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."
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.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):
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.
Juno: My dad had this weird obsession with Roman or Greek mythology or something and he decided to name me after Zeus' wife.The name fits Juno's character well, I think; she's beautiful, but has the potential to be pretty cruel. That's not the only way in which it's an appropriate name though- Juno (Hera in Greek) was also the Roman goddess responsible for childbirth.
Mark: Zeus' wife?
Juno: Yeah and I mean Zeus had tons of lays but I'm pretty sure Juno was his only wife. And apparently she was supposed to be super beautiful but really mean, like Diana Ross.
cum Iuno, aeternum servans sub pectore vulnus,
haec secum: 'Mene incepto desistere victam,
nec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem?
Quippe vetor fatis...
Ast ego, quae divum incedo regina, Iovisque
et soror et coniunx, una cum gente
tot annos bella gero!'
Juno brooded, still nursing the eternal wound deep in her breast: 'Am I to admit defeat and give up my attempt to keep the king of the Trojans away from Italy? So what if the fates do not approve... Here am I, the queen of the gods, the sister of Jupiter and his wife, and I have waged war all these years against a whole race of men!'
'et nunc cedo equidem pugnasque exosa relinquo.
illud te... obtestor...
ne vetus indigenas nomen mutare Latinos
neu Troas fieri iubeas Teucrosque vocari...
sit Latium, sint Albani per saecula reges,
sit Romana potens Itala virtute propago:
occidit, occideritque sinas cum nomine Troia.'
'And now I give in, and withdraw from these battles which I hate so much. But I entreat you... do not command the Latins to change their ancient name in their own land, to become Trojans and be called Teucrians... Let Latium live on, let there be Alban kings throughout the ages, let the Roman stock be powerful with Italian courage: Troy has died, let its name stay buried.'
'es germana Iovis Saturnique altera proles, irarum
tantos volvis sub pectore fluctus.
verum age et inceptum frustra summitte furorem:
do quod vis, et me victusque volensque remitto.
sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt...
faciamque omnis uno ore Latinos....
nec gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores.'
'You are the sister of Jupiter and the second child of Saturn, such waves of anger do you set rolling deep in your heart. But come now, lay aside this fury that arose in vain. I grant what you wish. I yield. I relent of my own free will. The people of Ausonia will keep the speech of their fathers and their ancient ways... I will make them all Latins, speaking one tongue... and no other race will be their equals in paying you honor.'
Related posts:
I discovered (thanks to rogue classicum) a funky new site the other day. It's a collection of lots of random but cool things to do with Rome- in the present as well as the past. Recent posts include Romans of the past as lego figures (see here for more), a chocolate coliseum and a pair of cons painted in the style of a Greek vase.The case of Rome is worth studying. How a small town on a river became the center of one of the mightiest empires the world has known, eventually dominating thousands of other small towns on rivers, is a source of many lessons. That Rome was mighty is not to be doubted. The sheer size the empire achieved is breathtaking: from the Firth of Forth to the Euphrates, from the Tagus to the Rhine, spilling over into Northern Africa, for a time the Romans ruled over most of the world known to them. What they didn’t rule over wasn’t worth having, they felt: they left what was beyond their frontiers to “barbarians”.
Another measure of their greatness can be found in the Roman influences that continue to be felt to this day. Rome’s local lingo, Latin, became the mother language of most of Europe, and Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese are still spoken all over the world. (The Germanic hordes beyond the Rhine, meanwhile, have managed to sponsor only one international language, albeit a successful one, English.) We also owe the Romans our calendar, with its twelve months and 365 1/4 day years; three days in our week hark back to three Roman days—Moonday, Saturnday and Sunday; and though we now use the Roman number system (i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi...) only occasionally, we use their 26-letter alphabet constantly.
Despite their power and might, another lesson about the Roman Empire forces itself upon us: how it’s all gone. The Romans reigned far and wide for centuries but now their empire has vanished entirely. A Roman today is simply someone who lives in Rome, a city that is beautiful because of its clutter of ruins. Such has been the fate of all empires: the Roman, the Ottoman, the British, the Soviet, to name only a few European empires. Which will be the next empire to fall, the next to rise?
A read a great little book towards the end of my holidays, called Dating Aphrodite: Modern Adventures in the Ancient World, by Australian Luke Slattery. It's a collection of short reflections on the influence of the Classical world on our times and on the author himself, and some very insightful thoughts on what we can learn from the Greeks and Romans today.The symptoms of anxiety are too common to categorise, yet they manage to sustain the psychiatric profession, the pharmaceutical industry, and perhaps late capitalism itself. Where would the market be without consumer therapy? Many seek answers in the New Age: in Eastern religions, Celtic earth worship, dubious gurus, dietary fads, crystals self-help manuals, spas, colonic irrigation. In reality the keys to inner calm are where they have always been- hanging by the door to Western Civilisation.
Stoicism and Epicureanism are worthy of re-examinationand rehabilitation in our restive anxious age. These two antagonistic creeds - an argument between body and soul, pleasure and virtue - are not easily reconciled. Nevertheless, it is possible to negotiate between them a pact that meets concrete human needs... The unfettered energies of Scepticism give us the confidence to put such famously antagonistic creeds to work in a united cause. After all, a truly therapeutic philosophy of life has first to align itself with the vicissitudes of life.
Epicureanism is a philosophical shelter which nourishes the fraternal bonds between men and women, because friendship, in the words of Epicurus, 'dances around the world, announcing to us all that we should bestir ourselves for the enjoyment of happiness'. The Stoic, on the other hand, has no need of a physical sanctuary; for the wise, the tranquil self is retreat enough. The aim of Stoic meditation, though Marcus Aurelius, was to 'send you back without repugnance' to life. Armed with the shield of Stoicism we advance upon life; lured by Epicureanism we retreat and repair. Zeno and Epicurus may have been opponents in the ancient world, but to me they are the most companionable of rivals: encountered long ago at a time of illness, I think of them as physicians of the soul.
But what characterised Saturnalia most of all was the role reversal of slave and free. Freeborn Romans would wear the pileus- a hat usually only worn by freedmen, and slaves would recline at luxurious banquets, waited upon by their masters. During this time slaves were also permitted to gamble, and could not be punished by their masters. It was a time of general relaxation, enjoyment and hilarity, much enjoyed by the Roman people- Catullus calls Saturnalia the best of days (die... optimo dierum) and attempts by the emperors Augustus and Caligula to shorten the celebrations failed, due to overwhelming popular support.
Here are two Roman accounts of Saturnalia, one from Seneca the younger, the other from Macrobius:
December est mensis: cum maxime civitas sudat. ius luxuriae publice datum est; ingenti apparatu sonant omnia, tamquam quicquam inter Saturnalia intersit et dies rerum agendarum.
It is now the month of December, when the whole city sweats. The right of luxury is given to all people; everywhere you can hear the sound of great preparations, as if there were some real difference between the days devoted to Saturn and those for doing normal business.(Epistulae Morales II.XVIII)
inter haec servilis moderator obsequii ammonet dominum familiam pro sollemnitate annui moris epulatam. hoc enim festo religiosae domus prius famulos instructis tamquam ad usum domini dapibus honorant: et ita demum patribus familias mensae apparatus novatur.
Meanwhile the head of the slave household came to tell his master that the household had feasted according to the annual ritual custom. For at this festival, in houses that keep to proper religious usage, they first of all honour the slaves with a dinner prepared as if for the master; and only afterwards is the table set again for the head of the household.(Saturnalia I.XXIV.22)
On the Sunday of the APEC weekend, Greens MP Ian Cohen took to the seas off Bondi in an action directed at APEC spouses, asking them to withhold sex until their husbands or wives stop all war and commit to binding greenhouse targets. Ian paddled out surrounded by police (on jet skis this time) to reveal a novel but historically proven message.
In keeping with the universal concept of survival ‘Make Love Not War’- Ian painted one word onto his surfboard and paddled through the waves.
The APEC spouses having lunch at the Bondi Icebergs were invited to consider a simple but potent word displayed by Ian from the water: ‘LYSISTRATA’
“Aristophanes wrote this tale about women who had grown weary of war. Led by Lysistrata, they succeeded where other aspirational strategies had failed,” Ian explained to waiting media. “My goal today was to place firmly in the minds of the political partners this ancient Greek play, which features the women of Greece going on a sex strike to prevent their husbands going to war.”
“It worked in Ancient Greece. It can work today. Spouses withholding sexual favours can change the world for the better.”
