De Grypis

'A' faciendum

2009-12-08T10:53:00.001-08:00

The 'A' must be made

Apparently, approximately 3/5--a distinct majority--of my students believe that they 'make' their grades, e.g. "I made an 'A' on that exam."

Out of construction paper? Thin air? It must be some sort of miraculous process; would that I knew the secret of grade making. And yet somehow they are all 'making' lousy grades...

It must be a Southern thing, although it doesn't appear to be universal down here.

You are now my unfriend

2009-11-17T17:32:00.000-08:00

Actually, that would be a new coinage. I don't believe that the ~~adjectival~~ nominal form has made it into the dictionary yet, but the verb "to unfriend" has been announced as Oxford's Word of the Year for 2009. Ah, the joys of Facebook neologisms. We may even need a neologism to define this specific category of neologisms. Any suggestions?

Among the others, I have seen 'sexting' cropping up with increasing frequency, but I believe my favorite is 'funemployed.' I have seen first hand the benefits of funemployment, and they seem, well, pretty fun. And "tramp stamp" is so 2004. Other favorites?

On a much less modern note, the English word 'friend' is historically interesting. It is one of the last remaining traces in Modern English of the old present participal suffix (along with 'fiend') so productive in Latin, where it appears as -ent (e.g. nom. sing. dicens [<*dic-ent-s], gen. dicentis). It comes to us through Germanic in which the suffix was largely lost. Thus it was, originally, 'the loving one.'

UPDATE: Stupid Blogger thought the above notation was a faulty HTML tag and cut my post. It has now been restored in full (though too late for GReader to pick it up, unfortunately).

What's in a paper, anyway?

2009-11-11T19:43:00.001-08:00

Does it seem strange to non-classicists that this bizarre, five line passage (from Tacitus' Agricola, chapter 12) can serve as the basis for a 20-some page paper? Well, it does to me anyway:

fert Britannia aurum et argentum et alia metalla, pretium victoriae. gignit et Oceanus margarita, sed subfusca ac liventia. quidam artem abesse legentibus arbitrantur; nam in rubro mari viva ac spirantia saxis avelli, in Britannia, prout expulsa sint, colligi: ego facilius crediderim naturam margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam.

Britain bears gold and silver and other metals—the value of its conquest. The ocean also produces pearls, but they are dusky and of bluish hue. Certain men believe that some technique is absent in the collectors; for in the Indian Ocean,the pearls are pulled out of the rocks still living and breathing, whereas in Britain, are collected just as they are expelled: I, for my part, would more easily believe that the natural quality of the pearls is lacking than our greed.

Also, I am on a quest for a highly-technical, possibly extant term which, if it exists, would be the term in structural engineering for, more or less, 'the point at which the force would cause a structure to collapse in the absence of a support.' Suggestions are welcome (with credit given! hmm? hmmmm?).

Huh?

2009-11-08T13:27:00.001-08:00

You all are watching football, because that's the only good thing to do on a Sunday afternoon (It sure beats reading Tacitus, at least). Therefore, you probably just saw the NCIS episode teaser. And heard this:

"He's as close to invisible as I've ever seen!"

That is all.

The Wicked Stepmother

2009-11-08T05:40:00.001-08:00

We are all familiar with the wicked stepmother character in fairy-tales (Cinderella, etc.). While the Brothers Grimm, those famous collectors of tales (and linguists!), surely had some hand in it, this representation of the stepmother seems to have much wider traction.

There exists already very early in the Greek tradition the concept of a proverbially cruel stepmother. By the time of Hesiod, the stepmother (μητρυιὴ) has distilled, essentially, into a single word formula for cruelty. In the conclusion of Works & Days (822-28):

Αἵδε μὲν ἡμέραι εἰσὶν ἐπιχθονίοις μέγ' ὄνειαρ·
αἱ δ' ἄλλαι μετάδουποι, ἀκήριοι, οὔ τι φέρουσαι.
ἄλλος δ' ἀλλοίην αἰνεῖ, παῦροι δὲ ἴσασιν.
ἄλλοτε μητρυιὴ πέλει ἡμέρη, ἄλλοτε μήτηρ.
τάων εὐδαίμων τε καὶ ὄλβιος ὃς τάδε πάντα
εἰδὼς ἐργάζηται ἀναίτιος ἀθανάτοισιν,
ὄρνιθας κρίνων καὶ ὑπερβασίας ἀλεείνων.

Some days are a great benefits to men on earth,
But others are indifferent, harmless, bringing nothing at all.
Someone praises one kind of day, but few understand them.
Sometimes a day is a stepmother, sometimes a mother.
He is fortunate and blessed of men, who
knowing all these things, works on, guiltless in eyes of the gods,
discerning omens of flight and avoiding transgressions.

The juxtaposition of the mother (μήτηρ) establishes a polar relationship, i.e, cruel : caring. But this minor contextualization is unnecessary for Aeschylus in the 5th century (PB 725-27):

ἵνα
τραχεῖα πόντου Σαλμυδησσία γνάθος,
ἐχθρόξενος ναύτῃσι, μητρυιὰ νεῶν.

...where
Salmydessa is, the jagged jaw of the sea,
A hateful host for sailors, the stepmther of ships.

A pan-Indo-European theme? Even broader? I need to do some more investigating.

The Italo-Celtic Hypothesis

2009-10-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I wrote a series of short papers--essentially exercises in comprehension and mental processing. The first concerns the proposed unity of the Celtic and Italic branches of the Indo-European language family prior to their separation into distinct language branches (cf. Indo-Iranian) This hypothesis is based on a number of shared innovations (and, perhaps, retentions), some of which are unique to Celtic and Italic. The paper is a brief examination of the evidence. An excerpt from the introduction:

The Italo-Celtic hypothesis, an Indo-European subgroup uniting Italic and Celtic into a single entity, has, since its inception in 1861 (Lottner Kuhns Beiträge 2.309 ff.), sufficiently intrigued generations of scholars as to gain a kind of cyclical immortality. This sort of immortality is not without death; on the contrary, the theory has perished many times,1 but has always been resurrected—including, notably, by Cowgill 1970 from Watkins 1966.2 The principal appeal of this and other theories of subgrouping lies in their contribution toward the resolution of a question fundamental in Indo-European studies, as framed by Watkins: “wie es eigentlich gewesen?” (1966: 29). An intermediate Italo-Celtic subgroup, existing in the vast temporal grey space between Proto-Indo-European and its relevant end-points, i.e., the daughter languages of the separate Italic and Celtic subgroups, provides valuable insight as to the process.

For the interested, the entire paper can be found here.

mutetur et resurgat

2009-10-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

May it be changed and rise again.

My long absence from blogging has been no accident. I found the rigidity of this blog’s self-imposed form and function off-putting, and was thus disinclined from using it as it should be (and hopefully shall be) used: as an open, easily accessible record of my thoughts, usually sketched in broad and indefinite strokes as, indeed, they tend to occur.

I was nudged back to De Grypis by three episodes in particular. The first was my encounter with the reflections of Chris Blattman, Yale development economist and one of my favorite bloggers, upon his two-year blogiversary. He recalls economist Dani Rodrik’s notion of his blog as academic memory (with Google), and agrees wholeheartedly. Rodrik, in fact, wrote:

[O]ne of the unexpected scholarly benefits of having a blog is that it is like keeping an intellectual journal. You get an idea, you jot it down in your blog. Some months later, you vaguely remember having had the idea and you google your own blog to recover it. I am not kidding: I google my own blog all the time...

I can well-appreciate his sentiment. Many are the hours of frustration I have spent groping for an idea which, only just yesterday (or two hours ago, or two minutes ago) so clear and comprehensible, has slipped beyond the reach of memory, especially of late. These are, at best, wasted hours and, at worst, wasted ideas.

A second episode really brought this home. In my research on an unrelated topic, I came across a linguistic analysis of a particular speech in the Iliad which may reinforce certain suggestions I made in a paper from my undergraduate days. Now that 2007 idea was developed into a full paper (misguidedly, perhaps—it was not received warmly by the instructor). I have that paper saved on file and so, if I choose, I may reinvestigate my initial claims in light of new evidence. But there are many ideas which do not end up in the permanent record; they are jottings in the margins of texts, little notes in the recesses of notepads that, neglected until the time comes for a full-scale paper, may be at that point inaccessible. These notes will find their natural home in a blog.

The third episode consists of the recent series of short papers I have written for a general class on Indo-European languages. These assignments require one to distill complex, far-reaching concepts--often treated at length in article, monograph, or book—into a brief 3-4 page paper. The process itself is immensely helpful in understanding the material, and the ideas extracted, boiled-down to their essentials, are suddenly seem more applicable in a wide set of contexts. They have certainly facilitated the strong conceptual framework that is integral to the study of Classics and even more so, Indo-European. Since the academic necessity of such papers that are, in fact, primarily mental exercises, will soon expire, I will turn to this blog—which, I believe, is an ideal platform.

The thoughts appearing here need not be fully developed or meticulously treated; such careful attention will be rare, as they are more useful to me as material for separate projects and, as it is likely, no more interesting (or perhaps, even less so) to my readers wholly fleshed out and with an eye for the particulars. Nor will I be bound to the limited domain of Classics, or even the more extensive domain of Indo-European studies. These remain my principal interests, a fact which will show in the frequency of subjects on which I will offer my thoughts.

Yet I would add that as I continue my studies, I have found that my observations outside my discipline can often be fruitful within it; at the very least, they tend to fuel the analytic thought-processes so vital to a thorough understanding of ancient languages and literature, inter alia. Moreover, the exercise of semi-daily writing should strengthen those prose composition muscles that might otherwise atrophy in the daily grind of a reading and translation heavy course load.

Please bear with me in these motives, for though generally selfish, they are not entirely so; it is my firm belief that these oft-fleeting notes will be more interesting to you than that which came before, and much more so than nothing at all.

I’m back.

Ω Σωkρατη!

2009-09-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

O Socrates!

Kudos to Abe for blogging this excellent meme. The entire collection is here.

And the words "meme" and "kudos" are more or less (less or more, really) directly from Greek.

(Update: My favorite.)

'malignus interpres' redux

2009-04-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have just put up an updated version of my paper on Martial's malignus interpres. The Scribd introduction below:

This paper undertakes an investigation of the oft-neglected 'malignus interpres' who inhabits the preface to Martial's first book of epigrams. The study attempts first to resolve the textual problem (inscribat/scribat) that plagues the line, and moves on to explore the 'interpres' using both diachronic and comparative synchronic methods. It ultimately attempts to formulate an answer to the question--Who is the interpres?--with regard to both identity and function.

I urge you lovers of Latin poetry--the majority of my readers for sure--to go check it out.

On an encomiastic note, Scribd is incredible! It offers free access to excellent, useful (and expensive!) books like J.N. Adams's Bilingualism and the Latin Language. Classicists take note--the future is here!

hoc adfigere cunctabam...

2009-04-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

I have been delaying posting this...for fear of it being adopted as a focal point in the ever-eloquent conservative argument against government stimulus.

The Fed's recent announcement (link with explanation by Krugman) of its new, nontraditional expansionary policy of "quantitative easing"--the functional equivalent of printing money--is an attempt to expand the monetary base with interest rates already hovering at the zero bound. Certainly conservatives have been less opposed to this measure than fiscal efforts (more often than not, on spurious grounds--the reemergence of the misguided 19th century British "Treasury View" has been the recent scourge of Brad DeLong among others); nevertheless, I though it prudent not to add ammunition, particularly as ludicrous arguments seem to dominate the discourse--even beyond Fox News.

The fact, however, illustrates an important lesson about etymology: historical context is important, at times to the extent that it is the only way of understanding a word's roots. The English words "money" and "mint" are derived from the Latin verb monere "to warn, to admonish"...

Hold the head-shaking.

"Money," in this case Roman coin, was originally "minted" at the temple of Iuno Moneta--Juno the Admonisher. The term is a transference by metonymy.

Let us hope, for the sake of an already pedantic national discourse, that I have not gravely erred.

Quis est Martialis 'malignus interpres'?

2009-03-06T17:18:00.001-08:00

Who is Martial's 'malignus interpres'?

The mysterious malignus interpres has been received as an unwelcome intruder to Martial’s preface; he occupies vital space—the traditional domain of a declaration of poetic program—but his presence has, thus far, served only to obscure a line that is autonomously problematic. Since the early 17th century conjecture of Heinsius, critical editions of Martial have failed to reach a consensus whether to read the standard scribat or, with Heinsius, inscribat. The identity of the malignus interpres has been subsumed by this controversy and, consequently, an investigation of the enigmatic interpres has been unjustly neglected. He is hapax legomenon in Martial, and his prominent position in the preface suggests semantic marking—which necessarily implies the question: Why interpres? It is a failure of scholarship that an answer has not yet been provided...

Until now.

in nomine Patris et Filii et...huh?

2009-02-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the...huh?

XKCD (via Brad DeLong)

quaestio publica

2009-02-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

A public poll.

If someone came up to you in the street and said "Isn't it paradoxical that the Catullan Martial is not a neoteric Martial?" would you know what he/she meant?

Well...would you?

Quid est in nomine bestiarum?

2009-02-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

What is in the name of animals?

Language Log has an interesting post concerning the formation of scientific nomenclatures which are named in honor of those who discovered them. Sally Thomason wonders why female scientists receive attribution with only the feminine genitive suffix -ae but males with -i or -ii.

The gist: non-Latin names of these biologists has been notoriously problematic, and different methods of Latinization have led to two different surface forms of the masculine genitive suffix. So while evidence of it is slim, there is no reason why femine suffixes in -iae and -ia should not be present.

However, contributions by Ben Fortson and Don Cameron are always worth reading.

Fortson:

So the reason all this is relevant is that let's say you want to Latinize a non-Latin family name. A non-Latin family name kind of corresponds to the gentilicium but also kind of corresponds to the cognomen; there's no exact equivalent either way. So one could defensibly tack on either -ius or -us to the non-Latin name to do the trick. Falling into the former camp are Latinized names like Gronovius (originally Gronov), Lipsius (-us or -ius and usually the correct one was used. This can extend to German names of ultimately Latin origin, e.g. Camerarius being the rendering of Camerer (chamberlain).
Mutatis mutandis the same issues obtain with women's last names. The names of Roman women were just feminizations of male names (Julia Greyia instead of Greya (to form the genitive greyae in Bathylagus greyae).

and Cameron:

The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (4th edition, Sec. 31.1.2) specifies one -i, but under 31.1.3, about preservation of the original spelling, both cuveri and cuverii are admissible. The trouble comes from different conventions of Latinizing modern proper names. Originally in Latin names like Marcus have genitive Marci and names like Livius have genitive Livii. So do you want to Latinize my name as Cameronus or Cameronius? You have a choice. Then the genitives would be Cameroni or Cameronii. Modern custom following the Code is to use one -i.

Check out the rest of the post here.

saevus...Boreas?

2009-02-13T05:57:00.001-08:00

Savage...Boreas?

Yesterday, the ferocious winds that laid waste to the greater East Brunswick area led to calamity for AlmostWorthKnowing's Abe Tran. As he documents here, his car suffered the unfortunate wrong-place, wrong-time fall of a hefty tree branch on its windshield and upper hood. Our condolences go out to him and his automobile.

He attributes this unlucky turn of fate to Boreas--in Greek mythology, God of the North Wind. However, after closely consulting the modern day weather augurs, I would say that the blame more accurately belongs to Zephyrοs--the West Wind--and it suggest that Mr. Tran ought direct future propitiations to this fickle Deity.

alienus in terra aliena

2009-02-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

Stranger in a Strange Land.

Not long ago, Brett and I finished reading Robert Heinlein's 1961 sci-fi classic Stranger in a Strange Land. Amidst the general fantastic silliness, the untranslated Martian word grok stood out as particularly ridiculous--and yet somehow, it was catchy (perhaps in the worst kind of way). Thus while the predictable plot and laughably stereotypical characters have quickly faded into hazy recollection, grok lives on in my lexicon...and apparently, in that of others as well.

It is casually used by Felix Salmon and Alex Tabarrok.

Also, while recently perusing the blogosphere, I stumbled upon this:

Warlocks and Morlocks
Don't grok door locks.

And finally, today, in my quest to determine the the identity of Martial's malignus interpres, I was seeking out a translation for German verstehen:

	to grok [sl.] (Amer.)		verstehen \| verstand, verstanden \|

I believe I speak rightly when I say--IT'S EVERYWHERE!

Quidcumque nobis Romani fecere?

2009-02-04T05:37:00.000-08:00

What have the Romans ever done for us?

The reminder of this classic clip comes via Chris Blattman.

ego, arbiter

2009-01-31T05:42:00.000-08:00

I, judge.

Over at The Worst Ever, I wrote a guest review of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

συλλογισμός

2009-01-30T06:27:00.000-08:00

A deductive argument.

And, what is worse, the reader often shares the writer's prejudices, and is far too well pleased with his conclusions to examine either his premises or his reasoning. Stand on a barrel in the streets of Bagdad, and say in a loud voice, "Twice two is four, and ginger is hot in the mouth, therefore Mohammed is the prophet of God," and your logic will probably escape criticism; or, if anyone by chance should criticise it, you could easily silence him by calling him a Christian dog.

Again, from A.E. Housman's The Application of Thought to Literary Criticism.

alea iacta est

2009-01-29T23:37:00.000-08:00

The die is cast.*

Via Newsvine, a comparison of the passing of the most recent economic stimulus bill...with Caesar crossing the Rubicon:

It was in the winter of 49 BC that Julius Caesar lead his armies across the Rubicon river. One imagines the glint of a veiled sun off frost-sheened armor and curved shields as thousands upon thousands of legionnaires wade through waist high water in the January cold at the command of a crimson cloaked Caesar. Their destination was Rome and there was no turning back - in crossing the Rubicon they had invaded Italy, declared war upon the government they served, and cast their lots with their commander. Alea iacta est, Caesar intoned. "The die is cast."

The Republican Party crossed its own Rubicon earlier this week, its ultimate fate just as uncertain as that which faced the man-who-would-be-emperor more than 2000 years ago. Barack Obama's stimulus package passed the US House of Representatives on Wednesday without a single Republican vote. Though the plan has been derided by the Right as full of pork and insufficiently focused upon economic stimulation, the political reality is that no one will remember these critiques in a few months' time...
The Republicans have crossed the Rubicon, they march upon the nation itself and will see it in ruin before accepting anything less than the full measure of victory. From this there can be no return and no half measures. The Republican party will succeed in its opposition or be destroyed in the process. Alea iacta est.

The parallel does not seem unreasonable, although I cannot say it was my intuitive reaction to the bill.

*I prefer "The die is cast" to the perhaps more common "The die has been cast." The former translation seems to really hammer the home the traditional stative sense of the perfect, more fitting here.

Lost explicatum

2009-01-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

Lost explained.

Chris Jones notes a Latin exchange between two characters on tonight's episode:

Just when I least expect it, this evening’s episode of the ABC Series Lost features characters speaking Latin to each other; and for the most part the actors try and duplicate a classical pronunciation.

The series is far too complicated to explain, but if you’re interested in seeing a little spoken Latin from primetime US television, you can view this evening’s episode here. The first Latin exchange is at the 14 minute mark:

Other 1: Quare non sunt vestitus eis?

Other 2: Tace!

Juliet: Cognoscitis qui sumus?

I am not a viewer, but I can offer this explanation (via Paul Kedrofsky):

PILOT: So, we have a little time and the auto-pilot’s on. How ‘bout you tell me about the island?

JACK: Well, we lived on the beach, mostly, except for the time we lived in the cave with the skeletons and the time we lived in the secret underground bunker with the lending library and the time we lived in the village built by the scientists that the people who don’t age gassed to death with the help of their leader, my third nemesis, the nebbishy con man with spine cancer, which we took over when the freighter people came to kill everybody. We ate wild boar and fish, and then the supplies stashed in the storeroom of the bunker, and then the scientists who the people who don’t age gassed to death were nice enough to replenish our food by airdrop, but only once, but that was okay, because the people who don’t age had some agriculture that we completely ignored while we stood in front of their refrigerators with the doors open. And I saw my dead dad just hanging around on the island, which I didn’t think too much about because I was preoccupied with the smoke monster and the baby stealing and the mind games with the nebbishy guy and my TOTALLY AWESOME tattoo which got my ass kicked in Thailand and the power struggle with my second nemesis, the formerly paralyzed bald survivalist mystic, who was, frankly, nuts.

PILOT: Nuts, you say?

JACK: Yeah, man of faith, thought the bunker wanted you to punch Hurley’s lotto numbers into the computer every few hours, and I was like, it’s a GAME, you lose, sucker.

PILOT: And?

JACK: So he finally came around after the shipwrecked sailor who lived in the bunker for two years told him that you had to punch the numbers, which obviously meant you didn’t have to punch the numbers. Which, come to think of it, I guess he was right in the first place. Missed the numbers, cratered the whole freaking bunker, knocked the guy who used to live there right into last Tuesday. Literally.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my dead father came back and kidnapped my secret sister.

PILOT: Um, okay. So … happy to be getting back?

JACK: Yeah, you know, I’m looking forward to having the time to grow a beard.

Mars laudetur!

2009-01-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

Let Mars be praised!

Campus Mawrtius does not post often. That is unfortunate. Today's subject of inquiry is close to my heart--How to be a Classical Philologist. D reads Laurand's Manuel des études grecques et latines, and offers up much simple wisdom. My favorite

The Reading of ancient texts.

This is too often neglected. People read about but never read Plato, for example.
How to read (different but indispensable approaches):

In-depth, slow reading (lente, pace Nietzsche)

understanding all of the questions
produces much fruit
one can never read all of Plato in this way, or can read Herodotus but misses the big picture

Very rapid reading

understanding the big picture, outside connections
ensures that you never become too narrow-minded

You need calm, privacy, tranquility if you are to be moved by reading the great works.

Certainly check out the whole thing. He also quotes the eminently quotable A.E. Housman on the subject. From his The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, D emphasizes:

Most men are rather stupid, and most of those who are not stupid are, consequently, rather vain; and it is hardly possible to step aside from the pursuit of truth without falling a victim either to your stupidity or else to your vanity. Stupidity will then attach you to received opinions, and you will stick in the mud; or vanity will set you hunting for novelty, and you will find mare's-nests.

That there are too few classicists like Housman, and too few blogs like Campus Mawrtius, is sad indeed.

frustra...

2009-01-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

In vain...

I blog substantively. Nearly half the visitors to this blog over the last two days have been preteens/creepsters looking for the Sailor Moon pictures I included in this post.

Should I add other random pictures in hopes of drawing traffic? What will work best?* Perhaps something politically fresh, pop-culture retro?

Yup, I officially have no soul.

*A top result for "Obama funny picture." This is my ticket to the top, baby!

linguae antiquae discendae sunt?

2009-01-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

Must classical languages be studied?

Via RogueClassicism, some kid from Columbia presents the case for a classical language requirement.

It starts of well enough. There is definitely substance to the formal-study-of-grammar argument, although he is not necessarily casting it in the best light. Grammar is sorely neglected outside the Classics (Consider asking a typical student of modern language X what a "subjunctive" is.), to the detriment, I think, of modern language students.

But he probably should have left it there. His stumbling world tour is a mess, although I do like this bit:

[S]tudying a classical language teaches students more about other cultures. For example, a two-year course in Greek might consist of two semesters of Greek grammar, and then a semester each of reading Plato and Homer. While the student of German is learning how to order a sandwich, his counterpart in Greek is reading the Republic.

Ich mochte ein Hamburger?

responsa

2009-01-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

Answers.

Roy has left several comments. They are clearly intended to be funny. Since I am sure that only the most audacious (read: bored) DeGrypis readers venture into comments, I will answer them here.

Roy writes:

So scot-free is unrelated to the people of Scotland. Could it be that the English gave Scotland its name because the Scots didn't pay their scots?

Via Wikipedia*:

The name of Scotland is derived from the Latin Scoti, the term applied to Gaels. The word Scoti comes from Greek Σκωτία derived from the word Σκότος (Skotos), which means darkness and refers to the fog and long winter nights of Scotland.

Roy writes:

So what about slugs? What came first, the word slug for a slow thing or the little slimy critter?

The quality predates the animal. 'Slug' is an entity defined by slowness and heaviness (perhaps more accurately here, density). Its origins are Scandinavian cf. Swedish dial. slogga to be slow or sluggish or Norwegian dial. slugg a large heavy body, sluggje a heavy slow person. It is thus we also have, in English today, bullets referred to as 'slugs,' although by no means slow moving, or 'slug-fest,' a fight characterized by many heavy blows exchanged. 'Slug' as a 'slow, lazy fellow' is first attested, via the OED, around 1425:

c1425 Castle Persev. 2341 in Macro Plays, A, good men! be-war now all of Slugge & Slawthe,e fowle efe!

Our slimy little friends do not appear until 1704:

1704 PETIVER Gazophyl. ii. §xvii, This resembles our small Slug, and like it, is whitish below, but brownish above.

And finally, Roy writes:

You make the field sound like a subset of anthropology based on language. Presumably it's more than that?

Also, how can it be just a coincidence that the English word DAY is from a different root? If this were a TV show about a pair of investigative philologists, they would share a funny look and then dig deeper.

The technical question first. We can trace the sound changes systematically through the Germanic branch (whence English) of PIE. These changes are consistent. They rule out the possibility of PIE base *dyeu-'to shine,' from which Latin dies. They fit, however, with PIE *dhegh-, which is manifest in Sanskrit 'dah'-to burn and Lithuanian 'dagas'-"hot season," The OED notes in this Germanic branch OE. dæ, OFris. dei, dey, di, OS. dag, OHG./MHG. tac(g), G. tag, ON. dag-r, Goth. dag-s, and OTeut. *dago-z. Thus we establish this as the root. There is, then, nothing coincidental about it. In fact, it makes pretty good sense that these roots should look similar in the proto-language, as they share much in common semantically--the link between light and heat is basic.

Anthropology is the study of humanity (literally, Gk. ανθροπος- man). It is, by nature, a blanket discipline. Extraction of the study of language, the very trait which separates man and animal, from mankind is, therefore, impossible. The answer, then, is yes, but a very trivial yes. I do not think it is possible to completely separate most fields from anthropology, including linguistics-- modern or ancient (perhaps only pure science and mathematics, if that). Consider the fact that the remainder of academic disciplines lie in the social sciences or humanities.

*It is usually best not to look to Wikipedia for etymologies, as it is susceptible to the folk kind, but the multiple sources here appear sound.

SHAZAM

2009-01-24T09:50:00.000-08:00

SHAZAM: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury.

I have fond reminiscences of childhood hours spent watching truly terrible cartoons on VHS tapes, among them, Shazam! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the official name--perhaps the inspiration for a certain soon-to-be relic of a search engine?). But today I learned something new, browsing the legitimately LOL-worthy* cracked.com [H.T. Marginal Revolution]:

The origin of Shazam! is that young Billy Batson, a 12-year-old homeless newsboy, follows a mysterious stranger into a secret subway tunnel and boards an empty train that takes him to the lair of a wizard who gives him the secret word "Shazam!" The word is an acronym for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury who all lend their respective powers to whoever yells the word with the least amount of shame.

Yes, you've read correctly, Captain Marvel in all of that skin-tight clothing, with his rippled muscles and dangling package is actually a 12-year-old boy who, thanks to a secret magic word he learned only by talking to strangers and following them into abandoned subway tunnels, has the amazing ability to instantly transform into the legal age of consent.

But although Mercury is included in this list, it is another hero who doth receive his gifts. This was the Sub-Mariner--also in our excellent collection--of whom Cracked writes, worthy of a quote in full:

Namor was the bastard offspring of a ship's captain and a member of a secret undersea race. We might be tempted to call him a mermaid, but the comic book insists he is technically "Homo Mermanus." A piece of advice for budding comic book writers, if you'd like to avoid cheap gay jokes at your hero's expense, perhaps including the words "homo" and "anus" in your character's scientific classification is a bad idea.

Namor has pointy Spock ears, can communicate with aquatic life, breathe underwater, possesses an enhanced physique to deal with the high pressure depths and, of course, has the obligatory tiny wings on his ankles that enable him to fly.

What's that you say? That last one seems a little out of place? Why would an aquatically themed superhero flit about on delicate little calf-wings? According to the creators: Fuck you, that's why.

*I laughed out loud, many times. Does that pardon of such a delightfully corny expression? No, no it certainly does not.

Estne serpens parvus?

2009-01-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

Is it a small snake?

In English, we call those charming little slimy gastropods "snails." The etymology is offensively dull. Via etymonline:

snail O.E. snægl, from P.Gmc. *snagilas (cf. O.S. snegil, O.N. snigill, M.H.G. snegel, dial. Ger. Schnegel, O.H.G. snecko, Ger. Schnecke "snail"), from base *snag-, *sneg- "to crawl" (see snake). The word essentially is a dim. form of O.E. snaca "snake," lit. "creeping thing." Also formerly used of slugs. Symbolic of slowness since at least c.1000;snail's pace is attested from c.1400.

The Romans were more observant. They called a snail a coclea, identical to their word for "spiral screw." And with their observation, the Greek tradition mixed in creativity, establishing my personal favorite (via LSJ): φέρ οικος--literally, house-bearer.

poenam fugere

2009-01-23T05:37:00.000-08:00

To avoid the penalty.

On James Fallows always stimulating blog, a discussion of new Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner's past tax "error" leads him to dip into his mailbag:

"Not an innocent error" dept:
1) I couldn't agree more about Geithner and after 8 years of the rankest, in-your-face demonstration of a two-tiered justice system in which every wrong doer with a white collar has gotten off scott free (who is this scott anyway?) or even been rewarded for his malfeasance I just wish we could go back to the pretense that we have a legal system that works one way for all the people.

Let me hasten to add: I'm so excited about Obama and his promise I could just about burst but this episode keeps me from bumping my nose against the ceiling.

Scott? I know Scott Free, more properly as scot-free. The expression comes from Old English sc(e)ot-a payment, contribution, ‘reckoning’; a customary tax laid on, or a contribution paid by subjects according to their ability; a custom paid to the use of a sheriff or bailiff; a local or municipal tax (OED). To go scot-free is to avoid such a tax.

pro philologo

2009-01-19T06:23:00.000-08:00

The case for of philology...

or Why I am not an Archaeologist. Cal Watkins presents the case for me:

The evidence that archaeology can provide is limited to material remains. But human culture is not confined to material artifacts. The reconstruction of vocabulary can offer a fuller, more interesting view of the culture of a prehistoric people than archaeology precisely because it includes nonmaterial culture. Consider the case of religion. To form an idea of the religion of a people, archaeologists proceed by inference, examining temples, sanctuaries, idols, votive objects, funerary offerings, and other material remains. But these may not be forthcoming; archaeology is, for example, of little or no utility in understanding the religion of the ancient Hebrews. Yet, for the Indo-European-speaking society, we can reconstruct with certainty the word for “god,” *deiw-os, and the two-word name of the chief deity of the pantheon, *dyeu-piter, Greek Zeus pater, and Luvian Tatis Tiwaz). The forms *dyeu- and *deiw-os are both derivatives of a root dyeu-, meaning “to shine,” which appears in the word for “day” in numerous languages (Latin dies; but English DAY is from a different root). The notion of deity was therefore linked to the notion of the bright sky. The second element of the name of the chief god, *dyeu-phter-, is the general Indo-European word for FATHER, used not in the sense of father as parent but with the meaning of the adult male who is head of the household, the sense of Latin pater familias. For the Indo-Europeans the society of the gods was conceived in the image of their own society as patriarchal. The reconstructed words *deiw-os and *dyeu-phter- alone tell us more about the conceptual world of the Indo-Europeans than a roomful of graven images.

That is from his excellent introduction to the American Heritage Dictionary's Appendix of Indo-European roots.

linguae Europae indigenae

2009-01-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

The languages of aboriginal Europe.

Don Ringe is a very, very smart guy. In his discipline, only a very smart guy writes this:

In the first place, if you want “reality-based” answers, take a scientific approach. Science may or may not reveal the existence of an objectively real world out there, but it does give results that can be replicated and answers that can be proved by anyone who knows how the system works. That’s good enough for me because I think it’s the best we can hope for. If people find specific scientific conclusions ideologically inconvenient, that’s their problem.

Thus, you should read his discussion, on LanguageLog, of the languages of Europe prior to the arrival of Indo-European and the eventual spread of our linguistic parent.

Per se

2009-01-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

Per se--more often misused or misspelled?

This is prompted by my recent observation and acute shock at "per say," but the first is painfully common.

Odysseus et Steve Irwin

2009-01-06T05:49:00.001-08:00

Odysseus and Steve Irwin.

What do the legendary voyager and the Crocodile Hunter have in common?

They were both fatally impaled upon a sting-ray barb.

The September 2006 death of Steve Irwin was, perhaps, no less tragic than that of Odysseus, who according to the lost Telegony, perished at the hands of his son by the witch Circe, Telegonus. The battle between father and son, neither who recognized the other, culminated in Odysseus's death on the his son's spear point--a sting-ray barb.

That bit of Classical lore is from M.L. West's Indo-European Poetry and Myth.

"dies ad gallipavonem edendum spectandumque pedifollem consecratur"

2008-11-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

"A day dedicated to eating turkey and watching football,"

as Chris Jones has aptly called it.

I considered writing a more meaningful post, something with sentimental value along the lines of a reflection on all the things for which I am thankful, but this was vetoed in favor of these other two pastimes. I am only now beginning to catch up from two weeks in England and Ireland, and would rather spend my time appreciating friends, family, football, and food; there is little better in the world than all four combined.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

per Britanniam peregrinans

2008-11-11T06:20:00.000-08:00

Wandering through Europe.

I will be accompanying Brett and Abe on a two week journey through England and Ireland. While an inspired moment may lead to a a blog entry from across the pond, I think it unwise to hold your breath waiting.

Until the 25th, salvete!

commemoratio meditationum

2008-11-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

A remembrance of Meditations.

Dana writes at The Edge of the American West:

On this night in 1619, after a night in which he swears he was not carousing, René Descartes went to bed in an overheated, stuffy room in Ulm, and had three vivid dreams to which he later attributed the eventual course of his life.

In the first dream, a strong wind battered Descartes, and he sought shelter in the church of a college, only to be pushed back by the winds. After the winds abated he found himself surrounded by upright people, while he himself tottered along, leaning to the left. In the second dream, he perceived a loud thunderclap and saw the room filled with sparks of light. This apparently was a recurring dream for Descartes, so he meditated on logic until he fell asleep. (It’s like counting sheep, but for intellectuals.)

In the third dream, Descartes felt no terror, but instead came upon a book of verse, the first line of which read “Quod vitae sectabor iter?” and another poem, presented to him by an unknown man, with the first line “Est et non.” Which way of life shall I choose? It is and it is not.
It’s no tolle lege, but it’s surely proof that the universe has a sense of humor, having man who would be identified with rationalism and whose books and teachings would be periodically banned, get his inspiration from a dream about a church...

One can read Descartes' Meditations in the original Latin here (You can also read it in English, if you must).

quare semper haec "ova" scribis?

2008-11-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

Why are you always writing these "eggs?"

The reign of idiocracy looms ever nearer. Chris Jones is affronted by this article, and rightfully so:

Imputing another’s motives based merely on personal feelings is solipsism–look it up if you don’t know what it means. And then there’s this brilliant insight:
A Campaign spokesman said the ban might stop people confusing the Latin abbreviation e.g. with the word “egg."
Really? While many readers might not know the letters stand for exempli gratia, I’ve heard more than a few who think it means “example given"–a workable definition–and not a single one who ever though it meant “egg".

My reaction is the same. Against such concessions to utter stupidity, we must come together and take a stand.

iō Philadelphias!

2008-10-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Go Phillies!

res publica argentarii principis

2008-10-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

The Republic of the Central Banker.

Brad DeLong has an excellent new piece in the American Prospect detailing "philosopher-prince" Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the history of the Federal Reserve. He concludes:

Cicero said that the problem with his political ally Cato was that he thought they lived in the Republic of Plato while they really lived in the Sewer of Romulus. It is either our curse or our blessing that we live in the Republic of the Central Banker.

The relevant text is a letter from Cicero to his friend Atticus:

Cicero Epistulae ad Atticum 2.1

Nam Catonem nostrum non tu amas plus quam ego; sed tamen ille optimo animo utens et summa fide nocet interdum rei publicae; dicit enim tamquam in Platonis πολιτείᾳ, non tamquam in Romuli faece, sententiam.

You do not love our dear Cato more than I do; but that man, although employing the finest mind and greatest trustworthiness, occasionally does harm to the Republic; for he gives his judgment as if in the Republic of Plato, and not in the filth of Romulus.

Highly recommended.

*Latin faex, faeces is the root of English "feces"

Nonne iocus?

2008-10-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

A joke, surely?

Via LATINTEACH:

Latin is undoubtedly becoming more and more popular because the quality of teaching is high, the methodology varied, and the content rich, rigorous and relevant. Latin teachers are working hard to inspire and educate their students -- by educating themselves through attendance and participation at American Classical League Institutes and Workshops, conversational Latin Conventicula (several listed here), blogs, online discussions, webinars -- and of course, old-fashioned continuing education coursework. Then they bring what they've learned into the classrooms. Latin teachers don't always agree upon the best way to teach Latin. There are often spirited disagreements, but this is just evidence that they are continually thinking about ways to expand and improve their teaching skills.

Some pretty good irony after our recent look at some real-world recollections of Latin class.

hodie gravissima conferentur

2008-10-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

Today the most serious things will be discussed.

At 9pm, all ought tune in for the third and final US presidential debate.

Chris Jones has a Classical take, borrowing from Quintus Cicero (brother of the famous Marcus) some particularly Obama-relevant advice. On the off chance you guys might check this out for once, I offer a translation of the Latin passage.

Primum oportet cognosci equites (pauci enim sunt), deinde appeti (multo enim facilius illa adulescentulorum ad amicitiam aetas adiungitur). Deinde habes tecum ex iuventute optimum quemque et studiosissimum humanitatis…Nam studia adulescentulorum in suffragando, in obeundo, in nuntiando, in adsectando mirifice et magna et honesta sunt. (VIII)

Foremost, the business class [equites] should be understood, and thereupon be sought (for it is easier by far that the generation of young men be joined to one's alliance). Then you have with you the best of the youth and the greatest zeal of character...for the zeal of young men in expressing public support for you, in attending, in conveying your message, in following you admirably, is both great and worthy.

scripta peritissime

2008-10-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Things written most skillfully.

The best sentence I have read in years haunts my every waking moment, begging, pleading, to be blogged. But because I retain the pretense of this being a Greco-Roman culture/linguistic blog, I have thus far painstakingly resisted this urge.

O Iuppiter! No longer can I refrain! Cunningly, I have found a loophole. I shall translate it into Latin. The context is simple enough; an elf, a dwarf, and Kuma, a minotaur, are journeying on a great quest to Amaranth Castle. This creative plot has been gifted onto us by way of another of my 7th-grade Verbal contemporaries:

...Kuma ictu in medium vehementi ursam dismembraverat.

...Kuma had dismembered the bear with one great blow to the waist.

No pun intended. Seriously.

And not that really weird plot elements are out of the ordinary in this compilation of literary masterpieces, but I find it very, very odd that these three characters spend almost the whole story inebriated, drinking, among other things, a "bottle of rum on the rocks."

rei argentarii de extrahendo

2008-10-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

Concerning the bailout of the financial system.

Brad DeLong is jubilant at the latest news.

From Tyler Cowen:

Marginal Revolution: The Deal:

Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were told they would each get $25 billion; Bank of America and Wells Fargo, $20 billion; Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, $10 billion each, with Bank of New York and State Street each receiving $2 to 3 billion. Wells Fargo will get an additional $5 billion, reflecting its acquisition of Wachovia, and Bank of America receives the same for amount for its purchase of Merrill Lynch.... The government will purchase perpetual preferred shares in all the largest U.S. banking companies. The shares will not be dilutive to current shareholders, a concern to banking...executives, because perpetual preferred stock holders are paid a dividend, not a portion of earnings. The capital injections are not voluntary, with Mr. Paulson making it clear this was a one-time offer that everyone at the meeting should accept.

Here is the story. No matter what your point of view, you ought to be stunned by this development.

I am not stunned. I w[a]nt to sing!

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace:
Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum
Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum:
Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae Israel.

If this doesn't revive the interbank market, nothing will. If this doesn't, I'm going to start training in flint-knapping to get ready to fight for cans of salmon in the aisles of Trader Joe's...

The text is the beginning of the Song of Simeon, Luke 2:29-32. I much prefer the Greek, as usual; the syntactical function of secundum is strange, and salutare as an abstract noun is decidedly non-Classical usage. Thus:

Νυν απολύεις τον δούλον σου, Δέσποτα, κατά το ρήμα σου εν ειρήνη,

ότι είδον οι οφθαλμοί μου το σωτήριόν σου,

ο ητοίμασας κατά πρόσωπον πάντων των λαών,

φως εις αποκάλυψιν εθνών και δόξαν λαού σου Ισραήλ.

And translation from the New Revised Standard Edition of the Bible:

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,

according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel.

Fitting words today. This is exactly the kind of decisive action the financial system requires to restore confidence. Furthermore, within this consensus view, the vast majority believe that this sort of move could have and should have come sooner.

It will be a fine day in January when the responsiveness of the government is no longer oppressed by the heavy burdens of a failed ideology.

hic et ille

2008-10-13T07:22:00.001-07:00

Odds and ends.

The short answer to Roy Yates's query on the origins of English histrionics is Lat. histrio, histrionis- "stage-player, actor", whence it comes to mean "theatrical performances, a deliberate display of emotion for effect." The origins of the word are Etruscan.

"Tu Betchus." This sort of makes me ill.

It's weird when you stumble upon someone you know (like, from the real world) blogging. For the random thoughts of as thoroughly Berkeley-ed a New Jerseyite as I can fathom...here.

discendi linguam latinam commemorata

2008-10-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

Recollections of learning Latin.

As expected, the classics blogosphere (Chris Jones et al.) has taken note of a recent NY times article on the resurgence of Latin in high schools across America. More interesting, however, is the reaction it has stirred up outside of this tiny community; the high-school reflections of Ben Wolfson at Unfogged are right in line with my own experience, and point towards a general trend in high-school classical education:

In Scarsdale, N.Y., where Latin enrollment rose by 14 percent to 80 this year, the high school sponsors a Roman banquet on the Ides of March during which students come wearing tunics and wreaths in their hair. Seniors serve bread, olives, roasted chicken and grapes to younger students, and all of them break bread with their hands.

Hot.

While I personally took Latin in high school because I thought it would be cool, rather than because I was under the impression that doing so would make me> cool, I believe that unbiased observer E. Klein can confirm that the Latin population at our school was home to the coolest of the cool. While I have noted before that it was exposure to the subjunctive in high school that set me on my current terrible path (my mother having failed utterly to get me to say "were" rather than "was" in counterfactual conditionals), it's less known that the main Latin teacher at my HS was also a practiced cock-joker, having once (or maybe more than once) claimed, for instance, that semen leaves his penis at improbably, and dangerously, high speeds. (Also: the contraceptive properties of anal sex. No doubt the frequency of such incidents is exaggerated in my memory, but it's still somewhat hard to believe that we ever learned anything, and that neither he nor the other Latin teacher, hardly any cleaner-mouthed, haven't been embroiled in scandal.)

Loyal commentators on that blog further confirm my suspicions. Oudemia writes:

Why are so many high school Latin teachers pervs? Mine was fond of telling the boys in class to get the girls on a boat, because girls lose all their morals on a boat. CA's Latin teacher (at ogged's super honky high school) was a flamboyant gay man who used to chase the girls around his desk crying "Give teacher a kiss!" and promising A's to whichever of them would show up to class in a "monokini."

Thus I am inclined to think that these Latin teachers are the norm. My own high-school Latin teacher was crazy (in a charming way), and excelled at telling to near exclusivity the dirtiest mainstream stories, revelling in translations which echoed crude modern sexual lingo. When we were tested on mythology, the fill-in-the-blank methodology reinforced the reduction of these fabulae to their lowest, most lacivous denominator. Thus the myth of Zeus and Danae became the tale of the "golden shower," and Zeus and Europa the story of the "bull-focker" (one student I recall as particularly zealous in attempting to say repeat this phrase as often as possible).

Likewise, Latin in my high school was not the domain of the cool or popular. By senior year, the "bull-focker" chanter and his like-minded comrades had abandoned the discipline, and it became the province of only a few nerds like me.

lapsus linguae S. Palinis

2008-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

The slips of the tongue of Sarah Palin.

Like a nervous 5th-grader overwhelmed by the bright lights of the elementary school auditorium, Gov. Sarah Palin visibly wracked her brain to recall long-rehearsed lines. In the midst of a semi-coherent, rambling delivery of well-known GOP talking points in her folksy, down-home and painfully irritating accent (although authentic), she managed to stutter her way, twice, to a particularly ignorant semantic error.

The culprit was the word attribute, the semantics of which she twice fails to grasp.

Here is Palin (via NYT, complete transcript):

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

And again:

And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner.

Attribute comes directly from Latin attribuere, a compound of ad + tribuere, and so literally, "to assign to." And so from the OED, it comes to mean in English:

To ascribe, impute, or refer, as an effect to the cause; to reckon as a consequence of.

1530 PALSGR. 440/1, I attrybute, I ascrybe the cause of a mater to one cause or other, J'attribue. 1626 DK. BUCKHM. in Ellis Orig. Lett. I. 329 III. 234, I cannot attribute this honour to any desert in me. 1794 SULLIVAN View Nat. I. 39 To the deluge he attributed the changes of the earth. 1876 GREEN Short Hist. vi. §1 (1882) 268 The shrivelled arm of Richard the Third was attributed to witchcraft.

Palin's mistake is the reversal of cause and effect. Attribute assigns result X to cause Y, e.g. I would attribute the horse's victory (X) to his speed and endurance (Y). Palin's muddled discourse consistently mixes it up, assigning cause X to result Y.

This seems a very strange mistake to me, but perhaps it is not so uncommon. What is uncommon, however, is the general stupidity of both statements. Do we really want someone a heartbeat away from presidency of the United States who doesn't believe in global warming?

fabula nova deum

2008-09-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

A new tale of the gods.

A relic of the days of my youth has resurfaced, an anthology of "creative" short stories composed by 6th and 7th grade Verbal (advanced English) students c. 1998. Alas, the collection for my class remains missing, but there are plenty of stories with which to embarass my friends. Also among them is this μυθος, the tantalizing, imaginative creation of...well, not even I could do that to someone. The text is an exact transcript (excellent emphasis mine, though); the images are best-possible substitutes for the actual reproduction.

A sincere thanks to Shelly, for unearthing this gem.

Why Lockers are So Small

One day Zeus and Hera decided that Aphrodite should go down to earth and see how the human children got an education. They decided that she would be a sixth grader at Hammarskjold Middle School. Aphrodite absolutely hated the very idea of her going to a MORTAL school. She argued and argued but in the end (as parents always do) Zeus and Hera won the dispute. However Aphrodite was not done yet. The way she saw the situation, since she was a god, and was only going to that horrible school for one day, she would cause a huge ruckus. Aphrodite was determined to bring master chaos upon the school. What she was looking for was revenge.

The next day it was arranged that Aphrodite would go to school as a human teenager. She would wear baggy jeans and a tie-dye T-shirt. That way she would blend in with the rest of the mortals. Since Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, she was the most beautiful of all the gods and goddesses (besides Hera). Although Aphrodite protested repeatedly the rest of the gods transformed her into a lovely looking young girl. She had very long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and she was medium height. Her hair was styled into an odango (see image). Her human name was to be Serena Serenity. Aphrodite was so determined to get back at her parents that she was ready to do anything. Aphrodite would do anything to aggravate them! However her parents expected her to rebel. Even they would not have liked to be reduced to a mortal for a day. So they tried to console her rage with many wondrous gifts. Some of these were a television, computers, and even a new CD set! Although nothing could console the screaming Aphrodite.

At that moment Demeter came in and asked what all of the commotion was about. Aphrodite told the entire story with no interruptions from either of the superior gods. When she was finished, Demeter exclaimed, "I think that this will be a wonderful experience for Persephone as well!" I think her mortal name will be Rini. Rini Serenity. She will be Aphrodite's younger sister. She will look just like her except Rini will have pink hair and red eyes. At that precise moment Persephone decided to enter. Demeter excitedly told her about adventure that she was to embark on the next day with Aphrodite. This goddess had the exact same reaction as the other, uncontrollable rage. Consequently, before she could say anything, Aphrodite told her that it was no use, and that they were being forced to go against their own will. She also told her that she had a plan. Aphrodite's plan was to find something that she children needed, and to make it harder to use.

The next day they were escorted to the school on Apollo's golden sun chariot. As they flew across the sky the felt the heat of the sun upon their backs. The young goddesses wanted to get to Hammarskjold, but they didn't. The goddesses wanted to get there so they could destroy something, and they did not because it was humiliating to be seen as a mortal.

Finally they were there. Everything was so exciting. Aphrodite and Persephone were so ecstatic that they barely noticed that very thing that they were looking for. The children were all running about slamming lockers, and trying to open them. There were even some bullies that came up behind some of the children, and spun their locks while they were being opened. It was chaotic. They both laughed their heads off. As they were laughing, all of the heads one by one slowly turned to stare at them. Soon the goddesses realized this, but by then it was too late, and the hall had grown quiet. They realized that they were giving themselves away so they both said, "Inside Joke!" Then slowly everyone went back to his or her own business, and they let out a huge sigh. Then a tremendous light bulb went off in their heads. "The lockers!" they screamed. It was so thrilling that they had found what they were looking for.

The rest of the day dragged on, class after class. Then finally after seven hours of hearing about the innovations and discoveries that their parents and friends had created, and found, the final bell rang. They went out of sight and were picked up speedily by Apollo. They were on their way home!

Then, just as the building was fading out of sight, the goddesses bestowed their terrible gift upon the world. The gift of small lockers. Childrens and teens everywhere were devastated. They now only had small lockers, with tiny boxes on top.

When the got home Aphrodite and Persephone's parents were burning with anger. Steam was coming out of their ears. As soon as they came into the room, they were about to be yelled at like they never had been before.

What did you two do? You are in big trouble now. The goddesses played it cool. They said that they did not think what they did was that terrible. They stated their side of the story. Zeus and all the other gods and goddesses involved realized that sending them off without their approval was wrong and unkind. The gods and goddesses apologized right then and there and politely requested that the goddesses take away their gift. It was only then that they remembered that once a god's gift has been given, it cannot be taken away. They said that no punishment would be brought upon them for their treachery. However, they made the goddesses bestow another gift (The school day ended at four o'clock then). Zeus made them shorten the school day to 2:57 p.m. That way it was fair to everyone.

May it live on forever in the Greco-Roman corpus.

quod legebam

2008-09-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

What I've been reading.

Michael Dietler Chap. 9-Iron Age of the Western Mediterranean p.275

For many years, a concept known as “Hellenization” served as the primary explanatory framework for understanding the consequences of trade and cross-cultural consumption that constituted the essence of the pre-Roman colonial encounter in Mediterranean France. Initially, this concept conflated both a description of the process of social and cultural change in the colonial situation and its explanation. It was axiomatically assumed that, even in the absence of a coercive imperial domination of the Roman kind, imitation or absorption of Greek culture (or that of other Mediterranean “civilizations”) by “barbarian” societies would have been a natural and inevitable result of contact. Hence, the focus of analysis was to chart the gradual clumsy progress of this self-evident phenomenon…The roots of this flawed interpretive paradigm and untenable assumptions of the inherent superiority and attractiveness of Greek and Phoenician culture and the one-way flow of transformative influences, can be traced to a tradition of Hellenophilia that had a powerful influence on the structure of cultural capital in modern European societies.

Whoops...our bad.

That is from Scheidel, Morris, and Saller’s excellent Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, which has pleasantly consumed much of the last week for me.

autumnus adest...

2008-09-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

Autumn is here...

and that means the beginning of a new semester. For some, it may mark an initial foray into the lingua latina. For others, the lazy otium of summer was no time for digging through grammars or perusing ancient texts.

Fortunately for both first-time discipuli and those scholars to whom the sun beckoned too often, Chris Jones at LatinLanguage has got us covered. His tips, here and here, ought help all get back on the right track for a successful school year.

imperia fidei

2008-08-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

Empires of Trust.

Thomas F. Madden's Empires of Trust argues for an exceptional quality which marks the Roman Empire and the "American Empire" as historical aberrations. Rather than functioning as "Empires of Conquest," expanding borders via force of arms, they build their empires primarily through alliances with neighboring states. These alliances are desirable to other states because of a hard-earned, time-tested "trust" in Roman/American responsible use of power. While towards this end he contends effectively, elsewhere I believe his project fails.

Much of the success of these "Empires of Trust" Madden attributes to an unwillingness to expand---a general isolationist attitude which is deeply set in the national character. Romans and Americans, he writes, have inherited this mindset from their forebears, the pioneering frontier farmers. This in itself is a possible point of contention, I believe, but as Madden takes it further, it moves into the land of the fantastical. The idea that this pervasive isolationist natural character translates uniformly and directly into a state policy of anti-empire building is rather silly. It implies that all state decisions, having been politically considered in good faith with regard to the public welfare, are in accordance with this doctrine, and that there is no false motive or political opportunism involved in the process. That, to me, does not stand with fact even in the age of the Roman Republic, which provides probably the best bar for comparison to the US. The tactical politics which resulted in alliances such as that of Saguntum in the late 3rd century, which essentially can be viewed as a declaration of war against Carthage, are glossed and obscured to square better with the "unwilling empire" thesis. Likewise are treated the US aquisitions of Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.

Moreover, calculating purely on historical precedent, Madden is strongly in favor of continuation of the Iraq War. He argues vehemently on ikts behalf; even the idea of John McCain's "100 years in Iraq" would no doubt leave him unfazed. His primary parallel is the Roman occupation of Judaea, a particularly bloody and terrible struggle, with horrific losses to both occupiers and the occupied. Nevertheless, it is in this chapter, focusing on terrorism in the state, that Madden it is at his best. He provides an excellent, intriguing synopses of individual events over a long, disordered epoch, while weaving them together into a fascinating tale which does justice to a period of monumental historical importance.

Polybius enthusiasts will enjoy; the author's voice is liberally integrated into the story. Liberals will immediately note a conspicuous conservative undertone. On the whole, it was a worthy read for its thorough examination and analysis of often poorly explained eras in Roman history. While I occasionally found myself in disagreement with certain attempts to shape events to Madden's project, I thought the conclusion was particularly insightful, a quelling tonic I would prescribe to the victims of the fear-mongering, doomsaying politics of this century.

A good, easy (with substantial doses of "pop" nonfiction flavor) read for the historically interested. Otherwise, duck it for its politics and not infrequent dry spells.

de Antikythera

2008-07-31T05:25:00.000-07:00

Via MarginalRevolution, the New York times reports the latest research on the Antikythera Mechanism [Ed. note: incredible how fast Wikipedia incorporates these new facts!]:

After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes...

The mechanism’s connection with the Corinthians was unexpected, the researchers said, because other cargo in the shipwreck appeared to be from the eastern Mediterranean, places like Kos, Rhodes and Pergamon. The months inscribed on the instrument, they wrote, are “practically a complete match” with those on calendars from Illyria and Epirus in northwestern Greece and with the island of Corfu. Seven months suggest a possible link with Syracuse.

ὀρθογραφία Ἄρκτου

2008-07-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

The spelling of "the Bear".

At Language Log, an interesting discussion of the history of the spelling and pronunciation of Arctic/Artic. The root, of course, is the Greek Ἄρκτος-Ursa Major, and thus "the North."

Also, at AWK Abe calls me out in a bizarrely entitled post to discuss some anomalous plurals.

Plus, via RogueClassicism, Hercules returns to the big screen: info here, here, and here. Based on a gruesome, gritty comic book series, this is neither Disney nor Kevin Sorbo. Is that a good thing? You decide---but we don't tolerate Kevin Sorbo bashing here at De Grypis.

More on the film later.

hic et ille

2008-07-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Odds and ends (lit. "this and that" [HT: Leslie and friends]).

My good friend Abe at AlmostWorthKnowing briefly mentions a bit of Latin etymology, and so I can use it as an excuse to plug his new blog.

Chris Jones at LatinLanguage's take on the oft-neglected Statius' Thebaid Book I.

One of the more Classics-y discussions at Roger Travis's LivingEpic blog---his perspective on the strange dual forms in Book 9 of the Iliad.

illla non intellexit quantum iocosum...

2008-07-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

That woman does not know how funny...

...her latest "insights" are. Philolog is at it again, I hesitate to recommend that you read the whole post, but among other silly observations (NB: consider "pediatrics"), an excerpt concerning her latest monthly "word of the day[?]":

One of the traits that many centenarians share is that they may be considered recalcitrant. See you in August!

I believe her research process stops at dictionary.com, but if she had consulted Lewis & Short:

II. In gen., to strike convulsively with the feet, of one dying, Ov M. 12, 240.

Ho ho. For conjuring a lovely image of old folks are kicking on their death beds, thank you Philolog. I don't believe that's what she was going for...

ad discendam linguam Latinam...

2008-06-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

To learn Latin...

Head over to LatinLanguage, and follow Chris's weeklong series on Latin grammar.

tractum ex annotationibus

2008-06-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

Drawn from comments.

Remarking on my previous post, Stephen inquires:

Do you have a source for this? I feel like it would be unlikely that the original [u:] sound of υ would be preserved in English. It would almost certainly have come into English via Latin, which merged it with 'i' at a fairly early date and other words that derive from Greek roots show the change already to have happened (The only example I can think of right now is "priest" which is from "presbyter", that doesn't show a remnant of [u], but that's gone through several stages before it got to "priest" so i'm not 100% sure about that).

He is right to wonder about a source; my etymological suggestion was rather speculative. The logic behind his concern is flawless, but I do not think not it applies here. There is a real lack of evidence that this came to English via Latin. The OED entry has "ptooey" attested only as early as 1930, with etymology and citations as follows:

ptooey, 19- ptui. [Imitative. ComparePFUI int., PHOOEY int., and also PTISH int., PSHAW int., etc.]
1930 O. LATTIMORE High Tartary xxvii. 273 ‘Ptui! Wrong again! Will you ever be fit for Official life? Ptui!’ Thus the Great Man, pursuing his orderly with a flying gob of spittle. 1977 Rolling Stone 5 May 5/2 Ptooey! Who'd stand for it? 1993 Albuquerque (New Mexico) Jrnl. 26 Aug. F6/1 What do you think this is, Lollapalooza? Ptui.

This first form [pfui] only has roots in German. The rest are of even more uncertain origin, and often falsely attributed to Yiddish. The Latin verb "spuo-to spit," which is connected to Gothic speiwan (LSJ), seems to have no correlation to any of these forms. Nor does Latin have any alternative onomatopoeic rendering for this expression. In fact, the OED seems to have little evidence definitively showing the roots of "ptooey" in any language besides English.

And so I return to my initial point which, having been forced now to think it through more thoroughly, is in need of clarification. I should not have said this expression is derived from the Greek verb; there is no concrete evidence testifying to this hypothesis. But I do not see any evidence to the contrary either. Therefore:

"Ptooey" was formulated in English independent of the Greek verb, and perhaps free of the influence of any other language. It is a direct onomatopoeic rendering of the sound of spitting.
My original hypothesis was correct, and "ptooey" is a borrowing of a Greek onomatopoeic rendering, a best-possible English imitation.

I don't think I can prove either one. But a bit of further speculation, just for fun...

I would briefly draw your attention to the earliest attested form in English. What is is about that name that looks strangely familiar? The famous Owen Lattimore, post-WWII public intellectual, Far-East scholar, and notable author is the brother of Richmond Lattimore, the renowned Classics translator of Iliad and Odyssey among others.

Perhaps, and only perhaps, Owen Lattimore was well-versed enough in the classics to be familiar with the Greek onamatopoeic verb, and attempted to render the sound in English.

Before climbing out onto a yet thinner and more treacherous limb, I will rest my case here.

ὀνοματοποιία εὐθύς;

2008-06-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Onomatopoeia directly?

Is our English colloquial "ptooey" or alternately, "ptooie" a direct onomatopoeic rendering of the sound made when a person spits?

It seems more likely it is derived from the Greek onomatopoeic verb "πτύω-to spit."

A fun and relevant passage:

Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.2.16

αἰσχρὸν μὲν γὰρ ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐστι Πέρσαις καὶ τὸ πτύειν καὶ τὸ ἀπομύττεσθαι καὶ τὸ φύσης μεστοὺς φαίνεσθαι...

For it is even now shameful among the Persians to spit or to blow one's nose or to appear flatulent...

potestas frumenti et benzi

2008-06-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

The power of grain and oil.

Apparently, not I alone am interested in the connection between oil today and grain in ancient Rome, about which I wrote earlier. Chris Jones at LatinLanguage has a thorough and fascinating discussion of annona, the market supply and price of grain in the city. He concludes [emphasis added]:

[T]he annona was an issue that always haunted Roman politics through the Republic. A repetiton of this basic pattern is seen in the Gracchi Brothers, Saturninus, Caesar and Clodius, cases where self-serving demagoguery is not always so clear a motive.

Though the unelected emperor didn’t need to worry as much about the plebs, the wiser emperors knew the power of public opinion and the role of the annona in swaying it (after all, it’s half of Juvenal’s famous panem et circensis). The most startling example is Vespasian’s victory in the Year of the Four Emperors (68 ACE); while Galba, Otho, and Vitellius raced to Rome to be crowned and deposed in succession, Vespasian moved to occupy Egypt and secure Rome’s breadbasket.

Oil is arguably as important to the modern American economy as the annona was to ancient Rome’s. It’s always dangerous to press historical analogies too hard, but their study can often provide a new insight.

I agree with nearly all of this. Power over a limited and valuable resource lends heavy political clout. The masses who rely on obtaining this resource within their budget schema are much more inclined to support a politician who can guarantee stable, cheap access. In the Year of the Four Emperors (68 AD), Vespasian wisely came to this same conclusion, and his occupation of grain-producing Egypt was instrumental in his victory.

But this last argument, I believe, would be a very difficult one to make. Oil is an integral part of the American economy. We depend on it to such an extent that our demand for gas, even with prices in excess of $4-per-gallon at the pump, remains relatively inelastic. Nevertheless, we do have some leeway, and are exercising these options. We are driving less (HT: MarginalRevolution) and using mass transit more often.

The Romans did not possess the same limited flexibility. As remains the case in poor and developing nations today, a shortage of grain did not mean changes in routine for the urban poor...more likely, it meant starvation and death.

Indeed, I think this final argument that Chris is not voicing particularly strongly. He rightly identifies the powerful allure of a closer comparison, and here likewise rightly resists it. His greater point about the politics is still quite correct. Just as the grain supply for Romans, gas is an essential part of the lives of millions of Americans, and so will feature prominently in political campaign (as it already has, most notoriously with the foolish "gas-tax holiday" pandering).

scholares linguae de lingua Latina dicunt

2008-06-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Linguists speak about the Latin language.

The bright fellows at Language Log have been hard at work of late dispelling myths about Latin.

Mark Liberman patiently teaches Graham Young of The National Forum that the Romans did not invent grammar:

The earliest systematic study of a linguistic system that has come down to us is that of Pāṇini (4th or 5th century BC), whose commentators reference several earlier accounts of Sanskrit grammar, such as Śākaṭāyana (8th century BC). The goal of this tradition was to preserve knowledge of the language of the Hindu religious canon, bccause in Panini's time, the language in everyday usage had changed so much (since the composition of works like the Vedas) that correct recitation and understanding of the sacred works could not be assured without explicit study.

He likewise takes it upon his shoulders to correct some false Latin etymologies offered by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1887 Zur Genealogie der Moral:

Most of the specific etymologies that Nietzsche offers are nonsense; for example:

The Latin word bonus [good] I believe I can explicate as “the warrior,” provided that I am correct in tracing bonus back to an older word duonus (compare bellum [war] = duellum [war] = duen-lum, which seems to me to contain that word duonus). Hence, bonus as a man of war, of division (duo), as a warrior. We see what constituted a man’s “goodness” in ancient Rome. What about our German word “Gut” [good] itself? Doesn’t it indicate “den Göttlichen” [the god-like man], the man of “göttlichen Geschlechts” [“the generation of gods]”? And isn’t that identical to the people’s (originally the nobles’) name for the Goths?

In fact, according to current scholarship, Latin bonus came from IE deu-² "To do, perform …", through the sense “useful, efficient, working”. And for German "Gut", see the discussion of good above.

Nietzsche's thoughts about Latin malus pile racism on top of anti-semitism:

In the Latin word malus [bad] (which I place alongside melas [black, dark]) the common man could be designated as the dark- coloured, above all as the dark-haired (“hic niger est” [“this man is dark”]), as the pre-Aryan inhabitant of Italian soil, who stood out from those who became dominant, the blonds, that is, the conquering race of Aryans, most clearly through this colour.

It's true that (e.g.) Lewis and Short identify mălus as related to "Sanscr. mala, dirt; Gr. μέλας, black"; but even the earliest Latin citations don't suggest any connection with dark-haired people, or with the lower classes of society either. Latin mĕlas, borrowed from Greek μέλας, just meant "a black spot on the skin". Liddell and Scott's entry for Greek μέλας does indicate that it could mean "of men, dark, swarthy", but none of the related Latin words seem to have had such a meaning. And other sources suggest that Latin malus came from IE mel-³ which already meant "False, bad, wrong" before the Romans went to Italy.

Of course, the logic of Nietzsche's argument from etymology is faulty, independent of the validity of its premises. (See "Etymology as argument", 6/18/2005, and the other posts listed here.) Still, the carelessness of his scholarship may serve to indicate the overall quality of his ideas — and it would be worth investigating, some day, why people who advance etymological arguments are so often wrong about their etymologies.

Both posts are well worth reading in their entirety. We are all in the debt of these Language Loggers, who take up the heavy burden of informing an oft-misinformed public.

καί μιν φωνήσας ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα...

2008-06-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

And he addressed him speaking winged words.

This from the Iliad, in Book 13 line 750 (and of course, elsewhere).

I am quite cheerful for two reasons.

Zmjezhd at Epea Pteroenta has kindly consulted the real experts, and produced a series of more detailed etymologies for tenebrae. Check it out.
My intuition was not too far off. The consensus that emerges on the evolution of the [n] in tenebrae seems highly speculative, and so I believe I was right to be a bit skeptical about the derivatives offered in L&S. Nevertheless, Chris's argument remains elegant.

quod cum nocte advenit. et omnia contegit.

2008-06-06T18:09:00.001-07:00

That which arrives with the night and conceals everything.

Chris Jones at LatinLanguage has a very interesting post about the semantic differences between three Latin words for darkness: obscuritas, tenebrae, and caligo. As usual, he has some excellent examples to illustrate his conclusions. I myself was doubtful if the etymology of tenebrae extends all the way to temetum and temulentus, but indeed, it is linked to Lat. timeo, from there to Sanskrit tamas-darkness, and finally to these more uncommon words.

A good linguist, I am sure, could offer some insight as to how tenebrae evolved from timeo. Alas, it is a better linguist than I.

ars Aegea

2008-06-05T08:23:00.001-07:00

113 Knossos throne room
Originally uploaded by winninator

Aegean art.

The artwork of the earliest civilized peoples of Greece, the tribes of the Aegean, is beautiful and unique. I can describe vases, statues, architecture and other creations of the era c. 1600 BC and the pinnacle of Cretan influence in the Mediterranean as breahtaking, but Mikhail Rostovtzeff can actually convey this sense with the elegance of his description:

M. Rostovtzeff Greece p.28-29:

Aegean art, so live and sparkling, is all full of humanity and individuality; it is free from the oppressive magnificence and majesty of the god-king, before whom his subjects are pitiable grains of desert sand before the sun; it bubbles like a fountain with vivacity and merriment; it thirsts for life and delights in life; it is intoxicated with sea and sun, trees and flowers, sport and war. These men reproduce life on their household utensils, on the walls of their houses, and in works of art; their fancy is not for separate figures or portraits---no portraits have been bequeathed to us by them---but for groups; and these groups are not rows of identical figures but related to one another and full of movement. The ornament is lively, impersonal, capricious, and infinitely various, finding models everywhere, both in the elegance of the geometric spiral and in natural objects, such as flowers and marine animals, and the odder these are, the better---cuttle-fish, flying fish, sea-shells.

This why the productions of Aegean art, sometimes sketchy and impressionistic, often childish in their simplicity, impress us so strongly after the splendid monuments of the East---the refinement of Egypt and the dramatic power of Babylon...But Aegean art carries us beyond the limits of the palace, and shows us other lively pictures; bulls caught with nets in the forest; the attack on a fortress by enemies who come from the sea; the ship carrying a statue of a horse (it recalls the horse of Troy); a funeral procession and rites performed at the grave. Their is not a trace of conventionality or tradition throughout, and there is hardly any repetition. The brightness and variety of the colours is surprising; their arer laid, one on another or one beside another, in the most unexpected combinations, with a constant endeavour to get novel tints.

Moreover, this allows me the excuse to post this picture of gryphons. Our favorite mythical beasts adorn the the throne room at Knossos c. 1450 BC.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from user Winninator.

Δημο-αρχία?

2008-06-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

Demo-archy? (Think oligarchy or monarchy.)

Michigan's Josiah Ober's 2007 paper questions today's perceptions of democracy:

In modernity, democracy is often construed as being concerned, in the first instance, with a voting rule for determining the will of the majority. The power of the people is thus the authority to decide matters by majority rule. This reductive definition leaves democracy vulnerable to well-known social choice dilemmas, including Downs’ rational ignorance and Arrow’s impossibility theorem. What I propose to do... is to look more closely at the original Greek meaning of “democracy” in the context of the classical (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.) terminology for regime-types. The conclusion is that democracy originally referred to “power” in the sense of “capacity to do things.” “Majority rule” was an intentionally pejorative diminution, urged by democracy’s Greek critics.

The paper is entirely interesting. Ober distinguishes between -arche and -kratos suffixes to differentiate control of the government and the capability to exert influence. The absence of monocracy or oligocracy testifies to the natural strength and capability of the individual or privileged few. By examinining the rights inherent to Athenian democracy---ἰσηγορία-equal access to address, ἰσηνομία-equal protection under law, and ἰσηψηφία-equal vote---and the use of ἰσοκρατία as periphrasis for δημοκρατία, he makes a compelling argument that democracy is originally and at its most basic level

“the empowered demos” – it is the regime in which the demos gains a collective capacity to effect change in the public realm. And so it is not just a matter of control of a public realm but the collective strength and ability to act within that realm and, indeed, to reconstitute the public realm through action.

This thoughtful piece could, inter alia, lead to some reconsideration of recent neologisms. Since we have a thriving punditocracy*, what would a punditarchy look like? Can we even begin to fathom a government in which political appointments and power was invested solely in the hands of our favorite---and most detested---political pundits? Can one argue that we have an indirect version of it?

These are big questions. I'll leave them to the real pundits.

Update: I somehow forgot to include the link to the paper.

*Can you believe there is no Wikipedia entry for this term?!

oratio, sed non Ciceronis...

2008-05-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

A speech, but not of Cicero...

The following is the beginning of Barack Obama's “Speech on Race,” delivered in 2008, which perhaps like the great speeches of Cicero, can survive the test of time. And, of course,---Latine scriptus.

I welcome translational comments from the Latin readers of the blog. For the rest, try reading it out loud. It still sounds pretty spectacular.

“Nos Populi, ut perfectiorem societatem statuamus.”

abhinc ducenti unetviginti annos, in illa basilica iam stanti in adversa via, his claris dictis illi conventi incepere suum democratiae inauditum experimentum. agricolae et docti, senatores et studiosissimi patriae, qui iter trans marem fecerant ut tyrannidem persecutionemque effugerent, tandem in eo conventu qui usque per verem in anno MDCCLXXXVII Philadelphiae constat suam veram declarationem libertatis effecere.

haec tabulae effectae demum insignatae sunt sed non ultime confectae sunt. has servitus, nostri populi nefas princeps, foedavit; cuius consultatio omnes provincias divisit dum patres decrevere ut liceat commercium servorum viginti quidem annos permanere et ullum ultimum consultum sequentibus saeculis relinquatur.

inerat enim resolutio de servitute consultationis iam in nostra Constitutione, quae civitatem sub lege aequam maxime habuit ac pollicita est suis civibus libertatem iustitatiamque et societatem quae possit et usque per temporem perficiendum sit.

And the English text (NYTimes):

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

I would eventually like to try my hand at the rest of this speech. Could there be a better way to spend a Sunday morning than with an exercise in Latin composition...?

Also, I apologize for the light blogging. I am making the great trek back across the country, and will return as quickly as I can.

πάλιν εἰς πᾶσαν παιδείαν ἀνηκέτω.

2008-05-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

Let it come back into every education.

Xenophon's Cyropaedia frames the life of the Persian king with a discussion of the education of Persian boys. According to Xenophon, the emphasis of the Persian education system was on justice. Boys spent long hours training in the art of judgement, participating in trials of sorts in which they brought one another up on various charges. But one particular charge leaps out, perhaps a testament to the erosion of certain values in today's culture.

Xenophon Cyropaedia 1.2.7.2

δικάζουσι δὲ καὶ ἐγκλήματος οὗ ἕνεκα ἄνθρωποι μισοῦσι μὲν ἀλλήλους
μάλιστα, δικάζονται δὲ ἥκιστα, ἀχαριστίας, καὶ ὃν ἂν γνῶσι
δυνάμενον μὲν χάριν ἀποδιδόναι, μὴ ἀποδιδόντα δέ, κολάζουσι
καὶ τοῦτον ἰσχυρῶς. οἴονται γὰρ τοὺς ἀχαρίστους
καὶ περὶ θεοὺς ἂν μάλιστα ἀμελῶς ἔχειν καὶ περὶ γονέας
καὶ πατρίδα καὶ φίλους. ἕπεσθαι δὲ δοκεῖ μάλιστα τῇ
ἀχαριστίᾳ ἡ ἀναισχυντία.

They bring [others] to trial on a charge, one for the sake of which men hate one another most of all, but are the least prosecuted, that of ingratitude; and he whom they know capable of returning a favor, and yet is not returning it, they punish this man strongly. For they believe that ungrateful men live their lives neglectful of the gods and parents and homeland and friends. It seemed, most of all, that shamefulness followed on the heels of ingratitude.

Gratitude is sorely neglected as a virtue these days. As a student, I can recognize the enormous debts I've piled up to certain individuals in my academic career, and yet, the chances to recognize them are all too few. Today, at least, I can discharge one such debt. Strangely enough, Brad DeLong was directly responsible for my introduction to blog reading, and in turn, to participation in this sphere. He was also kind enough to cite my fledgling blog yesterday, and greatly add to the trickle of readers coming this way. So do me (and yourself) a favor, and check out his latest amusing not-quite-ancient dialogue.

Thanks Professor DeLong.

τὸ λεχικόν ἀναχρονίζεται.

2008-05-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

The dictionary is anachronous.

H.G. Liddell and R. Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (more fondly “The Big Liddell”) was first published in 1843, and the ninth and most recent edition in 1940. As such, this necessary tool for translators contains more than a few words with definitions that feel...more than a touch out of date. These have set many a novice student translator stumbling and mumbling through a “yea, verily” or three. But while interjections and transitory particles may be the most conspicuous culprits, there are other words which lie beneath the surface, awaiting the unwary.

I wrote a short piece on one such word a year or so back. Entitled a “Rarely Udder-ed Word,” it takes a look at a particularly rare word in the ancient Greek corpus. I would like to initiate what I hope to become an ongoing theme here at DeGrypis with my take on this word, revamped a bit for clarity and brevity.

εὔθηλος, εὔθηλον- adj. with distended udder

This word is rare in the Greek corpus. In fact, in all its forms it appears only four times in all Greek texts according to LSJ and the Thesaurus Linguae Gracae. However, because of its slightly strange definition, when I first came across it in Euripides’ Bacchae in line 737, I was mystified, at a loss for a good way to render the word in English. The presence of εὐ at the forefront indicates it as a positive quality. Research on distended udders reveals that a distended udder is both a sign of the udder being full of milk and the approach of birthing. However, the top Google returns for “distended udder” are almost uniformly negative (almost uniformly-one result is a cheerful classicist directly rendering Horace's Odes). In these unfortunate cases, it is a painful symptom of mastitis, which stems from negligence in a farmer’s milking and thus of the brutality common in the beef and dairy industries. The overhwelmingly negative modern connotations alone suggest that it the implications of word to Mr. Liddell and Mr. Scott must be reconciled with those of the modern reader. But further issues arise.

It can be found in the Greek corpus as follows:

1) Euripides’ Bacchae line 737
καὶ τὴν μὲν ἂν προσεῖδες εὔθηλον πόριν

2) Euripides’ Ipigenia Aulidensis line 579
εὔθηλοι δὲ τρέφοντο βόες

3) Anthologia Graeca Book 9 epigram 224 line 1
Αἶγά με τὴν εὔθηλον, ὅσων ἐκένωσεν ἀμολγεὺς

4) Lycophron Alexandra line 1328
Μύστῃ Τροπαίας μαστὸν εὔθηλον θεᾶς

All four appearances are in poetry, three of these in tragedy. In translation, “with distended udder” seems terribly awkward in translating poetry (especially in the final example, in which it describes the breast of a goddess, no less!), which leads me to search for a more colloquial or at least, verse friendly, translation. In pursuit of this end, I look to the origins of this word.

LSJ places the adjective under the verb εὐθηλέομαι- “to be well-suckled, to be fatted up”. The participial form of this verb appears earlier in tragedy:

5) Aeschylus Fragmenta Tetralogy 44.A.616a line 2
‘ἐγὼ δὲ χοῖρον καὶ μάλ' εὐθηλούμενον
τόνδ' ἐν νοτοῦντι κριβάνωι θήσω.

The participle refers to a young pig here, and well-suckled seems to fit in this description. “Well-suckled” implies having spent a great deal of time at the mother’s teat until it has become “fatted up,” and thus the secondary meaning of the verb. However, while these may present more aurally pleasant options in translating εὔθηλος, referring either to cows or goats, it still fails to provide an adequate translation in the final context, that of the breast of a goddess, or in the description of the mother animal, as opposed to her young. Nevertheless, the verb does yield some clues. The next step is to break down the word further:

εὐ- well adv. + θήλη, ἥ- n. teat, nipple

The most basic convergence of the meanings of these two words yields something along the lines of “well-nippled” or “nicely-nippled.” Such a translation is quite effective. A “nicely-nippled” cow or goat has fine udders, full of delicious milk and an indicator of joyous birth impending, and from the verb, a plump youngling is "well-suckled." These definitions also avoid all the negative animal cruelty connotations of “distended udders” which seems to arise in modern discourse. Furthermore, now there is a far more fitting way to describe the “nicely-nippled” divine breast of a goddess in Lycophron’s Alexandra, for should a poet dare to describe a heavenly teat (even of ox-eyed Hera---the adjective is surely a pun, but the Liddell translation would still not do) as “well-uddered,” surely he would bring down the wrath of gods, or at least literary critics, upon himself.

Σωκράτης περι πολιτικῶν νέων

2008-05-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Socrates on recent politics.

caveat lector---for the politically inclined only.

A hypothetical dialogue via Berkeley economics professor Brad DeLong:

A conversation in Brewed Awakening this morning:

Thrasymakhos: Why are you chewing your tie?

Glaukon: I made the mistake of reading Joe Klein this morning...

Sokrates: How can listening to what somebody has to say ever be a mistake?

Glaukon: You'll see. The structure of Klein's argument was roughly as follows: (1) Hillary Rodham Clinton has been demagoguing the gas tax holiday; (2) I know it's a bad and stupid idea; (3) but my small unevolved journalist lizard-brain was excited and enthusiastic; (4) but she lost; (5) so I will kick her when she is down; (6) and I feel somewhat guilty; (7) and I will be a more substance- and less spin-minded journalist in the future...

Sokrates: But this is a story of self-development--of someone acquiring knowledge through experience. Why should that make you chew your tie?

Thrasymakhos: No, Sokrates, you are wrong. This is a story of someone pretending to acquire knowledge through experience--it is a false repentance narrative, a la Elmer Gantry. But did you expect any better?

Glaukon: I was not finished. Then there is: (8) John McCain is an honorable man; (9) if Barack Obama "wants to maintain his reputation for honor, he'll have representatives from his campaign sit down with McCain's people to work out a sane, equitable campaign-financing mechanism for the general election — and a robust series of debates." The fact that the initial gas tax holiday demagoguer was John McCain is not mentioned--Joe Klein hides it from his readers. If he meant his pledge to do better, the fact that the gas tax holidy was McCain's idea first would have made it into the column...

Sokrates: Your logic is irrefutable, Glaukon.

Thrasymakhos: You are correct, Glaukon. If I were as ill-mannered as Duncan Black, I would award Joe Klein yet another "wanker of the day" prize.

Sokrates: I do wish you wouldn't chew on your tie, however. It sends the wrong message...

Thrasymakhos: This is Berkeley. Why are you even wearing a tie?

hodie miror quid heri “heri” appellaretur.

2008-05-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Today I am wondering what “yesterday” was called yesterday.

Reading a bit of fake Ciceronean Latin---the product of the esteemed W.H.D Rouse---I stumbled across nudius tertius, a temporal expression which translates to “the day before yesterday.”

But how did it come to mean this?

Adam's Latin Grammar, 1833, p.124:

nudiustertius, of nunc dies tertius.

So literally, “now the third day.” The Romans, of course, count inclusively: today is 1, yesterday 2, and “the day before yesterday” 3.

nudius is also combined with other ordinal numbers. The expression seems to be most beloved by Plautus. He demonstrates its flexibility in the following passage:

T. Maccius Plautus Mostellaria 956:

PHAN.: Habitat profecto, nám heri et nudius tertius, quartus, quintus, sextus, usque postquam hinc peregre eius pater abiit, numquam hic triduom unum desitum est potarier.

Phaniscus: Certainly he dwells there, for through yesterday and the day before yesterday, and three days ago, and four, and five, and six, and all the time since his father went off abroad, at no point for a span of three days has this man ceased to be drunk.

Now that you have this expression tucked under your belt, you are well-equipped to tell your friends oppressively dull stories about your daily life (in Latin!).

“haudquaquam similis,” inquam.

2008-05-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

“Not at all similar,” I say.

Philolog wonders:

Have you ever noticed how similar the words agnostic and antagonistic are?

Just a thought from me as I write an article about spirituality and somehow type antagonistic instead of the word agnostic. A Freudian Slip perhaps?

Agnostic comes from Not know, in Greek, of course.

Antagonistic comes from Latin? I'll look it up and let you know.

Let's not hold our breath waiting for the response. Rather, a very quick look allows us to begin by saying that the two are in no way etymologically connected. We must secondarily observe that this is a pretty poor etymological analysis of these two words.

Agnostic does indeed come from Greek. And while such words as the verb ἀγνοέω- “to fail to know, to be ignorant” have evolved, the more basic predecessor is the negative prefix α- + γνῶς, the aorist participle of γιγνῶσκω- “to know.”

Antagonistic can be traced to Latin anti- “against” + agere- “to lead, to drive.” But it goes back to Greek as well. Much as ἀγνοέω, the verb ἀνταγωνίζομαι- “to struggle against” developed. The root is found in ἀντί- “against” + ἄγω- “to lead, to drive.” Thus the Latin came directly and virtually unaltered from the Greek, and then, perhaps, we borrowed it from them.

I also stumbled upon this interesting bit, albeit strictly for my fellow serious nerds. At Living Epic, a classics professor explores connections between video games, gamer culture, and the world of classical antiquity. The hot topic of late has been Grand Theft Auto 4.

Redibo quam celerissime

2008-05-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

I shall return as quickly as possible.

I am going home to New Jersey for a few days and, as Cicero once said:

Cicero de Oratore 2.24.10

cum huc veni, hoc ipsum nihil agere et plane cessare me delectat.

When I come here, the very act of doing nothing and being completely inactive pleases me.

Therefore, there will likely be a brief respite in blogging through the weekend.

Until then, valete.

Cum iter facere vultis, cavete Tabulam Peutingerianam.

2008-04-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

When you want to travel, be wary of the Peutinger Map.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was lucky enough to attend a phenomenal talk by Richard Talbert here at Berkeley. In “Reconsidering Peutinger's Map: Romans Rule the World,” he argues against many of the generally accepted scholarly theories regarding this fascinating document. He began the talk by displaying, with the help of the audience, a full size replication of the map---about 28 feet long and a foot high. This copy is, in fact, a copy our only surviving copy, made by a monk at Colmar in 1265 AD, and its truly impressive dimensions certainly helped to put into rare perspective the map, the presentation of which, as Talbert says, is one of the principal “buggerboos” of studying it. Having laid out the high level of scholarly controversy and lack of concrete knowledge, Talbert jumped right into his presentation, and though I cannot hope to do it justice here, I would like to mention some of his key points.

Completeness

Talbert proposes that, in contradiction to the claims of Konrad Miller (author of Iterinaria Romana, the 1887 definitive commentary on the map), there is not a single fragment missing, but rather three, which brings the length to a total of 28 feet. He explains that Miller's reconstruction of the missing piece is infeasible; the scale adopted in that part of the map is better suited to 6 feet than 2. Furthermore, it would imply that Rome was deliberately placed at the center of the map, providing rhyme and reason for an otherwise strange choice of scale. He also suggests, as a possibility for explaining its strange dimensions, that the map was designed to illustrate only one of five κλίματα as a part of a larger map which resembled a globe, as shown right (the idea of a map only 1 ft. high is “plain ridiculous.”) More detail on this “globe” is revealed as he discusses the usage of the map.

Usage

Scholars have long argued that (as here) "the Peutinger Map was primarily drawn to show main roads, totaling some 70,000 Roman miles (104,000 km), and to depict features such as staging posts, spas, distances between stages, large rivers, and forests." Talbert claims that the roads are among the least important details on the map; they seem, in fact, to be added as a sort of “filler.” Talbert attributes previous misinterpretations to an all too common trap--- “scholars and enthusiasts looking for what they want to find.” Instead, it is likely that first to go on the map were the natural features: shores, rivers, and mountains. These were followed by the symbols for cities, towns, and spas were marked, and only then was the road network filled in. The map was not intended for use in planning military expeditions nor even inter-city journeys. Indeed, "Do not use this map to travel!" he proclaims. The map was more likely a showpiece, designed to show the expanse of Roman imperial might. The emphasis on the inclusion of many (some obscure) place names at the expense of displaying travel routes more accurately lends credence to this hypothesis. He adds further proof in his defense for his dating of the original map.

Dating

The time frame of the map is very confusing. It shows the existence of Pompeii, destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, but other labeling indicates that it cannot predate Trajan's organization in Dacia around 100AD. Talbert places the around 300 AD, earlier than many other scholars. They argue that the prominent symbolic depictions of Constantinople (only founded in the first half of the 4th century) and Antioch reflect a later period. Talbert refutes these arguments, arguing that these symbols are late additions to the map; a close inspection of the map reveals that these symbols are clumsily drawn in and disrupt the surrounding road networks, showing that they are likely emendations of later Christian scholars hoping to "improve" the map. Other signs of Christianity are conspicuously absent. He explains that the map best fits the era of Diocletian's tetrarchy. The map would "project the values and tastes of the tetrarchy," and "celebrate their firm grip on the world after the calamities of the 200s." Based on excavations of an aula, he shows that the space immediately behind the throne would be a perfect fit for the sort of "globe" to which he earlier proposed the map belonged. In addition, a 2005 discovery on the northeast slope of the Palatine turned up a wooden box with a set of ceremonial throne room items, including four small finely-wrought globes. These can probably be dated to the not-quite-tetrarch Maxentius, and support the theory of the globe coming to be a symbol of imperial power during this period.

Talbert's talk, on the whole, was fascinating and very persuasive. His passion for the topic is rather enrapturing, and I found myself quickly nodding along with his points. He makes it very clear that a certain degree of mystery will likely surround the map forever; nevertheless, his estimations seem much more plausible than those proposed before him.

errata novi discipuli linguae Latinae

2008-04-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

The errors of a new student of Latin.

At LatinLanguage, Chris Jones explains a the problems with instructional approaches which rely on cognates to teach new students of Latin vocabulary. He writes:

I’ve mentioned before that I wish students were encouraged to look at vocabulary the way the Romans did, i.e. as words formed from more basic forms in the same language…A common tendency when studying Latin vocabulary is to emphasize similar derivative English words, i.e. by talking about derivatives like “exacerbate", the student is more likely to remember the meaning of exacerbo…The problem with this approach is that exacerbo does not quite mean “exacerbate", which American Heritage defines as “To increase the severity, violence, or bitterness of; aggravate". To be specific, “exacerbate” is almost exclusively used with things, i.e. people aren’t usually “exacerbated” (though they can be “exasperated"). Contast this with Latin, where exacerbo is most often used with people; that’s why this verb is usually defined as “irritate, enrage, provoke"...

Certainly go and read the whole thing. It’s interesting throughout, and functions effectively both as a caveat to new students and a reminder to the more experienced that they too can be prone to thinking in this way.

And begin to get excited. I was fortunate enough to attend a fascinating lecture by Richard Talbert entitled “Reconsidering Peutinger’s Map,” and will be posting some of the highlights in the next few days. Familiarize with the Wiki’s key points; it adds to the fun when he easily dismantles most of them. More background can be found here and here.

Stay tuned!

Non solus ruinam rei publicae praedico.

2008-04-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

I am not the only one predicting the destruction of the republic.

Apparently, the crazy doom-sayers here at PopulistAmerica.com have been citing Roman parallels to prophesy the end of American democracy.

Meanwhile, at Language Log, Mark Lieberman attends to predictions of destruction from another source, proposed here at Epea Pteroenta (in an aptly titled post, "pont max tr pot lol"). He wisely does not subscribe to the school of texting=death of civilization. He writes:

You might have thought that the Roman empire was doomed by barbarian invasions, lead poisoning, the loss of masculine values, or climate change. But Jim Bisso at Epea Pteroenta has pointed out that at the very height of the empire’s power, in the reign of Trajan, Roman culture had already been compromised by an insidious agent that you probably have never considered, though it’s obvious in retrospect.

The villain was none other than txting, that widely-feared destroyer of civilizations. While IM and SMS had not yet been invented, the Romans used a medium that motivates textual concision even more strongly: marble...

Go read both!

Et divitissimi divitiores fiunt...

2008-04-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

And the rich are getting richer...

S.J Bastomsky's “The Great Divide in Ancient Rome and Victorian England” (gated, JSTOR) works out approximations for the yearly wages of various income groups in Ancient Rome. His results and methodology are pretty interesting:

We are on much surer ground when we turn to the closing years of the Republic...Cicero mentions that the slave Panurgus...could only have earned 12 asses a day without any training. We assume that the cost of free labour is depressed just enough to keep it alive and reproducing...this means the labourer's wage would be 3 sesterces a day...Given that the concept of a five-day week and paid holidays were unknown to the Romans, we may reckon a free labourer working on just about every day of the year...If we suppose that he was able to find employment on 350 days of the year, his earnings would be 1,050 sesterces per annum...

Bastomsky goes on to calculate that Cicero and other moderately wealthy senators during the Late Republic earned about 750,000 sesterces per annum, and the super-rich like Crassus, possibly the wealthiest individual of his era, around 11,000,000 sesterces. Proceeding into the 1^st century AD, his calculations show a minimum wage laborer earning only 1,400 sesterces, Pliny the Younger and similarly wealthy elite earning 1,000,000, and the ultra-rich, as Lentulus and Narcissus, nearly 24,000,000 sesterces.

These data show that there is a tremendous (and increasing) inequality gap between rich and poor Romans in both the Late Republic and during the tumultuous 1^st century AD. The figures are plotted on the left.

The graph makes it very clear that the yearly earnings of a minimum wage laborer, even under optimal circumstances (no illness, full-employment) are miniscule. Indeed, as Bastomsky writes, they are straining and exerting themselves to "keep the wolf from the door." It is hard not to sympathize; we see a similar income gap in a country with which we are all intimately familiar- the United States. I attempted to find the closest modern parallels to the Roman income groups. For the minimum wage laborer, the figure $15, 900 represents the average yearly salary for the lowest 20% of wage earners in the US in 2005 according to the Congressional Budget Office. This figure is reasonably close to the amount earned by a full-time worker at a minimum wage of about $6.50 ($6.50 x 40hr week x 52 wks/yr=$13520). The wealthy elite 's $1,558, 500 per year is the mean income for the top 1% of wage earners, a category into which Cicero and other senators would likely fall. The third data point depicts one of the highest earners in the United States; it is the 2005 income ($1.5 billion) of the highest paid hedge fund manager in the country, James Simons of Renaissance Technologies, according to Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine. Caveat lector: it is a logarithmic scale.

Depicted on the right is another way to look at it. This is a graph of the comparative income of the wealthy elite and super-rich to the minimum wage labrorer; each single unit represents one worker, and the height of the bar the number of workers, the sum of whose total income is equal to a single individual in each of these two groups.

Crassus thus earned about 10, 476x the minimum wage laborer's salary, and Lentulus approximately 17,142x. Even more striking, James Simon in 2005 made over 98,000x the annual income of a minimum wage employee.

A closer look at the data (down and left) from ancient Rome reveals another striking phenomenon; the biggest gains are far and away going to the very top of the income spectrum. This, quite significantly, is exactly the same pattern as we see in the United States---but accelerated exponentially. From 2002-2005, the United States has experienced huge gains in GDP, but these gains have been skewed very strongly to the top. While the difference between the $15,000 a minimum wage laborer made in 2002 and his earnings in 2003 is only $900, a factor of 1.06, the top 1% of earners netted $593,300 more on average than their $965,000 mean salary, a factor of about 1.61. And like their ancient counterparts, the very wealthiest made out like bandits. The highest paid hedge fund manager in 2002 made a mere $700 million, less than half of the $1.5 billion Simons earned in 2005. The factor of 2.14 measures up closely to the 2.18 figure for the wealthiest of the Romans.

What can we conclude from this array of facts and figures, all which point to a great deal of economic commonality across two millenia? Well, the age in which the Republic experienced such massive inequality fostered a great deal of woe for the common people. Chaos and civil war, revolts, and other violence prevailed. It did not, however, result in economic loss for the rich who survived the violence. Likewise, the generally unfortunate economic climate which grips our country has not clamped its stranglehold on their incomes; it is rather the stagnating wages of the poor and middle class which fuel their inflating profit margins. Robert Reich, professor at the University of California-Berkeley and author of Supercapitalism (highly recommended), lays out the situation best:

We're reaping the whirlwind of many years during which Americans have spent beyond their means and most of the benefits of an expanding economy have gone to a relatively small group at the very top. Adjusted for inflation, the median wage is below where it was in 1999. The nation's median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 thirty-five years ago. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. The rich, meanwhile, can't keep the economy going on their own because they devote a smaller percentage of their earnings to buying things than the rest of us: After all, they're rich, and they already have most of what they want. Instead of buying, they're more likely to invest their earnings wherever around the world they can get the highest return.

And like in Rome, if we do not begin to address this income inequality their will be serious consequences. Will the democratic government of the United States be overthrown? No. But if John McCain takes the helm and institutes a second round of Bush tax cuts, the gap will grow larger, and so too the shadow it casts on the lives of the average citize

If you are one of the ultra-rich, however, make sure to give your thanks to imperator Bush on his way out.

εἴθε ἠπιστηθείην τὰ πλεῖστα περὶ γρυπῶν

2008-04-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

If only I knew more about gryphons!

We started with the Latin geographer Pomponius Mela, who wrote at the end of the first half of the 1^st century AD, and read from Pliny the Elder, only slightly later, as well. As we will soon learn, though, these are but accounts of accounts. Gryphons are attested in Greek all the way back to Aeschylus in the 5^th century BC in Prometheus Bound.

[Credit to the Greek Mythology Link for the textual pointers.]

802

ἄλλην δ' ἄκουσον δυσχερῆ θεωρίαν·ὀξυστόμους γὰρ Ζηνὸς ἀκραγεῖς κύνας γρῦπας φύλαξαι, τόν τε μουνῶπα στρατὸν Ἀριμασπὸν ἱπποβάμον', οἳ χρυσόρρυτον οἰκοῦσιν ἀμφὶ νᾶμα Πλούτωνος πόρου·

And hearken now another unpleasant sight; keep watch for the sharp-beaked unbarking creatures of Zeus, the gryphons, and the one-eyed people, the Arimaspoi, who live around the gold-bearing water of Pluto's river.

Herodus too was an early “observer.” It is his account in the Histories, it seems, which Mela's most closely mirrors.

3.116.1

Πρὸς δὲ ἄρκτου τῆς Εὐρώπης πολλῷ τι πλεῖστος χρυσὸς φαίνεται ἐών. Ὅκως μὲν γινόμενος, οὐκ ἔχω οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἀτρεκέως εἶπαι, λέγεται δὲ ὑπὲκ τῶν γρυπῶν ἁρπάζειν Ἀριμασποὺς ἄνδρας μουνοφθάλμους

Toward northern Europe, there is clearly the most gold by far. As to how it is produced, this I cannot say exactly, but it is said that the Arimaspoi, one-eyed men, steal it from the gryphons.

4.27.1

Τὸ δὲ ἀπὸ τούτων τὸ κατύπερθε Ἰσσηδόνες εἰσὶ οἱ λέγοντες τοὺς μουνοφθάλμους ἀνθρώπους καὶ τοὺς χρυσοφύλακας γρῦπας εἶναι, παρὰ δὲ τούτων Σκύθαι παραλαβόντες λέγουσι, παρὰ δὲ Σκυθέων ἡμεῖς οἱ ἄλλοι νενομίκαμεν, καὶ ὀνομάζομεν αὐτοὺς σκυθιστὶ Ἀριμασπούς· ἄριμα γὰρ ἓν καλέουσι Σκύθαι, σποῦ δὲ ὀφθαλμόν.

To the north of these things are the Issedones, who say that there are one-eyed men and griffins, defensive of their gold; the Scythians tell it thus, having taken it from those men, and we have adopted it from the Scythians. We also call the same men, in the Scythian fashion, the Arimaspoi; for the Scythians use the term “arima” for “one,” and “spou” for “eye.”

Onward to the 2^nd century AD, we have a particularly amusing bit from Pausanias. His wrath appears to fall upon those who cast doubt on the perfectly valid reports of gryphons with wild flights of fancy and silly exaggerations.

8.2.7

ἤδη δὲ καὶ ἄλλα ἤκουσα, τοῖς γρυψὶ στίγματα ὁποῖα καὶ ταῖς παρδάλεσιν εἶναι, καὶ ὡς οἱ Τρίτωνες ἀνθρώπου φωνῇ φθέγγοιντο· οἱ δὲ καὶ φυσᾶν διὰ κόχλου τετρυπημένης φασὶν αὐτούς. ὁπόσοι δὲ μυθολογήμασιν ἀκούοντες ἥδονται, πεφύκασι καὶ αὐτοί τι ἐπιτερατεύεσθαι· καὶ οὕτω τοῖς ἀληθέσιν ἐλυμήναντο, συγκεραννύντες αὐτὰ ἐψευσμένοις.

I have even heard other things, that the sort of spots are on griffins as on leopards, and that the Tritons speak with the voice of a human, but men also say that they are blowing through a bored-through shell. As many men who, hearing a myth, enjoy it, themselves naturally exaggerate it in some way; thus they besmirch the truth, mixing it with falsifications.

He also writes:

1.24.6

τούτους τοὺς γρῦπας ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν Ἀριστέας ὁ Προκοννήσιος μάχεσθαι περὶ τοῦ χρυσοῦ φησιν Ἀριμασποῖς <τοῖς> ὑπὲρ Ἰσσηδόνων· τὸν δὲ χρυσόν, ὃν φυλάσσουσιν οἱ γρῦπες, ἀνιέναι τὴν γῆν· εἶναι δὲ Ἀριμασποὺς μὲν ἄνδρας μονοφθάλμους πάντας ἐκ γενετῆς, γρῦπας δὲ θηρία λέουσιν εἰκαςμένα, πτερὰ δὲ ἔχειν καὶ στόμα ἀετοῦ. καὶ γρυπῶν μὲν πέρι τοσαῦτα εἰρήσθω·

In his writings, Aristeas of Proconnesus says that these gryphons fight over gold with the Arimaspoi beyond the Issedones, that the gold, which the gryphons guard, comes up from the earth, that the Arimaspoi are all one-eyed men from birth, and that gryphons are beasts resembling lions, but have wings and the beak of an eagle. And about gryphons, let only so many things be said.

I feel like this is a pretty good place to leave off our discussion. There really are only so many things to be said about gryphons*. Nevertheless, the spirit of these gryphons will live on here, for there are countless oddities which have yet to observed, documented, and commentated, etc., and so we will forge on ahead here at DeGrypis.

*nota bene: Pausanias wrote this in Book 1, and clearly he returned, albeit briefly, to his subject in Book 8 (above). I will take this, then, as a license to talk about gryphons any time I damn well please.

Audibitis (Audite) me, O Iuris Consulti!(.)

2008-04-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

HEAR (Hear) me, O Lawyers!(.)

Today I turn to the trusty mailbag. This, gathering dust sadly, from an AVID reader. Colette writes:

[T]oday in one of my classes we brought up this phrase: subpoena duces tecum, which they translate as "bring with you under penalty of punishment." [I] know i haven't taken Latin for awhile, but something about this just seems wrong to me. Why duces? duco is 3rd, so this looks future in form to me, but it doesn't seem to have any kind of future meaning. [I]t could be a jussive subjunctive, but that would be ducas (plus it would seem not very common to use the second person singular in this kind of construction?). There is a small note I just found in my grammar about futures being used with imperative force, so I guess this must be the explanation, but this is not something I remember seeing before.

Indeed, Colette. It is an easy to miss side note and an unsatisfactory explanation, but here is what Allen and Greenough have to say in their New Latin Grammar:

449. b. The Future Indicative is sometimes used for the imperative.

Seriously?! That's it? That's a pretty lame effort.

Only slightly better is what is found in J.P. Postgate and C.A. Vince's New Latin Primer:

Commands and Requests
In positive Requests besides (1) the Imperative and (2) the Subjunctive of Desire, Latin writers also use forms which are properly Statements, viz. (3) the Future Indicative, which puts the Request as something which will happen, and is thus a strong Command, as hôc faciês you will do this.

I think that we're on the right track, but that it's also a long road. My hypothesis is that the regularity of the future indicative as a substitute for the imperative in modern legal Latin is the result of evolution through Vulgar Latin (sermo vulgaris) and/or Medieval Latin, late bastardizations of the Classical Latin taught in schools. In the Vulgate Bible, a work of direct translation from the original Hebrew, we see St. Jerome render a particularly famous series of commandments with the future indicative, the...um...Ten.

From LatinVulgate:

Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
non habebis deos alienos coram me
Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing..
non facies tibi sculptile ..
Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them...
non adorabis ea neque coles...
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain...
non adsumes nomen Domini Dei tui in vanum...
Thou shalt not kill.
non occides.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
non moechaberis.

...I think that's enough. You get the point. Scholars and the clergy, the only ones still Latin-literate during the later periods, were quite a mixed up bunch. I'm fairly sure that modern legal Latin emerged from the confusion, and retained what had become a common convention.

Quid vulgus in memoria tenebit?

2008-04-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

What will the common people remember?

Robert Fagles, renowned translator of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid among other notable accomplishments, passed away last month, on March 6, 2008---requiescat in pace.

Over at The Worst Ever, the choice resource of De Grypis for literature, film, and music, Brett writes:

Robert Fagles, renowned translator of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, among other works, passed away on Wednesday, ensuring that we'll have to wait a while before another really boring text from ancient Greece will be declared once again "fresh and relevant for the contemporary reader," who, for his part, will quit after two pages. Fagles was 74. The cause of death was prostate cancer.

His contributions to world literature will live on, mostly unread, on millions of bookshelves in the United States and beyond. No one has done more to bring the Greek classics to high school and college students, except for the publisher of CliffsNotes.

There's more than an element of truth in it, and it is recognizing that which leaves classicists frowning. It is difficult to interest modern readers, particularly students mandated from above, in Greek and Roman epics. Why? Two key points inter alia.

Length- The Illiad is 15693 lines. That's a lot of lines. It's hard to get high school or college students to read the slim Apology of Socrates. A veritable tome in comparison, it would take a great deal of effort (and testing) to compel a full and careful reading. It is not the sort of daunting task teachers want to undertake, and fortunately students can find it in themselves to stifle their protests. Recalling my high school days, I remember that both Iliad and Odyssey were assigned as summer reading for AP English; what I cannot recall, however, is a single person who completed both (or either?). Feel free to confirm my hazy memory, hometown readers, or to refute (...liars).

Relevance-it is impossible to make the Iliad truly relevant to the today's casual reader. Elaborating on his earlier post, Brett aptly says:

I wasn't impugning the translation...just the idea..., proposed by all reviewers/journalists (who aren't a part of the classics world), that he made this relevant to the modern reader. More accessible maybe, maybe even more enjoyable, but it's just as irrelevant as it's ever been.

While there are some ideas with which the modern reader may feel common ground, to really understand the roles/themes/culture in the Iliad requires a comprehensive study of Greek culture. To put it in perspective, after fairly thorough readings in several translations, course study, and supplementary reading, I can grasp these concepts at a loose and abstract level, but even I cannot make them feel "relevant."

Nevertheless, Fagles achievements in translation are remarkable. While he cannot do the impossible, he has made the translation much "more accessible" than previous authors. And accessibility is paramount in encouraging unwilling readers to forge on ahead. In a somewhat recent paper, I argued that Fagles' Iliad is the best of three of the more popular editions---Fagles, Lattimore, and Fitzgerald:

“Why another Iliad?” This question is the apparent universal bane of Homer’s translators, doggedly pursuing their footsteps as they carefully tread through the poet’s hexameters...Lattimore responds elliptically, calling it “a question which has no answer for those who do not know the answer already” (Lattimore 7). Fagles, on the other hand, attempts an answer:

It seems, that if Homer was a performer, then his translator might aim to be one as well, and that no two performances of the same work---surely not of a musical composition, so probably not of a work of language either---will ever be the same. The timbre and tempo of each will be distinct, let alone its deeper resonance, build and thrust (Fagles xii).

[And so] he responded to th[is]...inquiry with a knockout blow. His Iliad is the epic poem for our generation...consider the especially pertinent [societal] example, Troy. As a nation, we spent over $133 million on this film, a historical travesty constructed, if with the Iliad in mind at all, then only lurking in the depths of Hollywood scriptwriters’ and producers’ minds concealed by the green shadow of money---sadly, their real ambition. Even so, we consumed this summer blockbuster with our customary vigor. For indeed, we are Americans. We do not want historical accuracy; we want entertainment! We want violence and we want sex and we want it now! Certainly, it is unjust to compare Robert Fagles’ Iliad to the crimes of Hollywood; his is a noble endeavor, bringing to life the glory of Homer’s epic masterpiece. However, the manner in which he eases the Greek into readable English while still maintaining a level of poetic artistry, and most of all, with which he boldly renders the sense of imminent action in the Iliad would most cater to our modern appetites. His vivid representation of battle scenes which threaten to quickly dull with repetition conserves the inner energy of the passages and keeps our minds intent and focused. His ready readability allows the reader to move rapidly through the scenes which have less consequence on the overall plot (e.g. catalogue of ships) and to generally appreciate the brilliant qualities of the story which have made it an eternal part of Western literary tradition. For the reader to whom fortune has not blessed with the opportunity to learn the lingua Graece, the Iliad of choice is most likely that of the eminent Robert Fagles.

I, for my part, conclude by suggesting a compromise measure of sorts. For those whose Iliad is gathering dusts, appreciate the poetic grace of Robert Fagles' translation...on audio cd. It was, after all, an oral composition.

Vireo equidem et aegritudine et invidentia

2008-04-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

I am green with both illness and envy.

I am disgusted, sick to my stomach even, when I look at this map from GasBuddy.

And painfully envious when I look at this one.

My current residence is in Berkeley, but home is and will always be New Jersey. Driving by the gas station just the other day, I found myself wide-eyed with horror, gaping at regular pump prices upwards of $4.00. It seems utterly unjust that I should have to pay these astronomical prices, while my fortunate friends on the East Coast can enjoy their marginal victory in the triumphant form of a Wawa sub and iced tea with cash leftover (16 avg tank*(3.79-3.19) lowest prices– 4.79 sub– 1.59 iced tea= $3.22). Whatever happened to fairness? Why, in fact, do California drivers pay so much more?

From the Energy Information Administration:

Why do gasoline prices differ according to region?
Although price levels vary over time, Energy Information Administration (EIA) data indicate that average retail gasoline prices tend to typically be higher in certain States or regions than in others. Aside from taxes, there are other factors that contribute to regional and even local differences in gasoline prices:

proximity of supply
supply disruptions
competition in the local market

Why are California gasoline prices higher and more variable than others?

The State of California operates its own reformulated gasoline program with more stringent requirements than Federally-mandated clean gasolines. In addition to the higher cost of cleaner fuel, there is a combined State and local sales and use tax of 7.25 percent on top of an 18.4 cent-per-gallon Federal excise tax and an 18.0 cent-per-gallon State excise tax. Refinery margins have also been higher due in large part to price volatility in the region...California prices are more variable than others because there are relatively few supply sources of its unique blend of gasoline outside the State.Supplies could be obtained from some Gulf Coast and foreign refineries; however, California’s substantial distance from those refineries is such that any unusual increase in demand or reduction in supply results in a large price response in the market before relief supplies can be delivered. The farther away the necessary relief supplies are, the higher and longer the price spike will be...

It is clear that multiple distortive forces are at work here. But these are not unique forces to our time, not even close.

Paul Erdkamp's The Grain Market in the Roman Empire points us to Cicero, who writes of the system by which provinces could contribute money instead of grain to Rome.

In Verres 2.3.191.10:

Video quid inter annonam interesse soleat, video quot dierum via sit, video Philomeliensibus expedire, quanti Ephesi sit frumentum, dare potius in Phrygia quam Ephesum portare aut ad emendum frumentum Ephesum pecuniam et legatos mittere. In Sicilia vero quid eius modi est?..[I]sta ratio aestimationis in Asia, valet in Hispania, valet in iis provinciis in quibus unum pretium frumento esse non solet: in Sicilia vero quid cuiusquam intererat quo loco daret? neque enim portandum erat, et, quo quisque vehere iussus esset, ibi tantidem frumentum emeret quanti domi vendidisset.

I am aware what is the customary difference between the prices of grain. I am aware how many days the journey takes. I am aware that it benefits the Philomelians to pay as much as the grain is worth at Ephesus in Phrygia rather than to bring grain to Ephesus or to send messengers and money to buy it there. But what is there of this kind in Sicily?...This logic of value works in Asia, works in Hispania, and works in those provinces in which there is not a single customary price for grain; in Sicily, however, who cares where one pays? For the grain does not need to be transported, and whither anyone should be ordered to convey it, there he could buy the same amount of grain for the same price as he had sold it at home.

Much as today, there were powerful forces altering the cost of an everyday commodity, here grain, across various provinces in the Roman Empire. The costs of transportation played a major role, and thus larger differences across larger provinces. In addition, the implications of Cicero's accusation---that Verres is greedily subjugating his people to an unfair and illogical system resulting in coin contributions, presumably which make it easier for him to rob Sicily blind---are additional market distortions at Rome. The “disappearing” grain from Sicily would decrease supply and inflate market prices for the ordinary citizens of Rome.

And so the commodity price gap can be explained by similar factors today; it is the effects of governmental (legal though, like taxation) and market forces.

Discamus hodie de grypis.

2008-04-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Let us learn today about gryphons.

[translations mine]

Pomponius Mela. De Chorographia 2.1.6

deinde est regio ditis admodum soli, inhabitabilis tamen, quia grypi,
saevum et pertinax ferarum genus, aurum terra penitus egestum mire
amant mireque custodiunt, et sunt infesti attingentibus.

Then there is region of very rich soil, but which is nevertheless uninhabitable, because gryphons, a fierce and tenacious race of wild beasts, love the gold mined deep within the earth excessively and guard it likewise, and are hostile to those who come to it.

3.62.3

ceterum fertilis, et vario genere hominum aliorumque animalium scatet. alit
formicas non minores maximis canibus, quas more gryporum aurum
penitus egestum cum summa pernicie adtingentium custodire comme-
morant; immanes et serpentes alit, qui et elephantos morsu atque ambitu
corporis adficiant;

Moreover the land is fertile, and abounds with various races of men and animals. It supports ants even larger than huge dogs, which men recount, as in the custom of the gryphons, defend the gold mined within with the greatest destruction for those coming there. It also supports giant serpents, and elephants which inflict harm by trampling and biting.

[yes, I only left this last bit in because it is well-suited to what I discuss below]

C. Plinius Secundus. Naturalis Historia 7.10.5

haut procul ab ipso aquilonis exortu specuque eius dicto...produntur Arimaspi,
quos diximus, uno oculo in fronte media insignes. quibus ad-
sidue bellum esse circa metalla cum grypis, ferarum volucri
genere, quale vulgo traditur, eruente ex cuniculis aurum,
mira cupiditate et feris custodientibus et Arimaspis rapien-
tibus, multi, sed maxime inlustres Herodotus et Aristeas
Proconnesius scribunt.

Not far from from the very origin of the North Wind and his cave is said to be...the Arimaspoi are recounted, whom we said are distinguished by a single eye in the middle of the forehead. To these men there is continuous war over precious metals with gryphons, a flying race of beasts which, as it is handed down by the commons, dig up gold from their mines; with excessive desire both the wild beasts defend the gold and the Arimaspoi carry it off—many men, but most of all the famous Herodotus, Aristeas, and Proconnesius write about these things.

33.66.1

Aurum invenitur in nostro orbe, ut omitta-
mus Indicum a formicis aut apud Scythas grypis erutum,
tribus modis...

Gold is found in our world, as we should disregard the Indic region, since it is mined by ants, and near Scythia, by griffins, in three ways...

10.136.1

Pegasos equino capite volucres et grypas aurita
aduncitate rostri fabulosos reor, illos in Scythia, hos in
Aethiopia.

It is my account that there are flying pegasi with the head of a horse and marvelous gryphons with a golden hook of a beak; the latter are in Scythia, the former in Ethiopia.

Apuleius Madaurensis. Metamorphoses 11.24.11

hinc dracones Indici, inde grypes Hyperborei, quos
in speciem pinnatae alitis generat mundus alter.

From here Indian serpents, from there Hyperborean gryphons, which another world created in the image of a winged monster.

Fragmenta Bobiensia. De Nomine 543.15

Gryphes, animalia quaedam in hyperboreis montibus omni corpore
leones praeter os, quod habent aquilae sive accipitris, et quod pinnatae
sunt.

Gryphons, particular creatures in the Hyperborean mountains, are lions in form throughout except the mouth, which they have of an eagle or of a hawk, and because they are winged.

And so we from these Latin historians (more from the Greeks, the "real observers" soon!) we learn a thing or two about...griffins? Who cares? This is preposterous, absolute nonsense.

I love it.

Before I matured (slightly, I hope) and learned to appreciate the often subtle beauty of this language, it was, in my perception at least, this incorporation of silly and outrageous information, in a serious curriculum that was truly enjoyable. The myths, particularly the dirty or violent ones, captivated my high school class; we cheerfully seized upon this theme, twisting mundane translation exercises to lascivious ends, as from CLC Book I:

Melissa Grumionem delectat. Melissa Quintum delectat. Eheu! ancilla Metellam non delectat.

It's almost too easy.

I am not embarrassed to admit that the inspiration for my pseudo-scholarly efforts is so utterly juvenile. Nor do I deny that I find a certain boyish amusement in moments when, in the midst of dull translation, I stumble and do a double take...I'm reading about gryphons? What the f...?

But even if these wtf? moments are not for you (although I hope they are), there will be much, much more here at De Grypis. Vergil poses about the right question in his 8th Eclogue:

quid non speremus amantes?
iungentur iam grypes equis, aeuoque sequenti
cum canibus timidi uenient ad pocula dammae

What ought not we lovers expect?
Will the gryphons now join with horses, and in the next age
Timid deer come to drink with dog

Well, if it'll take timid deer and dogs for you all to be lovers, you can expect plenty of that. But more likely, you will get my thoughts and semi-random on interesting or strange things pertaining to Greek, Latin, language, culture. I'm sure there will be some other odds and ends as well.

Welcome to de Grypis!