audio video disco

Lessons from Greek mythology

2012-01-19T10:00:00.000+11:00

[Orestes, middle, attacks Clytemnestra, right]

I spotted this in the sports section of the paper last year, but what with one thing and another didn't get around to posting it. It just goes to show how useful a knowledge of our classical heritage can be in everyday life.

In June, in reference to the adultery committed by the English soccer player Ryan Giggs with his brother's wife, TFF posed the throwaway question, "Is it worse for a man to sleep with his brother's wife, or his wife's sister? Discuss." Well, I never. I was overwhelmed with responses. Most tended to agree with me that "brother's wife", is worse; some said I would have to ask an AFL player of the ilk of Wayne Carey; although David Scott identified that the worst of all would be when your brother's wife is also your wife's sister.

The last word, however, goes to reader Bruce Hyland, who has what I think is an uncomfortably well-thought-out and referenced position on this. "The Greeks," he writes, "held that an offence against a blood relative was far more serious than an offence against a relative who was not blood-kin. Hence, Clytemnestra's murder of her husband, Agamemnon, was less heinous than Orestes's revenge killing of Clytemnestra, because Clytemnestra and Agamemnon were not blood relatives, whereas Orestes was Clytemnestra's [and Agamemnon's] son and, thus, the closest blood-kin. It follows that sleeping with one's brother's wife is beyond the pale, whereas sleeping with one's wife's sister may be regarded as a trivial peccadillo."

Latin in the news

2011-10-20T10:40:00.001+11:00

Latin's been in the paper a bit this week, firstly with an article on Monday hailing the revival of Classical Languages in NSW schools:

In schools, the classics are steadily increasing their enrolment numbers. This year, Gosford High School and St Catherine's of Waverley joined the 43 schools teaching classical languages, resulting in 342 enrolments from a typically small number that do languages. Chinese background speakers is the most popular language with 963 enrolments and Dutch is the least popular with two... Classical Greek, classical Hebrew and Latin are considered difficult and scale well, with more than half of students achieving a mark of 90 or more. They are typically taken by high-achieving students and, as the number and standard of selective schools in NSW has grown, so has demand. ''But the students also see a lot of intrinsic worth,'' said Elizabeth Jones, a member of the Classical Association of NSW and part of a group of teachers campaigning to have classical languages included in the national curriculum. ''In some ways there is so much emphasis on the here and now that there is interest in learning something that isn't 'modern suburban Sydney' but has a timeless quality. They're reading some of the greatest things ever written,'' she said.

Bruce Marshall then had a letter published in response to the article:

The same encouraging trend seen in schools in the study of classics is occurring in universities. Undergraduate numbers studying Greek and Latin are steadily rising. Postgraduate studies in these subjects are booming. And, while staff numbers in humanities subjects have suffered steady cuts, positions in classics and ancient history are regularly being replaced. This is all very encouraging to those of us in the profession.

Bruce Marshall secretary, Australasian Society for Classical Studies, Bundanoon

and a couple more letters followed in response. One supportive, the other not so much:

At the end of a 50-year career as a professional engineer, I enthusiastically support the advocacy of Bruce Marshall (Letters, October 18) and others for continued study of the ancient world in our schools and universities. While pursuing my day job with passion, I picked up some qualifications in Greek, Latin and ancient history. I soon came to appreciate the benefits of engaging with a highly intelligent and well-recorded civilisation, free of today's political and ideological baggage. Can we still learn from those ancients? Very definitely. It is about human striving and how best to live and organise ourselves. Not all wisdom comes in tweets.

John Court Denistone

What can students possibly learn from studying the imported classical detritus of a 2500-year-old society that died out after a mere few hundred years? If they need something ancient and inspiring to study, students should take a long hard look at the living cultures of the first people to leave Africa some 70,000 years ago; truly venerable cultures that make so-called ancient Greek look so gen Y, and the only cultures that can speak with the authentic voice of this country on which we live.

Peter Fyfe Erskineville

Followed by more letters today (including one from my colleague and friend):

Peter Fyfe (Letters, October 19) recommends an indigenous language as a better choice than classical Latin or Greek for those who would seek cultural insights valuable to present-day Australians. It is true that many indigenous languages are just as complex as the classical languages and will take just as many years of hard study to master. It is not true that they are somehow repositories of ancient wisdom now lost to us - the idea of the ''noble savage'' belongs back with Captain Cook. All living cultures are equally venerable and equally modern. What classical languages offer us (and let's not forget Hebrew or Sanskrit or Chinese) are windows into cultures which, like those of indigenous Australians, were radically different from our own in material terms, but from which men and women left detailed records of their thoughts, their doings and their feelings in ways that can resonate with us today, and perhaps even impart a little wisdom. Unfortunately, for indigenous languages, we don't have any comparable record.

Alex Jones Kirribilli

I wonder if Peter Fyfe is aware that his brief missive deriding the relevance of the classical languages contains no fewer than 16 words (not counting repetitions) derived from them.

Michael Salter Greenacre

Rome wasn't built in a day

2011-10-09T21:15:00.000+11:00

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I did catch the opening episode of Rome wasn't built in a day, a BBC documentary following a group of London builders as they attempt to build a Roman-style villa using only materials, tools and techniques, guided by a mad archaeologist and copies of Vitruvius' architecture manual. You can read a couple of reviews here and here. I thought it was pretty good, with some interesting insights into Roman practices. The builders (in the first episode at least) struggle a lot without their modern tools, and I don't blame them really. The Romans didn't have the same level of technology, but they made up for it by having a huge, cheap workforce. The six builders are trying to achieve by themselves something which (I imagine) would have involved dozens of skilled and unskilled slaves. One thing the reviews don't mention is how funny the show is. There are some very funny interactions between the builders and the archaeologist, and keep an eye on the plumber's T-shirts in particular.

The series is on the ABC on Tuesday evenings, and you can catch the first episode on iview for the next week or so.

Latin for tweet?

2011-10-02T15:35:00.002+11:00

I'm not on twitter myself, and haven't really contemplated what the Latin for to tweet might be. The editorial in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald suggested frigere, in this short post script:

THE 18th-century philosopher Bishop Berkeley thought things existed only if they were perceived. In all modesty we wish to propose a variant of this doctrine: people exist only if they tweet, or esse est frigere, for those who prefer their axioms in questionable Latin. The basis for this is our report that social scientists have plotted the mood of the whole world from Twitter.

After examining half a billion tweets and tallying up when people tweet positive and negative words, they conclude that most of us wake up happy, then things go downhill through the work day until knock-off time, when tweeters resume their early bounciness. This astonishing finding is all well and good, but what about people who don't tweet? Might their mood swings be in the opposite direction? Here our axiom springs into action. Either they are the same as the twitterers, in which case they are superfluous, or they are different but undetectable, in which case who cares? ... All together now: frigo ergo sum. I tweet, therefore I am.

I was a bit puzzled by this verb, and admit I had to look it up to see what it meant. Here's the definition according to William Whitaker's Words (I'm on holidays and don't have a real dictionary with me):

frigo, frigere, frixi, frictus: to roast, parch, fry

I'm not sure how they chose this verb, given that definition. Perhaps there's another meaning not given on-line, or perhaps there's some joke I'm not getting. In either case I would have thought pipiare or titiare (which both describe the sounds birds make) would have been a better choice. Any other suggestions?

UPDATE: unsurprisingly, someone else has already given this some thought. Here are the Rogue Classicist's (who is actually on twitter and has much more authority than I on such matters) suggestions. While I was raeding this I was also distracted by this post, which reminded me of why I love Boris Johnson so much.

Mezentius

2011-09-16T20:16:00.003+10:00

impastus stabula alta leo ceu saepe peragrans
(suadet enim vesana fames), si forte fugacem
conspexit capream aut surgentem in cornua cervum,
gaudet hians immane comasque arrexit et haeret
visceribus super incumbens; lavit improba taeter
ora cruor—
sic ruit in densos alacer Mezentius hostis.
sternitur infelix Acron et calcibus atram
tundit humum exspirans infractaque tela cruentat.
atque idem fugientem haud est dignatus Oroden
sternere nec iacta caecum dare cuspide vulnus;
obvius adversoque occurrit seque viro vir
contulit, haud furto melior sed fortibus armis.
tum super abiectum posito pede nixus et hasta:
'pars belli haud temnenda, viri, iacet altus Orodes.'
conclamant socii laetum paeana secuti;
ille autem exspirans: 'non me, quicumque es, inulto,
victor, nec longum laetabere; te quoque fata
prospectant paria atque eadem mox arva tenebis.'
ad quem subridens mixta Mezentius ira:
'nunc morere. ast de me divum pater atque hominum rex
viderit.' hoc dicens eduxit corpore telum.

(Aeneid X.723-744)

How does this extract display the heroic qualities of Mezentius? In your answer refer to both the content and the language of the extract, and to Mezentius’ speech and actions.

Mezentius is presented as the archetypal Homeric hero in Aeneid X. He is of course a mighty warrior and Aeneas’ chief adversary in the absence of Turnus. But his heroism is also seen in his fierce independence, arrogance and scorn for his enemies. Indeed his heroism is just as apparent in his flaws as in his virtues.

Mezentius’ great prowess as a warrior is his most obvious heroic trait. Virgil shows us his daring as he eagerly (alacer) rushes in to the thick of the battle, with the choice of the adjective and the use of present tense verbs (ruit, sternitur, tundit; the latter two given extra emphasis through their position at the start of a line) combining to make the action seem more immediate to the reader and thus create a deeper impression of his courage in the face of danger. The chiasmus (densos… hostis) also draws our attention to these words, highlighting the fact that Mezentius chooses to throw himself into the most dangerous (densos) part of the battle, again illustrating his courage. The chiasmus also cleverly reflects Mezentius’ situation, in the middle of the surrounding enemy. Mezentius’ decision to confront Orodes face to face also displays his bravery. The contrast between furto and fortibus armis shows Mezentius’ clearly superior strength and his rejection of sneaky, dishonourable tactics (caecum… vulnus). Virgil’s repetition and juxtaposition of viro vir also highlights the confrontation between the two men, and the unusual monosyllabic line ending gives the line an added impact on the ear of the reader.

The simile used in the opening lines of the extract also contributes to Virgil’s depiction of Mezentius as a hero. The simile has a clear Homeric flavour, and, in combination with the other similes describing Mezentius in Book X, clearly shows us the kind of hero Virgil intends him to be – firmly in the mold of Homer’s heroes, such as Achilles or Ajax. In this particular simile Mezentius is compared to a lion driven wild by hunger (another chiasmus – impastus… leo). Virgil’s choice of words such as vesana, gaudet and haeret visceribus effectively bring out the savage violence of the lion and hence Mezentius, displaying the kind of viciousness typical of a Homeric hero. The final image of the simile, that of the lion’s jaws awash with foul blood (lavit… cruor), is particularly gruesome and the juxtapostion of the negative adjectives improba and taeter paints a graphic picture of Mezentius’ savagery in the mind of the reader. The alliteration within the simile, for example of fames… forte fugacem or conspexit capream… cornua cervum, also adds to the effectiveness of these lines. The harsh sounds assist Virgil to describe the scene in a way which strikes the ears in a particularly powerful and memorable way, giving his depiction of the hero Mezentius greater depth and an increased vividness.

Mezentius’ arrogance is another important part of his heroic character. We see this especially in the way he treats his slain enemies. Both his actions and his words, for example, show disrespect to Orodes. He puts his foot on the dying man (pede posito), stands over him (super) to display his dominance and cruelly leans on the spear (nixus et hasta) which is still inside the dying man’s body (cf. line 744). His actions show no pity for the man he has wounded, in the same way that Turnus behaved towards the body of Pallas and in clear contrast to Aeneas’ actions towards the slain Lausus. Mezentius’ words also show his scorn. His speech is full of pride in his own strength as he describes Orodes as pars belli haud temnenda and altus Orodes. The sarcastic tone of these lines conveys Mezentius as a proud and boastful man. This can also be seen in his failure to heed Orodes' warning that he too will soon die (te quoque fata prospectant paria). Instead of showing humility before the gods Mezentius flies into a rage (ira), issues the blunt imperative nunc morere (the short clause effectively conveying Mezentius’ scorn again) and proudly challenges Jupiter’s power (divum pater). Such hubris is antithetical to the pietas of Aeneas, and is clearly censured by Virgil in the Aeneid, but it is still an important and typical part of the Homeric model of heroism, seen especially in the interaction between Achilles and the dying Hector, on which Virgil’s scene is clearly modelled.

And so Mezentius’ flawed heroism can be clearly seen in this extract. He is clearly a formidable warrior, with strength and bravery and also displays the arrogant pride in his own power, and the scorn for his slain enemies which typifies the Heroes of Homer’s epic poems.

Comments and criticisms are welcome!

ibides?

2011-09-15T08:15:00.000+10:00

Column 8 has been involved in a furious workplace argument about the plural form of the word ''ibis'' (the bird that tears garbage bags to shreds with apparent impunity all over the CBD). We favour ''ibi'' over the clumsy, but allegedly correct ''ibises''. Thoughts?
(14/9/2011)

''Elegant and attractive though 'ibi' is, sadly the Latin plural does not apply in this case as it should follow the pattern of third declension nouns, not second declension,'' asserts Greg King, of Springwood (Plural form of the annoying bird, Column 8, yesterday). ''Thus, if you're not content with the English 'ibises', it would have to be 'ibes', or, possibly, 'ibides'.'' Beware the ibes of September?

It has to be ''ibeese'', insists Erle Bartlett, of Burra, while Kenrick Riley, of Georgica, tells us that we are wrangling with a non-issue, assuring us that ''the common ibis are like sheep - they are both singular and plural''. But Lee Godfrey, of Biggera Waters, Queensland, backs up Column 8, and says simply ''I buy 'ibi''', as does Alison Axam, who actually has a kind word to say about the creatures: ''In our house it's definitely' ibi','' writes Alison. ''They might be feathered hooligans on the ground, but a fly-by of ibi is a joy to see.'' It's true, they are a fine sight on the wing - preferably heading far away.

''This reminds me of the story of the zookeeper who couldn't decide on the plural of mongoose when ordering livestock,'' recalls Finola Border, of Petersham. ''Mongooses? Mongeese? After much deliberation he wrote 'Please send one mongoose to …', and then finished off with 'PS: better make that two'.''
(15/9/2011)

I think I have pointed out before that, as any grammar book will tell you, the plural of ibis is ibitis.
Related Post

Classical Plurales

You can't dream in Latin...

2011-08-25T09:25:00.000+10:00

Here are a couple of podcasts that have caught my attention over the last week from ABC Radio, one from 702 Sydney, the other from Radio National. The first is a brief look at the Oracle of Delphi, the second a longer discussion of Latin's influence on the western world.

Alan Treloar

2011-08-23T12:40:00.000+10:00

I've developed the odd habit over the last couple of years, perhaps related to my interest in dead languages, of reading the obituaries in the paper from time. Not in an obsessive way, but I'll often flip to the back of the Herald and have a glance to see who's featured, and more often than not it's someone who I've never heard of, but who lived a remarkably interesting life.

Like Alan Treloar, whose obituary included the following:

Colonel Alan Treloar was one of Australia's greatest linguists and classical scholars and also a distinguished soldier.

Few could rival his knowledge as a scholar of ancient Greek and Latin. He had a special interest in the Roman poet Horace but had read the entire classical literatures of both languages at least twice.

He had an astonishing gift for languages and would admit, when pressed, to direct knowledge of about 80. He had a formidable command of many, such as Sanskrit, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hittite. In his early 80s he was investigating Bunuba, a language of the Kimberley.

Being (at a stretch) tri-lingual I often meet people who express amazement at my language skills, but in reality I am a mere dwarf compared to such a giant. I am especially in awe of his claim to have read the entire classical literatures of both Latin and Greek twice, to the extent that I wonder if it could possibly be true. I'm sure it is, though how he managed to find the time is completely beyond me.

Related Post: Jame Murray

lente currite, noctis equi

2011-07-30T06:24:00.001+10:00

[previous post]

Iam super oceanum venit a seniore marito
flava pruinoso quae vehit axe diem.
'Quo properas, Aurora? ...
nunc iuvat in teneris dominae iacuisse lacertis;
si quando, lateri nunc bene iuncta meo est.
nunc etiam somni pingues et frigidus aer,
et liquidum tenui gutture cantat avis.
quo properas, ingrata viris, ingrata puellis?
roscida purpurea supprime lora manu!

Now she rises over the ocean, come from her aged husband,
the golden girl, who brings day to the frozen sky.
‘Why hurry, Aurora?...
Now I delight to lie in my girl’s soft arms:
now she’s so sweetly joined to my side.
now sleep’s still easy, and the air is cool,
and the birds sing in full flow from a clear throat.
Why hurry, unwelcome to men, unwelcome to girls?
Restrain those dewy reins with rosy fingers!

(Ovid, Amores I.13)

[The cartoon is from here]

Doctor Faustus

2011-07-25T21:59:00.000+10:00

I enjoyed going to the theatre last week to see Faustus. The production was (as far as I could work out) a bit of blend of Goethe's version (which I studied at uni) with Marlowe's version (with which I was completely unfamiliar), and a few other things thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, not knowing the Marlowe version I was pleasantly surprised when it started thusly:

Not marching in the fields of Thrasymene,
Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthagens;
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
In courts of kings where state is overturn'd;
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
Intends our Muse to vaunt her heavenly verse:
Only this, gentles,--we must now perform
The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad:

Thrasymene refers to the Battle of Trasimene where Hannibal and the Carthaginians (Carthagens) destroyed the Roman army in one of the opening encounters of the Second Punic War.

In fact there was a lot of Latin in the play, some translated for the benefit of the audience, some not. Here are a few examples:

When all is done, divinity is best:
Jerome's Bible, Faustus; view it well.
[Reads.] Stipendium peccati mors est.
Ha! Stipendium, &c.
'The reward of sin is death': that's hard.
[Reads.] Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas;
'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there
is no truth in us'. Why, then, belike we must sin, and so consequently die:
Ay, we must die an everlasting death
What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera,
What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu!
***
Faustus, begin thine incantations,
And try if devils will obey thy hest...
Sint mihi dii Acherontis propitii! Valeat numen triplex Jehovoe! Ignei, aerii, aquatani spiritus, salvete! Orientis princeps Belzebub, inferni ardentis monarcha, et Demogorgon, propitiamus vos, ut appareat et surgat Mephistophilis Dragon, quod tumeraris: per Jehovam, Gehennam, et consecratam aquam quam nunc spargo, signumque crucis quod nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc surgat nobis dicatus Mephistophilis!
***
Is't not midnight?--come Mephistophilis,
And bring glad tidings from great Lucifer;--
Is't not midnight?--come Mephistophilis,
Veni, veni, Mephistophile!
***
F. Stay, Mephistophilis, and tell me, what good will my soul do thy lord?
M. Enlarge his kingdom.
F. Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?
M. Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
***
O Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

This last one is particularly interesting. It's a quote from Ovid's Amores (here is a translation, and here is an adaptation by John Donne). Ovid imagines his intended lover appealing to the 'horses of the night' (an unusual image, more normally associated with the day time) to 'run slowly' (a cheeky oxymoron) so that she may enjoy her lover's company for longer. Ovid's appeal is made in a moment of ecstasy with the hope that it will long endure; Faust's in a moment of torment in the dreadful anticipation of greater torment to come.

Gladiators

2011-07-22T11:10:00.002+10:00

Good morning Year 8!

Your task this morning is to find out a bit of information about Gladiators. Here are a few sites to get you started:

You Wouldn't Want to be a Roman Gladiator is a fun site that follows the fate of a Gaul captured by Roman soldiers, sold as a slave and trained as a gladiator.
Roman Gladiatorial Games is not as fun, but has lots of good information.
This BBC site is also pretty good, and has a cool game to play (dress your gladiator correctly to help him win in the arena).

If you've explored all these sites and more, go to the Cambridge Site to do some vocab revision and grammar games.

[The comics are from here and here]

HSC 1937 style

2011-05-19T13:41:00.003+10:00

While going through some papers the other day I cam across the Leaving Certificate (the equivalent of the HSC) Latin Exam from 1937. It's interesting to see what has and hasn't changed. Back then there was some Livy to translate and comment upon, some Horace as well for the 'Higher Standard' (i.e. extension), and a longish translation from English into Latin for everyone.

Horace is still set as an extension text (Lyric Poetry last year, Satire this year), and Livy will be next year's year 12 prose text as well. And hardly anyone does prose composition any more (it is an option in the Extension exam - most years it is attempted by at most one or two candidates out of a hundred or so).

The most remarkable thing is, I think, that a three hour paper can fit on three A5 pages!

Crocodile Classics

2011-04-07T14:07:00.000+10:00

My year 12 class have brought Crocodile Classics to my attention. I'm not sure how to best describe it, so here are a few examples of what you'll find there.

WARNING: If you visit the site, some of them are a bit rude...

Social Morays

2011-03-29T21:38:00.002+11:00

I recieved an email from the (former?) Director General of Education and Training NSW this morning, regarding 'Social Media Policy and Guidelines'. It contained the following:

The highest performing education systems in the world use technology for collaboration between peers and have professional development for peers, led by peers.

To get a taste of how we’re doing that, take a look at the professional learning network, Yammer. Scroll through the posts and you’ll see staff sharing teaching practice, resources, research and ideas, solving problems and posing questions...

But an online community, like any community, has its own morays and protocols. With opportunity also comes responsibility and, as public sector employees, we are subject to external scrutiny.

I think he means mores...

Old World/New World II

2011-03-28T19:56:00.002+11:00

Part I

(NYC) (Rome)

(Boston) (Naples Museum)

(Boston) (Rome)

Old World/New World

2011-03-24T22:12:00.011+11:00

When I took some of my Latin students overseas last year, a few expressed surprise that we were going to the United States as well as Italy. The Roman Empire was big, but most people realise that they weren't able to cross the Atlantic and establish a province on the American continent (though if they had, I wonder what they would have called it...). Anyway the purpose of our visit to the States was twofold: (i) to visit some of the biggest and most important ancient history collections in the world (the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, then New York Metropolitan Museum and the Getty Roman Villa and Museum in Los Angeles) and (ii) to get some kind of understanding of how the old world has influenced the new. That is, how the art, architecture and more importantly the ideas of the Greeks and Romans have influenced and shaped American society.

That's not a revolutionary idea, and I'm sure many wiser people than I have had lots to say about it, but I thought it might be interesting to compare (without much comment) some of the photos I took from the two halves of our trip.

Washington Arch, NYC; Arch of Constantine, Rome

Harvard, Boston; Paestum, Southern Italy

Quincy Market, Boston; The Pantheon, Rome

Boston Town Hall; The Pantheon, Rome

Numismatics

2011-03-22T11:34:00.004+11:00

I was once, back in high school, subjected to an incredibly boring lecture on ancient coins, and since then my automatic reaction has been to flee from numismatists and their dull obsessions, as the Ceryneian Hind did from Hercules.

However, I've had to revise my prejudices slightly. On my trip last year I was captured by the detail and expression which could be found on the faces of many of the coins which could be seen in the museums. At the risk of becoming boring myself, here are a few of the most striking, all from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

I the think the one of Vespasian is my favourite. He's such an ugly man, and the coin has captured the grumpiness of this fat old man perfectly. The skinny-necked Caesar is also interesting - he looks a lot more frail (and perhaps even a bit nerdy) than the stern-looking busts you see much more often.

an experiment

2011-03-21T12:46:00.004+11:00

Many are the terrors of the earth...

2011-03-16T08:46:00.000+11:00

Boris Johnson (my favourite classically trained conservative politician) has written an article in response to the recent horrific earthquake in Japan and the unfolding situation with its nuclear power plants. I disagree with a lot of what he says, but, as a Latin teacher, I've got to admire the style with which he says it. Here are a few examples:

Whatever happens in the world, whatever the catastrophe, we just have to put ourselves at the centre of the story. In the second millennium BC, there was a huge earthquake and tsunami in the Mediterranean, an event that has been associated with the eruption of Greece's Santorini volcano. It was obvious to the ancients that this must have been to do with mankind - and specifically the misbehaviour of the people of Atlantis, who got uppity and dissed Poseidon. So Poseidon struck back. Of course he did...

I am afraid to say that our manic post hoc ergo propter hoc-ery survives to this day. When Phuket in Thailand was hit by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, there were a large number of religious nut-jobs - and not only in America - who were convinced that this was some kind of divine vengeance on that town for the alleged immorality of its residents and its reputation for sex tourism. It is always us, us, us. Many are the terrors of the earth, says the chorus in Sophocles, and nothing is more terrible than mankind.

Well, the only good thing about an earthquake and tsunami on this scale is that they remind us that even Sophocles was capable of talking bilge. There are plenty of things more terrifying than man, and they include asteroids, earthquakes, tsunamis and anything else that reminds us that we are tiny blobs of flesh and blood crawling on the thin integument of a sphere of boiling rock and metal, and that there are events in the life of the planet that are simply nothing to do with human action...

The response to the Japan earthquake is to send all the aid and the logistic support that we can. But we don't have to treat this as any kind of verdict on mankind's activities. We don't have to make amends by sacrificing a hecatomb to Poseidon. We don't have to lead 100 garlanded men and maidens to the top of the pyramid and then cut out their beating hearts. We don't have to stop drilling for oil, and we don't have to sacrifice our efforts to provide safe, clean and green nuclear power.

carpe noctum

2011-03-15T07:48:00.000+11:00

On my way to school this morning I saw a man at Sydnenham station wearing a t-shirt, not exactly like, but similar to, this one. It shouldn't be that hard to get the accusative case of the third declension right, especially if you're going to print it on a t-shirt. And why would you wear something like that? Haven't that guy's friends told him how silly he looks with a huge grammar mistake printed on his chest in a gothic font?

2011-03-06T20:39:00.000+11:00

spotted in Erskineville.

ranarum viscera numquam inspexi

2011-02-15T13:47:00.000+11:00

After reading Juvenal's third satire, I have created a coat of arms for myself, with an appropriate sounding Latin motto true to the ancient dictum that quidquid Latine dicitur, altum videtur. I hope you like it. The motto comes from a passage in which Juvenal's friend explains that he is leaving Rome because he feels that Rome has been taken over by foreigners and those of lesser class and sophistication than himself, with no respect for the ancient history, customs and traditions of Rome. The relevant passage is below:

Quid Romae faciam? mentiri nescio; librum,
si malus est, nequeo laudare et poscere; motus
astrorum ignoro; funus promittere patris
nec volo nec possum; ranarum viscera numquam
inspexi.

What am I to do at Rome? I don't know how to lie. If a book is bad, I am unable to praise it and demand a copy for myself. I am ignorant of the motions of the stars. I neither want nor am able to promise the death of a father. I have never examined frogs' intestines.

(Juvenal Satire III.41-45)

Mandarin or Latin?

2011-02-07T12:45:00.001+11:00

Mike Salter has drawn my attention to an article from the UK, related to my previous post. Here's a couple of interesting paragraphs:

Hard as it may be to believe, one of the things that gives privately-educated children the edge is their knowledge of Latin. I don’t just mean in the obvious senses – their grasp of basic grammar and syntax, their understanding of the ways in which our world is underpinned by the classical world, their ability to read Latin inscriptions. I mean there is actually a substantial body of evidence that children who study Latin outperform their peers when it comes to reading, reading comprehension and vocabulary, as well as higher order thinking such as computation, concepts and problem solving...

Interestingly, [one study] found that children from poor backgrounds particularly benefit from studying Latin. For a child with limited cultural reference points, becoming acquainted with Roman life and mythology opens up “new symbolic worlds”, enabling him or her “to grow as a personality, to live a richer life”. In addition, spoken Latin emphasises clear pronunciation, particularly of the endings of words, a useful corrective for many children born in inner cities. Finally, for children who have reading problems, Latin provides “experience in careful silent reading of the words that follow a consistent phonetic pattern”...

Unlike other languages, Latin isn’t just about conjugating verbs. It includes a crash course in ancient history and cosmology. “Latin is the maths of the Humanities,” says Llewelyn Morgan, “But Latin also has something that mathematics does not and that is the history and mythology of the ancient world. Latin is maths with goddesses, gladiators and flying horses, or flying children.”

The reference to 'a substantial body of evidence' is fleshed out a little in the actual article.

National Curriculum

2011-02-04T10:56:00.000+11:00

The first glimpse of the federal government's national languages curriculum came out this week. Here's a little of what the paper had to say:

The curriculum will cover 11 foreign languages, with Italian and Chinese the first to be developed.

Latin and other classical languages have been left out, raising concern. Language teachers say this is a major omission because a knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek underpins understanding of literature, art and the English language. The sign language Auslan has also been left out, also raising concern.

Italian and Chinese have been given first priority because the national curriculum authority says they ‘‘represent languages that cater for the greatest range of learners’’.

‘‘Chinese is a national priority, and Italian is learnt by the largest number of students in the primary years and the second-largest number of student enrolments over all.’’

Indonesian, Japanese and Korean are also deemed national priorities as part of the second stage of the language curriculum development.

Traditional European languages, including French and German and Spanish, will also be included because they are among the most commonly taught languages in Australian schools.
(Should Italian, Chinese Lead the New Curriculum)

Any language not included in the national curriculum will continue to be taught under existing state arrangements, according to the draft paper by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.
(Chinese, Italian Lead New Curriculum)

I'm not particularly surprised that Latin was ommitted. NSW is (as far is I know) the only state where Latin is 'widely' taught, and so on a national level I can understand why it wouldn't figure highly. The curriculum also seems to me to be driven by utility - what languages are going to most useful - and it's hard (though not impossible) to mount an argument that Latin is more 'useful' than (say) Mandarin with eight hundred million speakers or Spanish with three hundred million. The first article's claim that "a knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek underpins understanding of literature, art and the English language" is true, but to a lot of people these days (including I suspect the people who wrote the syllabus) that's irrelevent if it can't help you close a business deal.

In my mind learning any language has benefits beyond simply their utility as a communication system. Learning a language helps you to see the world from a different perspective, teaches you transferable skills of analysis and discipline. Learning a language is also an end in and of itself - an activity that is intellectually stimulating and even pleasurable for its own sake, regardless of how it is 'used'. Perhaps that's an outdated, esoteric and even elitist view, but I genuinely think that being able to study something useless but enjoyable is a really great opportunity. It's an approach to langage learning that seems to be sadly absent from the new curriculum.

Just as an interesting footnote, in last year's HSC there were 162 candidates sitting for the Chinese Beginners and Continuers exams combined and 180 sitting for the Latin Continuers exam. 37 did Chinese Extension and 97 did Latin Extension. (These figures don't include the backgound speakers, which are of course much higher).

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus

2011-01-19T22:50:00.000+11:00

I woke up this morning to hear Adam Spencer on the radio asking if anyone knew by what name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus is better known. I pitied the poor fool who rang up to answer "Augustus, the first emperor of Rome" but the next caller was spot on with "Caligula".

He was asking the question in response to this article about the apparent discovery of the emperor Caligula's tomb. The article explains how he was given the name Caligula - as a kid he used to accompany his dad (confusingly known as Germanicus) out to the battlefield, dressed up in a mini-soldier's uniform, including boots. The boots were known as caligae - caligula is a diminutive form meaning 'little boot(s)'. Interestingly the statue of Caligula which led to the discovery of the tomb is wearing a pair of these boots. The learned Rogue Classicum has more on the news, but is cautious (to put it mildly) about the authenticity of the discovery.

The article in the Sydney Morning Herald also trots out all the usual stuff about Caligula, as in this sentence:

After reportedly sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse a consul during his rule from AD37 to 41, Caligula was described by contemporaries as insane.

The article is decent enough to say that he only 'reportedly' slept with his sisters, but is pretty vague on who Caligula's 'contempories' might be. I'm not much of an expert on any aspect of Roman history, but the biographies of the emperors are generally not straightforward, and a lot of the most sensational stories often have to be taken with a fairly large grain of salt. In Caligula's case, the major sources of information about his life come from Suetonius and Cassius Dio, who are writing about 80 and 180 years respectively after his death. Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the various sources and their reliability.

Of course, none of the sources portray Caligula as a saint, but he wasn't necessarily as insane and perverted as he's often made out to be, and in fact he seems to have been responsible for some genuine achievements during his reign.

digiti

2011-01-03T10:04:00.000+11:00

I heard a news report on the radio a few weeks ago about how the relative lengths of your fingers can be a marker of a person's risk of developing some kinds of cancer. It sounds unlikely but apparently it's got something to do with exposure to testosterone in the womb. Some research has suggested that having an index finger longer than your ring finger gives you a significantly lower risk of developing prostate cancer, and there may (or may not) be something similar with women and breast cancer.

The news report made me think of Roman statues. If the link is not immediately clear to you, have a look at the pictures below:

The first photo is from the National Archaelogical Museum in Naples, and shows the foot of the goddess Flora (here's the full statue). The second and the third are both from the Capitoline Museum in Rome; the second shows the feet of the Esquiline Venus (or possibly Cleopatra), the third the foot of what was once an enormous statue of Constantine. Apart from the fact that Venus is wearing sandals and not much else (here's the full statue), it's interesting to see that all the statues have second toes longer than their big toes. I had heard before that this was considered the ideal of beauty for Greeks and Romans, and it was interesting to see it in real life. I'm not sure why that was so, although I doubt it's related to hormone levels in the womb.

Janus

2011-01-01T00:01:00.006+11:00

Happy New Year!

dico, dico, dico

2010-12-27T18:07:00.001+11:00

If you're looking for something to read over the holidays, you could do worse than this article (by Juliette Harrisson), looking at the use of Latin in pop culture. She manages to squeeze in references to Monty Python, Harry Potter, Buffy, Terry Pratchett, Yes Minister, The West Wing, Mel Gibson and others into a very interesting and readable piece. Here's a sample paragraph:

...it is because Latin is more familiar to audiences that it is frequently chosen over other ancient languages when spells or magical incantations are required. This is partly because Latin is so close to a number of modern European languages, so the spells sound ‘right’ – petrificus totalus, for example, ‘petrifies’ someone ‘totally’. Latin is sufficiently old and mysterious and, at the same time, sufficiently recognisable to make an effective magic spell that sounds plausible, yet out of the ordinary.

Gloria...

2010-12-25T00:01:00.001+11:00

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

ero cras

2010-12-17T00:01:00.005+11:00

One of my favourite Christmas hymns (it's too good to be simply a carol) has always been O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I discovered a couple of years ago that it's based on a Latin original which dates back (possibly) as far as the 8th century.

I thought that was pretty cool, but last weekend I mentioned to a friend how much I liked it, and she started telling me about the seven O Antiphons. I'd never even heard of the word, so she explained to me that an antiphon is simply a verse or a stanza, particularly of a religious song. The seven O Antiphons are the seven verses of the hymn (there are a few different versions around; most of the English ones have just five verses I think), which each start with an appeal to the awaited Messiah, using a different title or image. The seven titles are:

O Sapientia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Lord)
O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (Key of David)
O Oriens (Dawn - often 'Day-Spring' in English versions)
O Rex Gentium (King of the nations)
O Emmanuel (Emmanuel - God with us)

In the seven days leading up to Christmas (i.e. starting on the 17th), monks would (and many still do) sing these verses, adding an extra verse each day, as way of preparing themselves for the coming of Jesus. Gradually a fuller and fuller picture of the coming Messiah would be built up, until on Christmas Eve they would sing all seven verses together and the picture would be complete.

The seventh verse also completes a reverse acrostic - that is if you read the first letter of each of the titles backwards you spell two Latin words: ero cras (I will be tomorrow), which is of course an appropriate message for Christmas Eve.

You can read more about the O Antiphons here and here.

imagines

2010-12-08T12:51:00.001+11:00

Here are a couple of interesting statues. The one on the left is of course Hercules (note the club and lion skin), from the National Archaelogical Museum of Naples. It's huge and very impressive, conveying his size and strength, but at the same time it's quite a peaceful, reflective work. Behind his back he's carrying the Apples of the Hesperides, the retrieval of which was the eleventh of his twelve tasks. He seems weary, and is perhaps summoning up the strength for one last labour.

The statue on the left by contrast is tiny.It's a bit hard to tell without anything to compare it to, but from memory it's only about 10cm tall. I remember nothing about about this figure, except that it caught my attention. I'm not sure who it is (perhaps Venus? perhaps an anonymous prostitute?), nor if it has any special significance. From looking at it, I would guess that it's made out of terracotta (rather than carved out of marble), and that it's substantially older than the statue of Hercules (which is probably from the 3rd Century A.D.).

What the two statues have in common is incredible attention to detail and an uncanny sense of life. Just look at the fine details in Hercules' beard and muscles or the folds in the woman's clothes, or her earings. I am amazed at ancient sculptors' ability to turn hard rock and clay into soft muscle, hair and cloth. How they manage to instill into their statues a kind of lifefulness is also beyond me. Both the statues seem to have been caught in the middle of something, and at any moment you could expect Hercules to sigh, throw his club over his shoulder and walk off.

This quality is not actually something to take for granted in ancient sculpture. If you have a look at these statues (from the Villa de Papyri in Herculaneum, also housed in the Naples Museum) they seem by contrast stiff and awkward.

labor omnia vincit

2010-12-06T13:14:00.001+11:00

A bit of a Latin discussion in the paper over the last couple of days, from Column 8. First on Saturday:

''Latin, being the concise language it was (or is), causes much confusion in translation,'' writes obstetrician and gynaecologist Phil Watters, of Fern Tree. ''My favourite story is the opening of a large new maternity unit which had the words 'Primum non nocere' placed over the entrance. This is the exhortation in medicine to 'First do no harm'. Some wags then pointed out it could also mean 'The first time doesn't hurt', or 'Once is OK' etc (you get my drift), so they changed it to 'Labor vincit omnia'.'' It took us a while to work it out, but it translates as ''Labour conquers all''.

Which occasioned this response today:

Beryl Lubov, of Sussex Inlet, insists that the correct version of Saturday's Latin maternity ward sign ''is 'Labor Omnia Vincit' (the verb always comes last in Latin), also the motto of Sydney Girls High School, the alma mater of the NSW Governor, Marie Bashir'', and indeed Beryl herself. ''In the 1940s it was translated as 'Work Conquers All', and to students from other high schools Sydney Girls was known as the 'sweat school'.''

...the verb always comes last in latin? A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

The motto comes from Virgil's Georgics, where he describes the degeneration of humanity from a mythical Golden Age. He writes:

tum variae venere artes. labor omnia vicit

improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas.

At that time various different skills arose. Wicked toil conquered all, and poverty too, pressing upon us in hard times.
(Georgics I.145-146)

labor here is seen not as a virtue but as oppression, described as improbus and working alongside egestas. So I'm not sure it's a great motto for a school. Much better would be a similar phrase from the Eclogues, where the passionate Gallus says:

omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori.

Love conquers all: and let us give in to Love.
(Eclogues X.69)

which wouldn't make a bad motto for a maternity ward now either now I think about it. And do you notice how neither of the verbs (vincit, cedamus) are at the end of the sentence?

certamen

2010-12-02T12:33:00.000+11:00

Here's a bit of a competition for the weekend - what's going on in the above picture? A bit of background: it's a photo of a mosaic I saw recently at the Getty Roman Villa in Los Angeles. I was quite excited when I saw it as I immediately recognised it as one of my favourite moments from the Aeneid. If you think you know what it is leave me a comment. If you've got no idea what it might be feel free to use your imagination. Perhaps you could even write a humorous caption.

urna movet

2010-11-17T12:05:00.000+11:00

urna, ae f. a vessel of baked clay, vessel for drawing water, water-pot, water jar, urn: a voting-urn, ballot-box: An urn for lots, vessel for drawing lots.

The recent Latin Extension HSC paper had what I thought was a pretty difficult unseen in it. There was some pretty difficult language and a typo (don't tell the SMH) didn't make things much easier. But I thought the most difficult thing was to understand what on earth Horace is talking about, with very little context. The end of the extract in particular contained the phrase movet urna, which has a particular, pretty specific meaning. Here's the extract the kids had to translate:

Est ut viro vir latius ordinet
arbusta sulcis, hic generosior
descendat in campum petitor,
moribus hic meliorque fama

contendat, illi turba clientium
sit maior: aequa lege Necessitas
sortitur insignis et imos,
omne capax movet urna nomen.
(Horace, Odes III.1.9-15)

It is the case that one man may lay out his orchards with wider furrows than another man, one man, more noble by birth, may descend to the campus as a candidate, another man may campaign, better in regards to his customs or his reputation, a greater crowd of clients may belong to another man: Necessity, with an equal law, decides the fate of both the great and the lowly, the spacious urn moves every name.

It's still not completely clear to me what the furrows in the orchards have to do with anything, nor what contendat is meant to mean in this context, nor what role Necessity plays, but leaving that aside, why is the urn moving? There seems to be a double meaning of urna in the passage - the dictionary tells us that an urna can be a ballot-box, which suits the context pretty well. It's the place where that fates of the three political candidates (hic, hic, illi) will be decided.

But urna is also used in more religious contexts, associated especially with casting lots and prophecy. Horace uses a similar phrase in his Satire I.9:

confice; namque instat fatum mihi triste, Sabella
quod puero cecinit divina mota anus urna:
"hunc neque dira venena nec hosticus auferet ensis...
garrulus hunc quando consumet cumque..."
(Horace, Satire I.9.29-33)

Just kill me now! For that sad fate, which an old Sabellian hag prophesied to me as a boy, having shaken her divine urn, is pressing upon me: "Neither dread poison nor an enemy's sword will steal this man away... a chatter-box will at sometime be the end of him."

Virgil uses the same words of Minos, one of the judges of the Underworld:

nec vero hae sine sorte datae, sine iudice, sedes:
quaesitor Minos urnam movet; ille silentum
consiliumque vocat vitasque et crimina discit.
(Virgil, Aeneid VI.431-433)

Indeed, these places are assigned to them not without the will of Fate, not without a judge: the arbiter Minos shakes the urn; he both calls together the assembly of the silent, and learns of their lives and the charges against them.

These references give us a deeper insight into Horace's Ode. The outcome of the election is decided not just at the ballot box, but by fate. The things which distinguish the candidates from one another (one's noble birth, one's better habits, one's greater crowd of supporters) and which may actually make a difference to voters in an election, are to Fate irrelevant. This is why Horace talks about Necessitas and the aequa lege. Necessity is used here in a way unfamiliar to us these days. I think it stands for the way the world must necessarily turn out, the things which are fated to happen. One book I have says that Necessitas is equivalent to "Anagkh. The mysterious power who, especially among the Greeks, is always described as ruling even over the gods." This by the way makes more sense of the question asked about the poem "Explain how Horace... convey[s] the idea that all people are subject to destiny, no matter what their status." Almost every answer I read answered that question by explaining how people are subject to death, something which the poem makes no mention of.

My point, in case you were wondering, is that this section of the exam is actually pretty difficult, especially for an 18 year old with (to be honest) limited exposure to Latin literature.

A lawsuit waiting to happen

2010-11-16T10:32:00.001+11:00

I enjoyed this from today's column 8.

"My friend who worked on P&O ships in 1960 swears this is true,'' writes Jane Dymond, of Kiama. ''The Summer Olympics in Rome were close to starting. Standing outside the Colosseum an American woman turns to her friend and says 'It's going to be beautiful, but I don't think they'll have it ready for the Games.' I was in Pompeii recently. Staggering over the uneven, rocky ground came an American woman wearing shoes with towering stiletto heels. As she passed me she muttered, 'This place is a lawsuit waiting to happen. You'd think they would concrete it.' "

Ocean

2010-11-08T10:24:00.002+11:00

In Cicero's prosecution of Verres, the corrupt former governor of Sicily, he imagines that Verres' lawyers will try to argue that he should be spared because of his great service to the Republic in keeping Sicily free from rebel slaves. It's a tactic that worked in the case of Manius Aquilius, but to Cicero the idea of Verres as a heroic general is laughable and he thoroughly demolishes any claim he may have to be so (perhaps a little disingenuously). Part of his argument is that the rebel slaves (led by Spartacus) running around Italy at the time didn't have boats (something which Marcus Crassus had taken care to ensure), and so there was no danger at all of war crossing from Italy to Sicily.

Quid dicis? an bello fugitivorum Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? ... "At cum esset in Italia bellum tam prope a Sicilia, tamen in Sicilia non fuit." Quid mirum? ... Aditus omnis hominibus sine ulla facultate navium non modo disiunctus sed etiam clausus est, ut illis quibus Siciliam propinquam fuisse dicis facilius fuerit ad Oceanum pervenire quam ad Peloridem accedere.

What are you saying? Perhaps that Sicily was kept safe by your courage? "Even though there was war in Italy, so short a distance from Sicily, yet it did not cross in Sicily." What's so amazing about that? Every approach to Sicily is not only cut off, but even completely closed to those without access to boats, so that it would have been easier for those whom you say were close to Sicily, to reach Ocean than to approach Pelorus.

What Cicero means by Oceanum in the last line is not what we would understand these days. For the Romans, Ocean was a river that encircled the world. So Cicero doesn't just mean that it would be easier for the rebel slaves to get to a large body of water, than to get to Sicily, but that it would be easier for them to walk all the way up Italy, across the alps, through the frozen, uncivilized lands that lay to the north and arrive eventually at the bank of this river, than to cross the two kilometres or so of water that divide Italy and Sicily.

To give you an idea of how Cicero may have imagined these distances, you can see the river Ocean running around the top of the fascinating map at the top of this post (from Pomponius Mela, a first century geographer). It takes a bit of imagination, but you should also be able to find Sicily, and to see by contrast the tiny distance from Pelorus to the Italian mainland (Pelorus is at the north-eastern tip of Sicily).

Vesuvius

2010-11-05T16:09:00.000+11:00

Vesuvius

Catullus and Pop Culture

2010-11-03T13:09:00.004+11:00

Every year I read a selection of Catullus' poetry with my year 10 class(es), and as part of their assessment I get them to do a presentation comparing one of Catullus poems to a film or song (or anything of their choosing really), to show how the themes and emotions of his poetry are expressed these days.

Here are some of the comparisons they made this year:

Catullus 3 is like Mufasa and Simba from The Lion King

Catullus 5 is like Don’t Matter, by Akon

Catullus 8 is like Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects and Accustomed to her Face from My Fair Lady

Catullus 51 is like Edward from Big Fish and Lancelot from First Knight

Catullus 70 is like Hayley and Dillon from Modern Family, White Noise by the Living End and Your Love is a Lie, by Simple Plan

Catullus 72 is like Not Me, Not I, by Delta Goodrem and Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects

Catullus 85 is like Cher from Clueless, 7 Things by Miley Cyrus, Hate that I Love You by Rihanna and Love the Way You Lie by Eminem (featuring Rihanna, poor woman)

Catullus 86 is like Beauty in Ugly, by Jason Mraz, Nothin’ on You by B.o.B. and Stay Beautiful by Taylor Swift

Catullus 92 is like Cher and Josh from Clueless and Kevin and Jane from 27 Dresses

Obviously some of the comparisons work better than others. I've added a poll on the right of the ones I thought worked best that you can vote for over the next couple of weeks. If you think one of the comparisons that hasn't made it to the poll worked better, leave me a comment.

Pompeii in the news

2010-10-28T08:38:00.001+11:00

Pompeii has been in the news twice in two days. Firstly this article which claims to give a new explanation of how the people in Pompeii actually died. I'm not an expert, but I didn't think the article contained anything new, and I'm not sure how accurate their conclusions are either.

Then there was some trouble with Tuesday's HSC Ancient History Exam, and a mix-up over some funerary inscriptions found near the Herculaneum Gate (which is located, somewhat confusingly, in Pompeii, not Herculaneum).

Sepino

2010-10-06T13:26:00.000+11:00

Classics Tour - Day 6: Sepino

I had never heard of Sepino (Saepinum to the Romans), and in fact even google seems reluctant to divulge much information about the Roman ruins that can be found there. But despite its obscurity I found it a fascinating place to spend the afternoon. The ruins aren't particularly well preserved, but there are a few interesting features including the remains of a leather tannery, a gate paid for by Nero and Germanicus and a mausoleum for a local aristocrat displaying the Roman symbols of power - the curule chair and the fasces.

But probably the thing I enjoyed most about Sepino was eating figs, walnuts and grapes from the trees and vines which had grown up among the ruins.

Pompeii

2010-10-05T13:26:00.000+11:00

Classics Tour - Day 5: Pompeii

So much good stuff - here's just a few photos:

Invisible Cities

2010-10-03T08:23:00.000+11:00

I have been re-reading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities while in Italy and it has been a remarkable experience. It is a very simply told book – an account of the conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, in which Marco Polo tells of the various fantastical cities he has visited on his travels. Each city takes only or two pages to describe, but on nearly every page there is an intriguing thought or a startling idea about travel, memory, desire, the past.

One of the themes that comes out very strongly is the impossibility of knowing a city – that cities are more than simply their buildings, people and geography, but are also composed of their pasts and the relationships between their peoples. Moreover as we travel to new cities, we can only ever interpret what we see through what we have seen before, and our experiences lead therefore to an understanding not of the new and the foreign, but only of the old and familiar – ultimately our own city of origin and our very selves.

Here are some passages that I have found particularly stimulating:

In vain, great hearted Kublai, shall I attempt to describe Zaira, city of high Bastions. I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades’ curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know that this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurement of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper’s swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen’s nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn; the tilt of a guttering and a cat’s progress along it as he slips into the same window...

...sometimes different cities follow one another one the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communication among themselves. At times even the names of the inhabitants remain the same, and their voices’ accent, and also the features of the faces; but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and outsiders have settled in their place. It is pointless to ask whether the new ones are better or worse than the old, since there is no connection between them...

... the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities. the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there; and he retraced the stages of his journeys. and he came to know the port from which he had set sail, and the familiar places of his youth. and the surroundings of home. and a little square of Venice where he gambolled as a child... the traveller’s past changes according to the route he has followed...

Clarice, the glorious city, has a tormented history. Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendour, compared to which the city’s present state can only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars...

And yet, almost nothing was lost of Clarice’s former splendour; it was all there, merely arranged in a different order... The days of poverty were followed by more joyous times: a sumptuous butterfly-Clarice emerged from the beggared chrysalis-Clarice... and the more the new city settled triumphantly into the place and the name of the first Clarice, the more it realised it was moving away from it, destroying it no less rapidly than the rats and the mould. Despite its pride in its new wealth, the city, at heart, felt itself incongruous, alien, a usurper.

And then the shards of the original splendour that had been saved, by adapting them to more obscure needs, were again shifted. They were now preserved under glass bells, locked in display cases, set on velvet cushions, and not because they might be used for anything, but because people wanted to reconstruct through them a city of which no on knew anything now.

Dawn had now broken when he said “Sire, now I have told you about all the cities I know.”
“There is still one of which you never speak.”
Marco Polo bowed his head.
“Venice” the Khan said.
Marco smiled. “What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?”
The emperor did not turn a hair. “And yet I have never heard you mention that name.”
And Polo said: “Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice... To distinguish other cities’ qualities, I must speak of a first city that remains implicit. For me it is Venice.”

Naples

2010-10-01T15:15:00.000+10:00

Classics Tour - Day 4: Naples

The Naples National Archaeological Museum has a huge collection of statues, many of them taken from the ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and the other towns in the area destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Paestum

2010-09-30T15:06:00.000+10:00

Combined Schools Classics Study Tour - Day 3: Paestum

Temple of Apollo, Paestum (ca. 450 BC)

Paestum is one of the oldest cities in Italy, having been founded by Greek colonists sometime around the end of the 7th century BC, who originally named it Poseidonia. Little is known about the city’s early history, but it appears that the Greeks had a good and prosperous relationship with the local Oscan culture.

In the third century BC the Poseidonians sided with the invader Pyrrhus against Rome, and after his defeat the town acquired its current name of Paestum. During the invasion of Italy by Hannibal the city remained faithful to Rome and continued to prosper during the Roman imperial period.

Paestum contains a range of ruins from both the Greek and Roman periods. Among the oldest are two temples to Hera and Apollo built in 550 BC and 450 BC by the Greek colonists. Also of particular interest is the Roman Forum, the small Roman temple nearby (dated to around 200 BC and dedicated to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva) and a small amphitheater.

iter, itineris (3rd, nt)

2010-09-12T16:30:00.003+10:00

Two weeks from today I will be on a plane, with three other teachers and 30-odd Latin and Ancient History students, for a 17 day trip around Italy and the U.S. Here are some highlights of our itinerary:

28th September: Capri + Paestum
29th September: Pompeii + Mt. Vesuvius
30th September: Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae
1st October: Rome
5th October: Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard Art Museums
8th October: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
10th October: Getty Roman Villa and Museum (Los Angeles)

Till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane...

2010-09-08T12:38:00.001+10:00

With Australian politics in the news a bit lately, I thought I’d join in the action. Back when she was merely deputy PM, Julia Gillard famously said regarding her own leadership aspirations:

"There's more chance of me becoming the full-forward for the Dogs than there is any chance of a change in the Labor Party."

This kind of statement should always be taken with a grain of salt, and (if you ask me) belongs in the same category as ‘the leader has my full support’, which, at least in NSW politics, indicates that the knives are out, and a leadership change is imminent.

According to Suetonius, the Roman Emperor Caligula (aka Gaius) was once told a similar thing by the emperor Tiberius' astrologer – that he had as much chance of becoming emperor as riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae. So, when in due course Caligula did become emperor in 37 AD, he apparently constructed a huge temporary floating bridge out of ships, spanning the two miles from Puteoli to Baiae, and rode his horse across it.

Here's how Suetonius himself describes and explains it:

Nam Baiarum medium intervallum ad Puteolanas moles, trium milium et sescentorum fere passuum spatium, ponte coniunxit contractis undique onerariis navibus et ordine duplici ad ancoras conlocatis superiectoque terreno ac derecto in Appiae viae formam.

For he made a bridge, of about three miles and a half in length, from Baiae to the jetty at Puteoli, collecting trading vessels from all quarters, mooring them in two rows by their anchors, and spreading earth upon them to form a viaduct, after the fashion of the Appian Way.

Per hunc pontem ultro citro commeavit biduo continenti, primo die phalerato equo insignisque quercea corona et caetra et gladio aureaque chlamyde, postridie quadrigario habitu curriculoque biiugi famosorum equorum... comitante praetorianorum agmine et in essedis cohorte amicorum.

This bridge he crossed and recrossed for two days together; the first day mounted on a horse richly decorated, wearing on his head a crown of oak leaves, armed with a battle-axe, a small Spanish shield and a sword, and in a cloak made of cloth of gold; the day following, in the habit of a charioteer, standing in a chariot, drawn by two high-bred horses... with a cohort of the praetorian guards attending him, and a party of his friends in Gallic war chariots.

Scio plerosque existimasse talem a Gaio pontem excogitatum aemulatione Xerxis... alios, ut Germaniam et Britanniam, quibus imminebat, alicuius inmensi operis fama territaret.

Most people, I know, are of the opinion, that this bridge was designed by Gaius, in imitation of Xerxes, who, to the astonishment of the world, laid a bridge over the Hellespont... Others, however, thought that he did it to strike terror in Germany and Britain, which he was upon the point of invading, by the fame of such a great feat.

Sed avum meum narrantem puer audiebam, causam operis ab interioribus aulicis proditam, quod Thrasyllus mathematicus anxio de successore Tiberio et in verum nepotem proniori affirmasset non magis Gaium imperaturum quam per Baianum sinum equis discursurum.

But for myself, when I was a boy, I heard my grandfather say, that the reason assigned by palace insiders was this; when Tiberius was in some anxiety about the nomination of a successor, and rather inclined towards his grandson, Thrasyllus the astrologer had assured him, "That Gaius would no more be emperor, than he would ride on horseback across the gulf of Baiae."

(Suetonius, Life of Caligula XIX)

In a neat little post script to the Gillard story, Adidas presented her with a pair of football boots when she did in fact replace Kevin Rudd as PM back in June this year. You can see the boots displayed in her office in this photo (labelled #8).

not for memory, but reminder

2010-08-23T08:30:00.001+10:00

I came across this footnote the other day in a book on the history of humanity's developing understanding of the universe:

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates recounts an old story of how the legendary King Thamus of Egypt had declined the Theuth's offer to teach his subjects how to write. "What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder," says King Thamus. "And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows." This remains one of the most prophetic denunciations of the peril of literacy ever enunciated - although of course, it is thanks to the written word that we know of it.

(Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris, p.31)

It strikes me that much the same thing could be said of computers - that rather than helping people to think, they encourage shortcuts, shallow learning and laziness. This is something I see in my classrooms all the time, and which concerns me. On the other hand, the amount of knowledge has increased incredibly since Plato's day, and it would be impossible and probably undesirable to return to a reliance on memory alone. And indeed despite the kernel of truth of Plato's words, you would have to be particularly obtuse to deny that the written word initiated the growth of and sophistication* of human civilisation* and has been essential for many of the great achievements* of humankind. No doubt computer technology is in the same category. In years to come (and perhaps already) people will wonder how we ever did without it.

(*I realise that these are problematic concepts.)

For some more interesting reflections on computers see this post, over on Michael Gilleland's blog.

(And yes, I get the irony of blogging about this topic.)

kids books

2010-08-20T15:05:00.000+10:00

Some Friday afternoon fun, not really Latin related. I've been reading a lot of kids books lately, here are three of my favourites:

And here's a short selection of kids music from They Might Be Giants, just for fun:

300

2010-08-18T12:10:00.002+10:00

This is my 300th post since starting this blog way back in July 2006. The number 300 is one that crops up regularly in classical literature, for example in the 300 Spartans made popular by this movie a couple of years ago. It's often used imprecisely, to simply indicate a big, indefinite number, or often a number with some kind of magical or mysterious significance. Here are a couple of examples from Roman poetry:

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti,

non, si trecenis quotquot eunt dies,
amice, places inlacrimabilem
Plutona tauris,

Ah, Postumus, Postumes, the fleeting
years slip by and not even your righteousness
can put on hold your wrinkles and inevitable
old-age and unyielding death,

not even if you sacrificed 300 bulls
everyday could you please pitiless
Pluto, my friend.

(Horace II.14)

At puer Ascanius, cui nunc cognomen Iulo

additur (Ilus erat, dum res stetit Ilia regno)
triginta magnos volvendis mensibus orbis
imperio explebit, regnumque ab sede Lavini
transferet, et longam multa vi muniet Albam.
Hic iam ter centum totos regnabitur annos
gente sub Hectorea, donec regina sacerdos,
Marte gravis, geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem.

But the reign of the boy Ascanius, to whom now the name Iulus will be given (for he was Ilian as long as the kingdom of Ilium still stood) will last for thirty years with the passing months, and he shall transfer his kingdom from its seat at Lavinium and build a city with powerful fortifications at Alba Longa. Here the rule of the race of Hector will last for three hundred long years until Ilia, the royal priestess, heavy with the seed of Mars, shall give birth to twin sons.

(Aeneid I.267ff)

nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,

nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

For us, when our brief light has set once,
there is one everlasting night to be slept through.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand, then a hundred.

(Catullus 5)

Spartacus, Crassus and Pompey

2010-08-12T08:40:00.000+10:00

Num igitur ex eo bello partem aliquam laudis appetere conaris? num tibi illius victoriae gloriam cum M. Crasso aut Cn. Pompeio communicatam putas?

Surely you're not trying to seek some part of the praise from that war with Spartacus? Surely you don't think that you should share in the glory of that victory, along with Crassus and Pompey?

(Cicero, In Verrem V.5)

Who were these guys?
Crassus, Marcus Licinius (d. 53 B.C.), one of Sulla's lieutenants, and a man of great wealth, who as praetor in 71 B.C. defeated the insurrection of Spartacus. He was consul with Pompey in 70, and combined with him in abolishing Sulla's constitution and diminishing the power of the senate. During Pompey's absence in the East he joined Caesar in the lead of the popular party, and in 60 with Caesar and Pompey formed the coalition known as the 'first triumvirate'. He chose the province of Syria in 54, as an easy way of acquiring wealth and glory, but was defeated by the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 and subsequently murdered by them. There is a life of him by Plutarch, who relates that he owned silver mines, purchased confiscated estates during Sulla's proscriptions, and also made a practice of buying houses in Rome when they were on fire and consequently cheap, thus coming to own a large part of the city. He made himself popular by his general affability and his good offices to all.

Pompey 'The Great' (Pompeius, Gnaeus) (106 - 48 B.C.) son of one of the consuls for the year 89 B.C., first came into prominence by raising an army to support Sulla on his return to Italy in 83, and by distinguished service against the Marians in Sicily and Africa. After Sulla's death he held an extraordinary command against Sertorius in Spain. In 70 he and Crassus having sunk their differences obtained the consulship, intending to revoke some of Sulla's outstanding laws. in 67 he was charged with the mission of expelling the pirates from the Mediterranean, which he successfully accomplished; and in the next year was given the command against Mithridates with extraordinary powers. He utterly defeated Mithridates, made provinces of Bithynia-Pontus and Syria (capturing Jerusalem after a seige), enlarged the province of Cilicia, and effected a general settlement. He was a great founder and restorer of cities in the East. But on his return to Italy in 62 he failed to take advantage of his strength, as a leader of a devoted army, to make himself a secure position in the State. Though a good general and a great organiser, he lacked political enterprise and originality. He dismissed his legions and allowed himself to be humiliated by the Senate, which refused to ratify his Eastern settlement and to recompense his troops... There is a life of Pompey by Plutarch.

Alexander the Great

2010-08-05T20:02:00.000+10:00

The opening paragraph of this article in the paper today caught my eye:

ROME: Alexander the Great was killed by a deadly bacterium found in the River Styx, rather than by a fever brought on by an all-night drinking binge in ancient Babylon, scientists believe.

The idea that Alexander was poisoned is not a new one - what caught my eye was the reference to the river Styx. Was this article seriously suggesting that Alexander had drunk water from one of the rivers of the underworld?

Wikipedia has a list of eleven rivers known by the name Styx, though three of these are in Australia, four in New Zealand, four in America and one in Russia, and while Alexander conquered pretty much the whole known world of his day, I doubt he got that far.

A bit more searching led me to this article (from the telegraph) which clarified that the river in question was not the mythical river Styx, nor one of its modern day namesakes, and elaborates on the theory in more detail:

They have speculated that the Macedonian king, who conquered vast swaths of territory between Greece and India, could have been poisoned with a vial of water from the River Styx in Greece. The river was the mythical entrance to the underworld but is believed to have been based on a real stream now known as the Mavroneri, or Black Water, which springs from mountains on the Peloponnesian peninsula. The ancient Greeks maintained that its waters were so poisonous that they would dissolve any vessel, except those made of the hooves of horses or mules...

In ancient Greek mythology, gods were made to swear sacred oaths on the banks of the Styx by Zeus. If they lied, the "king of the gods" forced them to drink the river water, which according to legend deprived them of the powers of speech and movement for a year. "Such a sacred poison, used by the gods, would be appropriate for Alexander, who was already being thought of as semidivine," Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar at Stanford University's departments of classics and history of science who also worked on the paper, said. "Notably, some of Alexander's symptoms and course of illness seem to match ancient Greek myths associated with the Styx. He even lost his voice, like the gods who fell into a coma-like state after drinking from the river."

It all sounds a bit speculative to me, but it's at least more likely than this theory.

Gerundives

2010-08-02T12:15:00.002+10:00

Kennedy discovers the gerund
and leads it back into captivity.

Apropos nothing, I was thinking about gerundives the other day and thought I’d put together a bit of a list of the gerundives English has appropriated from Latin. Firstly though a gerundive is a verbal adjective (not to be confused with a gerund which is a verbal noun), in Latin often conveying a sense of compulsion or necessity or obligation. That is a gerundive describes something which must be done. It can be a bit of a tricky concept to get your head around, since there’s no real equivalent in English, although as I mentioned before English has appropriated several gerundives from Latin to be used as English nouns.

Two of my favourites are the names Amanda and Miranda, meaning she who must be loved and she who must be admired respectively.

Other common ones are referendum (something which must be referred to the people), agenda (things which must be done) and propaganda (things which must be spread). Some less common examples follow:

• addendum something which must be added
• corrigendum something which must be corrected
• pudendum something of which one must be ashamed
• Q.E.D. stands for quod erat demonstrandum, that which had to be demonstrated

Finally, I have it on good authority (since my own Italian is pretty much non-existent) that the Italians have adopted mutande as a word for underwear, since they are things which must be changed!

Any more that I’ve missed?

Monster Puzzle

2010-07-21T08:22:00.005+10:00

I saw this puzzle in Friday’s paper, and thought it was worth reproducing here:

If a Mermaid is a Woman plus a Fish (M = W + F) which mythological creatures are represented by the following equations?

C = M + H
M = M + B
S = W + L
G = E + L
F = M + G
H = W + B
C = R + S
C = L + G + S
M = M + L + D

A site like theoi or even this previous post might help you find some of the answers (or then again, they might not). I'll post the answers in the comments in a few days time. Bonus points if you can also identify the mythological creature in the picture at the top of this post.

Icarus

2010-07-19T09:00:00.002+10:00

In Canberra over the holidays I came across this sculpture, inspired by Daedalus and Icarus. The photo doesn't really do it justice, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

Romulus and Clodius

2010-07-17T09:00:00.002+10:00

Last lot of work for my year 12 class.

Jupiter declares that, despite Juno’s hostility, the Romans will become a great nation.

Romulus excipiet gentem, et Mavortia condet
moenia, Romanosque suo de nomine dicet.
His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono;
imperium sine fine dedi. Quin aspera Iuno,
quae mare nunc terrasque metu caelumque fatigat,
consilia in melius referet, mecumque fovebit
Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam.

Romulus will take control (excipiet) of your race (gentem) and will establish (condet) the walls of Mars (Mavortia... moenia) and will call (dicet) them ‘Romans’ after his own name (suo de nomine). To these men (his) I set (ego... pono) no limit of space (nec metas rerum) nor time (tempora); I grant (dedi) them power (imperium) without end (sine fine). Indeed (quin) bitter Juno (aspera Iuno), who now (nunc) wears out (fatigat) the sea, the land and heaven (mare... terras... caelum) with her fear (metu), will come (referet) to better counsel (consilia in melius), and alongside me (mecumque) she will support (fovebit) the Romans, rulers of the world (rerum dominos), and the toga-wearing people race (gentemque togatam)

Aeneid I.276-282

Cicero describes how Clodius sent a slave to murder Pompey, and how Clodius often attacked Cicero himself.

comprensus est in templo Castoris servus P. Clodi, quem ille ad Cn. Pompeium interficiendum ibi collocaverat; rapta est sica de manibus; caruit foro postea Pompeius , caruit senatu, caruit publico; ianua se ac parietibus, non iure legum texit. insidiator erat in foro collocatus atque in vestibulo ipse senatus: ei viro mors parabatur, cuius in vita nitebatur salus civitatis; eo porro rei publicae tempore, quo si unus ille cecidisset, non haec solum civitas, sed gentes omnes concidissent. quotiens ego ipse ex P. Clodi telis et ex cruentis eius manibus effugi!

A slave of Publius Clodius (servus P. Clodi) was arrested (comprensus est) in the temple of Castor (in templo Castoris), whom (quem) he had set up there (ille... ibi collocaverat) in order to kill Gnaeus Pompey (ad Cn. Pompeium interficiendum); a dagger (sica) was snatched (rapta est) from his hands (de manibus); afterwards (postea) Pompey kept away from (caruit) the forum (foro), he kept away from (caruit) the senate (senatu), he kept away from (caruit) the public (publico); he defended himself (se... texit) with his door and with his walls (ianua... ac parietibus), not with the justice of the laws (non iure legum). An assassin (insidiator) was set up in the forum (erat in foro collocatus) and he himself (ipse) was in the foyer of the senate (in vestibulo... senatus); death (mors) was prepared (parabatur) for that very man (ei viro), on whose life (cuius in vita) depended (nitebatur) the safety of our state (salus civitatis); moreover (porro) [it was] at that time (eo... tempore) of the republic, in which (quo) if that one man (unus ille) had fallen (cecidisset), not only (non... solum) this state (haec... civitas), but (sed) all races (gentes omnes) would have fallen (cecidissent). How many times (quotiens) I myself (ego ipse) have fled (effugi) from the weapons of Publius Clodius (ex P. Clodi telis) and from his bloody hands (ex cruentis eius manibus)!

Cicero Pro Milone 18

Achates and Vatinius

2010-07-14T09:00:00.001+10:00

More work for my year 12 class - apologies to everyone else. Normal transmission to resume shortly.

When at length Achates can make out the coast of Italy, Anchises prepares to make the appropriate offering to the gods.

Iamque rubescebat stellis Aurora fugatis
cum procul obscuros collis humilemque videmus
Italiam. Italiam primus conclamat Achates,
Italiam laeto socii clamore salutant.
tum pater Anchises magnum cratera corona
induit implevitque mero, divosque vocavit
stans celsa in puppi:

And now, with the stars having fled (stellis... fugatis), Dawn (Aurora) was reddening (rubescebat), when from afar (cum procul) we see (videmus) the faint hills (obscuros collis) and low-lying Italy (humilem... Italiam). Achates is the first (primus... Achates) to shout (conclamat) ‘Italy’, his friends (socii) great (salutant) Italy with a joyful shout (laeto...clamore). Then father Anchises wreathed (induit) a great bowl (magnum cratera) with a crown (corona) and filled it (implevit) with pure wine (mero), and called upon the gods (divosque vocavit), standing (stans) high in the stern (celsa in puppi).

Virgil, Aeneid III, 521ff

Cicero demolishes the justification he expects the unscrupulous Vatinius to make now that Cicero has levelled charges against him.

age, factum est horum aliquid in aliis: raro, sed tamen factum est ut populus deligeret imperatorem: quis legatos umquam audivit sine senatus consulto? quo etiam maiore es malo mactandus, quod non solum facto tuo sed etiam exemplo rem publicam vulnerasti, neque tantum ipse es improbus sed etiam alios docere voluisti.

Come now (age), something of this sort (aliquid horum) has happened (factum est) in other [times] (in aliis); [it has happened] rarely (raro), yet however (sed tamen) it has happened (factum est) that the people (ut populus) select (deligeret) a general (imperatorem); who (quis) has ever heard (umquam audivit) of ambassadors (legatos) [doing so] without the consultation of the senate (sine senatus consultu)? You are to be punished (es... mactandus) even more greatly (etiam maiore) than that evil [man] (quo... malo), because (quod) you wounded (vulnerasti) the republic (rem publicam) not only by your action (non solum facto) but also by your example (sed etiam exemplo), and [because] you yourself (ipse) are (es) not only (neque tantum) dishonest (improbus), but you even (sed etiam) wanted (voluisti) to teach (docere) others (alios) [to do the same things].

Cicero, in Vatinium XV.36

Diomedes and Cluentius

2010-07-10T09:00:00.001+10:00

More work for my year 12 class, apologies to everyone else.

Envoys return to tell Turnus that, despite all he was offered, the Greek hero Diomedes will not help the Latins in the war.

Hos inter motus, medio in flagrante tumultu,
ecce super maesti magna Diomedis ab urbe
legati responsa ferunt: nihil omnibus actum
tantorum impensis operum, nil dona neque aurum
nec magnas valuisse preces; alia arma Latinis
quaerenda, aut pacem Troiano ab rege petendum.

Virgil, Aeneid XI, 225-230

In the midst of (inter) these events (hos... motus) and in the middle of (in medio) the blazing crowd (flagrante tumultu), behold (ecce), the ambassadors (legati) bring (ferunt) replies (responsa) from the great city (magna... ab urbe) of regretful Diomedes (maesti... Diomedis) as well (super): that no great work (nihil... tantorum... operum) had been achieved (actum) by all their expense (omnibus... impensis), that neither their gifts (dona) nor their gold (aurum) nor their great prayers (magnas... preces) had been enough (valuisse); that the Latins (Latinis) must look for (quaerenda) other arms, or seek peace (pacem... petendum) from the Trojan king (Troiano ab rege).

Cicero explains that the enmity between his client Cluentius and Oppianicus is a long-standing one – and prepares to go into the story at some length.

Atque ut intellegatis Cluentium non accusatorio animo, non ostentatione aliqua aut gloria adductum, sed nefariis iniuriis, cotidianis insidiis, proposito ante oculos vitae periculo, nomen Oppianici detulisse, paulo longius exordium rei demonstrandae petam; quod quaeso, iudices, ne moleste patiamini; principiis enim cognitis, multo facilius extrema intellegetis.

Cicero, Pro Cluentio, 11.

And so that you may understand (ut intellegatis) that Cluentius has accused (Cluentium... detulisse) the name of Oppianicus (nomen Oppianici) having been spurred on (adductum) not by a vindictive spirit (non accusatorio animo) nor by some desire to show off (non ostentatione aliqua) or for glory (aut gloria), but by the criminal injustices (sed nefariis iniuriis), by the daily plots (cotidianis insidiis), by the danger to his life (vitae periculo) displayed before our eyes (proposito ante oculos), I shall seek (petam) briefly (paulo) a longer introduction (longius exordium) to demonstrate this matter (rei demonstrandae); I beg this (quod quaeso), judges, so that you will not suffer (ne... patiamini) in an irritated way (moleste); for (enim) with the beginnings having been grasped (principiis... cognitis), you will much more easily (multo facilius) understand the ends (extrema).

Drances et Murena

2010-07-07T09:00:00.001+10:00

Over the next fortnight I'll be posting a bit of work for my year 12 class - I imagine it will have only very limited appeal to anyone else, for which I offer my heartfelt apologies. (ir)Regular transmission will resume after the holidays.

For my year 12s - here's the first instalment:

‘quod si tantus habet mentes et pectora terror,
ipsum* obtestemur veniamque oremus ab ipso*:
cedat, ius proprium regi patriaeque remittat.
quid miseros totiens in aperta pericula civis
proicis, o Latio caput horum et causa malorum?
nulla salus bello, pacem te poscimus omnes...’

‘But (quod) if such great terror (tantus... terror) holds (habet) your minds and hearts (mentes et pectora), let us call him to account (obtestamur) and let us beg (oremus) for mercy (veniam) from him (ab ipso): let him yield (cedat), let him give back (remittat) their proper right (ius proprium) to the king and to our country (regi patriaeque). How many times (quid... totiens) will you throw (proicis) your wretched citizens (miseros... civis) into open danger (in aperta pericla), O source (caput) and cause of these troubles (horum... malorum) in Latium? [There is] no salvation (nulla salus) in war (bello), we all (omnes) demand (poscimus) peace (pacem) from you (te)...’

Quid Murena interea? Fortissimo et sapientissimo viro, legatus, L. Lucullo, fuit; qua in legatione duxit exercitum, magnas copias hostium fudit, urbes partim vi, partim obsidione cepit, Asiam refertam et delicatam sic obiit ut in ea neque avaritiae neque luxuriae vestigium reliquerit, maximo in bello sic est versatus ut hic multas res et magnas sine imperatore gesserit, nullam sine hoc imperator.

What (quid) [was] Murena [doing] in the mean time (interea)? He was (fuit) an officer (legatus) with Lucius Lucullus, that most brave and most wise man (fortissimo et sapientissimo viro); in which posting (qua in legatione) he led (duxit) the army (exercitum), he defeated (fudit) great forces (magnas copias) of the enemy (hostium), he captured (cepit) cities (urbes), some by force (partim vi), others by siege (partim obsidione), he passed through (obiit) Asia, filled [with wealth] and decadent (refertam et delicatam), in such a way that (sic... ut) he left (reliquerit) no trace (vestigium) of greed or luxury (neque avaritiae neque luxuriae) there (in ea), he was involved (est versatus) in the greatest war (maximo in bello) [of our times] in such a way that (sic... ut) he (hic) achieved (gesserit) many great things (multas res et magnas) without his general (sine imperatore), [but] his general (imperator) [achieved] none (nullam) without him (sine hoc).

Poculum Mundi

2010-06-16T11:33:00.000+10:00

With the World Cup in full swing, I thought it would be appropriate to re-post the Roman First XI put together a few years ago by Mike Salter. I reckon they'd have at least as good a chance of Australia of making it through to the next round.

GK: Tacitus. Lets nothing through.

RB: Horace. Has the patience and intelligence for the full-back role, while not being afraid to go on the attack now and then when circumstances demand.
CB: Suetonius. Always at the centre of things (he was an imperial secretary, after all), and passionately organised in his approach.
CB: Tertullian. A passionate defender (of Christianity, but that's not to say he would be incapable of other kinds of defence).
LB: Martial. Unobtrusive, favours the short ball, and has no hesitation in chopping down the pretty boys on the opposition side.

RM: Juvenal. Like all true satirists, a right-winger by inclination.
CDM: Vitruvius. The architect of the side.
CAM: Catullus. For the playmaker role, you really need someone who can pull surprises, and this bloke was full of them.
LM: Cicero. Hardworking in the service of the team (as he never ceases to remind his team-mates).

STR: Virgil. His skill in finished phrases would surely make him a fine finisher.
STR: Ovid. Adds grace, enterprise and elegance to any side, and an ideal foil to his fellow hexameter-merchant in attack.

This list was originally published in the comments back here. The ancient Greek first XI can be seen in action here.

The future of Latin

2010-06-07T13:37:00.000+10:00

I watched a DVD over the weekend, which is a rather rare event these days. My choice was An Education, which came out late last year I think, with a screen-play written by Nick Hornby. The main character Jenny is in her final year of high school, studying hard to get into Oxford. Her weakest subject just happens to Latin, and for her birthday she gets a New Latin Dictionary (in fact two; one from her dad and one from her admirer).

At one point in the film she's disappointed to have received a B for Latin, and one of the other characters comforts her by saying:

Someone told me that in about 50 years, no one will speak Latin, probably. Not even Latin people.

wind and running water

2010-06-04T08:52:00.003+10:00

The speaker on Lyric Poetry at Wednesday's HSC study day, made a comment at one point that whenever you come across storm imagery, you know the poet is about to have a go at women - for being unpredictable, fickle, irrational, even violent. It's not a bad point, think for example of Horace I.5, where he takes pity on his ex-girlfriend's new lover:

...heu quatiens fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens...

Alas, how often he will weep
At your (and the gods') vacillations
And be exasperated by your rough seas
And black gales.

But it's not just women who get this treatment. In Ode III.9 (a conversation between two lovers) the woman uses similar imagery to describe the man:

quamquam...
...tu levior cortice et improbo
iracundior Hadria,
tecum vivere amem. tecum obeam libens.

Though... you are as light as cork and as bad-tempered
As the deceitful Adriatic, I'd love
To live with you, with you I'd gladly die.

It's a similar story with Catullus. He says of Lesbia in poem 70:

nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit - sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

My woman says there's no one she would rather wed
Than me, not even if asked by Jove himself.
So she says - but what a woman says to an eager lover
One should write on the wind and running water.

But he also has Ariadne speak of Theseus in this way in his mini-epic poem 64 (lines 141-144):

sed conubia laeta, sed optatos hymenaeos,
quae cuncta aerii discerpunt irrita venti.
nunc iam nulla viro iuranti femina credat,
nulla viri speret sermones esse fideles...

But our married happiness, our longed for wedding-hymns
All of these things the misty winds have torn to shreds, unfulfilled.
No woman now should put her faith in a man's oath
And none should expect a man's word to be faithful.

He even uses the same language in poem 30, addressed to his back-stabbing friend Alfenus:

idem nunc retrahis te ac tua dicta omnia factaque
ventos irrita ferre ac nebulas aereas sinis.

Now you back out and allow the winds and the misty breezes
To carry away unfulfilled all your words and deeds.

I think it's interesting that both Catullus and Horace use similar imagery to describe different kinds of relationships. It's not just about their (ex-) girlfriends, it's also used about men, and Catullus can even describe a (former) friend in the same terms.

small-crafted images

2010-06-03T08:54:00.000+10:00

I had a stimulating day yesterday with my year 12 class at the CLTA's annual HSC Lecture Day. Here's a helpful quote which stood out to me from the session on lyric poetry.

The principal critical values of the new poets put emphasis on lightness, delicacy, smallness, self-awareness that could even be ironic as well as self-admiring, and sheer delight in wit, in small-crafted images, in suggestion rather than total description. Catullus and his fellow poets experimented with many new Greek meters and started the process of Romanizing them, a process which in the next generation Horace furthered.

(Anderson, W.S. Latin Lyric and Elegaic Poetry: An Anthology of New Translations)

ars latet arte

2010-05-23T09:20:00.000+10:00

My friend and colleague (in the sense that we both teach Latin in Sydney, though not at the same school), Mike Salter, has finally succumbed to the pressure to start a blog with his musings on Latin literature. Mike is a very experienced and insightful teacher, from whom I've learnt much over my own short career. You can check out his blog for yourself here.

bella stellaria

2010-05-05T12:37:00.000+10:00

I'm a bit late on this one, but here are a few links in honour of May the fourth.

How Star Wars history is like Roman History
Star Wars trailer in Latin (judging from the spelling this one was put together by someone from Finland)
George Lucas likes Rome (the HBO series that is; interesting because the article suggests his interest in and knowledge of Ancient Rome is quite developed)
Why Yoda talks funny
A Latin speech about Star Wars

sit vis vobiscum!

Mezentius and Ajax

2010-04-08T22:02:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago I put up a series of posts comparing some of the language used by Virgil to describe Mezentius to similar scenes from Homer's Iliad. To conclude the series, here's an excerpt from an article I found very interesting, Mezentius: a Virgilian Creation.

In fact, [Mezentius] is a Homeric hero in all essentials. Virgil's great model for his battle scenes was naturally the Iliad. And as he moulded the figure of a great Italian warrior, no doubt he scanned closely the many Achaean chieftains to find a working model for his Mezentius. It could not be Achilles since Turnus was already cast for that role. Besides, Mezentius was not a young, swift-footed hero but the gray-haired father of a full-grown son. After much thought - or was it a sudden flash of inspiration? - he found his man in the Iliad: Ajax of Salamis, son of Telamon.

In the Iliad, Ajax is a fighter second only to Achilles, and the best man of all on the defense. He was a giant of a man, with a great, tower-like shield, whose finest hour came when Achilles withdrew from the fighting and many of the chieftains had been wounded. Almost single handed he kept the retreat from turning into a rout, defended the wall and ships against Hector, and saved the body of Patroclus from the enemy. He was a man of few words; actions, when most needed, were his forte. While other heroes have their guardian gods to aid them in time of crisis, Ajax fights on unattended by special divine help. Such, I feel sure, was the splendid figure after whose likeness Virgil moulded his warrior Mezentius. Let us now see how he does it.

Mezentius was a huge man wielding a great spear, "as huge as Orion when he stalks through mid sea and his shoulders overtop the waves" (10. 762 ff.). He was a bulwark of defense, unyielding when the odds were greatest, like a great rock that juts out into the sea and braves the raving winds and waves:

ille velut rupes, vastum quae prodit in aequor,
obvia ventorum furiis, expostaque ponto,
vim cunctam atque minas perfert caelique marisque,
ipsa immota manens... [10. 693-96].

At bay, surrounded by foes who shower him with their darts, he is like a boar caught in the toils (10. 707 ff.), a boar that snorts savagely and bristles up his shoulders and none has the courage to come near him. When he takes the offensive, he is like a lion maddened by hunger (723 ff.) that springs on a timid roe or antlered stag. And, when finally he is confronted by Aeneas, he stands there awaiting his onset, unafraid (769-71).

Now if we turn to Book 17 of the Iliad, we shall find these same similes (with some variations in expression and setting) applied to Ajax as he defends the corpse of Patroclus against the Trojans. Covering the body with his great shield (132 f.), he stood fast "like a lion over his young, when the lion is leading his whelps along and hunters come upon them." Later, when things are desperate and the Achaeans give ground, Ajax charges the Trojans bestriding the body (281 ff.) "like a savage wild boar, who among the hills easily scatters the dogs and young men when he turns at bay in the valley." Toward the end of the book (746 if.) the two Ajaxes hold off the Trojans "as a wooded headland holds off water ..." It was evidently this great book of the Iliad, where the courage, the obstinacy, and the fighting qualities of Ajax are so magnificent, that was much in Virgil's mind as he portrayed Mezentius displaying his prowess.

The full article actually argues that Virgil has drawn on three different heroes of Greek myth in crafting the character of Mezentius; Ajax the Great (son of Telamon), Ajax the Lesser (son of Oileus) and Nestor (father of Antilochus).

Related Posts

salve caput cruentatum

2010-04-02T09:00:00.008+11:00

Here's a Latin hymn for Easter, dating from the 14th century:

Salve, caput cruentatum,
Totum spinis coronatum,
Conquassatum, vulneratum,
Arundine sic verberatum
Facie sputis illita,

Hail, head covered in blood,
all crowned with thorns,
battered, wounded,
beaten so with a reed,
your face smeared with spit,

Salve, cuius dulcis vultus,
Immutatus et incultus
Immutavit suum florem
Totus versus in pallorem
Quem coeli tremit curia.

Hail, you whose sweet face,
changed and disfigured,
has lost its bloom,
turned completely pale,
-that face at which the court of heaven trembles.

It goes on for a while... you can read the full version here. At some point it was loosely translated into German, given an arrangement by Bach, and then translated again from German into English to give us O Sacred Head Now Wounded:

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

You can hear a pretty impressive version of Bach's arrangement (on guitar) here.

Trivia

2010-03-31T13:06:00.002+11:00

I enjoyed a lovely night last week with my senior Latin classes and others from all around Sydney at the annual Senior Classics Dinner (organised by the CLTA). The costumes were especially fabulous this year, and I am full of admiration for those of my students who embraced the spirit of the evening by dressing up (even if it was as grapes and Jedi).

The after-dinner trivia was slightly easier than in previous years, but there were still a few questions which left me scratching my head. See if you can work out the answers to these beauties.

Which Sydney suburbs are referred to below?

Which sporting teams are referred to below?

What was the nationality of the following people?

Ulysses
Hannibal
Romulus and Remus
Cleopatra
Vercingetorix
Boudicca

Reasons to Learn Latin; #3974

2010-03-19T15:03:00.003+11:00

[The respective mayors of Sydney and London; Julius Caesar (left) and Boris Johnson]

A couple of articles for some light reading of the weekend. Firstly an entertaining and insightful piece by Boris Johnson (mayor of London) on the value of learning Latin. Here's a taste:

...there are times when a minister says something so maddening, so death-defyingly stupid, that I am glad not to be in the same room in case I should reach out, grab his tie, and end what is left of my political career with one almighty head-butt.

Such were my feelings on reading Mr Ed Balls on the subject of teaching Latin in schools...

(Thanks to Rogue Classicism for bringing this to my attention)

And closer to home Charles Purcell (of Chaser fame) imagines what Caesar would be like as benevolent dictator of Sydney.

If Julius Caesar was in charge of Sydney, we wouldn't still be arguing whether to build a cross circus maximus or integrated rail/ferry/chariot link. No longer would the scrolls and papyruses of the day have headlines like "Welcome to SnailRail", "Ferry system slow than horse-drawn buggies", "ancient Egyptians got to work quicker than Sydneysiders - study". Caesar would declare: "I came, I saw, I ordered the building of an integrated transport network." He would order construction immediately and no senator would dare object, lest he be sent to govern the barbarian provinces of Gaul (aka Mount Druitt).

The benign dictator would announce that Sydney's much-needed second airport would finally be built - in Mosman.

Don't miss the article's comments if you're a Terry Pratchett fan.

(Thanks to Lilian for bringing this to my attention)

Board of Studies stuff

2010-03-05T11:06:00.000+11:00

Last year there were a few changes made to the format of the HSC exams for both Latin Continuers and Extension, which are to come into effect this year. The Board of Studies has (finally) published some sample papers indicating how the changes might look, which you can find here (continuers) and here (extension).

A summary of the changes to each paper is also available from the BOS website (cont., ext.).

Modern Day Gladiators?

2010-03-03T11:01:00.001+11:00

Another interesting exchange from the letters page last week, regarding the UFC event held in Sydney last week.

Didn't the Romans invent such fighting against lions? And we know what happened to them. Charlotte Drake-Brockman, Murrurundi

(letters, Feb. 25)

Yes, Charlotte Drake-Brockman (Letters, February 25), we all know what happened to the Romans. They ruled over one of the largest empires in history, bringing previously unheard-of technological advances and stability to much of the northern hemisphere, at a time when most human lifetimes were brutal and short. And they did it for more than 500 years. Whatever point you are trying to make is lost on me, but you may as well just compare UFC fans to Hitler and be done with it. Simon Cutting, Manly

(letters, Feb. 26)

loose ends

2010-03-02T10:40:00.002+11:00

(Alan Moir, Feb. 18)

I mentioned last week that Sydney Uni was getting rid of its Latin motto from its new look logo. There were a couple of follow up items in the paper that I thought worth mentioning here too:

Same meaning, longer words

The translation of the University of Sydney motto you quote - ''the constellation is changed, the disposition is the same'' - sounds almost deliberately pompous, perhaps to suit the purposes of the designers of the new coat of arms (''Sydney Uni calls time on 150-year Latin love affair'', February 17). I have always understood the accepted translation was "the same mind under a different sky". Originally it smacked of colonialism, but it is - or would be, if it remained on the university's emblem - a perfect motto for a university in the current climate of internationalisation of education and knowledge.

Judy Butlin, Roseville

The bright minds who replaced Sydney University's coat of arms with a logo just didn't go far enough. The top of the new logo needs a big golden double arch, and it would be perfect. I'm lovin' it.

Steven Creagh, Eureka

If Sydney University is relying ''too heavily on its sandstone heritage'', removing the Latin motto from its coat of arms may be the thin edge of the wedge. What's next? Perhaps they can pull down the Great Hall and replace it with ''something bolder, more energetic and more modern''.

John Byrne, Randwick

(letters, Feb. 18)

More may have been lost than realised by dropping the Latin motto and redesigning the University of Sydney logo, writes Brian Crabbe of Artarmon. ''The old logo actually contained a useful map of the main quadrangle. The student newspaper Honi Soit in the 1950s pointed out that the cross represents the main quad, the ''Mens'' part of the Latin motto shows the location of the male toilets, and the lion points to MacLaurin Hall (then Fisher Library) at the opposite end.''

Anthony Healy of Willoughby was told the motto, Sidere mens eadem mutato meant ''See the men eating potatoes''.

(Column 8, Feb. 19)

Appeal to the dim

It is sad that Sydney University has turned its back on its heritage by dropping its motto and changing its coat of arms to a new and ugly logo (Letters, February 18). It is worse that it believes there are potential students so stupid they choose a university on the basis of its logo and that it wants to attract such people.

Intelligent students would be more inclined to choose a university whose administration was not so gullible and which spent its money on facilities and providing a quality education.

However, there is one benefit: if Sydney can afford to waste $1.25 million, it must be so flush that it won't need to keep up its stream of letters to graduates begging for donations.

Geoff Bellamy, Pearce (ACT)

(letters, Feb. 19)

on radio and tv

2010-03-01T10:40:00.001+11:00

I took two teams to the Australian Computational Linguistics Olympiad at Sydney Uni last week, and though neither team made it through to the next round they should be very pleased with their efforts (the year 10s got a 'gold medal', the year 9s silver). I haven't seen a copy of the questions yet, but apparently one of them was about ancient Etruscan, which would have been interesting.

ABC radio did a short story on the competition which you can listen to hear.

I also managed to catch an episode of the fantastic Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour last night, where he explores the Roman forum, Herculaneum and Pompeii. It's upon iview for another day - catch it while you can. I'm looking forward to seeing the next episode on Greece.

Mezentius et Orodes

2010-02-24T12:41:00.000+11:00

ille autem exspirans: 'non me, quicumque es, inulto,
victor, nec longum laetabere; te quoque fata
prospectant paria atque eadem mox arva tenebis.'
ad quem subridens mixta Mezentius ira:
'nunc morere. ast de me divum pater atque hominum rex
viderit.' hoc dicens eduxit corpore telum.
olli dura quies oculos et ferreus urget
somnus, in aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem.

But as Orodes lay dying, he said: ‘Whoever you are that have conquered me, I shal be revenged. You will not enjoy your victory for long. A similar fate awaits you too and soon you will hold these same fields.’ Mezentius, sneering and churned up with anger, said to him: ‘Now die. But as for me let the father of the gods and the king of men see to it.’ Saying this he pulled the weapon from his body. A dreadful rest and an iron sleep pressed on his eyes, his eyes were closed in eternal night.

(Aeneid X.739ff.)

Then Patroclus said: ‘Yes, make your great boasts now, Hector. You were given the victory by Zeus, the son of Chronos, and Apollo – it was they who overpowered me with ease…I tell you another thing and mark it well in your mind. You yourself, you too will not live long, but already now death and strong fate are standing close beside you, to bring you down at the hands of Achilles.’

(Iliad XVI.852ff.)

Then god-like Achilles spoke to Hector, dead though he was: ‘Die! I shall take my death at whatever time Zeus and the other immortal gods wish to bring it on me.’ So he spoke and pulled his bronze spear out of the body.

(Iliad XXII.359ff.)

Mezentius - impastus leo ceu

2010-02-23T12:34:00.000+11:00

(Aeneid X.723ff.)

When Menelaus saw Paris stepping out in front of the massed troops with long strides, he felt the joy of a lion that has come across a great carcass, an antlered stag or a wild goat he has found in his hunger: he eats it greedily, even though the running hounds and the strong young huntsmen try to drive him away.

(Iliad III.23ff.)

Holding his shield in front of him and with two spears in his grip Sarpedon set out like a mountain lion, who has been long without meat, and his proud heart uges him to break in to a close-built fold and try for the sheep.

(Iliad XII.299ff.)

As when a mountain lion, sure of his own power, takes the finest heifer from a grazing herd: first he breaks her neck in the grasp of her strong jaws, then tears her, gulping her blood and all her innards: around him dogs and herdsmen set up a great din, but at a distance, unwilling to come close, as fear has its pale grip on them. So it was that no Trojan’s heart within him had the courage to come against glorious Menelaus.

(Iliad XVII.61ff)

Mezentius - velut aper

2010-02-22T12:27:00.000+11:00

ac velut ille canum morsu de montibus altis
actus aper, multos Vesulus quem pinifer annos
defendit multosque palus Laurentia silva
pascit harundinea, postquam inter retia ventum est,
substitit infremuitque ferox et inhorruit armos,
nec cuiquam irasci propiusve accedere virtus,
sed iaculis tutisque procul clamoribus instant;
ille autem impavidus partis cunctatur in omnis
dentibus infrendens et tergo decutit hastas:

But Mezentius is just like that boar driven down from the high mountains by the bite of dogs, whom pine-bearing Mt Vesulus has guarded for many years, and whom the Laurentian marsh has long nourished in its reedy forest, after he has come in amongst the nets, he stops and roars ferociously and his shoulders bristle, and no one has the courage to attack him in anger nor to approach any nearer, but they press upon him with javelins and with shouts from far away in safety; but he fearlessly holds them back on all sides, gnashing with his teeth, and he shakes the spears from his back.

(Aeneid X.707ff.)

As when hounds and strong young huntsmen are crowding a boar, and he comes at them out of a dense thicket, whetting his white tusks in the angle of his jaws: as they run to surround him there comes a gnashing of his tusks, but for all his fearsomeness they stand firm before him. In the same way the Trojans came crowding round Odysseus.

(Iliad XI.414ff.)

Idomeneus stood his ground against Aeneas, like a boar in the mountains, sure of his power, who faces a great rabble of men coming against him in a solitary place, and bristles the ridge of his back: his eyes flash with fire, and he whets his tusks, ready to beat off dogs and men.

(Iliad XIII.471ff.)

Mezentius - velut rupes

2010-02-19T12:22:00.000+11:00

concurrunt Tyrrhenae acies atque omnibus uni,
uni odiisque viro telisque frequentibus instant.
ille (velut rupes vastum quae prodit in aequor,
obvia ventorum furiis expostaque ponto,
vim cunctam atque minas perfert caelique marisque
ipsa immota manens)

The Etruscan troops come running up and they press upon this one man alone with all their hatred and with their massed weapons. But Mezentius is like a rock which juts out into the vast sea, open to the fury of the winds and exposed to the ocean, which endures all the violence and the threats of both sky and sea, remaining motionless itself.

(Aeneid X.691ff.)

But for all his fury Hector could not break through their ranks. They closed wall-like against him and stood their ground, like a huge sheer cliff at the edge of the grey sea, which stands against the shrill winds on their rapid pathways and the waves that swell large and burst on it.

(Iliad XV.618ff.)

sidere mens eadem mutato

2010-02-18T10:05:00.001+11:00

My alma mater was in the news yesterday over plans to drop the Latin motto from its publicity materials.

AFTER 150 years the University of Sydney has abandoned its status quo, dropping the Latin motto from its redesigned coat of arms and logo...

The motto - most commonly translated as ''the constellation is changed, the disposition is the same'' - has been part of the university's coat of arms since 1857. As a first-time astronaut, Greg Chamitoff, a former university staff member, even took a patch of the crest into space on the shuttle Discovery in 2008.

Marian Theobald, the university's external relations executive director, said market research, overseen by the Chicago-based firm Lipman Hearne, had found the university relied too heavily on its sandstone heritage and something ''bolder, more energetic and more modern'' was needed...

''The motto will still be used by the university and will be maintained for more formal purposes, such as on testamurs....''

Emily Matters, president of the Classical Language Teachers Association, said the removal was hugely disappointing.

''I think this goes against everything what universities stand for where one generation hands over its culture to the next,'' she said.

Anthony Alexander, president of the Classical Association of NSW, who also teaches Greek and Latin at the University of Sydney, said the deletion was far from a dumbing down of the university or a denigration of Latin.

''What matters is what we teach, what we actually do in the classrooms,'' he said. ''I don't think it compromises Latin, which is stronger than ever.''

Here's the full article.

For what it's worth, I've always thought it's a great motto - not only a good sentiment,expressed concisely in a way it's near impossible to do in English, but some nice grammar (an ablative absolute for sidere... mutato) and a very elegant chiastic structure.

The university's own website, by the way, suggests that a good translation of the motto would be something like "The traditions of the older universities of the Northern Hemisphere are continued here in the Southern."

Mezentius - Homeric Hero

2010-02-17T12:22:00.001+11:00

Aeneid X.689-768 – Mezentius enters the battle and performs mighty deeds.

This account of the aristeia of Mezentius, the ally of Turnus who despises the gods (cf. note on line 150-1), is built up carefully to make him a worthy adversary of Aeneas. It is based very largely on Homeric battle-scenes, and indeed Mezentius in his ruthless valour shows all the qualities of a warrior of the heroic age. The victims of Mezentius are sometimes simply listed (699f.), sometimes given a touch of personality (719f.), and the scene ends with a general list of those killed in the battle and a glimpse of the gods watching before it finally focuses once again on Mezentius.

The passage is made particularly Homeric by the frequency of similes (the Iliad has more similes than any other ancient epic). There are four extended similes in seventy lines (693f., 707f., 723f., 763f., the latter a double simile), and the first three are very largely based on Homeric originals. Virgil is closer to Homer here than almost anywhere else in the poem; this is deliberately done to portray the archaic nature of Mezentius’ qualities as compared with those of Aeneas.

(Williams, p.365f.)

Over the next few days I'm planning to post some passages from Aeneid X and the Iliad which show just how thoroughly Homeric the character of Mezentius is. Stay tuned...

Curses

2010-02-15T13:09:00.001+11:00

I came across some interesting material on ancient cursing in a book on swearing that I read last year.

...quite a degree of energy was involved in cursing. The ancient Greeks and Romans employed the cursing tablet. At one time the baths at Bath were full of these tablets and versions of the practice are still known in parts of modern-day Tuscany and Ireland. The stone tablet* was inscribed with the tailor-made curse of one’s choice and then buried or, more commonly, thrown into deep water.

The Romans favoured throwing the curse-inscribed tablet into a sacred place... but the backyard well or the nearest river or ocean were also favoured spots. Generally, where you flung your tablet probably depended on how far you had to lug it.

Many of these tablets have been recovered and restored, and one of the best-known now resides in the Archaeological Museum at Johns Hopkins University. This particular specimen, from around 50BC, contains a most grisly curse made against an allegedly villainous man with the rather ominous name of Plotius...

‘Good and beautiful Proserpina (or Salvia, shouldest thou prefer), mayest thou wrest away the health, body complexion, strength and faculties of Plotius and consign him to thy husband, Pluto. Grant that by his own devices he may not escape this penalty. Mayest thou consign him to the quartian, tertian and daily fevers of war and wrestle with him until they snatch away at his very soul.’

From this point, the curse itemises poor Plotius’ entire anatomy:

‘I give thee the head of Plotius... his brow and eyebrows, eyelids and pupils... his ears, nose, nostrils, tongue, lips and teeth, so he may not speak his pain; his neck, shoulders, arms, and fingers, so that he may not sleep the sleep of health; his thighs, legs, knees, shanks, feet, ankles, heels, toes and toe-nails, so that he may not stand of his own strength. May he most miserably perish and depart this life.’

A touch laboured perhaps, but very thorough. It’s also pre-emptive. In the full text the curser reveals that she fears that Plotius has organised his own cursing tablet, so she wants her curse to be visited on Plotius by the end of February. Payment is promised on delivery: ‘as soon as thou has made good my vow’. Wisely Cautious.

An iron spike was driven through this tablet before it was cast into the river, a symbol of the longed-for piercing of the enemy’s soul. Clearly a physical demise was insufficient: the soul too had to be targeted.
(Language Most Foul, Ruth Wajnryb)

[*I was under the impression that the tablets were more often metal – lead or pewter]

You can find a copy of the Plotius curse here.

expletives

2009-12-20T12:50:00.001+11:00

I’d never pondered the link between expleo, explere (to fill) and the word ‘expletive’ before, but it was brought to my attention the other day in a very interesting book I’m reading about swearing. Here’s the link:

With toe-stubbing swearing, the actual expletive used is functionally immaterial. It’s the act of letting off steam, emitting some pent-up emotion that speaks, if you like, independently of the words used. This semantic vacuum is highlighted by the secondary meaning of the word ‘expletive’, that is, ‘any syllable, word or phrase conveying no independent meaning, especially one inserted in a line of verse for the sake of the meter’, such as ‘Tra la’ in ‘The flowers that bloom in the spring, Tra la’. That’s one to remember next time you get pulled up for swearing.
(Language Most Foul, Ruth Wajnryb)

The quote in the above passage comes from a song from The Mikado (as if you didn’t already know). An example more appropriate to the season might be:

Deck the halls with boughs of holly
fa la la la la, la la la la

There are similar examples of expletives (in the secondary meaning) in Latin poetry. The ubiquitous use of ‘O’ (e.g. when addressing a god) could be understood as an expletive – a meaningless word, expressing emotion, inserted into verse for the sake of the meter.

Another sort-of-example comes from a (relatively) well-known line of Ennius:

at tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit
The war-trumpet with terrifying sound blew taratantara

taratantara here is the onomatopoeic sound of the trumpets, but you could see as a bit of a line filler (and thus an expletive) as well.

Tiresias

2009-12-17T09:58:00.001+11:00

Here's another passage from Eucalyptus, which reminded me of a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

So there he is in Bathurst, our traveller from Britain.

It is at Bathurst, or rather on the outskirts, that the story develops a sudden twist. On the second day he was wandering along the river when he came across two brown snakes - ne shedding its skin. He killed the wrong one, and was turned into a woman. That's apparently what happened.

When last heard of he was living in Seattle - or was it San Francisco? - as a woman.

Here's Ovid's version of the tale of Tiresias:

Dumque ea per terras fatali lege geruntur
tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi,
forte Iovem memorant diffusum nectare curas
seposuisse graves vacuaque agitasse remissos
cum Iunone iocos et 'maior vestra profecto est,
quam quae contingit maribus' dixisse 'voluptas.'
illa negat. placuit quae sit sententia docti
quaerere Tiresiae: Venus huic erat utraque nota.

While these things were being done on earth by fate's decree, while the cradle of twice-born Bacchus was safely guarded, it happened, so the story goes, that Jupiter put aside his weighty cares; mellowed by deep draughts of nectar, he indulged in idle banter with Juno, who shared his leisure, and teased her saying: 'Of course, you women get far more pleasure out of love than men do.' Juno denied that this was true. They decided to ask the opinion of the wise Tiresias, for he had experienced love both as a man and as a woman.

nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
deque viro factus (mirabile) femina septem
egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
vidit, et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae'
dixit, 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
nunc quoque vos feriam.' percussis anguibus isdem
forma prior rediit, genetivaque venit imago.

Once when two huge serpents were intertwining themselves in the depths of the green wood, he had struck them with his staff; from being a man he was miraculously changed into a woman, and had lived as such for seven years. In the eigth year he saw the same serpents again and said: 'If there is so much power in the act of striking you that it changes the striker to the opposite sex, I shall now strike you again.' So by striking the same snakes, he was restored to his former shape, and the nature with which he was born returned.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses III.316-331)

In Verrem V Word Cloud

2009-12-14T14:22:00.001+11:00

Here's another word cloud, based on the prescribed lines from In Verrem V:

Catullus and Horace Word Cloud

2009-12-07T15:18:00.003+11:00

Here are a couple more word clouds, first for Catullus (based on the prescribed poems for 2008-2010):

and simlilarly for Horace:

Eucalyptus

2009-12-06T13:23:00.001+11:00

I recently finished reading Eucalyptus, by Murray Bail. It's quite a slow-moving story, but I found it very captivating. On the surface the book is about a father who decides that the man who correctly names every eucalypt on his property will win the hand of his daughter, but it turns into a series of loosely connected stories suggested by the scientific (i.e. Latin or Greek) names of the various eucalypts.

It reminded me a lot of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which likewise is a loosely connected series of myths, and at some points the resemblence goes even deeper. Have a look at the following passages and see if they remind you of some of the myths you might find in Ovid:

The first man who saw Ellen naked was the only son of a local tractor dealer, Molloy. He was popular, a stroong footballer. His father had recently given him a motorbike with an iridescent petrol tank.

There was that dirt road alongside Holland's property: it had no other function but to go onwards towards town, while its twin, the similar-coloured river, took a sluggish lunge away from the road, establishing on the distant curve a density of River Red Gums which never failed to attract the eye of sportsmen, even if meant crawling on all fours through the undergrowth. There was a sandy pool on the curve, concealed by overhanging branches which mottled and browned the water to tortoiseshell.

On a very hot day Ellen splashed in... came up with both hands sweeping her hair back from her eyes. For a while she lay on her back, eyes closed...

On both sides the fat gums appeared as an entourage of sturdy older women, raising their skirts above their knees, about to wade into the water...

Young Molloy was behind a tree... Accelerating away with legs splayed around the engine, increasingly slit-eyed, watery, he began yelling out at what had been granted to him. Without much warning he felt it all slip on the dirt under him, the engine spun, and he yawned as he met in the face by the barbed wire, which tore off most of his nose.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He'd been attracted to the sullenness of the waitress, and when he asked around and heard she had something on her body so zealously guarded no man had managed to report its details he decided he would not leave town until he had seen it for himself.

With this in mind he took all his meals at the Greek's. At night he made sure he was the last to leave, even if it meant ordering another coffee. But he soon found the technique which had given him such success across dozens of country towns - namely flattery and obviously absurd exaggeration, and the same old jokes while fixing his eyes on the woman in question - was getting him nowhere...

After a week of rejection he decided to give himself on more night... Without trying to win her over on that last night he finished eating and didn't even order a coffee. He waited outside for the place to close. There wasn't anybody around. When her bedroom light went on he went behind the cafe.

Carefully he climbed the picket fence. He felt like whistling a little tune. Why hadn't anyone else done this before... At the louvred window he stood on tiptoe.

In her room the young waitress was stepping out of the last brief piece of clothing. Casually she turned. He almost gasped at the bulging strength of her nakedness; the rich tangle of black beneath the hips. To see it more he stretched: and there he saw it on her legs, a dark stain, as if she was up to her knees in ink.

At that moment she faced the window. Although she didn't cry out, he stepped back; or so he thought. Something solid met him from behind. He couldn't move. There was no point in struggling. He could still see into the room and the waitress's pale body. His arms disappeared into his sides. And he felt himself merge into something altogether hard and straight; unusually tall. Foolishly, he realised he should be getting back to his home in Sydney. His head became cold. He then began to hear voices.

From the waitress's muscular legs the stain was transferred across the short distance of chicken wire, bottles and tins, lengths of useful timber etc., over the grey splintered fence to the base of the new telegraph pole, Karri, which would stand in all weathers with a clear view of the Greek waitress in her room, regularly naked.

Aeneid X Word Cloud

2009-12-04T14:18:00.001+11:00

Out of curiosity I've created (with the help of wordle) a word cloud from Aeneid X, using the lines prescribed for study in the HSC this year. Here is the result:

Mt Vesuvius

2009-11-25T10:05:00.001+11:00

Here are a couple of interesting animations related to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius:

The cambridge website also has a whole bunch of links for you to explore.

OzCLO

2009-11-09T21:59:00.001+11:00

I don't know about you, but I'm excited about OzCLO - the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad. I only studied linguistics at uni for a year, but it was one of my favourite courses from my five years there. The competition only started in 2008 and aims to help students "to develop... strategies for solving problems in fascinating real languages."

The sample problems on the website are fascinating, dealing with a huge variety of languages including Aboriginal languages, Japanese braille and Linear B (an ancient Greek script). The problems are challenging, and encourage you to think analytically and creatively. I found them really stimulating, and can imagine that they would be perfect for gifted and talented students. I'd love to enter a team from my school for next year's competition - stay tuned to hear more.

your favourite author

2009-11-04T11:27:00.001+11:00

I've added a poll to my blog to let you vote for your favourite Roman author (you have to scroll down a bit to see it). I've only included the authors I've studied this year with my senior classes: Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Horace and Ovid. If you vote, leave me a comment explaining who you voted for and why.

I had a similar poll set up ages ago, I don't remember what the figures were, but you can read a brief bio of each author as well as some of the comments here.

videmus*

2009-10-30T17:18:00.003+11:00

I stumbled across some hilarious youtube videos the other of Eddie Izzard giving some reflections both on learning Latin and on Roman history more generally. I've never really seen much of his stuff before, but as well as being very funny, he seems to be pretty intelligent. He is also very rude (don't watch these videos if you're put off by swearing).

Anyway, you can find them here:

Pliny
Hannibal
more Hannibal (good material, poor quality video)

*videmus is the correct Latin plural of video, right?

mater Euryali et rex Antiochus

2009-10-29T15:28:00.000+11:00

Here's a surprising statistic. Latin (with 185 candidates) is the ninth most popular foreign language at the HSC this year. Ninth most popular is not a lot to boast about, but here is a list of courses with fewer candidates than Latin Continuers this year*:

Vietnamese Continuers (166 candidates)
Chinese Continuers (131 candidates)
Modern Greek Continuers (116 candidates)
Indonesian Continuers (77 candidates)
Turkish Continuers (56 candidates)

Armenian, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hindi, Hungarian, Macedonian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil and Ukrainian all had fewer than 50 candidates.

For the record Classical Greek and Classical Hebrew had 11 and 37 candidates respectively. Ancient History was the seventh most popular HSC course over all, with 12 127 candidates. You can find the full list here.

*These figures do not include Background Speakers or Beginners courses, which are in some cases(especially for Chinese) substantial.

Anyway, those 185 Latin Continuers students sat their HSC exam yesterday, and the 11 I spoke to afterwards seemed pretty happy with it. No real surprises, but enough interesting questions to allow them to shine. Here's my translation of the unseen passages, in case anyone is interested:

Euryalus' mother, on hearing of the death of her son in battle, rushes out to express her grief.

evolat infelix et femineo ululatu
scissa comam muros amens atque agmina cursu
prima petit, non illa virum, non illa pericli
telorumque memor, caelum dehinc questibus implet:
'hunc ego te, Euryale, aspicio? tune ille senectae
sera meae requies, potuisti linquere solam,
crudelis?'

(Virgil Aeneid IX, 477-483)

The wretched woman (infelix) rushes out (evolat) and, out of her mind (amens), her hair torn (scissa comam), with a womanly cry (femineo ululatu) she makes with her course (cursu... petit) for the first ranks (agmina... prima), forgetting (non... memor) the men (virum) and the danger of the weapons, she then (dehinc) fills the heavens with her complaints (questibus): 'Is this you (hunc... te) I see, Euryalus? Could you (potuisti), the final rest (sera... requies) of my old age (senectae... meae), leave me alone (solam), too cruel (crudelis)?'

Cicero protests against the ill-treatment of King Antiochus, a longstanding ally and friend of the Roman people.

Rex Antiochus, qui Romae ante oculos omnium nostrum biennium fere comitatu regio atque ornatu fuisset, is cum amicus et socius populi Romani esset, amicissimo patre, avo, maioribus, antiquissimis et clarissimis regibus, praeceps provincia populi Romani exturbatus est. Quem ad modum hoc accepturas nationes exteras putasti, cum audirent a praetore populi Romani in provincia violatum regem, spoliatum hospitem, eiectum socium populi Romani atque amicum?

(Cicero, In Verrem II, IV, 30, 67-68)

King Antiochus, who had been at Rome (Romae) before the eyes of us all (omnium nostrum) for a period of almost two years (biennium fere) with his royal escort and adornment, this man (is), although (cum) he was a friend and an ally of the Roman people, along with his most friendly father, his grandfather and his ancestors, those most ancient and distinguished kings, was driven (exturbatus est) headlong (praeceps) out of a province of the Roman people. How (quem ad modum) did you think (putasti) that the foreign nations would accept (accepturas) this (hoc), when they heard that the king (regem) had been dishonoured (violatum) by the praetor in a province of the Roman people, that a guest had been ill-treated (spoliatum), that a friend and ally (socium... atque amicum) of the Roman people had been thrown out (eiectum)?

Aeneid X mind-map

2009-10-21T22:09:00.001+11:00

Here's a basic mind-map I've created showing the relationships of the important characters from Aeneid Book X. Have I left anything off?

[Blue is for goodies, purple for baddies]

Silphium

2009-10-18T23:49:00.002+11:00

Here is a recipe, taken from the Roman gourmand Apicius:

Oxygarum (which is similar to garum or rather an acid sauce) is digestible and is composed of:
1/2 ounce of pepper
3 scruples of Gallic silphium
6 scruples of cardamom
6 of cumin, 1 scruple of leaves
6 scruples of dry mint.
These ingredients are broken singly and crushed and made into a paste bound by honey. When this work is done or whenever you desire add broth and vinegar to taste.

It's a kind of sauce or relish I suppose, that you would use to give whatever you were eating a bit more flavour. This was pretty important in Roman times since there was no refrigeration, and some kind of condiment was often useful for hiding the taste of spoilt or rotten food (hence the popularity of garum).

I don't really recommend trying to make this recipe (though if you're interested, you can find some good Roman recipes here and here). In fact even if you tried you'd find it a bit difficult, especially finding some good Silphium.

Silphium (lasar in Latin) was a very popular herb in Roman times, used to give an exotic flavour both to cooking and to love poetry:

Quaeris quot mihi basiationes
tuae, Lesbia, sint satis superque?
Quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae
lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis
oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi
et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum...

You ask, Lesbia, how many of your kisses are enough and more than enough for me? As many as the grains of sand which lie at Cyrene, rich in silphium, between the oracle of Jupiter and the sacred tomb of ancient Battus...
(Catullus 7)

Apparently it had a very strong flavour, but we don't know much more than that about it, as these days it's extinct - eaten to death by the Romans.

A novel I was reading recently, set in ancient Rome, included a sub-plot about the search for silphium, and described it in this way:

‘Real silphium is a thing of the past. That was in the good old days when girls stayed virgins till they married and we all believed the sun was a rather warm god’s chariot.’
‘Yes, everyone nowadays complains that the silphium you can buy is nothing like it used to be…’
‘I’m no expert. Silphium was always the prerogative of the rich.’
‘It’s some kind of herb isn’t it? Imported in ground up form,’ Helena mused. ‘Is it not brought here from Africa?’
‘Not any more.’ I leant on my elbows and stared at her. ‘What’s the wrinkle about
silphium?’ She seemed determined not to tell me, but I knew well enough to reckon this was more than a general knowledge forum. I racked my brains to get it straight, then declared: ‘Silphium, known to those who can’t afford it as Stinking Goat’s Breath-'
‘You made that up!’
‘As I recall, it does smell.
Silphium used to come from Cyrenaica; the Cyrenians protected their monopoly jealously-‘
‘You can see it on coins from Cyrene when you get one palmed in your change at market?’
‘Looks like a bunch of grotesque onions.’
‘The Greeks always loved it?’
‘Yes. We Romans for once allowed ourselves to copy them, since it involved our stomachs which always overrule our national pride. It was powerful stuff, but the ill-advised rural locals where it used to grow let their flocks overgraze the land until the precious crop disappeared. Presumably that causes much grief to their urban relations who used to run the silphium monopoly. Cyrene must be a dead town. The last known shoot was sent to Nero. You can guess what he did with it.’
Helena’s eyes widened. ‘Do I dare?’
‘He ate it. Why, lady; were you imagining some imperial obscenity with the highly prized herbage?’
‘Certainly not – go on.’
‘What’s to add? New sprouts failed to appear. Cyrene declined. Roman cooks mourn. Now we import an inferior strain of silphium from the East, and gourmets at banquets moan about the lost Golden Age when stinking herbs really stank.’
(Two for the Lions, Lindsey Davis)

You can read more about silphium here.

O Clementiam

2009-10-17T23:38:00.002+11:00

O clementiam populi Romani seu potius patientiam miram ac singularem! Civem Romanum securi esse percussum M. Annius, eques Romanus, dicit, taces: archipiratam negat, fateris. Fit gemitus omnium et clamor, cum tamen a praesenti supplicio tuo continuit populus Romanus se et repressit et salutis suae rationem iudicum severitati reservavit. Quid? sciebas tibi crimini datum iri? quam ob rem sciebas, quam ob rem etiam suspicabare? Inimicum habebas neminem; si haberes, tamen non ita vixeras ut metum iudici propositum habere deberes.

(In Verrem V.74)

Explain the irony present in the final sentence of this extract (Inimicum habebas… habere deberes).

The irony in this sentence comes from the contradiction between Cicero’s words and what his audience knows to be the truth about Verres. Firstly Cicero states that Verres had no enemies (inimicum… neminem), something which both he and his audience know is plainly untrue. Secondly Cicero sarcastically suggests that even if he did have enemies his lifestyle was beyond reproach (ita vixeras), and gave him no need to fear a lawsuit (metum iudici propositum). Again this is obviously untrue – Cicero’s case is in fact based around the licentiousness of Verres’ lifestyle, which provided him with enough evidence to present a damning portrait of Verres’ character.

What contrast does Cicero make here between the virtue of the Roman people and the vice of Verres?

There is a strong contrast in this passage between the virtue of the Roman people and the vice of Verres. Cicero is describing a scene from the Actio Prima (the first part of his prosecution of Verres) and presents the Roman judges as behaving virtuously. They are shocked and outraged by Verres’ admissions (gemitus… et clamor), yet show mercy and patience (clementiam… patientiam). This behaviour shows us two important virtues – firstly a concern for justice which is offended by Verres’ behaviour, and secondly self-control and respect for the law. This latter virtue is shown by their remarkable (singularem) restraint in not immediately calling for Verres’ execution, but instead trusting to the courts to see justice done.

Verres on the other hand is depicted as showing a callous disregard towards the law. Cicero recalls two accusations against Verres – that he executed a Roman citizen (civem Romanum securi esse percussum), and that he failed to execute an enemy of the state (archipiratam negat) – and in each case Verres’ reaction shows his vice.

In the first place, Cicero implies that Verres’ silence (taces) indicates a cold-hearted arrogance. Confronted by such a serious crime, he neither denies the accusation, nor shows any sense of remorse, in contrast to the judges who were clearly, and rightly in Cicero’s view, moved, as we have already seen. On the other hand his confession (fateris) of the second crime shows not only his guilt but his ignorance of having done anything wrong – so skewed is his sense morality. Whereas the seriousness of Verres’ actions is clear to the judges, as we see in their reactions, Verres himself, in Cicero’s eyes, is so depraved that he is unable to tell what is right and what is wrong.

Talia per Latium

2009-10-17T11:32:00.010+11:00

Talia per Latium. quae Laomedontius heros
cuncta videns magno curarum fluctuat aestu,
atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc
in partisque rapit varias perque omnia versat,
sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aenis
sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine lunae
omnia pervolitat late loca, iamque sub auras
erigitur summique ferit laquaria tecti.
nox erat et terras animalia fessa per omnis
alituum pecudumque genus sopor altus habebat,
cum pater in ripa gelidique sub aetheris axe
Aeneas, tristi turbatus pectora bello,
procubuit seramque dedit per membra quietem.

(Aeneid VIII.18-30)

Identify the tone of this extract and explain how Virgil's language has helped to create this tone.

These lines describe Aeneas’ somewhat agitated state of mind as he ponders the coming war with the Latins, but despite their content, they have an overall peaceful tone. Virgil’s language has contributed to this tone in a number of ways.

The most obvious feature of these lines is the simile in lines 22-25, which compares Aeneas’ thoughts to light reflected from a basin of water (lumen… repercussum). The simile is full of peaceful, soothing images such as water (aquae), trembling light (tremulum… lumen), the bright, bronze basins (labris… aenis), the sun and shining moon (sole… radiantis lunae) and high, gold-plated ceiling (summi… laquearia tecti). Although the point of the simile is to highlight Aeneas’ restless thoughts, these images by their brightness evoke positive feelings in the reader and give the lines an underlying sense of calm, which suggests that despite his worries, Aeneas is, like all good Romans, in control of his emotions, not ruled by them as Turnus was in the lines just prior to this passage.

This peaceful tone is further reinforced by the alliteration used throughout the simile. The alliteration of ‘l’ and ‘m’ sounds in particular (e.g. in tremulum labris ubi lumen) have a soothing effect and give the passage a certain softness that reinforces the peaceful undertones created by the light and airy images of the simile.

Virgil’s use of meter, especially within the simile, also helps him to create a peaceful tone. For example lines 23 and 24 are predominantly dactylic. The many short syllables give these lines a light, breezy feel which gives the reader a sense of calm and contributes to the peaceful tone.

The broader setting of these lines is also important in considering their tone. The short clauses which Virgil uses here (e.g. Talia per Latium – note the ellipsis; nox erat…) act as a strong contrast to the scenes of frantic action which open Book VIII. This contrast allows Virgil to slow down the action and to instead focus on Aeneas’ internal thoughts (e.g. curarum, animum, versat), thereby creating a calmer and more reflective mood. That these events also occur at night (nox) is also pertinent. The language of rest and sleep used by Virgil (fessa, sopor altus, quietem) once more creates a peaceful atmosphere, as does his description of the icy axis of heaven (gelidique sub aetheris axe).

The Man of Doubtless Honour...

2009-10-07T12:44:00.003+11:00

Here's another poem from one of my (former) year 12 students - her version of Horace Odes I.22. It's much longer than the original poem, but very well done in my opinion. For a comparison you might like to check out this version, by John Wesley, the 18th century preacher.

The man of doubtless honour,
Ne’er once will he require
Hostile blood-stained spears,
Forged in blood-red fire...

The guiltless man shan’t need
The quiver nor the arrow,
Poisoned though it be,
And sharp to pierce the marrow.

Fearless shall he roam
And make a journey far.
In stormy Syrtes still,
His weapons need not mar.

Untouched shall this man be
And all the lands will know,
(even gruff Caucasus!)
That free, this man shall go.

And if that man should venture,
To the mountains or the sea,
Shores washed by the Hydaspes,
Safe shall this man be.

And all these things I know,
For once I was unarmed,
And strolled in careless bliss,
Alone and yet, unharmed.

Far from home went I,
With Sabine trees above,
But as I walked I sang
Of Lalage, my true love.

And this, my song, preserved me
From dangers yet unknown;
A savage wolf appeared- but fled!
Again I was alone.

The beast was great and fearsome;
A creature of the night,
With fiendish fiery eyes.
I marvelled at his flight.

And if I went to Daunia,
I doubt that I could find,
In all her darkened forests,
A monster of this kind.

Besides, the land of Juba,
That bare and barren nurse
Of lions, awe-inspiring,
Has never birth'd that curse.

Thus I would not protest,
Dwelt I on lifeless plains-
The deathly still and silence;
Devoid of steady rains...

And I would not complain
If banished to that land
Oppressed by clouds and thunder,
By Jove’s unyielding hand.

So place me just below
The blazing star of day.
The chariots led too close,
Too late are pulled away.

And let me there be found,
Unsheltered from the heat.
No companions or respite-
Just dust beneath my feet.

I will endure this woe,
Still singing with delight
Of sweet Lalage laughing,
And speaking day and night!
[KB]

Carol Manners Essays

2009-10-03T15:34:00.001+10:00

Each year the CLTA holds an essay competition "for Year 12 students of Latin and Greek who may write an essay from a range of topics related to the HSC and IB Latin and Greek prescribed texts."

The winning essays for 2009 have been published online:

The standard is of course exceptional, and all three essays are well-worth reading. Here is part of the introduction to the second essay, as a brief taste:

Cicero’s rhetorical method in Verrine V fulfils various functions, diverting from structured reasoning (probare), and becoming a “self expression of the orator”. It influences emotionally (flectere), entertains (delectare), and makes Verres a “human object of contempt”. The need to persuade a jury and audience had already been ccomplished in the Actio Prima, where the weight of evidence incriminated Verres. Considering the Actio Secunda was published but never delivered in court, the focus will be particularly on dispositio (arrangement of material), elocutio (style and power of words) and the context of the Verrines in Cicero’s career.

Alas, my friend...

2009-10-01T12:46:00.002+10:00

As a bit of fun end of year exercise for my year 12 extension students, I asked them to have a go at translating one of the poems we'd read this year into poetry.

It's a task that's been attempted by many famous writers in the past, including John Dryden, Basil Glidersleeve, Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, James Joyce, Alfred Tennyson, John Wesley, William Wordsworth and many others. You can find many of their versions collected at this excellent site.

To give you a taste, here are two versions of Odes II.14; the first from Samuel Johnson, the second from one of my students.

Alas, dear friend, the fleeting years
In everlasting circles run,
In vain you spend your vows and prayers,
They roll, and ever will roll on.

Should hecatombs each rising morn
On cruel Pluto's altar dye,
Should costly loads of incense burn,
Their fumes ascending to the sky:

You could not gain a moment's breath
Or move the haughty king below
Nor would inexorable death
Defer an hour the fatal blow.

In vain we shun the din of war,
And terrors of the stormy main,
In vain with anxious breasts we fear
Unwholesome Sirius' sultry reign;

We all must view the Stygian flood
That silent cuts the dreary plains,
And Cruel Danaus' bloody brood
Condemned to everduring pains.

Your shady groves, your pleasing wife,
And fruitful fields, my dearest friend,
You'll leave together with your life:
Alone the cypress
After your death, the lavish heir
Will quickly drive away his woe;
The wine you kept with so much care
Along the marble floor shall flow.
[Samuel Johnson]

Alas, my friend, the years glide by,
with impending death, a ceaseless shadow
turning a deaf ear, discounting your virtue,
it hovers to deliver the final blow

The relentless Pluto will not be placated,
confining even the wildest giants,
regardless however many prayers
with however many sacrifices

All who thrive on gifts of earth
will transverse the sluggish Cocytus
whether we be impoverished peasants
or kings alike, we’ll be but dust.

It is futile, we cannot desist
the fractured waves of the Adriatic,
the endless foes to flesh and blood
the firm south wind, coarse and erratic.

Your land, home and delightful wife
will be deserted without accord,
and none of those young kindly shrubs
will follow then, brief master ignored.

Your Caecuban wine will be depleted,
Though preserved with a hundred keys.
Should it be wasted on one less worthy
To be spilt on the path, desecrated as he please?

[NN - Horace II.14]

valete

2009-09-29T14:22:00.003+10:00

Year XII Latin, 2009

Turnbullius Caesar

2009-09-14T12:17:00.004+10:00

I've been a bit busy lately and haven't had much time to blog, but for the sake of keeping things ticking along I thought I'd post this cartoon from today's SMH.

quo bello?

2009-09-02T09:00:00.001+10:00

Trial Examination, Question 3 (a)

Quid dicis? an bello fugitivorum Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? Magna laus et honesta oratio; sed tamen quo bello? Nos enim, post illud bellum quod M'. Aquilius confecit, sic accepimus, nullum in Sicilia fugitivorum bellum fuisse. 'At in Italia fuit.' Fateor, et magnum quidem ac vehemens. Num igitur ex eo bello partem aliquam laudis appetere conaris? num tibi illius victoriae gloriam cum M. Crasso aut Cn. Pompeio communicatam putas? Non arbitror hoc etiam tuae deesse impudentiae, ut quicquam eius modi dicere audeas. Obstitisti videlicet ne ex Italia transire in Siciliam fugitivorum copiae possent. Ubi, quando, qua ex parte? cum aut ratibus aut navibus conarentur accedere? Nos enim nihil umquam prorsus audivimus, sed illud audivimus, M. Crassi, fortissimi viri, virtute consilioque factum ne ratibus coniunctis freto fugitivi ad Messanam transire possent, a quo illi conatu non tanto opere prohibendi fuissent, si ulla in Sicilia praesidia ad illorum adventum opposita putarentur.

Why is it important for Cicero to discredit Verres’ military career?

Cicero anticipates that Verres’ lawyers, following the precedent of Manius Aquilius, will try to convince the judges to be lenient on Verres because of his military achievements and his services to Rome. By discrediting Verres’ miltary career, and showing that in fact he had achieved nothing as governor of Sicily, Cicero denies them the opportunity of this defense.

Analyse Cicero’s use of language techniques and rhetorical devices to achieve this purpose.

Cicero’s language in this passage helps him to persuade the judges of the case that Verres military achievements in Sicily were ineffectual. To this end he first employs a series of rhetorical questions to establish the line of argument he expects from Verres’ lawyers. These rhetorical questions (quid dicis? … Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? … quo bello?) not only help to introduce Cicero’s theme, but also contain a slightly puzzled tone, as Cicero asks for clarification about what Verres’ achievements actually were, and which war (quo bello) he is actually talking about. This tone of puzzlement effectively sows seeds of doubt as to the genuineness of Verres achievements into the minds of the audience.

Rhetorical questions are also used later in the passage to express Cicero’s disbelief that Verres might actually dare to take some of the credit for something in which he had absolutely no involvement (num… conaris? num… putas?). Cicero seems to be almost outraged that Verres could even think about claiming part of the credit for putting an end to the slave wars led by Spartacus – something which was actually achieved by Crassus and Pompey, two of the most powerful and influential Romans of Cicero’s time. The repetition of num highlights his disbelief and the tricolon of questions in ‘Ubi, quando, qua ex parte?’ also helps Cicero to emphatically drive home his point to the judges that Verres’ military achievements while governor of Sicily were in fact non-existent.

Sarcasm also helps Cicero to achieve this same outcome. At the start of this extract he refers to Verres’ courage (virtute), praise (magna laus) and honour (honesta oratio), but as his speech develops it becomes clear that these qualities, just like Verres’ supposed military achievements, are empty. Cicero’s sarcasm thus serves to show the judges that Verres is the exact opposite of these things – cowardly, despicable and dishonourable. Likewise, Cicero says that Verres obviously prevented the pirates from crossing to Sicily (Obstitisti videlicet). This statement may have more truth to it than Cicero is willing to admit, but his sarcastic presentation of it suggests to the jury that it is obviously and completely false, thus once more helping him to discredit Verres in their eyes.

Lastly Cicero compares Verres to the true heroes of the slave war – Crassus and Pompey. Cicero’s choice of words in describing these men suggests that they are truly virtuous, and that Verres, by comparison, is a shameless imposter. Crassus and Pompey are associated with virtues such as victory (victoriae), glory (gloriam), bravery (fortissimi), courage (virtute) and wisdom (consilio). Verres on the other hand is described as completely shameless (impudentiae, audeas). The repetition of audivimus in nihil umquam… audivimus, sed illud audivimus also provides a contrast between Verres’ version of events and the generally accepted version – the finality of sed illud helping him to effectively and imperiously dismiss Verres’ anticipated defense.