Don’t usually get things like this from EurekAlert:

Texts comprising only quotations of somebody else’s work are often referred to as plagiarism. Many researchers have also rejected Late Antique Latin cento poetry – cento means patchwork in Latin – as being of no literary merit. However, recent years have seen an increase in interest in cento poetry, and a thesis on Latin from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has now shown that these poems can be both innovative and thought-provoking.

Sara Ehrling has studied two centos made up solely of quotes from Virgil, one of the Romans’ leading poets whose works included the epic poem, the Aeneid. The two poems are both wedding poems, one of which was written by Ausonius in the late 4th century, and the other by Luxorius 100 years later.

“My research shows that the poems generally take a different approach to both the genre of wedding poetry and the original text, in other words Virgil’s work,” says Ehrling. “Ausonius takes his quotes from several different places in Virgil’s work, while Luxorius takes many of his from those parts of the Aeneid that describe the love story between Dido, the queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, the Trojan prince.”

The love story between Dido and Aeneas ends very badly, while Luxorius’ wedding cento has a happy ending. The study of Luxorius’ poem shows that the cento can use the original text to suit the poet’s own ends.

“In this case the original text is subordinated to the genre. If we go back to the original text it also has a thought-provoking effect in that it clearly shows that the Dido and Aeneas love story can actually be interpreted in positive and wedding-like terms. It suggests that their relationship wasn’t entirely bad. As is the case in so many other instances, our perception of a story depends on the level of focus on various details and how it is told.”

Ausonius’ cento is, in many ways, even more complex than that of Luxorius. The part of the poem that previously attracted most interest from researchers is the end, where sexual intercourse between the bride and groom is depicted in terms of rape. One possible explanation is that the poem was written in competition with other poets and that this paradoxical way of portraying the wedding couple was intended to provide amusement.

“I discovered in my analysis that the sex scene is foreshadowed far earlier in Ausonius’ cento,” says Ehrling. “From the contexts of the quotes in Virgil’s work, it is clear that both the bride and the wedding in general are being depicted in hostile terms below the surface of the text, and that the bride’s sexuality is portrayed as threatening throughout the poem.”

The idea that the cento should be perceived as a cohesive work comes from Ausonius himself. He describes very carefully the cento as a poetic form, and Ehrling stresses that the most important thing about his description is that the cento should be perceived as a cohesive unit even though it is made up of disconnected elements.

“It’s also worth noting that people are still producing cento-like works today,” says Ehrling. “In my thesis I discuss the cento’s potential for reinterpretation and comedy. By way of example, I use a video clip where Colonel Gaddafi’s speech has been edited together with trance music in a cento-like fashion. Just as in Late Antiquity, it seems that this cento-like work could have potential for both reinterpretation and comedy, depending on the reader’s interpretation.”

The thesis has been successfully defended on May 28, 2011.

• Late antique Latin patchwork poems piece together genre and original text | EurekAlert.

Interesting item from Novinite (which is having connection hiccups this a.m.):

Bulgaria’s National History Museum are starting the largest alpine expedition in the history of Bulgarian archaeology in order to excavate the residence of the rulers of the Odrysian Kingdom, the state of the most powerful tribe of Ancient Thrace.

Bulgarian archaeologists uncovered the unique residence of the rulers of the Odrysian Kingdom in July 2010, after its location was initially detected in 2005.

The residence is located on the Kozi Gramadi mount in the Sredna Gora mountain, in the village of Starosel, close to the resort town of Hissar in central Bulgaria, at about 1 200 m above sea level.

Starting in early June 2011, the expedition led by Dr. Ivan Hristov will excavate the fortified residence of the Thracian kings southeast of the Kozi Gramadi mount, Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of Bulgaria’s National History Museum, announced Monday.

Dr. Hristo Popov from the National Archaeology Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Daniela Stoyanova from Sofia University “St. Klimen Ohridski”, and Prof. Valetin Todorov from the National Academy of Arts will also take part in the expedition as consultants.

The alpine excavations are funded with donations by Bulgarian manager Lachezar Tsotsorkov, the Hisarya Municipality, and the National History Museum.

The archaeological team will have the rare chance of studying the interior of the Thracian kings’ residence, which is the only one ever discovered, and was erected during the rules of Odrysian king Teres II (351 BC-341 BC).

The archaeologists will set up a tent camp 15 km north of the village of Starosel, which will serve as the base for their explorations.

In addition to making groundbreaking discoveries, the mission of Dr. Ivan Hristov is also to work on the conservation of the unique archaeological site.

The National History Museum points out that the discoveries at the Thracian kings’ residence reveal a symbiosis between the local Thracian traditions and the influence of Ancient Greece in the fortifications, architecture, and household tools at the beginning of the Hellinistic Age (323 BC – 30 BC).

“The archaeological summer of the elite crew of the National History Museum is expected to be interesting,” Dimitrov said in a statement promising timely information about the progress of the expedition.

Last summer Dr. Ivan Hristov explained that the residence of the Odrysian kings is a monument unrivaled in scope in Southeastern Europe, and that there is no other fortress-sanctuary dating back to the 4th-5th century BC which is so well-preserved.

The Bulgarian archaeologists call the Thracian fortress “the Bulgarian Machu Picchu” because of the similarities in the organization of the two ancient cities.

The construction of the residence near Hissar is believed to have been started by the Thracian ruler Cotys I (384 BC – 359 BC).

The team led by Dr. Hristov has uncovered the remains of the palace of the Odrysian kings Amatokos II (359 BC – 351 BC) and Teres II (351 BC – 342 BC).

The latter is the last Thracian king who fought Philip II of Macedon (359 BC – 336 BC).

“Philip II of Macedon most likely also visited this fortress. It is about him that Demosthenes says that he spent 11 nightmarish months in the winter of 342 BC fighting the Thracians who inhabited the mountains,” explained Dr. Hristov.

The fortress-residence of the Thracian kings is located on a plot of 4 decares, not far from the village of Starosel, which is the site of the largest tombs of Ancient Thracian rulers.

The researchers believe that the connection between the newly-uncovered fortress and the Starosel tombs is clear.

“This is the holy mountain in the mind of the Thracians. We have various archaeological objects located on different levels – a fortress, a sanctuary, an altar of sacrifice. Therefore, the comparison with the ancient city of the Incas Machu Picchu is a good one,” said Dr. Hristov.

Last summer his team excavated two of the towers of the citadel, whose remains are about 2 m high.

The archaeologists’ guess is that the treasure of the Odrysian kingdom was also located in the newly uncovered residence but Philip II of Macedon most likely stole the gold kept there.

The Odrysian Kingdom was a union of Thracian tribes that existed between 5th and the 3rd century BC. The last Thracian states were conquered by Romans in 46 AD. The most famous Thracian in human history is Spartacus, the man who led a rebellion of gladiators against Rome in 73-71 BC.

• via Bulgaria: Bulgarian Archaeologists Embark on Alpine Mission to Thracian Kings’ Residence – Novinite.com – Sofia News Agency.

… very interesting that this coverage is virtually a rewrite of the coverage (including the jab at Philip) from last summer: Odrysian Site from Bulgaria

From the Bryn Mawr Alum magazine:

The first half of 2011 included a couple of important milestones for Marianne McDonald ‘58, a professor of classics and theater at the University of California, San Diego, and a philanthropist with a strong commitment to helping individuals recover from substance-abuse problems.

The Trojan Women

In April, the Nevada Conservatory Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, staged a new production of McDonald’s translation of an ancient Greek drama, Euripides’ The Trojan Women. McDonald translated the play, which focuses on the women of Troy after the city’s defeat at the hands of the Greeks, as the women prepare themselves and their families to be taken as captives by the victors.

McDonald’s translation retains the framework and characters of the original drama, but spices it up with contemporary references, such as Hecuba’s allusion to the ratings boost television broadcasters get from exciting war coverage. Playwright Athol Fugard said of McDonald’s Trojan Women that it “must surely confirm her translations of the ancient Greek dramatists as the most actable, lyrical and powerful in print today.”

In addition to her translations and her original poems and plays, McDonald has published numerous scholarly volumes on classical drama and its adaptations in cinema and on the modern stage. She has also been a pioneer in digital humanities, as the founder of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, a comprehensive digital library of ancient and Medieval Greek literature, and the Thesaurus Linguarum Hiberniae, a similar project to digitize early and medieval Irish texts.

Making Substance-Abuse Treatment Available

Also in April, the Sharp HealthCare Foundation announced that its substance-abuse-treatment program in the San Diego area would be renamed after the McDonald family in honor of McDonald’s gift of $3 million and her promise to help with future fundraising for the foundation’s substance-abuse programs. The program at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital will become McDonald Center at Sharp HealthCare, and Sharp Vista Pacifica will become Sharp McDonald Center.

McDonald’s gift is the largest ever given to Sharp’s behavioral-health program, foundation officials said. McDonald’s commitment to funding programs for substance-abuse treatment is several decades old. In 1984, she gave $3 million to Scripps Memorial Hospital to open a McDonald Center for substance abuse.

The Scripps facility is scheduled for demolition as part of a plan to raze the hospital and construct a new, expanded hospital. McDonald has been scouting new locations for the McDonald Center since she learned from Scripps officials last summer that the facility was to be destroyed.

• via As Her Translation of Euripides Play is Staged in Las Vegas, Marianne McDonald ’58 Funds Drug Treatment Center in San Diego | Meaningful Contributions.

Meaningful contribution indeed …