::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:55:33 AM::

ante diem vi idus decembres

• Rites in honour of Tiberinus and Gaia -- not a lot is known about these rites; Tiberinus had a temple on the Tiber island and presided over the Tiber (of course); Gaia seems to have originally given the Campus Martius (a.k.a. Campus Tiberinus) to the Roman people.
• 65 B.C. -- birth of the poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:52:25 AM::

Today's selection:

perfervid @ Dictionary.com

ludic @ Merriam-Webster

usance @ Wordsmith

... resulting in the pretentious sentence of the day:

The perfervid, but sometimes ludic performance of the deadbeat customer extended her debt long beyond the normal usance.

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:48:10 AM::

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:41:50 AM::

Latest headline from Akropolis World News (in Classical Greek):

Oxford beats Cambridge in Varsity Game

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:39:57 AM::

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:34:44 AM::

Intensive Course on the Study and Performance of Ancient Greek Drama, 2005

The fouth Summer School, organised under the auspices of the European Network of Research and Documentation of Performances of Greek Drama, will be held at Epidauros from the 3rd to the 17th July 2005. Applications are invited from suitably qualified graduate students to attend this unique course, which centres academic and theatrical activities around the performances taking place in the ancient theatre of Epidauros at the time. Participants also attend lectures by well-known European scholars, rehearsals, and meetings with artists.

The British members of the European Network are Oxford University and The Open University. In the first years of this course applications were submitted only from these two institutions, but applications  are now invited from all British universities. Since it is likely that at most five places on the Intensive Course will be allocated to applicants from Britain, there are some criteria for selection which will be seriously taken into account:

1. Applicants should be engaged on a postgraduate degree.
2. They should have a special interest in ancient Greek drama and its performance.
3. They should explain why they think that this course will be of particular interest to them.
4. They should ask their supervisor to send an academic reference under separate cover.

The fee for the course is 500 euros, which will cover accommodation, meals, ticket for performances, and archaeological visits. Travel to and from Epidauros has to be at the expense of the student. Please would applicants also indicate how likely it is that they will be able to raise sufficient funding to attend the course.

Please address
applications and any enquiries about the course to:

Professor Oliver Taplin
Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama
The Old Boys' Grammar School
George Street
Oxford  OX1 2RL

Applications must be received by Monday 24th January 2005 at the latest.

... seen on the Classicists list

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:30:03 AM::

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:27:05 AM::

Amanda Potter is a 'Youth Correspondent' with the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star. Here's what she thinks about Latin:

 Arma virumque cano--I sing of arms and a man.

Here are the opening words of Virgil's "Aeneid," written over 2,000 years ago about the glory of Rome's past, present, and future. It embodies pietas: duty to the gods, country and family, in that order.

Known as the dead language, I shudder at the thought, the insult, branded upon my beloved Latin.

How does the supposed "dead language" hold the interest of students for four and five years?

In September, my Latin teacher of three years expressed the importance of enthusiasm. And being in AP, we're held to higher standards.

He described to us an Old Navy commercial. A girl, during a college lecture, jumps up out of her seat proclaiming her love for history. My teacher wants us to do the same.

Latin? I love Latin!

We comply. The enthusiasm spreads.

Roots?! I love roots!

Classical literacy?! I love classical literacy!

It has become unintentional, habit.

This isn't a façade; there is genuine appreciation for the language. We translate Virgil's "Aeneid" rather than the usual fake Latin written for text books.

It's a connection with the past, with Rome.

We can feel the rhythm of the Latin, the dactylic hexameter. Spondees and dactyls sit side by side on the page, line after line, long-long, long-short-short. Virgil was indeed an artist.

Old Navy claims this enthusiasm is due to their clothing.

I know better. Those ads can't fool me.

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:18:47 AM::

A reviewish sort of thing from Kathimerini begins thusly:

On a narrow spur under the shadow of Mount Ida in central Crete, archaeologists for the past 20 years have been excavating a town that flourished from the Dark Ages of Greece’s early history until Medieval times.

The Eleutherna project, a systematic dig carried out by a three-pronged team of top archaeologists from the University of Crete, is in itself unusual in a country where most excavations are carried out by harried Culture Ministry employees chasing after land developers.

And in what must surely be a record for any Greek excavation, the finds — albeit lacking in ornate jewelry or Classical bronzes — have already furnished sufficient material for two public exhibitions, in 1993 and 1994. A third and more comprehensive selection is now on display in Athens in the new wing of the Museum of Cycladic Art, whose director, Professor Nikolaos Stampolidis, is in charge of one of the three excavations at Eleutherna. The other two digs are directed by professors Petros Themelis — who also heads the systematic excavation of the ancient city of Messene, in the southern Peloponnese — and Thanassis Kalpaxis.

“Eleutherna: Polis — Acropolis — Necropolis,” which opened on December 1 and runs until September 1, 2005, contains a selection of 507 artifacts from the town and its rich cemeteries, including a good number of Early Christian and Byzantine pieces — some of which give a new definition to the word “key-ring.” The guest star in the exhibition is one of the most celebrated works of early Greek sculpture, the seventh-century-BC Lady of Auxerre, on her first trip out of the Louvre in Paris.

The exhibition is enlivened by a couple of scale models showing the modern lie of the land at Eleutherna, as well as part of an excavated cemetery as it was during the Iron Age. Three burials — including the funeral pyre of a warrior and his wife, beside whom a young man had been put to death by beheading — are displayed as they were found, in a room painted pomegranate red for Persephone, lady of the underworld. [more]

The rest of the article is interesting on its own, but what I find most interesting is the photo accompanying the piece ... a 1st century B.C. Aphrodite:

Is that not the most awkwardly-posed person you have ever seen immortalized in marble? It seems to capture that precise moment one stumbles while trying to dry one's foot.

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:14:19 AM::

Regular rc reader RMG passed this one along (thanks) ... with a bit o' Latin from something called Mullings:

The US House of Representatives, last night, completed work on the intelligence reform legislation and has adjourned sine die. The US Senate is expected to follow suit today.

From Merriam-Webster's Second Edition: Sine Die: Without any future date being designated. This is called sine die because the 108th Congress will be finished, and so no future date for assembling is necessary. [more]

I'll admit to still being in 'math mode' when I read this one ... I saw the article title 'Sine Die' and was thinking it was something akin to "Pi Day" (March 14).

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 5:07:35 AM::

This strikes me as major news ... from ABC:

A farmer ploughing his field in central Greece hit on an ancient Roman trophy dating from 86 BC, the culture ministry announced.

Archaeologists have unearthed the lower part of the stone-made monument near the village of Pyrgos some 100 kilometres north-west of Athens.

An inscription identified the finding as a trophy raised there by Roman General Sulla after his victory over Mithridates, King of Pontus - a kingdom on the Black Sea in Asia Minor.

It represents the trunk of a tree like the ones on which Roman victors used to nail the equipment of the defeated after battle, the ministry said.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC) was an infamous Roman general who took the unprecedented step of marching on Rome with his legions.

Mithridates (132 - 63 BC) invaded the Roman Empire and caused significant trouble for the Romans during the end of the Republic.

No photo available yet apparently ...

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 4:41:09 AM::

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 4:20:09 AM::

::Wednesday, December 08, 2004 4:15:48 AM::