Spirited: The Big Time

Like every discipline, Classics has a big national conference. It's known as the conference for the SCS (Society for Classical Studies, formerly the APA-- the American Philological Association). This year, I'm going to attend for the first time. I'm going to be presenting at the AIA (the joint association meeting for the Archaeological Institute of America). It should be a lot of fun.

I've presented at only one other professional conference (although I did a whole set of graduate conferences and even two undergraduate conferences). However, this one is on an entirely different scale. I'm very excited.

My presentation (and studying for my history exams) has inspired me to start working on a new project. I won't spill the beans yet, but check back to the blog every once and a while. I should have the beginnings of the project ready for public consumption in a month or so...

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 I wrote up this post originally using Eleanor Dickey's unpublished Greek Prose Composition because I found it to be a really useful guide.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/Spirited: Formatting in LaTex

I've been fighting with LaTeX for the last few days. I wrote my thesis in LaTeX because the formatting was so pretty, but I was really foolish. I am not a computer person in general and it didn't occur to me that I might want to deal with portions of my thesis in other contexts and trying to make a decent version of a portion of my thesis is problematic with LaTeX partially because I'm just completely hopeless with it and partially because it just takes a lot longer to make some of the stuff work.

In case anyone else uses LaTeX for writing, I thought I'd put up some pointers for writing in Ancient Greek. I had some problems with Teubner, which is what (I think) most of my friends used and I just wanted to use unicode polytonic Greek and enter it like I enter Greek for everything else. Unicode should work in every program, right? Well, everyone on the internet seemed to agree with me, but basically none of the ways that any one posted worked. It was really really really disheartening/frustrating. So I thought I'd post what I'd managed to do, just in case anyone else runs into the same problems.

Here are my system specifications:

• Windows 7
• MiKTeX 2.9 (which runs as TeXworks and a DVI previewer)
• Aspell
• Emacs
• + any packages MiKTeX prompted me to download throughout this process. If you have this, it will prompt you too so never fear.

If you don't have this system or any of this other stuff, I have no idea whether this will work for you. If you're using XeTeX I do know that this won't work. There are other ways, but you will have to do your own research on that (sorry guys).

Directions:

• Click on edit > preferences > editor > encoding > UTF-8 > ok
•  Make sure that your system is building to pdfLaTeX+MakeIndex+BibTeX
• Now insert this piece of coding. The bolded part is necessary, the unbolded parts around it show you where to insert it in your document
• \documentclass[12pt,twoside] {article}
  \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenx}
  \usepackage[LGR, T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage[polutonikogreek,english]{babel}
  \newcommand{\greek}[1]{{\selectlanguage{greek}#1}}
  \usepackage{palatino}
  \begin{document}
• When you want to type in Greek in the document, \greek{σκιαία}
• The bolded portion is the way to indicate Greek. The Greek goes inside the curly-brackets. For this to work, you must have unicode polytonic Greek enabled on your computer and type in it in the curly brackets. If you don't have it set up, I wrote up some instructions for Windows XP and Windows 7. 
• That's all!

I don't know why this works or why other methods didn't work for me. So far as I can understand, the  \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenx} tells LaTeX to use the unicode, the \usepackage[polutonikogreek,english]{babel} tells the document what languages you are writing in, and the \newcommand{\greek}[1]{{\selectlanguage{greek}#1}} tells it what the command is going to look like in order that LaTeX can recognize it. it seems to be working, anyway, which is all that matters.

Spirited: The Craft of Writing

 

I've been putting off working on my writing sample for PhD applications all summer. I have had a lot of other things to do, but I've also just been procrastinating-- doing anything else to avoid it. At first glance it might seem odd that this is the task which I have been avoiding. While I do find writing to be slow and difficult at times, I enjoy writing in general and I really loved writing my undergraduate thesis.

The issue is doing battle with my undergraduate thesis again. While I still believe in most of it, the copy editing is a mess and there are places where the writing is downright unwieldy or the ideas are expressed in an excessively convoluted manner. Yet, even this was not the main turn off. I've been hitting my head against the page restriction on writing samples for a long time. 25 pages is just not much space to express the ideas in an 80 page thesis. I honestly didn't think I could do that. In my head this was just something I couldn't get around.

For my birthday, my parents very smartly bought me a copy of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Avoiding drilling more Latin vocabulary, yesterday, I decided to read the beginning of this wonderful book. While I am not turning this into an article for publication, the book helped me feel that I could probably mine something out of my thesis to make a solid 25 page stand-alone piece.

One of the things that Belcher recommends is to read the paper through twice, once without a pen and once with a pen. Most of the time, I read the binder copy I have of my thesis which already has some notes with typographical errors and snide comments. This time, I borrowed the nice, clean, bound copy I gave to my parents. Looking at it clean and not looking for problems at the level of sentences, I realize that there are at least 10 pages I can cut out of my introduction and first chapter because I wrote my thesis in the hope that someone without expert knowledge of Plato (and particularly someone who had not read the Laws) could read and understand it (as it will reside in the library of my alma mater). My new target audience (1) will mostly be people who have a solid knowledge of Plato and (2) who don't necessarily need to be up on the data because they are more looking for argumentative structure and originality than understanding. I'm sure I will find even more passages that I can cut the further I go.

Beyond this, I noticed that my writing style tends to imitate the authors I have been reading most recently. During my thesis I read a lot of two wonderful scholars: Catherine Zuckert and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood. While I hope I incorporated some of their flair for analysis my writing definitely picked up some of their faults (Zuckert: over-inclusion of summary in arguments; Sourvinou-Inwood: clunky, overly-complex sentences). Divesting myself of some of this will also make my thesis more cogent and streamlined.

If anyone has any tips for doing similar things, I'd love to hear them. Also, so far, I would highly recommend Belcher's book. In the first 60 pages she tackled so many of my writing excuses and insecurities and made me feel like I should just go for it. I'm hoping it continues to be stellar.

Spirited/Reasoning: Verbs

I haven't been getting much of my Greek and Latin review done lately. In fact, I haven't been getting much of anything at all done. However, I decided to finish up inputting all of the verbs from Hansen and Quinn into my list of verbs. At the moment I have the approximately 100 verbs from there as well as around 50 verbs from Eleanor Dickey's unpublished prose composition manual. More to come.

Spirited/Reasoning: Stagecraft in Aeschylus

Usually when I read Greek drama, I don't consider the actual theatrical performance of the plays. Instead, I think about the language and the themes. The first time the actual staging became important to me was when I was assigned large portions of Oliver Taplin's The Stagecraft of Aeschylus in my Agamemnon class at my alma mater. Taplin explains the importance of the entrances and exits of the characters and the staging.

Recently, in the Garvie commentary which I have been raving about of late, the staging has come to my attention. Garvie explores a lot of the controversial aspects of the staging of the Persians in his introduction. I ended up dealing with this specifically in my presentation today in my Persians class. Taplin (and Garvie citing Taplin) discuss the difference between the two entrances of Atossa. At the first entrance, the chorus greets the queen with a full body prostration and the queen arrives decked out in rich clothing and she presumably arrives in a chariot. In the second entrance, she arrives on foot, possibly dressed in black, and carrying a set of libations. Her change in attire demonstrates the change in fate of the empire.

The presentation went reasonably well, thanks to some help from Propertius II with regards to the meter. Now back to more Lysias (of which I have completed two pages today and am hoping to read two more tonight).

Spirited: More Thoughts on Lysias

So my accountability scheme isn't working so well. I have been doing a bit of Lysias each day over the last few days, but I haven't posted it. I will definitely post some more this weekend. I've also been doing a lot of research on Lysias 12 and the Amnesty of 403 for my presentation on Monday. Should be fun.

Spirited: Accountability

So I am taking a class that only meets once a week. I haven't been very good about starting my work early and this seem to pile up. However, I want to do well. So I thought I'd be forced to do a little every day if I forced myself to post a little every day. Just a little random snippet of what I've read.

Lysias 12.1:

οὐκ ἄρξασθαί μοι δοκεῖ ἄπορον εἶναι, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, τῆς κατηγορίας, ἀλλὰ παύσασθαι λέγοντι: τοιαῦτα αὐτοῖς τὸ μέγεθος καὶ τοσαῦτα τὸ πλῆθος εἴργασται, ὥστε μήτ᾽ ἂν ψευδόμενον δεινότερα τῶν ὑπαρχόντων κατηγορῆσαι, μήτε τἀληθῆ βουλόμενον εἰπεῖν ἅπαντα δύνασθαι, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνάγκη ἢ τὸν κατήγορον ἀπειπεῖν ἢ τὸν χρόνον ἐπιλιπεῖν.

It seems to me that I am without a way not to begin the accusation, O jurymen, but to stop my speech. Such deeds with respect to their importance [were committed] by them and so many with respect to their number were committed that neither lying could I denounce more terrible things than the facts, nor wishing [to] could I speak the truth in its entirety, but it is necessary that either the prosecutor give in or time run out. 

I seem to have played a bit fast and loose with the grammar both in translating Greek and the English I used in order to translate it. However, I have a lot more to do before the classicist bread party tomorrow. So I will leave it here for now.

Spirited: The Platonic Process

I've been a little slow on getting my classics stuff up so I thought that I would put up something a little different.

Back in my junior year of undergraduate I was having trouble with my paper on the Phaedrus. Cerinthus recommended to me that I go to one of the group study rooms as the library and outline my paper on the whiteboards.

So, one night around midnight, I went up to the library with all of my books and I started working on my paper. Three enormous whiteboards and 2 hours later, I had the basic idea for my paper. When I got my apartment senior year, the two pieces of furniture I looked forward most to buying were a large whiteboard and bookshelves.

I had to do a talk for my research seminar, but I could write (and present) on anything I desired. So, of course, I wrote on Plato, specifically male lament in the Apology. I used the same process, but I only have my little white board from senior year so I did my thought process and kept erasing the board after snapping photos. My dilemma was the reasoning behind Socrates' hatred of lament in the apology vs. his (partial) acceptance of lament in the Phaedo.

It's been a ridiculously busy holiday so far. More substantive stuff soon.

Spirited: Bellum Catilinae 4

This is the final chapter of Sallust's proem to the Bellum Catilinae.

Igitur ubi animus ex multis miseriis atque periculis requievit et mihi reliquam aetatem a re publica procul habendam decrevi, non fuit consilium socordia atque desidia bonum otium conterere neque vero agrum colundo aut venando, servilibus officiis, intentum aetatem agere; sed, a quo incepto studioque me ambitio mala detinuerat, eodem regressus statui res gestas populi Romani carptim, ut quaeque memoria digna videbantur, perscribere, eo magis, quod mihi a spe, metu, partibus rei publicae animus liber erat. Igitur de Catilinae coniuratione, quam verissume potero, paucis absolvam; nam id facinus in primis ego memorabile existumo sceleris atque periculi novitate. De cuius hominis moribus pauca prius explananda sunt, quam initium narrandi faciam.

Accordingly, when my mind settled down after many wretched things and trials and I decided to spend my remaining life at a distance from the Republic, it was not my intention to spend good leisure in laziness or inactivity, but neither was I intent upon spending my life tilling a field nor hunting, in servile tasks; but having gone back to the same thing from which undertaking my zeal and ambition detained me, I made up my mind to write in parts the deeds having been done of the Roman people, whatsoever ones seemed worthy of memory; that much more because my mind is free from hope, fear, and partisanship for the Republic. Accordingly, about the conspiracy of Cataline I will set forth a brief account as truthfully as I will be able; for this deed I estimate is especially memorable because of the novelty of the crime and attempt. Concerning the mores this man, first a little must be explained, so I may produce the beginning of my narrative.

I think Sallust's proem, in its entirety, is quite brilliant. I did not expect to like a Roman historian, but Sallust's bizarre and interesting take on the world as well as a wonderful professor changed my mind.

Sprited: Bellum Catiliniae 3

I am continuing on with the proem of Sallust's Bellum Catilinae. I really grew to like Sallust during this term. He's a lot of fun.

Pulchrum est bene facere rei publicae, etiam bene dicere haud absurdum est; vel pace vel bello clarum fieri licet; et qui fecere et qui facta aliorum scripsere, multi laudantur. Ac mihi quidem, tametsi haudquaquam par gloria sequitur scriptorem et auctorem rerum, tamen in primis arduom videtur res gestas scribere: primum, quod facta dictis exaequanda sunt; dehinc, quia plerique, quae delicta reprehenderis, malevolentia et invidia dicta putant, ubi de magna virtute atque gloria bonorum memores, quae sibi quisque facilia factu putat, aequo animo accipit, supra ea veluti ficta pro falsis ducit. Sed ego adulescentulus initio, sicuti plerique, studio ad rem publicam latus sum ibique mihi multa advorsa fuere. Nam pro pudore, pro abstinentia, pro virtute audacia, largitio, avaritia vigebant. Quae tametsi animus aspernabatur insolens malarum artium, tamen inter tanta vitia imbecilla aetas ambitione corrupta tenebatur; ac me, cum ab reliquorum malis moribus dissentirem, nihilo minus honoris cupido eadem, qua ceteros, fama atque invidia vexabat.

It is beautiful to perform well for the Republic, also to speak well is not at all absurd; it is allowable that fame is made either in peace or in war; both [those] who do and [those] who write about the deeds of others, are praised in great numbers. And in fact, it seems to me, although not at all equal glory follows the writing and the accomplishing of deeds, nevertheless it seems especially difficult to write the things done: first, because the deeds must be matched with words; then, because many, which faults you might blame, they think they are mentioned with ill will or jealousy; when when you recount great virtue and the glory of good men, which whoever thinks easy for themselves to do, accepts with equal mind, [and] reckons as false anything beyond these just as fiction. But initially I as a young man, just as many, I was carried by zeal for the republic, and in that place many things had become adverse to me. For instead of modesty, instead of self-restraint, audacity, spending, and avarice grew strong. Although my mind detested these things, unaccustomed to wicked arts, although in the midst of such vice, feeble age was held by corrupt ambition; and although I differed from the mad habits of the rest, no less did the desire for honor the same as the rest trouble me because of reputation and envy.

I will put up the last part of the proem, chapter 4, next.

Spirited: Description of Sempronia

The description of Sempronia is one of my favorite points in the Bellum Catilinae. I decided that I would post it here, which I meant to do quite a while ago before I go back and finish posting the rest of Sallust's preamble (chapters 1-4).

Sed in iis erat Sempronia, quae multa saepe virilis audaciae facinora conmiserat. Haec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea viro atque liberis satis fortunata fuit; litteris Graecis et Latinis docta, psallere et saltare elegantius, quam necesse est probae, multa alia, quae instrumenta luxuriae sunt. Sed ei cariora semper omnia quam decus atque pudicitia fuit; pecuniae an famae minus parceret, haud facile discerneres; lubido sic accensa, ut saepius peteret viros quam peteretur. Sed ea saepe antehac fidem prodiderat, creditum abiuraverat, caedis conscia fuerat; luxuria atque inopia praeceps abierat. Verum ingenium eius haud absurdum: posse versus facere, iocum movere, sermone uti vel modesto vel molli vel procaci; prorsus multae facetiae multusque lepos inerat.

But among them was Sempronia, who often with manly boldness commits many crimes. This woman was sufficiently fortunate in birth and bodily beauty in addition to in husbands and children; [she is] learned in Greek and Latin, instrumental music, and dancing more than is elegant for a proper woman, with many other things which are instruments of luxury. But everything was always more dear to her than honor and modesty; you would have not at all easily decided that she was spearing money or fame less; in this way with desire being incited in this way in order that she seek men than be sought by them. But previously, she often betrayed trust, denied a loan, was aware of murder, and rushed headlong into ruin through extravagance and poverty. But her innate intelligence is not absurd: She is able to compose verses, to make jokes, to use conversation either with modesty, or with gentleness, or with boldness; in short, she is characterized by many witticisms and much grace.

I really love this description of Sempronia. She sounds fabulous.

Spirited: Sallust "Bellum Catilinae 2"

I am finally back to my Sallust paper after my Plato paper. It's going to be quite a rush to get it done. Anyway, as I'm working on the paper I thought I would post Chapter 2 of the Bellum Catalinae. It's been a while since I read this the first time and I found that English, in places, was more restrictive than I would like-- or maybe I'm just having problems with my Latin.

Igitur initio reges (nam in terris nomen imperi id primum fuit) divorsi pars ingenium, alii corpus exercebant: etiam tum vita hominum sine cupiditate agitabatur; sua cuique satis placebant. Postea vero, quam in Asia Cyrus, in Graecia Lacedaemonii et Athenienses coepere urbis atque nationes subigere, lubidinem dominandi causam belli habere, maxumam gloriam in maxumo imperio putare, tum demum periculo atque negotiis compertum est in bello plurumum ingenium posse. Quod si regum atque imperatorum animi virtus in pace ita ut in bello valeret, aequabilius atque constantius sese res humanae haberent neque aliud alio ferri neque mutari ac misceri omnia cerneres. Nam imperium facile iis artibus retinetur, quibus initio partum est. Verum ubi pro labore desidia, pro continentia et aequitate lubido atque superbia invasere, fortuna simul cum moribus inmutatur. Ita imperium semper ad optumum quemque a minus bono transferetur.

Quae homines arant, navigant, aedificant, virtuti omnia parent. Sed multi mortales, dediti ventri atque somno, indocti incultique vitam sicuti peregrinantes transiere; quibus profecto contra naturam corpus voluptati, anima oneri fuit. Eorum ego vitam mortemque iuxta aestumo, quoniam de utraque siletur. Verum enim vero is demum mihi vivere atque frui anima videtur, qui aliquo negotio intentus praeclari facinoris aut artis bonae famam quaerit. Sed in magna copia rerum aliud alii natura iter ostendit.

And so in the beginning, kings -- for this was the name of power first in the land-- kept busy pursuing opposite courses, some with the mind, others with the body; even then the life of men was conducted without desire, his own things were sufficiently pleasing to him. But at last, after Cyrus in Asia and the Lacadamonians and the Athenians in Greece began to subjugate cities and peoples, lust was deemed to be a cause of subduing, they thought that the greatest glory is in the greatest power, then at last knowledge was obtained through experiment and affairs that  the mind is the most able in war. But if the virtue of the minds of kings and rulers were strengthened by peace in this way as by war, the human affairs would be situated more similarly and more constantly, neither would you discern one thing be carried by another nor all things be mixed. for power easily is easily retained by those arts with which it was obtained at first. But where idleness instead of labor, and equally desire and arrogance instead of self-restraint has burst in, at the same time fortune changes with the mores. In this way, power always is transferred from a less good man to whomever is best.

These things which men [do when they] plow, sail, build, all depend upon virtue. But many mortals, having given [themselves over] to appetitive and sleep, pass through life ignorant and uncultured just as wanderers. To whom, certainly, against nature the body has pleasure while the life-force is a burden. For them, I estimate that life and death are equal, because about both there is silence. But truly he alone seems to me to live and to delight in his life-force, who being intent upon some occupation seeks famous deeds or reputation through good conduct. But in the great abundance of these things, nature shows one path to one, one path to another.

Paper is due in just over 24 hours.

Reasoning/Spirited: Gone Philosophizing

 

This weekend I'm working on a paper I am supposed to give on Tuesday. Although I outlined it over a week ago, I am still far behind the gun. It is on Plato's views on emotion in the context of the Athenian courtroom. While I was reading, I happened upon this (long) quotation in an essay by Josiah Ober and Barry Strauss [1] and it opened up a whole slew of thoughts unrelated to present topic:

"Demosthenes sets about proving this by point out that in the course of his speech Aiskhines quoted from Euripides' Phoinix, which he had never performed onstage himself. Yet Aiskhines never quoted from Sophocles' Antigone which he had acted many times. So, 'Oh Aiskhines, are you not a sophist...are you not a logographer...since you hunted up [zētēsas] a verse which you never spoke onstage to use to trick the citizens' (19.250)

The argument that underlies Demosthenes' comment says a good deal about Athenian attitudes toward elite useof literary culture. According to Demosthenes, Aiskhines is a sophist because he "hunts up" quotes for a play with which he had no reason to be familiar in order to strengthen his argument. Clearly the average Athenain would not be in a position to search out quotes when he wanted them; if the ordintary citizen ever wanted toquote poetry, he would rely on verses that he had memorized, and his opportunity to memorize tragic poetry was limited" (Ober & Strauss 251).

Although this seems obvious, it had never occurred to me that access to tragic texts might have been limited for much of the Athenian populace. In Book III of the Republic, Plato discusses a number of different passages of poetry. All of them come from the Iliad or the Odyssey and not a single one from tragedy, although the critique here extends explicitly to tragic drama. The choice of those specific passages from the Iliad and the Odyssey is an interesting topic, and one I explore thoroughly in my thesis. However, it had always baffled me  that not a single line of the tragic poets appeared in the text. The quotation above illuminates this question.

It also makes the character of Socrates more believable. Although it seems likely that Plato would have had the ability to seek out (ζητεῖν) quotation from tragedy, Socrates [2] was engaging in conversation and would have to rely on his memory in order to quote. Furthermore, Plato's Socrates is not particularly wealthy (although he has countless wealthy friends and associates) and spends most of his time walking or in conversation, not reading, writing, or researching. As such, he might not even have access to texts of plays and would have to rely on quotations from common knowledge. Thus, the omission of tragic quotation makes the character more believable, even as it renders the critique of tragedy a bit lopsided.

Endnotes

1. Ober, Josiah and Barry Strauss. "Drama, Political Rhetoric, and the Discourse of Athenian Democracy," Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context ed. John J. Winkler & Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp. 237-270.
2. Whenever I say Socrates, I mean Plato's character and not the historical Socrates.

Spirited: Sallust's Bellum Catilinae

I have not posted in a while because I have been rather busy with school and teaching. At the moment, I am writing a paper on the much-derided proem of Sallust's Bellum Catilinae (which I really like). I thought I would type out the sections of the proem and post them as I will be using them for my paper. Here is the first installment:

[1] Omnis homines qui sese student praestare ceteris animalibust summa ope niti decet ne vitam silentio transeant veluti pecora, quat natura prona atque ventri odoedientia finxit. Sed nostra omnis vis in animo et corpore sita est; animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum dis, alterum cum beluis commune est. Quo mihi rectius videtur ingeni quam virium opibus gloriam quaerere et quoniam vita ipsa qua fruimur brevis est, memoriam nostri quam maxume longam efficere. Name divitiarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis est, virtus clara aeternaque habebetur.

Sed dium magnum inter mortalis certamen fuit vine corporis an virtute animi res militaris magis procederet. (Name et prius quam incipias consulto et, ubi consulueris, nature facto opus est. Ita utrumque per se indigens alterum alterius auxilio eget. (Sallust, BC, 1).

[1]To strive becomes all men who apply themselves with the utmost of their power to surpass the rest of the animals [and] not pass through life in obscurity like cattle, which are inclined by nature and formed by obedience to their appetite. But our strength on the whole is situated in the mind and the body; we use more the authority of the mind and the servility of the body; one of ours is in common with the gods, the other is in common with the beasts. Consequently, it seems to me that to seek glory with the resources of innate nature rather than strength and, we delight in this life since it is brief, to produce a memory of ourselves as long as possible. For glory of wealth and bodily beauty is flowing and fragile, manly virtue is famous and eternal.

But for a long time there was a great contest between men whether military affairs turn out successfully because of body or virtue of mind. (For both before one begins deliberation and when one has deliberated, there is a need for a mature act. In this way and in another way through lack one requires the aid of the other.

Reasoning/Spirited: Classical Greek Accentuation

I am embarrassed to say how long I have not understood Classical Greek accentuation. I tried. My most recent attempt with Hansen & Quinn was more successful than the previous ones, but I was still confused. Finally, reading over the chapter for Prose Composition tomorrow from Eleanor Dickey's Greek Prose Composition [1] I understand. Here is what I learned:

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 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 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 verbs have recessive accents (they go as close to the beginning of the word as possible), except infinitives and participles (which have persistent accents).
• Recessive accents always appear over the antepenult or penult.
• In the optative, αι and οι are long at the end of a word
• 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
• If the final syllable 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 alwazs short
• Third-declension neuter nouns ending in -ς (e.g. γένος) have recessive accents .
• Monosyllabic nouns of the third declension accent the stem of the nominative, vocative, and accusative and the ending of 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.
• βασιλεύς-type and some other words have paradigm-specific rules.

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 is on the ultima and it is acute and the word is followed by an enclitic, it does not change to grave.
• If the main word has an accent on the penult:
• If the accent is acute
• If the enclitic is a single syllable, it takes no accent.
• If the enclitic is more than on syllable, it takes an accent on its ultima (either acute or circumflex)
• If the accent is a circumflex
• There is no change irrespective of the number of syllables of the enclitic
• If the main word has an accent on the antepenult, it adds a second accent on its own ultima.
• If several enclitics appear in succession, each one takes an accent on its penult, except for the last in the series.

Proclitics: (e.g. ἐκ, οὐ, εἰ, ὡς)

• Proclitics have no accents of their own and are accentual 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. This is not a published book. It is a manuscript Dickey put out in 2003. I am here reorganizing and summarizing what she says, re-explaining some of the concepts myself, and adding a couple of pieces from Hansen & Quinn and from my class today. If I make any mistakes (which I very well might) comment with corrections.

Spirited: My Paper

I am still writing my paper on the Parthenon frieze and then my art history final. More soon...

Spirited: Translation of Sulpicia 3 (Tibullus 3.15)

Although there is much in Greek and German that I should be translating, I decided to translate some Latin because I certainly must keep up my Latin.

Scis iter ex animo sublatum triste puellae?
     Natali Romae iam licet esse suo.
Omnibus ille dies nobis natalis agatur,
     Qui nec opinanti nunc tibi forte venit.

Do you know that the miserable trip has been lifted from the mind of your girl?
     Now it is allowed that she is in Rome for her birthday.
Here the birthday is celebrated by all of us,
     which comes now with unexpected luck.

I had some trouble with the translation, but I think it is fairly reasonable. I used the version from Minor Authors of the Corpus Tibullianum.

Spirited: A Very Poor Translation (Amended)

My original thought was to put up a translation of the German passage I am reading about Plato's Phaedrus. However, I realized that there is a very strict plagiarism policy at the school where I am taking classes and I would not want someone to think that I had taken my translation from the internet as my real name does not appear on this blog there would be little way to prove it was my work and it would be a troublesome affair. As such, I will simply post the paragraph that I have translated so far in the original language.

"Alles in allem erweist sich der Phaidros als ein Werk, dessen Teile wie bei einem Organismus (264 c2-5) wohl aufienander abgestimmt sind. Thema ist, unter welchen Bedingungen ein λόσος dem anderen uberlegen ist. Entscheidend hierfur is einmal der bedeutendere Inhalt, was in drei konkurrienden Reden vorgefurt wird. Die siegreiche ist die inhaltich reichste und tiefste: was sie entfaltet, sind die geforderten πλείονος ἄξια oder τιμιώτερα (im Vergleich zu den Reden, die sie unbertreffen will)" (Szlezak 47).

I am having a rather difficult time. The German is hard-- at least for me as I am just learning-- but I believe the endeavor is important. Wish me luck!