 Friday, February 06, 2004
THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY
ante diem viii idus februarias
- 46 B.C. -- victory of Julius Caesar over pro-Pompey forces at Thapsus
- 300 A.D. -- martyrdom of Theophilus Scholasticus 'The Lawyer'
- 1811 -- birth of H.G. Liddell (co-author of the massive Greek Lexicon which is still standard and father of Alice in Wonderland)
- 2001 -- death of Emily Vermeule (author of Greece in the Bronze Age, among several other works)
5:34:44 AM  
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CHATTER: Modern Opinions of Greek Drama
Backstage.com has an interview with Shepard Sobel, who has been directing an Off-Broadway production of Aeschylus' Persians ... some interesting stuff:
Tempting as it may be to see topical analogues in "Persians," written by Aeschylus in 472 B.C., that kind of reductive interpretation is, well, reductive. So suggests director Shepard Sobel, who has helmed the play Off-Broadway for the Pearl Theatre Company. Also serving as the Pearl's founder and artistic director, Sobel stresses, "It's not that contemporary political parallels can't be found in 'Persians,' but I'm not eager to see Xerxes as George W., despite the hubris and the fact that he wages a war that he can't win in order to outshine his father."
He adds, "We can also say 'Persians' takes a pro-environmental position. After all, it looks at what happens when Xerxes defies the natural order, the horrible consequences. But the relevance to today's world is coincidental."
The New York City native, who meets me at the theatre after a matinee, points out, "Aeschylus' major accomplishment is in speaking directly to underlying human dynamics. But then that's true of all classics. In 'Persians,' Aeschylus creates the ritual by which a community digests devastating loss and moves forward from it. It's about learning compassion. Xerxes has to realize that it's not only his suffering that counts, but also the suffering of others as a result of what he did. And when he understands that, he can be received back by the community. This play is about an individual -- with an overwhelming sense of empire -- who loses sight of the fact that once you have power, you also need restraint."
It's also about guilt and shame and the ongoing presence of the dead, the ghosts. "Persians," which bowed Sun., Jan. 11, tells the story of Xerxes, a Persian prince who goes off to conquer Greece, army in tow, only to be brutally defeated. Vanquished, he returns to face his mother and dead father's wrath, his failed efforts pointless to begin with.
"'Persians' is clearly a family drama, with its son who can't live up to his father, who, now dead, has become godlike. Still, the acting is not naturalistic; it's stylized and ritualistic," notes Sobel. "We emphasized the elements of Greek tragedy: music, chanting, movement, and poetry.
"We don't usually do 'conceptual' productions, although we did in this instance," Sobel continues. "Among other things, we tried to explore the early impulse to create drama, by having the chorus become the characters who are personally experiencing the events as opposed to its traditional role of commenting on the action from a distance."
Consider the unusual use of masks in this production.
"In most Greek drama, the characters wear the masks, while the chorus members do not," Sobel observes. "We did it in reverse. The chorus members are wearing full masks, not unlike fencing masks. As the four chorus members assume the roles of the characters, they remove those masks to reveal faces. But the faces are painted to evoke a stylized representation of a character. This is not realistic, but far more truthful than realism." [more]
5:07:47 AM
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NUNTII: Celebrity Scientists in the Ancient World
An item from a 'science roundup' sort of column in the Scotsman:
CATAPULT designers were the celebrity scientists of the ancient world, according to the latest research.
Serafina Cuomo, a historian at Imperial College London, said that until the discovery of gunpowder, the catapult was the most powerful weapon in existence. The machines, capable of hurling large projectiles long distances, were in high demand during the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans - and so were their makers.
But the construction of catapults was no easy task, requiring great mathematical and engineering skill. It became a science in itself, known as "belopoietics" from the Greek "poietike" meaning "making of" and "belos" meaning "projectile" or "projectile throwing device".
Ms Cuomo said: "Belopoietics attracted the interest and financial support of governments. It combined geometry, physics and technology. Ancient engineers saw their knowledge as cumulative and progressive and believed that they were making an important contribution to the welfare of cities and the power of kings."
The first catapults dated back as far as the ninth century BC, when they were depicted in a relief from Nimrud, in present-day Iraq.
Catapults marked the beginning of a quest for more powerful and accurate ways of firing projectiles against enemies and their cities, "from oversized arrows to Patriot missiles", she said.
Subsequent perusal of my sources suggest the above was actually excerpted from a much longer (and very interesting) piece at National Geographic.
4:59:05 AM
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AWOTV: On TV Today
6.00 p.m. |DTC| Secrets of the Colosseum
Visit the ruins of this massive triumph of Roman building and
engineering for clues to its ingenious design. Built in a remarkably
short span of 10 years, the structure combined travertine stone,
iron, concrete, brick and lava rocks from nearby Vesuvius.
6.00 p.m. |HINT| The Colosseum
Nothing symbolizes the Roman Empire at its height or Rome in
magnificent ruins more than the Colosseum. Built in 70 AD, it seated
80,000 people, boasted a retractable roof, underground staging
devices, marble seating, and lavish decorations. It still serves as
the prototype for the modern stadium. The complexity of its
construction, the beauty of its architecture, and the functionality
of its design made it the perfect place for massive crowds to
congregate for the bloody spectacles it contained.
7.00 p.m. |HINT| The Colosseum
Nothing symbolizes the Roman Empire at its height or Rome in
magnificent ruins more than the Colosseum. Built in 70 AD, it seated
80,000 people, boasted a retractable roof, underground staging
devices, marble seating, and lavish decorations. It still serves as
the prototype for the modern stadium. The complexity of its
construction, the beauty of its architecture, and the functionality
of its design made it the perfect place for massive crowds to
congregate for the bloody spectacles it contained.
10.00 p.m. |DTC| The Mystery of the Parthenon
Dominating the skyline of Athens is the ancient Acropolis—once the
center of the Greek civilization. Trace the history of the Temple of
the Parthenon, from its history of design and construction, to the
men involved in its destruction.
HINT = History International
DTC = Discovery Times Channel
4:26:03 AM
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