The ancient world of Greece and Rome

Book list again

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:40:56 GMT

I've given up on trying to sell all of these in bulk (yeah, yeah, you were right). Prices are based on the lowest price listed on Amazon, though I got lazy toward the end (notice the string of $4 books). If you can find a cheaper price, let me know. Buyer pays shipping, which will be heavily discounted because I work for FedEx.

The catch: gotta buy at least $30 worth of books, cause there is no way in Hell I'm going to ship you a $1 book. All transactions done via e-mail (bmchargue@gmail.com), AIM (Mercenary Toast), or via comments here. Have fun.

LATIN
Terence: Andria G. P. Shipp 10
Terence: Adelphoe R. H. Martin 13
Terence: Eunuchus John Barsby 13
Plautus: Amphitruo David Christenson 15
Cicero: Pro Archia Poeta Oratio Steven Cerutti 4
Cicero: Pro Caelio R. G. Austin 15
The Student's Catullus, 3rd ed. Daniel Garrison 20
Lucan: The Civil War J. D. Duff (Loeb) 15
Valerius Flaccus: Argonautica J. H. Mozely (Loeb) 15
38 Latin Stories Groton and May 7
Oxford Latin Reader Balme and Morwood 6
Oxford Latin Course: Part III Balme and Morwood 6

ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY
The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway 25
The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 BC Jeffrey Hurwit 5
Pompeii: A Sourcebook Cooley and Cooley 15
Pompeii: Public and Private Life Paul Zanker 5
Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum Andrew Wallace-Hadrill 10

LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION
Rome and the Mysterious Orient: Three Plays by Plautus Amy Richlin 5
Plautus: The Comedies, Vol. 1 Slavitt and Bovie 5
Plautus & Terence: Five Comedies Berg and Parker 5
Greek Tragedies: Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Grene and Lattimore 5
Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes Grene and Lattimore 5
Euripides I: Alcestis, The Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippolytus Grene and Lattimore 5
Oxford's World Classics: Myths from Mesopotamia Stepahnie Dalley 4
Oxford's World Classics: Horace, the Complete Odes and Epodes David West 2
Ovid's Metamorphoses Rolfe Humphries 3
The Harvard Classics: Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius Charles Eliot 5
Plato: The Trial and Death of Socrates, 3rd ed. G. M. A. Grube 1
The Iliad Lang, Leaf, and Meyers 4
The Iliad Stanley Lombardo 4
The Iliad Robert Fagles 4
The Peloponnesian War T. E. Wick 4
Introduction to Aristotle Richard McKeon 4
The Aeneid David West (Penguin) 4
The Voyage of the Argo E. V. Rieu (Penguin) 4
The Epic of Gilgamesh N. K. Sandars (Penguin) 4
Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens, Nine Greek Lives Ian Scott-Kilvert 4
Aristophanes: The Knights/Peace/The Birds/The Assemblywomen/Wealth David Barrett 4
Plutarch on Sparta Richard Talbert 4
Cicero: Murder Trials Michael Grant 4
The Odyssey Stanley Lombardo 4
The War at Troy Quintus of Smyrna 4
Plato's Republic G. M. A. Grube 4
Greek Tragedies., Vol. 1 Grene and Lattimore 4
Plutarch: The Lives of Pompey, Caesar and Cicero, A Companion to the Penguin Translation M. J. Edwards 4
Plautus: The Comedies, Vol. IV Slavitt and Bovie 4
The Aeneid John Dryden 4

HISTORY / CULTURE / OTHER
Augustan Culture Karl Galinsky 10
The Peloponnesian War (hardcover) Donald Kagan 12
The Greek World, 479-323 BC Simon Hornblower 25
The Spartans Paul Cartledge 6
The Roman Family Suzanne Dixon 10
Babylonian Life and History E. A. Wallis Budge 15
Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War Charles Fornara 5
Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History Pomeroy, Burstein, Donlan, Roberts 20
From the Gracchi to Nero H. H. Scullard 15
Rome in the Augustan Age Henry Thompson Rowell 2
Res Gestae Divi Augusti Brunt and Moore 2
Egypt, Greece, and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean Charles Freeman 18
Augustus and the Creation of the Roman Empire: A Brief History with Documents Ronald Mellor 15
Gladiators Michael Grant 1
Roman Social History Susan Treggiari 10
History Begins at Sumer Samuel Noah Kramer 2
The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome, 31 BC - AD 476 Michael Grant 10
Spartacus and the Slave Wars Brent Shaw 5
Reading Greek Tragedy Simon Goldhill 13
The Generalship of Alexander the Great J. F. C. Fuller 5
Sick Caesars: From Madness to Malady Michael Grant 1
The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History Alexandre Grandazzi 10
Death and Burial in the Roman World J. M. C. Toynbee 7
Egypt of the Pharaohs Sir Alan Gardiner 3
The Bloody Funny History of Rome Brett Clark 12
Preface to Plato Eric Havelock 8

MYTH AND RELIGION
Religions of the Hellenistic Roman Age Antonia Tripolitis 5
Religion in Ancient Egypt Baines, Lesko, and Silverman 4
The Oxford Essential Guide to Egyptian Mythology Donald Redford 7
Egyptian Tales and Legends: Pagan, Christian, Muslim E. A. Wallis Budge 4

HISTORICAL FICTION
Pompeii Robert Harris 4
Daughter of Troy Sarah B. Franklin 1

Second-hand classics in Cambridge, UK?

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:59:13 GMT

Does anyone know if there's a bookshop specializing in classics in Cambridge, UK? I know there's one in Oxford, but a quick search didn't produce any meaningful results for the other place.

TIA

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:39:24 GMT

This is going to sound like a very odd question, but can you guys help me compile a list of as many scenes in ancient literature, poetry or prose, that is excessively graphic and violent? I can think of Lucan's Bellum Civile, Thyestes, and a smattering of others, but other than that, I'm stuck. The more graphic it is, the better. Bonus points if it's a scene of torture.

Thanks.

what epitaph am I thinking of?

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:56:17 GMT

1 trillion gold stars to whomever can help me remember this Roman epitaph:

It was from Rome's Republic years, and it was to a cat. The content was a request to the earth, or the afterlife, or something, to tread lightly regarding the deceased cat, as it had tread lightly on the earth (when it was alive).

I read it a decade ago in some latin class and can't even remember how to look it up now (short of google, which isn't helpful here). Thanks!

The Phaistos Disk supposedly a fake?

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:19:17 GMT

Hi all

I just wondered if anyone else happened to have heard all the fuss about the Phaistos Disk being a fake? So far as I can tell, Dr J Eisenberg, editor of Minerva Magazine, has written an article to that effect, based on about forty years' research. I've been looking for more information and reactions on it, but it's proving difficult. Anyone have any views or pointers for where to find more?

Thanks!

Book List

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:19:05 GMT

If any of you actually thought I was going to individually e-mail all who gave me their e-mail addresses for the list, you're insane. The book list is under the cut.

Special note: I'm looking to sell these in bulk, not individually. This is both to save me the hassle of having to mail a billion individual books, and because selling them in bulk assures me I'll actually get rid of them all. Make me an offer. If I get nothing good I'm throwing it up on eBay and you all can duke it out on there.

Omniprop- Aristophanes "Lysistrata" Melbourne Fringe Festival 2008

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:14:50 GMT

I realise this will only apply to Australian, Victorian people, nevertheless:

COSTUME DESIGNER NEEDED!

Omniprop Productions is staging Lysistrata as part of this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival; an ancient comedy with very modern undertones. We are seeking a costume designer to help us convery this ancient-yet-modern vibe. If you are interested, or know anyone who would be, please contact shamo@omniprop.org

Thanks!

Alternativley, if you're in Melbourne during September/October, come and see it! Fringe Guide comes out in The Age on 3 Sep, or join our Facebook page (Omniprop Productions) or look at our website (www.omniprop.org) for more info. We've also got excepts from past plays there for you to watch if you're interested in anciet theatre.

"Caesar" on BBC 7

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:29:23 GMT

I'm not sure if anyone is aware of this, and I suppose some might be interested, so...

BBC 7 (digital radio station) has been airing "Caesar," a series of hour-long radio plays based on Suetonius's Twelve Caesars. IPlayer keeps all of its shows up for one week, and it started on Monday, so you can still hear it from the beginning. You can find links to all the episodes here.

I've only just started listening to the first episode, and I'm enjoying it so far, but I'd be interested to know what others think.

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:01:57 GMT

This is a long shot, but I figured "What the Hell?"

I recently got my MA, two years after realizing I really didn't give a shit about Classics. Over time I have accumulated a large quantity of books related to the field in some way or another, and since I'll never read them again, I'd like to unload them to pay for a trip to Toronto. Wiould anyone be willing to buy a large quantity of Classics-related books? I will of course provide a list if anyone says yes, and from there come up with a fair price. Shipping will also be incredibly discounted, as I currently work at FedEx.

Thanks in advance.

Cicero's Letters

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:29:01 GMT

Sorry for the general question, but I'm away from library access at the moment, my Google-fu is failing me and my personal library doesn't have any helpful titles with the answer.

Does anyone have an idea of when the first collection of Cicero's Letters to Atticus were circulated? More to the point, is it sensible to hypothesise that Seneca would have had access to such a collection?

This is niggling at me, and this is the simplest way of scratching the itch I can think of! TIA.

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:35:12 GMT

A friend told me this story. It's taken from the "Heike Monogatari" but it reminds her of something Greek or Roman. I don't know what she's thinking of, do you?

The Emperor is married to a beautiful woman that never smiles. One day there's a practice alarm for the military. There are signal fires lit. There the Emperor's wife points her finger, says: "all the beautiful fires!", and smiles. Now the Emperor commands perpetual practice alarms, so that his wife smiles again. Soon enough the soldiers don't mind the signal fires anymore. Enemies come, the city is taken - and the Emperor's wife turns into a vixen, laughs and runs off into the woods.

Obviously the Greek or Roman story my friend is thinking of is not exactly the same. But is there even a vaguely similar one? Any ideas?

Ovid exiled for exposing an imperial coverup?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:00:25 GMT

In my French for Reading course this summer, someone brought in the French Wikipedia entry on Ovid. If you read the end in the exile part, there is an interpretation new to me for his exile:

That he was going to reveal Augustus' involvement in the murder of Vergil.

I'd like to know where that came from because thats much more fun than the usual conspiracy theory ;-)

For those interested, here is the link. Parts of the article seem to be taken from some Ovid historical fiction, but ive never read any with the murder theory. I hope it gets to stay--its a great Wikipedia lesson!

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovide

Typing in Greek

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:32:46 GMT

Hi,

My department asked me to write up some instructions on typing in Greek so that people wouldn't have to muddle around looking for fonts anymore. I know a lot of you probably already have it set up, but presumably there are some to whom it will be useful. It's good if you need to add Greek to a paper. Anyway, on we go!

Windows XP

1. From the start menu, go to the Control Panel, and click "Regional and Language Options."

2. From the Regional and Language Options window, click the Languages tab, then "Details..." under "Text services and input languages."

3. Click the "Add..." button. Choose "Greek" from the first drop-down menu, and "Greek Polytonic" from the second. Click okay.

4. Back at the Languages > Details window, click "Language bar" at the bottom. Choose to "Show the Language bar on the desktop" and "Show additional Language bar options in the taskbar." Click OK, then OK again.

5. Back on your desktop, the Language Bar will be either floating in one of the corners or anchored in the task bar. To type in Greek, click on the “EN,” and choose “EL” from the drop-down menu. To switch back to English, click on “EL” and choose “EN” again.

To switch quickly, you can also hold down the left hand “alt” and “shift” keys to switch from one language to another.

You will have to choose to type in Greek for each program you are running. Be sure to make sure the program in which you wish to type is highlighted before you change to Greek.

Mac OSX

1. Click the apple button in the top left corner of your screen. From the drop-down menu, choose System Preferences. Then click on the “International” icon.

2. Click on the “Input Menu” tab. Scroll down until you find “Greek Polytonic.” Click the checkbox next to it. At the bottom of the window, click the checkbox next to “Show input menu in menu bar.” Close the window.

3. To start typing in Greek, click on the flag next to the clock in the top right corner of the screen. Choose “Greek Polytonic” to start typing in Greek, and click “U.S.” again to go back to English.

Accent Guide

Most letters correspond directly to their English counterparts (i.e. a returns α [alpha], e returns ε [epsilon], etc.). Others are less obvious: u returns θ (theta), y returns υ (upsilon), w returns ς (final sigma), v returns ω (omega), j returns ξ (ksi), c returns ψ (psi), h returns η (eta).

Accents:
Type the key given, then the letter you want the accent to attach to. so ;a returns ά. All combinations also work with capital letters.
; = acute accent ά
: = umlaut ϊ
' = smooth breathing (no h sound) ἀ
" = rough breathing (initial h sound) ἁ
[ = circumflex ᾶ
{ = iota subscript ᾳ
] = grave accent ὰ
/ = acute accent and smooth breathing ἄ
? = acute accent and rough breathing ἅ
\ = grave accent and smooth breathing ἂ
| = grave accent and rough breathing ἃ
= = circumflex and smooth breathing ἆ
+ = circumflex and rough breathing ἇ

Some combinations of accents (those requiring an accent, breathing mark and subscript, or a must be found through the character menu.
Find the character map at Start Menu> Programs> Accessories
Or by typing “charmap” into the “Run” window found at Start Menu> Run

A Note on Fonts

Sometimes if you just start typing in Greek, or you paste from the TLG or Perseus, it will come out looking odd, like this: Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος. This is because Times New Roman, the default Microsoft font, does not have all the accented Greek characters, so it replaces the ones it doesn't have with characters in a font called Tahoma.

The way to get around this is to select all of your Greek text and change its font to either Tahoma or Palatino Linotype. Palatino Linotype fits in better with Times New Roman, Tahoma better with Arial and other sans-serif fonts. Palatino Linotype runs a little larger than Times New Roman, but this can be fixed by sizing Greek text down to 11 point for a 12 point document.

Sharing documents

Mac OSX and Windows use different fonts to handle Greek. Greek characters in a document written on a Windows computer may not appear correctly on a Mac computer, and vice versa. If you need to share your document with someone who is using a different operating system, it is best to share it in hard copy or to turn the document into a PDF. To convert a Microsoft Word document into a PDF, you may need to use Adobe Acrobat Professional or another third-party program.

More information on converting Microsoft Word documents to other formats can be found by searching the Microsoft Office website.

Latin WORDS for (Homeric) Greek?

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:39:41 GMT

I'm a huge fan of the program Latin WORDS and, since I've recently started learning Homeric Greek via Clyde Pharr's book, I'm wondering if there's a program like that for (Homeric) Greek: not just an electronic dictionary, but one that recognizes any form you put in and gives you back the dictionary entry. It's been amazingly useful in helping me nail down forms in Latin and I was hoping I could do the same thing for Greek. Oh, and the other catch is it has to be available (preferably for free) for Mac. I realize this is probably a long shot, but it's worth a try.

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:21:42 GMT

Greek: ten thousand times cooler than Latin. Agree or disagree? Discuss.

:)

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:40:52 GMT

Hello all-

This summer, I've set myself the goal of translating the entirety of the Catullan corpus into fluid, legible English that is accessible and understandable to, well, Jo American. The results have been interesting, to say the least. Certain allusions have to be cut, certain common practices have to have in-poem-explanations shoehorned in, certain adjectives take full lines to fill out... It's been far more fun that I would have expected.

Part of this is in preparation for exams in the fall, part of this is because I frankly really enjoy Catullus and most translations out there aren't meant for casual readers. Most rely heavily on footnotes or endnotes, or they expect the reader to have a more-than-passing understanding of Roman society. Then again, a number of translations that are quite good gloss over the overly sexual - and especially homoerotic - of the poems, leaving comparatively little of the original corpus.

I have posted my progress so far, along with notes about the translation process, and I will continue to do so throughout the summer. (Depending on the project's success, I might like to continue with a new author when Catullus is done.) So, if you'd like to read along, offer suggestions/critiques, or just brush up on the lesser-read poems, I direct you to the following link:

Wayward Classics

Of course, this is Catullus, so some of the material is a touch risque. Some is flat out crass. Nothing will be edited for "moral content," so be aware before you browse.

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:38:52 GMT

I thought some of you may be interested in knowing just how the synoptic essay on Caesar and Xenophon went, especially after helping me out. The questions that came out are under a cut for those who would rather not read (=

Compare/contrast Xenophon's and Caesar's aims in writing the history of the march up-country and the Gallic war respectively. How far were they successful in their endeavours?

It is said that the March of Ten Thousand under Xenophon was a democratic polis on the move. How far do you agree with this statement and how does it compare/contrast to Caesar's Roman army in Gaul?

What attitude do Xenophon and Caesar exhibit in their writings on the diverse ethnic races that they came into contact with in their military expeditions?

Xenophon's Anabasis and Caesar's De Bello Gallico used to be the two main literary works that Classics students were first exposed to in their study of Greek and Latin. To what extent and on what basis would you say that such an introduction to the classics is still commendable?

Caesar may very well be the most eminent of classical historians who were also soldiers and who based their writing on personal experience. How does his first-hand knowledge of the events emerge in the style of his historical narrative, and how does he compare in this aspect with the Greek soldier-historian Xenophon?

Xenophon was a pious military gentleman susceptible to superstition and omens. Caesar was a reckless commander with a terrible confidence in his own luck and ability. Discuss the two personalities in the way they materialise in their respective historical account.

Once again a big thank you to all of you who helped me!

Hoc Me Laetum Facit.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:16:47 GMT

This is proof that the Latin gods are not only surviving but also still with a certain sense of humor.

Novel based on the "Aeneid"

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:49:03 GMT

Ursula Le Guin wrote a novel I really love. It's titled "Lavinia" and it's based on the "Aeneid," except told from Lavinia's point of view. I really recommend it if you like classical epic poetry. I interviewed Le Guin about it on my new literature blog. I welcome any feedback about my writing, or suggestions for authors to interview.

http://inkwellreview.blogspot.com/

Hadrian in London

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:58:29 GMT

Was Hadrian Caesar a despot with a heart or a monster with a veneer of good taste?

This article in today’s Guardian announcing the opening of the Hadrian Exhibit at the British Museum ponders that question:

It was raining in Londinium. The river's brown smear struck Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus as a sick, savage parody of the Tiber, so far away, so longed for. This province was a rotten place to find yourself suddenly unemployed. But some would say losing your government job was a small penalty for sleeping with the emperor's wife.

Suetonius had only to read his own works to know how lucky he was - for this was the same Suetonius who would win everlasting fame for his book The Twelve Caesars, a voyeuristic history of Rome's murderous rulers. Even today, in a modern world that has produced its fair share of despots, the Roman emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Nero endure as icons of tyranny - largely because of the explicit way in which Suetonius chronicled their crimes. A modern historian might, say, delve into the childhood of Adolf Hitler to understand the roots of tyranny. Suetonius says straight out that Nero had sex with his mother and later killed her. When his pregnant wife Poppaea complained about his late nights, he kicked her to death. But the strangest, somehow saddest, details Suetonius gives of Nero's madness and vanity concern his self-indulgent need to be an "artist".

There's a pathetic quality, as Suetonius tells it, to this young man's childish attempts to impose his creative efforts on an empire that stretched from the deserts of the Middle East to the mountains of Wales. He believed he had an excellent voice and would sing his own poems to helpless audiences who clapped in terror. Like all Romans, he accepted the true home of the arts - the true source of everything classical - was Greece, whose sculpture, painting, architecture, literature and philosophy the Romans did their best to replicate. So he travelled to Greece and competed in Greek creative contests - winning, of course. He returned to Rome in triumph and razed part of the city walls in a traditional Greek honour for a laureate. Later, he was to burn down the entire city - Suetonius claims - to make space for his grossly indulgent palace, the Golden House.

The image of the artist-tyrant created by Suetonius is echoed in 20th-century tyrants. There is a photograph of Hitler in his last days in the bunker, giving all his attention to an architectural model of the new cultural capital he planned to build in Linz in Austria. It was his failure to win a place at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts as a young man that had precipitated his descent into homelessness and eventual self-discovery as a racist rabble-rouser, and now, while the Russian army took Berlin, the Führer dreamed of the great art museum he would never build. His pretensions as an artist and architect were as central as Nero's to the very nature of his tyranny: he sent troops to help Franco in the Spanish civil war after being inspired by a performance of Wagner's Siegfried, and anyone who has seen Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph Of The Will has to acknowledge the foul creative brilliance of the mass spectacles Hitler orchestrated. His opposite number, Stalin, wrote poetry as a young man, and Mussolini was influenced by Italy's avant-garde futurist movement. The monster ruler is archetypally a would-be artist, with the self-deceit and unbridled egotism that implies.

Suetonius worked for, and was sacked by, the most genuinely artistic of all Roman rulers. If Nero wanted to be creative, Hadrian, who ruled in the second century AD, really was. Once Hadrian criticised a design by the architect Apollodorus, who replied that the emperor should stick to drawing his "pumpkins". It's touchingly human, this image of the emperor sketching still-life scenes like the ones that survive, preserved by volcanic ash, from ancient Pompeii. It portrays Hadrian as a sincere soul, not some freak who made everyone listen to his singing. Through the architecture he commissioned and helped design, the sculpture he collected and the way he was able to shape an empire's art to express his own emotional life, Hadrian left a unique visual legacy. But was he really the exception to the Nero paradigm that has haunted the history of art and power? Was he that impossible thing, a despot with a heart - or just a monster with a veneer of good taste?

The “Landsdowne Hercules” of the Getty Villa, removed from Hadrian’s Villa in Tibur:

That's what Suetonius wondered, as he stood with nothing to do, watching some poor loser's headless torso being dragged out of London's gladiatorial arena. The story about the architect has a nasty end. Hadrian didn't bother thinking up a witty comeback to that crack about the pumpkins. He simply had the joker killed.

He has gone down in history as one of ancient Rome's less terrifying emperors. He is remembered - Apollodorus's death aside - not for vicious murders and grotesque indulgences, but for building Hadrian's Wall to define the northern limit of Roman Britain. Anyone who has visited Housesteads Fort, one of the wall's surviving Roman bases, on a misty, rainy day, and seen the stone urinals where legionaries relieved themselves before they went back to man the artillery trained on the fearsome Scots, must have wondered, who was this emperor who defined part of the British landscape and left an indelible mark on our maps? Hadrian is just a name to us - a name and a wall. He looks remote, even as I stand by his outsized marble head in Rome's Vatican Museum. The face that once loomed high above Roman citizens is inscrutable. What made him tick?

Aristocratic Roman women, from a mural at Pompeii:

Suetonius must have wondered that, after he was cut loose in Britain. Hadrian's wife wasn't the key to his emotional life, that was for sure. Suetonius would surely have paid a higher price for his scandalous friendship with Sabina if Hadrian had actually loved or desired her. But he had room in his life for only one great love: a young man called Antinous. After Antinous drowned, the emperor mourned him on a lavish public scale and even tried to create a religious cult of him. He ensured his lover's face would never be forgotten by ordering statues of gods and heroes throughout the empire to bear the harmonious features of the dead Antinous.

In what is surely the only occult shrine to homosexual love in Vatican City, black Egyptian statues of priests in headdresses, carved just a little less than lifesize, solemnly walk in procession, participating in a magical rite. Above them tower statues of the god Osiris - with the face of Antinous. What they are doing, in this bizarre stone tableau created for the gardens of Hadrian's vast villa at Tivoli, is trying to bring about the rebirth of Antinous-Osiris: to resurrect Hadrian's lover using Egyptian magic.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris is the god who dies, the god of the afterlife: a resurrection figure rooted in agricultural fertility rites. He was a powerful ruler, torn to pieces by his enemy, Seth: his mourning lover gathered up his dismembered corpse, bound the pieces in a mummy-shaped package, and Osiris became god of the afterlife. And Hadrian, in the private religious complex whose statues now stand silently in a sun-filled room in the Vatican, appropriates this mythology into his own cult of Antinous.

It gets stranger. Antinous drowned in Egypt, which makes sense of Hadrian's attempt to turn his lover into an Egyptian god. Egypt, of all ancient lands known to the Romans, was the place where people thought most deeply about the possibility of life after death. The entire culture of ancient Egypt was saturated in ideas about death and eternal life - from the pyramids of Giza to the gold death mask of Tutankhamun. Ancient Rome resembled the modern western world in the way it consumed other cultures as commodities: the Romans sampled a bit of Egyptian myth, a bit of Persian myth, just as people today feel free to experiment with various beliefs.

But it's not as simple as that. Antinous's death may not have been an accident. Some ancient accounts say it was a macabre and enigmatic sacrifice: that he drowned himself, or was drowned by others, to save Hadrian from an illness. This would mean Hadrian's Egyptian shrine is not so much a romantic act of love as part of a morbid sacrificial cult that began with the deliberate drowning of Antinous himself. As Asterix might say, "These Romans are crazy!"

Cameo of Antinous as Hercules, in St. Petersburg:

Suetonius stared at the rain exploding on the lumpen waters of the Thames, waters sacred to the Celts, who threw in their best swords and shields as gifts for their gods. Hadrian, he had to acknowledge, was not Nero. All those monsters of the early principate seemed to have no regard for anything but themselves and no sense of an afterlife. Nero had cried out, Suetonius tells us, "What an artist I die!" It was just about his ego. Bad art has no emotional truth. Yet in all Hadrian's creative projects there is emotional depth. This despot is human. He is worried about the things that worry everyone.

A gigantic stone drum of a building masses on the shore of the Tiber, looking across a bridge graced by stone angels so exquisite, they seem weightless. The angels of the Ponte Sant'Angelo were created by the 17th-century sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini - but the bridge itself is Roman, built on Hadrian's orders to connect the city with his vast circular mausoleum, Castel Sant'Angelo. In the Renaissance it was converted into a fortress; inside is a 16th-century lift used by the Pope when he needed to hide here. But at its core is Hadrian's mausoleum, a gargantuan mountain of stone approaching in scale and ambition the Egyptian pyramids themselves, and on whose rugged grandeur the 18th-century artist Piranesi homed in when he depicted the eerie ruin. Inside, a model shows it as it was in the second century, covered with cypresses and surrounded by statues. Following the curving tunnel designed for the imperial funeral, you find a tall burial chamber deep within the tomb. Hadrian's own poem about the fate of the soul is inscribed there: "Little soul, charming wanderer, guest and friend of the body, you will soon depart for gloomy, chilly, misty regions, where your jokes will be at an end."

From the scale of his tomb and the sweet melancholy of his most famous poem, it seems Hadrian was as troubled by his own mortality as haunted by Antinous's. And this impression of a serious "little soul" is confirmed by the building that is his greatest gift to the human imagination.

Why should we be interested in this Roman emperor who lived and died so long ago? Because he built the Pantheon, one of the most mysterious, moving, disconcerting architectural structures in the world.

You come across it in the tangle of medieval streets in Rome's Centro Storico. The alleys widen into a cosy piazza where people sit at cafe tables and congregate by a fountain around which curl bronze monsters. Towering above is a great stone cylinder - like that of Hadrian's mausoleum - with a tall columned portico and vast, ancient bronze doors. But nothing prepares you for what is inside.

The ancient Romans believed they were culturally inferior to the Greeks whose culture had reached its zenith at Athens in the fifth century BC. Hadrian travelled to Greece and adored everything Greek. Antinous was Greek, and their "Greek love" a deliberate imitation of the homosexual passions central to Greek art. In Rome's Capitoline Museum, statues of Antinous as a Greek god stand near a nude colossus of Hadrian, in a Greek helmet, personifying the war god Ares and modelled on a Greek original. There are black marble centaurs signed by Greek artists, made for Hadrian, and a red marble faun - masterpieces that were the conduit through which classical Greek art reached later ages. The British Museum owns a version of the Greek discus thrower statue, which once belonged to Hadrian. Even the martial nude of him was emulated, by Canova's nude colossus of Napoleon. Yet to enter the Pantheon is to encounter an aesthetic power that has nothing to do with ancient Greece. It is purely Roman, and broodingly primitive.

Capitoline Museum statue of Hadrian as Ares:

Faun of Hadrian’s:

Through its high bronze doors, you enter a marble-inlaid, circular room beneath the most incredible, atmospheric dome in existence. It is a hemisphere into which are set tapering stepped recesses whose regular pattern creates baffling optical illusions. Are they really there, or just trompe l'oeils? The apparent depth or shallowness of these inset panels depends on the vagaries of sunshine and cloud, the hour of the day, on mist and rain. For at the centre of the great dome is a wide circular opening: an oculus through which you gaze at the sky above. It is, even on a cloudy day, a bright disc, a blinding, glowing medallion of whiteness, and a great shaft of light comes down into the dark depths where you stand. As the light changes outside, the atmospherics within alter: a sunbeam creates what looks like a solid column of light penetrating the gloom, a shower of rain pours straight down on to the marble floor. As I look up, a bird flies across the opening.

The first time I visited the Pantheon, as a child on holiday in Rome, I lay on the floor and looked up, or was it down, at the sky to experience a magic disordering of up and down, here and there. A priest yelled at me - one of the reasons this temple has survived intact is that it has been used as a church since early times. Today I can compare the Pantheon to modern installations that play with light. American artist James Turrell creates magical, disorienting light chambers that surely owe a lot to the Pantheon.

Interior of the Pantheon:

There is something else modernist about it: its dome is made of concrete, a Roman invention central to modern architecture. Yet if it seems modern, it also seems forbiddingly ancient. Its cult of light and the changing sky is truly primal. It has a lot in common with Stonehenge. It's so... pagan. There is a divinity to that sky: but in spite of all the Christian chapels at the edges of the round space, it does not feel remotely Christian. You sense for a moment the power of Jupiter and Neptune, the wrath of Mars, the terror of Hades. A world of gods who don't necessarily care about the fate of mortals.

In Londinium, Suetonius felt regret for his political career. The emperor was human, probably. But not entirely. His power was his true identity. He was sublime.

In the Pantheon, a terrible power concentrates in a column of light descending into the shadows. It humbles the wandering little soul.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2285021,00.html
Here is information about the Hadrian Exhibit at the British Museum:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/future_exhibitions/hadrian/buy_tickets.aspx

For my first week end excursion in Europe--probably in early October--I will take a fast train across Northern France and underneath the English Channel to London, stay in some cheap hotel there and go to see this exhibit five or six times. Maybe seeing it will be further inspiration for Adrian Unforsaken.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:00:43 GMT

I'm sitting for a synoptic exam on Caesar and Xenophon next monday. Part of the exam is a 'synoptic essay'; an essay question which will require me to draw upon both authors in answering it. I have studied Book III of Anabasis and Book VI of De Bello Gallico for this exam and given that my lecturers only focused on translating the text, I haven't a clue what to read to help me with answering the essay question. Upon asking my lecturers for some advice on what to read, I received unhelpful variants of "read anything about the common qualities in both authors/books". I have read an introduction on Xenophon, as well as general information about Caesar's Life, and an article about 'Hoplite Warfare in Greece' but I don't know what to read to link both authors/books and was hoping someone here would be kind enough to offer me a few suggestions and point me in the direction of some sites that can help me out. The only quality in both books which I can think to read about is the armies and their military tactics.

Many thanks in advance!

Hannah

Article help and Alcaeus 338

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:47:54 GMT

I'm writing a paper on Horace 1.9 and Alcaeus 338. I have plenty of sources on Horace and general material, but very little on Alcaeus. The only article specific to Alcaeus 338 I can find is unfortunately not available at my library. It is this one:

Mason, Hugh John
Winter on Lesbos: imagination and reality
Mouseion vol. 3 (2003) 285-293

If anyone has easy access to this I would very much appreciate a copy. Also, if you happen to know of any other sources on the poem... but it seems to have been pretty much ignored except in connection with Horace (which is reasonable, but agh.). Thank you!

A source question

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:59:12 GMT

I'm having some trouble finding sources and thought maybe you all could help.

I'm looking for Greek literary sources that talk about Medusa and the Gorgons. So far I have Ovid (but that's Roman) and about 3 lines in Hesiod. Any source suggestions would be great, and specifically I'm looking for something that describes what Medusa and the Gorgons look like.

This is for a presentation on the evolution of Medusa and Gorgon images in Greek vase paintings and I figured that it would be good to have literary examples describing the Gorgons.

Thank you in advance for any help!

representing the wind

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:40:34 GMT

Thank you, everybody! Now I have a variety of images, and some of them may help me cobble the one in my head together. I am doing a vintage-70's-hippie-style chambray shirt embroidery of the dig at Gault, and I wanted to indicate that there was a most unexpected very cold draft in the chemical toilets...
And thank you all who warned me about copyright. In this case I don't think the likeness in the end would allow Boreas's own mother to recognize him. (and who was she, anyway?)

Thank-you gifts for professors

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:06:25 GMT

Does anyone have any ideas of what a classics prof might like as a gift? I really want to get my thesis advisor something for being so brilliant and amazingly helpful.