in concrete newer than the rest -- if so, what might have been replaced?).
I reckon I ought to hunt up that second explanation.
The other day, I posted one of Horace's Odes, and Dennis posted some Tyrtaeus of which he said my post had reminded him. While reading an article by Mario Citroni called 'Quintilian and the System of Poetic Genres' (from Flavian Poetry [Brill 2006], pp. 1-19), I came across a reference to Tyrtaeus and Horace's Ars Poetica in the context of a discussion regarding Quintilian's sources for his poetic canon. Here is Citroni:
'The other Greek poets mentioned by Quintilian, but not by Dionysius, are the epic poet Pisander, the authors of ancient comedy, and Tyrtaeus. As regards ancient comedy, Quintilian maintains the triad of Aristophanes, Eupolis and Cratinus, consecrated by Horace. As for Tyrtaeus, Quintilian quotes a verse from Horace's Ars Poetica as confirmation of his excellence. And it is certain that he was led by Horace, and not by a Greek source, to include Tyrtaeus in his survey, seeing that he does not place him among the elegiac poets, but among the epic writers, because, as he himself says, Horace had placed him beside Homer.' (p.8)
Sic honor et nomen diuinis uatibus atque 400
carminibus uenit. Post hos insignis Homerus
Tyrtaeusque mares animos in Martia bella
uersibus exacuit, dictae per carmina sortes,
et uitae monstrata uia est et gratia regum
Pieriis temptata modis ludusque repertus 405
et longorum operum finis: ne forte pudori
sit tibi Musa lyrae sollers et cantor Apollo.
Our largely reticent co-blogger mentioned in the title to this post is a great enthusiast of Plato and his caprine leading man Socrates. In Symposium 215a and following, we find Alcibiades comparing Socrates to Marsyas:
“The way I shall take, gentlemen, in my praise of Socrates, is by similitudes. Probably he will think I do this for derision; but I choose my similitude for the sake of truth, not of ridicule. For I say [215b] he is likest to the Silenus-figures that sit in the statuaries' shops; those, I mean, which our craftsmen make with pipes or flutes in their hands: when their two halves are pulled open, they are found to contain images of gods. And I further suggest that he resembles the satyr Marsyas. Now, as to your likeness, Socrates, to these in figure, I do not suppose even you yourself will dispute it; but I have next to tell you that you are like them in every other respect. You are a fleering fellow, eh? If you will not confess it, I have witnesses at hand. Are you not a piper? [215c] Why, yes, and a far more marvellous one than the satyr. His lips indeed had power to entrance mankind by means of instruments; a thing still possible today for anyone who can pipe his tunes: for the music of Olympus' flute belonged, I may tell you, to Marsyas his teacher. So that if anyone, whether a fine flute-player or paltry flute-girl, can but flute his tunes, they have no equal for exciting a ravishment, and will indicate by the divinity that is in them who are apt recipients of the deities and their sanctifications. You differ from him in one point only--that you produce the same effect with simple prose unaided by instruments. For example, when we hear any other person--[215d] quite an excellent orator, perhaps--pronouncing one of the usual discourses, no one, I venture to say, cares a jot; but so soon as we hear you, or your discourses in the mouth of another,--though such person be ever so poor a speaker, and whether the hearer be a woman or a man or a youngster--we are all astounded and entranced. As for myself, gentlemen, were it not that I might appear to be absolutely tipsy, I would have affirmed on oath all the strange effects I personally have felt from his words, and still feel even now. For when I hear him [215e] I am worse than any wild fanatic; I find my heart leaping and my tears gushing forth at the sound of his speech, and I see great numbers of other people having the same experience. When I listened to Pericles and other skilled orators I thought them eloquent, but I never felt anything like this; my spirit was not left in a tumult and had not to complain of my being in the condition of a common slave: whereas the influence of our Marsyas here has often thrown me into such a state [216a] that I thought my life not worth living on these terms. In all this, Socrates, there is nothing that you can call untrue. Even now I am still conscious that if I consented to lend him my ear, I could not resist him, but would have the same feeling again. For he compels me to admit that, sorely deficient as I am, I neglect myself while I attend to the affairs of Athens. So I withhold my ears perforce as from the Sirens, and make off as fast as I can, for fear I should go on sitting beside him till old age was upon me."
Two recent (and blunt) answers to that question are, via Google search pages:
'cambridge latin course unit four cheat sheets' (triggered by remarks on the 'Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics Series' and the 'Grad School Cheat Sheet')
'catullus dirty poems' (triggered by Dennis' remarks on Catullus 50).
Last week was 'culture week' in Italy, so a lot of museums and sites were free. I tried to take advantage and save some euros and grabbed a bunch of photos along the way, and thought I'd post some that ancient enthusiasts might enjoy. Since Dennis remarked on the apparent popularity of Constantine, I decided to post a couple colossals of the big C from the Capitoline Museums. First, the head from the giant statue originally in the apse of the Basilica Nova:
Next, possibly my favorite piece of ancient sculpture: the 'We're Number 1!' hand from the same statue.
Finally, an incredible bronze head, hand, and globe of Constantine. My museum guide says the following about it: 'Beginning in the mediaeval period, the precious remains of the sculpture depicting the first Christian emperor--the head, hand, and globe--were part of the patrimony of the patriarch's Lateran residence. In 1471, they went to the Capitoline Hill, as part of Sixtus IV's donation to the People of Rome. The large head, a masterpiece of antique bronze statuary, impressive both in the colossal scale and the intensity of the features, has been associated with portraits of Constantine during the last period of his life. The hand, intended to hold up a globe, symbol of the power over the world, is securely attributable to the statue.'
'Boeckh's use of the term "encyclopaedia" also requires a gloss. He would have the student learn by careful study one or preferably several areas of learning before he is introduced to the survey of learning. He would, for example, introduce one to literature through intensive study of an author's work until he has attained to thorough knowledge of that body of writing. Only after repeated experiences of such a sort would he expose the student to the survey. Careful study in several fields provides a number of points from which the entire circle may be constructed. He who starts from a survey of the whole, which can be presented only in outlines, stands at the mercy of the surveyor and cannot attain to exact knowledge for himself. And yet the student cannot rest in minute knowledge of the several areas he has mastered. Such a one becomes arrogantly biased in his knowledge; and since no part of study is an island, study of single areas remains incomplete without their being fitted into the total ciruict of knowledge. By "encyclopaedia," Boeckh means the comprehensive view of all that is known. Obviously we have here another idea unattainable since probably the time of Dante. Boeckh envisages a scholar well acquainted with several areas whose experience in them enables him to fill out the less nearly complete areas presented in the encyclopaedic survey. He can thus contemplate competently the whole circle of knowledge much more inclusively than if he had not looked at the whole with a mind trained by previous intensive study.
'Methodology is not in Boeckh's view an actual part of philology itself, but is consideration of the means and tools for philological study. Its value for philology lies largely in the fact that it enables the instructed scholar to enter with equal detail as far as he may need to go into whatever area of knowledge the encyclopaedic study has presented to him.'
--John Paul Pritchard, from the preface to his abridged translation of August Boeckh's Encyclopaedie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften. The title of the translation is On Interpretation and Criticism (University of Oklahoma Press, 1968)
Apologies for my lack of posts 'round here lately. I hope to start getting a few things up of perhaps at least marginal interest.
I thought Merriam-Webster's word-of-the-day for yesterday was intriguing. Here it is:
catchpole \KATCH-poal\ noun
: a sheriff's deputy; especially : one who makes arrests for failure to pay a debt
Example sentence:
David knew that it must be the catchpole knocking at his door, so he quickly threw on his shoes and coat and snuck out the back.
Did you know?
Imagine chasing a chicken around the barnyard. Catching it would be no mean feat. And chasing down someone who owes you money is pretty challenging too. It's no surprise then that these two taxing tasks come together in "catchpole," which derives from a word that literally means "chicken chaser" — Anglo-French "cachepole." Before it referred to the debt police, "catchpole" was used more generally for any tax collector. That's the sense demonstrated in a 12th-century homily about the apostle Matthew: "Matheus thet wes cachepol thene he iwende to god-spellere" ("Matthew who was a catchpole until he turned into a writer of the Gospel").
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
'Philology and philosophy are treated as reciprocal. They exist on equal footing, and neither functions satisfactorily without the other. Their methods, as Boeckh views them, are opposite; philology attains to knowledge through induction, whereas philosophy starts from a concept. To formulate his concepts soundly, the philosopher needs an adequate fund of knowledge or data; too many philosophers, Boeckh charges, lack a basis in knowledge or tradition. The insights or intuitions of the well-based philosopher are more trustworthy than are those of the man not thus firmly based. On the other hand, the philologist who attempts to work without some order concept in his view gathers a mere aggregate of facts, cannot digest his data into a system. Philosophy is, as the etymology of the word indicates, the love of wisdom; philology, seeking Newman's "twofold logos," is the love of expression in words and of what that expression conveys. The followers of each strive after an unattainable idea. Boeckh would undoubtedly be exceedingly wary of the tendency apparent in some recent literary interpreters to treat philology as almost subservient to philosophy. In the study of literature, philology must be master and philosophy the servant.'
--John Paul Pritchard, from the preface to his abridged translation of August Boeckh's Encyclopaedie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften. The title of the translation is On Interpretation and Criticism (University of Oklahoma Press, 1968)
Or should that be beeroglyphics?
Maybe this is the wrong place for this, but I'm stumped. Lionshead beer, a cheap but eminently drinkable Pennsylvania pilsner, has puzzles under the bottle cap. Maybe I'm just dense, but I can't solve this one:
I'm hoping that some of our vast and learned readership can help restore this bit of lost knowledge, exercising some of the skills they've acquired in the pursuit of Altertumswissenschaft.
UPDATE: I think the good professor solved the problem (see comment below): Count to 10.
And while I'm grateful, I feel a little like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, whose high hopes were dashed by the crass commercialism of the secret message he'd deciphered with the aid of his long-awaited and hard won Little Orphan Annie decoder ring: "Drink more Ovaltine."
Here the commercialism has been replaced by banality.
No, this will not do. We shall adopt the lectio difficilior, viz. bull ain't whistlin', evidently a colloquialism whose precise meaning is unrecoverable.
That's more like it.
I'm always interested to know how people find the campus, so I check the site meter pretty regularly. Our (mostly) silent partner, Magister Coke, brings in a lot of his students, but the big one has got to be Constantine's Vision.
Must be a hot topic these days.
I'm most puzzled, however, by this: it seems the IRS is auditing some very old books.
Someone found the Campus by googling Nicander's Alexipharmaca.
This isn't the first time someone's found us by searching for this most misunderstood and disliked Hellenistic poet. I should do him the honor of posting something more substantial than the post everyone stumbles upon.
In the meantime, go easy on the lad. His books don't sell well, and I doubt he's holding out on the feds.
Then again, maybe the IRS is concerned with incurring the wrath of those whom they audit. Antidotes might come in handy.
I've never been much of a Latinist -- don't get me wrong. It's just that Greek poetry has always interested me more, even when it seems so straight forward and, by modern standards, jingoistic. Consequently I haven't read much Horace beyond the Sermones. I'm familiar with the famous 'dulce et decorum est,' but Eric's post which referred to it reminded of Tyrtaeus (7th c. BC). I would imagine that everyone who's written on either poem has noted the connection, but I thought it'd be nice to post the text for comparison:
τεθνάμεναι γὰρ καλὸν ἐνὶ προμάχοισι πεσόντα
ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθὸν περὶ ἧι πατρίδι μαρνάμενον·
τὴν δ’ αὐτοῦ προλιπόντα πόλιν καὶ πίονας ἀγροὺς
πτωχεύειν πάντων ἔστ’ ἀνιηρότατον,
πλαζόμενον σὺν μητρὶ φίληι καὶ πατρὶ γέροντι (5)
παισί τε σὺν μικροῖς κουριδίηι τ’ ἀλόχωι.
ἐχθρὸς μὲν γὰρ τοῖσι μετέσσεται οὕς κεν ἵκηται,
χρησμοσύνηι τ’ εἴκων καὶ στυγερῆι πενίηι,
αἰσχύνει τε γένος, κατὰ δ’ ἀγλαὸν εἶδος ἐλέγχει,
πᾶσα δ’ ἀτιμίη καὶ κακότης ἕπεται. (10)
†εἶθ’ οὕτως ἀνδρός τοι ἀλωμένου οὐδεμί’ ὤρη
γίνεται οὔτ’ αἰδὼς οὔτ’ ὀπίσω γένεος.
θυμῶι γῆς πέρι τῆσδε μαχώμεθα καὶ περὶ παίδων
θνήσκωμεν ψυχ<4έω>4ν μηκέτι φειδόμενοι.
ὦ νέοι, ἀλλὰ μάχεσθε παρ’ ἀλλήλοισι μένοντες, (15)
μηδὲ φυγῆς αἰσχρῆς ἄρχετε μηδὲ φόβου,
ἀλλὰ μέγαν ποιεῖτε καὶ ἄλκιμον ἐν φρεσὶ θυμόν,
μηδὲ φιλοψυχεῖτ’ ἀνδράσι μαρνάμενοι·
τοὺς δὲ παλαιοτέρους, ὧν οὐκέτι γούνατ’ ἐλαφρά,
μὴ καταλείποντες φεύγετε, τοὺς γεραιούς. (20)
αἰσχρὸν γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο, μετὰ προμάχοισι πεσόντα
κεῖσθαι πρόσθε νέων ἄνδρα παλαιότερον,
ἤδη λευκὸν ἔχοντα κάρη πολιόν τε γένειον,
θυμὸν ἀποπνείοντ’ ἄλκιμον ἐν κονίηι,
αἱματόεντ’ αἰδοῖα φίλαις ἐν χερσὶν ἔχοντα— (25)
αἰσχρὰ τά γ’ ὀφθαλμοῖς καὶ νεμεσητὸν ἰδεῖν,
καὶ χρόα γυμνωθέντα· νέοισι δὲ πάντ’ ἐπέοικεν,
ὄφρ’ ἐρατῆς ἥβης ἀγλαὸν ἄνθος ἔχηι,
ἀνδράσι μὲν θηητὸς ἰδεῖν, ἐρατὸς δὲ γυναιξὶ
ζωὸς ἐών, καλὸς δ’ ἐν προμάχοισι πεσών. (30)
ἀλλά τις εὖ διαβὰς μενέτω ποσὶν ἀμφοτέροισι
στηριχθεὶς ἐπὶ γῆς, χεῖλος ὀδοῦσι δακών.
In the recent post on Aquinum, I forgot to mention that I also saw a nice classical reference in modern-day Aquino in the large piazza in front of the main church in town. On a monument to soldiers fallen in battle one finds the following:
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is from Horace Odes 3.2. Here is the text of the whole ode:
Angustam amice pauperiem pati
robustus acri militia puer
condiscat et Parthos ferocis
uexet eques metuendus hasta
uitamque sub diuo et trepidis agat 5
in rebus. Illum ex moenibus hosticis
matrona bellantis tyranni
prospiciens et adulta uirgo
suspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminum
sponsus lacessat regius asperum 10
tactu leonem, quem cruenta
per medias rapit ira caedes.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur uirum
nec parcit inbellis iuuentae
poplitibus timidoue tergo. 15
Virtus, repulsae nescia sordidae,
intaminatis fulget honoribus
nec sumit aut ponit securis
arbitrio popularis aurae. 20
Virtus, recludens inmeritis mori
caelum, negata temptat iter uia
coetusque uolgaris et udam
spernit humum fugiente pinna.
Est et fideli tuta silentio 25
merces: uetabo, qui Cereris sacrum
uolgarit arcanae, sub isdem
sit trabibus fragilemque mecum
soluat phaselon; saepe Diespiter
neglectus incesto addidit integrum, 30
raro antecedentem scelestum
deseruit pede Poena claudo.
I was surprised to find not just one, but two fifth-foot spondees in Ausonius' Versus Paschales, found under heading IV in Green's edition--a poem of only 31 lines. Moreover, the two lines come in quick succession, only separated by one line. Here are lines 21-5:
trina fides auctore uno, spes certa salutis
hunc numerum iunctis virtutibus amplectenti.
tale et terrenis specimen spectatur in oris
Augustus genitor, geminum sator Augustorum...
...omnia solus habens atque omnia dilargitus. (28)
The American Classical League's web server can not currently be found. Does anyone know why?
How are folks like me supposed to find a job?
In other news, I'm reading the Apology with my ninth grade student, a budding linguist who is further along in Greek than the students at the college who started at the same time.
After April 1st I'll be reading book 2 of Plato's Republic with J, AKA 'the Hawk' (no foolin'). We read book 1 with Eric while taking Greek Rose Comp with Gil Prose.
As my thesis winds down I'll find plenty more classical stuff to blog about. Right now hazy chronology and the technical nature of metrical analysis have been stealing my time, and don't seem very blogworthy.
I will say, though, that Byzantine scholarship has really grabbed my attention. I'd like to continue with that once this work is done, though I'd first like to make up for all the ancient classics I've never had much of a chance to read. Can you imagine tragedy and comedy never even being offered during my graduate career?
I was walking through Pembroke Arch on Bryn Mawr's campus the other day and by the time I'd crossed Merion Ave. something odd occurred to me.
Just above the arch on the left side as you're exiting there's an inscription that reads VIRTVTEM DILEXI, "I have loved virtue."
I thought I must have misread it because the college's motto is VERITATEM DILEXI (supposed to mean 'I have chosen truth'). This page at Bryn Mawr actually claims that the motto is inscribed on Pem Arch.
Later in the day I passed through and took another look. Sure enough it says VIRTVTEM.
As far back as 1908 M. Carey Thomas, the famed president of Bryn Mawr College, had instructed that the motto be placed upon the library's book plates. She quoted the motto in its conventional form, "VERITATEM DILEXI."
It has made its way onto the official seal (seen here), but is it correct? Is it possible that inscription was misread a century ago and that the misreading stuck?
As proof I've taken photos of the inscription:
You'll probably want to have a closer look:
I suspect the phrase to be adapted from a sentiment in Cicero (whose periodic style does not lend itself to epigrams and that we should expect to be condensed):
Nihil est enim virtute amabilius, nihil quod magis adliciat ad diligendum, quippe cum propter virtutem et probitatem etiam eos, quos numquam vidimus, quodam modo diligamus.
What say we do a quick review of Latin causal clauses? The following notes are taken from Allen & Greenough sec. 321, examples (mostly) omitted.
NOTE.--Causal clauses take either the Indicative or the Subjunctive, according to their construction; the idea of Cause being contained, not in the mood itself, but in the form of the argument, or in the connecting particles.
321. The Causal Particles quod, quia, and quoniam take the Indicative, when the reason is given on the authority of the writer or speaker; the Subjunctive, when the reason is given on the authority of another.
NOTE 2.--[W]hat the speaker himself thought under other circumstances may have the Subjunctive....So with quod even a verb of saying may be in the Subjunctive: as,--
rediit quod se oblitum nescio quid diceret (Off. i. 13), he returned because he said he had forgotten something.
NOTE 3.--The Subjunctive with quia is rare. The causal particle quando takes the Indicative.
REMARK.--Non quod, non quia, non quoniam, introducing a reason expressly to deny it, take the Subjunctive. Non quo and non quin introduce a Result clause, but with nearly the same meaning.
a. Causal Clauses introduced by quod, etc., take the Subjunctive in Indirect Discourse, like any other dependent clause.
b. A Relative, when used to express cause, regularly takes the Subjunctive.
c. Cum causal takes the Subjunctive.
NOTE.--In early Latin cum causal takes the Indicative.
Ok, time for a quick review of Latin concessive clauses. The following is taken from section 313 of Allen and Greenough with the examples omitted.
The particles of Concession (meaning although, granting that) are the following: quamquam, quamlibet, quamvis, quantum vis, ut, net, cum, licet, etsi, tametsi, etiamsi.
Some of these take the Subjunctive, others the Indicative. Thus,--
a. Quamvis, ut, and ne take the Subjunctive.
NOTE.--Quamvis means literally, as much as you will....The subjunctive with quamvis and ne is hortatory; that with ut is of uncertain origin.
b. Licet (properly a verb) takes a Substantive clause in the Subjunctive.
NOTW.--The subjunctive with licet is by the sequence of tenses necessarily limited to the Present and Perfect tenses.
c. Etsi, etiamsi, tametsi, even if, take the same constructions as si.
d. Cum concessive takes the Subjunctive.
NOTE.--In early Latin cum (quom) concessive usually takes the Indicative.
e. Quamquam introduces an admitted fact and takes the Indicative.
f. Quamquam more commonly means and yet, introducing a new proposition in the indicative.
g. The poets and later writers frequently use quamvis and quamquam like etsi, connecting them with the Indicative or the Subjunctive, according to the nature of the condition.
NOTE.--Even Cicero occasionally uses quamquam with the Subjunctive.
h. The Relative pronoun qui is often used with the Subjunctive to express concession.
i. Concession is often expressed by the Hortatory Subjunctive without a particle.
Mussolini lived at Villa Torlonia in 1925-1943 with his wife and children, delighting in tennis games and horseback rides on the grounds that surround the house, built by one of Rome's aristocratic families.
"When the winds of war started blowing, he ordered the construction of the bunker," said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome's monuments.
Two underground structures, built in great secrecy, cover more than 2,000 square feet and include an anti-gas chamber with air ducts and showers for decontamination, all protected by a double set of airtight doors.
Mussolini dug the bunker 23 feet deep, burying a 10-foot thick concrete box with bare cylindrical corridors and multiple escape routes.
While restoring the chamber, archeologists discovered it was built over a second-century Christian tomb, where they found three bodies. The area was a common burial ground in Roman times, housing mainly the sprawling underground corridors of one of six Jewish catacombs in the city.
Here's one of the things I did last night instead of working on my thesis: I took the values in 1891 British Pounds assigned by James Gow (Companion to School Classics, 3rd ed.) to Athenian and Roman coinage and converted the value to 2005 U.S. dollars.
Rome, 49 BC (when Caesar introduced the Aureus):
Aureus (gold) (= 100 sesterces) = $127.53
Denarius (silver) (= 4 sesterces) = $5.10
Sestertius (brass) (= 2 dupondii)= $1.28
As (copper) (= ¼ sesterce) = $0.32
Attic money (age undefined):
1 talent = $30,067.15
1 mina = $500.63
1 drachma = $4.79
1 obol = $0.79
The copper chalchous, 1/8 an obol, would be worth about a dime.
I have no idea how accurate this is, but it does account for inflation from the 1891 values. Gow apparently based his calculations upon the quantity of silver used in certain coins and then the relative value of these coins to others.
If it's accurate, it puts things into perspective, for example when Gow says that an artisan in the age of Pericles earned 1 drachma a day (= $4.79 US), and that a juryman made 2 obols (= $1.58).
Of course it's impossible to say what the values were in different times and places, but a ballpark is better than a desert.
My wife and I recently had some friends in town, one of whose maiden name is Aquino. Her predecessors, after coming to the U.S., are thought to have taken this surname from the name of their hometown in Italy (reminiscent of the naming of the Corleone family in Godfather). So while they were here, we decided to take a daytrip to find the old family stomping grounds, which are located south of Rome about halfway to Naples, sitting on a level plain near the mountains, within view of Monte Cassino. No train stops in somewhat small village of Aquino; rather, Aquino shares a station with a couple of other small towns nearby. We were told at the station that there are no buses and no taxis that go from the station to Aquino, so we walked a few kilometers to get to the actual town. There were a couple of interesting things I thought might be worth noting. First, Aquino is the birthplace of Thomas Aquinas. Here is the house he is said to have been born in:
Second, medieval and modern-day Aquino are built hard by the ancient Roman colony of Aquinum, thought by some to be the birthplace of Juvenal. The town in located on the Via Latina:
Here is the town gate and a modern sign placed there to label it:
The identification of Aquinum with Juvenal's birthplace is not, however, undisputed. The 1949 edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary affirms that Juvenal was born there, citing Satire 3.319 as evidence. Here is the passage in context (the text is from The Latin Library):
'...his alias poteram et pluris subnectere causas, 315
sed iumenta uocant et sol inclinat. eundum est;
nam mihi commota iamdudum mulio uirga
adnuit. ergo uale nostri memor, et quotiens te
Roma tuo refici properantem reddet Aquino,
me quoque ad Heluinam Cererem uestramque Dianam 320
conuerte a Cumis. saturarum ego, ni pudet illas,
auditor gelidos ueniam caligatus in agros.'
'adj. tuo may mean 'your favourite' (cf. OLD 2b, cr. Suet. Galb. I Liviae...Veientanum suum revisenti) or 'your native' (perhaps supported by reddet: OLD 2). It is usually taken to indicate J.'s birthplace; however, this involves identifying Umbricius' interlocutor with the poet Juvenal: see Introduction sec. 2. Aquinum was a town in Latium on the via Latina c. 75 miles from Rome. This lover of Rome, who does not leave with Umbricius, may have a country seat in Aquinum.'
'The second fundamental idea is one which rescues us from trying to read the satires as self-revelation. Roman verse satire uses the autobiographical monologue as the chief mode of presentation. This does not mean that the satirists are (necessarily) using their satires to convey their personal feelings to the world. Far from it. Authors in all genres of Roman literature, including Roman verse satire, were accustomed to creating characters....[I]n the personal genres of poetry--love elegy, lyric poetry, epigram and satire--the character (or persona, 'mask') is frequently presented as a first-person voice.
'Authors and their audiences were accustomed to this convention thanks to their experience of the education in rhetoric enjoyed by members of the Roman elite....The analogy between rhetoric and poetry is reinforced by the fact that most Greek and Latin literature, including poetry, was written for oral delivery by the author or another voice to a live audience. In the light of this, the identification of the views of the characters in satire with those of the authors becomes unnecessary and crude. To read the poems as autobiographical self-revelations from which 'facts' about the poet's life may be deduced (the 'biographical fallacy' propounded by, notably, Highet (1954)) is to neglect other, more rewarding, questions.' (pp. 2-3)
'Decimus Junius Juvenalis is said in a life of uncertain authenticity to have born at Aquinum. This statement is to some extent corroborated by a line in the third Satire, where the speaker suggests that his friend, who is presumably Juvenal, may some day or other be visiting his own Aquinum. It is made more probable still by the fact that a tablet has been dug up at Aquinum, in which D. Junius Juvenalis, of the cohort of the Dalmatians, duumvir quinquennalis, and flamen to the deified Vespasian, dedicates a shrine to Ceres. Helvina Ceres is alluded to in the third Satire as a deity reverenced at Aquinum. Further, there is no reason for referring to Juvenal to any other place but Aquinum, though a single scholiast says that some persons took him to have been a Gaul on account of his great size.' (p. 9)
'The biographies prefixed to his Satires in the MSS. are as numerous as they are satisfactory. Of these there are nine, seven of which are printed by Otto Jahn in his edition of 1851....Juvenal is said by all his biographers to have been the son or the adopted son of a wealthy freedman. His mother was named Septimuleia and was a townswoman of Aquinum. He had a sister, also Septimuleia, who married Fuscinus. He seems to have been brought up at a good school. His chief instructor, when he began to study rhetoric, was Protus of Berytus, a teacher who was noted for his provincial and antiquarian tastes, and whose practice it was to restrict the number of his pupils to three or four, and to converse with these in the Socratic fashion, rarely lecturing to them....The inscription at Aquinum shows that he served the most important magistracy in his native town, and held the honourable position of titular chaplain, so to speak, to Vespasian.' (pp. 9-11)
'Virtually nothing is known of the life and circumstances of Juvenal. It is not even certain that the name we give him, Decimus Iunius Iuuenalis, is correct. The ancient biographies seem worthless and even the best of these, attributed by Valla in his 1486 edition to 'Probus', offers the same kind of reconstruction from details in the Satires as presented by some recent scholars, a method which fails to take account of the generic convention of using first-person presentation....Nor is the inscription from Aquinum which was believe to depict Juvenal as commander of a Dalmation cohort reliable evidence, leaving aside the fact that it disappeared long ago; moreover, the date it suggested is earlier than other indicators. As Syme says, there is a 'scarcity of facts' in this field, although that has not prevented its being 'infested with credulity and romance'. His own assesment of the little evidence afforded by Juvenal's name and the poems leads him to suggest, tentatively, an African origin.' (pp. 15-16)
In reading through Pope Benedict XVI's recent encyclical Deus Caritas Est, I came across the following references to classical writers. All citations are from the English translation published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana (February 2006).
'The Greeks--not unlike other cultures--considered eros principally as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering or reason by "divine madness" which tears man away from his finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by divine power, to experience supreme happiness. All other powers in heaven and on earth thus appear secondary: "Omnia vincit amor" says Virgil in the Bucolics--love conquers all--and he adds: et nos cedamus amori"--let us, too, yield to love.' (p. 12) [I found it interesting that he turned to a Latin example while discussing Greek ideas of eros.]
'Consequently, [God's] creation is dear to him, for it was willed by him and "made" by him. The second important element now emerges: this God loves man. The divine power that Aristotle at the height of Greek philosophy sought to grasp through reflection, is indeed for every being an object of desire and love--and as the object of love this divinity moves the world [the footnote reference is to Metaphysics XII.7]--but in itself it lacks nothing and does not love: it is solely the object of love. The one God in which Israel believes, on the other hand, loves with a personal love. His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her--but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.' (pp. 23-4)
'So [speaking of the creation of Adam and Eve] God forms woman from the rib of man. Now Adam finds the helper that he needed: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gen. 2:23). Here one might detect hints of ideas that are also found, for example, in the myth mentioned by Plato, according to which man was originally spherical, because he was complete in himself and self-sufficient. But as a punishment for pride, he was split into two by Zeus, so that now he longs for his other half, striving with all his being to possess it and thus regain his integrity [the footnote reference is to Symposium XIV-XV.189c-192d]. While the biblical narrative does not speak of punishment, the idea is certainly present that man is somehow incomplete, driven by nature to seek in another the part that can make him whole, the idea that only in communion with the opposite sex can he become "complete". The biblical account thus concludes with a prophecy about Adam: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24).' (p. 28)
'Acknowledgment of the living God is one path towards love, and the "yes" of our will to his will unites our intellect, will and sentiments in the all-embracing act of love. But this process is always open-ended; love is never "finished" and complete; throughout life, it changes and matures, and thus remains faithful to itself. Idem velle atque idem nolle [the footnote reference is to Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae XX.4]--to want the same thing, and to reject the same thing--was recognized by antiquity as the authentic content of love: the one becomes similar to the other, and this leads to a community of will and thought.' (pp. 38-9)
Although the De Passione Domini is a fairly short hexameter poem (80 lines), it contains a rather high frequency of elisions. Out of the poem's 80 lines, 42 of them (by my count) contain at least one elision. There are 6 lines with 2 elisions (6, 11, 36, 37, 40, 48), and 3 lines with 3 elisions (21, 35, 57), for a grand total of 53 in the poem. Here are the 3 lines with 3 elisions:
21: Pauperiem extremam et rerum inferiora secutus
35: Fige animo et testes et caeci infanda Pilati
57: Disce adversa pati et propriae invigilare saluti
Respice me, me conde animo, me pectore serva.
Atque ingens lateris vulnus, cerne inde fluorem.The only variant listed by the CSEL's app. crit. is lateri for lateris, but this doesn't effect the elisions.
It is well-known to students of Late Antique poetry that Vergil's lines were could be dismembered, reassembled, and turned into something completely different by Christian and non-Christian Latin poets. I was unaware that the same happened to Prudentius in a subsequent age. That, however, is what Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopaedie tells me in the section on the Hamartigenia in the Prudentius article. Apparently the close of the poem (by which I assume is meant Prudentius' closing prayer, ll. 931-66) was made into a cento by a Spanish bishop named Ascaricus. Here is the sentence from the article along with the references given:
Aus dem Schluss des Gedichtes machte der spanische Bischof Ascaricus einen Cento (Fr. Buecheler Carmina lat. epigr. nr. 927. C. Weyman Rh. Mus. L 1895, 154).
Prudentius, in his Hamartigenia, is not afraid to use a fifth-foot spondee from time to time. Here are the examples I've come across so far, all with a quadrisyllabic word spanning the fifth and sixth feet:
76: una eademque tamen rota sideris indiscretis
266: ac velut artificis domini manus inperfectum
422: Postremum cuneum rex promovet Euuaeorum
713: imperio. Hoc mulier rea criminis exprobanti
859: ditibus et longo fumantibus intervallo
The folks at Edgar Kent, a Canadian publishing house (apparently partnered with the University of Toronto Press), have asked me to forward the following to scholars who might be interested. The first, on Greek warfare, was written by a Marine who became a classicist, which intrigues me as a classicist whose father was a Marine. The second is by Frank Frost on Athenian historiography, which was lauded in the BMCR.
I guess there's no harm in giving them a little free publicity:
please find below details of our latest titles in Classics. We would appreciate if you would take the time to review these titles and forward this email to any scholars who may be interested in our books.
THE ATHLETES OF WAR
AN EVALUATION OF THE AGONISTIC ELEMENTS IN GREEK
WARFARE
by John C. Dayton
In this dramatically revisionist account of Greek warfare, John Dayton challenges the modern views that Greek warfare was more an aspect of the Greek spirit of competition than a desire to inflict drastic harm on an enemy. He examines all the ancient evidence bearing on the actual conduct of war and combat among the Greeks themselves and in struggles of Greeks with barbarians from the archaic period to the fourth century, and draws on Polybius for the evidence Roman warfare bears on the conduct of battles. A thorough analysis of casualty statistics shows that Greeks suffered heavily from warfare, and that there was no “tournament-like” limitation on the harm that one party might inflict on another. He places the scholarly analyses of Greek warfare in the context of the ideologies prevalent at the time modern historians study the question, and he uses the evidence of casualty figures suffered in modern conflicts to show that the damage Greek armies inflicted on one another is comparable to the losses suffered in modern “total war.”
The conception that Greek warfare was more an aspect of the Greek spirit of competition than a desire to inflict drastic harm on an enemy is a modern myth. The notion still exerts great cultural influence, and persists precisely because it is a myth, a durable belief in principled and ceremonial wars between Greeks that shares some elements with the belief in the peaceable savage who fights only for his own honor or in his own defense. Examining all the ancient sources that provide information on the nature and ideology of combat in the Greek world, John Dayton shows that this modern conception is thoroughly disprovable by any objective criteria. His presentation of the data also provides a basic source of information about Greek warfare and history for all studies in the future. This is a study essential to any understanding of Greek history, of which war was a constant feature.
Contents
Introduction • 1: The History of Agonism • 2: The Archaic Evidence •
3: The Fifth Century • 4: The Casualties • 5: The Fourth Century •
6: Polybius and the Roman Connection • Conclusion • Bibliography • Index
John Dayton combines military experience with classical training to provide an understanding of Greek attitudes towards war. Born in Michigan in 1966, he served with the U.S. Marine Corps from 1987 to 1991. He studied classics at Princeton and the University of Kansas, and received his doctorate from Brown University in 2003. He was the Heinrich Schliemann Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 2000-01, and subsequently has taught at the College of the Holy Cross in Worchester, Massachusetts and the University of Indiana. He is currently a member of the classics faculty of the University of Calgary.
Hardcover Edition
ISBN 0-88866-651-9 • $82.50 • 200 Pages
Order From:
University of Toronto Press
Phone: (416) 667-7791 or toll-free 1-800-565-9523 in North America.
Fax: (416) 667-7832 or toll-free 1-800-221-9985 in North America.
E-mail: publishing@utpress.utoronto.ca
Mail U.S.
2250 Military Road
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5201 Dufferin Street
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United Kingdom and Continental Europe
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Phone 44 (0) 1752 202301,
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E-mail: orders@nbninternational.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITICS AND THE ATHENIANS
ESSAYS ON ATHENIAN HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
by Frank J. Frost
From the Foreword by Erich Gruen, Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics, University of California, Berkeley
“Frank Frost has been among the leading historians of archaic and classical Greece for the past four decades and more.… The articles assembled here…put on exhibit the coherence and continuity of his writing over the years on the political history of Athens in its most dramatic and productive time, the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., on the tangled historiography treating that era, and on the severe limitations as well as the exciting challenge of reconstructing it.…. One thinks particularly of ‘Pericles,’… a compelling deconstruction of Plutarch’s simplistic dichotomy of aristocrats vs. democrats which had misled more than a generation of scholars. [and] his “Themistocles’ Place in Athenian Politics.” These seminal articles exhibit Frank’s great strength in the dissection of historiographical traditions and the extraction of reliable evidence to rebuild the picture.… He argues for the circumstances in which stories were concocted, traces the tortuous paths that they followed, and exposes plausible reasons for their alteration and manipulation that shed as much light on the motives of the tellers as on the meaning of the tales.
“One finds this form of scrupulous scrutiny again and again in his essays… alive to the vast lacunae in our testimony but also to the potential of discovery and the value of weaving together the diverse strands that survive.… He both sobers and stimulates his readers.
Contents
Foreword • Author’s Preface • Attic Literacy and the Solonian Seisachtheia • Aspects of Early Athenian Citizenship • The Rural Demes of Attica • Solon Pornoboskos and Aphrodite Pandemos • Solon and Salamis, Peisistratos and Nisaia • Plutarch and Theseus • Toward a History of Peisistratid Athens • The “Ominous” Birth of Peisistratos • Peisistratos, the Cults, and the Unification of Attica • Faith, Authority, and History in Early Athens • Politics in Early Athens • Tribal Politics and the Civic State • The Athenian Military before Cleisthenes • The Dubious Origins of the “Marathon” • Themistocles’ Place in Athenian Politics • Themistocles and Mnesiphilus • Troizen and the Persian War • A Note on Xerxes at Salamis • Thucydides I. 137.2 • Some Documents in Plutarch’s Lives • Aristodemos • Phylarchus, Fragment 76 • Pericles and Dracontides • Pericles, Thucydides, Son of Melesias, and Athenian Politics before the War • A Frank Frost Bibliography
“Frank Frost has been one of the most penetrating researchers into the social and political structure of archaic Athens.…His work has always been marked by a careful evaluation of the sources and an awareness of the contemporary context… This is a valuable book. It not only brings together a group of papers important for the study of Athenian history, but it also allows us to appreciate the achievement of an important American historian of ancient Greece. Let us hope for more in the future..” J.A.S. Evans in Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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As a great fan of the 'liger' dialogue in Napoleon Dynamite, I had to post this section on the 'cameleopard' which I just came across in Pliny the Elder while looking for something else. Both texts are copied from Perseus (Latin ed. K.F.T. Mayhoff), and I've included the notes from Perseus' English translation (ed. John Bostock and H.T. Riley).
XXXI.
harum aliqua similitudo in duo transfertur animalia. nabun aethiopes vocant collo similem equo, pedibus et cruribus bovi, camelo capite, albis maculis rutilum colorem distinguentibus, unde appellata camelopardalis, dictatoris caesaris circensibus ludis primum visa romae. ex eo subinde cernitur, aspectu magis quam feritate conspicua, quare etiam ovis ferae nomen invenit.
CHAP. 27.--THE CAMELEOPARD; WHEN IT WAS FIRST SEEN AT ROME.
There are two others[1] animals, which have some resemblance to the camel. One of these is called, by the Æthiopians, the nabun.[2] It has a neck like that of the horse, feet and legs like those of the ox, a head like that of the camel, and is covered with white spots upon a red ground; from which peculiarities it has been called the cameleopard.[3] It was first seen at Rome in the Circensian games held by Cæsar, the Dictator.[4] Since that time too, it has been occasionally seen. It is more remarkable for the singularity of its appearance than for its fierceness; for which reason it has obtained the name of the wild sheep.[5]
1 He speaks here of only one of the animals which resemble the camel; the giraffe, namely. The other, which he for the present omits, is the ostrich.
2 The description of the giraffe, here given, is sufficiently correct, but we have a more minute account of it by Dion Cassius, B. xliii. In the time of the Emperor Gordian, ten of these animals were exhibited at Rome at once; a remarkable fact, when we bear in mind that so few have been imported into Europe for many centuries past. The giraffe is figured in the mosaic at Præneste, and under it is inscribed its name, nabi.--B. It has been found that it is unable to bear the winters of Europe.
3 Its form being like that of the camel, while its spots resemble those of the leopard. Horace refers to it, when speaking of an object calculated to excite the vulgar gaze; "Diversum confusa genus panthera camelo"-- "The race of the panther mingled with the camel," Ep. B. ii.; Ep. i. 1. 195.
4 According to Dion Cassius, B. xliii., these games were celebrated A.U.C. 708.--B.
5 This comparison can only be employed to indicate the mild nature of the giraffe.--B.
'I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward to that which deserves to be called and accounted good: which setting forward, and moving to well-doing, indeed, setteth the laurel crown upon the poets as victorious; not only of the historian, but over the philosopher, howsoever, in teaching, it may be questionable. For suppose it be granted, that which I suppose, with great reason, may be denied, that the philosopher, in respect of his methodical proceeding, teach more perfectly than the poet, yet do I think, that no man is so much philophilosophos, as to compare the philosopher in moving with the poet. And that moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it may by this appear, that it is well nigh both the cause and effect of teaching; for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught? And what so much good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach. For, as Aristotle saith, it is not gnwsis but praxis must be the fruit: and how praxis can be, without being moved to practise, it is no hard matter to consider. The philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness of the way and of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you from your way; but this is to no man, but to him that will read him, and read him with attentive, studious painfulness; which constant desire whosoever hath in him, hath already passed half the hardness of the way, and therefore is beholden to the philosopher but for the other half. Nay, truly, learned men have learnedly thought, that where once reason hath so much overmastered passion, as that the mind hath a free desire to do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself is as good as a philosopher's book: since in nature we know it is well to do well, and what is well and what is evil, although not in the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us; for out of natural conceit the philosophers drew it; but to be moved to do that which we know, or to be moved with desire to know, "hoc opus, hic labor est."'
--Sir Philip Sydney, from The Defence of Poesy
'This is a short book on some very long poems written in the first 130 years of the Roman empire: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucan's Bellum Civile, Statius' Thebaid, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, and Silius Italicus' Punica. My aim above all is to throw light on the dynamics of a tradition. Tradition is often felt negatively as a dead weight; I shall have succeeded if I encourage in my reader a sense that these monstrous poems are possessed of a restless and fertile energy and that close to the surface of their hides there is stretched an intricately sensitive nerve-system.
'In literary terms the source of this dynamism is Virgil's Aeneid. One of the greatnesses of this apparently definitive Roman epic is its ability to spawn a vigorous progeny. The successors to Virgil, at once respectful and rebellious, constructed a space for themselves through a 'creative imitation' that exploited the energies and tensions called up but not finally expended or resolved in the Aeneid.'
--Philip Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge University Press 1993), p. 1
Michael Choniates was Metropolitan of Athens in the early 13th century, a learned man who loved the ancient world and wrote with sadness about the barbarous conditions to which Athens had fallen in his time. I found him through a letter he'd written which in part praised the work another man had done in making Nicander accessible to others. In the following poem (number 6) the opening is unmistakably--though metaphorically--Nicandrean:
Δράκοντι δηχθεὶς καὶ νοητοῖς σκορπίοις,'Having been bitten by a dragon and by mental scorpions, close to death and breathing my last, I reconsider the one hanging on the wood, how even having died I might somehow return to life.'
θνήσκων τε μικροῦ καὶ τὰ λοίσθια πνέων
ἀναθεωρῶ τὸν κρεμασθέντα ξύλῳ,
ὡς καὶ θανών πως ἀναβιῴην πάλιν.
Ἀνάστασις γάρ ἐστι καὶ ζωὴ μόνος, (5)
ὡς ἀμνὸς αἴρων κοσμικὴν ἁμαρτίαν.
Εἰ χάλκεος γὰρ καὶ τυπικός τις ὄφις
ἑρπυστικῶν δήγμασι θανατουμένους
ἐζωοποίει προςδεδορκότας μόνον,
πῶς οὐκ ἂν αὐτὸς ἐξαναστήσεις, ἄναξ, (10)
κέντρῳ πεπληγότα με τῆς ἁμαρτίας
καὶ κείμενον δείλαιον ὡς τεθνηκότα
καὶ βλέμμ’ ἀνατείνοντα πρὸς σὲ καὶ μόνον;
Ἀλλ’, ὦ πρὸς ὕψος ἀναβὰς θεοῦ λόγε,
ὡς πάντας ἄρδην πρὸς σεαυτὸν ἑλκύσαις, (15)
ὡς αἰχμαλωτεύσειας αἰχμαλωσίαν,
ὡς αὐτὸς εἶπας καὶ Δαυὶδ ψάλλων ᾄδει,
ἕλκυσον, ἀπάλλαξον αἰχμαλωσίας
καὶ προςλαβοῦ με τὸν κακοῖς ἀπωσμένον
χερσὶ ταθείσαις σταυρικῇ διατάσει, (20)
καὶ ζωοποιῷ σῷ τριταίῳ θανάτῳ
ἔμπνευσον ἐμπνεύσαντι παλινζωίαν
ὡς πνεύματι ζῶ σήν τε νέκρωσιν φέρω
καὶ συμμετάσχω, σῶτερ, ἀειζωίας.
I just came across the following in a section of Prudentius' Hamartigenia in which he is expounding on the wickedness of fallen man. I'm fairly certain I've never seen the italicized word before or, if I have, I don't recall it.
Inde canina foro latrat facundia toto;
hinc gerit Herculeam vilis sapientia clavam
ostentatque suos vicatim gymnosofistas,
incerat lapides fumosos idololatrix
religio et surdis pallens advolvuitur aris. (401-5)
A little while ago, I put up a couple of posts on the transmission of classical texts and the Carolingian Renaissance. Recently I needed to look at Horace's second Epode and had recourse to David Mankin's commentary in the 'Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics' series. In section 7 of the introduction, he has the following to say about Horatian manuscripts:
It appears that after their publication in the late first century BC Horace's works went in and out of fashion but never ceased to be read in parts, if not the whole, of the Roman world. Nevertheless, the earlies manuscripts (MSS) containing them date only to the ninth century AD, when there may have been a kind of 'Horatian revival' at the court of Charlemagne. These MSS seem to be the ancestors of the countless others from later centuries, and are the only ones that modern scholars draw on for composition of the text.
