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Quintilian, The Education of the Orator, 3.8.44-47:
Meanwhile, if you are trying to persuade someone good to do something shameful, remember not to try to persuade him on the grounds that it is shameful-- the way that some declaimers urge Sextus Pompey toward piracy with the very excuse that he is already dishonest and cruel. Rather, such ugly matters need to be given an angle. This obtains even with evil people: no one is so evil that he wants to seem so. Thus in Sallust, Catiline speaks so as to seem to be attempting the worst crime not out of wickedness but out of a sense of outrage; thus in Varius’s Thyestes, Atreus says: “Now I accept, now I am forced to commit the most unspeakable.” This ambition, as it were, has to be protected all the more in those audiences who are concerned about their reputation. That’s why when we advise Cicero to plead with Antony, even on the condition that he burn the Philippics (Antony promises to spare him if he does), we will not appeal to Cicero’s desire to live (because if this is a strong motive in his mind, it will be strong even if we don’t mention it). Rather, we exhort him to preserve himself for the good of the state. He needs this kind of excuse so that he can be unashamed to make such a plea. Similarly, when we are persuading Caesar to take absolute power, we assert that the state cannot be stable unless a single person rules it. For someone who is considering a nefarious deed looks chiefly for how he can least appear to be committing a crime.
Commonplace book: Pliny's fantasy triumph
May. 11th, 2015 11:02 amSeriously Pliny, keep your Trajan-RPF to yourself...
Now I picture that future triumph: dripping not with plunder from the provinces or gold extorted from our allies, but with enemy arms and the chains of captive kings. I picture myself noting one by one the impressive names of chieftains and the bodies appropriate to those names. I imagine gazing on the litters burdened with barbarians’ massive and bold works, each one, his hands bound, following his own deeds. Then you yourself on high, standing on a chariot on the backs of conquered peoples, and before your chariot shields that you yourself pierced. Nor would you lack the “richest spoils”, if any king should dare to come within range, to shrink back as your throw not only your spear, but your threatening eyes across the whole field and the whole army.
--Pan.17.1-4
Well fancy that.
Apr. 23rd, 2015 03:01 pmIt looks like Tamora Pierce has a dreamwidth journal now. The announcement on her tumblr promises, "There is also a forum for Tammy’s fans to discuss topics outside of those covered in Tammy’s posts, though membership is not yet open. We’ll let everyone know when it is!" So... a new Sheroes? It's true that the dominant membership of 'Roes these days is mostly former rather than current fans, but it still feels a little like she's trying to replace us oldsters. (Hrmph.)
I don't actually spend my time internet-stalking favorite authors from my teenage years that I love to hate (actually I do), but for some reason I had the urge to reread Shatterglass this morning. I don't think I had read it since it came out 2003 -- long before I became a Classics major -- and I can now say that a knowledge of Greek and a vague understanding of Indo-European linguistics gives you access to zero linguistic or historico-cultural "easter eggs" in all the tedious "as you know, the ancient history of the city stretches back 1000 years" or "she said, using the Tharian word that meant "mage"" exposition. Tris, angsty glassmaker-dude, and amiable doofus policeman were actually less annoying than I remembered, but wow are TP's attempts to convey the mentalities of a foreign culture heavy-handed! On the other hand, Tris' "ugh this icky non-Western culture is gross and stupid and superstitious and I can't wait to go home" attitude was somewhat worse than I remembered. (And in a universe where all the characters constantly go on about magic and its connection to the living world and the human life force, why shouldn't death *actually cause* pollution with *actually dangerous* effects? Why does Tamora Pierce keep making up fantasy settings based on real-world historical cultures where religious and social and courtly rituals have a large role and then always make up characters to inhabit those settings who act like Richard Dawkins?)
I don't actually spend my time internet-stalking favorite authors from my teenage years that I love to hate (actually I do), but for some reason I had the urge to reread Shatterglass this morning. I don't think I had read it since it came out 2003 -- long before I became a Classics major -- and I can now say that a knowledge of Greek and a vague understanding of Indo-European linguistics gives you access to zero linguistic or historico-cultural "easter eggs" in all the tedious "as you know, the ancient history of the city stretches back 1000 years" or "she said, using the Tharian word that meant "mage"" exposition. Tris, angsty glassmaker-dude, and amiable doofus policeman were actually less annoying than I remembered, but wow are TP's attempts to convey the mentalities of a foreign culture heavy-handed! On the other hand, Tris' "ugh this icky non-Western culture is gross and stupid and superstitious and I can't wait to go home" attitude was somewhat worse than I remembered. (And in a universe where all the characters constantly go on about magic and its connection to the living world and the human life force, why shouldn't death *actually cause* pollution with *actually dangerous* effects? Why does Tamora Pierce keep making up fantasy settings based on real-world historical cultures where religious and social and courtly rituals have a large role and then always make up characters to inhabit those settings who act like Richard Dawkins?)
When what you have is a hammer...
Apr. 2nd, 2015 08:50 amEverything's coming up nails, as it were.
The Glass Sentence is a YA/middle grade fantasy novel about an alternate universe where different regions of the world have been thrust into different historical periods (so the American colonies share a continent with roughly 1000 CE-era pre-Columbian America to the west and Ice-Age to the North; Europe is papal states but the British Isles are either pre-anthropocene or maybe post-apocalyptic, etc.). We pick up in Boston in 1891 CE, about 100 years after the Event that dislocated time. Sophia lives with her uncle, a master mapmaker and scholar of other place-times, since her explorer parents disappeared on an expedition. But the isolationist local politics are pretty clearly going to combine with some sort of complicated magic/time-dislocation angle pretty soon for adventures and dramatic intrigue. I just got to the point where Sophia's uncle shows her that maps can be more than paper -- in fact, they can be MAGIC.
One can poke holes in the premise ad infinitum (and believe me, I can't keep myself from doing it, though the book is okay at answering a lot my questions a few pages after they've occurred to me) but so far, it's shaping up to be quite fun.
"But you must know that memory maps -- maps of all kinds, really -- are inexact. They are only the best possible approximation. Think of them like books of history: the author will try to be as accurate as possible, but often he or she is relying on slim pieces of evidence, and there is as much art and interpretation as there is factual content. The best maps will show the cartologer's hand at work rather than conceal it, making plain the interpretative work and suggesting, even, other possible interpretations."
"Does that mean that people could create maps that distort what really happened? Maps that are made up?"
"They could indeed," Shadrack said gravely. "It is a serious crime to do so. But all honest mapmakers swear an oath to tell only the truth, and you must look for the mark of that oath when you examine a memory map." --S.E. Grove, The Glass Sentence (Viking 2014): 78.
The Glass Sentence is a YA/middle grade fantasy novel about an alternate universe where different regions of the world have been thrust into different historical periods (so the American colonies share a continent with roughly 1000 CE-era pre-Columbian America to the west and Ice-Age to the North; Europe is papal states but the British Isles are either pre-anthropocene or maybe post-apocalyptic, etc.). We pick up in Boston in 1891 CE, about 100 years after the Event that dislocated time. Sophia lives with her uncle, a master mapmaker and scholar of other place-times, since her explorer parents disappeared on an expedition. But the isolationist local politics are pretty clearly going to combine with some sort of complicated magic/time-dislocation angle pretty soon for adventures and dramatic intrigue. I just got to the point where Sophia's uncle shows her that maps can be more than paper -- in fact, they can be MAGIC.
One can poke holes in the premise ad infinitum (and believe me, I can't keep myself from doing it, though the book is okay at answering a lot my questions a few pages after they've occurred to me) but so far, it's shaping up to be quite fun.
forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit...
Mar. 2nd, 2015 09:24 amToday's the day. Closed exam in 1/2 an hour, public defense at noon.
Ross Douthat, seriously???
I mean, yeah. As we all know, the kyriarchy ceased to exist with the domination of Christian sexual ethics in the 5th century CE. No one was ever ever exploited again until the 1970's. The fact that the sexual politics in modern America are (still) terrible definitely does not have anything to do with cultural habits and mores and beliefs that pre-existed the "sexual revolution."
I'm not going to quote the part about "the bizarre modern ideal is sexual freedom for everyone where coercion and harm are prevented by things like age of consent laws and contraception and "regulations about initiating intercourse" (exact quote: this is apparently ReligiousRight for "enthusiastic consent and not raping people"). Because...Yes? And the fact that some of this has become reality is a good thing! And don't worry, Ross: same-sex marriage and enthusiastic consent were definitely *not* features of ancient sexual ethics. It's okay: it's possible to have sex that St. Jerome wouldn't approve of without also e.g., being a brutally hierarchical slave society where girls are married at 13. And the former is what we're going for here.
(This was the part where the essay reminded me of just how different the moral universes are that Douthat (it's really tempting to type "Douchehat") and I inhabit. Is there even any point to me posting this, for example? There's really no point, except that it made me ragey and I need to get my rant out before I go finish my dissertation (ulp).)
Or the part where he suggests that liberal feminist sex-positive types are criticizing 50 Shades of Gray because it's portrayal of BDSM isn't realistic enough. Obviously, the fact that most of the criticism is actually about how it depicts a completely traditional abusive relationship would undermine his point about how liberals don't understand that modern supposedly "liberated" sexual culture isstill newly unequal.
At times, as the French writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry recently suggested, this side of sexual revolution looks more like “sexual reaction,” a step way back toward a libertinism more like that of pre-Christian Rome —anti-egalitarian and hierarchical, privileging men over women, adults over children, the upper class over the lower orders.
I mean, yeah. As we all know, the kyriarchy ceased to exist with the domination of Christian sexual ethics in the 5th century CE. No one was ever ever exploited again until the 1970's. The fact that the sexual politics in modern America are (still) terrible definitely does not have anything to do with cultural habits and mores and beliefs that pre-existed the "sexual revolution."
I'm not going to quote the part about "the bizarre modern ideal is sexual freedom for everyone where coercion and harm are prevented by things like age of consent laws and contraception and "regulations about initiating intercourse" (exact quote: this is apparently ReligiousRight for "enthusiastic consent and not raping people"). Because...Yes? And the fact that some of this has become reality is a good thing! And don't worry, Ross: same-sex marriage and enthusiastic consent were definitely *not* features of ancient sexual ethics. It's okay: it's possible to have sex that St. Jerome wouldn't approve of without also e.g., being a brutally hierarchical slave society where girls are married at 13. And the former is what we're going for here.
(This was the part where the essay reminded me of just how different the moral universes are that Douthat (it's really tempting to type "Douchehat") and I inhabit. Is there even any point to me posting this, for example? There's really no point, except that it made me ragey and I need to get my rant out before I go finish my dissertation (ulp).)
Or the part where he suggests that liberal feminist sex-positive types are criticizing 50 Shades of Gray because it's portrayal of BDSM isn't realistic enough. Obviously, the fact that most of the criticism is actually about how it depicts a completely traditional abusive relationship would undermine his point about how liberals don't understand that modern supposedly "liberated" sexual culture is
On sci-ff reading lists
Feb. 1st, 2015 12:05 pmSo I started Pierce Brown'a Red Rising -- basically, it's as if Brown read the Hunger Games and thought, "you know what this needs? More gritty manly realism and more angsty chosen-one manpain. Let me take care of that." Our hero is a young, hardworking everyman "Red" (ie low-caste) in a hardscrabble mining colony in District 12 on Mars in a future that uses classical names for everything; when his beloved wife is executed for a simple act of defiance, he falls in with The Rebellion and learns that Everything The Government Tells Us Is a Lie: Mars has been terraformed for centuries, and while his people labor in slavery beneath the surface, the ruling elites of the Capitol the Gold caste lead lives of absurd excess.
Where I am right now, our hero is undergoing a process of having his body remade into that of a Gold so that he can infiltratethe Hunger Games the academy where the sons and daughters of the elite fight it out in brutal game of survival of the fittest in order to determine who dies and who goes on the be the next generation of Ruthlessly Evil Overlords of Mars. Okay, yes, it's terrible, and I am really annoyed that the whole plot is motivated by manpain over the Death Of My Beloved, My Angel, The Gentle Light of My Life Whose Beauty and Inner Strength Made Life Worth Living. But (a) the writing isn't awful and (b) I have an obligation to read all the terrible faux-Rome sff.
Anyway, there was this paragraph:
So...a mix of "classics" and made-up "future classics", but I don't get the narrative that they are trying to tell -- apart from the fact that, uh, I guess the only books that survived into the future were the contents of an American high school English classroom? This kind of passage seems like a great place to briefly tell a narrative what this future-evil-privileged society values and fears. Apart from the fact that I don't trust the author enough to be sure that when he says "Ulysses" he means James Joyce and not the Odyssey (ditto for Metamorphosis: Kafka's Die Verwandlung or Ovid's Metamorphoses?), I don't really get what this set of texts is supposed to do: the Iliad and Anabasis makes a certain kind of sense as classics for a military elite; I suspect that (the?) Metamorphoses(?) is a nod to the transformations that the elite of this society undergo to become superhuman (but...I'm pretty sure that either Ovid's or Kafka's would be on the "restricted" list as far as messages about metamorphosis and society and the fate of the human when s/he is forcibly transformed by (unjust) power structures. Ditto Sophocles. For fuck's sake. Have any of these people read the Antigone?). The Odyssey is probably there because this is all about our hero's love for his wife.
However, I think that overall, these are pretty terrible lists to represent a ruthless, power-hungry, corrupt class of Rome-emulating rulers. Where the fuck is Thucydides? Where's Machiavelli? Where's Ayn Rand? HOW CAN YOU HAVE REALPOLITIK WITHOUT THUCYDIDES? (and where's Tacitus? How can you have imperial Rome without Tacitus. YOU CAN'T.) Where's Lucan? I bet this society would love Lucan. And, of course, let's not even ask why this is completely euro-centric reading list.
I also think that one could be cleverer with the whole "restricted reading" list, although it hangs together a bit (themes of dystopia, Hobbesian excess, and revenge). I mean, 1984, Lord of the Flies...can you be more cliched? Put some real protest writing or anti-injustice writing on there. Make a more explicit allusion to your antecedent of the Hunger Games (wouldn't that be clever?) Or put the Aeneid (!!!!!). When I write a trashy ya dystopia novel about a futuristic oligarchy that models itself on Rome, remind me to throw in an aside about how the Aeneid is a deeply subversive and restricted text because of Vergil's problematization of empire and ambivalence about power. We'll call it The Revenge of the Harvard School.
Where I am right now, our hero is undergoing a process of having his body remade into that of a Gold so that he can infiltrate
Anyway, there was this paragraph:
“My body is not all that changes. Before I sleep, I drink a tonic laden with processing enhancers and speed-listen to The Colors, The Iliad, Ulysses, Metamorphosis, the Theban plays, The Draconic Labels, Anabasis, and restricted works like The Count of Monte Cristo, Lord of the Flies, Lady Casterly’s Penance, 1984, and The Great Gatsby. I wake knowing three thousand years of literature and legal code and history.” (ch. 12)
So...a mix of "classics" and made-up "future classics", but I don't get the narrative that they are trying to tell -- apart from the fact that, uh, I guess the only books that survived into the future were the contents of an American high school English classroom? This kind of passage seems like a great place to briefly tell a narrative what this future-evil-privileged society values and fears. Apart from the fact that I don't trust the author enough to be sure that when he says "Ulysses" he means James Joyce and not the Odyssey (ditto for Metamorphosis: Kafka's Die Verwandlung or Ovid's Metamorphoses?), I don't really get what this set of texts is supposed to do: the Iliad and Anabasis makes a certain kind of sense as classics for a military elite; I suspect that (the?) Metamorphoses(?) is a nod to the transformations that the elite of this society undergo to become superhuman (but...I'm pretty sure that either Ovid's or Kafka's would be on the "restricted" list as far as messages about metamorphosis and society and the fate of the human when s/he is forcibly transformed by (unjust) power structures. Ditto Sophocles. For fuck's sake. Have any of these people read the Antigone?). The Odyssey is probably there because this is all about our hero's love for his wife.
However, I think that overall, these are pretty terrible lists to represent a ruthless, power-hungry, corrupt class of Rome-emulating rulers. Where the fuck is Thucydides? Where's Machiavelli? Where's Ayn Rand? HOW CAN YOU HAVE REALPOLITIK WITHOUT THUCYDIDES? (and where's Tacitus? How can you have imperial Rome without Tacitus. YOU CAN'T.) Where's Lucan? I bet this society would love Lucan. And, of course, let's not even ask why this is completely euro-centric reading list.
I also think that one could be cleverer with the whole "restricted reading" list, although it hangs together a bit (themes of dystopia, Hobbesian excess, and revenge). I mean, 1984, Lord of the Flies...can you be more cliched? Put some real protest writing or anti-injustice writing on there. Make a more explicit allusion to your antecedent of the Hunger Games (wouldn't that be clever?) Or put the Aeneid (!!!!!). When I write a trashy ya dystopia novel about a futuristic oligarchy that models itself on Rome, remind me to throw in an aside about how the Aeneid is a deeply subversive and restricted text because of Vergil's problematization of empire and ambivalence about power. We'll call it The Revenge of the Harvard School.
[generalized whining]
Jan. 18th, 2015 01:58 pmI've had some sort of mild stomach bug since Friday, which has mostly made me sleep a ton, feel groggy, and waste my time rereading Garth Nix's Old Kingdom books instead of working on my dissertation. So this afternoon it has to be back to work. Even though what I really want now is Old Kingdom/Downton Abbey crossover fic: e.g., a couple years after Abhorsen, Nick and Lirael (who are friends and maybe occasional lovers but are *not* married, incidentally) are doing ambassador-y things in Ancelstierre, and Nick's familial obligations/connections get them invited to a house party in the North... anyway, I think it would be hilarious, but no one seems to have written it yet. So we can add that to the mental file of Weird Crossover Fanfic That Ricardienne Would Write If She Weren't So Lazy...
Family trees are fun!
Jul. 13th, 2014 01:57 pmThe next time anyone complains about People These Days Giving Their Children Terrible Names, I'm going to point out that in the family tree of my mother's father's old New England family, in addition to the Abijahs, the Amariah, and the Shubaels (all m.), Persises (or should that be Persides?), Parmelias (Parmeliae?), Zoella and Angenette (all f.), there's a Comfort, a Welcome (both m.), a Thankful, a Waitstill, and a Waity (all three f.).
(I actually like the name Persis a lot. Waity, not so much.)
(I actually like the name Persis a lot. Waity, not so much.)
Commonplace Book: Caesar and the Pirates
Apr. 19th, 2014 01:19 pmVelleius Paterculus, 2.41.3-43.1
Still a young man, he was captured by pirates, and his behavior among them for the whole duration of his captivity instilled equal measures of fear and respect. Never, either day or night (for why should the most important point be left out, simply because it cannot be said elegantly?) did he go without belt or shoes, to not become suspect, by varying anything from his usual routine, to the men who were guarding him merely with their eyes.
It would be too long to relate how many and what attempts he dared, how vehemently the magistrate of the Roman people who had been allotted the province of Asia failed to support these attempts out of his own cowardice. Consider it evidence of a man who would later survive much. When he was ransomed with funds from the local cities (on the condition that he force the pirates to give hostages beforehand), that very night he got together an adhoc and unofficial fleet, sailed to the pirates' location, where he put some of their ships to flight, sunk others, and captured a number of them along with many souls.
Rejoicing in his nocturnal expedition, he returned to his men in triumph, and, having turned over his captives into custody, he set out for Bithynia to Iuncus the Proconsul (who had been allotted this province as well as that of Asia), asking him to use his authority to execute the captured pirates. When Iuncus refused to do it and said that he would sell them instead, his sloth having turned into a grudge, Caesar sailed back with unbelievable speed. Before the Proconsul's dispatch on the subject could be given to anyone, he crucified all of his captives.
Subsequently, hastening back to Italy to take up a priesthood (he had been chosen Pontifex in the place of the distinguished Cotta)… to avoid being sighted by the pirates, who controlled all the seas and were understandable hostile to him, he embarked on a four-oared boat with only two companions and ten slaves and crossed the raging gulf of the Adriatic. During the crossing, he thought that he sighted the pirates' ships When he had thrown off his clothes and bound a dagger to his thigh, preparing himself for every eventuality of fortune, he then realized that his vision had been mistaken and that a stand of trees seen from an angle had given the appearance of masts.
It seems that the publishing industry is trying to make Cleopatra Selene into the new 'Tudors' -- this is the third recent historical fiction treatment. I haven't read Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter, but I have read the first two books in Stephanie Dray's trilogy, and now, Vicky Shecter's Cleopatra's Moon.
The tropes seem to be pretty constant: Cleopatra's family is extremely (and un-historically) Egyptianized, Selene is a devotee of Isis (Isis rigorously part of the Egyptian pantheon, usually) and a complete, patriotic partisan, Octavian/Augustus is the evilest person who ever eviled, Greco-Egyptians are cultured, intellectual, open-minded and gentle while Romans are brutal, patriarchal, and uncivilized.
Shecter, like Dray, seems to be hampered by history, which puts an awkward necessity (there will be spoilers coming up) on the way that their narratives go. ( Spoilers for History )
In conclusion: You could write so many awesome YA novels set in this general period. Livia in the late 40's and 30's: 16 years old and newly married, watching her male relatives get killed, fleeing around the Mediterranean and doing everything she can to protect who's left. "Turia", also newly married and having to play party politics and work really hard in a man's world to keep her family hidden and get amnesty for them. On a lighter note, Sulpicia and the Tibullan circle hanging out, writing love poetry, and maybe getting involved with Gallus and that whole debacle. Heck, someone should take Julia seriously, and not just dismiss her has the frivolous, immoral daughter of Augustus with a million affairs (it's frustrating that these Cleopatra Selene novels, in trying to rehabilitate one or two ancient women, just reapply and intensify the stereotypes to all of the other (in)famous women of the period) -- recall that all of the men she was rumored to have been involved with were *also* all of the remaining descendants of the oldest senatorial families. Julia the dedicated republican idealist, anyone? To move a bit later: what about a novel about teen-aged Agrippina the Younger and her mother? What about Epicharis? What about Berenike? (What about the Arrias and the Fannias? What about Servilia?) The field is wide open, people!
The tropes seem to be pretty constant: Cleopatra's family is extremely (and un-historically) Egyptianized, Selene is a devotee of Isis (Isis rigorously part of the Egyptian pantheon, usually) and a complete, patriotic partisan, Octavian/Augustus is the evilest person who ever eviled, Greco-Egyptians are cultured, intellectual, open-minded and gentle while Romans are brutal, patriarchal, and uncivilized.
Shecter, like Dray, seems to be hampered by history, which puts an awkward necessity (there will be spoilers coming up) on the way that their narratives go. ( Spoilers for History )
In conclusion: You could write so many awesome YA novels set in this general period. Livia in the late 40's and 30's: 16 years old and newly married, watching her male relatives get killed, fleeing around the Mediterranean and doing everything she can to protect who's left. "Turia", also newly married and having to play party politics and work really hard in a man's world to keep her family hidden and get amnesty for them. On a lighter note, Sulpicia and the Tibullan circle hanging out, writing love poetry, and maybe getting involved with Gallus and that whole debacle. Heck, someone should take Julia seriously, and not just dismiss her has the frivolous, immoral daughter of Augustus with a million affairs (it's frustrating that these Cleopatra Selene novels, in trying to rehabilitate one or two ancient women, just reapply and intensify the stereotypes to all of the other (in)famous women of the period) -- recall that all of the men she was rumored to have been involved with were *also* all of the remaining descendants of the oldest senatorial families. Julia the dedicated republican idealist, anyone? To move a bit later: what about a novel about teen-aged Agrippina the Younger and her mother? What about Epicharis? What about Berenike? (What about the Arrias and the Fannias? What about Servilia?) The field is wide open, people!
Homeric Scholarship: UR DOIN IT WRONG
Apr. 9th, 2014 09:10 amI'm reading Vicky Alvear Shechter's CLeopatra's Moon, yet another YA novel about Cleopatra Selene (daughter of THE Cleopatra), because we aren't ever going to get *good* Roman-world YA novels unless people demonstrate that they read even the terrible ones. (No, I am not really deluded into thinking that my library account does anything in this regard.)
It's really bad, though. There was a really awful scene where the main character goes to a synagogue in Alexandria and debates a Rabbi (nb it's clear Shecter has forgotten that Judaism was a sacrifice-religion at this point.) about free will and the role of women in the Edenic fall, and ZOMG totally stumps him wow!1!. And just. You know, if this guy supposedly hangs out with the scholars in the Library of Alexandria, I'm thinking he would be able to explain the philosophical principles of his religion to an 8-year-old.
Of course, Cleopatra's Greek tutor appears not to have read Homer, let alone be aware of, oh I don't know, the philosophical and scholarly work that was the WHOLE POINT OF THE LIBRARY, so maybe it isn't strange that Mr Rabbi has gotten complacent.
I mean, I know that it's probably not fair to expect a YA novel to represent the past at this level of detail, but I will point out that we do actually know a lot about the standard schoolroom exegesis of Homer in antiquity! A correct answer to the first question, as it happens, would be "Because, as the Cypria tells us, the Trojan War was Zeus's plan for ridding the world of surplus population, and the death among the Greeks caused by Achilles' quarrel with Agamemnon served that plan." (I'm not saying that it's a particularly brilliant interpretation, but that's ancient primary school for you!)
But I really object this claim that's she's had them make twice, Achilles' death is somehow caused by his attempt to circumvent fate and that this demonstrates that mortals have no free will (apart from the fact that being punished for attempting to oppose the will of the gods kind of *does* imply free will. But let's ignore that for now). Um, have you read the Iliad, Vicky Shecter? You know that part where Thetis tells Achilles that he has two possible fates: to go home and live a long life in Phthia without glory, or to die young in battle and win kleos aphthiton? I suppose you could make the argument that Patroclus dies as punishment for Achilles' contemplation of the former choice. But ultimately, Achilles very definitely chooses the latter. And he dies in battle, through some fairly dodgy divine machinations, but in no way as the result of having "tried to escape his fate".
And I'm not even going to rant about this bizarre, reductive, and completely wrong definition of hubris. ARGH ARGH ARGH PEOPLE ARE BEING WRONG ABOUT THINGS I KNOW THINGS ABOUT.
It's really bad, though. There was a really awful scene where the main character goes to a synagogue in Alexandria and debates a Rabbi (nb it's clear Shecter has forgotten that Judaism was a sacrifice-religion at this point.) about free will and the role of women in the Edenic fall, and ZOMG totally stumps him wow!1!. And just. You know, if this guy supposedly hangs out with the scholars in the Library of Alexandria, I'm thinking he would be able to explain the philosophical principles of his religion to an 8-year-old.
Of course, Cleopatra's Greek tutor appears not to have read Homer, let alone be aware of, oh I don't know, the philosophical and scholarly work that was the WHOLE POINT OF THE LIBRARY, so maybe it isn't strange that Mr Rabbi has gotten complacent.
"And what does our Greek heritage say?" Euphronius asked us.
"That we cannot outrun our fates," I answered. "Hubris, the great crime against the gods, was thinking that we could. And hubris took down even the best of men, like Achilles and Oedipus." (p. 30)
"Now, Euphronius continued, "how can Achilles' great rage be the fulfillment of the will of Zeus?"
"Because everything that happens, even bad things, must be the will of the gods, otherwise they would not happen," Alexandros said after our tutor called on him.
"Yes."
...
"Euphronius turned to me. "And what happens when humans try to escape their fates?"
"They either end up dead like Achilles or blind like Oedipus," said Euginia.
"Yes. Now let us look a little closer at what we really mean by hubris...," Euphorion continued. (p. 36-7)
I mean, I know that it's probably not fair to expect a YA novel to represent the past at this level of detail, but I will point out that we do actually know a lot about the standard schoolroom exegesis of Homer in antiquity! A correct answer to the first question, as it happens, would be "Because, as the Cypria tells us, the Trojan War was Zeus's plan for ridding the world of surplus population, and the death among the Greeks caused by Achilles' quarrel with Agamemnon served that plan." (I'm not saying that it's a particularly brilliant interpretation, but that's ancient primary school for you!)
But I really object this claim that's she's had them make twice, Achilles' death is somehow caused by his attempt to circumvent fate and that this demonstrates that mortals have no free will (apart from the fact that being punished for attempting to oppose the will of the gods kind of *does* imply free will. But let's ignore that for now). Um, have you read the Iliad, Vicky Shecter? You know that part where Thetis tells Achilles that he has two possible fates: to go home and live a long life in Phthia without glory, or to die young in battle and win kleos aphthiton? I suppose you could make the argument that Patroclus dies as punishment for Achilles' contemplation of the former choice. But ultimately, Achilles very definitely chooses the latter. And he dies in battle, through some fairly dodgy divine machinations, but in no way as the result of having "tried to escape his fate".
And I'm not even going to rant about this bizarre, reductive, and completely wrong definition of hubris. ARGH ARGH ARGH PEOPLE ARE BEING WRONG ABOUT THINGS I KNOW THINGS ABOUT.
Hop on ops and pops? (Nope: prosops.)
Apr. 5th, 2014 09:35 pmDuring the long domination of the patron–client model and the associated “prosopographical school” of Republican history, analysis in terms of “ops-and-pops” was highly unfashionable, and apt to be dismissed as the residue of a nineteenth-century supposition that the ancient Republic functioned rather like a modern parliamentary system. (R. Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, (Cambridge, 2004) p. 205)
Ahhhhhhh NOPE. Extensive googling/jstoring, etc. shows that the only people to use this particular short-hand are Morstein-Marx here, and some random crank commentator on an article about the Euro-zone from a couple years ago (and who is definitely *not* M-M because his grasp of Roman political history was pretty terrible.) Of course, it could be an oral tradition.
If I had a tumblr, this is where I would post a Mean Girls "Stop trying to make Ops and Pops happen" macro.
Prosopography
Apr. 3rd, 2014 02:52 pmIt's just the Greek word for 'fanfiction', right? Here are some excerpts from Robin Lane Fox's 2010 article, "Thucydides and Documentary History" (Classical Quarterly 60.1 11–29), which is mostly speculation about the sources of the treaties in Thucydides, and, sadly for me, very little about what Thucydides is *doing* with them when he sticks them verbatim into his history. But it's very entertaining:( Thucydides fanfiction, basically )
I stayed late ostensibly to finish rewriting a section, but while I was doing word searches, I got distracted by Pliny (the Younger).
This one is kind of bizarre (and totally irrelevant to what I'm working on, but whatever):
What's interesting to me is the eyes/ears joke (?) at the end, because it's so reverse historiographical. *Everyone* knows that the eyes are more reliable than the ears, usually. I mean, I guess it's just "character > appearance" with excessive learned wit, but I want it to be something more... (Pliny is obsessed with historiography). Also, I think that Pliny would have been all over emoticons, if they had been available to him.
This one is kind of bizarre (and totally irrelevant to what I'm working on, but whatever):
(Ep. 1.21) Dear Plinius Paternus
Just as I honor your mental discernment, so do I your visual -- not because you have so much good taste (don't get conceited!) but because you have exactly as much as I do (although this is no small amount!). Joking aside, I think the slaves I bought on your recommendation are quite suitable. It remains to be seen that they are reliable, which in chattel one judges more with the ears than with the eyes.
Best,
Gaius Plinius
What's interesting to me is the eyes/ears joke (?) at the end, because it's so reverse historiographical. *Everyone* knows that the eyes are more reliable than the ears, usually. I mean, I guess it's just "character > appearance" with excessive learned wit, but I want it to be something more... (Pliny is obsessed with historiography). Also, I think that Pliny would have been all over emoticons, if they had been available to him.
One of the problems with fantasy novels is that when you use magic for things like, say, encoding secret messages so that they look innocuous to anyone but their intended recipient, you take a lot of the potential fun out of it. Here are just three of the many examples of ways to send secret messages provided by Aeneas Tacticus (c. 4th/3rd century BCE?):
Send a man bearing a message or a letter about something unconcealed. When he is getting ready to set out, secretly put a message inside the soles of his sandals and sew them back up. (In case of mud or water, you should engrave it lightly on tin to provide against the letters vanishing because of the wet). When he arrives at the appropriate person and has gone to sleep, the recipient undoes the seams of his sandals, takes out the letter and reads it, writes another secretly while he is still sleeping, and, sewing it back up, sends the man back either to report or with another unconcealed letter. This way, no one else, and not even the bearer himself, will know. But you must make the stitching on the sandels as invisible as possible.
A letter was brought to Ephesus in the following manner. A man was sent with a letter written on leaves, and the leaves were bound into a poultice upon a wound on his leg.
A letter could also be sent via a woman's ears, if, instead of earings, she wore thin lead plates rolled up.
Aeneas Tacticus, "How to Survive A Siege", 31.4-7.
I'm working with a book by a 20th century Norwegian scholar named "Eiliv Skard." Awesome name or awesomest name? I feel like he should be a guest character on Deep Space Nine or something. (In fact, he was he was also a resistance fighter during WW2 and survived three concentration camps; he wrote on Latin literature, Roman history, Greek history, European philosophy, and a bunch of other stuff (as far as I can decipher the Norwegian titles) and was writing against Fascism in the 20's. Those scholars back in the good old days, right?) And then I got distracted and started to read all about the Norwegian Language Struggle.
YESSssss.
In 1911, the writer Gabriel Scott's comedic play Tower of Babel had its premiere in Oslo. It is about a small town in eastern Norway that is overtaken by proponents of landsmål who take to executing all those who resist their language. The play culminates in the landsmål proponents killing each other over what to call their country: Noregr, Thule, Ultima, Ny-Norig, or Nyrig. The last line is spoken by a country peasant who, seeing the carnage, says: "Good thing I didn't take part in this!"
There was at least one brawl in the audience during the play's run, and the stage was set for a linguistic schism that would characterize Norwegian politics to this day.
YESSssss.
You guys. I am the worst. I was so disdainful of Troubled Waters when we read it for the Sheroes Bookclub. AND I have tons of work to do. So why am I reading the sequel? Here is a choice excerpt from the first few pages (I don't think there is anything remotely spoilerish in it):
This just strikes me as poorly expressed: first, we find out that this is dangerous bar in the middle of the slum district (OMTS: noisome and crowded); but then it turns out that it's actually pretty tame and attracts a bougie clientele! (Regular trouble is just all part of the thrills of high-proof liquor and ~companionship that can be purchased~, amirite? The closing euphemism is just perfect and really gives the line that pseudo-gritty Tamora Pierceian ring...) It took me a good couple minutes before I realized that the Cinque must be a boulevard that makes a five-sided loop and not a five-sided boulevard. I'm still trying to picture a street with five sides instead of two, though! (Similarly, "felt safe enough here to come" would get at the sense with less ambiguity than "felt safe enough to come here.")
ALso: "Zoe...could hardly bring herself to spend a quint-gold, remembering the long poverty-stricken days in exile." (p. 57) Hahaha -- did we read the same version of Troubled Waters?
"Trouble came with some regularity to this little bar, which was situated solidly inside the crowded, noisome slum district of the city of Chialto. But it was actually one of the more respectable establishments, given its location just south of the Cinque, the five-sided boulevard that made an inner loop around the city. Traders' sons and merchants' wives felt safe enough to come here for a night of excitement that might include high-stakes gambling, high-proof liquor, illegal drugs, and companionship that could be purchased." (p. 2)
This just strikes me as poorly expressed: first, we find out that this is dangerous bar in the middle of the slum district (OMTS: noisome and crowded); but then it turns out that it's actually pretty tame and attracts a bougie clientele! (Regular trouble is just all part of the thrills of high-proof liquor and ~companionship that can be purchased~, amirite? The closing euphemism is just perfect and really gives the line that pseudo-gritty Tamora Pierceian ring...) It took me a good couple minutes before I realized that the Cinque must be a boulevard that makes a five-sided loop and not a five-sided boulevard. I'm still trying to picture a street with five sides instead of two, though! (Similarly, "felt safe enough here to come" would get at the sense with less ambiguity than "felt safe enough to come here.")
ALso: "Zoe...could hardly bring herself to spend a quint-gold, remembering the long poverty-stricken days in exile." (p. 57) Hahaha -- did we read the same version of Troubled Waters?
Commonplace Book: entertaining snippets
Nov. 21st, 2013 07:24 pmThings I read over the last couple of days:
"Bitterly opposed as I am to anthologizing in general -- it is not only the history of the declining Roman Empire that teaches us how the epitomizers and anthologists move in not more than a century before the barbarian hordes -- I would make an exception of Seneca's prose works."-- C.J. Herington, "Senecan Tragedy"Arion 5.4 (1966), p. 433
"In AD 41, the year of his father's death and the first of Claudius' reign, he was exiled to Corsica for committing adultery with the Emperor's niece Julia. He spent his time there in philosophical reflection and writing, which is about all you can do on the island." Henry and Walker, G&R, 1963, p. 99.
"This is contemptuous in tone...but it is a reference of a kind so common in Tacitus that we may attribute it here largely to absent-minded malice" -- iidem, p. 101
"few would react with ready speech when woken in the middle of the night and told by an ex-pupil that he has failed to murder his mother and wants to have another try." --iidem (103)
"This reads as though Tacitus, feeling compelled to allow Seneca a proper appearance, had in the event been defeated by boredom. Stale similes, stale and conventional phrasing make Seneca's last attempt to escape the mesh a matter of indifference to writer and reader alike." --iidem (105 n. 1)
(on Tacitus on Seneca) "His sympathetic understanding reveals something of his own personality and ideals -- in short, the man of letters who serves the 'res public' to the best of his ability, without illusions and with little hope." (Syme, Tacitus, p. 582)
This is a nifty quote about the effect of reading history on the reader, and I can't believe I never came across it before!
I wonder if I could pitch an article to the Toast on the theme of "a partial list of people and things described as "sinister" in the works of Sir Ronald Syme." If there were a classics-themed The Toast, perhaps.
"Bitterly opposed as I am to anthologizing in general -- it is not only the history of the declining Roman Empire that teaches us how the epitomizers and anthologists move in not more than a century before the barbarian hordes -- I would make an exception of Seneca's prose works."-- C.J. Herington, "Senecan Tragedy"Arion 5.4 (1966), p. 433
"In AD 41, the year of his father's death and the first of Claudius' reign, he was exiled to Corsica for committing adultery with the Emperor's niece Julia. He spent his time there in philosophical reflection and writing, which is about all you can do on the island." Henry and Walker, G&R, 1963, p. 99.
"This is contemptuous in tone...but it is a reference of a kind so common in Tacitus that we may attribute it here largely to absent-minded malice" -- iidem, p. 101
"few would react with ready speech when woken in the middle of the night and told by an ex-pupil that he has failed to murder his mother and wants to have another try." --iidem (103)
"This reads as though Tacitus, feeling compelled to allow Seneca a proper appearance, had in the event been defeated by boredom. Stale similes, stale and conventional phrasing make Seneca's last attempt to escape the mesh a matter of indifference to writer and reader alike." --iidem (105 n. 1)
(on Tacitus on Seneca) "His sympathetic understanding reveals something of his own personality and ideals -- in short, the man of letters who serves the 'res public' to the best of his ability, without illusions and with little hope." (Syme, Tacitus, p. 582)
This is a nifty quote about the effect of reading history on the reader, and I can't believe I never came across it before!
Anger must be escaped with learned instructions; that is, the conscious fault of the mind, not the sort that occurs by some condition of human existence and therefore happens even to the wisest; chief among this sort of thing is that blow to the mind which moves us after becoming conscious of an injury. [3] This happens even at staged plays and while reading history. Often, we seem to get angry at Clodius when he is exiling Cicero and at Antony when he is killing him. Who is not stirred up against Marius's arms, against Sulla's Proscriptions? Who is not enraged at Theodotus and Achillas and 'that boy who dared no boyish crime'? [4] Sometimes even song incites us, and a stirring tune or the martial sound of the trumpet; the mind is disturbed by horrifying paintings and grim sight of even the most just executions. [5] This is why we smile at those who laugh and a crowd of mourners make us sad and we blow our tops at others' contests. This is not anger, no more than it is sorrow that makes us frown at the sight of an imitation shipwreck, no more than it is fear which runs through the minds of readers when Hannibal is besieging the walls after Cannae: rather, all of these are movements of minds that move not of their own volition: not emotions, but the first preludes of emotions. [6] So a veteran's ears, even when he is a civilian during peacetime, are sometimes aroused by the trumpet, and the clank of weapons stirs up army horses. They say that Alexander put his hand to his weapon while Xenophantes was reciting. (Seneca, De Ira, 2.2.2-6)
(NOTES: Theodotus and Achillas and that boy...: Ptolemy XII and his two advisers, who murdered Pompeius Magnus when he sought refuge in Egypt in 48 BC.
imitation shipwreck: slightly disturbing example of "fake emotion" in that a "mimicum naufragium" might well be a staged arena spectacle in which people were actually dying.
Xenophantes: A musician at the court of Alexander? Anyway, this passage is sort of interesting as an ancient reference to PTSD.)
I wonder if I could pitch an article to the Toast on the theme of "a partial list of people and things described as "sinister" in the works of Sir Ronald Syme." If there were a classics-themed The Toast, perhaps.
Found NaNoWriMo
Nov. 10th, 2013 01:57 pmI was browsing the YA section at my public library branch yesterday, and pulled out something called Night School, by C.J. Daugherty. It's your standard rebellious teen + mysterious gothic boarding school + supernatural + love-triangle + ancient evil drivel, but as I was flipping through, a sheet of paper fell out; clearly an elementary/middle schooler's start to a fantasy novel. It made my really happy, you guys -- this is exactly what I was doing in 6th-7th grade. Also, I kind of feel that there is a lot more that is potentially interesting in this novel than in a lot of recently published YA fantasy! So I've transcribed it (supplements the editor has deemed absolutely necessary to the sense are in square brackets; italics represent ornamented capitals in the ms; and obelisks mark uncertain readings).
Come on: wouldn't you read this? Apart from the fact that our main character seems to have two names, we've got court and family politics, what with a child empress and also (?) a dying emperor? (Is this Daneil or Duth? I think it's Daneil. Duth is perhaps the chancellor -- either a helpful and loyal adviser or an evil power-behind-the-throne holding the imperial family of Flaya basically hostage). And so Chastity/Adilssandra has to marry to shore up the succession? But she is also a a general on the staff of the High Commander (or maybe she is at the military academy?) and there's a war on! AND SHE HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY CLONE. (Maybe everyone has one in this universe.) I think I sound like I am making fun. And, obviously, I am, a little bit. But it did honestly give me lot of pleasure to see this anonymous girl working through fantasy tropes and making up a story the way I did. Also, I would genuinely read this novel, split-personality clones and all.
Dear Writer of Chastity's story, I'm sorry that you lost your manuscript, and I hope you keep reading and keep writing. And keep packing your stories with girls! Because that's awesome.
The Chronciles of Se
"Chastity, the high commander want to see you in his office. ...Now!" and with that the loud speaker clicked off. It seem that I was in trouble again. Making my way the nearly empty corridor to were the High Commander of the Realm reside. But before I open the, it flung open and handed me letters with the seal of the Western Royals and the North. I opened the first one on the way back to my room. It was from my niece empress Mollyania Malkovich †Jamesandsun. Such a long name for a small five year old. All it said was "I miss u, see you on your birthday. The next was from Cecile, my sister in-law, "Dearest †Adilssandra [Allessandra?], I want to be the first to congratulate you turning 15. It's a time of Freedom, but do remember your duties. I know you know that aleast 1,000 gentlemen have asked for hand. But Daneil sent them all packing. Duth has required you to be we[d] before you turn seventeen, since His Majesties health is decliny. Remember your a Malkovich Princess before general in the war. Kayta say her regards so does Mayla. The last letter had been from Her Excellency Ariel. "Excited about turning fifteen, I pondered last two months what to got you, but Maria had the best idea I hope you enjoy, From your spilt personality clone Ariel." At the bottom were a set of keys to a limo maybe. But when I reached my room I saw my gift awaiting. A motorcycle. Tomorrow I would go back to Ruby palace in Flaya. I did not understand why all except the Southern would have three whole day off.
Come on: wouldn't you read this? Apart from the fact that our main character seems to have two names, we've got court and family politics, what with a child empress and also (?) a dying emperor? (Is this Daneil or Duth? I think it's Daneil. Duth is perhaps the chancellor -- either a helpful and loyal adviser or an evil power-behind-the-throne holding the imperial family of Flaya basically hostage). And so Chastity/Adilssandra has to marry to shore up the succession? But she is also a a general on the staff of the High Commander (or maybe she is at the military academy?) and there's a war on! AND SHE HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY CLONE. (Maybe everyone has one in this universe.) I think I sound like I am making fun. And, obviously, I am, a little bit. But it did honestly give me lot of pleasure to see this anonymous girl working through fantasy tropes and making up a story the way I did. Also, I would genuinely read this novel, split-personality clones and all.
Dear Writer of Chastity's story, I'm sorry that you lost your manuscript, and I hope you keep reading and keep writing. And keep packing your stories with girls! Because that's awesome.
