iter, itineris (3rd, nt)

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)

small-crafted images

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)

Trivia

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?

• terra australis
• ager cinis
• urbs cornus
• oppidum novum
• herbaria
• virilis
• collis aestivus
• tumuli septem
• filix rubra
• vallis viridis

Which sporting teams are referred to below?

• tigres
• cygni
• cornices
• tauricanes
• feles
• aquilae
• dracones
• leones

What was the nationality of the following people?

• Ulysses
• Hannibal
• Romulus and Remus
• Cleopatra
• Vercingetorix
• Boudicca

cena Romana MMIX

I had a very enjoyable time with my year 11 students at the annual Senior Classics Dinner last night. The highlight was of course the trivia quiz, fiendishly difficult as always. Here are a few sample questions; I'll put the answers in the comments sometime next week.


The following goddesses all had something to do with pregnancy, childbirth or child-rearing. Match the goddess to her correct function.

Goddesses

• Aboena; Alemona; Lucina; Cunina; Decima

Functions

• To guard the cradle; To watch over pregnancy; To ensure the safe going out and coming in of children; To keep unborn children safe; To look after women in childbirth

The Greco-Roman god of the wind was Aeolus, who had six sons, each controlling the wind from a particular direction. Match the son with the particular direction of his wind.

Sons

• Aquilo; Boreus; Corus; Eurus; Notus; Zephyrus

Directions

• North; East; South; South-West; West; North-West

Many parts of the human skeleton have Latin names. Where would you find the following bones?

• flute; small dish; brooch; basin; cuckoo; ray; hammer, anvil and stirrup

Which NSW places are referred to by the following Latin phrases?

• collis aestivus; mons monens; tumulosus infractus; montes caeruli; silicis phoci; geminus sinus

Inscriptions

To prepare for our excursion to the Nicholson Museum tomorrow, my year 9 and 10 classes have been looking at some Latin inscriptions found on tombstones. Reading Latin inscriptions is quite different to reading 'normal' Latin, as so many of the words are abbreviated in order to save space (and time and effort I suppose).

The photo above (which I took last time I was in Rome) is a bad example of this- all the words are written out in full. I suppose the people who paid for it had a lot of money and didn't mind the expense.

If you're looking for more funeral inscriptions there are a few links in this previous post, or you can have a look at this site which has a lot of not-very-good-quality photos of tombstones from around England (click on 'prev page' to cycle through all 29 tombstones).

Related Posts

• Nicholson Museum

Castra Latina MMVIII

Five things we learnt at Latin Camp:

1. We’re allowed to call Mr Morrison ‘Joel’
2. Water pistols get confiscated
3. The food is quite nice
4. A three-headed Cerberus race results in really bad carpet burns
5. The number of cute boys that study Latin is 0

Last Friday evening 160 Latin students from around NSW arrived safely at Elanora Heights conference centre. We were divided into tribes and after some te cognosco (getting-to-know-you) games, we learnt how to rap, Roman style, then we watched some film clips to study their depiction of ancient Rome, including Monty Python and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum… When we were finally sent to bed at 11:00pm we were all too exhausted to hold the parties we’d planned.

The next day included a bushwalk full of Roman and Greek mythology, a presentation on Roman weapons by James Adams, gladiator training at Capua gladiatorial school, lottus (bingo using Roman numbers) and a session of design where we made badges and painted t-shirts with Roman phrases. Some memorable slogans included ‘I’m with Grumio →’, ‘Veni, Vidi, Voravi’ (I came, I saw, I ate), and ‘Hercle! Quid tui vultui accidit?’ (By Hercules! What happened to your face?).

After dinner was the moment we’d all been waiting for… The Roman Concert! This involved everyone dressing up in old white sheets arranged as togas and acting out the myths we’d been rehearsing during the day. The best performances included ‘Zeus Visits Earth’, performed by the gallant Gauls, and ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ by the amazing Amazons.

Once the concert was over and we’d changed back to our 21st century attire we were given supper and watched part of a movie about Odysseus and the Cyclops, Polyphemus. Then we sat back and listened to the lesser known story of Cephalus and Procris. This concluded Saturday’s program and we were sent back to our cabins. However, once again, the busy day (along with the teachers’ patrolling) prevented us from having some really good parties.

Sunday dawned bright, filled with new adventures. But first we had to drag ourselves out of bed (the twelve hours of activities we’d completed the day before were starting to kick in). After breakfast a trivia competition was held to test us on all the things we’d learnt over the weekend. There were 50 questions and the winning tribe happened to be the only tribe in which there were no St Georgians. The next scheduled activity was to be the mini-Olympics, but unfortunately due to bad weather the events had to be abandoned for an indoor competition. We were nevertheless still able to compete in the indoor javelin (with foam tridents replacing the javelins) and plastic-plate-discus (taped together and thrown frisbee-style), the Oedipus hopping relay, the Cerberus three-headed race (like a three-legged race, but with three people crawling) and the Ben Hur chariot race, in which two ‘horses’ dragged a hessian sack up and down the hall with someone sitting on it.

So, Castra Latina MMVIII was lots of fun, and a big gratias maximas goes to Mr Morrison for organising it for us, and helping with transport.

All in all, Latin camp was truly optime!

Yr 8 Discipulae Latinae

Senior Classics Dinner

I took a group of my year 11 students to the Senior Classics Dinner, at Trinity Grammar School last night. The dinner is organised by the CLTA every year and is always lots of fun. For me it's good to see my Latin teaching colleagues, and for the students it's good to meet other like-minded students from around Sydney, to dress up, to have a nice meal and to play a bit of trivia. The trivia is always fiendishly difficult, here are a few of the questions that I had trouble answering myself*:

What is the literal translation of the names of the following pieces of equipment?

• stethoscope
• microphone
• camera
• seismograph
• television
• hypodermic

With which particular bodies of water were the following types of Naiads associated?

• Crinaeae
• Limnades (or Limnatides)
• Pegaeae
• Potameides
• Eleionomae

Which modern day public holidays in Australia fall very close to, or on, the following Roman festivals?

• Quinquatria (in honour of Minerva)
• Robigalia (in honour of Robigus)
• Vestalia (in honour of Vesta)
• Ieiunium Cereris (Fast of Ceres)
• Dies Natalis Invicti Solis (Festival of the Invincible Sun god)

I'll give the answers in the comments next week.

[*this may say more about me than the questions]

Nicholson Museum

My year 9 class visited the Nicholson Museum at Sydney Uni yesterday. Their collection focuses more on Egypt and Greece than on Rome, but they have a lot of interesting things there (including a great collection of mummies). Their hands-on program for students is particularly good. They take you down in to the depths of the museum and give you a tray of objects such as coins, bits of pottery, canopic jars, oil lamps, votive statues and tools, and you get to play at being a real archaeologist. They get you to do a quick sketch of an object, then to think about what it’s made of, what it might have been used for, who might have used, and what can it tell us about life in the ancient world.

The museum also has a few interesting Latin inscriptions. Here’s one of them:

DEPOSSIO HILARES QVE
VIXIT ANNUS VII M VNO D
XIII DEPOSITA DIAE VII IDUS
SEPT RICOMEDE ET CLYARCO CONS

This means something like:

The burial of Hilary, who lived 7 years, one month, 13 days, buried on the 7th day before the Ides of September, during the Consulship of Ricomedes and Clearchus.
It’s an interesting inscription for a few reasons. Firstly it doesn’t start as most grave inscriptions do with a dedication to the spirits of the underworld (DM for DIS MANIBUS). This seems to be because the family were Christians. We know this not only from the lack of dedication, but also because the gravestone includes a chi-rho, and a picture of a dove (a common Christian symbol). The words depossio and deposita (from which we get the English word ‘deposit’) also imply the Christian belief that the body has been laid aside for safe keeping until the resurrection. Secondly it gives a precise date (7th September AD 384- when Ricomedes and Clearchus were consuls), which is not all that common, and thirdly, it’s got a couple of spelling mistakes in it (QVE for QVAE and DIAE for DIE), showing that it's not only school students who sometimes get their endings wrong.

Sydney Uni Latin Summer School

This week I recieved some brochures for the Sydney Uni Latin Summer School. The summer school is held every year, for people of all different ages and levels of Latin ability. I taught the beginners class at the beginning of this year (which was a lot of fun) and had a whole range of different people in my class- a year 7 student whose big brother was there and who wanted to come along as well, a couple of uni students doing ancient history who needed to learn a bit of Latin for their studies, a mum who wanted to find out a bit about this wierd language her daughter was learning, and an older couple who wanted something to stimulate their brains in retirement.

It's a great thing to attend if you're planning on doing Latin for the HSC, as you get a bit of grammar revision, but more importantly you get to read a wider range of texts than we would normally have time to do in school. The selections for level 3A (about the level you would be at if you're currently in year 11/12) look particularly good this year- they'll be reading bits out of Aeneid book 5, Metamorphoses book 1 and Catullus 64.

castra latina

Over the weekend I had the wonderful privilege of going to Latin camp with eight of my best and brightest year eight students. It was a fun time, and I even learnt something. Here are three things I learnt on Latin camp.

• To cure a toothache, a Roman would take a bite out of a tree which had been struck by lightning, with his hands tied behind his back.

• The Romans found that one of the most effective ways to deal with the Carthaginian army's battle elephants was to get a pig, point it in the direction of the enemy lines, pour oil on it and set it alight. Nothing scares an elephant like a squealing flaming pig, apparently.

• A Roman century had only 80 soldiers in it, not 100 as you would expect (centum= 100). Originally a century did comprise of 100 soldiers, but when Marius reformed the Roman army he made the soldiers carry all their own equipment. There was no room in the tents for the extra equipment, so instead of making bigger tents, they kicked two guys out of each one, meaning that there were eight (rather than ten) men in each tent. The number of tents per century remained constant, and so a century was reduced from 100 to 80 soldiers.

The last two facts come courtesy of the remarkable James Adams.