tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23576981705645398002024-03-12T18:25:02.422-07:00Melita InsulaSecond Life Role PlayArachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-32723171607456613342016-10-14T03:06:00.000-07:002016-10-14T03:15:31.602-07:00Missing details of an Ancient World in Second LIfe (Part. 2) - "Tota Pomarium Videatur"Salvete Omnes.<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">As announced</span> in the previous post, we're already talking about historical mistakes findable on ancient lands of <span class="">Second Life</span>.<br />In this chapter we'll discuss <span class="">about a very</span> less<span class=""> considered</span> aspect: food sold into ancient Roman markets. <span class="">Venturing</span> in any of theese land's <span class="">markets</span>, it's possible to see how offered products <span class="">are</span> almost the </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">same:</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UC569iakP3g/V_E7XBCuMEI/AAAAAAAAAE0/O-gZVU0fX143fl1d0leTjA5_fD179jfBgCK4B/s1600/Snapshot_033.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UC569iakP3g/V_E7XBCuMEI/AAAAAAAAAE0/O-gZVU0fX143fl1d0leTjA5_fD179jfBgCK4B/s400/Snapshot_033.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KUahoDDREQA/V_E7q643UFI/AAAAAAAAAE8/YlFC-LoNBcYuB0qzETSRqt0DKafkjx48QCK4B/s1600/Snapshot_026.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KUahoDDREQA/V_E7q643UFI/AAAAAAAAAE8/YlFC-LoNBcYuB0qzETSRqt0DKafkjx48QCK4B/s400/Snapshot_026.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">...</span> <span class="">Have you ever wondered</span> if products exposed in those markets are appropriate <span class="">to the historical environment</span> surrounding it?<br /><span class="">There's to know</span> that a significant part of the ancient Greeks and Romans' nourishment consisted of vegetables, roots, but also wild or cultivated fruits. Fruits were a great asset in the empire, and were consumed both local and foreign resources.<br />As you have seen in previous pictures, these stalls are full of fruits and vegetables; some of these foods, however, were not yet known by the Romans. Let us examine a few.</span><br />
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<a href="https://lettersfromlotusland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/beslers-tomato.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lettersfromlotusland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/beslers-tomato.jpg" width="233" /></a><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"> </span>- TOMATO: a native <span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">fruit from</span> Mexico and the high valleys of the Peruvian Andes, whose name comes <span class="">from</span> "Nahuatl" (Aztecs language) and it's pronounced "<span class="">tomatl</span> <span class="">or</span> <span class="">jitomate</span>", arrives <span class="">in Europe</span> <span class="">with the return</span> <span class="">to Spain</span> <span class="">of Christopher Columbus</span> from the Americas. At first, it's considered poisonous <span class="">so it's used</span> <span class="">as an ornamental plant</span>; in the Sixteenth <span class="">century it's</span> used for the first time in kitchen in <span class="">Italy</span>.</span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"> </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"> - <span class="">CORN</span>, <span class="">whose name comes</span> <span class="">from the</span> <span class="">language spoken by the</span> <span class="">Indians</span> from<span class=""> Haiti</span>, <span class="">was</span> <span class="">cultivated for a long</span> <span class="">time on the</span> <span class="">new continent</span>. <span class="">About a thousand years</span> B.C. Hopi's ancestors (<span class="">southwest</span> <span class="">of the USA</span>) <span class="">grew</span> of considerable corn's extensions, <span class="">with which</span> they obtain a paste used <span class="">to prepare</span> the "Tortillas". It was in fact <span class="">the staple food</span> of millions of American <span class="">Natives</span>, <span class="">as well as</span> most <span class="">of them</span> attributed it <span class="">a divine origin</span>. <span class="">Starting</span> <span class="">from 1600</span>, <span class="">corn </span><span class="">gradually replaced</span> millet's cultivations <span class="">in southern Europe</span>; <span class="">it's first used</span> <span class="">as basical </span>feeding for animals, <span class="">and the first</span> <span class="">using it</span> <span class="">in the</span> <span class="">kitchen are</span> <span class="">Basque</span> <span class="">people</span><span class="">.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Seedless_Avocado_in_Mexico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Seedless_Avocado_in_Mexico.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Avocados fruits</td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">AVOCADO</span>, <span class="">cultivated and</span> consumed in Mexico since <span class="">5000</span> <span class="">B.C.</span> <span class="">by the Aztecs</span><span class="">,</span> <span class="">who called him</span> "<span class="">ahuacatl"</span> <span class="">(hence the Spanish </span><span class="">"aguacate"</span> <span class="">or the </span><span class="">Portuguese</span> "<span class="">abacate"</span><span class="">)</span>. <span class="">The fruit's transplant</span> <span class="">in the old continent</span><span class="">,</span> <span class="">tried</span> <span class="">in the second</span> <span class="">half of the sixteenth</span> <span class="">century,</span> near Rome<span class="">,</span> <span class="">will prove</span> <span class="">a failure</span>. <span class="">We must wait the early </span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class=""></span>20th<span class="">y century</span> to let the<span class=""> avocado</span> find its <span class="">stable place</span> <span class="">in Europe</span><span class="">.</span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class=""><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class=""> -</span> <span class="">The</span> PEPPER<span class="">, perennial herb</span>, is native to Central America. It was used to accompany meat dishes with red beans and corn, but was also used as an aromatic drug: the "<span class="">chili</span>", <span class="">discovered</span> by Columbus and the Spaniards and brought to Spain in the mid-sixteenth century, where it was used to enhance tomatoe's flavor. T<span class="">hen</span> it's <span class="">brought to Italy</span> where it is called "coral horn", and very quickly to the rest of Europe, <span class="">obtaining</span> a spectacular success in Hungary, where it's setted up <span class="">a sweeter</span> mix: <span class="">the famous</span> "<span class="">Paprika</span>"<span class="">.</span></span> </span></span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">- The <span class="">POTATO</span>, an herbaceous perennial plant, coming from central - southern America and <span class="">imported for the first time in Europe</span> in 1533, after Columbus' discoveries. <span class="">F</span><span class="">rom 1600</span> it becomes a common culture throughout Europe and it's used mostly <span class="">for livestock</span> nutrition. During the 1700s, known its high nutritional properties, <span class="">it is consumed</span> by all Europeans<span class="">.</span></span><br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">In addition to </span>pre Colombian food, we may also find kinds of products imported from Asia or Africa, not yet known by the Romans. Below we analyze some:<br />- The EGGPLANTS, native from India. They grown in Southeast Asia since prehistorical times and were introduced in Europe by Arabs in the early 4th century A.D.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.agrobio.org.co/bfiles/art_imgart-696.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.agrobio.org.co/bfiles/art_imgart-696.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eggplants</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">The</span> BANANA, contrary to what might be tought, has origins in the highlands of '<span class="">South-East Asia</span>, in Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Philippines territories<span class="">. </span>Recent archaeological <span class="">studies supports</span> the existence of the first wild specimens of this fruit date back to <span class="">5000</span> BC. The first or<span class="">ganized</span> banana's <span class="">crops</span> dates back to 200 A.D. in China territories. In 650 A.D. Islamic conquerors exported this fruit in Palestine; later, Arab merchants brought it to almost the whole Africa. Around 1500, banana plant was introduced from Africa to the Caribbean and Central America by portugueses, then imported (only at that time) in Europe.</span> <br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">The</span> WATERMELON seems to have origins in the Kalahari desert. There are reports <span class="">of</span> first crops thanks to some Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back to 5000 years ago, <span class="">when</span> the fruit was often placed in pharaohs tombs as a means of <span class="">sustenance</span> for the afterlife. In the 10th century A.D. watermelon was cultivated in China and it was introduced in Europe only in the 13th century, with the Moors invasion.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fruitlinkco.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/egyptianwatermelon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.fruitlinkco.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/egyptianwatermelon.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">Egyptians used to place watermelons into pharaoes tombs in the way they could be fed of it in the afterlife</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Ma allora, cosa mangiavano gli antichi romani?
"> So, what did ancient Romans eat?</span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Ma allora, cosa mangiavano gli antichi romani?
"></span><span title="Come nessun popolo i Romani cercarono cibi nuovi importandoli da ogni lato del mondo, e
">As anybody, Romans were looking for new importing foods from every side of the world, </span><span title="Si cercò anche di innestare e migliorare i generi degli alberi da frutta inventando sempre varietà nuove che purtroppo in gran parte sono andate perdute.
">experimenting and inventing new recipes with new ingredients. They also sought to graft and improve kinds of fruit trees, always inventing new varieties which unfortunately has been </span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Si cercò anche di innestare e migliorare i generi degli alberi da frutta inventando sempre varietà nuove che purtroppo in gran parte sono andate perdute.
"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Si cercò anche di innestare e migliorare i generi degli alberi da frutta inventando sempre varietà nuove che purtroppo in gran parte sono andate perdute.
">largely </span></span>lost.</span><span title="Il cibo per i romani non era solo una curiosità ma una passione.">Food for the Romans wasn't just a curiosity but a passion. </span><span title="Non esisteva un ruolo fisso per cui
">There was any </span><span title="un romano doveva occuparsi solo della sua professione.">Roman taking care of his profession only. </span><span title="Un grande generale poteva fare lo scrittore come Plinio, o il collezionista d'arte come Mecenate, o l'architetto come Agrippa, oppure innestare la frutta per inventare un prodotto nuovo, che per giunta avrebbe portato il suo nome;">A
great general could be a writer like Pliny, or an art collector as Maecenas, or an architect as Agrippa, or grafting fruit to invent a new
product, which moreover would bear his name; </span><span title="per esempio Plinio il giovane cita una pira (pera) Dolabelliana, (che si crede di Publio Cornelio Dolabella 69-43 ac), o la pira Decimiana (forse di un certo Decinianus della gens Claudia) o ancora la mala Mattiana, il cui nome">for
example Pliny the Younger mentions a pira (pear) Dolabelliana, (which has belonged to Publius Cornelius Dolabella 69-43 BC), or the pira
Decimiana (perhaps of a certain Decinianus of the gens Claudia) or even the mala Mattiana, whose name </span><span title="deriva dal botanico Caius Matius Calvena, noto per la sua amicizia con Giulio Cesare e Cicerone.">comes from the botanical Caius Matius Calvena, known for his friendship with Julius Caesar and Cicero. </span><span title="La carne era cibo raro, almeno nella mensa del ceto povero ma pure del ceto medio.
">The meat was rare food, at least for the poor class but also for the middle class.</span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Di seguito un elenco fra i cibi più consumati dai romani."> </span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Di seguito un elenco fra i cibi più consumati dai romani.">Below is a list of the most consumed foods by the Romans.</span></span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">BERRIES</span>, considered fruits by the Romans. They include:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Rosa_rubiginosa_hips.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Rosa_rubiginosa_hips.jpg" width="167" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rosehip</td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">The ROSE (<span class="">ie</span> <span class="">its rosehip</span>)<span class=""></span>, considered nutritious and healing (as rich of C vitamin). From it were obtained <span class="">sauces</span> <span class="">for salty foods</span>, sweets or velvety to eat alone or to garnishing cakes, or dissolved in water with <span class="">other</span> flower essences to make fresh drinks; the petals, however, combined with honey and other essences could become a fine food.</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">The BLACKBERRY</span> (Rubus), used with honey and essences for bittersweet kitchens;<br />The <span class=""></span>RASPBERRY (Rubus), similar to blackberry as flavor but more acidic, was very <span class="">used for </span>fresheners or to stuff roasted sprayed with red and full-bodied wines;</span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class=""> </span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">The WILD </span>PRUGNOLO or PRUNO (prunus), a spontaneous thorny plant of Europe, Asia, <span class="">and</span> </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">North Africa; its sour taste and aromatic fruits <span class="">were much appreciated</span> <span class="">by the Romans</span> when eaten fresh or </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">cooked with honey; by the same fruits was made a full of tannin vinegar (<span class="">used instead of</span> lemon, which was known but used <span class="">as a medicine</span>) <span class="">that</span> gave a sour taste to the foods;</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Prunus_spinosa2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Prunus_spinosa2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prunus</td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">The STRAWBERRY</span> (Fragaria), particularly suitable for volcanic territories (as the Italic soil was), was much appreciated by the Romans; wealthy </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">people owned it in <span class="">crops</span>, however it was not so difficult to find it in the undergrowth;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="">The</span> PINE (Pinus), or the Pine berries (from whose white bark was also extracted <span class="">a</span> little tasty but nutritious meal), which were first used as dry fruit, <span class="">to flavor</span> meat or fish, or were mixed with honey or boiling molasses to make cakes<span class="">;</span></span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">the ACORN, the oak's fruit, <span class="">from which was made a </span>flour, after having purified <span class="">it from tannin</span><span class="">;</span></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ingegnoli.it/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/9/F/9FR07-W_3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.ingegnoli.it/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/9/F/9FR07-W_3.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corniola</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class=""> </span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The</span> CORNIOLA (corna), a red cherry-like fruit, from the aromatic, harsh and bitter flavor; it was first used to feed pigs, then he came <span class="">introduced</span> in Roman cooking; marinated in salt water for a certain period and <span class="">seasoned with</span> bay leaves and fennel seeds, was used to season the game's filling or red meat in general, or to prepare bitter-sweet sauces, or more was made a syrup diluted with water and served as a sorbet<span class="">,</span> to prepare the diners' stomach to the new dishes. It was also <span class="">used as an ingredient</span> to prepare puddings, uniting him to less acidic fruits <span class="">such as pears</span>, apples, and elder;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">JUNIPER</span> berries, similar to plums for their small rounded appearance, t<span class="">hey were collected in</span> autumn and left to dry in a ventilated place to then <span class="">collect them</span> in pots and use them throughout the year; They were used in roasts and in <span class="">very</span> <span class="">tasty and spicy fillings</span>, with fennel and thyme, and were good for strong and dry red wines<span class="">;</span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The</span> <span class="">CHASTE TREE</span> <span class="">(</span><span class="">Vitex</span> <span class="">agnus</span><span class="">-</span><span class="">castus</span><span class="">)</span><span class="">, a plant that</span> usually grows on all Mediterranean and West Asia coasts, until Persia. Its bitter tasted fruits <span class="">were eaten</span> by Roman <span class="">gourmets</span>, combined with jujube or <span class="">honey</span>, or were used <span class="">in desserts</span> and soups, for its slightly spicy flavor.</span><br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">The</span> DRY FRUIT, among which we list:</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> The WALNUT (Juglans regia), plans of the Eastern Mediterranean, also known to the </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> Greeks; the Romans cultivated it since the time of kings, using it in different ways like </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> throwing nuts during weddings or in the secret rites of Diana Caria monastery's priestess</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> in Benevento, where the walnut tree's fruit was sacred. Varro, Pliny and Dioscorides talked </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> about walnuts.</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> The ALMOND (amygdala), native to the Western temperate Asia, eaten by Greeks and </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> Romans, both sweet and bitter, it was believed that eaten before drinking wine could </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> prevent the thrill; used in different traditional Mediterranean kitchens like those of Sicily </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> and Puglia, it accompanied sweet and savory dishes, or was served along with luscious </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> fruits;</span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class=""> The PISTACHIOS</span> <span class="">(</span><span class="">pistacia</span>), came from the East, were mixed with some Roman kitchen </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> dishes;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">-</span> <span class="">FLESHY FRUIT</span><span class="">,</span> <span class="">among which we mention</span>:</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> The FIG (<span class="">ficus</span>), native from Caria in Asia Minor; much appreciated if eaten cool or dry, </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> it<span class=""></span> formed the most used occasional nourishment during the day; <span class="">especially</span> in Campania, </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> the Romans were very fond of eating bread and figs; it was considered also <span class="">sacred,</span> </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> because when unriped it produced a liquid similar to milk, so sacred to the goddess </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> Rumina, ancient pre-Roman and Roman goddess;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> the APPLE (malum), not a fruit but a knob, where the real fruit is the core, while the</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> edible part is the core's receptacle; Romans ate it both raw and <span class="">cooked</span>, sweetened with </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> honey or molasses; It was mainly used by lower classes for the <span class="">ease</span> in cultivating and </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> storing it;</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.schaffnerhof.ch/quitten/quitten.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.schaffnerhof.ch/quitten/quitten.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Malum Cotoneum</td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> </span> <span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The</span> APPLE QUINCE (malum </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> cotoneum), considered by </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> Romans a sacred fruit to </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> Aphrodite; there were </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> different qualities but few </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> were suitable to be eaten raw;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> t</span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">hey were generally boiled </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> with honey or molasses and </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> combined with almonds and </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> walnuts, or was made a kind </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> of jam which were</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> manifactured sweets and </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> cookies;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">THE MALUM MUSTERIUM, made from a </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> quince graft with common apple, obtaining a</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> variety very appreciated by the Romans; tasting slightly sour but compact, it had the</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> advantage to keeping for a long time so was used as dried fruit or as an interlude or to</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> manufacture sweets;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> The PEAR (pirum), present among the Romans in several different quality; such as the </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> apple, it was eaten raw and cooked and was useful to make special dishes<span class="">;</span> pears could </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> be well preserved and dried in the sun and eaten boiled in wine.<br /> The MEDLAR (Mespilus germanica), known by the Romans after the Cato period and were </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> native from Germany and not Japan; differently than japaneses, those eaten by the </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class=""> Romans were sour</span> and hard, in fact before being eaten they were <span class="">sweetened</span> <span class="">by storing </span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class=""> them</span> in a dry and well ventilated area;</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorbs</td></tr>
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T<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">he</span> SORBS, mentioned by Hippocrates as an astringent medicine;</span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> their pulp was <span class="">dried and</span> sometimes mixed with </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">wheat flour, to make bread or tasty buns;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">PEACH (persicum), native to China, spread throughout the </span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">Mediterranean hollow thanks to Alexander the Great and arrived in Rome in the 1st century D.C., it was <span class="">first </span>a reserved fruit <span class="">for the</span> riches, then it was spread out to all the tables;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The APRICOT</span> (<span class="">Prunus</span>)<span class="">, originally from</span> northeastern China to the Russian border and <span class="">discovered by</span> <span class="">Alexander the Great</span> in his travels in Persia, were the Romans who brang it not <span class="">only in</span> Italy but also in <span class="">Greece, between</span> 70-60 B.C.; often it was dried in the sun <span class="">to enjoy it</span> <span class="">in those long periods when production was off;</span><span class=""></span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The</span> POMEGRANATE, considered native from South West Asia, has been cultivated <span class="">in the Caucasus</span> since ancient times and was spread by Phoenicians and Greeks <span class="">in their colonies</span>;</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lotus (Jujube)</td></tr>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The JUJUBES (lotus), native to Asia but already present in Italy since the time of <span class="">Romans</span><span class="">,</span> were eaten <span class="">fresh</span> <span class="">or</span> withered, the withered one was often drowned in wine (making<span class=""></span> the so-called jujube' stock);</span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The PLUM (cereal prunum), known in many varieties, was anciently used and widely practiced; Greek doctors suggested to cook it with honey, for its <span class="">laxative properties</span><span class="">;</span></span> <br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">CHERRY (Prunus avium), whose first trees were imported to Rome in 72 B.C. by Lucius Licinius Lucullus after the firm of Mithridates;<br /><span class="">The</span> DATE (palmulae), used as exotic fruit imported from abroad;<br /><span class="">The</span> OLIVE rarely eaten fresh as a dessert fruit, while at times was <span class="">eaten the fruit of</span> persea, which was a plant still not well <span class="">identified</span>;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The CAROB, initially considered harmful for health, fell within recipts of <span class="">some sweets</span> where it was combined as powder with honey and crushed nuts, drawing an <span class="">exquisite flavor</span>;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">The</span> GRAPE, for the ancients one of the main dessert fruit; there were several varieties and were very appreciated both fresh and dried;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The ELDER, eaten as a fruit but with a special treatment;</span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The ARBUTUS, not so used in Rome except to make sauces and desserts;</span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"> </span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1">The CHESTNUT, known under different names, was eaten boiled, roasted, dried, cooked with fennel or in puree or soup; chestnuts also drew the <span class="">flour;</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">And last</span>, <span class="">but not least</span>, we find the CUCURBITS, including PUMPKIN, the <span class="">CUCUMBER</span> and POPON, native <span class="">from Iran and</span> <span class="">used</span> since the 5th century<span class="">.</span> <span class="">B.C.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">However, there is</span> a fruit which recent discoveries has created a light "quid pro quo" <span class="">(misunderstandings). </span>In the Museum of Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome, you can make an incredible discovery: at the second-floor, in the classic world's frescoes, mosaics and stucco's gallery, there is a mosaic dated to the early 1st century A.D., showing a fruit basket containing from left, some figs, quince, a bunch of black grapes, pomegranates and an impossible food: a pineapple. The presence of this fruit has left speechless, because the Pineapple sativus plants, <span class="">which belongs to</span> the bromeliad family, arrived in the old Continent only after the Christopher Columbus' voyages. So before the American discovery, Romans could not know this tropical fruit.</span><br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span class="">Actually it is not</span> the first time a similar figure may be seen on a Roman work; a fresco found in the ephebe house in Pompeii shows a pineapple and a Roman statue, preserved in Geneva, representing a child holding a pineapple for its crest.</span><br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span title="Tutto fa pensare che i romani conoscessero questo frutto già dal I secolo d.c.">Everything suggests that Romans knew this fruit since the 1st century A.D. </span><span title="e questo mistero ha aperto la strada a varie ipotesi, fra cui quella che i romani potrebbero essere arrivati in America.">and this mystery has pioneered several hypotheses, including one that Romans could have arrived in America. </span><span title="Mito sfatato sin da subito, poichè le innumerevoli fonti in nostro possesso non accennano minimamente al Nuovo Continente, come è certo che le capacità logistiche dell'epoca non avrebbero permesso di raggiungere posti così lontani e sopratutto di poter stivare viveri freschi per periodi troppo lunghi.">Myth bustered right away, as the innumerable sources doesn't minimally referr to the New Continent, as it is certain their
logistic capabilities would not allow them to reach so far places and
above all beign able to stow fresh food for too long periods. </span><span title="E' più probabile che i romani abbiano importato questo frutto dall'Africa occidentale, dove l'ananas veniva coltivata.
">It 's more likely that Romans have imported this fruit from West Africa, where pineapple was grown.</span><span title="Ebbene, si spera che questo "escursus" virtuale fra le cibande romane, abbia fatto chiarezza sulle abitudini culinare degli antichi.">So, let's </span></span><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span title="Ebbene, si spera che questo "escursus" virtuale fra le cibande romane, abbia fatto chiarezza sulle abitudini culinare degli antichi.">hope this "virtual excursus" between the Roman food has made clear about ancients culinary habits. </span><span title="Per una land virtuale dove il saper giocare di ruolo fa da padrone, un pizzico di autenticità in queste cose non guasterebbe, anzi renderebbe il gioco più interessante;">For
a virtual roleplay land where knowing how to role play is the main pourpose, a
touch of authenticity in these things would not hurt, indeed the game would result more interesting; </span><span title="in questo senso i creatori di marketplace giocano un ruolo fondamentale, poichè la gente si affida anche a loro nella creazione di background spettacolari.">in
this sense builders and marketplace sellers play a main role, as people trust them and their creations to make spectacular and also authentic backgrounds. </span></span><br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span title="in questo senso i creatori di marketplace giocano un ruolo fondamentale, poichè la gente si affida anche a loro nella creazione di background spettacolari.">I wish you all a nice Ancient </span><span title="Buona ancient SL a tutti e al prossimo post!">SL and see you to the next post!</span></span><br />
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en" tabindex="-1"><span title="Buona ancient SL a tutti e al prossimo post!"> </span></span>Hermes (a.k.a. Tonio Renfold).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-82149076661787338812016-09-19T13:17:00.000-07:002016-09-19T13:18:34.578-07:00Ancient Heritage on virtual grids: missing details of Ancient Worlds in Second Life (Part 1)The metaverse is a really interesting world, which offers various ways to concretely represent what we can't bring in the real world. Between the many popular activities, both on the web (such as forums, blogs, social networks, etc ..) and in virtual grids like Second Life, we find the Roleplay, proposed in different scenarios: from fantasy to sci-fi, or those inspired by fictions and films, but also based on historical events or settings.<br />
And it is right in historical scenarios that we focus our attention.<br />
In the virtual world of Second Life, these scenarios are identified as belonging to the so called AW (acronymus for Ancient World), whose historical periods vary by Hellenistic age to the Victorian, through the various Mediterranean and Mesopotamian settings, until Northeast European lands.<br />
To make the game more intriguing and compelling, some lands got insipired by mythological stories of the periods which they belong; while others are based on stories and characters of famous Hollywood films (such as Cleopatra, played by Liz Taylor, The Gladiator of Russell Crowe, 300 of Zack Shneider or the famous TV saga licensed HBO, Spartacus).<br />
Sometimes theese stories are so intriguing and surreal that often fall
into banality, representing a very far past from what has been handed
down by our ancestors and from what has been discovered over the
centuries by many historians and professionists.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H7fkAgg2U_8/V93EX_xvQiI/AAAAAAAAAEc/GvTn3HY09usK26FS50wgf5CVpeBYgjOewCLcB/s1600/Snapshot_014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H7fkAgg2U_8/V93EX_xvQiI/AAAAAAAAAEc/GvTn3HY09usK26FS50wgf5CVpeBYgjOewCLcB/s400/Snapshot_014.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Getting more in details, the purpose of this page is just to keep clear the many historical inconsistencies foundable in theese lands (as in those films they are inspired at), paying particular attention to the many historic Roman lands existed in the metaverse.<br />
Want to know more? Then be patient and let's wait to read th next topic. For now "Valete Omnes".Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-68202855568715629072015-04-06T08:56:00.001-07:002015-04-06T08:58:54.298-07:00The Ancient Pagan Origins of Easter<div class="content" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Easter Sunday is a festival and holiday celebrated by millions of people around the world</div>
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who honour the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred three days after his crucifixion at Calvary. It is also the day that children excitedly wait for the Easter bunny to arrive and deliver their treats of chocolate eggs.<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">Easter is a ‘movable feast’ which is chosen to correspond with the first Sunday following the full moon after the March equinox, and occurs on different dates around the world since western churches use the Gregorian calendar, while eastern churches use the Julian calendar. So where did this ‘movable feast’ begin, and what are the origins of the traditions and customs celebrated on this important day around the world?</span></span></div>
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<img alt="Easter - Christianity" class="media-image cboxElement" src="http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/christian-easter.jpg" height="280" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 280px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 373px;" typeof="foaf:Image" width="373" /></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Resurrection of Jesus.</em></div>
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Most historians, including Biblical scholars, agree that Easter was originally a pagan festival. According to the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary says: “The word Easter is of Saxon origin, Eastra, the goddess of spring, in whose honour sacrifices were offered about Passover time each year. By the eighth century Anglo–Saxons had adopted the name to designate the celebration of Christ’s resurrection.” However, even among those who maintain that Easter has pagan roots, there is some disagreement over which pagan tradition the festival emerged from. Here we will explore some of those.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Resurrection as a symbol of rebirth</strong></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">One theory that has been put forward is that the Easter story of crucifixion and resurrection is </span>symbolic of rebirth and renewal and retells the cycle of the seasons, the death and return of the sun.</div>
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According to some scholars, the Easter s<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">tory comes from the Sumerian legend of Damuzi (Tammuz) and his wife Inanna (Ishtar), an epic myth called “The Descent of Inanna” found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets dating back to 2100 BC. When Tammuz dies, Ishtar is grief–stricken and follows him to the underworld. In the underworld, she enters through seven gates, and her worldly attire is removed. "Naked and bowed low" she is judged, killed, and then hung on display. In her absence, the earth loses its fertility, crops cease to grow and animals stop reproducing. Unless something is done, all life on earth will end. </span>After Inanna has been missing for three days her assistant goes to other gods for help. Finally one of them Enki, creates two creatures who carry the plant of life and water of life down to the Underworld, sprinkling them on Inanna and Damuzi, resurrecting them, and giving them the power to return to the earth as the light of the sun for six months. After the six months are up, Tammuz returns to the underworld of the dead, remaining there for another six months, and Ishtar pursues him, prompting the water god to rescue them both. Thus were the cycles of winter death and spring life.</div>
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<img alt="The Descent of Inanna" class="media-image cboxElement" src="http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/inanna-descent.jpg" height="178" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 178px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 466px;" typeof="foaf:Image" width="466" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">The drawing parallels between the story of Jesus and the epic of Inanna “doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't a real person, Jesus, who was crucified, but rather that, if there was, the story about it is structured and embellished with a pattern that was very ancient and widespread.</span></span></div>
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The Sumerian goddess Inanna is known outside of Mesopotamia by her Babylonian name, "Ishtar". In ancient Canaan Ishtar is known as Astarte, and her counterparts in the Greek and Roman pantheons are known as Aphrodite and Venus. In the 4th Century, when Christians identified the exact site in Jerusalem where the empty tomb of Jesus had been located, they selected the spot where a temple of Aphrodite (Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna) stood. The temple was torn down and the So Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built, the holiest church in the Christian world.</div>
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The story of Inanna and Damuzi is just one of a number of accounts of dying and rising gods that represent the cycle of the seasons and the stars. For example, the resurrection of Egyptian Horus; the story of Mithras, who was worshipped at Springtime; and the tale of Dionysus, resurrected by his grandmother. Among these stories are prevailing themes of fertility, conception, renewal, descent into darkness, and the triumph of light over darkness or good over evil.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Easter as a celebration of the Goddess of Spring</strong></div>
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Rather than being a representation of the story of Ishtar, Easter was originally a celebration of Eostre, goddess of Spring, otherwise known as Ostara, Austra, and Eastre. </div>
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Celebrated at Spring Equinox on March 21, Ostara marks the day when light is equal to darkness, and will continue to grow. As the bringer of light after a long dark winter, the goddess was often depicted with the hare, an animal that represents the arrival of spring as well as the fertility of the season.</div>
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The idea of resurrection was ingrained within the celebration of Ostara: “Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the christian’s God.”</div>
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Most analyses of the origin of the word ‘Easter’ maintain that it was named after a goddess mentioned by the 7th to 8th-century English monk Bede, who wrote that Ēosturmōnaþ (Old English 'Month of Ēostre', translated in Bede's time as "Paschal month") was an English month, corresponding to April, which he says "was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month".</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The origins of Easter customs</strong></div>
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The most widely-practiced customs on Easter Sunday relate to the symbol of the rabbit (‘Easter bunny’) and the egg. The rabbit was a symbol associated with Eostre, representing the beginning of Springtime. Likewise, the egg has come to represent Spring, fertility and renewal. In Germanic mythology, it is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found in the woods by changing it into a hare. Still partially a bird, the hare showed its gratitude to the goddess by laying eggs as gifts. Another document about<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;"> the pagan traditions associated with the egg, </span> <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;"> clearly explains</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit;">: “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.” In ancient Egypt, an egg symbolised the sun, while for the Babylonians, the egg represents the hatching of the Venus Ishtar, who fell from heaven to the Euphrates.</span></div>
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<img alt="Relief with Phanes" class="media-image cboxElement" src="http://www.ancient-origins.net/sites/default/files/relief-phanes-easter.jpg" height="391" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 391px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 280px;" typeof="foaf:Image" width="280" /></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2nd century A.D. Orphic god Phanes emerging from the cosmic egg, surrounded by the zodiac.</em></div>
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In many Christian traditions, the custom of giving eggs at Easter celebrates new life. Christians remember that Jesus, after dying on the cross, rose from the dead, showing that life could win over death. For Christians the egg is a symbol of Jesus' resurrection, as when they are cracked open, they stand for the empty tomb.</div>
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Regardless of the very ancient origins of the symbol of the egg, most people agree that nothing symbolises renewal more perfectly than the egg – round, endless, and full of the promise of life.</div>
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While many of the pagan customs associated with the celebration of Spring were at one stage practised alongside Christian Easter traditions, they eventually came to be absorbed within Christianity, as symbols of the resurrection of Jesus. </div>
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The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the March equinox.</div>
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Whether it is observed as a religious holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or a time for families in the northern hemisphere to enjoy the coming of Spring and celebrate with egg decorating and Easter bunnies, the celebration of Easter still retains the same spirit of rebirth and renewal, as it has for thousands of years.</div>
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<u>Original source by</u>: </div>
<a href="http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/ancient-pagan-origins-easter-001571"><b><span style="color: #7f6000;">The ancient pagan origin of Easter - Ancient Origins</span></b></a><br />
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<u style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">References</u></div>
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/03/easter-pagan-symbolism" style="border: 0px; color: #a7691b; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The pagan roots of Easter</a> - Heather McDougall</div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-tarico/ancient-mythic-origins-of_b_185455.html" style="border: 0px; color: #a7691b; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story</a> – by Valerie Tarico</div>
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<a href="http://monrovia.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/history-of-easter-exploring-the-ancient-origins-of-th70d7ab3899" style="border: 0px; color: #a7691b; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">History of Easter: Exploring the Ancient Origins of the Modern Holiday</a> – by Shawna Burreson</div>
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<a href="http://www.enduring.org/article/origins-of-easter" style="border: 0px; color: #a7691b; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Origins of Easter</a> – by Ross Abasolo</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-43807177074786619862015-03-28T13:03:00.004-07:002015-03-28T13:04:52.415-07:00Settlers in Melita Insula<br />
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The aedile administration of Melita informs all citizens and colonii:<br />
"Dedicated role players can receive a small house or apartment on the island, <u>for free</u>. If a dedicated role player wants a more luxurious residence, we might consider building and renting a small villa to him or her, depending on how involved is that player in the sim".<br />
For this pourpose we are offering the following builds:<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">An huge domus for a patrician/equestrian family/group formed of at least 3 person.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Located on a middle position, between the harbour and the cultural center, it enjoys of a nice view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Prims allowed: 40.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Docks Insula.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Located near the plebis insula, at few steps from the harbour, theese builds are pretty big to guest familyes as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Two apartments available (minimum two members for each group/family).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Prims allowed: 25 for each apartment.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: small;">Plebis Insula (1).<br />Four homes one next another, built with a typical punic/phoenician architecture mixed <br />with romans details.<br />Apartments are for single members or familyes as well.<br />Prims allowed: 20 for each home </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KjuNGMt1UMQ/VRcDAFPS2NI/AAAAAAAAADQ/IQAeWJ2q5TI/s1600/advertisement_004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KjuNGMt1UMQ/VRcDAFPS2NI/AAAAAAAAADQ/IQAeWJ2q5TI/s1600/advertisement_004.jpg" height="230" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Plebis Insula (2).<br />One build in roman style with a typical Pompeian coloured plaster<br />For single members or familyes as well.<br />Prims allowed: 25 </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">All those interested may contact Hermes (Tonio Renfold) or Arachne Demonia in world, directly or leaving a notecard, or sending an email on Contact Us section of this blog, specyfing avatar name, role invested in land and type of build requested.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-16150090619071469422015-03-22T01:22:00.001-07:002015-03-22T02:28:18.091-07:00Estate policy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Salve colonus. So you just arrived in Melita and you are looking for a shelter, hold on. Follow me at the tavern for a cup of wine, after we are done you may rest upstairs and spend a night or two. If you have decided to stay longer and <u>be an active citizen</u> you may contact one of the city's aediles (administrators) and ask for a domus (house), yes, <u>it is free</u>, if you plan to live in Melita Insula and be an active citizen, along with some resources (40 prims). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">There are are more options of course if you belong to a rulling class and you bring along your family or your service staff, in this case you may occupy a larger domus or even a villa, <u>for free</u>, along with enough resources. Your only obligation is your <u>reasonable amount of participation</u> to the colony's activities.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Every colonist, citizen, visitor or passerby is expected to follow all <b><a href="http://melitainsula.blogspot.gr/search/label/Info%20and%20Rules/">laws of government</a></b> as they have been explained by the time you arrived on the island. For more details about our estate policy and rules you may contact any of our administrators. Enjoy your stay!</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10434333756706003270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-32210114863014664372015-03-20T17:38:00.000-07:002016-09-17T14:37:03.094-07:00Hermes, the Numidian<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1i2Dfw4x73Y/VQy6MBZEWrI/AAAAAAAAACw/p_8npv6Myes/s1600/Snapshot_085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1i2Dfw4x73Y/VQy6MBZEWrI/AAAAAAAAACw/p_8npv6Myes/s1600/Snapshot_085.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
My true name is Juba'aal and I come from the land of Numidia, which the Romans called Africa Nova ... just like they do with me, calling me Hermes.<br />
I'm a rudiarius, retired from the games when I gained the Rudis, and also a libertus, thanxgiving Domine Notorious Felonis, wich granted me the manumissio after all my efforts. After a while I left Sicily venturing in the Empire, till the capital, where my troubles began. I've been accused of embezzlement and sentenced to exile on an island geographically halfway between two worlds that belonged to my past: the island of Melita. Here I continued to exercise my job of lanista to entertain the few Roman citizens who passed or settled in the island, paying my debts with part of the wins.<br />
Once my exile was done, I sadly left the island of Melita with my Familia Gladiatoria, looking for new scenarios in which to sell shows, so I took the first ship to the Aegean Sea and I left Melita for the Dodecanese , a place for me unknowed. Here I landed on the island of Lutho, where I was well received by the local population and the Quaestor, who gave me the authorization to prosecue my activities in this majest island.</div>
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Everithing seemed to proceed for the best...until that terrible day where the gods, Vulcanus first, exploded their anger on that small island. All around was a mix of ash and debris. Many survivors, within many inn roman citizens, could leave the island taking the big roman cargo moored in the harbour and soon diverted to Pergamus. Beh, many except me: a voice into my mind suggested me to not follow them and that I could reach my fortune again elsewhere. So i left that island on a fishing boat, heading to another island, and one more; everyday on a different one, until landing in Rhodes.</div>
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There an unexpected meeting with an his old knowledge, gave him the opportunity to move back to Roma and there to work again as lanista for the biggest gladiatorial school of all the empire.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-16941671818036666542015-03-15T16:50:00.001-07:002015-03-18T02:25:53.499-07:00Roman Warships pt. 1 & the Celeuma's Song<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We know alot about this powerful means of conquest and control of the seas, especially with reproductions on coins, bas-reliefs, pompeian frescoes and historical descriptions, while the archaeological finds are limited in large measure to "navi onerarie" (cargo ships) and their loads.</div>
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The Roman warships were classified in:</div>
<br />
• <b>naves praetoriae (flagships):</b> long, rowing and very fast;<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z2nBIXRxoTA/VQXGyso6TrI/AAAAAAAAACM/2Pd-bdz5BEI/s1600/1224792819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z2nBIXRxoTA/VQXGyso6TrI/AAAAAAAAACM/2Pd-bdz5BEI/s1600/1224792819.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
• <b>naves longae and naves liburnicae:</b> very fast and with several rows of oars;</div>
<br />
• <b>naves actuariae:</b> read, for troops transportation;<br />
<br />
• <b>naves speculatoriae: </b>of reconnaissance, to observe the enemy;<br />
<br />
• <b>naves tabellariae: </b>small units for sending dispatches.<br />
<br />
The type of ship is generally related to the orders of oars present on each of them.<br />
<br />
<b>Bireme</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"navis longa" with two rows of oarsmen sitting on the same bench. It was also equipped of a square sail and developed a good speed thanks to its weight and small size. It was superseded by more</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
functional trireme.</div>
<br />
<b>Trireme </b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"navis longa" with three series of rowers. It was the most commonly used warship, was equipped with a rostrum and, in newer units, there was a tower to house archers at bow to launch arrows from higher positions. At the aft was built cab blanket commander. Its crew was 200 men including 150 rowers and 15 between Officers and NCOs.</div>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><b>Quadrireme</b></span> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="hps atn">"</span><span class="">navis</span> <span class="hps">longa</span>" with <span class="hps">four</span> <span class="hps">orders </span><span class="hps">oars</span> <span class="hps">during the First</span> <span class="hps">Punic War it </span><span class="hps">rode</span> <span class="hps">two</span> <span class="hps atn">"</span><span class="">crows</span>", one <span class="hps">at the bow</span> <span class="hps">and the other at </span><span class="hps">aft. It</span> <span class="hps">was</span> <span class="hps">generally</span> <span class="hps">equipped with several </span><span class="hps">siege weapons</span><span class="">:</span> <span class="hps">catapults</span> <span class="hps">and</span> <span class="hps">asses</span>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Anche la quadrireme aveva una o due torri
">Even the quadrireme had one or two raised towers</span><span title="per il tiro rialzato degli arcieri."> for archers' shots. </span><span title="L’equipaggio
">The crew </span><span title="era di 240 rematori, 15 marinai e
">was 240 remiges (rowers), 15 Nautes (sailors) and 1</span><span title="120 fanti di marina.
">20 Classiarii (Marines).</span></span></span></div>
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="120 fanti di marina.
"><br /></span><span title="Quinquireme “navis longa” con cinque
"><b>Quinquireme</b> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Quinquireme “navis longa” con cinque
">"navis longa" with five rows </span><span title="ordini di remi.">of oars. </span><span title="Molto simile alla quadrireme
">Very similar to quadrireme </span><span title="ma più veloce.
">but faster.</span></span></span><br />
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="ma più veloce.
"><br /></span><span title="Esareme “navis longa” e pesante di cui
"><b>Esareme</b> </span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Esareme “navis longa” e pesante di cui
">"navis longa" and heavy which </span><span title="non si hanno elementi per dire se fosse
">there are no elements to say if it was </span><span title="con sei ordini di remi o una trireme con
">with six rows of oars or a trireme with </span><span title="due rematori per remo.">two rowers per oar. </span><span title="Fortemente armata,
">Heavily armed, </span><span title="pare fosse destinata all’imbarco dello
">apparently was intended to board the </span><span title="Stato Maggiore della flotta.
">Staff of the fleet.</span></span></span></div>
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Stato Maggiore della flotta.
"><br /></span><span title="Deceris detta anche decireme per il numero
"><b>Deceris</b> </span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Deceris detta anche decireme per il numero
">also called decireme by the number </span><span title="di ordini di remi di cui disponeva.
">of rows of oars in its possession. </span><span title="Nella battaglia di Azio (31 a. C.), combattuta
">In the Actium battle </span></span></span>(31 BC.), disputed between Antony and Octavian, both <span title="flotte schieravano questo tipo di navi.">fleets deployed this type of ships. </span><span title="L’equipaggio
">The crew </span>was 600 Nautes (sailors) and 200-250 Classiarii (Marines).</div>
<br />
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Liburna nave veloce con due ordini di rematori,
"><b>Liburna</b></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="Liburna nave veloce con due ordini di rematori,
"> fast ship with two rows of oarsmen, It </span><span title="era la copia dell’identica unità dei
">was the copy of the identical pirate "liburnian" unit </span><span title="pirati “liburni” (cioè dei pirati illiri) che
">(ie Illyrians pirates) that </span><span title="aveva combattuto contro i romani.">had fought against the Romans. </span><span title="Marco
">Marcus </span><span title="Vipsanio Agrippa aveva apprezzato la
">Agrippa had appreciated </span><span title="maggiore manovrabilità di questa imbarcazione
">maneuverability of this boat </span><span title="rispetto alla trireme e ne aveva
">than the trireme so he let</span><span title="fatto tesoro facendone costruire in quantità
"> build so many of this kind </span><span title="per la battaglia di Azio.">for the battle of Actium.</span></span></span></div>
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="per la battaglia di Azio."><br /></span></span></span>
<span class="" lang="en"><span class="" lang="en"><span title="per la battaglia di Azio."></span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dexay8HaIdk/Ut6w0GX8MFI/AAAAAAAAST0/I82mQlNE8pk/s1600/navi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dexay8HaIdk/Ut6w0GX8MFI/AAAAAAAAST0/I82mQlNE8pk/s640/navi.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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Although the Roman Navy was present in the Mediterranean for a long time, but with Augustus, and his famous military genius Vipsanius Agrippa, they came to the realization of a permanent fleet.</div>
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In the Mediterranean sea there were located naval units in the two main bases of Misenum (Classis Misensis) in Campania, and Ravenna (Classis Ravennatis) on south of Po river's delta.</div>
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Of these two, the fleet of Misenum was considered prominent and controlled by a Praefectus Classis, of higher rank than the one of Ravenna. </div>
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They were, however, "provincial fleets" for the control of local waters. These were:</div>
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• <b>Classis Britannica</b>: control authority of the English Channel and British sea;</div>
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• <b>Classis Germanica</b>: river fleet on the Renus;</div>
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• <b>Classis Pannonian</b>: river fleet on the Danube;</div>
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• <b>Classis Flavia Moesica</b>: placed to control the Black Sea and part of the Danube;</div>
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• <b>Classis Pontica</b>: for the control of Southern Black Sea;</div>
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• <b>Classis Syriaca</b>: for the control of Turkish, Syrian and Palestinian waters;</div>
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• <b>Classis Alexandrina</b>: control authority of the Egyptian sea;</div>
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• <b>Classis Mauretanica</b>: for the control of African Western Mediterranean;</div>
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• <b>Classis Lybica</b>: located to control the Libyan coast.</div>
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<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">This important</span> <span class="hps">military force</span> <span class="hps">was </span><span class="hps">governed</span> <span class="hps">by:</span></span><br />
<ul><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
<li><b><span class="hps">Praefectus</span> <span class="hps">Classis,</span></b> <span class="hps">appointed</span> <span class="hps">to</span> <span class="hps">command the whole f</span><span class="hps">leet</span> under the direct order <span class="hps">of the Emperor hiself</span>;</li>
<li><b><span class="hps">Subpraefectus</span> </b><span class="hps"><b>Commander,</b> </span><span class="hps">second in command into a fleet;</span></li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Navarchus,</b></span> <span class="hps">corresponding to the current </span><span class="hps">Rear Admiral</span>, he <span class="hps">was</span> <span class="hps">appointed</span> <span class="hps">to the command of a squadron made by 10 units</span>;</li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Trierarchus</b></span> <span class="hps">or</span> <b><span class="hps">Magister</span> <span class="hps">Navis</span></b>, <span class="hps">Commander of a </span><span class="hps">single</span> <span class="hps">naval unit</span> <span class="hps">but</span> <span class="hps">responsible of the c</span><span class="hps">onduct only</span>;</li>
<li><b><span class="hps">Centurio</span> <span class="hps">classicus,</span></b> o<span class="hps">fficer of</span> <span class="hps">high rank in</span><span class="hps"> the Navy</span>, <span class="hps">which</span> <span class="hps">toke care about</span><span class="hps"> </span><span class="hps">military operations only.</span></li>
</span></ul>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
</span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">Among the</span> <span class="hps">non-commissioned officers</span> there <span class="hps">are:</span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
<span class="hps"></span></span>
<br />
<ul><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/21/81/56/218156b8b9be0042b26601734aadb0b9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/21/81/56/218156b8b9be0042b26601734aadb0b9.jpg" width="320" /></a>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Gubernator, </b></span><span class="hps">corresponding to</span> <span class="hps">the</span> <span class="hps">helmsman;</span></li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Proreta, </b></span> bow o<span class="hps">fficer;</span></li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Optio</b></span>, <span class="hps">corresponding to a</span> <span class="hps">Marshal</span>;</li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Decuriones, </b>leading the oars rowers;</span></li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Pausarius,</b></span> the <span class="hps">one who</span> <span class="hps">gave</span> <span class="hps">rhythm to </span>vogue.</li>
</span></span></ul>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="hps">The Sailors</span> <span class="hps">were</span> <span class="hps">divided into:</span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<ul><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
<li><span class="hps"><b>Remiges</b></span> (<span class="hps">rowers)</span>;</li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Nautes </b></span> (the typical sailors on a ship);</li>
<li><span class="hps"><b>Classiarii, </b></span><span class="hps">corresponding to the modern marines.</span></li>
</span></span></ul>
<div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">___________________________________________________________</span></span></div>
</div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><b><span class="hps"><span style="color: red;">Celeuma</span></span></b></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"></span><br /></span></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><b><span class="hps">Poetry</span> <span class="hps">of the rowers</span> <span class="hps">of</span> <span class="hps">Roman ships</span></b></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
</span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><i><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">The poem</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">by an unknown author</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">entitled</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">Celeuma</span><span style="text-align: left;">,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps atn" style="text-align: left;">namely '</span><span style="text-align: left;">lilting</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">song</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">of the rowers</span><span style="text-align: left;">'</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">has been handed down</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">by a code</span><span style="text-align: left;"> of the A</span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">nthologia</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps atn" style="text-align: left;">Latina (</span><span style="text-align: left;">cod.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">Beroliniensis</span><span style="text-align: left;">,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">mss</span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">Diez</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">B66</span><span style="text-align: left;">, Sec</span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">VIII</span><span class="atn" style="text-align: left;">-</span><span style="text-align: left;">IX</span><span style="text-align: left;">)</span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">It</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">is a</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">very interesting example of</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">poetry</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">which combines</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">ancient</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">literary forms</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">with</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">folk motifs</span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">In fact</span><span style="text-align: left;">,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">the classic structure</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">hexameter</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">is enriched with</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">freshness and</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">liveliness</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">punctuated</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">as it is by</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">the refrain</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">with the</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">crew chief</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">gives rhythm to</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">the cadence</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">of the rowers</span><span style="text-align: left;">,</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">creating a show</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">of</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">force</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">naturalistic</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">set of</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">joyous abandon</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">enchantment</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span class="hps" style="text-align: left;">landscape</span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></span></i></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
</span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
</span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br /></span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Heia, viri, nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i>
</span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Arbiter effusi late maris ore sereno</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i>
</span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Placatum stravit pelagus posuitque procellam,</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">edomitique vago sederunt pondere fluctus.</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></span>
</span></span><br />
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Heia, viri, nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></span></span></span>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">Aequora prora secet delphinis aemula saltu</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><i><span style="text-align: left;">
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Atque gemat largum, promat seseque lacertis,</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
pone trahens canum deducat et orbita sulcum</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Heia, viri, nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Annisu parili tremat ictibus acta carina</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Nunc dabit arridens pelago concordia caeli</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Ventorum motu praegnanti currere velo.</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Heia, viri, nostrum reboans echo sonet heia!</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Aequoreos volvens fluctus ratis audiat heia!</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Convulsum remis spumet mare; nos tamen: heia.</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
Vocibus adsiduis litus reduci sonet heia!</div>
<div style="font-weight: bold; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Translation <i>(Note: the english translation of this poem may not give a fair idea of the exact cadence of the poem itself):</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Come on!, friends, <i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br />
<div style="display: inline !important;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">feel</span> <span class="hps">resonate</span> <span class="hps">as</span> <span class="hps">an echo</span> <span class="hps atn">our "</span>come on"!</span></i></span></i></div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></div>
<div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">The Lord</span> <span class="hps">of the wide</span> <span class="hps">expanse of the sea</span> <span class="hps">with</span> <span class="hps">serene voice</span></span></span></i></div>
</div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></div>
<div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">Calmed</span> down and subsided <span class="hps">the marine storm</span><span class="hps">,</span></span></span></i></div>
</div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">the waves</span> <span class="hps">were</span> <span class="hps">tamed</span> <span class="hps">powerless</span> <span class="hps">rambling</span>.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Come on!, friends, <span class="hps">feel</span> <span class="hps">resonate</span> <span class="hps">as</span> <span class="hps">an echo</span> <span class="hps atn">our "</span>come on"!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">The hull</span>, <span class="hps">shaken by the</span> <span class="hps">beats,</span> <span class="hps">vibrates</span> <span class="hps">under uniform</span> <span class="hps">pressure</span>.</span></i></div>
<div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">Now</span>, <span class="hps">favorable</span> <span class="hps">to the sea</span>, the sky <span class="hps">will</span> <span class="hps">agree</span></span></span></i></div>
</div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">To run with</span> <span class="hps">the sails</span> <span class="hps">to</span> <span class="hps">the meaningful push of the winds</span>.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Come on!, friends, <span class="hps">feel</span> <span class="hps">resonate</span> <span class="hps">as</span> <span class="hps">an echo</span> <span class="hps atn">our "</span>come on"!</span></i></div>
<div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></i><br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">The</span> <span class="hps">prow</span> cuts <span class="hps">waves</span> <span class="hps">with</span> <span class="hps">the rival</span> d<span class="hps">olphin jump</span></span></span></i></div>
</div>
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">
</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">It</span> <span class="hps">vibrates</span> <span class="hps">deep inside,</span> got to <span class="hps">notice</span> <span class="hps">under</span> <span class="hps">our arms</span>,</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">behind</span> <span class="hps">the </span><span class="hps">leading</span> trail got to open a whitening furrow.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Come on!, friends, <span class="hps">feel</span> <span class="hps">resonate</span> <span class="hps">as</span> <span class="hps">an echo</span> <span class="hps atn">our "</span>come on"!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">Sweeping away</span> <span class="hps">the</span> <span class="hps">salty</span> <span class="hps">waves</span> <span class="hps">the boat</span> <span class="hps">feel</span> <span class="hps atn">"</span>come on"!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">Frothing the sea upset</span> <span class="hps">by oars</span>; <span class="hps">and we</span> <span class="hps atn">still "</span>come on"!</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="hps">The coast</span> <span class="hps">resound</span> <span class="hps">"</span><span class="hps">come on</span>"! on <span class="hps">our lilting voices</span>.</span></i></div>
</div>
</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps"><span class="" id="result_box" lang="en">
</span></span></span></div>
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">
</span></span></div>
</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-80802851739048840852015-03-02T15:16:00.001-08:002015-03-03T03:19:32.105-08:00Gladius Romanus Formosus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="almost_half_cell" id="gt-res-content">
<div dir="ltr" style="zoom: 1;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span class="hps">Many</span> <span class="hps">reproductions of this</span> type<span class="hps"> of weapon</span> <span class="hps">represent it</span> <span class="hps">with</span> <span class="hps">a</span> <span class="hps">special shape</span>: <span class="hps">wide</span> <span class="hps">at the tip</span><span class="">,</span> <span class="hps">closer</span> <span class="hps">to the</span> <span class="hps">center</span> <span class="hps">and back to the</span> <span class="hps">same</span> <span class="hps">lar </span><span class="hps">length</span> <span class="hps">near</span> <span class="hps">the hilt</span>. May it be true<span class="">?</span><br /> <span class="hps">From</span> <span class="hps">a</span> <span class="hps">field experience</span> has been<span class="hps"> seen</span> <span class="hps">that</span> <span class="hps">sharpening</span> costantly <span class="hps">a</span> <span class="hps">sword</span> <span class="hps">with</span> parallel <span class="hps">edges</span> <span class="hps">to remove</span> <span class="hps">dents</span> <span class="hps">caused</span> <span class="hps">by the impact of </span><span class="hps">other weapons</span>, <span class="hps">these</span> <span class="hps">are</span> <span class="hps">gradually</span> <span class="hps">shrinking</span> <span class="hps">at the center</span> <span class="hps">until they assumed</span> <span class="hps">that particular form</span>. <span class="hps">We might</span> <span class="hps">also</span> <span class="hps">think that for</span> <span class="hps">the Roman soldiers</span> <span class="hps">have a</span> <span class="hps">sword</span> <span class="hps">with</span> <span class="hps">this particular form</span> <span class="hps">was</span> <span class="hps">a source of pride</span> <span class="hps">in</span> <span class="hps">what</span> <span class="hps">could</span> <span class="hps">amount to</span> <span class="hps">having fought</span> <span class="hps">many battles</span> <span class="hps">and killed</span> <span class="hps">many enemies</span>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZgGM97efhqk/VPTvKa4XYrI/AAAAAAAAAB4/dhORkQCaG0E/s1600/gladi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZgGM97efhqk/VPTvKa4XYrI/AAAAAAAAAB4/dhORkQCaG0E/s1600/gladi.jpg" height="132" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gladius Romanus Formosus</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03918191345221181465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-87181757203740931932015-02-24T07:52:00.000-08:002015-03-02T09:13:26.216-08:00The Greek Alphabet: Hellenic Invention or Phoenician Invasion?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>By: George C. Chryssi</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The question whether the Greek alphabet is an invention of the
Hellenes, or it is a modified import of the Phoenician alphabet, has
long been debated by linguists, scholars and historians alike.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The web site “<i>writingsystems.com”</i> states that “although Greek has traditionally been considered to be the <i>mother of alphabets</i>,
the first to represent vowels as well as consonants, scholars are now
divided on whether Greek was in fact the ancestor of all others or
whether some [letters] came from Phoenician in other ways.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In addition, in the book <i>“The World of the Bible”</i> the author,
Roberta Harris, writes that “to the Greeks also belongs the credit for
the invention of the vowel system… when the Greeks founded colonies in
Italy, the alphabet was taken up by the peoples there… and has come down
to us via the Romans…”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This article is based on extensive (but, by no means exhaustive)
research that the author has done on the subject, in an attempt to show
that ancient, as well as recent evidence, point to a favorable
conclusion that the alphabet is indeed a Hellenic invention, albeit its
final form, as we know it today, is the result of refinement and
iterations of Hellenic writing systems through millennia of usage in the
Aegean basin and the Levant.</div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The alleged Phoenician “invasion”</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Several ancient Greek writers credit various Hellenes as the
inventors of the alphabet, i.e. Prometheus, Palamedes, Linus and others,
with the exception of Herodotus, who in his <i>History</i> he mentions
the following: “Then those Phoenicians who had come with Cadmus, of whom
were the Gephyrians, had lived in many other places, and imported in
this land different teachings to the Greeks, and in addition letters (“<i>grammata”</i>),
which, in my opinion, where unknown to the Greeks, initially those
[letters] that they and all Phoenicians used; however, as time went by
they [Phoenicians] changed their language and the type [shape] of the
letters.” (Book V, 58)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This vexed passage is the heart of a long lasting and continuing
debate regarding the origin of the Greek alphabet, since it has been
taken at “gospel value” by many to mean that the Greeks “borrowed”, at
least some, of their letters from the Phoenicians. However, an
increasing number of scholars and researchers argue, with validity, that
the Herodotus passage has been misunderstood and misinterpreted, if not
taken out of context.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Referring to the Greek original text (<i>quoted in the parentheses below)</i>, let us analyze the passage to extract its meaning the way Herodotus, most likely, meant it to read.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
First, we notice that Herodotus makes a very important and
significant disclaimer in this paragraph: he tells us that what he
writes is a “personal opinion” (<i>“os emoi dokeei”</i>), not a widely accepted fact or a definitive statement.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Prior to this, Herodotus also makes a more general disclaimer that
“his opinion” was formed not by facts, research or scientific knowledge,
but rather it was based on “taking information from others” (<i>“anapynthanomenos”).</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“If we look closely in what Herodotus himself says [in his History],” writes Mary Lefkowitz in her book “<i>Not Out Of Africa”</i>,
“he makes it clear that he is putting forward his own interpretations
and conjectures about what he saw and was told by native informants.”
(p. 62)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is not an uncommon practice for Herodotus. To wit, Professor Perez Zagorin in his book “<i>Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader” </i>writes
that Herodotus “in dealing with sources of information, his attitude
was neither consistently critical nor generally credulous, but somewhere
in between… To his readers he declares that it is his duty to report
all that is said, but not obliged to believe it… His work is full of the
most varied facts, speeches, stories and digressions for whose truth it
is impossible to vouch… Very likely [Thucydides] placed Herodotus among
the class of writers who, he said, take little trouble in the search
for the truth and <i>readily…accept whatever comes first hand</i>.” (p.16)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is not to say that Herodotus is not a great historian, or that his writings are not important. On the contrary, his <i>History </i>is
a remarkable book based on events that he encountered, but also on
stories and folklore that he heard. Regarding his passage about the
Greek alphabet he failed to establish a clear distinction between facts
and generalizations and, in contrast to Thucydides, the historical
evidence <i>(“tekmerion”)</i> in his narrative is missing, rendering his conjecture suspect.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To be fair, despite his controversial account, Herodotus actually
makes it clear that the Greeks already had letters of their own at the
time of the Phoenicians arrival to Greece and is careful to point-out
that the Phoenicians introduced only a few letters <i>(“eisegagon</i> <i>oliga”) </i>that where hitherto unknown to the Greeks (<i>“ouk eonta prin Ellesi”).</i>
Surely, the most important and by far the most critical statement that
Herodotus makes in his passage is the one confirming that in time the
Phoenicians “changed their language and the type (or shape) of their
letters” <i>(“ama ti foni metevallon kai ton rythmon ton grammaton”).</i> In other words, the Phoenicians assimilated and eventually spoke Greek and wrote in Greek letters!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
However, what is considered the “bone of contention” in this entire
debate is Herodotus’s subsequent paragraph. It reads in (translation) as
follows: “At that period, most of the Greeks living around the [Aegean]
region were Ionians, who were taught these letters by the Phoenicians,
and adopted them with few alterations for their own use, and using them
they were saying, that the right thing to do was to call them
Phoenician, since the Phoenicians brought them to Greece.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This passage is indeed both paradoxical and suspicious, because if we
accept the notion that the Ionian Greeks “adopted and used some”
Phoenician letters <i>(“metarythmisantes sfeon oliga ehreonto”)</i>,
this would be a striking contradiction to the former paragraph’s strong
and assertive statement that the Phoenicians where the adopters, not the
Greeks! Is Herodotus confused and uses “bifurcated logic” here, or is
something else happening? Let’s examine the possibilities.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As difficult as it is to translate a passage from ancient Greek
without altering its meaning, keep in mind that the ancient Greek
writings can (and will) take an entirely different meaning by
repositioning a comma, or by observing the proper gender, or even by
inserting a word that the author has omitted.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Consider the following famous Delphic oracle, given by Pythia to an
ancient Greek soldier leaving for war: “Thou shall go and thou shall
return not thou shall die in war” <i>(“Exeis afexeis ou en polemo thnexeis”)</i>.
As an exercise to the reader, notice how the meaning of the sentence
changes completely, first by placing the comma before the word “not” and
then after it!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Furthermore, consider the word “Egypt” <i>(Aigyptos)</i>; its feminine form <i>(e Aigyptos)</i> refers to the country Egypt, but its male form <i>(o Aigyptos)</i> refers to the mythical hero Egyptus, a forefather of the Greeks, not connected with Egypt.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fascinating indeed, but after all, this is the beauty and power of
the Greek language and also its mystique and challenge to the user,
reader, as well as the translator! Hence, modern translators and
interpreters, who do not have either the analytical skills or good
command of the language, not only make erroneous translations and
interpretations, but unfortunately, these errors perpetuate and
eventually amplify the problem.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With this in mind, let us reintroduce the later mentioned Herodotus
paragraph, by inserting a key word (in brackets, bellow) that Herodotus
may have omitted as redundant <i>(“autonoete”)</i>: “At that period, most of the Greeks living around the region were Ionians, who were taught these <b>[<i>Greek</i>]</b> letters by the Phoenicians and adopted them…”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The suggestion that Herodotus meant “Greek letters” is consistent
with what he told us in his first passage, i.e. that the Phoenicians had
adopted the Greek letters (and language) and abandoned their own.
Furthermore, it is important to note that he mentions the Phoenicians as
“importers” of these letters rather than “inventors”, while his
subsequent statement that the Ionians called the letters Phoenician <i>(“Phoenekeia keklesthai”)</i>
is consistent with the ancient Greeks’ tendency to attach exotic
origins to home-grown products, even if that practice had an
unintentional long-term negative impact on their creativity and
intellectual capital. This practice continues even today, inasmuch we
attach “origins” to certain common items, such as French fries, Danish
rolls, Canadian bacon, Venetian blinds, etc, even though it is highly
unlikable that these products where actually “invented” in the named
localities.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If this explanation is not sufficient to persuade the skeptics,
advocates of the belief that the alphabet was indeed a Greek invention,
have expressed the opinion that the second paragraph may have not been
written by Herodotus altogether, but it may have been inserted at a
later date by someone with the intention to reduce the importance of
Herodotus original passage.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Could this be so? Well, we know that through the ages, ancient Greek
writings have been altered and edited for various reasons and some more
significantly than others, by various scribes and copiers of the
original texts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Herodotus History may have also been a victim of a later-day
Hellenized zealot scribe, who in an attempt to minimize Hellenic
cultural hegemony and inventiveness he targeted the crown jewel of all
Greek accomplishments, their alphabet!</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Could Herodotus been “altered”?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It would be historically unjust and unfair to claim that in a
multicultural region where Greece is located, there were not
intercultural interactions, influences and possibly adoptions of
customs, thoughts and rituals.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Greeks traveled throughout the Mediterranean Sea (and beyond) and
came into contact with various peoples and cultures, and had an open
mind and a voracious thirst for knowledge and new ideas.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Having said this, it is also safe to say that the Greeks invented
what has been credited to them, and their contributions to philosophy,
philology, mathematics, history, democracy, architecture and the arts,
are well documented and do not need apologists.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ancient Greek culture was “home-grown” and unique, and its
accomplishments were the result of this uniqueness. However, since
ancient times, other cultures studied and copied (or usurped) ancient
Greek thoughts and ideas, in an attempt to lift their own ethnic group
culturally, spiritually and socially.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The blatantly flawed “Afrocentric Theory” that was developed in
modern times to satisfy nationalistic and multicultural tendencies, was
an attempt to defraud and deceive academics, scholars and simple folks
by erroneously claiming that Greek thought and civilization was “stolen”
from Egypt (i.e. Africa).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fortunately, this theory was ingeniously dispelled and totally
discredited by Professor Mary Lefkowitz’s scholarly, courageous and
widely accepted book <i>“Not Out Of Africa</i>.<i>”</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Similarly, the “Phoenician Theory” about the origins of the Greek
alphabet, was developed at a time when, “as the British scholar Dr. S.G.
Remproke says, the Phoenicians were given an intermediary role that is
not based on any historical information, in other words, a role of the
transporter of wisdom from the <i>chosen people</i> of Israel to the <i>uncivilized nations</i>,
and specifically the Greeks. This, of course, could be forgiven, since
this was established around the end of the Medieval Ages, when religious
fanaticism and backwardness had reached such a point that Iphigenia was
presented as the daughter of Ieptha; Deukalion as Noah… Orpheus
(Musaeus) as Moses and other similar distortions.” (Magazine <i>Davlos,</i> pp. 13741-13750, January 2000)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
During the last three centuries BCE, the Egyptians and the Jews,
primarily those living in Alexandria during the Hellenistic times, tried
very hard (and at times succeeded) to assert their own ideas and
cultural beliefs through the written works of the Alexandrian Greeks,
who for millennia lived, worked and flourished in Egypt and continued to
exert the Hellenic influence to other cultures through their language,
philosophy, science, religion and the arts.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Alexandria was the most cultural city of the Mediterranean, and
“within a century after Alexandria was built [by Alexander the Great in
332 BCE]… it had become the center not only of Hellenism but also of
Judaism… the finest teachers, philosophers, and scientists flourishing
within its walls”, writes Theodore Vrettos in his book <i>“Alexandria, City of the Western Mind”</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In her book <i>“Not Out of Africa”</i> Dr. Marry Lefkowitz writes:
“The Jews shared the Egyptians’ patronizing attitude towards the
dominant Greek culture. Jewish historians were determined to show that
although the Jewish people were now subject to Greeks, they not only
understood Greek culture… but these writers sought to show that Greek
religion and philosophy had been inspired by Hebrew ideas… But an even
more definitive assertion of the derivative nature of Greek culture was
made by an Alexandrian Jew called Aristobulus in the second century BCE.
Aristobulus did not hesitate to invent information, or to report
information invented by others… He said that Greek philosophers
Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato knew and studied the books of Moses… Of
course, no scholar today would take seriously that claim… [but] by the
first century CE some people believed [it, and]… the Jewish philosopher
Philo of Alexandria and the Jewish historian Josephus both speak of
Moses influence on Plato… Later, church fathers like Clement of
Alexandria (150-215 CE) and Eusebius (260-340 CE), took a decisively
more hostile line… accusing the Greeks of theft and plagiarism… The
determination of both Jews and Christians to assert the priority of
Hebrew culture over the Greeks, helps to explain why the Egyptians where
eager to point out… that, the famous Greeks were inspired by Egyptian
learning. It was a way of asserting the importance of their culture,
especially in a time when they had little or no political power… But the
fate of Jewish ethnic historians like Aristobulus offer a warning to
modern day advocates of Greek cultural dependency. How many people have
ever heard of Aristobulus? And, more importantly, who believes him?” (pp
85-86)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is well documented, that scribes and book editors published
“revised” ancient Greek writings and books in a form that, implicitly or
explicitly, attempted to favor a specific ethnicity for nationalistic,
religious or other subjective reasons.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Professor Richard E. Rubenstein writes in his book <i>“Aristotle’s Children” </i>that
the Catholic Church allowed universities to teach Aristotle’s
philosophy and science, provided that his books “had been examined and
purged of all suspicion of error.” (p. 173)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In other words, Aristotle’s books would be analyzed, interpreted and
“corrected” (read, “changed”) to fit the specific needs, teachings and
dogmas of the Catholic Church!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Even the New Testament, the most revered book for billions of
Christians, was not immune to considerable changes by various scribes.
Professor Bart D. Ehram in his book <i>“Misquoting Jesus”</i> writes
that “… [in] thousands of places… the manuscripts of the New Testament
came to be changed by scribes… [with] additions of sizable length… there
are lots of significant changes (and lots more insignificant ones) in
our surviving manuscripts of the New Testament” (pp. 68-69)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What, then, could have prevented the alteration of Herodotus’ <i>History,</i>
by racially or nationalistically motivated scribes and book copiers, in
an effort to elevate ethnic pride, by asserting that a non-Greek
culture had inspired and was responsible for the origins of the Greek
alphabet?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unfortunately, we do not have the original Herodotus manuscript to
compare and offer a definitive and conclusive proof to this theory, but
why should we passively accept the negating rather than the assertive
statement of his account about the Greek alphabet?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After all, in the absence of conclusive evidence for a claim that the
Greeks themselves had arrived from the East – the Greeks always
regarded themselves as “indigenous” <i>(“autochthones”)</i> -- the
Levantines and their advocates were determined to show that at the very
least the Greek alphabet was an eastern import, and had
Sinaitic-Phoenician-Semitic roots!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The subsequent topics further examine this claim and present
documented historical facts, as well as recent archeological findings
that dispel a derivative theory, and raise claim to support the theory
that the Greek alphabet (at some shape, form and factor) not only was
invented and used by the Hellenes before Phoenician times, but
eventually <i>this</i> alphabet made its way to the Levant, to be used
first by the Philistines and subsequently by the Phoenicians and the
Semitic peoples of that region.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Was Minoan Crete the birthplace of the alphabet?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Long before the excavation of Knossos in Crete by Sir Arthur Evans,
scholars believed and taught that Greek writing began around the time of
Homer, at 800 BCE.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The excavating work of Sir Arthur Evans in Crete, unveiled the Minoan writing scripts, known today as Linear A and Linear B.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Michael Ventris, an English architect, deciphered Linear B writing
and proved, beyond any doubt, that the Minoans of the second millennium
BCE were speaking and writing in Greek. The Aegean of that time was
indeed Hellenic. In fact, as it turns out, the Linear scripts use many
symbols that resemble letters of the Greek alphabet.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recent work that has been done on the decipherment of an even earlier
Cretan script found on the Phaistos Disk, especially by Dr. Steven R.
Fischer, proved that the disk writing is also Greek (contrary to
hitherto various theories that the disk script was of Northern Semitic,
Hittite, Egyptian, or other origins) thus extending the Hellenic
connection of the Minoans into the third millennium BCE.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Dr. Fischer in his book “<i>Glyphbraker”</i> presents a meticulous
and scholarly account of his decipherment of the Phaistos Disk that was
based on the glyph correspondences between the Phaistos Disk and symbols
of Linears A and B. His work has been endorsed by “<i>The National Geographic”</i> and is by far the most credible and realistic decipherment of the Phaistos Disk to-date.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In his book, Dr. Fischer concludes that “the Minoan language of
ancient Crete is the oldest documented language not only of Europe but
also of the entire Indo-European language family… it was a Hellenic
tongue, sister to Mycenaean Greek [Minoan Greek]… the Phaistos Disk
indicates a preference for the written word in ancient Crete (it also
suggests widespread literacy)… [and] the Hellenes were the first in the
Aegean, indeed in Europe, to use writing…” (pp. 119-120)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Minoans spoke and wrote in Greek, at least 1300 years prior to
the appearance of the Phoenicians! Some may argue that the Phaistos Disk
is “written” in pictorial script (glyphs) and it is syllabic, not
alphabetic. This is true. However, the relation of the Phaistos Disk to
the syllabic Linear A and B scripts is stunningly similar, thus proving
the continuity and evolution of these writing scripts. Furthermore, the
similarity of the Minoan writing symbols to the Phoenician scripts (i.e.
Proto-Sinaitic, ca. 1700 BCE; and Phoenician ca. 700 BCE), which are
also syllabic and not alphabetic, suggest a relative connection that
should not, and must not, be taken lightly or go unnoticed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hence, the question at hand is, did the birth and early evolution of
the Greek alphabet begun in the East (Phoenicia) or the West (Crete)?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The ancient historian Diodorus of Sicily mentions in his writings
that Dosiades, a writer of epigrams, told him that the letters were
invented by the Cretans <i>(“Dosiades de en Kriti phisin evrethinai auta [grammata].) </i>(<i>Diodorus, </i>II 783.14) </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Furthermore, according to the “<i>On-Line Encyclopedia Britannica”</i>,
the late Sir Arthur Evans, the brilliant archaeologist and scholar who
dedicated most of his life excavating, deciphering and documenting the
advanced civilization of the Minoans, argued ingeniously that “the
alphabet was taken over from Crete by the Cherethites (Kereti=Cretans)
and Palestu (Philistines=Pelasgoi) who established for themselves
settlements on the coast of Palestine. From them it passed to the
Phoenicians, who were their neighbors, if not their kinsfolk.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is a statement and scientific observation of great importance,
and has far reaching implications in the quest to identify not only the
origins of the alphabet, but the origins of civilization in the
Mediterranean.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Unfortunately, Evans’ theory of the origin of the alphabet laid
dormant (and frankly, in my opinion, purposely ignored) until recent
archaeological findings in Israel regarding the Philistines, a race
that, until recently, we only knew from Old Testament references, have
shed new light on the migrations, settlements and cultures of the people
in the Mediterranean basin, and has stirred renewed interest in the
relation between the Levantines (Middle Easterners) and the Minoan
Greeks.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Will, finally, Evans be exonerated and his theories be proven right?
Well, we are now almost certain that, despite previous theories that the
Minoans migrated from the Levant, recent scientific and archeological
findings are proving that it was the other way around!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As we understand and analyze these new findings, not through the
prism of narrow nationalistic, ethnic or political interests, but in
true and responsible scholarship, old misconceptions will tumble and the
truth will prevail.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Philistines: Savage warriors or peaceful innovators?</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Philistines was an immigrant culture and appears to settle in
Palestine around 1200 BCE, establishing important cities like Ashrod,
Ekron, Ashkelon, Gath and Gaza that constituted the Philistine
Pentapolis (Five Cities).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Philistines were known to the Egyptians as “Palestu” and also as
the “Sea Peoples” and their migration to the Levant from their homeland
might have been due to famine, outside invaders or devastating
earthquakes and natural disasters.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Moshe and Trude Dothan, professors of Archeology at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, have spent over 30 years excavating, analyzing,
reconstructing and painstakingly recording the Philistine civilization,
hence we now have a good, albeit still incomplete, understanding and
appreciation of the contributions and the positive impact of their
highly advanced culture in this area.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Historical and scientific evidence show unequivocally that the
Philistines “were composed of Greek-speaking tribes” and recent
archeological evidence point-out that they most certainly came from
Crete (<i>Caphtor</i>). It is interesting to note that the biblical Cherethites were Cretans (<i>Cherethites=Kereti=Cretans</i>) and they became King David's personal and professional military force (1 Sam. 30:14).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Cherethites are linked to the Philistines by Ezekiel, “I stretch
out my hand against the Philistines, cut off the Cherethites, and
destroy the rest of the seacoast” (Ez. 25:15-17). Zephaniah also
mentions four of the five Philistine cities in his prophecies against
Philistia, “For Gaza shall be deserted, and Ashkelon shall become a
desolation; Ashrod’s people shall be driven out at noon, and Ekron shall
be uprooted” (Zep. 2:4-7). Zephaniah further affirms that the
Canaanites and Philistines were kinfolks from Crete: “Ah, inhabitants of
the seacoast, you nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is
against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines…” (Zephaniah 2:5-11)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The link and relation of the Philistines/Canaanites to Cretans is
further strengthened by the fact that the Philistinean city of Gaza was
also known as Minoa, the same name given to several trade stations that
started from Crete. Joseph Yahuda, in his book <i>“Hebrew is Greek”,</i> associates the name “Philistines” with that of “Pelasgoi”, early inhabitants of Crete (Pelasgoi => Pelaskoi (<i>g</i> turns dialectally into <i>k</i>) => Pelastoi (<i>k</i> turns dialectally into <i>t</i>) => Palestoi (<i>e</i> and <i>a</i> interchange) => Palestu => Philistines.) (p. 3).</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although the Old Testament portrays the Philistines as “godless
violent warriors, dull-witted and uncouth barbarians”, the Dothans,
through their excavations and scholarly work, have revealed a culture
and civilization just the opposite -- questioning whether the Biblical
authors were vilifying their more cultured enemies, because of ethnic
hostilities.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The archeological discoveries revealed that the Philistines were
accomplished architects, sophisticated urban planners, highly artistic
potters (using Mycenaean/Minoan decorative motifs), weavers, skilled
iron-workers and advanced technologists. In short, the Philistines were a
culture that profoundly affected and influenced other cultures around
them. A civilized race, indeed, that used Aegean-style hearths in their
buildings, practiced Aegean-cultic religion and cremated and buried
their dead in Minoan/Mycenaean-style, rock-cut chamber tombs.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Gerhard Herm in his book <i>“The Phoenicians”</i> writes that “the
Philistines had not only had close contact with the Achaeans (i.e.
Hellenes) but in fact stemmed directly from them. Goliath, who
challenged David wearing Mycenaean armour, could have been a descendant
of Menelaus, Achilles, Odysseus… Thus, here in the Gaza strip the last
act of a drama was played out which had begun in Crete…” (p. 56)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Until recently, scientists and scholars were unsure whether or not
the early Philistines had a writing system. But, is it possible that an
advanced culture like the Philistines, with established trade, religion
and social structure could not write, while less advanced cultures
around them allegedly did?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Dothans in their book <i>“People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines”</i>
show a tablet that they excavated in Israel, dated around 1100 BCE,
with early Philistine writing, that is related to the Minoan Linear
scripts. Although not many examples of this writing have been found as
yet to establish the definitive link and to aid the decipherment of this
script, scholars are now almost certain that the Philistines used
linear writing to record events.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In early 2007, in an article that appeared in <i>“The Israel Exploration Journal”</i>,
distinguished Harvard professors Lawrence E. Stager and Frank Moore
Cross commenting on several Philistine inscriptions found in the ancient
city of Ashkelon in Israel, wrote that the inscriptions "reveal, for
the first time, convincing evidence that the early Philistines of
Ashkelon were able to read and write in a non-Semitic language, as yet
undeciphered… perhaps it is not too bold to propose that the inscription
is written in a form of Cypro-Minoan script utilized and modified by
the Philistines — in short, that we are dealing with the Old Philistine
script." Cross further states that the script had some characteristics
of Linear A, the writing system used in the Aegean from 1650 B.C. to
1450 B.C. This undeciphered script was replaced by another, Linear B,
which was identified with the Minoan civilization of Crete and was
finally decoded in the mid-20th century.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hence, these Cretan migrants brought with them not only the Minoan
Greek language, but also the linear script, the early Hellenic syllabic
alphabet that planted the seed for the evolution of a regional rooted
alphabet.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To wit, excavations at Tel Miqne in Israel in 1996 unearthed a
Philistine dedication inscription of the seventh century BCE, written in
a script dubbed by scholars “Phoenician-Canaanite”, in the absence of a
more precise alternative nomenclature.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This tablet of Ekron, as it is commonly known today, is written in
none other than a “Philistine” (i.e. Cretan) script that most likely
evolved from the Minoan linear scripts, and was eventually adopted by
both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians “their neighbors [and] their
kinfolk”, according to Evans.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Furthermore, Aaron Demsky in an article published in <i>“Biblical Archeology”</i> suggests that<i> </i>the inscription of the tablet of Ekron names one of the Philistine kings as “Akys” (Greek: <i>Acheos </i>= Hellene), and his patron deity as “Ptnyh” (Greek: <i>Potnia </i>=
Divine Lady => Great Goddess of the Aegean.), further confirming the
Hellenic origin and lineage of the Philistines, their language and
their writing (pp. 53-58.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sr. Arthur Evans may have finally been proven right! The letters of
the so-called “Phoenician” alphabet were first used by the Philistines
and had Minoan Hellenic roots!</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Further Evidence and Conclusion</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have been and continue to be intrigued by the many theories presented in Joseph Yahuda’s book <i>“Hebrew is Greek”</i>
where, through extensive linguistic research, the author builds a
strong case that the language of the ancient Hebrews, who were known as
Khabiru and Hepiru respectively in the Syrian and Egyptian annals, “was
continental Greek” and that “the Greek and Hebrew alphabets bear a
striking resemblance to one another, in the order of letters, their
names shape and pronunciation.” (p. 19)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yahuda further states in his book that “it is Greek that anciently –
long before the Trojan War – started altering into Hebrew, and not
Hebrew into Greek.” (p. 633)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The same author convincingly asserts in his book that “when the
Hellenic affinity of the Phoenicians had long been forgotten, it was
assumed that the identity of the Greek with the Phoenician alphabet was
simply a matter of borrowing.” (p. 8)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
These are powerful statements, based on thirty years of painstaking
and meticulous scholarly research, by Joseph Yahuda, the results of
which were compiled in the above mentioned book, a monumental work of
about 700 pages.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The results of this research may be viewed as controversial and
thought-provoking, yet they are well documented, compelling and
scholarly, hence they cannot be waived-off, dismissed or ignored. This
book diverges from narrow nationalistic motives and through science it
casts doubt to the hitherto widely accepted theory that the Hebrew
alphabet and language - as well as the Phoenician - are of Semitic
origin!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nor we can ignore the fact that as far back as the third millennium
BCE, the Middle East was colonized by Minoan Philistines, and that the
Phoenicians were related to the Philistines, and they all spoke Greek
dialects and wrote using Greek characters.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In fact, the ancient historian Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE), in his book “<i>The Histories”,</i>
writes this: “Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of
Crete… Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous
mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighboring tribe, the Ideaei, came to
be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name.”
Could this obvious etymological similarity be a mere coincidence?
Furthermore, could it go unnoticed?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I submit that as archeology unearths more evidence, old theories will
be revised and the new findings will eventually reveal the facts and
truth. I also submit that the early Hellenic influence goes beyond the
Aegean and Mediterranean basins. As Joseph Yahuda writes in his book,
“four thousand years ago the whole of the Middle East was overrun,
colonized and controlled by Greeks and allied tribes.” (p. 7)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Consequently, the languages and the writing systems that people of
these regions used were developed and originated in the Aegean basin and
mainland Greece and made their way to the Levant (and not the other way
around) through these settlers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Greek alphabet is a product of this human migration and cultural
evolution and was developed, in full circle, among people that shared a
common Hellenic lineage, heritage and culture. The Greek alphabet,
indeed, has Hellenic roots!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The debate on this and several related issues may not stop, and it
should not, albeit debates of this sort must be based on historical and
scientific facts and, as Dr. Dianne Ravitch of NYU said, “history must
be based on evidence, openly arrived at and openly argued, not myth,
ideology or opinion.”</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>About the author: </i></b><i>George C. Chryssis is an
entrepreneur, an award winning poet, a community activist, and a
philanthropist. A prolific author, he has written four poetry books, a
technical book (translated and published in Chinese also) and has
contributed numerous editorials, commentaries, literary and general
articles in various publications. He is also a founder and former
publisher of “The Hellenic Voice” weekly national newspaper. For his
contributions to Hellenism, community, business, literature, education
and philanthropy, he has received over twenty awards and citations. He
lives and works in Massachusetts.</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Selected Bibliography</span></b></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Demsky, Aaron, Biblical Archeology Review (NY, 1998)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">2. Dothan, Moshe and Trude, People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines (Macmillan, New York, 1992)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">3. Ehram, Bart D., Misquoting Jesus (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2005)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">4. Fischer, Steven R., Glyphbraker (Copernicus, New York, 1997)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">5. Friedman, Richard E., Who wrote the Bible? (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1997)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">6. Greenberg, Gary, Myths of the Bible (Sourcebooks, Inc., Naperville, IL, 2002)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">7. Harris, Roberta L., The World of the Bible (Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, 1995)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">8. Herm, Gerhard, The Phoenicians: The Purple Empire of the Ancient World (William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1975)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">9. Hopper, R.J., The Early Greeks (Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1976)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">10. Kalopoulos, Michael, The Great Lie (Xlibris, USA, 2003)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">11. Lefkowitz, Mary, Not Out Of Africa (Basic Books, New York, 1996)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">12. Rubenstein, Richard, Aristotle’s Children (Harcourt, Orlando, FL, 2003)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">13. Vrettos, Theodore, Alexandria, City of the Western Mind (The Free Press, New York, 2001)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">14. Yahuda, Joseph, Hebrew is Greek (Becket Publications, Oxford, 1982) </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">15. Zagorin, Perez, Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005)</span></i><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10434333756706003270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-16512231338504507642013-12-01T11:00:00.002-08:002013-12-01T11:00:28.983-08:00Our new official website<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-70233116130518868112011-07-19T00:46:00.000-07:002015-03-02T09:12:21.050-08:00Venus and Adonis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Venus, playing one day with her boy Cupid, wounded her bosom with one of his arrows. She pushed him away, but the wound was deeper than she thought. Before it healed she beheld Adonis, and was captivated with him. She no longer took any interest in her favorite resorts—Paphos, and Cnidos, and Amathos, rich in metals. She absented herself even from heaven, for Adonis was dearer to her than heaven. Him she followed and bore him company. She who used to love to recline in the shade, with no care but to cultivate her charms, now rambles through the woods and over the hills, dressed like the huntress Diana; and calls her dogs, and chases hares and stags, or other game that it is safe to hunt, but keeps clear of the wolves and bears, reeking with the slaughter of the herd. She charged Adonis, too, to beware of such dangerous animals. “Be brave towards the timid,” said she; “courage against the courageous is not safe. Beware how you expose yourself to danger and put my happiness to risk. Attack not the beasts that Nature has armed with weapons. I do not value your glory so high as to consent to purchase it by such exposure. Your youth, and the beauty that charms Venus, will not touch the hearts of lions and bristly boars. Think of their terrible claws and prodigious strength! I hate the whole race of them. Do you ask me why?” Then she told him the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes, who were changed into lions for their ingratitude to her.</div>
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Having given him this warning, she mounted her chariot drawn by swans, and drove away through the air. But Adonis was too noble to heed such counsels. The dogs had roused a wild boar from his lair, and the youth threw his spear and wounded the animal with a sidelong stroke. The beast drew out the weapon with his jaws, and rushed after Adonis, who turned and ran; but the boar overtook him, and buried his tusks in his side, and stretched him dying upon the plain.</div>
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Venus, in her swan-drawn chariot, had not yet reached Cyprus, when she heard coming up through midair the groans of her beloved, and turned her white-winged coursers back to earth. As she drew near and saw from on high his lifeless body bathed in blood, she alighted and, bending over it, beat her breast and tore her hair. Reproaching the Fates, she said, “Yet theirs shall be but a partial triumph; memorials of my grief shall endure, and the spectacle of your death, my Adonis, and of my lamentations shall be annually renewed. Your blood shall be changed into a flower; that consolation none can envy me.” Thus speaking, she sprinkled nectar on the blood; and as they mingled, bubbles rose as in a pool on which raindrops fall, and in an hour’s time there sprang up a flower of bloody hue like that of the pomegranate. But it is short-lived. It is said the wind blows the blossoms open, and afterwards blows the petals away; so it is called Anemone, or Wind Flower, from the cause which assists equally in its production and its decay.</div>
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Milton alludes to the story of Venus and Adonis in his “Comus”:<br />
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<i>“Beds of hyacinth and roses</i></div>
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<i>Where young Adonis oft reposes,</i></div>
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<i>Waxing well of his deep wound</i></div>
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<i>In slumber soft, and on the ground</i></div>
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<i>Sadly sits th’ Assyrian queen;”</i></div>
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Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-13677081578850722872011-07-17T06:08:00.000-07:002015-03-02T09:12:31.855-08:00Glaucus and Scylla<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Glaucus was a fisherman. One day he had drawn his nets to land, and had taken a great many fishes of various kinds. So he emptied his net, and proceeded to sort the fishes on the grass. The place where he stood was a beautiful island in the river, a solitary spot, uninhabited, and not used for pasturage of cattle, nor ever visited by any but himself. On a sudden, the fishes, which had been laid on the grass, began to revive and move their fins as if they were in the water; and while he looked on astonished, they one and all moved off to the water, plunged in, and swam away. He did not know what to make of this, whether some god had done it or some secret power in the herbage. “What herb has such a power?” he exclaimed; and gathering some of it, he tasted it. Scarce had the juices of the plant reached his palate when he found himself agitated with a longing desire for the water. He could no longer restrain himself, but bidding farewell to earth, he plunged into the stream. The gods of the water received him graciously, and admitted him to the honor of their society. They obtained the consent of Oceanus and Tethys, the sovereigns of the sea, that all that was mortal in him should be washed away. A hundred rivers poured their waters over him. Then he lost all sense of his former nature and all consciousness. When he recovered, he found himself changed in form and mind. His hair was sea-green, and trailed behind him on the water; his shoulders grew broad, and what had been thighs and legs assumed the form of a fish’s tail. The sea-gods complimented him on the change of his appearance, and he fancied himself rather a good-looking personage.</div>
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One day Glaucus saw the beautiful maiden Scylla, the favorite of the water-nymphs, rambling on the shore, and when she had found a sheltered nook, laving her limbs in the clear water. He fell in love with her, and showing himself on the surface, spoke to her, saying such things as he thought most likely to win her to stay; for she turned to run immediately on the sight of him, and ran till she had gained a cliff overlooking the sea. Here she stopped and turned round to see whether it was a god or a sea animal, and observed with wonder his shape and color. Glaucus partly emerging from the water, and supporting himself against a rock, said, “Maiden, I am no monster, nor a sea animal, but a god; and neither Proteus nor Triton ranks higher than I. Once I was a mortal, and followed the sea for a living; but now I belong wholly to it.” Then he told the story of his metamorphosis, and how he had been promoted to his present dignity, and added, “But what avails all this if it fails to move your heart?” He was going on in this strain, but Scylla turned and hastened away.</div>
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Glaucus was in despair, but it occurred to him to consult the enchantress Circe. Accordingly he repaired to her island—the same where afterwards Ulysses landed, as we shall see in one of our later stories. After mutual salutations, he said, “Goddess, I entreat your pity; you alone can relieve the pain I suffer. The power of herbs I know as well as any one, for it is to them I owe my change of form. I love Scylla. I am ashamed to tell you how I have sued and promised to her, and how scornfully she has treated me. I beseech you to use your incantations, or potent herbs, if they are more prevailing, not to cure me of my love,—for that I do not wish,—but to make her share it and yield me a like return.” To which Circe replied, for she was not insensible to the attractions of the sea-green deity, “You had better pursue a willing object; you are worthy to be sought, instead of having to seek in vain. Be not diffident, know your own worth. I protest to you that even I, goddess though I be, and learned in the virtues of plants and spells, should not know how to refuse you. If she scorns you scorn her; meet one who is ready to meet you half way, and thus make a due return to both at once.” To these words Glaucus replied, “Sooner shall trees grow at the bottom of the ocean, and sea-weed on the top of the mountains, than I will cease to love Scylla, and her alone.”</div>
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Keats, in his “Endymion,” has given a new version of the ending of “Glaucus and Scylla.” Glaucus consents to Circe’s blandishments, till he by chance is witness to her transactions with her beasts. 1 Disgusted with her treachery and cruelty, he tries to escape from her, but is taken and brought back, when with reproaches she banishes him, sentencing him to pass a thousand years in decrepitude and pain. He returns to the sea, and there finds the body of Scylla, whom the goddess has not transformed but drowned. Glaucus learns that his destiny is that, if he passes his thousand years in collecting all the bodies of drowned lovers, a youth beloved of the gods will appear and help him. Endymion fulfils this prophecy, and aids in restoring Glaucus to youth, and Scylla and all the drowned lovers to life.</div>
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The following is Glaucus’s account of his feelings after his “sea-change”:</div>
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<i>“I plunged for life or death. To interknit</i></div>
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<i>Might seem a work of pain; so not enough</i></div>
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<i>Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,</i></div>
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<i>And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt</i></div>
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<i>Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;</i></div>
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<i>Forgetful utterly of self-intent,</i></div>
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<i>Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.</i></div>
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<i>Then like a new-fledged bird that first doth show</i></div>
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<i>His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill,</i></div>
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<i>I tried in fear the pinions of my will.</i></div>
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<i>’Twas freedom! and at once I visited</i></div>
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<i>The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed,”</i></div>
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Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-46434220373491414552011-07-15T01:51:00.000-07:002015-03-02T09:12:43.721-08:00The Search for Cleopatra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Cleopatra VII was born in Egypt, but she was descended from a lineage of Greek kings and queens who had ruled Egypt for nearly 300 years. The Ptolemies of Macedonia are one of history's most flamboyant dynasties, famous not only for wealth and wisdom but also for bloody rivalries and the sort of "family values" that modern-day exponents of the phrase would surely disavow, seeing as they included incest and fratricide.</div>
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The Ptolemies came to power after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, who in a caffeinated burst of activity beginning in 332 B.C. swept through Lower Egypt, displaced the hated Persian occupiers, and was hailed by the Egyptians as a divine liberator. He was recognized as pharaoh in the capital, Memphis. Along a strip of land between the Mediterranean and Lake Mareotis he laid out a blueprint for Alexandria, which would serve as Egypt's capital for nearly a thousand years. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., Egypt was given to Ptolemy, one of his trusted generals, who, in a brilliant bit of marketing, hijacked the hearse bearing Alexander's body back to Greece and enshrined it in a tomb in Alexandria. Ptolemy was crowned pharaoh in 304 B.C. on the anniversary of Alexander's death. He made offerings to the Egyptian gods, took an Egyptian throne name, and portrayed himself in pharaonic garb.</div>
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The dynasty's greatest legacy was Alexandria itself, with its hundred-foot-wide main avenue, its gleaming limestone colonnades, its harborside palaces and temples overseen by a towering lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, on the island of Pharos. Alexandria soon became the largest, most sophisticated city on the planet. It was a teeming cosmopolitan mix of Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Nubians, and other peoples. The best and brightest of the Mediterranean world came to study at the Mouseion, the world's first academy, and at the great Alexandria library. It was there, 18 centuries before the Copernican revolution, that Aristarchus posited a heliocentric solar system and Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth. Alexandria was where the Hebrew Bible was first translated into Greek and where the poet Sotades the Obscene discovered the limits of artistic freedom when he unwisely scribbled some scurrilous verse about Ptolemy II's incestuous marriage to his sister. He was deep-sixed in a lead-lined chest.</div>
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The Ptolemies' talent for intrigue was exceeded only by their flair for pageantry. If descriptions of the first dynastic festival of the Ptolemies around 280 B.C. are accurate, the party would cost millions of dollars today. The parade was a phantasmagoria of music, incense, blizzards of doves, camels laden with cinnamon, elephants in golden slippers, bulls with gilded horns. Among the floats was a 15-foot Dionysus pouring a libation from a golden goblet. Where could they go from there but down? By the time Cleopatra VII ascended the throne in 51 B.C. at age 18, the Ptolemaic empire was crumbling. The lands of Cyprus, Cyrene (eastern Libya), and parts of Syria had been lost; Roman troops were soon to be garrisoned in Alexandria itself. Still, despite drought and famine and the eventual outbreak of civil war, Alexandria was a glittering city compared to provincial Rome. Cleopatra was intent on reviving her empire, not by thwarting the growing power of the Romans but by making herself useful to them, supplying them with ships and grain, and sealing her alliance with the Roman general Julius Caesar with a son, Caesarion.</div>
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Lest her subjects resent her Roman overtures, Cleopatra embraced Egypt's traditions. She is said to have been the first Ptolemaic pharaoh to bother to learn the Egyptian language. While it was politic for foreign overlords to adopt local deities and appease the powerful religious class, the Ptolemies were genuinely intrigued by the Egyptian idea of an afterlife. Out of that fascination emerged a hybrid Greek and Egyptian religion that found its ultimate expression in the cult of Serapis—a Greek gloss on the Egyptian legend of Osiris and Isis. One of the foundational myths of Egyptian religion, the legend tells how Osiris, murdered by his brother Seth, was chopped into pieces and scattered all over Egypt. With power gained by tricking the sun god, Re, into revealing his secret name, Isis, wife and sister of Osiris, was able to resurrect her brother-husband long enough to conceive a son, Horus, who eventually avenged his father's death by slaughtering uncle Seth.</div>
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By Cleopatra's time a cult around the goddess Isis had been spreading across the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. To fortify her position, and like other queens before her, Cleopatra sought to link her identity with the great Isis (and Mark Antony's with Osiris), and to be venerated as a goddess. She had herself depicted in portraits and statues as the universal mother divinity. Beginning in 37 B.C., Cleopatra began to realize her ambition to enlarge her empire when Antony restored several territories to Egypt and decreed Cleopatra's children their sovereigns. She appeared in the holy dress of Isis at a festival staged in Alexandria to celebrate Antony's victory over Armenia in 34 B.C., just four years before her suicide and the end of the Egyptian empire.</div>
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It was Cleopatra's intense identification with Isis, and her royal role as the manifestation of the great goddess of motherhood, fertility, and magic, that ultimately led Kathleen Martinez to Taposiris Magna. Using Strabo's ancient descriptions of Egypt, Martinez sketched a map of candidate burial sites, zeroing in on 21 places associated with the legend of Isis and Osiris and visiting each one she could find. "What brought me to the conclusion that Taposiris Magna was a possible place for Cleopatra's hidden tomb was the idea that her death was a ritual act of deep religious significance carried out in a very strict, spiritualized ceremony," Martinez says. "Cleopatra negotiated with Octavian to allow her to bury Mark Antony in Egypt. She wanted to be buried with him because she wanted to reenact the legend of Isis and Osiris. The true meaning of the cult of Osiris is that it grants immortality. After their deaths, the gods would allow Cleopatra to live with Antony in another form of existence, so they would have eternal life together."</div>
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After studying more than a dozen temples, Martinez headed west of Alexandria along the coastal road to explore the ruin she had begun to believe was the last, best hope for her theory. The temple at Taposiris Magna had been dated to the reign of Ptolemy II, though it may have been even older. The suffix Osiris in its name implied the site was a sacred spot, one of at least 14 throughout Egypt where legend holds that the body of Osiris (or a dismembered part of it) had been buried. With the Mediterranean on her right and Lake Mareotis on the left, Martinez mused on the possibility that Cleopatra might have traveled a similar route, selecting this strategic location for her burial because it was inside the limits of ancient Alexandria and not yet under the control of the Romans during those last days before her death. "When I saw the place my heart beat very fast," she recalls. As she walked the site, she trailed her hands along the white and beige limestone blocks of the temple's enclosure. This is it! she thought. This is it!</div>
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In 1935 British traveler Anthony de Cosson had called Taposiris Magna "the finest ancient monument left to us north of the Pyramids." What was surprising was how little work had been done at the site. In 1905 Evaristo Breccia, the renowned Italian archaeologist, had excavated the foundation of a small fourth-century A.D. Coptic basilica in the otherwise vacant courtyard of the enclosure and discovered an area of Roman baths. In 1998 a Hungarian team led by Győző Vörös found evidence of a colonnaded structure inside the enclosure that they concluded (incorrectly, as it turned out) had been an Isis temple. It was clear when Vörös's book, Taposiris Magna, was published in 2004 that the temple had had three incarnations—as a Ptolemaic sanctuary, a Roman fort, and a Coptic church. But was that the whole story? Zahi Hawass found himself pondering the possibility that a black granite bust of Isis that Vörös had coaxed from the dirt of Taposiris Magna might well be the face of Cleopatra herself. In October 2005 the dig got under way.</div>
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Today it's easy to imagine that the view from the pylon of Taposiris Magna looks much like it did in Cleopatra's day—if you can block out the unsightly band of condominiums and resort hotels between the coastal highway and the broad white sand beach and glimmering blue expanse of the Mediterranean. One hot, sun-washed morning at the temple in May 2010, Kathleen Martinez was bundled in a long-sleeve shirt, head scarf, and fingerless woolen gloves. "For some reason I am always cold when I am here," she said. The two months of excavation she had requested had turned into three months, and three months had become five years. On the bedrock in the middle of the site an array of column fragments showed the ghostly outlines of what Hawass and Martinez have concluded was not a temple to Isis, but a temple to Osiris. It was oriented on the east-west axis. At an angle just north were the faint hints of an Isis chapel; to the south, an excavated rectangular pit: "That was the sacred lake," Martinez says.</div>
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It's a cliché that you can stick a shovel in the ground almost anywhere in Egypt and find something amazing from the long-gone past. When Martinez and a team of excavators began probing the ground in 2005, she was focused less on the ultimate prize of Cleopatra's tomb than on simply finding sufficient evidence to sustain her theory that Taposiris Magna might be the place to look. She hoped to demonstrate that the temple was among the most sacred of its day, that it was dedicated to the worship of Osiris and Isis, and that tunnels had been dug underneath the enclosure walls. Within the first year, she was rewarded by the discovery of a shaft and several underground chambers and tunnels. "One of our biggest questions is why did they dig tunnels of this magnitude," she says. "It had to be for a very significant reason." During the 2006-07 season the Egyptian-Dominican team found three small foundation deposits in the northwest corner of the Osiris temple, just inches from where the Hungarian expedition had stopped digging. The deposits conclusively linked the Osiris temple to the reign of Ptolemy IV, who ruled a century and a half before Cleopatra. In 2007, further supporting the view that the site was very important to the Greeks of ancient Egypt, the excavators found a skeleton of a pregnant woman who had died in childbirth. The tiny bones of the unborn baby lay between the skeleton's hips. Her jaw was distended, suggesting her agony, and her right hand was clutching a small white marble bust of Alexander the Great. "She is a mystery," said Martinez, who had a coffin built for the remains of the mother.</div>
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In six years Taposiris Magna has become one of Egypt's most active archaeology sites. More than a thousand objects have been recovered, 200 of them considered significant: pottery, coins, gold jewelry, the broken heads of statues (probably smashed by early Christians). An important discovery was a large cemetery outside the temple walls, suggesting that the subjects of a monarch wished to be buried near royal remains.</div>
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Yet the tomb of Cleopatra still hovers out of reach, like a tantalizing mirage, and the theory of who is buried at Taposiris Magna still rests more on educated speculation than on facts. Might not Cleopatra's reign have unraveled too quickly for her to build such a secret tomb? A fantastic story, like a horse with wings, flies in the face of the principle of parsimony. But it's a long hard haul from not-yet-proved to disproved. Critics of Martinez's theory point out that it is rare in archaeology for someone to announce they are going to find something and then actually find it. "There is no evidence that Cleopatra tried to hide her grave, or would have wanted to," says Duane Roller, a respected Cleopatra scholar. "It would have been hard to hide it from Octavian, the very person who buried her. All the evidence is that she was buried with her ancestors. The material associated with her at Taposiris Magna is not meaningful because material associated with her can be found in many places in Egypt."</div>
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"I agree that Octavian knew and authorized the place where she was buried," Martinez says. "But what I believe—and it is only a theory—is that after the mummification process was complete, the priests at Taposiris Magna buried the bodies of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in a different place without the approval of the Romans, a hidden place beneath the courtyard of the temple."</div>
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If Cleopatra's tomb is ever found, the archaeological sensation would be rivaled only by Howard Carter's unearthing of the tomb of King Tut in 1922. But will finding her tomb, not to say her body itself, deepen our portrait of the last Egyptian pharaoh? On one hand, how could it not? In the last hundred years about the only new addition to the archaeological record is what scholars believe is a fragment of Cleopatra's handwriting: a scrap of papyrus granting a tax exemption to a Roman citizen in Egypt in 33 B.C. On the other hand, maybe finding her tomb would diminish what Shakespeare called "her infinite variety." Disembodied, at large in the realm of myth, more context than text, Cleopatra is free to be of different character to different times, which may be the very wellspring of her vitality. No other figure from antiquity seems so versatile in her ambiguities, so modern in her contradictions.</div>
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It was lunch hour at the dig site, and the workers had gone to eat in the shade. We were sitting on top of the temple pylon in the radiance of noon, staring out at the sea beyond. There was a feeling of stillness in the air, an inkling of eternity, as if the old Egyptian gods were about—Re, who ruled over the earth, sky, and the underworld, and Isis, who saved Osiris by tricking Re into revealing his secret name.</div>
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The search for Cleopatra has come at no small cost to Martinez. She gave up her thriving law practice in Santo Domingo and poured much of her savings into her quest. She moved to an apartment in Alexandria, where she has begun studying Arabic. But it's not an easy life, far from her family and friends. During the revolution earlier this year, she was confronted by a group of aggressive men as she worked at the excavation site. For now, work at the site is on hold. She hopes to return in the fall. "I believe we are going to find what we are looking for," she says. "The difference is now we're digging in the ground, not in books."</div>
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Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-8855398152688450812011-07-14T01:23:00.000-07:002015-03-02T09:12:54.842-08:00Proserpine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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When Jupiter and his brothers had defeated the Titans and banished them to Tartarus, a new enemy rose up against the gods. They were the giants Typhon, Briareus, Enceladus, and others. Some of them had a hundred arms, others breathed out fire. They were finally subdued and buried alive under Mount Ætna, where they still sometimes struggle to get loose, and shake the whole island with earthquakes. Their breath comes up through the mountain, and is what men call the eruption of the volcano.</div>
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The fall of these monsters shook the earth, so that Pluto was alarmed, and feared that his kingdom would be laid open to the light of day. Under this apprehension, he mounted his chariot, drawn by black horses, and took a circuit of inspection to satisfy himself of the extent of the damage. While he was thus engaged, Venus, who was sitting on Mount Eryx playing with her boy Cupid, espied him, and said, “My son, take your darts with which you conquer all, even Jove himself, and send one into the breast of yonder dark monarch, who rules the realm of Tartarus. Why should he alone escape? Seize the opportunity to extend your empire and mine. Do you not see that even in heaven some despise our power? Minerva the wise, and Diana the huntress, defy us; and there is that daughter of Ceres, who threatens to follow their example. Now do you, if you have any regard for your own interest or mine, join these two in one.” The boy unbound his quiver, and selected his sharpest and truest arrow; then straining the bow against his knee, he attached the string, and, having made ready, shot the arrow with its barbed point right into the heart of Pluto.</div>
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In the vale of Enna there is a lake embowered in woods, which screen it from the fervid rays of the sun, while the moist ground is covered with flowers, and Spring reigns perpetual. Here Proserpine was playing with her companions, gathering lilies and violets, and filling her basket and her apron with them, when Pluto saw her, loved her, and carried her off. She screamed for help to her mother and companions; and when in her fright she dropped the corners of her apron and let the flowers fall, childlike she felt the loss of them as an addition to her grief. The ravisher urged on his steeds, calling them each by name, and throwing loose over their heads and necks his iron-colored reins. When he reached the River Cyane, and it opposed his passage, he struck the river-bank with his trident, and the earth opened and gave him a passage to Tartarus.</div>
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Ceres sought her daughter all the world over. Bright-haired Aurora, when she came forth in the morning, and Hesperus when he led out the stars in the evening, found her still busy in the search. But it was all unavailing. At length, weary and sad, she sat down upon a stone, and continued sitting nine days and nights, in the open air, under the sunlight and moonlight and falling showers. It was where now stands the city of Eleusis, then the home of an old man named Celeus. He was out in the field, gathering acorns and black-berries, and sticks for his fire. His little girl was driving home their two goats, and as she passed the goddess, who appeared in the guise of an old woman, she said to her, “Mother,”—and the name was sweet to the ears of Ceres,—“why do you sit here alone upon the rocks?” The old man also stopped, though his load was heavy, and begged her to come into his cottage, such as it was. She declined, and he urged her. “Go in peace,” she replied, “and be happy in your daughter; I have lost mine.” As she spoke, tears—or something like tears, for the gods never weep—fell down her cheeks upon her bosom. The compassionate old man and his child wept with her. Then said he, “Come with us, and despise not our humble roof; so may your daughter be restored to you in safety.” “Lead on,” said she, “I cannot resist that appeal!” So she rose from the stone and went with them. As they walked he told her that his only son, a little boy, lay very sick, feverish, and sleepless. She stooped and gathered some poppies. As they entered the cottage, they found all in great distress, for the boy seemed past hope of recovery. Metanim, his mother, received her kindly, and the goddess stooped and kissed the lips of the sick child. Instantly the paleness left his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The whole family were delighted—that is, the father, mother, and little girl, for they were all; they had no servants. They spread the table, and put upon it curds and cream, apples, and honey in the comb. While they ate, Ceres mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy. When night came and all was still, she arose, and taking the sleeping boy, moulded his limbs with her hands, and uttered over him three times a solemn charm, then went and laid him in the ashes. His mother, who had been watching what her guest was doing, sprang forward with a cry and snatched the child from the fire. Then Ceres assumed her own form, and a divine splendor shone all around. While they were overcome with astonishment, she said, “Mother, you have been cruel in your fondness to your son. I would have made him immortal, but you have frustrated my attempt. Nevertheless, he shall be great and useful. He shall teach men the use of the plough, and the rewards which labor can win from the cultivated soil.” So saying, she wrapped a cloud about her, and mounting her chariot rode away.</div>
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Ceres continued her search for her daughter, passing from land to land, and across seas and rivers, till at length she returned to Sicily, whence she at first set out, and stood by the banks of the River Cyane, where Pluto made himself a passage with his prize to his own dominions. The river nymph would have told the goddess all she had witnessed, but dared not, for fear of Pluto; so she only ventured to take up the girdle which Proserpine had dropped in her flight, and waft it to the feet of the mother. Ceres, seeing this, was no longer in doubt of her loss, but she did not yet know the cause, and laid the blame on the innocent land. “Ungrateful soil,” said she, “which I have endowed with fertility and clothed with herbage and nourishing grain, no more shall you enjoy my favors.” Then the cattle died, the plough broke in the furrow, the seed failed to come up; there was too much sun, there was too much rain; the birds stole the seeds—thistles and brambles were the only growth. Seeing this, the fountain Arethusa interceded for the land. “Goddess,” said she, “blame not the land; it opened unwillingly to yield a passage to your daughter. I can tell you of her fate, for I have seen her. This is not my native country; I came hither from Elis. I was a woodland nymph, and delighted in the chase. They praised my beauty, but I cared nothing for it, and rather boasted of my hunting exploits. One day I was returning from the wood, heated with exercise, when I came to a stream silently flowing, so clear that you might count the pebbles on the bottom. The willows shaded it, and the grassy bank sloped down to the water’s edge. I approached, I touched the water with my foot. I stepped in knee-deep, and not content with that, I laid my garments on the willows and went in. While I sported in the water, I heard an indistinct murmur coming up as out of the depths of the stream; and made haste to escape to the nearest bank. The voice said, ‘Why do you fly, Arethusa? I am Alpheus, the god of this stream.’ I ran, he pursued; he was not more swift than I, but he was stronger, and gained upon me, as my strength failed. At last, exhausted, I cried for help to Diana. ‘Help me, goddess! help your votary!’ The goddess heard, and wrapped me suddenly in a thick cloud. The river god looked now this way and now that, and twice came close to me, but could not find me. ‘Arethusa! Arethusa!’ he cried. Oh, how I trembled,—like a lamb that hears the wolf growling outside the fold. A cold sweat came over me, my hair flowed down in streams; where my foot stood there was a pool. In short, in less time than it takes to tell it I became a fountain. But in this form Alpheus knew me and attempted to mingle his stream with mine. Diana cleft the ground, and I, endeavoring to escape him, plunged into the cavern, and through the bowels of the earth came out here in Sicily. While I passed through the lower parts of the earth, I saw your Proserpine. She was sad, but no longer showing alarm in her countenance. Her look was such as became a queen—the queen of Erebus; the powerful bride of the monarch of the realms of the dead.”</div>
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When Ceres heard this, she stood for a while like one stupefied; then turned her chariot towards heaven, and hastened to present herself before the throne of Jove. She told the story of her bereavement, and implored Jupiter to interfere to procure the restitution of her daughter. Jupiter consented on one condition, namely, that Proserpine should not during her stay in the lower world have taken any food; otherwise, the Fates forbade her release. Accordingly, Mercury was sent, accompanied by Spring, to demand Proserpine of Pluto. The wily monarch consented; but, alas! the maiden had taken a pomegranate which Pluto offered her, and had sucked the sweet pulp from a few of the seeds. This was enough to prevent her complete release; but a compromise was made, by which she was to pass half the time with her mother, and the rest with her husband Pluto.</div>
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Ceres allowed herself to be pacified with this arrangement, and restored the earth to her favor. Now she remembered Celeus and his family, and her promise to his infant son Triptolemus. When the boy grew up, she taught him the use of the plough, and how to sow the seed. She took him in her chariot, drawn by winged dragons, through all the countries of the earth, imparting to mankind valuable grains, and the knowledge of agriculture. After his return, Triptolemus built a magnificent temple to Ceres in Eleusis, and established the worship of the goddess, under the name of the Eleusinian mysteries, which, in the splendor and solemnity of their observance, surpassed all other religious celebrations among the Greeks.</div>
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There can be little doubt of this story of Ceres and Proserpine being an allegory. Proserpine signifies the seed-corn which when cast into the ground lies there concealed—that is, she is carried off by the god of the underworld. It reappears—that is. Proserpine is restored to her mother. Spring leads her back to the light of day.</div>
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Milton alludes to the story of Proserpine in “Paradise Lost,” Book IV.:</div>
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<i>“…Not that fair field</i></div>
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<i>Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers,</i></div>
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<i>Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis</i></div>
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<i>Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain</i></div>
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<i>To seek her through the world,—</i></div>
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<i>…might with this Paradise</i></div>
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<i>Of Eden strive.”</i></div>
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Hood, in his “Ode to Melancholy,” uses the same allusion very beautifully:</div>
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<i>“Forgive, if somewhile I forget,</i></div>
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<i>In woe to come the present bliss;</i></div>
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<i>As frighted Proserpine let fall</i></div>
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<i>Her flowers at the sight of Dis.”</i></div>
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The River Alpheus does in fact disappear underground, in part of its course, finding its way through subterranean channels till it again appears on the surface. It was said that the Sicilian fountain Arethusa was the same stream, which, after passing under the sea, came up again in Sicily. Hence the story ran that a cup thrown into the Alpheus appeared again in Arethusa. It is this fable of the underground course of Alpheus that Coleridge alludes to in his poem of “Kubla Khan”:</div>
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<i>“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan</i></div>
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<i>A stately pleasure-dome decree,</i></div>
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<i>Where Alph, the sacred river, ran</i></div>
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<i>Through caverns measureless to man,</i></div>
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<i>Down to a sunless sea.”</i></div>
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In one of Moore’s juvenile poems he thus alludes to the same story, and to the practice of throwing garlands or other light objects on his stream to be carried downward by it, and afterwards reproduced at its emerging:</div>
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<i>“O my beloved, how divinely sweet</i></div>
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<i>Is the pure joy when kindred spirits meet!</i></div>
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<i>Like him the river god, whose waters flow,</i></div>
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<i>With love their only light, through caves below,</i></div>
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<i>Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids</i></div>
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<i>And festal rings, with which Olympic maids</i></div>
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<i>Have decked his current, as an offering meet</i></div>
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<i>To lay at Arethusa’s shining feet.</i></div>
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<i>Think, when he meets at last his fountain bride,</i></div>
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<i>What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!</i></div>
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<i>Each lost in each, till mingling into one,</i></div>
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<i>Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,</i></div>
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<i>A type of true love, to the deep they run.”</i></div>
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The following extract from Moore’s “Rhymes on the Road” gives an account of a celebrated picture by Albano, at Milan, called a Dance of Loves:</div>
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<i>“Tis for the theft of Enna’s flower from earth</i></div>
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<i>These urchins celebrate their dance of mirth,</i></div>
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<i>Round the green tree, like fays upon a heath;—</i></div>
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<i>Those that are nearest linked in order bright,</i></div>
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<i>Cheek after cheek, like rosebuds in a wreath;</i></div>
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<i>And those more distant showing from beneath</i></div>
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<i>The others’ wings their little eyes of light.</i></div>
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<i>While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother,</i></div>
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<i>But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss,</i></div>
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<i>This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother,</i></div>
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<i>Who turns to greet the tidings with a kiss.”</i></div>
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Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-55535175619898523052011-07-11T02:17:00.000-07:002011-07-13T09:34:21.739-07:00Baucis and Philemon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On a certain hill in Phrygia stands a linden tree and an oak, enclosed by a low wall. Not far from the spot is a marsh, formerly good habitable land, but now indented with pools, the resort of fen-birds and cormorants. Once on a time Jupiter, in human shape, visited this country, and with him his son Mercury (he of the caduceus), without his wings. They presented themselves, as weary travellers, at many a door, seeking rest and shelter, but found all closed, for it was late, and the inhospitable inhabitants would not rouse themselves to open for their reception. At last a humble mansion received them, a small thatched cottage, where Baucis, a pious old dame, and her husband Philemon, united when young, had grown old together. Not ashamed of their poverty, they made it endurable by moderate desires and kind dispositions. One need not look there for master or for servant; they two were the whole household, master and servant alike. When the two heavenly guests crossed the humble threshold, and bowed their heads to pass under the low door, the old man placed a seat, on which Baucis, bustling and attentive, spread a cloth, and begged them to sit down. Then she raked out the coals from the ashes, and kindled up a fire, fed it with leaves and dry bark, and with her scanty breath blew it into a flame. She brought out of a corner split sticks and dry branches, broke them up, and placed them under the small kettle. Her husband collected some pot-herbs in the garden, and she shred them from the stalks, and prepared them for the pot. He reached down with a forked stick a flitch of bacon hanging in the chimney, cut a small piece, and put it in the pot to boil with the herbs, setting away the rest for another time. A beechen bowl was filled with warm water, that their guests might wash. While all was doing, they beguiled the time with conversation.</div>
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On the bench designed for the guests was laid a cushion stuffed with sea-weed; and a cloth, only produced on great occasions, but ancient and coarse enough, was spread over that. The old lady, with her apron on, with trembling hand set the table. One leg was shorter than the rest, but a piece of slate put under restored the level. When fixed, she rubbed the table down with some sweet-smelling herbs. Upon it she set some of chaste Minerva’s olives, some cornel berries preserved in vinegar, and added radishes and cheese, with eggs lightly cooked in the ashes. All were served in earthen dishes, and an earthenware pitcher, with wooden cups, stood beside them. When all was ready, the stew, smoking hot, was set on the table. Some wine, not of the oldest, was added; and for dessert, apples and wild honey; and over and above all, friendly faces, and simple but hearty welcome.</div>
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Now while the repast proceeded, the old folks were astonished to see that the wine, as fast as it was poured out, renewed itself in the pitcher, of its own accord. Struck with terror, Baucis and Philemon recognized their heavenly guests, fell on their knees, and with clasped hands implored forgiveness for their poor entertainment. There was an old goose, which they kept as the guardian of their humble cottage; and they bethought them to make this a sacrifice in honor of their guests. But the goose, too nimble, with the aid of feet and wings, for the old folks, eluded their pursuit, and at last took shelter between the gods themselves. They forbade it to be slain; and spoke in these words: “We are gods. This inhospitable village shall pay the penalty of its impiety; you alone shall go free from the chastisement. Quit your house, and come with us to the top of yonder hill.” They hastened to obey, and, staff in hand, labored up the steep ascent. They had reached to within an arrow’s flight of the top, when turning their eyes below, they beheld all the country sunk in a lake, only their own house left standing. While they gazed with wonder at the sight, and lamented the fate of their neighbors, that old house of theirs was changed into a temple. Columns took the place of the corner posts, the thatch grew yellow and appeared a gilded roof, the floors became marble, the doors were enriched with carving and ornaments of gold. Then spoke Jupiter in benignant accents: “Excellent old man, and woman worthy of such a husband, speak, tell us your wishes; what favor have you to ask of us?” Philemon took counsel with Baucis a few moments; then declared to the gods their united wish. “We ask to be priests and guardians of this your temple; and since here we have passed our lives in love and concord, we wish that one and the same hour may take us both from life, that I may not live to see her grave, nor be laid in my own by her.” Their prayer was granted. They were the keepers of the temple as long as they lived. When grown very old, as they stood one day before the steps of the sacred edifice, and were telling the story of the place, Baucis saw Philemon begin to put forth leaves, and old Philemon saw Baucis changing in like manner. And now a leafy crown had grown over their heads, while exchanging parting words, as long as they could speak. “Farewell, dear spouse,” they said, together, and at the same moment the bark closed over their mouths. The Tyanean shepherd still shows the two trees, standing side by side, made out of the two good old people.</div>
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The story of Baucis and Philemon has been imitated by Swift, in a burlesque style, the actors in the change being two wandering saints, and the house being changed into a church, of which Philemon is made the parson. The following may serve as a specimen:</div>
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<i>“They scarce had spoke, when, fair and soft,</i></div>
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<i>The roof began to mount aloft;</i></div>
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<i>Aloft rose every beam and rafter;</i></div>
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<i>The heavy wall climbed slowly after.</i></div>
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<i>The chimney widened and grew higher,</i></div>
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<i>Became a steeple with a spire.</i></div>
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<i>The kettle to the top was hoist,</i></div>
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<i>And there stood fastened to a joist,</i></div>
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<i>But with the upside down, to show</i></div>
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<i>Its inclination for below;</i></div>
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<i>In vain, for a superior force,</i></div>
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<i>Applied at bottom, stops its course;</i></div>
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<i>Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,</i></div>
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<i>’Tis now no kettle, but a bell.</i></div>
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<i>A wooden jack, which had almost</i></div>
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<i>Lost by disuse the art to roast,</i></div>
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<i>A sudden alteration feels.</i></div>
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<i>Increased by new intestine wheels;</i></div>
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<i>And, what exalts the wonder more,</i></div>
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<i>The number made the motion slower;</i></div>
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<i>The flier, though ’t had leaden feet,</i></div>
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<i>Turned round so quick you scarce could see ’t;</i></div>
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<i>But slackened by some secret power,</i></div>
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<i>Now hardly moves an inch an hour.</i></div>
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<i>The jack and chimney, near allied,</i></div>
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<i>Had never left each other’s side:</i></div>
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<i>The chimney to a steeple grown,</i></div>
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<i>The jack would not be left alone;</i></div>
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<i>But up against the steeple reared,</i></div>
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<i>Became a clock, and still adhered;</i></div>
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<i>And still its love to household cares</i></div>
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<i>By a shrill voice at noon declares,</i></div>
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<i>Warning the cook-maid not to burn</i></div>
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<i>That roast meat which it cannot turn;</i></div>
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<i>The groaning chair began to crawl,</i></div>
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<i>Like a huge snail, along the wall;</i></div>
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<i>There stuck aloft in public view,</i></div>
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<i>And with small change, a pulpit grew.</i></div>
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<i>A bedstead of the antique mode,</i></div>
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<i>Compact of timber many a load,</i></div>
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<i>Such as our ancestors did use,</i></div>
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<i>Was metamorphosed into pews,</i></div>
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<i>Which still their ancient nature keep</i></div>
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<i>By lodging folks disposed to sleep.”</i></div>
Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-62120344557471281362011-07-07T04:28:00.000-07:002011-07-13T09:34:08.566-07:00Midas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YPU7ORhBHcM/ThWX3P6N6_I/AAAAAAAAESk/ftCRRJ2E6uk/s1600/midas_und_bacchus-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YPU7ORhBHcM/ThWX3P6N6_I/AAAAAAAAESk/ftCRRJ2E6uk/s1600/midas_und_bacchus-1.jpg" /></a></div>
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Bacchus, on a certain occasion, found his old schoolmaster and foster-father, Silenus, missing. The old man had been drinking, and in that state wandered away, and was found by some peasants, who carried him to their king, Midas. Midas recognized him, and treated him hospitably, entertaining him for ten days and nights with an unceasing round of jollity. On the eleventh day he brought Silenus back, and restored him in safety to his pupil. Whereupon Bacchus offered Midas his choice of a reward, whatever he might wish. He asked that whatever he might touch should be changed into gold. Bacchus consented, though sorry that he had not made a better choice. Midas went his way, rejoicing in his new-acquired power, which he hastened to put to the test. He could scarce believe his eyes when he found a twig of an oak, which he plucked from the branch, become gold in his hand. He took up a stone; it changed to gold. He touched a sod; it did the same. He took an apple from the tree; you would have thought he had robbed the garden of the Hesperides. His joy knew no bounds, and as soon as he got home, he ordered the servants to set a splendid repast on the table. Then he found to his dismay that whether he touched bread, it hardened in his hand; or put a morsel to his lips, it defied his teeth. He took a glass of wine, but it flowed down his throat like melted gold.</div>
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In consternation at the unprecedented affliction, he strove to divest himself of his power; he hated the gift he had lately coveted. But all in vain; starvation seemed to await him. He raised his arms, all shining with gold, in prayer to Bacchus, begging to be delivered from his glittering destruction. Bacchus, merciful deity, heard and consented. “Go,” said he, “to the River Pactolus, trace the stream to its fountain-head, there plunge your head and body in, and wash away your fault and its punishment.” He did so, and scarce had he touched the waters before the gold-creating power passed into them, and the river-sands became changed into gold, as they remain to this day.</div>
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Thenceforth Midas, hating wealth and splendor, dwelt in the country, and became a worshipper of Pan, the god of the fields. On a certain occasion Pan had the temerity to compare his music with that of Apollo, and to challenge the god of the lyre to a trial of skill. The challenge was accepted, and Tmolus, the mountain god, was chosen umpire. The senior took his seat, and cleared away the trees from his ears to listen. At a given signal Pan blew on his pipes, and with his rustic melody gave great satisfaction to himself and his faithful follower Midas, who happened to be present. Then Tmolus turned his head toward the Sun-god, and all his trees turned with him. Apollo rose, his brow wreathed with Parnassian laurel, while his robe of Tyrian purple swept the ground. In his left hand he held the lyre, and with his right hand struck the strings. Ravished with the harmony, Tmolus at once awarded the victory to the god of the lyre, and all but Midas acquiesced in the judgment. He dissented, and questioned the justice of the award. Apollo would not suffer such a depraved pair of ears any longer to wear the human form, but caused them to increase in length, grow hairy, within and without, and movable on their roots; in short, to be on the perfect pattern of those of an ass.</div>
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Mortified enough was King Midas at this mishap; but he consoled himself with the thought that it was possible to hide his misfortune, which he attempted to do by means of an ample turban or head-dress. But his hair-dresser of course knew the secret. He was charged not to mention it, and threatened with dire punishment if he presumed to disobey. But he found it too much for his discretion to keep such a secret; so he went out into the meadow, dug a hole in the ground, and stooping down, whispered the story, and covered it up. Before long a thick bed of reeds sprang up in the meadow, and as soon as it had gained its growth, began whispering the story, and has continued to do so, from that day to this, every time a breeze passes over the place.</div>
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The story of King Midas has been told by others with some variations. Dryden, in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” makes Midas’s queen the betrayer of the secret:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>“This Midas knew, and durst communicate</i></div>
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<i>To none but to his wife his ears of state.”</i></div>
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Midas was king of Phrygia. He was the son of Gordius, a poor countryman, who was taken by the people and made king, in obedience to the command of the oracle, which had said that their future king should come in a wagon. While the people were deliberating, Gordius with his wife and son came driving his wagon into the public square.</div>
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Gordius, being made king, dedicated his wagon to the deity of the oracle, and tied it up in its place with a fast knot. This was the celebrated Gordian knot, which, in after times it was said, whoever should unite should become lord of all Asia. Many tried to untie it, but none succeeded, till Alexander the Great, in his career of conquest, came to Phrygia. He tried his skill with as ill success as others, till growing impatient he drew his sword and cut the knot. When he afterwards succeeded in subjecting all Asia to his sway, people began to think that he had complied with the terms of the oracle according to its true meaning.</div>
Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-60162254408657060202011-07-02T01:48:00.000-07:002011-07-02T01:48:01.134-07:00Phaeton<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_hpqo91jzIY/Tg7Z-rLqNbI/AAAAAAAAENY/ULEqc6gYZLg/s1600/Phaethon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_hpqo91jzIY/Tg7Z-rLqNbI/AAAAAAAAENY/ULEqc6gYZLg/s200/Phaethon.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Phaethon was the son of Apollo and the nymph Clymene. One day a schoolfellow laughed at the idea of his being the son of the god, and Phaëton went in rage and shame and reported it to his mother. “If,” said he, “I am indeed of heavenly birth, give me, mother, some proof of it, and establish my claim to the honor.” Clymene stretched forth her hands towards the skies, and said, “I call to witness the Sun which looks down upon us, that I have told you the truth. If I speak falsely, let this be the last time I behold his light. But it needs not much labor to go and inquire for yourself; the land whence the Sun rises lies next to ours. Go and demand of him whether he will own you as a son.” Phaëton heard with delight. He travelled to India, which lies directly in the regions of sunrise; and, full of hope and pride, approached the goal whence his parent begins his course.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The palace of the Sun stood reared aloft on columns, glittering with gold and precious stones, while polished ivory formed the ceilings, and silver the doors. The workmanship surpassed the material; 1 for upon the walls Vulcan had represented earth, sea, and skies, with their inhabitants. In the sea were the nymphs, some sporting in the waves, some riding on the backs of fishes, while others sat upon the rocks and dried their sea-green hair. Their faces were not all alike, nor yet unlike,—but such as sisters’ ought to be. 1 The earth had its towns and forests and rivers and rustic divinities. Over all was carved the likeness of the glorious heaven; and one the silver doors the twelve signs of the zodiac, six on each side.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dUVUSuq7PNY/Tg7aoX4cYEI/AAAAAAAAENo/V3KSP0ofkss/s1600/Giovanni+da+san+giovanni-836328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dUVUSuq7PNY/Tg7aoX4cYEI/AAAAAAAAENo/V3KSP0ofkss/s1600/Giovanni+da+san+giovanni-836328.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Clymene’s son advanced up the steep ascent, and entered the halls of his disputed father. He approached the paternal presence, but stopped at a distance, for the light was more than he could bear. Phœbus, arrayed in a purple vesture, sat on a throne, which glittered as with diamonds. On his right hand and his left stood the Day, the Month, and the Year, and, at regular intervals, the Hours. Spring stood with her head crowned with flowers, and Summer, with garment cast aside, and a garland formed of spears of ripened grain, and Autumn, with his feet stained with grape-juice, and icy Winter, with his hair stiffened with hoar frost. Surrounded by these attendants, the Sun, with the eye that sees everything, beheld the youth dazzled with the novelty and splendor of the scene, and inquired the purpose of his errand. The youth replied, “O light of the boundless world, Phœbus, my father,—if you permit me to use that name,—give me some proof, I beseech you, by which I may be known as yours.” He ceased; and his father, laying aside the beams that shone all around his head, bade him approach, and embracing him, said, “My son, you deserve not to be disowned, and I confirm what your mother has told you. To put an end to your doubts, ask what you will, the gift shall be yours. I call to witness that dreadful lake, which I never saw, but which we gods swear by in our most solemn engagements.” Phaëton immediately asked to be permitted for one day to drive the chariot of the sun. The father repented of his promise; thrice and four times he shook his radiant head in warning. “I have spoken rashly,” said he; “this only request I would fain deny. I beg you to withdraw it. It is not a safe boon, nor one, my Phaëton, suited to your youth and strength. Your lot is mortal, and you ask what is beyond a mortal’s power. In your ignorance you aspire to do that which not even the gods themselves may do. None but myself may drive the flaming car of day. Not even Jupiter, whose terrible right arm hurls the thunderbolts. The first part of the way is steep, and such as the horses when fresh in the morning can hardly climb; the middle is high up in the heavens, whence I myself can scarcely, without alarm, look down and behold the earth and sea stretched beneath me. The last part of the road descends rapidly, and requires most careful driving. Tethys, who is waiting to receive me, often trembles for me lest I should fall headlong. Add to all this, the heaven is all the time turning round and carrying the stars with it. I have to be perpetually on my guard lest that movement, which sweeps everything else along, should hurry me also away. Suppose I should lend you the chariot, what would you do? Could you keep your course while the sphere was revolving under you? Perhaps you think that there are forests and cities, the abodes of gods, and palaces and temples on the way. On the contrary, the road is through the midst of frightful monsters. You pass by the horns of the Bull, in front of the Archer, and near the Lion’s jaws, and where the Scorpion stretches its arms in one direction and the Crab in another. Nor will you find it easy to guide those horses, with their breasts full of fire that they breathe forth from their mouths and nostrils. I can scarcely govern them myself, when they are unruly and resist the reins. Beware, my son, lest I be the donor of a fatal gift; recall your request while yet you may. Do you ask me for a proof that you are sprung from my blood? I give you a proof in my fears for you. Look at my face—I would that you could look into my breast, you would there see all a father’s anxiety. Finally,” he continued, “look round the world and choose whatever you will of what earth or sea contains most precious—ask it and fear no refusal. This only I pray you not to urge. It is not honor, but destruction you seek. Why do you hang round my neck and still entreat me? You shall have it if you persist;—the oath is sworn and must be kept,—but I beg you to choose more wisely.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He ended; but the youth rejected all admonition and held to his demand. So, having resisted as long as he could, Phœbus at last led the way to where stood the lofty chariot. It was of gold, the gift of Vulcan; the axle was of gold, the pole and wheels of gold, the spokes of silver. Along the seat were rows of chrysolites and diamonds which reflected all around the brightness of the sun. While the daring youth gazed in admiration, the early Dawn threw open the purple doors of the east, and showed the pathway strewn with roses. The stars withdrew, marshalled by the Day-star, which last of all retired also. The father, when he saw the earth beginning to glow, and the Moon preparing to retire, ordered the Hours to harness up the horses. They obeyed, and led forth from the lofty stalls the steeds full fed with ambrosia, and attached the reins. Then the father bathed the face of his son with a powerful unguent, and made him capable of enduring the brightness of the flame. He set the rays on his head, and, with a foreboding sigh, said, “If, my son, you will in this at least heed my advice, spare the whip and hold tight the reins. They go fast enough of their own accord; the labor is to hold them in. You are not to take the straight road directly between the five circles, but turn off to the left. Keep within the limit of the middle zone, and avoid the northern and the southern alike. You will see the marks of the wheels, and they will serve to guide you. And, that the skies and the earth may each receive their due share of heat, go not too high, or you will burn the heavenly dwellings, nor too low, or you will set the earth on fire; the middle course is safest and best. 2 And now I leave you to your chance, which I hope will plan better for you than you have done for yourself. Night is passing out of the western gates and we can delay no longer. Take the reins; but if at last your heart fails you, and you will benefit by my advice, stay where you are in safety, and suffer me to light and warm the earth.” The agile youth sprang into the chariot, stood erect, and grasped the reins with delight, pouring out thanks to his reluctant parent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile the horses fill the air with their snortings and fiery breath, and stamp the ground impatient. Now the bars are let down, and the boundless plain of the universe lies open before them. They dart forward and cleave the opposing clouds, and outrun the morning breezes which started from the same eastern goal. The steeds soon perceived that the load they drew was lighter than usual; and as a ship without ballast is tossed hither and thither on the sea, so the chariot, without its accustomed weight, was dashed about as if empty. They rush headlong and leave the travelled road. He is alarmed, and knows not how to guide them; nor, if he knew, has he the power. Then, for the first time, the Great and Little Bear were scorched with heat, and would fain, if it were possible, have plunged into the water; and the Serpent which lies coiled up round the north pole, torpid and harmless, grew warm, and with warmth felt its rage revive. Boötes, they say, fled away, though encumbered with his plough, and all unused to rapid motion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When hapless Phaëton looked down upon the earth, now spreading in vast extent beneath him, he grew pale and his knees shook with terror. In spite of the glare all around him, the sight of his eyes grew dim. He wished he had never touched his father’s horses, never learned his parentage, never prevailed in his request. He is borne along like a vessel that flies before a tempest, when the pilot can do no more and betakes himself to his prayers. What shall he do? Much of the heavenly road is left behind, but more remains before. He turns his eyes from one direction to the other; now to the goal whence he began his course, now to the realms of sunset which he is not destined to reach. He loses his self-command, and knows not what to do,—whether to draw tight the reins or throw them loose; he forgets the names of the horses. He sees with terror the monstrous forms scattered over the surface of heaven. Here the Scorpion extended his two great arms, with his tail and crooked claws stretching over two signs of the zodiac. When the boy beheld him, reeking with poison and menacing with his fangs, his courage failed, and the reins fell from his hands. The horses, when they felt them loose on their backs, dashed headlong, and unrestrained went off into unknown regions of the sky, in among the stars, hurling the chariot over pathless places, now up in high heaven, now down almost to the earth. The moon saw with astonishment her brother’s chariot running beneath her own. The clouds begin to smoke, and the mountain tops take fire; the fields are parched with heat, the plants wither, the trees with their leafy branches burn, the harvest is ablaze! But these are small things. Great cities perished, with their walls and towers; whole nations with their people were consumed to ashes! The forest-clad mountains burned, Athos and Taurus and Tmolus and œte; Ida, once celebrated for fountains, but now all dry; the Muses’ mountain Helicon, and Hæmus; Ætna, with fires within and without, and Parnassus, with his two peaks, and Rhodope, forced at last to part with his snowy crown. Her cold climate was no protection to Scythia, Caucasus burned, and Ossa and Pindus, and, greater than both, Olympus; the Alps high in air, and the Apennines crowned with clouds.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbbN6KN93Mo/Tg7aFIzizGI/AAAAAAAAENc/FH_fDhV4hUQ/s1600/th_phaethon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jbbN6KN93Mo/Tg7aFIzizGI/AAAAAAAAENc/FH_fDhV4hUQ/s1600/th_phaethon.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then Phaëton beheld the world on fire, and felt the heat intolerable. The air he breathed was like the air of a furnace and full of burning ashes, and the smoke was of a pitchy darkness. He dashed forward he knew not whither. Then, it is believed, the people of Æthiopia became black by the blood being forced so suddenly to the surface, and the Libyan desert was dried up to the condition in which it remains to this day. The Nymphs of the fountains, with dishevelled hair, mourned their waters, nor were the rivers safe beneath their banks: Tanais smoked, and Caicus, Xanthus, and Meander; Babylonian Euphrates and Ganges, Tagus with golden sands, and Cayster where the swans resort. Nile fled away and hid his head in the desert, and there it still remains concealed. Where he used to discharge his waters through seven mouths into the sea, there seven dry channels alone remained. The earth cracked open, and through the chinks light broke into Tartarus, and frightened the king of shadows and his queen. The sea shrank up. Where before was water, it became a dry plain; and the mountains that lie beneath the waves lifted up their heads and became islands. The fishes sought the lowest depths, and the dolphins no longer ventured as usual to sport on the surface. Even Nereus, and his wife Doris, with the Nereids, their daughters, sought the deepest caves for refuge. Thrice Neptune essayed to raise his head above the surface, and thrice was driven back by the heat. Earth, surrounded as she was by waters, yet with head and shoulders bare, screening her face with her hand, looked up to heaven, and with a husky voice called on Jupiter:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“O ruler of the gods, if I have deserved this treatment, and it is your will that I perish with fire, why withhold your thunderbolts? Let me at least fall by your hand. Is this the reward of my fertility, of my obedient service? Is it for this that I have supplied herbage for cattle, and fruits for men, and frankincense for your altars? But if I am unworthy of regard, what has my brother Ocean done to deserve such a fate? If neither of us can excite your pity, think, I pray you, of your own heaven, and behold how both the poles are smoking which sustain your palace, which must fall if they be destroyed. Atlas faints, and scarce holds up his burden. If sea, earth, and heaven perish, we fall into ancient Chaos. Save what yet remains to us from the devouring flame. O, take thought for our deliverance in this awful moment!”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus spoke Earth, and overcome with heat and thirst, could say no more. Then Jupiter omnipotent, calling to witness all the gods, including him who had lent the chariot, and showing them that all was lost unless speedy remedy were applied, mounted the lofty tower from whence he diffuses clouds over the earth, and hurls the forked lightnings. But at that time not a cloud was to be found to interpose for a screen to earth, nor was a shower remaining unexhausted. He thundered, and brandishing a lightning bolt in his right hand launched it against the charioteer, and struck him at the same moment from his seat and from existence! Phaëton, with his hair on fire, fell headlong, like a shooting star which marks the heavens with its brightness as it falls, and Eridanus, the great river, received him and cooled his burning frame. The Italian Naiads reared a tomb for him, and inscribed these words upon the stone:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“Driver of Phœbus’ chariot, Phaëton,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Struck by Jove’s thunder, rests beneath this stone.</div><div style="text-align: center;">He could not rule his father’s car of fire,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Yet was it much so nobly to aspire.”</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utKPq6BTX_I/Tg7aKXmefaI/AAAAAAAAENg/6e2OZFPiINQ/s1600/heliades.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-utKPq6BTX_I/Tg7aKXmefaI/AAAAAAAAENg/6e2OZFPiINQ/s320/heliades.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">His sisters, the Heliades, as they lamented his fate, were turned into poplar trees, on the banks of the river, and their tears, which continued to flow, became amber as they dropped into the stream.</div><br />
Milman, in his poem of “Samor,” makes the following allusion to Phaëton’s story:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“As when the palsied universe aghast</div><div style="text-align: center;">Lay … mute and still,</div><div style="text-align: center;">When drove, so poets sing, the Sun-born youth</div><div style="text-align: center;">Devious through Heaven’s affrighted signs his sire’s</div><div style="text-align: center;">Ill-granted chariot. Him the Thunderer hurled</div><div style="text-align: center;">From th’ empyrean headlong to the gulf</div><div style="text-align: center;">Of the half-parched Eridanus, where weep</div><div style="text-align: center;">Even now the sister trees their amber tears</div><div style="text-align: center;">O’er Phaëton untimely dead.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In the beautiful lines of Walter Savage Landor, descriptive of the Sea-shell, there is an allusion to the Sun’s palace and chariot. The water-nymph says:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“…I have sinuous shells of pearly hue</div><div style="text-align: center;">Within, and things that lustre have imbibed</div><div style="text-align: center;">In the sun’s palace porch, where when unyoked</div><div style="text-align: center;">His chariot wheel stands midway on the wave.</div><div style="text-align: center;">Shake one and it awakens; then apply</div><div style="text-align: center;">Its polished lip to your attentive ear,</div><div style="text-align: center;">And it remembers its august abodes,</div><div style="text-align: center;">And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.”</div> Gebir, Book I</div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-56675797401141816542011-06-24T04:04:00.000-07:002011-06-24T04:04:34.180-07:00Diana and Actæon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x1i-DBHha1g/TgRu7of0rFI/AAAAAAAAEMk/tSrQPdxXR88/s1600/Diana%2526Actaeon30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-x1i-DBHha1g/TgRu7of0rFI/AAAAAAAAEMk/tSrQPdxXR88/s1600/Diana%2526Actaeon30.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thus in two instances we have seen Juno’s severity to her rivals; now let us learn how a virgin goddess punished an invader of her privacy. It was midday, and the sun stood equally distant from either goal, when young Actæon, son of King Cadmus, thus addressed the youths who with him were hunting the stag in the mountains: “Friends, our nets and our weapons are wet with the blood of our victims; we have had sport enough for one day, and to-morrow we can renew our labors. Now, while Phœbus parches the earth, let us put by our implements and indulge ourselves with rest.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was a valley thick enclosed with cypresses and pines, sacred to the huntress queen, Diana. In the extremity of the valley was a cave, not adorned with art, but nature had counterfeited art in its construction, for she had turned the arch of its roof with stones as delicately fitted as if by the hand of man. A fountain burst out from one side, whose open basin was bounded by a grassy rim. Here the goddess of the woods used to come when weary with hunting and lave her virgin limbs in the sparkling water.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">One day, having repaired thither with her nymphs, she handed her javelin, her quiver, and her bow to one, her robe to another, while a third unbound the sandals from her feet. Then Crocale, the most skilful of them, arranged her hair, and Nephele, Hyale, and the rest drew water in capacious urns. While the goddess was thus employed in the labors of the toilet, behold Actæon, having quitted his companions, and rambling without any especial object, came to the place, led thither by his destiny. As he presented himself at the entrance of the cave, the nymphs, seeing a man, screamed and rushed towards the goddess to hide her with their bodies. But she was taller than the rest and overtopped them all by a head. Such a color as tinges the clouds at sunset or at dawn came over the countenance of Diana thus taken by surprise. Surrounded as she was by her nymphs, she yet turned half away, and sought with a sudden impulse for her arrows. As they were not at hand, she dashed the water into the face of the intruder, adding these words: “Now go and tell, if you can, that you have seen Diana unapparelled.” Immediately a pair of branching stag’s horns grew out of his head, his neck gained in length, his ears grew sharp-pointed, his hands became feet, his arms long legs, his body was covered with a hairy spotted hide. Fear took the place of his former boldness, and the hero fled. He could not but admire his own speed; but when he saw his horns in the water, “Ah, wretched me!” he would have said, but no sound followed the effort. He groaned, and tears flowed down the face which had taken the place of his own. Yet his consciousness remained. What shall he do?—go home to seek the place, or lie hid in the woods? The latter he was afraid, the former he was ashamed, to do. While he hesitated the dogs saw him. First Melampus, a Spartan dog, gave the signal with his bark, then Pamphagus, Dorceus, Lelaps, Theron, Nape, Tigris, and all the rest, rushed after him swifter than the wind. Over rocks and cliffs, through mountain gorges that seemed impracticable, he fled and they followed. Where he had often chased the stag and cheered on his pack, his pack now chased him, cheered on by his huntsmen. He longed to cry out, “I am Actæon; recognize your master!” but the words came not at his will. The air resounded with the bark of the dogs. Presently one fastened on his back, another seized his shoulder. While they held their master, the rest of the pack came up and buried their teeth in his flesh. He groaned,—not in a human voice, yet certainly not in a stag’s,—and falling on his knees, raised his eyes, and would have raised his arms in supplication, if he had had them. His friends and fellow-huntsmen cheered on the dogs, and looked everywhere for Actæon, calling on him to join the sport. At the sound of his name he turned his head, and heard them regret that he should be away. He earnestly wished he was. He would have been well pleased to see the exploits of his dogs, but to feel them was too much. They were all around him, rending and tearing; and it was not till they had torn his life out that the anger of Diana was satisfied.</div><br />
In Shelley’s poem “<i>Adonais</i>” is the following allusion to the story of Actæon:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“’<i>Midst others of less note came one frail form,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A phantom among men: companionless</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>As the last cloud of an expiring storm,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Actæon-like, and now he fled astray</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>And his own Thoughts, along that rugged way,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey</i>.”</div><div style="text-align: center;"> Stanza 31.</div></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-25355286920489525762011-06-17T01:05:00.000-07:002011-07-07T04:29:21.172-07:00Pyramus and Thisbe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Thisbe_-_John_William_Waterhouse.jpg/338px-Thisbe_-_John_William_Waterhouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/Thisbe_-_John_William_Waterhouse.jpg/338px-Thisbe_-_John_William_Waterhouse.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>Pyramus was the handsomest youth, and Thisbe the fairest maiden, in all Babylonia, where Semiramis reigned. Their parents occupied adjoining houses; and neighborhood brought the young people together, and acquaintance ripened into love. They would gladly have married, but their parents forbade. One thing, however, they could not forbid—that love should glow with equal ardor in the bosoms of both. They conversed by signs and glances, and the fire burned more intensely for being covered up. In the wall that parted the two houses there was a crack, caused by some fault in the structure. No one had remarked it before, but the lovers discovered it. What will not love discover! It afforded a passage to the voice; and tender messages used to pass backward and forward through the gap. As they stood, Pyramus on this side, Thisbe on that, their breaths would mingle. “Cruel wall,” they said, “why do you keep two lovers apart? But we will not be ungrateful. We owe you, we confess, the privilege of transmitting loving words to willing ears.” Such words they uttered on different sides of the wall; and when night came and they must say farewell, they pressed their lips upon the wall, she on her side, he on his, as they could come no nearer.<br />
<br />
Next morning, when Aurora had put out the stars, and the sun had melted the frost from the grass, they met at the accustomed spot. Then, after lamenting their hard fate, they agreed that next night, when all was still, they would slip away from watchful eyes, leave their dwellings and walk out into the fields; and to insure a meeting, repair to a well-known edifice standing without the city’s bounds, called the Tomb of Ninus, and that the one who came first should await the other at the foot of a certain tree. It was a white mulberry tree, and stood near a cool spring. All was agreed on, and they waited impatiently for the sun to go down beneath the waters and night to rise up from them. Then cautiously Thisbe stole forth, unobserved by the family, her head covered with a veil, made her way to the monument and sat down under the tree. As she sat alone in the dim light of the evening she descried a lioness, her jaws reeking with recent slaughter, approaching the fountain to slake her thirst. Thisbe fled at the sight, and sought refuge in the hollow of a rock. As she fled she dropped her veil. The lioness after drinking at the spring turned to retreat to the woods, and seeing the veil on the ground, tossed and rent it with her bloody mouth.<br />
<br />
Pyramus, having been delayed, now approached the place of meeting. He saw in the sand the footsteps of the lion, and the color fled from his cheeks at the sight. Presently he found the veil all rent and bloody. “O hapless girl,” said he, “I have been the cause of thy death! Thou, more worthy of life than I, hast fallen the first victim. I will follow. I am the guilty cause, in tempting thee forth to a place of such peril, and not being myself on the spot to guard thee. Come forth, ye lions, from the rocks, and tear this guilty body with your teeth.” He took up the veil, carried it with him to the appointed tree, and covered it with kisses and with tears. “My blood also shall stain your texture,” said he, and drawing his sword plunged it into his heart. The blood spurted from the wound, and tinged the white mulberries of the tree all red; and sinking into the earth reached the roots, so that the red color mounted through the trunk to the fruit.<br />
<br />
By this time Thisbe, still trembling with fear, yet wishing not to disappoint her lover, stepped cautiously forth, looking anxiously for the youth, eager to tell him the danger she had escaped. When she came to the spot and saw the changed color of the mulberries she doubted whether it was the same place. While she hesitated she saw the form of one struggling in the agonies of death. She started back, a shudder ran through her frame as a ripple on the face of the still water when a sudden breeze sweeps over it. But as soon as she recognized her lover, she screamed and beat her breast, embracing the lifeless body, pouring tears into its wounds, and imprinting kisses on the cold lips. “O Pyramus,” she cried, “what has done this? Answer me, Pyramus; it is your own Thisbe that speaks. Hear me, dearest, and lift that drooping head!” At the name of Thisbe Pyramus opened his eyes, then closed them again. She saw her veil stained with blood and the scabbard empty of its sword. “Thy own hand has slain thee, and for my sake,” she said. “I too can be brave for once, and my love is as strong as thine. I will follow thee in death, for I have been the cause; and death which alone could part us shall not prevent my joining thee. And ye, unhappy parents of us both, deny us, let one tomb contain us. And thou, tree, retain the marks of slaughter. Let thy berries still serve for memorials of our blood.” So saying she plunged the sword into her breast. Her parents ratified her wish, the gods also ratified it. The two bodies were buried in one sepulchre, and the tree ever after brought forth purple berries, as it does to this day.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Moore</i>, in the “<i>Sylph’s Ball,</i>” speaking of Davy’s Safety Lamp, is reminded of the wall that separated Thisbe and her lover:</div><div style="text-align: center;">“O for that Lamp’s metallic gauze,</div><div style="text-align: center;">That curtain of protecting wire,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Which Davy delicately draws</div><div style="text-align: center;">Around illicit, dangerous fire!</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">The wall he sets ’twixt Flame and Air,</div><div style="text-align: center;">(Like that which barred young Thisbe’s bliss,)</div><div style="text-align: center;">Through whose small holes this dangerous pair</div><div style="text-align: center;">May see each other, but not kiss.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">In Mickle’s translation of the “<i>Lusiad</i>” occurs the following allusion to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the metamorphosis of the mulberries. The poet is describing the Island of Love:</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">“… here each gift Pomona’s hand bestows</div><div style="text-align: center;">In cultured garden, free uncultured flows,</div><div style="text-align: center;">The flavor sweeter and the hue more fair</div><div style="text-align: center;">Than e’er was fostered by the hand of care.</div><div style="text-align: center;">The cherry here in shining crimson glows,</div><div style="text-align: center;">And stained with lovers’ blood, in pendent rows,</div><div style="text-align: center;">The mulberries o’erload the bending boughs.”</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">If any of our young readers can be so hard-hearted as to enjoy a laugh at the expense of poor Pyramus and Thisbe, they may find an opportunity by turning to Shakspeare’s play of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where it is most amusingly burlesqued.</div></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-80067841653648873282011-05-06T00:52:00.000-07:002011-06-15T02:54:15.925-07:0071 New Ovid Manuscripts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nndb.com/people/835/000087574/ovid2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/835/000087574/ovid2.jpg" width="162" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Experts from Huelva University have discovered 71 unknown manuscripts of Roman poet Ovid (43BC-17AD). The manuscripts, most of them codices and fragments which were not known to even exist, have been found in different libraries around the world and most of them belong to Ovid’s greatest work, The Metamorphosis.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The professor of Latin Philology at the university, Luis Rivero, commented that these are versions or interpretations of the work which date from ancient times to the modern age, and almost complete the collection of all manuscripts concerning the author and his work, amounting to 538.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This makes Huelva a reference point for researchers of Ovid worldwide.</div><br />
<a href="http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/04/27/andalucia/1303920961.html">Read more in Spanish </a></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-9184957869720957322011-05-01T14:15:00.000-07:002011-06-15T05:03:49.267-07:00Tribes of Epirus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">The name Epirus comes from Greek: Ἤπειρος, Ēpeiros (in Doric Greek and the native Northwestern Greek Ἅπειρος, Apeiros), meaning "mainland". Epirus has been occupied since at least Neolithic times by seafarers along the coast and by hunters and shepherds in the interior who brought with them the Greek language. These people buried their leaders in large tumuli containing shaft graves, similar to the Mycenaean tombs, indicating an ancestral link between Epirus and the Mycenean civilization. A number of Mycenaean remains have been found in Epirus, especially at the most important ancient religious sites in the region, the Necromanteion (Oracle of the Dead) on the Acheron river, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Cities/DodonaTheater01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Cities/DodonaTheater01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Molossians</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3PiOuG0gTy0/Tb3M4KMzaTI/AAAAAAAAEJs/QUYnlNCHD0A/s1600/pyrrhus.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3PiOuG0gTy0/Tb3M4KMzaTI/AAAAAAAAEJs/QUYnlNCHD0A/s200/pyrrhus.gif" width="127" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Molossians Greek , <i>Μολοσσοί</i> were an ancient Greek tribe that inhabited the region of Epirus since the Mycenaean era. The Molossians were part of the League of Epirus until they sided against Rome in the Third Macedonian War 171 BC-168 BC . The result was disastrous with the vengeful Romans enslaving 150,000 of its inhabitants and annexing the region into the Roman Empire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Greek mythology, the Molossians were the descendants of Molossus, one of the three sons of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and Deidamia. Following the sack of Troy, Neoptolemus and his armies settled in Epirus where they joined with the local population. Molossus inherited the kingdom of Epirus after the death of Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba of Troy, who had married his erstwhile sister-in-law Andromache after Neoptolemus' death. Plutarch tells us that according to some historians their first king was Phaethon, one of those who came into Epirus with Pelasgus. Plutarch also says, that Deucalion and Pyrrha, having set up the worship of Zeus at Dodona, settled there among the Molossians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Strabo tells us that the Molossians, along with the Chaonians and Thesprotians, were the most famous among the fourteen tribes of Epirus, who once ruled over the whole region. The Chaonians ruled Epirus at an earlier time and afterwards the Thesprotians and Molossians controlled the region. Plutarch 3 tells us that the Thesprotians, the Chaonians and the Molossians were the three principal clusters of Greek-speaking tribes that had emerged from Epirus and were the most powerful among all other tribes.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Molossians were also renowned for their vicious hounds, which were used by shepherds to guard their flocks. This is where the canine breed Molossoid, native to Greece, got its name. Virgil tells us that in ancient Greece the heavier Molossian dogs were often used by the Greeks and Romans for hunting canis venaticus and to watch over the house and livestock canis pastoralis . "Never, with them on guard," says Virgil, "need you fear for your stalls a midnight thief, or onslaught of wolves, or Iberian brigands at your back."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Strabo records that the Thesprotians, Molossians, and Macedonians referred to old men as pelioi and old women as peliai lt PIE pel-, 'grey' . Cf. Ancient Greek peleia, "pigeon", so-called because of its dusky grey color. Ancient Greek pelos meant "grey". Their senators were called Peligones.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Chaones</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Chaones according to Strabo were once the most powerful and warlike people of Epirus until the Molossians, in their turn, acquired a preponderating ascendancy over the other clans of that country. In the time of the Peloponnesia war the Chaones differed from their neihbours, in being subject to an aristocratical and not a monarchical government, their annual magistrates being always chosen from a particular family (Thuc. II, 80). Tradition ascribed the origin of their names to Chaonas, the brother of Helenus, who married Andromache after the death of Pyrrhus. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Dexari</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dexari was a tribe of Chaones. They lived ‘next to the Encheleae’ as Hecataeus wrote (FGrH1f103) and held the area which was later called Dassaretis, namely the southern part of the lakeland and the hilly country to the south west of it. Chaones were a group of Greek-speaking tribes and the Dexari or as they were called later the Dassaretae were the most northernly member of this group.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Suliones</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Suliones were another Chaonian tribe, named by the poet Rhyanus who is quoted by Steph. Byzantinus (v. Συλίονες). Their name recall to mind the famous Suliotes during the wars for Greek independence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Thesproti</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thesprotia extended along the coast from the Thyamis beyond the Acheron to the confines of the Cassopaei and in the interior to the boundaries of the territory of Dodona which in ancient times was regarded as a part of Thesprotia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">They were considerd the most ancient from all Epirotic tribes since they are the only one mentioned by Homer (Odys. Ξ.315). Herodotus also affirms that they were the parent stock from whence descended the Thessalians who expelled the Aeolians from the country afterwards know by the name of Thessaly. (VII.176) Thesprotians were governed at first by monarchical system but later according to Thucydides (II.80) neither they nor Chaones were subject to kings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Cassopaei</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cassopaei were a Thesprotian tribe. Cassopaei reached along the coast as far as the Ambracian gulf. According to Strabo (7.7.5) the Kassopaians were Thesprotians and between 330 – 325 BCE they became members of the Epeirote Federation . The region Kassopeia (Κασσωπία) (Dem. 7.32; Theopom frr 206-7; Ps. Slylax 31-32) or Kassiopaia (Plut. More. 297B) or Kassiopi (Ptol. Geog. 3.14.) was part of Thesprotia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Athamanians</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Athamanians or Athamanes were an ancient tribe that inhabited south-eastern Epirus and west Thessaly. Although regarded as "barbarians" by Strabo and Hecataeus of Miletus, the Athamanians self-identified as Greeks. The existence of myths about Athamas and Ino in Achaean Phthiotis suggests that the Athamanians were settled there before 1600 BC. They were an independent semi-barbarian tribe (in 395 and 355 BC according to Diodorus Siculus) occasionally allies of the Aetolians. Amynander and Theodorus of Athamania are reported kings of the Athamanians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Amphilochians, <b>Orestae, </b><b>Pelagones, </b><b>Elimiotae</b></b> </div></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-86445280384281057162011-04-30T03:15:00.000-07:002011-06-15T05:04:43.899-07:00Music in Ancient Greece<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Ancient Greek Music remains one of the least illuminated chapters of the History of Greek Culture. Despite the fact that we have access to information concerning the role of music in everyday life, a great deal of significant information concerning the sound and the way it was played remains unknown. The studies of ancient sources reveal that the role of music in ancient Greece was far more complicated than that of music nowadays. Music nowadays is part of our everyday routine and a means of entertainment, there are, however, certain kinds which are considered to be the elite of music and are addressed to the initiated and the music-lovers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://5465.pblogs.gr/files/53783-JudasDiony.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://5465.pblogs.gr/files/53783-JudasDiony.JPEG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Music in the everyday life of Ancient Greece</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In ancient Greece music was an integral part of people’s everyday routine and due to the fact that music was a complicated form of art as well as a cultural expression, it was highly regarded and present in all private and public festivities. Music, Asma-the singing and lyrics - Orchisis – group of dancers as well as the song between the acts -were features of a highly civilized community as well as factors and indicators of a higher quality of life. From the archaic period music gradually assumed a more complicated form and role, the result of this development was that special music competitions were organized in many parts of Ancient Greece. Some of the oldest music competitions ever registered are the “Karnea” in ancient Sparta which was a place were music was highly respected and connected with the training and education of the youth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.hellenicpantheon.gr/images/Pyrichios.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="http://www.hellenicpantheon.gr/images/Pyrichios.gif" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Naked men dancing the Pyrichios</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>After the 6th century music played a significant role in two major festivities known as “Megala Panathinea” and “Megala Dionysia” and was a main reason for Athens to hold a prominent position in terms of cultural development. During those festivities, apart from the music competitions, some very significant kinds of lyric poetry and music emerged, the most significant kind of which was the Ancient Drama.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Except being an important element in both public and private celebrations, music played an important role on unpleasant occasions and it made daily hardships more tolerable. Music was a main feature in celebrations such as weddings, banquets, social gatherings and moments of joy but also a valuable companion in everyday routine. A flute player for instance would accompany the women with his music while they were kneading, the workers during harvest, the oarsmen as well as the soldiers on their way to battle. Music was closely connected with sports and athletic games not only because they included music competitions but because the music would encourage and motivate the athlete to achieve a better performance. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>The divine nature of Music</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the ancient Greeks, music was divine as it assisted in healing both soul and body. It purified and soothed people’s souls and it inspired, encouraged and helped them relax. The above mentioned features justified the presence of Music, Asma and Orchisis in religious festivities such as the “Panathinea” held in Athens. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Music and other Art forms</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Music is closely related to other sciences such as mathematics and philosophy thus it was one of the important subjects in young people’s education. Besides, its connection to the theatre and poetry was of major significance. Masterpieces of ancient Greek literature such as the Homeric epics and Ancient Tragedies were preserved thanks to music. It is an indisputable fact that music has made an invaluable contribution to the development and diversity of the Ancient Greek culture. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Sources of the Ancient Greek Music</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-32lbl767xNc/TbvfzVM9i0I/AAAAAAAAEJU/XxAxbcfwXrc/s1600/2008041201009.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-32lbl767xNc/TbvfzVM9i0I/AAAAAAAAEJU/XxAxbcfwXrc/s200/2008041201009.gif" width="129" /></a></div>It was believed that music was not particularly developed compared to other art forms in ancient Greece. This was due to the lack of written sources concerning ancient Greek music. Gradually, our knowledge of the role and the importance of music in ancient Greece were enriched thanks to the systematic research of all relevant sources. Thus, from lyric poetry we get lots of information concerning musical instruments while from literature or historical texts we learn a lot about prominent musicians of the time and their works.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A depiction on pots, mosaics, relieves, murals, coins and statues are an invaluable source of information concerning musical instruments and their evolution from the archaic period to the Roman times. Detailed pot decorations are a rich source of information concerning the form and shape of many instruments about which we would otherwise know nothing. Very few findings of instruments were discovered, mostly flute and rarely fragments of other instruments, such as the lyre.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elements of ancient Greek music have also been traced in Byzantine and Traditional Greek music by researchers. The most valuable and important sources of information however, are detected and preserved in surviving scores as well as other surviving texts on harmonics such as the texts “Armonika” and “Rythmika Stichia” written by Aristoxenos Tarantinos – perhaps the most distinguished musician of the 4th century B.C. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Surviving Works</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The very few surviving scores however are fragmentary, for instance some inscriptions on stones, manuscripts on papyrus etc, therefore they fail to give a full idea of the wealth and grandeur of the ancient Greek music. This music reveals the sense of moderation and harmony which are important features of the Greek civilization. All in all, sixty-one music pieces have survived to our time and if we exclude “Seikilos pillar” none of the surviving texts is complete. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lyravlos.gr/img/yale4510web-sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.lyravlos.gr/img/yale4510web-sm.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seikilos pillar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>“Seikilos pillar” is the only preserved music text which was found complete. It is a small pillar which dates back to the 2nd century a.C. The poem, which is preserved and is inscribed on the pillar, talks about the true meaning of life and praises the art of quality living. It is a very small composition indicative of ancient Greek music and it is invaluable because of its uniqueness. The pillar is exhibited in the museum in Copenhagen. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The most important preserved text is the “Delphic Hymn”. It is inscribed on pillars and was found in Delphi. These invaluable extracts reveal important information about ancient Greek music. This hymn was presented during the “Pythia” in 128 BC. The pillars with the inscriptions are exhibited in the Delphi museum. </div></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-69066176127132202052011-04-30T02:23:00.000-07:002015-03-21T01:28:29.781-07:00Anaitis from Tomis, or Rholipor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="P2">Daughter of a Greek father and a Dacian mother.
Litterata serva of Rholes, the wealthy ferrarius of Melita Insula, with
whom she has ordinary cold, distant, but obedient, polite serva-dominus
relation. Wise, hardworking young lady, skilled in </span>gardening,
reading, writing, reciting. Librarius of the bibliotheca Melitae. Silent
most of the time, too silent - some people say - ,shy. Modest (sleeping
in the horse's stable).Likes helping the others, starting with her own
kyrios.</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10434333756706003270noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-58397920991355054242011-04-26T12:02:00.000-07:002011-06-15T05:06:55.889-07:00Spectacles of Blood, Primary Sources for Gladiatorial Games<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Seneca</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The following letter indicates how by the age of Nero cultured and elevated men were beginning to revolt at the arena butcheries which still delighted the mob.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I turned in to the games one mid-day hoping for a little wit and humor there. I was bitterly disappointed. It was really mere butchery. The morning's show was merciful compared to it. Then men were thrown to lions and to bears: but at midday to the audience. There was no escape for them. The slayer was kept fighting until he could be slain. "Kill him! flog him! burn him alive" was the cry: "Why is he such a coward? Why won't he rush on the steel? Why does he fall so meekly? Why won't he die willingly?" Unhappy that I am, how have I deserved that I must look on such a scene as this? Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Seneca, Epistles 7</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/games/pictures/eljem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/games/pictures/eljem.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle? He, a leader of the state and one who, according to report, was conspicuous among the leaders of old for the kindness of his heart, thought it a notable kind of spectacle to kill human beings after a new fashion. Do they fight to the death? That is not enough! Are they torn to pieces? That is not enough! Let them be crushed by animals of monstrous bulk! Better would it be that these things pass into oblivion lest hereafter some all-powerful man should learn them and be jealous of an act that was nowise human. O, what blindness does great prosperity cast upon our minds! When he was casting so many troops of wretched human beings to wild beasts born under a different sky, when he was proclaiming war between creatures so ill matched, when he was shedding so much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, who itself was soon to be forced to shed more. he then believed that he was beyond the power of Nature. But later this same man, betrayed by Alexandrine treachery, offered himself to the dagger of the vilest slave, and then at last discovered what an empty boast his surname was. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The shortness of Life, xiii. 6-8</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Cicero</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It will be delightful if you come to see us here. You will find that Tyrannio has made a wonderfully good arrangement of my books, the remains of which are better than I had expected. Still, I wish you would send me a couple of your library slaves for Tyrannio to employ as gluers, and in other subordinate work, and tell them to get some fine parchment to make title pieces, which you Greeks, I think, call "sillybi." But all this is only if not inconvenient to you. In any case, be sure you come yourself, if you can halt for a while in such a place, and can persuade Pilia to accompany you. For that is only fair, and Tulia is anxious that she should come. My word! You have purchased a fine troop! Your gladiators, I am told, fight superbly. If you had chosen to let them out you would have cleared your expenses by the last two spectacles. But we will talk about this later on. Be sure to come, and, as you love me, see about the library slaves.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>To Atticus (Returning from Epirus) Antium, April, 56 B.C.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.roman-colosseum.info/images/gladiators.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://www.roman-colosseum.info/images/gladiators.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just look at the gladiators, either debased men or foreigners, and consider the blows they endure! Consider how they who have been well-disciplined prefer to accept a blow than ignominiously avoid it! How often it is made clear that they consider nothing other than the satisfaction of their master or the people! Even when they are covered with wounds they send a messenger to their master to inquire his will. If they have given satisfaction to their masters, they are pleased to fall. What even mediocre gladiator ever groans, ever alters the expression on his face? Which one of them acts shamefully, either standing or falling? And which of them, even when he does succumb, ever contracts his neck when ordered to receive the blow?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tusc. 2.41</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And yet I realize that in our country, even in the good old times, it had become a settled custom to expect magnificent entertainments from the very best men in their year of aedileship. So both Publius Crassus, who was not merely surnamed "The Rich" but was rich in fact, gave splendid games in his aedileship; and a little later Lucius Crassus (with Quintus Mucius, the most unpretentious man in the world, as his colleague) gave most magnificent entertainments in his aedileship. Then came Gaius Claudius, the son of Appius, and, after him, many others-the Luculli, Hortensius, and Silanus. Publius Lentulus, however, in the year of my consulship, eclipsed all that had gone before him, and Scaurus emulated him. And my friend Pompey's exhibitions in his second consulship were the most magnificent of all. And so you see what I think about all this sort of thing. 58 XVII. Still we should avoid any suspicion of penuriousness. Mamercus was a very wealthy man, and his refusal of the aedileship was the cause of his defeat for the consulship. If, therefore, such entertainment is demanded by the people, men of right judgment must at least consent to furnish it, even if they do not like the idea. But in so doing they should keep within their means, as I myself did. They should likewise afford such entertainment, if gifts of money to the people are to be the means of securing on some occasion some more important or more useful object.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>De Officiis</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Tacitus</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And indeed there are characteristic and specific vices in this city, which seem to me to be practically born in the womb: the obsession with actors and the passion for gladiatorial shows and horse racing. How much room does a mind preoccupied with such things have for the noble arts?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tacitus, Dial. 29</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/circus_maximus2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/circus_maximus2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Cassius Dio </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.krownspellman.com/spellman/images/items//18629.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.krownspellman.com/spellman/images/items//18629.jpg" width="100" /></a></div>During these same days Pompey dedicated the theatre in which we take pride even at the present time. In it he provided an entertainment consisting of music and gymnastic contests, and in the Circus a horse-race and the slaughter of many wild beasts of all kinds. Indeed, five hundred lions were used up in five days, and eighteen elephants fought against men in heavy armour. Some of these beasts were killed at the time and others a little later. For some of them, contrary to Pompey's wish, were pitied by the people when, after being wounded and ceasing to fight, they walked about with their trunks raised toward heaven, lamenting so bitterly as to give rise to the report that they did so not by mere chance, but were crying out against the oaths in which they had trusted when they crossed over from Africa, and were calling on Heaven to avenge them. For it is said that they would not set foot upon the ships before they received a pledge under oath from their drivers that they should suffer no harm. Whether this is really so or not I do not know;....</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dio 39.38.1-4</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[22] So after completing the new forum and the temple to Venus, as the founder of his family, he [Julius Caesar] dedicated them at this very time and in their honour instituted many contests of all kinds. He built a kind of hunting-theatre of wood, which was called an amphitheatre from the fact that it had seats all around without any stage. In honour of this and of his daughter he exhibited combats of wild beats and gladiators; but anyone who cared to record their number would find his task a burden without being able, in all probability, to present the truth; for all such matters are regularly exaggerated in a spirit of boastfulness. I shall accordingly pass over this and other like events.....</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[23]...As for the men, he not only pitted them one against another singly in the Forum, as was customary, but he also made them fight together in companies in the Circus, horsemen against horsemen, men on foot against others on foot, and sometimes both kinds together in equal numbers. There was even a fight between men seated on elephants, forty in number. Finally he produced a naval battle; not on the sea nor on a lake, but on land; for he hollowed out a certain tract on the Campus Martius and after flooding it introduced ships into it. In all the contests the captives and those condemned to die took part; yet some even of the knights, and, not to mention others, the son of one who had been praetor fought in single combat. Indeed a senator named Fulvius Sepinus desired to contend in full armour, but he was prevented; for Caesar deprecated that spectacle at any time, though he did permit the knights to contend. The patrician boys went through the equestrian exercise called "Troy" according to ancient custom, and the young men of the same rank, contended in chariots.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">[24]He was blamed, indeed, for the great number of those slain, on the ground that he himself had not become sated with bloodshed and was further exhibiting to the populace symbols of their own miseries; but much more faith was found because he had expended countless sums on all that array....In order that the sun might not annoy any of the spectators, he had curtains stretched over them made of silk, according to some accounts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dio 43.22-24</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most that he did was not characterized by anything noteworthy, but in dedicating the hunting theatre [The Amphiteatrum Flavium, later known as the Colosseum] and the baths that that bear his name he produced many remarkable spectacles. There was a battle between cranes and also between four elephants; animals both tame and wild were slain to the number of nine thousand; and women (not those of any prominence, however) took part in despatching them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">As for the men, several fought in single combat and several groups contended together both in infantry and naval battles. For Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals that had been taught to behave in the liquid element just as on land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also brought in people on ships, who engaged in a sea-fight there, impersonating the Corcyreans and Corinthians; and others gave a similar exhibition from outside the city in the grove of Gaius and Lucius, a place which Augustus had once excavated for this very purpose. There, too, on the first day, there was a gladiatorial exhibition and wild-beast hunt, the lake in front of the images having first been covered over with a platform of planks and wooden stands erected around it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the second day there was a horse-race, and on the third day a naval battle between three thousand men, followed by an infantry battle. The "Athenians" conquered the "Syracusans" (these were the names the combatants used), made a landing on the islet [i.e., Ortygia] and assaulted and captured a wall that had been constructed around the monument. These were the spectacles that were offered, and they continued for a hundred days; but Titus also furnished some things that were of practical use to the people.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He would throw down into the theatre from aloft little wooden balls variously inscribed, one designating some article of food, another clothing, another a silver vessel or perhaps a gold one, or again horses, pack-animals, cattle or slaves. Those who seized them were to carry them to the dispensers of the bounty, from whom they would receive the article named.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dio 66.25.1-5</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Pliny the Elder</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_n-njTteDnPw/Rjj_yu1DY_I/AAAAAAAAArw/sV8Oc3j2T2k/s400/Borghese_gladiator_1_mosaic_dn_r2_c2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_n-njTteDnPw/Rjj_yu1DY_I/AAAAAAAAArw/sV8Oc3j2T2k/s320/Borghese_gladiator_1_mosaic_dn_r2_c2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>19. Fenestella states that the first elephant fought in the circus at Rome in the curule aedileship of Claudius Pulcher and the consulship of Marcus Antonius and Aulus Postumius, 99 B.C., and also that the first fight of an elephant against bulls was twenty years later in the curule aedileship of the Luculli.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">20. Also in Pompey's second consulship at the dedication of the Temple of Venus Victrix, twenty, or, as some record, seventeen, fought in the Circus, their opponents being Gaetulians armed with javelins, one of the animals putting up a marvelous fight - its feet being disabled by wounds it crawled against the hordes of the enemy on its knees, snatching their shields from them and throwing them into the air, and these as they fell delighted the spectators by the curves they described, as if they were being thrown by a skilled juggler and not by an infuriated wild animal. There was also a marvelous occurrence in the case of another, which was killed by a single blow, as the javelin striking it under the eye had reached the vital parts of the head.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">21. The whole band attempted to burst through the iron palisading by which they were enclosed and caused considerable trouble among the public. Owing to this, when subsequently Caesar in his dictatorship [49 b.c.] was going to exhibit a similar show he surrounded the arena with channels of water; these the emperor Nero removed when adding special places for the Knighthood. But Pompey's elephants when they had lost all hope of escape tried to gain the compassion of the crowd by indescribable gestures of entreaty, deploring their fate with a sort of wailing, so much to the distress of the public that they forgot the general and his munificence carefully devised for their honour, and bursting into tears rose in a body and invoked curses on the head of Pompey for which he soon afterwards paid the penalty. Elephants also fought for the dictator Caesar in his third consulship [46 b.c.], twenty being matched against 500 foot soldiers, and on a second occasion an equal number carrying castles each with a garrison of 60 men, who fought a pitched battle against the same number of infantry as on the former occasion and an equal number of cavalry; and subsequently for the emperors Claudius and Nero elephants versus men single-handed, as the crowning exploit of the gladiators' careers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Pliny HN 7.19-22</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">We did the kinds of things which later generations believe are the stuff of legend. Caesar who was later dictator, first, when he was aedile, used in the funeral games for his ancestors, every ostentation, beginning with the silvered sand; then for the first time the condemned in silver array attacked the beasts, which even now they emulate in the provinces. C. Antonius produced a play on a silver stage, L. Murena did the same. The Emperor Gaius brought a stage into the Circus in which the weights were silver</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Pliny. HN 33.53 </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Suetonius</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bluffton.edu/%7Esullivanm/armerina/elephant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://www.bluffton.edu/%7Esullivanm/armerina/elephant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>XLVII. While emperor he constructed no magnificent public works, for the only ones which he undertook, the temple of Augustus and the restoration of Pompey's theatre, he left unfinished after so many years. He gave no public shows at all, and very seldom attended those given by others, for fear that some request would be made of him, especially after he was forced to buy the freedom of a comic actor named Actius. Having relieved the neediness of a few senators, he avoided the necessity of further aid by declaring that he would help no others unless they proved to the Senate that there were legitimate causes for their condition. Therefore diffidence and a sense of shame kept many from applying, among them Hortalus, grandson of Quintus Hortensius the orator, who though of very limited means had begotten four children with the encouragement of Augustus.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Suet. Tib. 47.1: on Tiberius' reluctance to host gladiatorial shows</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">XXXIX. He gave entertainments of divers kinds: a combat of gladiators and also stage-plays in every ward all over the city, performed too by actors of all languages, as well as races in the circus, athletic contests, and a sham sea-fight. In the gladiatorial contest in the Forum Furius Leptinus, a man of praetorian stock, and Quintus Calpenus, a former senator and pleader at the bar, fought to a finish. A Pyrrhic dance was performed by the sons of the princes of Asia and Bithynia. During the plays Decimus Laberius, a Roman eques, acted a farce of his own composition, and having been presented with five hundred thousand sesterces and a gold ring [in token of his restoration to the rank of eques, which he forfeited by appearing on the stage], passed from the stage through the orchestra and took his place in the fourteen rows [the first fourteen rows above the orchestra, reserved for the equites by the law of L. Roscius Otho, tribune of the plebeians, in 67 B.C.]. For the races the circus was lengthened at either end and a broad canal was dug all about it; then young men of the highest rank drove four-horse and two-horse chariots and rode pairs of horses, vaulting from one to the other. The game called Troy was performed by two troops, of younger and of older boys. Combats with wild beasts were presented on five successive days, and last of all there was a battle between two opposing armies, in which five hundred foot-soldiers, twenty elephants, and thirty horsemen engaged on each side. To make room for this, the goals were taken down and in their place two camps were pitched over against each other. The athletic competitions lasted for three days in a temporary stadium built for the purpose in the region of the Campus Martius. For the naval battle a pool was dug in the lesser Codeta and there was a contest of ships of two, three, and four banks of oars, belonging to the Tyrian and Egyptian fleets, manned by a large force of fighting men. Such a throng flocked to all these shows from every quarter, that many strangers had to lodge in tents pitched in the streets or along the roads, and the press was often such that many were crushed to death, including two senators. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Suet. Iul. 39</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">X. When aedile [65 B.C.], Caesar decorated not only the Comitium and the Forum with its adjacent basilicas, but the Capitol as well, building temporary colonnades for the display of a part of his material. He exhibited combats with wild beasts and stageplays too, both with his colleague and independently. The result was that Caesar alone took all the credit even for what they spent in common, and his colleague Marcus Bibulus openly said that his was the fate of Pollux: "For," said he, "just as the temple erected in the Forum to the twin brethren, bears only the name of Castor, so the joint liberality of Caesar and myself is credited to Caesar alone." Caesar gave a gladiatorial show besides, but with somewhat fewer pairs of combatants than he had purposed; for the huge band which he assembled from all quarters so terrified his opponents, that a bill was passed limiting the number of gladiators which anyone was to be allowed to keep in the city. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">XXVI. Within this same space of time he lost first his mother, then his daughter, and soon afterwards his grandchild. Meanwhile, as the community was aghast at the murder of Publius Clodius, the senate had voted that only one consul should be chosen, and expressly named Gnaeus Pompeius. When the tribunes planned to make him Pompeius' colleague, Caesar urged them rather to propose to the people that he be permitted to stand for a second consulship without coming to Rome, when the term of his governorship drew near its end, to prevent his being forced for the sake of the office to leave his province prematurely and without finishing the war. On the granting of this, aiming still higher and flushed with hope, he neglected nothing in the way of lavish expenditure or of favors to anyone, either in his public capacity or privately. He began a forum with the proceeds of his spoils, the ground for which cost more than a hundred million sesterces. He announced a combat of gladiators and a feast for the people in memory of his daughter, a thing quite without precedent. To raise the expectation of these events to the highest possible pitch, he had the material for the banquet prepared in part by his own household, although he had let contracts to the markets as well. He gave orders too that whenever famous gladiators fought without winning the favor of the people [when ordinarily they would be put to death], they should be rescued by force and kept for him. He had the novices trained, not in a gladiatorial school by professionals, but in private houses by Roman knights and even by senators who were skilled in arms, earnestly beseeching them, as is shown by his own letters, to give the recruits individual attention and personally direct their exercises. He doubled the pay of the legions for all time. Whenever grain was plentiful, he distributed it to them without stint or measure, and now and then gave each man a slave from among the captives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Suet. Iul. 10.2, 26.2</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Augustus</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.markdroberts.com/images/roman-gladiators-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://www.markdroberts.com/images/roman-gladiators-5.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>22 Three times I gave shows of gladiators under my name and five times under the name of my sons and grandsons; in these shows about 10,000 men fought. Twice I furnished under my name spectacles of athletes gathered from everywhere, and three times under my grandson's name. I celebrated games under my name four times, and furthermore in the place of other magistrates twenty-three times. As master of the college I celebrated the secular games for the college of the Fifteen, with my colleague Marcus Agrippa, when Gaius Furnius and Gaius Silanus were consuls (17 B.C.E.). Consul for the thirteenth time (2 B.C.E.), I celebrated the first games of Mas, which after that time thereafter in following years, by a senate decree and a law, the consuls were to celebrate. Twenty-six times, under my name or that of my sons and grandsons, I gave the people hunts of African beasts invthe circus, in the open, or in the amphitheater; in them about 3,500 beasts were killed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">23 I gave the people a spectacle of a naval battle, in the place across the Tiber where the grove of the Caesars is now, with the ground excavated in length 1,800 feet, in width 1,200, in which thirty beaked ships, biremes or triremes, but many smaller, fought among themselves; in these ships about 3,000 men fought in addition to the rowers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>RG, 22-23 Deeds of Augustus</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Pliny the Younger</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">XCVII: To Calvisius</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have spent these several days past, in reading and writing, with the most pleasing tranquillity imaginable. You will ask, "How that can possibly be in the midst of Rome?" It was the time of celebrating the Circensian games: an entertainment for which I have not the least taste. They have no novelty, no variety to recommend them, nothing, in short, one would wish to see twice. It does the more surprise me therefore that so many thousand people should be possessed with the childish passion of desiring so often to see a parcel of horses gallop, and men standing upright in their chariots. If, indeed, it were the swiftness of the horses, or the skill of the men that attracted them, there might be some pretence of reason for it. But it is the dress they like; it is the dress that takes their fancy. And if, in the midst of the course and contest, the different parties were to change colours, their different partisans would change sides, and instantly desert the very same men and horses whom just before they were eagerly following with their eyes, as far as they could see, and shouting out their names with all their might. Such mighty charms, such wondrous power reside in the colour of a paltry tunic! And this not only with the common crowd (more contemptible than the dress they espouse), but even with serious-thinking people. When I observe such men thus insatiably fond of so silly, so low, so uninteresting, so common an entertainment, I congratulate myself on my indifference to these pleasures: and am glad to employ the leisure of this season upon my books, which others throw away upon the most idle occupations. Farewell.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Plin. Ep. 9.6: on chariot racing (selected letters)</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<b>Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meantime the solemn Idaen rite of the Megalesian napkin is being held; there sits the Praetor in his triumphal state, the prey of horseflesh; and (if I may say so without offense to the vast unnumbered mob) all Rome to-day is in the Circus. A roar strikes upon my ear which tells me that the Green has won; for had it lost, Rome would be as sad and dismayed as when the Consuls were vanquished in the dust of Cannae. Such sights are for the young, whom it befits to shout and make bold wagers with a smart damsel by their side; but let my shrivelled skin drink in the vernal sun, and escape the toga.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Juv. 11.193-204: on chariot racing</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestoed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things - Bread and Games!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Juv. 10.77-80: on the people and politics</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Ausonius</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Romans staged spectacles of fighting gladiators not merely at their festivals and in their theatres, borrowing the custom from the Etruscans, but also at their banquets...some would invite their friends to dinner...that they might witness two or three pairs of contestants in gladiatorial combat...when sated with dining and drink, they called in the gladiators. No sooner did one have his throat cut than the masters applauded with delight at this fight.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ECL. 23.33-7 Athenaeus, 4.153f-154a</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Valerius Maximus</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The practice of weapons training was given to soldiers by P. Rutilius, consul with C. Mallis. For he, following the example of no previous general, with teachers summoned from the gladiatorial training school of C. Aurelus Scaurus, implanted in the legions a more sophisticated method of avoiding and dealing a blow and mixed bravery with skill and skill back again with virtue so that skill became stronger by bravery's passion and passion became more wary with the knowledge of this art.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>2.3.2 </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Vegetius</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.adventurouswench.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/roman-chariot-300x271.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://www.adventurouswench.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/roman-chariot-300x271.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The ancients, we read, trained their recruits in this manner: They wove rounded shields from switches in the shape of ribbing, so that the weight of the ribbing would be double the weight an ordinary shield would have. In the same way, they gave wooden practice swords of almost double the ordinary weight as swords to the recruits. In this way, not only in the morning, but even after noon they practiced against stakes. For the use of stakes, not only for soldiers, but even for gladiators is very common. Neither the arena nor the field of battle ever pronounced a man untested by weapons acceptable unless he was taught, having excercised diligently, at the stake. Instead, individual stakes were fixed into the ground by individual recruits so that they could not sway and stood up six feet tall. Against this stake, as if against a foe, the recruit with the weighted shield and sword practiced as if with a real shield and sword - now as though he were attacking the head and face, now as though threatening from the side, and from time to time he would try to attack the thighs and legs from below, he would move back, jump forward, and on it, as if against an actual foe, so that he tested the stake with every blow, with every art of making war. In this excercise, this precaution was observed - that the recruit moved forward to deliver a blow in no way by which he himslef would open himself to one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Mil. 1.11 [FLAVI VEGETI RENATI VIRI INLUSTRIS COMITIS EPITOMA REI MILITARIS LIBRI IIII] </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Plutarch</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mindserpent.com/American_History/introduction/bg/plutarch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.mindserpent.com/American_History/introduction/bg/plutarch.jpg" width="86" /></a></div>A show of gladiators was to be exhibited before the people in the market-place, and most of the magistrates erected scaffolds round about, with an intention of letting them for advantage. Caius commanded them to take down their scaffolds, that the poor people might see the sport without paying anything. But nobody obeying these orders of his, he gathered together a body of labourers, who worked for him, and overthrew all the scaffolds the very night before the contest was to take place. So that by the next morning the market-place was cleared, and the common people had an opportunity of seeing the pastime. In this, the populace thought he had acted the part of a man; but he much disobliged the tribunes his colleagues, who regarded it as a piece of violent and presumptuous interference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Plutarch, C. Gracch, 12.3-4</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">He was so profuse in his expenses that, before he had any public employment, he was in debt thirteen hundred talents, and many thought that by incurring such expense to be popular he changed a solid good for what would prove but a short and uncertain return; but in truth he was purchasing what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable rate. When he was made surveyor of the Appian Way, he disbursed, besides the public money, a great sum out of his private purse; and when he was aedile, he provided such a number of gladiators, that he entertained the people with three hundred and twenty single combats, and by his great liberality and magnificence in theatrical shows, in processions, and public feastings, he threw into the shade all the attempts that had been made before him, and gained so much upon the people, that every one was eager to find out new offices and new honours for him in return for his munificence. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Caesar, upon his return to Rome, did not omit to pronounce before the people a magnificent account of his victory, telling them that he had subdued a country which would supply the public every year with two hundred thousand attic bushels of corn and three million pounds' weight of oil. He then led three triumphs for Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, the last for the victory over, not Scipio, but King Juba, as it was professed, whose little son was then carried in the triumph, the happiest captive that ever was, who, of a barbarian Numidian, came by this means to obtain a place among the most learned historians of Greece. After the triumphs, he distributed rewards to his soldiers, and treated the people with feasting and shows. He entertained the whole people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and of battles by sea, in honour, as he said, of his daughter Julia, though she had been long since dead. When these shows were over, an account was taken of the people who, from three hundred and twenty thousand, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand. So great a waste had the civil war made in Rome alone, not to mention what the other parts of Italy and the provinces suffered. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Plutarch, J. Caes, 5.4</i></div></div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2357698170564539800.post-90912458320192135402011-04-24T01:53:00.000-07:002011-06-15T05:07:57.003-07:00Pella curse tablet - katadesmos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">The <b>Pella curse tablet</b> is a text written in a distinct <b>Doric Greek idiom</b>, found in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedon, in 1986. Ιt contains a curse or magic spell (Greek: <i>κατάδεσμος</i>, katadesmos) inscribed on a lead scroll, dating to first half of the 4th century BC (c. 375-350 BC). It was published in the Hellenic Dialectology Journal in 1993. It is one of four texts found until today that might represent a local dialectal form of ancient Greek in Macedonia, all of them identifiable as Doric. These confirm that a Doric Greek dialect was spoken in Macedonia, as was previously expected from the West Greek forms of names found in Macedonia. As a result, the Pella curse tablet has been forwarded as an argument that the Ancient Macedonian language was a dialect of North-Western Greek, part of the Doric dialects.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://history-of-macedonia.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10001/katadesmos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://history-of-macedonia.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10001/katadesmos.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Interpretation</b></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The tablet is also described as a "mixed curse" due to the supplicative nature of the appeal. For example the word ΕΡΗΜΑ or "abandoned" is quite common in appeals to divine powers. It is a magic spell or love charm written by a woman, possibly named Dagina (Ancient Greek: <i>Δαγίνα</i>), whose lover Dionysophōn (<i>Διονυσοφῶν</i>, gen.: <i>Διονυσοφῶντος</i>) is apparently about to marry Thetima (<i>Θετίμα</i>, "she who honors the gods"; the standard Attic Greek form is Theotimē - <i>Θεοτίμη</i>). She invokes "Makron and the demons" (parkattithemai makrōni kai [tois] daimosi - <i>παρκαττίθεμαι μάκρωνι καὶ</i> [<i>τοῖς</i>] <i>δαίμοσι</i>; in Attic, <i>παρκαττίθεμαι </i>is parakatatithemai - <i>παρακατατίθεμαι</i>) to cause Dionysophon to marry her instead of Thetima, and never to marry another woman unless she herself recovers and unrolls the scroll and for her to grow old by the side of Dionysophon.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Katadesmoi or defixiones were spells written on non-perishable material, such as lead, stone or baked clay, and were secretly buried to ensure their physical integrity, which would then guarantee the permanence of their intended effects. The language is a distinct form of North-West Greek, and the low social status of its writer, as (arguably) evidenced by her vocabulary and belief in magic, strongly hint that a unique form of West Greek was spoken by lay people in Pella at the time the tablet was written. This should not, however, be taken to indicate that only those of middling or low social status practiced magic in the Ancient Greek world: quite wealthy individuals also used lead katadesmoi (curse tablets) for love, revenge, and to bind their opponents in athletic contests.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Text and translation</b></div><br />
<i>Greek</i><br />
<br />
1. [ΘΕΤΙ]ΜΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΦΩΝΤΟΣ ΤΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΝ ΓΑΜΟΝ ΚΑΤΑΓΡΑΦΩ ΚΑΙ ΤΑΝ ΑΛΛΑΝ ΠΑΣΑΝ ΓΥ<br />
2. [ΝΑΙΚ]ΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΧΗΡΑΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΘΕΝΩΝ ΜΑΛΙΣΤΑ ΔΕ ΘΕΤΙΜΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΑΡΚΑΤΤΙΘΕΜΑΙ ΜΑΚΡΩΝΙ ΚΑΙ<br />
3. [ΤΟΙΣ] ΔΑΙΜΟΣΙ ΚΑΙ ΟΠΟΚΑ ΕΓΟ ΤΑΥΤΑ ΔΙΕΛΕΞΑΙΜΙ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΓΝΟΙΗΝ ΠΑΛLΙΝ ΑΝΟΡΟΞΑΣΑ<br />
4. [ΤΟΚΑ] ΓΑΜΑΙ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΦΩΝΤΑ ΠΡΟΤΕΡΟΝ ΔΕ ΜΗ ΜΗ ΓΑΡ ΛΑΒΟΙ ΑΛΛΑΝ ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ ΑΛΛ Η ΕΜΕ<br />
5. [ΕΜΕ Δ]Ε ΣΥΝΚΑΤΑΓΗΡΑΣΑΙ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΦΩΝΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΜΗΔΕΜΙΑΝ ΑΛΛΑΝ ΙΚΕΤΙΣ ΥΜΩΝ ΓΙΝΟ<br />
6. [ΜΑΙ ΦΙΛ]ΑΝ ΟΙΚΤΙΡΕΤΕ ΔΑΙΜΟΝΕΣ ΦΙΛ[Ο]Ι ΔΑΓΙΝΑΓΑΡΙΜΕ ΦΙΛΩΝ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΡΗΜΑ ΑΛΛΑ<br />
7. [....]Α ΦΥΛΑΣΣΕΤΕ ΕΜΙΝ Ο[Π]ΩΣ ΜΗ ΓΙΝΕΤΑΙ ΤΑ[Υ]ΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΚΑΚΑ ΚΑΚΩΣ ΘΕΤΙΜΑ ΑΠΟΛΗΤΑΙ<br />
8. [....]ΑΛ[-].ΥΝΜ .. ΕΣΠΛΗΝ ΕΜΟΣ ΕΜΕ ΔΕ [Ε]Υ[Δ]ΑΙΜΟΝΑ ΚΑΙ ΜΑΚΑΡΙΑΝ ΓΕΝΕΣΤΑΙ<br />
9. [-]ΤΟ[.].[-].[..]..Ε.Ε.Ω[?]Α.[.]Ε..ΜΕΓΕ [-] <br />
<br />
<br />
<i>English</i><br />
<br />
1. Of [Theti]ma and Dionysophon the ritual wedding and the marriage I bind by a written spell, and of all other<br />
2. wo[men], widows and maidens, but of Thetima in particular, and I entrust upon Makron* and<br />
3. [the] demons. And that only whenever I dig out and unroll and re-read this,<br />
4. [then] may they wed Dionysophon, but not before; and may he never wed any woman but me;<br />
5. and may [I] grow old with Dionysophon, and no one else. I [am] your supplicant:<br />
6. Have pity on [Phil?]a*, dear demons, for I am Dagina* of all my dear ones and abandoned.<br />
7. But please keep this for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably<br />
8. but let me become happy and blessed. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Points of interpretation</b></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">"Makron" (line 2) is most probably the name of the dead man in whose grave the tablet was deposited. This was commonly done in the belief that the deceased would "convey" the message to the spirits of the Underworld (the "demons" in lines 3 and 6).</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The missing word in line 6 between "I am your supplicant" and "have pity" (here reconstructed as [Phil?]a) is carved at the edge of the tablet and the only things we can read of it are that it is a short word that ends in-AN. "PHILAN" is a likely reconstruction, but by no means the only one possible. If true, the word "PHILAN" could equally well be either the personal name "Phila" or the feminine adjective "phila", "friend" or "dear one". In the latter case, an alternative reading of line 6 would be: "Have pity on your dear one, dear demons". In the former case, a personal name would be perfectly placed but, as the name of the person who wrote the curse is not mentioned elsewhere, it is impossible to know with certainty what the missing word is.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The word "DAGINA" (line 6) is inexplicable and previously unattested, even as a personal name. The alternative has been suggested by Dubois, that it is a misspelling, and that the writer intended to write "dapina" (the difference between Γ and Π being a single stroke). If true, this may mean that dapina is an (also unattested) Macedonian rendering of what would be written "<i>ταπεινή</i>", tapeinē (humble, lowly, brought low), in standard Attic. In this case the inscription reads: "for I am lowly and abandoned by all my dear ones" etc.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Dating</b></div><br />
According to D. R. Jordan (Duke University), the tablet has been dated to the "Mid-IV [century] or slightly earlier".<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Significance</b></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">The discovery of the Pella curse tablet, according to Olivier Masson, substantiates the view that the <b>ancient Macedonian language was a form of North-West Greek:</b></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">"<i>Yet in contrast with earlier views which made of it {i.e. Macedonian} an Aeolic dialect (O. Hoffmann compared Thessalian) we must by now think of a link with North-West Greek (Locrian, Aetolian, Phocidian, Epirote). This view is supported by the recent discovery at Pella of a curse tablet (4th cent. BC), which may well be the first 'Macedonian' text attested (provisional publication by E. Voutyras; cf. the Bulletin Epigraphique in Rev. Et. Grec. 1994, no. 413); the text includes an adverb "opoka" which is not Thessalian.</i>"</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Of the same opinion is James L. O'Neil's (University of Sydney) presentation at the 2005 Conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, entitled "Doric Forms in Macedonian Inscriptions" (abstract):</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">"<i>A fourth‐century BC curse tablet from Pella shows word forms which are clearly Doric, but a different form of Doric from any of the west Greek dialects of areas adjoining Macedon. Three other, very brief, fourth century inscriptions are also indubitably Doric. These show that a Doric dialect was spoken in Macedon, as we would expect from the West Greek forms of Greek names found in Macedon. And yet later Macedonian inscriptions are in Koine avoiding both Doric forms and the Macedonian voicing of consonants. The native Macedonian dialect had become unsuitable for written documents.</i>"</div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Sources</b></div><br />
Bloomer, Martin (2005). The Contest of Language: Before and Beyond Nationalism. University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0268021902.<br />
Curbera, Jaime; Jordan, David (2002-2003). "Curse Tablets from Pydna". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (Duke University) 43 (2): 109–128. ISSN 00173916.<br />
Damon, Cynthia; Miller, John F.; Myers, K. Sara; Courtney, Edward (2002). Vertis in usum: Studies in Honor of Edward Courtney. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3598777108.<br />
Dubois, Laurent (1995). "Une Tablette de Malediction de Pella: S’Agit-il du Premier Texte Macédonien". Revue des Études Grecques 108: 190–197.<br />
Fantuzzi, Marco; Hunter, Richard L. (2004). Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521835119.<br />
Fortson, Benjamin W. (2009). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 1405188960.<br />
Gager, John G. (1999). Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0195134826.<br />
Jordan, D. R. (2000). "New Greek Curse Tablets (1985–2000)". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (Duke University) 41: 5–46.<br />
Masson, Olivier; Dubois, Laurent (2000). Onomastica Graeca Selecta. Librairie Droz. ISBN 2600004351.<br />
Masson, Olivier (1996). Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press.<br />
Voutiras, Emmanuel (1998). Dionysophōntos Gamoi: Marital Life and Magic in Fourth Century Pella. J.C. Gieben. ISBN 9050634079.</div>Arachnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362926287886440705noreply@blogger.com1