SAY WHAT?
The Hartford Courant has a food column with these tidbits of questionable accuracy (talking about pizza):
In 79 A.D., when Vesuvius was laying waste to the thriving city of Pompeii, it was a popular snack. All along the rocky Amalfi coast and into the ancient and hilly Neapolitan towns and islands of the Campania, it appeared on the tables of the wealthy and the poor alike, doused with murky green oil and eaten with figs, cheese and whatever animal had recently been slaughtered.
It graced the table of the epic poet Virgil as he wrote "The Aeneid" in 19th-century B.C. northern Italy, and legend holds that it was baked on the flattened shields of sixth century B.C. warriors from Persia in the east to Capri and Ischia in the west. ...
Odysseus ate it on his endless, whirlwind journey home from the Trojan War.
We're then inflicted with this meaningless analogy:
Home to insurance magnates, educators, editors and soccer mothers, the quiet, tree-lined hamlet of West Hartford might very well be Troy for the marinara-splattered conflict that is going on within its borders; from busy Bishop's Corner to bucolic Farmington Avenue, sides are being taken, bets are being wagered, electronic bulletin boards are packed full of quarreling, often foul-mouthed patrons while jumpy pizza restaurant owners go to inordinate lengths to maintain strategic control of their businesses and patronage. It's like "Henry the Fifth," only with clams.
::Friday, September 05, 2003 8:27:58 PM::
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NUNTII: CNN Inside Politics
Joe Klein waxes thus:
After the Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar — who served as both the Tommy Franks and L. Paul Bremer of that operation — had serious pacification problems.
A particularly violent revolt occurred in the town of Uxellodunum. "Caesar saw his work in Gaul could never be brought to a successful conclusion if similar revolts were allowed to break out," wrote his friend Aulus Hirtius. "So he decided to deter all others" by cutting off the hands of the prisoners taken at Uxellodunum and sending the survivors out across Gaul as an object lesson. Hirtius concluded, "The situation was now everywhere satisfactory."
Iraq, like Gaul, is divided into three parts — and the U.S. has more serious pacification problems, and a less vivid set of pacification options, than Caesar did.
For the rest of the analogy ...
::Friday, September 05, 2003 8:17:35 PM::
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NUNTII: Greek/Roman Statue Reassembled
The Art Newspaper has a piece on the reassembly of a bronze found by a Croatian scuba diver four years ago. The pertinent description:
The statue, is of a type known as an apoxyomenos, an athlete using a strigil to scrape oil from his body. It is very similar in style to another statue, now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which was found at Ephesus, Turkey, in 1896 and generally believed to be a Roman copy of a Greek original. Art historians immediately suggested that the Croatian bronze derived from the same original model and that it was, therefore, also Roman.
Read the whole thing ... (slow evening, otherwise)
::Friday, September 05, 2003 8:12:02 PM::
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY
nonae septembres
- ludi Romani (day 1)
- 146 B.C. -- dedication of the Temple of Jupiter Stator and
associated rites thereafter
- 1908 -- birth of Arnaldo Momigliano
::Friday, September 05, 2003 5:52:08 AM::
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REVIEW: Time Commanders
Time Commanders is a program on BBC which appears to be something like history-meets-Junkyard-Wars. There's a brief review/mention in the Guardian's media column thus:
In Time Commanders (BBC2), contestants you'd avoid sitting beside on a bus have a go at re-fighting great battles from history. With the aid of PlayStation-esque CGI, some clipboards and Eddie Mair, an am-dram group from Manchester tried to improve on Hannibal's tactics at the battle of Trebia in 218BC. To no one's surprise, the shorter men in the group took on the roles of generals and got all of aquiver at being in command of thousands of soldiers, among them the Carthaginian's Numidian cavalry and 10 self-destructing elephants. Two exceedingly annoying and not terribly expert experts added to the mix with insights such as "The Roman cavalry is crap".
A not entirely unsuccessful attempt to sex-up military history, Time Commanders was thoroughly blokey and more than a bit trainspottery. You can just imagine computer-aided battle re-enactment as a team-building exercise on which some companies send their employees for a bit of office bonding. The high geek-factor notwithstanding, Time Commanders will, you suspect, travel very well as a format.
Hopefully it makes its way to this side of the pond ....
::Friday, September 05, 2003 5:40:46 AM::
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NUNTII: Latin Teacher Honoured
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this tidbit in its education section:
Elizabeth Bouis, a Latin teacher at Wheeler High School, recently was awarded the title of summa cum laude Junior Classical League sponsor by the National Junior Classical League.
Teachers who receive this designation have sponsored local chapters for 12 or more years and have shown distinguished service to the organization. Bouis has taught at Wheeler for 21 years and has attended 20 Junior Classical League conventions. She received her award at the 50th annual National Junior Classical League convention at Trinity University in San Antonio.
Congrats to EB!
::Friday, September 05, 2003 5:34:55 AM::
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NUNTII (sort of): Middlewich Roman Festival
I'm including this this a.m. primarily because I'm very curious about how common/popular such Roman Festivals and re-enactment events are. This news item is actually an appeal for volunteers, but it does sound like it will be a good festival:
The main festival site is at Harbutt's Field, and the programme of events will include a Roman parade, battle re-enactments by the Ermine Street Guard, a chariot race, balloon race, virtual-reality film showings of Roman Middlewich and trips on a Roman galley.
There will also be Roman glass-making, face-painting, metal detectors, Roman finds, mosaic workshops, Roman cookery, clay workshops, Roman pot-throwing, Roman coin-making, salt-making, refreshments and a pig roast.
Metal detectors? Whatever the case, I'd really like to hear more about such things (festivals ... not metal detectors) and they do not always get press coverage. If your reenactment group does take part in such an event and there's an associated web page, feel free to pass it along!
::Friday, September 05, 2003 5:28:35 AM::
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REVIEW: Images of Childhood ...
The New York Times has a lengthy review (with a really nice photo of a grave stele) of the Coming of Age in Ancient Greece: Images of Childhood From the Classical Past exhibition. In case you missed the mention last week, the Hood Museum does have an official website for the exhibition.
::Friday, September 05, 2003 5:16:20 AM::
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NUNTII (sort of): Tabloid Representations of the Ancient World
I'll never figure out how these various spiders work ... in this a.m.'s scan comes an article from 1997!!! Since I haven't had a drop of coffee yet, straight to the intro:
Never mind Dodie, Di and those tapeworm diets that don't work.
What makes Don McGuire really glow in the dark is the way the
tabloid press mucks around in the ancient world.
McGuire is an adjunct assistant professor of classics at UB
and director of the Student Services Center in the Faculty of
Arts and Letters. His areas of study and teaching include the
culture, literature-particularly the poetry-of the Roman Empire.
He also has made a minor study of how supermarket tabs represent
the ancient world, lecturing on the topic at classics
conferences and currently preparing an article for the Journal
of Popular Culture.
The rest of the story (oops!) is in the UB Reporter ...
::Friday, September 05, 2003 4:58:45 AM::
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