the CAMPVS

Thermopylae

My first great love was not classics, but comics, and unfortunately the two never quite seem to mix for me. I could never get into Eric Shanower’s Age of Bronze, and more recently was disappointed to find that Edmonson and Ward’s Olympus, being far from epic itself, was in fact five kinds of awful. (Need I count the ways? Okay: awful art, awful premise, awful dialogue, awful colors, awfully full of comic book cliches.)

But when I picked up the much-anticipated reprint of Archie Goodwin’s Blazing Combat (1965), which features some of comics’ greatest artists, I was happy to see the story Thermopylae. ECCE:

Art by Reed Crandall (1917-1982)

The piece was drawn by the late Reed Crandall, who deserved a much fuller and more rewarding career and life than he had. The frame—a conversation between the older, wiser Rolfe, and the younger, more fatalistic Tommy, in which the story of Leonidas is told—is set during 1941, with ‘a small force of Greeks, ANZACs and Britons fighting a delaying action at Thermopylae.’ Highly recommended.

It’s enough to make me itch for the end of the school year, to pick up my pencils and brushes, and to make another stab at comics myself.

29 May 1453

I would put this in block quotes, but there’s far too much text for that. What follows is excerpted from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and has special relevance for today:

After a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. … For the payment of his feeble and mutinous troops, Constantine was compelled to despoil the churches with the promise of a fourfold restitution; and his sacrilege offered a new reproach to the enemies of the union. A spirit of discord impaired the remnant of the Christian strength; the Genoese and Venetian auxiliaries asserted the preeminence of their respective service; and Justiniani and the Great Duke, whose ambition was not extinguished by the common danger, accused each other of treachery and cowardice.
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U.S., Mexico locked in bitter name dispute

This just in:

Tense discussions have stalled between two North American neighbors, threatening the administration of several long-standing trade agreements. The United States and Mexico are bitterly divided over the use of a name: Mexico. Americans have taken to calling their southern neighbor by the acronym FSTONS: the Former Spanish Territory of New Spain. Asked about the dispute at a European summit, a clearly exasperated Secretary Clinton noted that, “one of our southernmost states is called New Mexico!” She called for “sensitivity to America’s sensitivities” in this matter, since “FSTONS had gained its independence from Spain only as recently as 1812, whereas the name Nuevo Mexico dates to 1563.” She pleaded no comment when asked about the complaints of all other Americans, North and South, to her country’s claim upon that name.

Wait a minute. No—that can’t be right. That would ridiculously stupid if it were true. And yet this is supposed to be taken seriously by serious politicians.

This is Hardcore?

I’ve just stumbled onto Dan Carlin’s podcast Hardcore History and have enjoyed his episode on The Macedonian Soap Opera, i.e., the Diadochi. I don’t know if it’s hardcore (I can’t hear that word without thinking of Minor Threat or Bad Brains) but it’s entertaining and well-produced.

And it makes cleaning a lot easier to deal with. Next go around I’ll start in on
Punic Nightmares Pt. I, Pt. II, & Pt. III.

I’m really looking forward to his discussion with Victor Davis Hanson. And episode 12, Steppe Stories, sounds great if the introduction is anything to go by:

Blood-sucking Scythian warriors, tattooed ice mummies, Amazons killing so they can mate, pot smoking head-hunters, scalp-taking, koumiss-drinking Mongols, Turks, Huns, and Aliens. What’s not to like?

Birdbrains and the mind of god

The latest issue of TAPhA is out and this piece caught my eye:

Malevolent Gods and Promethean Birds: Contesting Augury in Augustus’s Rome
Steven J. Green
pp. 147-167

Summary:

The well-known mythological basis for augury (by which I mean in this paper the specialist consultation of various antics of birds in flight) is that there exists a positive interaction between gods and birds, whereby beneficent gods send reliable signs to expert mortals by means of certain birds, which act as the gods’ messengers.

The aim of this paper will be to demonstrate that Augustan writers (Livy, Vergil, and Ovid) engage in a lively debate about the hallowed mythological underpinning for augury, a debate which is all the more surprising (and potentially contentious) in light of the Emperor’s own promotion of this most ancient religious institution.

I haven’t read it yet. (Is it possible for APA members to access the online edition without some other institutional affiliation?) But as a teacher who tends to spend a fair amount of time in advanced courses dealing with Augustan literature, and as a teacher who thinks genuine Roman cultural practices get short shrift in the classroom (generally in deference to a misplaced and incongruous focus on Greek myth), this kind of article is certainly welcome. I’m looking forward to the print edition landing on my doorstep.

3 Epics in 22 minutes

I’m so happy to see that someone in Classics finally seems to get the concept of a podcast. (Briefly, a recording of a poem is not a podcast. It’s a recording of a poem.)

The Warwick classics department has followed its previous effort with a 22 minute discussion of Homer and Vergil (though I notice they use the traditional spelling, Virgil). I’ve just begun to have a listen, and so far the audio quality seems much-improved. Sound quality plagues many an academic podcast without the resources of, say, the BBC which does an excellent job with In Our Time (which occasionally touches on the Classics with fantastic results).

I’ll reproduce the intro here to entice you to download and perhaps, as I have, to subscribe to the feed:

David Fearn and Andrew Laird of Warwick’s Classics department discuss the vagaries of epic poetry.

War and peace, love and longing, and a hero’s home-coming—these are epic themes. We have all encountered them somewhere: on the big or small screen, in books, or perhaps even ourselves. Epics tell great tales of immortal gods and mortal men, of whole civilisations rising and falling. And yet, they also team with the many facets of the human condition, with grief and guilt, bereavement and betrayal, passion and persecution, death and desire.
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey mark both the end of oral poetry and the beginning of literature. In the Aeneid, Virgil continues the tale of Troy and recounts the epic events leading to the foundation of Rome.
But what are these epics really about? How is the ambient social and political order reflected in these great classics? And how do small people feature in these grant narratives?

KUDOS to Warwick for not only getting it right, but for giving me something to listen to and to recommend.

Need Dating Help?

No, this isn’t about finding someone special. Our comrades who stick more to the dirt than the word may benefit from a new technique for dating pottery and other fired objects, which scientists believe may be able to yield accurate results back to 10,000 years. It’s being said that it does for ceramic what radiocarbon dating does for organic materials:

A team from The University of Manchester and The University of Edinburgh has discovered a new technique which they call ‘rehydroxylation dating’ that can be used on fired clay ceramics like bricks, tile and pottery.

Working with The Museum of London, the team has been able to date brick samples from Roman, medieval and modern periods with remarkable accuracy.

They have established that their technique can be used to determine the age of objects up to 2,000 years old – but believe it has the potential to be used to date objects around 10,000 years old.

How does it work?

The method relies on the fact that fired clay ceramic material will start to chemically react with atmospheric moisture as soon as it is removed from the kiln after firing. This continues over its lifetime causing it to increase in weight – the older the material, the greater the weight gain.

An added bonus? It should be able to root out forgeries.

Homer and Vergil audio

I was looking for something to listen to while working in the study and stumbled across Wired for Books, a site produced by WOUB, the Ohio State University radio station.

There are two pieces of special interest for us:

(1) Stanley Lombardo‘s recitation (in Greek) of Book I of the Iliad,

and

(2) Wilfried Stroh‘s recitation (in Latin) of Book IV of the Aeneid.

Any recommendations for good podcasts or other interesting bits of internet audio that touch upon our shared interest?

I’ve got a nasty book habit

And you could soon be paying the price.

Despite being overwhelmed with work and planning a wedding with receptions on two coasts, and trying (but failing) to find time for a course I need to complete ASAP, I’ve taken on the necessary task of overhauling our nearly 2,000 book personal library.

Within the first 20 minutes I discovered 13 doubles just among the OCTs and Cambridge green and yellows. For some reason we have 3 copies each of the 2nd Caesar OCT and Shackleton-Bailey’s Select Letters of Cicero.

Perhaps it’s premature of me to mention this without consulting with the significant other, but I see a golden opportunity here. We may soon see books for sale in the Campvs.

The end of A.P. Latin

Now that my students have taken the AP Latin: Vergil test and I feel like I have time to be a normal human being again, my attention is turning in so many directions at once. But staying on theme, I’m debating where to take the class next. I’ve decided against it, but I was toying with Maffeo Vegio‘s 13th Aeneid, which begins thus:

1. Turnus ut extremo vitam sub Marte profudit
2. subdunt se Rutuli Aeneae, Troiana sequentes
3. agmina; dehinc superis meriti redduntur honores.
4. congaudet nato ac sociis, memor ante malorum
5. actorum pater Aeneas. …

Here’s a rough, literal, line-by-line version for the Latinless:

As Turnus poured out his life during his final battle,
the Rutulians turn themselves over to Aeneas, following the Trojan
line; thereupon to the god are rendered the honors deserved.
He rejoices with offspring and friends, mindful of prior evils
done, does father Aeneas.

It was an amazing accomplishment for a 21 year old, but it ruins the Aeneid for me. (And now for a bit of praeteritio: I needn’t mention the odd vocabulary) There’s nothing quite like the suddenness of the end, despite the arguments that the poem is unfinished.

Many other teachers have suggested having students fill “gaps” or write continuations, but the last thing I was to grade is Epic fanfic. I’m looking for something that’s both rewarding of their hard work and lasting. They should have something to take away, to remember, and to inspire.