ante diem ix kalendas martias

• Parentalia possibly comes to an end with the festival of Feralia, during which sheep were sacrificed to the dead; I'm not sure whether the rites mentioned by Ovid (Fasti 2.565 ff) in connection with the Feralia have anything to do with festival or not (suggestions welcome!).
• 4 A.D. -- death of hoped-for-successor-to-Augustus Gaius Caesar (either February 21 or 22) in Limyra

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:31:27 AM::

Today's selection:

vicissitude @ Merriam-Webster

therianthropic @ Worthless Word for the Day (today's assignment ... work therianthropic into a conversation)

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:22:51 AM::

Carolus et Camilla in matrimonium (18.2.2005)

Carolus, princeps hereditarius Britanniae, et Camilla Parker-Bowles, amica eius diuturna, matrimonio coniungentur.

Nuptiae die octavo mensis Aprilis in castello Windesoriensi ritu civili celebrabuntur.

In matrimonio Parker-Bowles titulum ducissae Cornubiae habebit.

Cum Carolus rex factus erit, illa regina non fiet, sed coniux principissa appellabitur. Regina Elisabeth et princeps Philippus sponsis publice gratulabantur.

Antea filium reprobaverant, quod cum femina, quae divortium fecerat, consuetudinem haberet. Anno millesimo nongentesimo nonagesimo sexto princeps Carolus a principissa Diana diverterat. Ex illo matrimonio duos filios habet.

Nuntio de nuptiis dato maior pars Britannorum novum principis matrimonium comprobat.

Tuomo Pekkanen
Nuntii Latini, Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE)
(used with permission)

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:18:11 AM::

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:15:58 AM::

JD over at Paleojudaica scooped me on this one ... an update from EurWeb on what's up with the Hannibal flick:

“Did I tell you where the budget was initially?” Vin Diesel laughed hopelessly when asked the status of his upcoming feature film “Hannibal.”  Planned as an epic tale to star the “xXx” actor as the young general who famously crossed the Alps on elephant-back to attack Rome, Diesel’s original larger-than-life vision of the piece – a pet project as close to his heart as “The Passion of the Christ” was to his friend and mentor Mel Gibson – hit a nasty budgeting snag that put the entire project in peril.

      “David Franzoni, who wrote ‘Gladiator,’ ‘Amistad’ and ‘King Arthur,’ wrote a script for [‘Hannibal’]. It gets budgeted. I get the budget back and it’s $217 million,” shouts Diesel. “The studio thought it couldn't be done for under 200 million. Now what that means in Hollywood is you will not make this movie, you can’t make the movie.”

       Unwilling to let the project die, Diesel decided to get creative with the film’s pre-production.

       “I take the script and I go into soft pre-production for a year and a half.  Soft pre-production’s a key to getting any budget down.  Pre-production’s usually three to six months. Multiply that by three, and you do a year and a half of pre-production, you’re going to cut down your budget considerably.  So we jump to now.  I’ve cut down the budget to $50 million.”

       Diesel, in theaters on March 4 with the family comedy “The Pacifier,” has also made the recent decision to direct as well as star in Hannibal as the young man from the ruling clans of the city of Carthage in North Africa who makes an oath of vengeance against Rome when they kill his father. Making the revenge his life’s goal, Hannibal becomes a general by the time he's in his mid-20s, and with an army of 100,000 who have his back, he sets out to bring Rome down, first by conquering Spain, and then by launching a surprise (and famous) attack on Italy by way of the Alps, with an array of forces that included war-trained elephants.

       “To make things even more exciting, I’m going to make it a non-English, multi-lingual film that represents the many languages that Hannibal employed in his army,” enthuses Diesel.  And the point being, Hannibal united people of no common culture, language, or religion and proved that united, they can defy tyranny. Very interesting point of where we are in our world.”

       Diesel said Gibson had given him advice on the use of multiple languages, which helped to illustrate “The Passion of the Christ.”   

       “He’s always been a role model of mine in this industry,” said the action star. It’ll be Aramaic for Rome,  Iberian for Spain, it’ll be some, you know, Maltese version. And it will represent all these different languages.  So that’s what’s happening with ‘Hannibal.’”

Aramaic for Rome????

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:14:32 AM::

Since it is such a slow news day, it's probably a good time to check out some of the other Classics blogs out there, especially if you don't do so regularly ... Hobbyblog continues to post an ancient coin every day (scroll down for one with Salus feeding a snake) ... Martialis has been posting a poem a day (from Martial, natch), although last week was in a bit of a(n) hiatus ...

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:10:14 AM::

If you're keeping up with the BBC Radio series ... here's the latest installment ...

::Monday, February 21, 2005 5:01:55 AM::

::Monday, February 21, 2005 4:58:49 AM::

Well, since it's such a slow news day (again!) I'll post a small item which I probably wouldn't have elsewise (indeed ... it's been languishing in my box for almost a week) ... an excerpt from a piece in the Hudson Sun:

Ayres told the group that garbage began to be an issue once people started settling into an area, some 10,000 years BC, and they had to figure out what to do with the trash.
     "They had a lot of the same options we have today,"said Ayres, "bury it, burn it or put it someplace else."
     Creating a trash history timeline, Ayres said that in 400 BC the first municipal dump was established in ancient Athens and it was written into the law that the trash had to be taken at least one mile away from the city walls.
     "I think it was probably also the first time it was written 'not in my backyard,'" said Ayres. "No one wants to be next to a landfill or a trash site, even in 400 BC."

Not too exciting. On the other hand, idle surfing in a vain attempt to find something to complement this one did take me to an interesting (unrelated) article by Clare Kelly-Blazeby, "Kapeleia in Ancient Greece ca 475-146 B.C.: an archaeological perspective" (in Assemblage) ... worth a read, especially if you have been brought up to believe that the Greeks did all their drinking in sympotic environs ... 

::Monday, February 21, 2005 4:57:34 AM::

7.00 p.m. |BIO| Pompeii: Buried Alive
Exploration of the archaeological site of the city that was encrusted by incendiary ash when deadly Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Archaeological director Baldasarre Conticello takes viewers on a tour of Pompeii's ruins, and visits Herculaneum, which was destroyed by Vesuvius at the same time.

BIO = The Biography Channel

::Monday, February 21, 2005 4:49:00 AM::