February 2009
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CALL FOR PAPERS: SCIENTISTS AND PROFESSIONALS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD CONFERENCE SCHOOL OF CLASSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS 7-9 SEPTEMBER 2009 The technical and scientific writing of Graeco-Roman antiquity has been the focus of systematic scholarly study in recent decades. Attention has been mainly directed towards the textual means through which ancient technical and scientific…
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A review of Simon Sebag-Montefiore , Heroes: History’s Greatest Men and Women at Mercator.net concludes thusly: There was one glaring error: Alexander the Great’s height is given as 4’ 6”; but would make him the same height as the crippled poet Alexander Pope, and is never mentioned by the ancient authorities; surely the author means 5’…
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ante diem xi kalendas martias Parentalia (Day 7) — the period for honouring the dead continues 198 A.D. — death of emperor wannabe Clodius Albinus 1806 — death of Elizabeth Carter (Classicist who translated Epictetus)
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illaqueation (Worthless Word for the Day) pedestal (OED) tautological (Dictionary.com)
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Speaking of Archimedes (see below),Olivia Judson incipits a piece in the New York Times thusly: The snobbish idea that pure science is in some way superior to applied science dates to antiquity, when Plutarch says of Archimedes: “Regarding the business of mechanics and every utilitarian art as ignoble and vulgar, he gave his zealous devotion…
rogue classicism 