This one’s not specifically within our purview, but is the sort of thing we like to monitor (we’ve all heard of sites being found with Google Earth):
… what I can’t help but wonder, though, is whether the tombaroli types are making use of this technology as well …
Very interesting idea over at Slate … some appropriate excerpts:
These conceptions of justice and their attendant myths were originally described at length by prominent philologist Georges Dumezil (1898-1986) in his 1948 book Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty. Perhaps you own a copy. Perhaps you have two, so you can keep one in the car. Or maybe you came across Dumezil’s essay in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s influential A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980), in which it is discussed at length. Regardless, it’s worth revisiting Dumezil’s work, as it enriches our understanding of the Coens’ movie. I’ll demonstrate how below, but be warned: Spoilers will be as prevalent as rattlers in Choctaw territory.
Dumezil observed that a wide range of Indo-European cultures produced myths—philologically related to one another—in which the universe was governed by one-eyed and one-handed gods acting in concert. The one-eyed gods tended to rule though magic, strong personalities, and mad bravado. The one-handed gods, by contrast, represented the rule of law—the ordering and arrangement of society through contracts, covenants, and statutes. In many narratives, the one-handed god loses his hand or arm after breaking a contract or reneging on a deal—illustrating the idea that in times of crisis, the law must be bent or broken, though the price for doing so can be dear.
[...]
In Roman mytho-history (Romans liked to give their history a mythic burnish), one-eyed Horatio Cocles (“Cocles” being derived from “Cyclops”) and soon to be one-handed Mucius Scaevola team up to defeat Lars Porsenna, an invading Etruscan determined to sack Rome. According to Dumzeil, the one-eyed Cocles “holds the enemy in check by his strangely wild behavior.” Citing the Roman historian Livy, Dumezil writes that “remaining alone at the entrance to the bridge, [Cocles] casts terrible and menacing looks at the Etruscan leaders, challenging them individually, insulting them collectively.” He also deploys “terrible grimaces.”
Cocles’ antics stop Porsenna temporarily, but the surly Etruscan soon brings war upon Rome again, and this time it’s Scaevola, whose mind ran in a more statesmanlike track than his comrade Cocles, to the rescue. He warns Porsenna that he has 300 assassins at his disposal—it’s a bluff, but Scaevola burns his hand in a fire to convince his enemy his threat is bona fide. Porsenna agrees to leave Rome be.
[...]
Are Rooster and Mattie modern manifestations of the ancient allegorical characters Dumezil studied? Or are they merely two different personality types: the charismatic, devil-may-care swaggerer and the exacting, careful planner—Dionysus and Apollo, Oscar and Felix. Whether Portis is familiar with Dumezil is unclear—the novelist keeps to himself. A spokesman for the Coens assured me the brothers are not aware of Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty. Still, the myths Dumezil compiled and explicated do illuminate the novel and the film, regardless of whether the author or filmmaker knew his work directly. They remind the reader or viewer that this isn’t just the story of a young girl with great pluck, but something of an origins myth as well.
In the stories Dumezil analyzes, the one-eyed and one-armed gods act in concert to save the state in an emergency, but they really represent different moments in statehood: creation and conservation, or founding and running. True Grit, too, is a story about the founding of a nation, or more accurately, the closing of the frontier and the birth of modern America. The film ends in 1903, when Cogburn dies after having performed for years in a Wild West show, a sorry imitation of the real West in which he thrived. By the time of his death, the frontier had closed, depriving Cogburn of his natural element and forcing him, like Buffalo Bill, into a representation of that element.
… and it continues a bit. Not sure if the logic works; seems a bit simplistic to me. Pretty much every pirate movie would match this description, no? Heck, almost every Johnny Depp movie in some form or another. I’m being facetious, of course … now I’m pondering the descriptions of the one-eyed Hannibal, or that Antigonus guy. Did they gain some psycho-mythic ‘cachet’ by being one-eyed?
I can’t really make heads or tails (using Google Translate) of this item from a Greek newspaper. Seems to be a site found at/near Kavouri (Athens or Patras?) with multi-period occupation, ranging from some Hellenistic burials, to a “Classical” temple, to a Byzantine church. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.
Mystery ancient finds at sea-side town of Kavouri; archaeologists puzzled of whether they are building or a grave yard http://bit.ly/e4iGG3—
Sparta Journal (@SpartaJournal) February 04, 2011
Dr Badian died a few days ago and obituaries still haven’t appeared; the closest seems to be from Harvard’s Faculty page, which seems to have added a line noting his passing:
Ernst Badian was Professor of History 1971-82 and John Moors Cabot Professor of History 1982-98. He passed away on February 1, 2011, at the age of 85. A private funeral was held on February 3, in Brookline, MA, and information about a memorial service at Harvard University will be posted in the coming weeks.
Professor Badian received a B.A. in 1945 and an M.A. in 1946 from Canterbury University College, New Zealand; also a B.A. (First Class in Litt. Hum.) in 1950, an M.A. in 1954, a D. Phil. in 1956 from Oxford University, a Litt. D. from Victoria University in New Zealand in 1962, an Hon. Litt. D. from Macquarie University in Sydney in 1993, and an Hon. Litt. D. from the University of Canterbury in 1999. In 1999 he was decorated with the Cross of Honor for Science and Art by the Republic of Austria.
His publications included Foreign Clientelae 264-70 B.C. (Charendon Press, Oxford, 1958); Studies in Greek and Roman History(Blackwell, Oxford, 1964); Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 2nd ed. (1st commercial ed.) (Blackwell, Oxford/Cornell Univ. Press, 1968); Publicans and Sinners (Blackwell, Oxford/Cornell Univ. Press, 1972, reprinted, with corrections and critical bibliography, Cornell Univ. Press, 1983); From Plataea to Potidaea (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1993); Zöllner und Sünder (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1997).
He wrote about 200 articles in journals and composite volumes, plus contributions to encyclopaedias, etc. He edited a number of books, including Ancient Society and Institutions. Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg (Blackwell, Oxford, 1966); Polybius. Selected passages in translation, with an introduction of 12,000 words (Washington Square Press, NY, 1966); Sir Ronald Syme, Roman Papers (vols. 1 & 2) (Oxford Univ. Press, 1979); Translated Documents of Greek and Rome, vols. 1, 2, 3, edited jointly with Robert K. Sherk (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, then Cambridge Univ. Press; various dates).
He was the founder and, until 2001, the editor of The American Journal of Ancient History. He also founded the Association of Ancient Historians and the New England Ancient History Colloquium.
He was a Fellow of the British Academy; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow of the American Numismatic Society; Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford; Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences; Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute; Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences; Honorary Member of the Roman Society (London).
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ante diem iii nonas februarias
… it’s Candlemas Day … And for all you Latin teachers out there … you can present this Latin ‘distich’ quoted by Thomas Browne in Robert Chambers Book of Days (the quoting of) which predates Punxsutawney Phil (and Wiarton Willy, and the plethora of other rodents):
Si sol splendescat Maria purificante,
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante
John McMahon just posted this to the Classics list … the salient excerpt:
Thornton described as “upbeat” and “very positive” the mood on the campus on Monday, as news of the changes spread. But that mood was far from universal, particularly in disciplines that saw their majors eliminated. “We’ve been relegated to second- or third-class citizenship,” said Rudolph Hock, associate professor and chair of the classics department, a post once held by Frank Snowden Jr., whose scholarship on the status and images of black people in antiquity earned him the National Humanities Medal in 2003, four years before his death. Howard has been the only historically black college to have a classics department since the institution’s inception, he said. “We’ve been marginalized considerably,” Hock continued. “We’re eunuchs.”
Hock was disappointed that four options that he and his colleagues suggested for re-engineering the discipline had failed. The proposed changes included reshaping classics into either an ancient Mediterranean studies program; classics and European studies; a pre-professional studies curriculum with Latin at its core; or classics and religion. Instead of any of these, classics will now be in a concentration that goes by the same name, but is part of an interdisciplinary humanities cluster and likely won’t grant degrees.
The only silver lining, in Hock’s view, is that current majors will be able to finish their degrees. The department’s eight faculty members help to graduate seven majors each year; recently, one was a Rhodes Scholar. Hock also worried about the impact of the decision on his colleagues. “There’s deep depression,” he said, adding that he is glad he is closer to retirement than to the beginning of his career. “The future of the classics here is beyond dismal.”
Earlier in the piece, folks were patting themselves on the back thusly:
“We no longer have to be everything to everyone,” Ribeau said in a statement, reflecting the view that Howard’s place in higher education has changed because it no longer needs to offer the broad range of programs it did when segregation prevented black students from enrolling at many universities. “We have identified specific areas of emphasis and we plan to be leaders in those areas.”
via News: A Leaner Howard U. – Inside Higher Ed.
… that’s it, lets take the universus out of university. A sad day for Howard … a sad day for Classics.
kalendae februariae
