fyi

The English suffix ‘–fy’ comes from the Latin word facit, meaning ‘make’ or ‘do’. For example ‘magnify’ means ‘to make big’ (magnus is Latin for big) , ‘unify’ means to ‘make one’ (unus is Latin for one) and ‘clarify’ means ‘to make clear’ (clarus is Latin for clear).

can you work out what the following English words mean, and from what Latin words they are derived.

[5 points for each correct answer]

1. crucify
2. deify
3. mollify
4. nullify
5. pacify
6. petrify
7. rectify
8. sanctify
9. stultify
10. vitrify

[For a longer list of words ending in -fy see here]

Happy Valentine's Day

What does Valentine’s Day have to do with the Romans? Not much really, though they did have their own fertility festival around the same time of the year (on the 15th of February). It sounds much more fun than our modern celebrations; here’s how Plutarch describes it:

At this time many of the noble youths and magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with strips of goat hide. And many women purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.

The festival was called the Lupercalia (from the Latin word lupus, wolf), and the ritual may also be connected with the legendary wolf that raised Romulus and Remus.

In any case, in honour of St Valentine (whoever he may or may not have been), here’s part of a poem from Ovid, describing his own experience of love:

esse quid hoc dicam, quod tam mihi dura videntur
strata, neque in lecto pallia nostra sedent,
et vacuus somno noctem, quam longa, peregi,
lassaque versati corporis ossa dolent?

nam, puto, sentirem, siquo temptarer Amore.
an subit et tecta callidus arte nocet?
sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,
et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor.

cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem?
cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus.
vidi ego iactatas mota face crescere flammas
et rursus nullo concutiente mori.

[Ovid, Amores I.2]

What is happening to me? My bed seems so hard, my blankets don’t sit straight on my bed,

and no matter how long I try, I spend my night empty of sleep, and my tired bones and my body ache from tossing and turning?

Surely I would have felt it, if I were the victim of some attack of Love- or has he snuck up on me, and done his damage by secret trickery?

That must be it. His invisible arrows have fixed in my heart, and cruel Love torments the heart he has captured.

Do I give in, or do I feed this unexpected flame by struggling? Let me give in: a burden readily borne becomes light.
I have seen flames blaze up, fanned by shaking a torch, and I have seen them die when left alone.

[But is Ovid really in love? He’s caught the fever, but doesn’t realise at first, doesn’t actually ever mention a girl. He asks whether he should give in to love, but the eagerness of his acquiescence makes us suspicious of his sincerity. The love he describes also fits all the clichés (a fever, a fire, a struggle, torture) a bit too neatly. He seems rather to be in love with the idea of Love, or even with the idea of being a Love poet.]

By the river Styx...

[By Jessica and Rose]

[By Alex]

I came across these pictures drawn for me by some of my former students today, and I thought I'd post them to add a bit of excitement to my blog. They both show scenes from Aeneas' journey through the underworld. Here's how Virgil describes it:

Hinc via Tartarei quae fert Acherontis ad undas.
turbidus hic caeno vastaque voragine gurges
aestuat atque omnem Cocyto eructat harenam.
portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina servat
terribili squalore Charon, cui plurima mento
canities inculta iacet, stant lumina flamma,
sordidus ex umeris nodo dependet amictus.
ipse ratem conto subigit velisque ministrat
et ferruginea subvectat corpora cumba,
iam senior, sed cruda deo viridisque senectus.
huc omnis turba ad ripas effusa ruebat,

matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita
magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae,
impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum:
quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo
lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto
quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus
trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis.

From here there is a path, which leads to the rolling waters of Tartarean Acheron. Here, in a vast chasm, thick with mud, a whirlpool seethes and belches forth all its sand into Cocytus. The dreadful ferryman Charon, in terrible filth, guards these waters and rivers. On his chin grows a mass of unkempt grey hair, his eyes blaze with flame, his dirty cloak hangs down from a knot at his shoulders. He guides the raft with a pole and tends to the sails, and he carries the bodies upstream in his rust-coloured boat. He is now quite old, but for a god old age is fresh and green. To here the whole crowd rushed, streaming to the banks. Mothers and men, and the bodies of great hearted heroes, now finished with their lives. Boys and unwedded girls, and young men, placed on pyres before the eyes of their parents, as many as the leaves in a forest, which at autumn's first frost drop and fall, or as many as the birds which flock to land from the seething deep, when the cold season drives them across the sea and sends them to sunny lands.

[Aeneid VI.295-312]

Laocoon

I read the story of Laocoon from the Aeneid with my year 9 class today. It's a story I first read when I was at high school, and ever since I've enjoyed the vividness of Virgil's gory portrayal, and the tragic heroism of Laocoon. Here it is for your enjoyment.


Hic aliud maius miseris multoque tremendum
obicitur magis atque improvida pectora turbat.
Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos,
sollemnis taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras.
ecce autem gemini a Tenedo tranquilla per alta
(horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues
incumbunt pelago pariterque ad litora tendunt;
pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta iubaeque
sanguineae superant undas, pars cetera pontum
pone legit sinuatque immensa volumine terga.
fit sonitus spumante salo; iamque arva tenebant
ardentisque oculos suffecti sanguine et igni
sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora.
diffugimus visu exsangues. illi agmine certo
Laocoonta petunt; et primum parva duorum
corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
implicat et miseros morsu depascitur artus;
post ipsum auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem
corripiunt spirisque ligant ingentibus; et iam
bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
terga dati superant capite et cervicibus altis.
ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos
perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno,
clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit:
qualis mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.


And now there came upon this unhappy people another and yet greater sign, which caused them even greater fear. Their hearts were troubled and they could not see what the future held. Laocoon, the chosen priest of Neptune, was sacrificing a huge bull at the holy altar, when suddenly there came over the calm water from Tenedos (I shudder at the memory of it), two serpents leaning into the sea in great coils and making side by side for the shore. Breasting their waves, they held high their blood-stained crests, and the rest of their bodies ploughed the waves behind them, their backs winding, coil upon measureless coil, through the sounding foam of the sea. Now they were on land. Their eyes were blazing and flecked with blood. They hissed as they licked their lips with quivering tongues. We grew pale at the sight and ran in all directions, but they made straight for Lacoon. First the two serpents seized his two young sons, twining round them both and feeding on their helpless limbs. Then when Laocoon came to the rescue with his sword in hand, they seized him and bound him in huge spirals, and soon their scaly backs were entwined twice round his body, twice round his throat, their heads and necks high above him as he struggled to prise open their coils, his priestly headband befouled by gore and black venom, and all the time he was raising horrible cries to heaven- like the bellowing of a wounded bull shaking the ineffectual axe out of its neck as it flees from the altar.

[Aeneid II.199- 224. Translated by D. West, Penguin Classics, 1990]

Romans in China?

There was an interesting article in Saturday’s paper about supposed descendants of Roman soldiers living in China. The idea has apparently been around since the 1950s, and the theory goes that a bunch of Romans, fighting under Crassus in the Eastern half of the Roman empire, were captured by the Parthians and used by them as mercenaries, until they were captured by the Han Chinese and eventually settled in what is now the city of Liqian.

The theory is based partly upon a reference made by Pliny in Book VI of his Natural History:

sequitur regio Margiane apricitatis inclutae… ambitu stadiorum M·D, difficilis aditu propter harenosas solitudines per CXX p.: et ipsa contra Parthiae tractum sita. in qua Alexander Alexandriam condiderat, qua diruta a barbaris Antiochus Seleuci filius eodem loco restituit Syrianam… maluerat illam Antiochiam appellari… in hanc Orodes Romanos Crassiana clade captos deduxit.

Next comes the district of Margiana, remarkable for its sunny climate… This district is fifteen hundred stadia in circumference, but is rendered remarkably difficult of access by sandy deserts, which extend a distance of one hundred and twenty miles: it lies opposite to the country of Parthia, and in it Alexander founded the city of Alexandria. After this place had been destroyed by the barbarians, Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, rebuilt it on the same site as a Syrian city… giving it the name of Antiochia… It was to this place that Orodes conducted such of the Romans as had survived the defeat of Crassus.

[Margiana was in the east of modern day Turkmenistan; Parthia is pretty close to modern day Iran; Orodes was a king of Parthia]