QUOTE DU JOUR

This is a feature I hope will be a daily thing and is designed to take the concept of a "Daily Quotation" a few steps further than one usually finds in blogs or on the web in general. The plan is to have a quotation from an ancient author, in the original language, followed by a translation. Since that will satisfy plenty of folks, that's all that will be seen here, but there will be a link for the context of the quote (i.e. the ancient work from which it was taken and/or a few lines of explicatory commentary). I'll probably only do this sporadically for the next while until I get either a) the computer in my classroom hitched up (we're about to send out midterm report cards and they still haven't done it ... now of course, the techie guys are ignoring my school on purpose because I've made such a big stink about things) or b) my new laptop arrives (alas, my old one just can't handle things properly any more). In the same category are some other features I experimented with in the early days of rogueclassicism such as "Inscription du jour" and "Ciceronian Letter du Jour". In any event, what follows is what you can expect to see, deo volente, in the near future:

Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

They make a desert and call it peace.

-- Tacitus, Agricola 30 [context]

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:18:59 PM::
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REVIEW: Jason and the Argonauts

From Gareth McLean's TV column in the Guardian:

Occasionally, I do wish that the odd myth was allowed to endure. After all, what's life without a little mystery?

But no. They insist on dispelling and debunking. Jason and the Argonauts: Revealed (Five) was a case in point. We all know Jason as a legendary hero, a battler of monsters and a scourge of toga'd villains everywhere. As well as a fighter - having defeated fire-breathing bulls, re-animated skeletons and the many-headed hydra - he was a lover too. While questing for the golden fleece he charmed sirens and nymphs, goddesses and mortals. He commanded the loyalty of some of mythology's most famous figures, from Hercules to Orpheus. He was the Wolverine of the ancient world's X-Men, the Lee Marvin of an olden days Dirty Dozen. The Dirty XII, one presumes.

Except, according to pesky archaeologists in this glossy, international co-production of a documentary, he wasn't. After fiddling about in the mud and muck of northern Greece, retracing Jason's route as detailed in Apollonius of Rhodes' telling of the Argo's journey, and wandering the hills and valleys of Georgia, some smug historians punctured Jason's fable. Rather than a hero of epic proportions, he was probably just a trader sent to the eastern end of the Black Sea on a shopping trip. There, he bartered with the Georgians, a race of people who used - and still use - sheep fleeces to pan for gold. It was "highly likely" that Jason was "a diplomat, a bureaucrat" rather than a warrior, and that his trials at the court of King Aeetes involved trading negotiations, not hand-to-hand combat with the undead. Such were the pedestrian origins of an incredible myth.

As a boy I enjoyed watching Jason and the Argonauts round at my granny's on New Year's Day, so this was very disappointing. I can't imagine Ray Harryhausen will be best pleased either. Next, they'll be saying that Sinbad was an agoraphobic and Thetis, who carelessly played chess with mortals' lives in Clash of the Titans, wasn't the spit of Maggie Smith. It's a scandal. In a sandal.

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 11:35:12 AM::
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY

ante diem iv idus octobres

• 19 B.C. -- Augustus returns from various eastern campaigns
• 166 A.D. -- co-emperor Lucius Verus celebrates a triumph for
  his victories over the Persians; future emperor Commodus is
  given the rank of Caesar

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 10:01:59 AM::
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NUNTII: Sports Teams Monikers

Over the past couple of decades, we have often heard of protests about team names because they have offended the sensibilitys of this or that group. Today's Washingtonton Post has a feature on the phenomenon, with a couple of interesting tidbits:

The DeSales University Centaur has been changed to a bulldog to disassociate it from the sort of classical rapine with which the mythical man-horse is associated in Greek legends, wherein women always got carried away. The Wheaton College (Ill.) Crusaders, once associated with an onward-and-upward holy quest, have been remade as the Thunder to remove the discomfiting taint of religious slaughter.

Then there are the St. Petersburg (Fla.) College Trojans. They were named the Trojans back in the 1930s when people still read about Agamemnon and Troy. But in recent years, alumni and students say, they've just heard too many condom jokes. The new name is the Titans, which beat out such inspired alternatives as the Armadillos, the Groupers and the Sand Fleas.

Oh well ... at least down the road from me they still have (for how long?) the Argonauts ...

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 9:55:58 AM::
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NUNTII: Nuntii Latini

Here are the latest headlines from YLE's Nuntii Latini:

Discrimen inter Israelem et Syriam
Moderatores Syriae una cum Foedere Arabico Consilium securitatis Nationum Unitarum hortati ...

Investigatores Bagdatum venerunt
Viri delecti, quibus praeest Martti Ahtisaari, pristinus praesidens Finniae, in urbem Bagdatum ...

Praemium Nobelianum medicinae
Praemium Nobelianum medicinae hoc anno inter Americanum Paul Lauterbur et Britannum Peter Mansfield ...

Index corruptibilitatis editus
Ordo internationalis, cui nomen Transparency ...

Nigeriani omnium felicissimi
Homines omnium felicissimi in Nigeria ...

Lege plura ...

Audi ...

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 9:52:04 AM::
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NUNTII: Latest Explorator

The latest issue of "explorator" is now available, with news from around the world of archaeology and sans ads from Yahoo.

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 9:44:19 AM::
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AWOTV: On TV Tonight

7.00 p.m. |DISCU|Who Killed Jesus?
"Explore the figures, events and political climate surrounding
the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. Experts examine the
motivations and methods of Herod, Pontius Pilate, the temple
priests, the judicial system and the crowd calling for Jesus'
death."

DISCU = Discovery Channel (US)

::Sunday, October 12, 2003 9:42:01 AM::
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