Year: 2009

Iliad Reading with a Twist

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a worthy project I could see Latin/Classics clubs adapting and/or emulating … from the Indy Star:

Latin students from North Central High School will use the tale of an ancient war to launch their own modern war on poverty.

From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday at Kids Ink Bookstore, 56th and Illinois streets, Indianapolis, there will be two dozen students taking turns reading Homer’s Greek classic about the Trojan War, “The Iliad.”

Students under the leadership of Latin teacher Steven Perkins have collected pledges of five cents per line of poetry read aloud; there are 700 lines in the English translation by Stanley Lombardo. Readers will wear specially made T-shirts designed by North Central student Zoe Smith.

Kids Ink will extend its hours for the day and will provide a donation box for visitors to contribute, as well. Proceeds will go to the Shepherd Community Center in downtown Indianapolis.

To learn more about Reading the War on Poverty, visit http://nclatin.org/reading_war_poverty.html

d.m. David Parsons

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

In case you missed it in one of the other sources, David Parsons — of ARLT fame — recently completed his c.v.. His son has written a very moving blogpost at David’s erstwhile blog … worth a read. Another online colleague whom I never met who will be missed …

Roman Bath at Bankso

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

This one — from FYROM/Macedonia probably has more bona fides lurking in it than claims of Alexander’s tomb … from Balkan Travellers:

Detailed archaeological excavations began at the thermal Roman bath in Bansko near the south-eastern Macedonian town of Strumica.

The site is being studied and analysed so that a project for its complete reconstruction could be made, according to the director of the Strumica Institute and Museum, Slavitsa Taseva.

“I hope that by the end of this year, we’ll have results that we can present to the public,” Taseva told the Dnevnik daily newspaper.

So far, during excavations of the thermal Roman baths, which – according to Taseva, are unique to the Balkans because of the way water was heated from a natural spring, a total of 11 premises were discovered, with an overall area of 623 square metres.

Of them, the most preserved are the sauna and cool-water pool with the half-dome over the bath.

Already unearthed in the locality were a number of artefacts, including a marble statue, bronze figures of the god Mercury, sculpture pedestals, objects of a unique mosaic, ceramic objects and another complex near the thermal baths, Taseva added.

The excavations and the reconstruction will contribute to the complete definition of the site, which dates back to the Late Roman period and was constructed more than 16 centuries ago.

The current excavations at Bansko, funded by the Macedonian government, are carried out by a team of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Culture and Museum in Strumica.

This Day in Ancient History

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

ante diem xvi kalendas maias

  • ludi Cereri (day 5)
  • 43 B.C. — Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) is hailed as Imperator for the first time
  • 69 A.D. — suicide of the emperor wannabe Otho (this might have occured on April 17)
  • 1928 — death of Jane Ellen Harrison (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion among others)

Not the Ides

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

I really wish our friends to the south would lobby the powers that be to change their tax-due-date from April 15 to something more sensible (say, April 30, like it is up here in the Great Overcast North). Every year, without fail, there will be some journalist who will write something along the lines of:

The prophets warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March (March 15), but most Americans shiver at the mention of the Ides of April. As other prophets have assured, only two things are certain: Death and taxes. The Ides of March assured Caesar’s death, and the Ides of April assures that we’ll be paying taxes up to and beyond our own final days.

… which keeps popping up in my box from the Valdosta Daily Times. Of course, non-American Classicists wonder why there might be this grave fear of April 13th (which is when the Ides of April falls), but we know better. Let’s all join hands Wholike and merrily chant:

In March July October May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day

… we’ll leave the Nones bit off and hope folks can figure out the Ides of April ain’t the fifteenth.