Wherefore aren't thou Rome?

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

Classics in the News

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

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

Jun 17, 11:01 AM (ET)

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

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

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

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

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

Now who's going to risk taking me in?

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

Either A, B, or C

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

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

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

Indeed.

More on Greek meter

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

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

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

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

The textbook has begun

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grumble grumble ...

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

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

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

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

What's wrong with men?

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you're interested, the original Greek follows:

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

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

Catholicism rides the Latin wave?

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

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

App. Crit. glossary

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

It's now been added to the Cheetsheet.

Modern Language Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oxyrhynchus Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, maybe. But Greek is doing just fine.

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

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

17 April 2005

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

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

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

It's all Greek to me!

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

- Isocrates, Panegyricus 50

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

New Online Reference

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

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

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


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

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

Modern Language Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Oxyrhynchus Papyrus

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

A cultural question

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

Modern Language Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Modern Language Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dennis the Apostate

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

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

It just may change your life.

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

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

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

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

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

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