Reasoning: Greek History Review #11: Approaches to Greek Prehisotry

One  of the things that makes grad school challenging is that the classes offered have little or nothing to do with the qualification exams that we have to pass in order to advance to candidacy. As such, the exams are a really good excuse for procrastinating on my other work, because there is never a dedicated time to study for them. After studying for it periodically when my other work was getting me down, I decided that I will probably attempt my Greek History survey exam in a few months time,

Thus, since I finished my final paper, I've been studying Greek history (insofar as the holidays have allowed),  As I've been reading the books on my list (and listening to various lectures while I walk), I've notice a number of interesting and bizarre things about general Greek history (and by this I mean both Greek history as written for students or popular Greek history written for a mass audience).

• The last twenty years have radically changed the way in which Greek history is presented to a general audience, I make this claim from a number of different encounters with texts and I'll illustrate it with a few examples. 
• Back in 1992, Jeffrey McInerney, currently a member of the Art and Archaeology Group at Penn and the chair of the Classical studies department  gave a series of popular lectures through the "Great Courses" series put out by The Teaching Company. While the lectures were never going to be cutting edge, I was surprised at his complete disregard for certain archaeological innovations. Even though he has himself dug at Crete, he argues that we can't ever really know anything about the Minoans. Odder still, he waxes poetic about his admiration of Arthur Evans [1].
• The entirety of the Dark Age chapter in the 1999 edition of is based on the evidence of Homer instead of archaeology. To provide one of any number of examples, consider the foreign relations section (Pomeroy et al [1999] 59-60): "in the Dark Age, 'diplomatic' relations between one chiefdom and another were conducted by the chiefs themselves for by a trusted companion. As part of his training, Odysseus was sent at a young age to Messenia by his 'father and other elders'  on an embassy to collect a 'debt' owed to the Ithacans. This was a serious affair, for the Messenians had raided Ithaca and stolen three hundred sheep and their shepherds. If negotiations failed, Ithacans would stage a revenge raid, and the bad feelings would likley escalate into an all-out war" (Pomeroy et al [2012] 59).
• However, In the 2012 edition of Pomeroy et al's Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, the authors still present archaeology from the 60s, specifically the survey archaeology used to find settlements from "Dark Age," as a revolutionary tactic (Pomeroy et al [2012] 57).
• Also, something I've noticed about the presentation of ancient history in general (if I end up reviewing Michael Crawford's The Roman Republic, I will have plenty to say on this subject) is that the authors from pre-1995 (although I'm still it still happens more recently) tend to do a lot of moralizing about the history they are presenting. McInerney makes the hilarious claim that the Spartans' fall was partially due to their moral bankruptcy which was shown through their willingness to take their nearby neighboring Greeks (the Messenians) as slaves. I couldn't believe it when i heard this argument. First off, doing that kind of moralizing in a history text seems inexcusable to me. But second, seriously? The Greeks all took other Greeks as slaves-- mostly prisoners of war. Although Sparta's enslavement was more systematic it was essentially the same principle; the Messenians lost two major battles to the Spartans so they were essentially prisoners of war. I remember reading about a similar thing in the scholarship of the women in the Late Republic and Early Empire is the same.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I will be commenting on Robin Osborne's Greece in the Making 1200-479 BC shortly as well, so stay tuned in the new year.


Happy Holidays, everyone!

Appetitive: Thoughts on the Audio Aeneid

I have a confession to make: I've never been able to get all the way through the Aeneid-- until a few months ago.

I was assigned the Mandlebaum translation in my first year of undergraduate study. I think I managed to get through Book 6 before my interest entirely ebbed away (and the only part I actually liked was Book 5-- the funeral games). I tried again to get through the whole thing when I read Book 8 in the Latin my third year in college. I managed to get through Books 1 and; 2 (and obviously Book 8 in the Latin), but no further. Then, a few summers ago, I tried to read it again for my own edification with the Fagles translation. Once again, I just failed to get through it. Then, two years ago, when I read Book 2 in the Latin, I tried again with the Fitzgerald translation, but it was a failure.

There's something about the Aeneid that just fundamentally doesn't appeal to me. I'm not sure what it is. I just would rather be doing something-- anything-- else. So, since I have a 30 minute walk each way from my apartment to class every day, I decided to get an audio version so I could feel like I was doing something productive on my walks. It worked. I finished the Aeneid in about a week of walking and house-cleaning (audiobooks have save the state of my apartment).

I recommend this version. It's the Fagles translation, which is colloquial without straying too far from the text. Simon Callow's narration is a little over the top (and his female voices are quite annoying), but it kept me engaged in the story while I was doing other things. I actually noticed some interesting things (how many of Aeneas' actions are motivated by omens, for example).

Once I finished that, I started downloading other audio books of various other classical texts (including Ian McKellen's wonderful reading of Fagles' Odyssey). It makes me feel productive on my walks to and from class. More recently, I've been listening to Paul Cartledge's The Spartans, in order to study for my Greek history survey exam.

Appetitive: Three Random and Cool Grad Student Things

Yes, my title was oh-so-descriptive. I wanted to share three things for grad students that I thought were interesting that I came upon this week in various ways.

First, and most exciting, Living Greek. I don't know almost anything about the institute, but the idea of speaking to fellow scholars in classical Attic Greek and translating Homer into the Attic sounds amazing.

Second, even though my recent graduate orientation emphasized the necessity of aiming high when trying to get published, I thought that this list of open-access student journals in classics was useful.

Third, there is a cool conference happening this spring on food and consumption in the Ancient World. Over the last few years, I have noticed a growing set of cool conferences on things like synesthesia, touch, smells, etc in the ancient world. I think this one is particularly cool because it's for graduate students. Plus, there are some truly fascinating things about food in the ancient world from conceptions of ambrosia to Tramalchio's dinner and from the loaves perserved in Egyptian ovens to the preserved fish in barrels on sunken Roman ships.

Appetitive: I Knew Classics Must Be Useful For Something

I've been busy getting ready for grad school starting next week. However, I found this and thought people might enjoy it.

Source: Communication Studies

Have a nice day!

Apptetitive: Punic War Remnants

According to Italy Magazine, archaeologists have discovered large anchors and the remains of a ship's cargo off the coast of Sicily. They believe that these are vestiges from the Punic War that the Carthaginians left behind when quickly abandoning a hotly contested strategic position. The underwater excavation is ongoing.

Appetitive/Reasoning: Plato's Manuscripts

This picture is page 1r (screen 11) from Gallica Bibliothèque Numérique

Recently, I was wondering what the Platonic manuscript tradition looked like. I had never really thought about it before-- mostly I've considered manuscript traditions for plays or poems. I did a quick browse around the web and I found this amazing website that has a copy of Parisinus gr. 1807 (A). I haven't really even gotten a chance to look at it, but I thought I would put it up for anyone to browse. You can even download a PDF! How cool is that?

Spirited: Greek Dialects

Recently, I have been interested in the difference between the morphology in verbs of Attic and the other Greek dialects. I was wondering if anyone had specific recommendations for references speaking to this for Ionic, Aolic, Doric, and Koine. I would prefer to read something in English, but failing that, French, Latin, or German. Thoughts? Comment or email me.

Reasoning/Spirited: Updates on Classical Greek Accent Rules

Before I took Greek Prose Composition, I had a really difficult time understanding the rules of Greek accentuation. I wrote up this post originally using Eleanor Dickey's unpublished Greek Prose Composition because I found it to be a really useful guide. Doing some more review this summer, I found that there were a bunch of irregularities that I didn't account for in the original so I am adding them in now. Most of these additions come from Hansen and Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course. There may still be mistakes or obscure portions in here, so comment or email me if you notice anything that is incorrect or confusing.

As a side note, if anyone can teach me how to do a unicode breve above a vowel it would be much appreciated.

Vowel Quantities:

• ε and ο are always short
• η and ω are always long
• α, ι, υ can be long or short
• ει, υι, αυ, ευ, ου, ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ are always long. 
• αι and οι can be long or short depending upon circumstance.[1] They are long when:
• They are not at the end of a word
• When they end a verb in the optative
• When they end locative adverbs (e.g. οἴκοι)
• In some interjections (e.g. αἰαῖ)

Accent Types:

• There are three types of accents: acute (´), grave (`), and circumflex (^/~)
• The acute accent (´) can appear over any of the last three syllables (antepenult, penult, and ultima).
• If the last syllable is short, the acute vowel may stand on the antipenult, irrespective of the vowel quantity of the penult (the sort of exception to this rule is contract verbs. See verbs).
• If the last vowel is long, the acute accent must sit on the penult or the ultima. The one exception to this rule is in cases where the ultima is long by quantitative metathesis-- i.e. the quantities of the two final vowels are switched-- some nouns retain the accute accent on the antepenult even though the manifested form has a long ultima).
• The grave (`) accent may only appear on the ultima
• It may appear over long or short vowels
• It may only appear when it replaces an acute accent when another word follows without pause unless the following words is an enclitic.
• The circumflex accent (^) may only appear over the penult and the ultima
• It can only stand over a long vowel
• It must appear over a long penult when the ultima is short
• It may not appear over over a long penult when the ultima is long

Verbs:

• Most finite verbs have recessive accents (they go as close to the beginning of the word as possible). However, most non-finite forms have persistent accents.
• Recessive accents generally appear over the antepenult or penult unless there is a contraction.
• In the optative, αι and οι are long at the end of a word. However, αι and οι are short when they are the final letters in other verb forms.[2]
• Contract Verbs (and other contract words) have accents that reflect the uncontracted form of the words
• If the accented syllable is not the one that contracts, there is no effect on the accent.
• If the accented vowel is the first of the two vowels that contract, the resulting vowel will have a circumflex
• If the accented vowel  is the second vowel in the contracted pair, it will have an acute accent. 
• The example of παιδευσαι: παίδευσαι 2nd person singular aorist middle imperative (αι is short), παιδεύσαι 2nd person singular aorist active optative (αι is long), παιδεῦσαι aorist active infinitive (accent is persistent).

Nouns (and adjectives when noted):

• Except where noted, nouns and adjectives have persistent accent
• Nouns take their persistent accent from the nominative singular form. Third declension nouns have special accent paradigms that somewhat alter this.
• Adjectives take their persistent accent from the neuter nominative singular form.
• If the ultima is accented, circumflexes tend to appear in the oblique cases (genitive and dative) while acute accents tend to appear in nominative, vocative, and accusative. e.g. ἀγοράς is accusative while αγορᾶς is genitive.
• First Declension Nouns
• Feminine first declension nouns ending in α have a short α except when the α is preceded by ε, ι, or ρ, in which case the ᾱ is long (with a few exceptions)
• NOTE: feminine first declension nouns with a short α ending have recessive accents except on the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex.
• Genitive and accusative plural ᾱς (α is long)
• For masculine first declension nouns ending in ᾱς, the α is long.
• All nouns of the first declension have the genitive plural ῶν which is always accented with a circumflex, irrespective of accentuation rules. This is not true of first declension adjectives
• First and Second Declension Nouns and Adjectives
• If the basic accent is on the ultima, it is an acute in the nominative, vocative, and accusative, but a circumflex in the genitive and dative of both singular and plural in all genders
• Third Declension
• Third declension nouns ending in α, the α is always short
• Third-declension neuter nouns ending in -ς (e.g. γένος) have recessive accent, except on the gentitive plural, which takes a circumflex: -ῶν.
• Monosyllabic nouns of the third declension accent the stem of the nominative, vocative, and accusative, but accent the ultima of the ending of genitive and dative. Generally, the genitive plural takes a circumflex.
•  Although γυνή, γυνικός is not a monosyllabic noun, it is accented like one.
• τίς, τί the interrogative pronoun/adjective is monosyllabic (and essentially third declension), but the accent always stays on the first syllable (rather than switching to the ultima in genitive and dative).
• Words of the πόλις-type have accent that stays on the same syllables throughout the paradigm, irrespective of the rules of accent. This is because of quantitative metathesis.
• βασιλεύς-type and some other words have paradigm-specific rules.
• In the βασιλεύς-type, the nominative, dative, and vocative singular have accents on the ultima; dative and vocative have circumflexes. In the plural, the nominative/vocative and dative have circumflexes (in the nominative/vocative on the ultima and int he dative on the penult), while the genitive and accusative both have acute accents on the penult.

Enclitics: (e.g. τις, τε, ποτέ, ἐστί)

• enclitics have no accent of their own and follow accented words, whose accents they affect
• If the accent of the preceding word is on the ultima and it is acute and the word is followed by an enclitic, it does not change to grave.
• If the preceding word word has an accent on the penult:
• If the accent is acute
• and the enclitic is a single syllable, the enclitic takes no accent
• and the enclitic is more than on syllable, the enclitic takes an accent on its ultima (either acute or circumflex depending upon the length of its final vowel)
• If the accent is a circumflex
• there is no change to the preceding word irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic and the enclitic takes no accent
• If the preceding word has an accent on the antepenult, it adds a second acute accent on its own ultima, irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic.
• If several enclitics appear in succession, each one takes an accent on its penult, except for the last in the series.
• If some disyllabic enclitics are placed at the beginning of a clause or a sentence, they take a grave accent on the final syllable (or an acute accent if they are followed by a pause). 
• ἐστί, at the beginning of a sentence, is not an enclitic and it takes an acute accent on the penult: ἔστι
• If an enclitic follows an elided syllable (of a wierd either enclitic or not), it receives an accent.

Proclitics: (e.g. ἐκ, οὐ, εἰ, ὡς)

• Proclitics have no accents of their own and are accentually joined to the following word.
• If followed by an accented word, they cause no change
• If followed by an enclitic, they take an acute accent (from the enclitic)

Addendum: Fun Facts from Class:

• Greek words for the positions of acute accents: ὀξύς (sharp, pointed, quick, swift) τόνος (musical note) the idea being that the accent gives a rise in pitch (musical tone) to the vowel.
• ὀξύτονον-- acute accent on the ultima
• παροξύτονον-- acute accent on the penult
• προπαροξύτονον-- acute accent on the antepenult
• Greek words for the positions of circumflex accents: περι (around) σπώμενον (from "I drag") the idea being that the musical pitch is dragged back to its origin by the accent
• περισπώμενον-- circumflex on the ultima
• παραπερισπώμενον-- circumflex on the penult

Endnotes

1. In this section I am referring to the fact that they are long or short for the purposes of accentuation. In terms of meter, αι and οι are almost always long (although και can be long or short depending upon what is necessary for the metrical pattern).
2. This may not be the case if you are reading a text with iota addscripts instead of iota subscripts, in which case ᾳ, which is long, can be written as αι.

Appetitive: The Origins of Winemaking in France

Archaeologists have done a chemical analysis on an preserved amphora in Lattera at the base of the Rhone river which elucidates a possible origin for wine making in France. The article is pretty cool.

Reasoning: Grad School Reading List

So I've been (slowly) doing a little work on my reading list for grad school. However, I'm realizing I don't actually have any idea how to find the best commentaries on specific texts (either grammatical, historical, or literary). I thought I'd put up just a few of the titles in case anyone has any ideas.

Greek

• Aeschylus' Choephoroe
• Aristophanes' Frogs, Lysistrata
• Euripides' Trojan Women
• Isocrates' Panegyricus, Helen
• Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, Book II

Latin

• St. Augustine's Confessions, Book VIII
• Lucretius' Books I and V
• Quintilian's Book X
• Suetonius' Augustus

Reasoning: Learn Ancient Greek Online

A professor at the University of Missouri Kansas city has created a resource for teaching ancient Greek online. I found the resource posted at AWOL. Enjoy! 

Appetitive: Review-- Anne Carson's Antigonick

A friend of the family gave me a copy of Antigonick for my birthday. I was excited to read it. Two of my best friends both raved over it and I generally love Anne Carson. However, as much as I hate to admit this, I just didn't get it.

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really anything. It was a loose, quasi-postmodern translation of the Sophokles play with a sprinkling of moderately interesting language, quotes from Hegal, and some rather confusing drawings. It conveyed a sense of futility and desolation that reminded me of (but did not follow the tradition of) Camus, but not much more.

And there was a weird mute character, Nick, who "measures things". What things?-- well, as an audience, we don't know. My initial thought was that he provided a measure-- like the chorus was supposed to do in the ancient world. The chorus reacted, related stories, and as helpless witnesses, stood in for the audience. However, the chorus often has such insight (in their philosophical or mythical flights of fancy) or such blindness (when they are used for dramatic irony) in comparison to the audience, that I thought maybe, especially for a modern audience, Carson envisioned that it would help to have a character reacting-- thus measuring-- the play as a sort of intermediary. This idea made sense to me. And yet, that's not what he seems to be doing. Nick appears only once in the stage direction at the end of the play on the final page: "exunt omnes except Nick who continues measuring." This, in combination with Kreon and Eurydike's linguistic games surrounding the phrase "nick of time," inclined me to believe he was literally measuring.

I thought that I must be missing something, so I looked up a  couple of reviews online. It seems I didn't miss much. One review saw spirit and inspiration and one review hated the anachronistic touches, but neither seemed to be working with something fundamental that I missed.

One review reminded me that this is the second work of Anne Carson's in succession about mourning the loss of a brother (see Nox, which I loved). However, I'm kind of wary of such a biographical insight for obvious reasons.

Appetitive: Fun Online Classes

So while I've been reviewing my languages (and working a lot), I also decided that I should take a couple of courses online to keep myself engaged with the learning process in a more parametrized environment.

iTunes U, David O'Connor's Ancient and Medieval Philosophy: Professor O'Connor is the author of one of my favorite article's on Plato. He uses his incredible insight on Plato to provide an introduction for the beginning philosophy student. Although I love my Alma Mater, O'Connor's lectures are so much better than the first lectures I had on Plato. The class online is missing some of the lectures, but it's one of the things I've been listening to while I clean my room.

Corsera, Sue Alcock's Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets: Professor Alcock gave the Keynote Lecture at the Getty's "Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire." I noticed, when I heard her speak, that she was very engaging in a way that would make her the perfect person to teach undergraduate classes to inspire budding archaeologists. It seems fitting, then, that she's teaching this basic archaeology class. I've never taken an archaeology class, although I think archaeology is pretty cool. So this is a perfect course for me. Unfortunately, the book is super expensive, so I bought the previous edition and I'm going to hope that it is sufficiently similar.

EdX CB22X, Gregory Nagy's The Ancient Greek Hero: According to one of my friends, at Harvard, this class is known as "Heroes for Zeros" on the modal of the stereotypical "Rocks for Jocks" or Berkeley's "Physics for Presidents." And indeed, the class doesn't require a lot of work. However, despite the pejorative nickname, the class is a lot of fun and is quite engaging. Professor Nagy gives some fabulous insight into Ancient Greek song culture and the text of the Iliad.

Appetitive: The Decypherment of Linear B

I heard this podcast today about a female American linguist who devoted her short life to helping in the early stages of the decipherment of Linear B. Listen here.

Appetitive: Greek Paedegogy

The other day, I was at a book shop and I ran into the new edition of Mastronarde's Greek textbook, Introduction to Attic Greek. It's a very pretty book and it made me think about Greek textbooks. I've been reviewing my Greek grammar in preparation for starting grad school in the fall and I've been thinking about what introductory textbook I would use if I were teaching a introductory Greek course.

Although I know that Hansen & Quinn is the standard,I just don't find it particularly user-friendly. In the early chapters, the sentences are insipid and repetitive. Also, it seems severely front-loaded with forms (chapters 1-5 force almost all of the verb forms upon students, while units 6-11 slow down the pace, and then chapter 12 and 13 try to teach all of the irregular verb patterns). While it's a great text for review, I can't imagine it being much fun for someone starting out with Greek. However, I learned with Athenaze, which, while being fun, was a complete disaster for anyone trying to learn the language.

Egnatius learned with Reading Greek, which I've taken a look at a couple of times. While I like the idea of starting students off with large reading passages, there are some serious issues with the book (such as that it teaches only 5 principle parts-- which I think makes life more difficult than it has to be).

Egnatius left a number of books here because he's coming back for graduate school in the fall. One of them of his copy of the Teach Yourself Guides' Complete Ancient Greek. For the last few days I've been looking it over and I've found it really enjoyable. It's nice for a few reasons. First, it seems that it allots the amount of grammar that it teaches in each chapter pretty evenly so it doesn't feel like an overload at any point. The exercises are fun and interesting. Furthermore, the book is half the price or less than any of the other textbooks on the market. However, there are a few strange things. The explanation of contract verbs is too rushed and would be very problematic for anyone who hasn't learned Greek already (Betts 40-41). I think that this is a problem of the Teach Yourself series in general (I found a similar problem with verb explanations in Complete Sanskrit). However, a teacher might be able to remedy this. There are also one or two of the grammatical explanations that bothered me. I will probably be putting those up on the blog over the next few days.

Anyone have a favorite Greek textbook?

Appetitive: New Standard Translations

I had a really bad day, which capped off a really bad week, which capped off a really bad couple of months. But, tonight, I'm going to a lecture by Mark Griffiths and Glen Most on the new standard Greek Tragedy series which will replace the old Greene and Lattimore set. I'm really excited by the prospect of hearing what they have to say. I had the good fortune of getting to preview some of the material and it looks good (although I have a few quibbles with parts of the Persians). I will read more and add some commentary after the lecture. Needless to say, I think the new crop of students reading Greek Tragedy for the first time will have a great resource.

Things I Didn't Know: Tenses in Latin (Reasoning)

Since I haven't been able to post much, I thought I would post a few short notes now and again about things I encounter in my study of classics that I didn't know before. I encountered a few doing my Latin Prose Composition homework.

Bradley's Arnold: 180 [1]: dum (while) always takes an historical present when it denotes the time within which something occurs. I'm not sure if this was something I just missed or if it actually wasn't in my Latin textbook, but this was news to me. Amusingly enough, I bought this textbook used and the person who had the textbook before me circled this as well.

181: The Latin perfect cannot express the equivalent of the English "I have been doing"," so the Romans used the present plus an adverb connoting the idea of the past for the same effect. Teh adverbs are iampridem, iamdiu, and iamdudum. This definitely did not show up in my Latin textbook, but i also can't think of a situation when I've run across it "in the wild" so I guess I can't really blame Moreland and Fleischer for the oversight.

Notes:

1. Bradley's Arnold references are by paragraph number, not by page.

Appetitive: Reading For Pleasure

Have you ever tried to read a Greek or Latin text for pleasure? I have, but usually after the first hour or so, I put it down. It's not that I don't like reading Greek and Latin...I love it. But when I'm not compelled to do it for a class, it can become really frustrating. And worse, it's not about how hard the Greek or the Latin is, it's usually about my vocabulary.

When I read a Greek text, for example, I have to sit at my desk with the text, a commentary, All The Greek Verbs, the LSJ (or a smaller dictionary), Smyth, and sometimes various other references. After a while, I just get sick of flipping through pages. For school, I have to do it which forces me to power through, but it's just too many things to look up when reading for pleasure; especially when reading for pleasure only comes as a brief break from reading for school.

One of the solutions to this is old elementary and middle school textbooks. When I was in ireland I picked up a little copy of Xenephon's Anabasis, Book I, that was edited for children. It has a vocabulary in the back, a commentary, and it's slightly simplified. It also has the added benefit of being pocket sized, so sometimes I take it around with me and read when I have a few free minutes.

Even better, I found, are the texts on Geoffrey Steadman's website. The texts are unaltered (with the exception of a typo here and there). There's a list of core vocab at the beginning of each one, which must be memorized, but everything else is glossed. The commentary explains any wording that is even remotely difficult. Of course, Steadman rarely explains the reasoning behind the constructions, so it's nice to have Smyth or a big dictionary on hand, but it's nice to be able to just sit there with my kindle and read Republic Book I (only needing to flip back and forth between text and facing vocabulary). I hope that in the future, I'll spend more time reading Greek for pleasure. And maybe someday my vocabulary will be decent enough that I can do this with an OCT. Maybe...

Back Soon

Applications are in, GRE scores have arrived, still waiting for news. Midterms start this week. Hopefully after that, I'm going to start blogging again. I'm probably going to start with some notes on Latin prose composition.

Back soon.