LAST POST: At the Auctions

Apologies for the paucity of posts of late ... flus, allergies, report cards, and a required course I have to take have all conspired to eat up my time (which is why the AWOTV listings probably won't happen this week). In any event, we haven't checked out the auctions lately, so ... here's a Roman onyx cameo from the Late Second/Early Third Century A.D./C.E.; the scene has Pan getting into a head butting contest with a goat while a maenad and some other guy looks on:

Sotheby's official page ...

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 9:12:26 PM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

LUDUS: Joke du Jour

This one turned up in a Philippine newspaper ... I know I once received it via email, but just in case you never did:

Keep this in mind the next time you either hear or are about to repeat a rumor!

In ancient Greece (469-399 B.C.), Socrates was well known for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who said excitedly, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

“Triple filter?”

“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my student, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said. “Actually I just heard about it and. . .”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”

“No, on the contrary. . .”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test, though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem. It also explains why he never found out that Plato was fooling around with his wife.

I do like the 'triple filter' idea, though (I teach Grade Seven) ...

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 8:47:33 PM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

AUDIO: Father Foster

Haven't had time to listen to this one yet, but our favourite Carmelite is talking about Hadrian's Wall this week ...

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 8:44:20 PM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

NUNTII: Alexander the Great Play

Check this out ... from Al.com (Alabama, alas ... click on "outside US" if they ask you to register) ... they have a column with news from the past. From 1903 came:

"The joint engagement of Louis James and Frederick Warde next Friday evening at the Mobile Theatre promises to be one of the most important events of the theatrical year on the local stage. The popular following of these famous players would alone insure a liberal patronage, but with the interest aroused by their new play 'Alexander the Great,' which will be presented on this occasion for the first time here, the theatre is sure to be crowded to its capacity."

So ... anyone want to go to the library at the University of Utah and dig up the photo of James as Alexander?

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 8:41:17 PM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY

iv nonas decembres

• 259 A.D. -- martyrdom of Pontian

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 5:56:23 AM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

CHATTER: Classical (or at least pre-Hellenistic) Polo

This is probably one of those spurious urban legendish things, but it's a nice story. In a piece on the resurgence of Polo as the national sport of Iran we read:

As Alexander the Great was set to sack the ancient city of Persepolis in the 4th century B.C., legend has it that Iran's King Darius sent him a polo mallet and a proposal to settle their disagreements in the field of sport rather than battle. Alexander, a fan of the sport, declined. "I am the stick," he is said to have replied, before conquering Iran, "the ball is the world."

Persian poets' many references to polo included one by the 11th century mystic Omar Khayam, who used the game to illustrate philosophical points in the Rubayit, his famous book of poetry. "In the cosmic game of polo," he wrote, "you are the ball."

Personally, I've long held the opinion that Canada's role in the world should be to provide a golf venue (e.g. Kananaskis) wherein world disputes could be settled by clubs rather than guns ...

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 5:07:41 AM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

NUNTII: What to Do With A Classics Degree

Another potential career (or not?):

Bob Hardy works in a gilded factory on Wall Street where hired hands can make $150,000 even in a bad year.
 
A Harvard MBA is not required. Nor is a sterling family pedigree. Traditional tickets to the top at Wall Street investment banks and brokerage houses mean little on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where Hardy and the 450 other "specialists" conduct trading in individual stocks.

Many specialists lack college degrees, and some never finished high school. Instead, they rely on steady nerves, good memories and fierce loyalty -- critics have called it a code of silence -- to succeed.

Hardy runs trading in a handful of international stocks. Though he studied classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his mastery of Homer and Herodotus rarely comes in handy.

"It's definitely more Elks Club than Union Club," Hardy said one recent morning as he prepared to open his trading kiosk after rising at 3:30 a.m. to monitor international markets and currency prices. "We've got MBAs and guys who didn't finish high school. It doesn't matter as long as you can make money."

Exactly how specialists make that money is now the subject of much debate among securities industry regulators, members of Congress and NYSE customers and competitors. Regulators say specialists used their unique access to pending buy and sell orders to improperly trade for their own accounts, costing investors around $150 million between 2000 and the end of 2002. Specialists deny these charges.

The rest ... I wonder of that knowledge of Homer and Herodotus 'rarely coming in handy' is Hardy's opinion, or the journalist's. I dunno ... maybe it's the lack of coffee talking, but the writer appears to have an agenda in this one (i.e. 'How dare someone with a Classics degree make more money than me ... or you').

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 5:00:44 AM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central

AWOTV: Still Delayed

... I'm trying!

::Tuesday, December 02, 2003 4:50:03 AM::
Comment on this post @ Classics Central