Appetitive: More Secrets from Giza

The Great Pyramid at Giza is the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Recently, robots using cameras have ventured into a small chamber hidden by a cover stone and revealed writing in red. Apparently, masons and work-gangs often left marks on the rock to indicate the origin of the workmanship in the same way that Roman roof tiles sometimes bear the marks of those who made them. I found this story on Egyptology News and New Scientist.

Appetitive: Xenephon

Three of my favorite classical scholars gathered together to discuss Xenephon on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time: Paul Cartledge, Edith Hall, and Simon Goldhill. I am listening to it right now. You can listen to it here.

Paul Cartledge describes Xenephon's Socrates (as depicted in the Memorabilia) as orthodox and boring, which is true. I have not yet pushed myself to finish Xenephon's Socratic dialogues for this reason.

Enjoy the podcast!

Appetitive: Indo-European Linguistics

When I teach grammar and vocabulary, I tend to digress. I always liked to to hear about words in a broader context, but it only interests some of my students. Today, I ran headlong into a discussion about Indo-European linguistics. I talked about the traditional hypothesis concerning the Indo-European homeland and the branching and differentiation of the different branches off of the language tree. It was kind of fun, but it went over the heads of most of my students. I think I really need to be teaching classics...

Appetitive: Plato and Egypt

In the Laws, Plato presents Egyptian art and music as a static set of arts rigidly regulated by custom. In the Laws, the Athenian Stranger presents Egypt as a potential model for proper regulation of the arts. This lead me to believe there was strict regulation of the arts. However, an Egyptology News article lead me to a New York Times article that explained that this impression of Egyptian art is false: there was a move toward the greater characterization of humans as humans rather than rigid forms following an specified pattern.

Spirited: Ian Morris on the Formation of the Polis

 

During an exam I was proctoring today, I set out once again to read Ian Morris' Burial and Ancient Society, which traces the evolution of the polis through burial monuments and other means. Morris is brilliant. One of the pieces I found most fascinating was a brief mention of Plato in the introduction. Morris argues that Plato is one of the few instances in history of extreme introspective political analysis directly after a regime change. Ian Morris contends that the reason for this is that the polis is the first truly political system: one based solely on political relationships and specifically on the context of citizenship. This makes a lot of sense to me based on Plato's analysis. More to come...

Spirited: Translation of Sulpicia 2 (Tibullus 3.14)

Long ago, when I first started this blog, I mentioned that I was going to translate the 6 poem cycle of Sulpicia. My favorite of the poems is Sulpicia 1, which I translated a long time ago. However, I had a little time today so i thought I woudl translate the second installment.

As always, I am happy for any translation suggestions. I used the version of the text from Minor Authors of the Corpus Tibullianum (e.d. John Yardley):

"Invisus natalis adest, qui rure molesto
et sine Cerintho tristis agendus erit.
dulcius urbe quid est? an villa sit apta puellae
atque Arrentino frigidus amnis agro?
iam, nimium Messalla mei studiose, quiescas;
non tempestivae saepe, propinque, viae.
hic animum sensusque meos abducta relinquo
arbitrio quam vis non sinit esse meo."

"My hated birthday is here, which must be miserably spent
In the troublesome countryside without Cerinthus.
What is sweeter than the city? But would a villa
In the Arrentine fields or the cold river be fitting for a girl?
Now, relax! Messalla is too eager on my behalf;
Frequently the journeys are not opportune.
Having been taken, I leave my mind and feeling here,
it is not permitted that she (i.e. Sulpicia) lives according to my own judgment"

I am a huge fan of Sulpicia's work. Enjoy!

Note 06/20/11: on second thought, I might retranslate the last two lines thus (in an attempt to keep word order and more elegantly translate the ablative absolute): "I leave my mind and feeling here, as I have been taken / it is not permitted that I may be my own master."

Spirited: Notes on My Thesis #4

I never realized how much work an 80 page document needs. Going back over my thesis, there are so many mistakes that I missed and so many articles that I should have incorporated to back up my conclusions. Anyway, I have decided to spend at least one day a week working on editing my thesis at a coffee shop. I started last weekend (although it was while I was proctoring an exam) reading Ian Morris' "Attitudes Toward Death in Archaic Greece" (JSTOR) and Norman Gulley's "Plato on Poetry" (JSTOR). I am planning on reviewing the articles as I read them.

More soon...