rogueclassicism

REVIEWS: Recent Additions to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review

::Friday, September 19, 2003 5:53:54 PM::
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SQUIRREL FODDER: Cyprus is Atlantis

An "explorator" reader passed this one along (thanks DS!) ... An "author" is claiming that he can prove that Cyprus is probably the origin of the Atlantis myth ... this one's in the Cyprus Weekly, which has a shelf life of approximately five seconds, so I reproduce below most of it:

AN AMERICAN researcher claims this week that Cyprus is the site of the lost island of Atlantis.
After nearly a decade of research, author Robert Sarmast claims that the fabled ancient island is located on the sea floor between Cyprus and Syria, and that the present Cyprus is merely what remains of the mountainous region of Atlantis.
He also believes that Atlantis - and therefore Cyprus - was the source of what the Bible calls the Garden of Eden
Now he wants to launch an expedition to explore the sea bed.
"It's one mile down, the Titanic was two miles down in cold water and that was done 20 years ago," he said this week from his office in Los Angeles.
He said that he believes he may find the remains of a city, "containing buildings, roads and tunnels."
He has kept his research secret over the last decade, with everyone involved having to sign secrecy pledges but now says that, despite not yet finding funds for an expedition "I can't just keep sitting on this discovery."

[...]

He says the site he has been investigating matches Plato's account of Atlantis with astonishing accuracy. Plato based his description on an account by Solon, who is said to have got his information directly from the Egyptians.
His book, Discovery of Atlantis, The Startling Case For the Island of Cyprus, is published this week in the US.
Sarmast says his findings match almost every clue in Plato's description of the legendary city state.
It shows what he says is the location of the rectangular plain of Atlantis, as well as all the other key geographic features that Plato cites-including the precise location of its capital-Atlantis City.
The book goes on to provide a link between this data and the biblical legend of the Garden of Eden.
"Scholars in this field know that any credible claim to have located Atlantis must use Plato's famed account found in his Timaeus and Critias. these classic ancient dialogues remain the sole source for the Atlantis legend," he says.

[...]

The book utilises state-of-the-art oceanographic research and display technology to depict what he says is the actual underwater site of Atlantis. The maps show the Levantine basin and the Cyprus Arc in high-resolution detail for the first time.
The data was obtained in 1987 during a scientific survey of the north-eastern Mediterranean by a Russian survey vessel.
While matching all the clues of the physical site, Sarmast claims to achieve a match with nearly every other clue that Plato lists.
The nearly 50 matches he has made with Plato's clues extend from the philosopher's claim that elephants once lived on Atlantis, to the mineral composition of the island, to mythological figures associated with the legend.
Among his claims are that Sarmast lends new credibility to Plato's account of Atlantis. Crucial here is the recent scientific proof of a catastrophic flood of the entire Mediterranean basin due to the destruction of the Gibraltar 'dam' that closed off the Med from the Atlantic.
This accepted fact of natural history substantiates Plato's claim that an epochal flood "swallowed up" the mountainous island of Atlantis. It lends credence to Sarmast's contention that Plato's overall presentation is historically accurate.

::Friday, September 19, 2003 5:09:29 PM::
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NUNTII: Rubens' Tarquin and Lucretia

One of the many art pieces which disappeared in the final days of WWII was Rubens' Tarquin and Lucretia. Now seedy types from Russia are trying to sell the thing while the German government is asking the Kremlin to intervene. The Guardian (which has a photo of the work) has some details:

The work, Tarquin and Lucretia, was painted by Peter Paul Rubens between 1609 and 1612, and is widely acknowledged as one of the Flemish master's finest early works. "It's an extremely important painting," Werner Busch, a senior art historian at Berlin's Free University, said last night.
The huge canvas, depicting the mythological rape of the chaste Roman wife, Lucretia, disappeared from a castle on the outskirts of Berlin in 1945 as the Red Army advanced on the German capital.

More ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 10:23:50 AM::
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NUNTII: O Curule Fate!

A while back we mentioned an exhibit at the Yale University Art Gallery entitled Curule, but press coverage was rather meagre and less-than-accurate. The Yale Daily News today provides the sort of thing we'd prefer:

As it turns out, the "sella curulis" is a folding stool reserved for use by the Roman republic's magistrates. It served as an "emblem of political authority," and that connotation accounts for its persistent appearance in many images from antiquity, particularly coins like the suite of three displayed next to the doorway. Under the magnifying glass, YUAG has provided for closer inspection the visitor to "Curule" can make out groupings of empty stools, including the center coin, a silver denarius of P. Cornelius P.f.L.n. Lentulus from c.74 B.C. that shows an empty sella curulis next to a standing Roman figure. Not only were these curious furnishings symbolic, but they were more so when empty, when they became, as the accompanying caption declares, "an assertion of power."

More ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 10:17:17 AM::
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PERFORMANCE: Ballet

Okay ... I admit I've never been a ballet fan. Still less can I even imagine a ballet called Spartacus ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 10:09:59 AM::
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NUNTII: Erich Gruen on Jewish Jokes

The Daily Pennsylvanian has a feature on Erich Gruen's current research interests, which apparently are the Greco-Roman versions of Jewish jokes:

Erich Gruen, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, shared a few of these racist jabs last night at the University Museum -- and shed some light on their origins.

For example, Seneca, the ancient philosopher and political adviser, scoffed, "By observing Sabbath, Jews use up one-seventh of their lives in idleness."

Juvenal once said, "Jews are so exclusive that they won't even give directions in the streets to those who aren't circumcised."

And Augustus joked, "I'd feel safer as Herod's pig than his son," referring to the King of Judea who notoriously slaughtered his offspring.

But according to Gruen, it was not a case of simple anti-Semitism.

Rather, these jokes represent "Greco-Roman cultural snobbery" more than a widespread anti-Semitic ideology.

Non satis? ... super ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 9:56:37 AM::
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NUNTII: Cemberlitas Column to be Restored

This one is at the Turkish news daily, Zaman -- kind of difficult to connect to this a.m., so here's the salient bit.

The restoration of the Cemberlitas Column, the symbol of the conversion to monotheism, erected by Roman Emperor Constantine in 325-328 A.D., started with a ceremony yesterday. The historic tower, which is on the brink of collapse because sea-sand and brick were used in an earlier restoration effort in 1972, will be re-restored by students from various universities in Anatolia.

The rest ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 9:50:41 AM::
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DOUBLE TAKE HEADLINE:

Roman Gladiator Wins Easily

::Friday, September 19, 2003 9:45:48 AM::
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NUNTII: Fun in Exeter

Here's a nice way to celebrate a city's Roman past ... Exeter has a big party for Augustus! Scant details at This is Exeter ...

::Friday, September 19, 2003 9:42:18 AM::
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY

ante diem xiii kalendas octobres

ludi Romani (day 15)
86 A.D. -- birth of the future emperor Antoninus Pius
208 A.D. -- birth of the future emperor Diadumenianus (?)

::Friday, September 19, 2003 8:57:27 AM::
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