Archived "Quotations of the Month"chosen by Dr. Cora Angier Sowa |
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Eos in hot pursuit of Cephalus, in a vase painting (image from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890). Ancient goddesses as "cougars"Greek goddesses were the original "cougars," ageless beauties who chase after young, attractive men. Odysseus encountered two of them, Calypso and Circe, both of whom seduced him and wanted him to stay with them forever (Odyssey Books 5 and 10). Calypso, ordered by the gods (in a message brought by Hermes) to turn Odysseus loose, laments the ill fortune such affairs may bring. She tells how Eos, goddess of the dawn, seduced the giant hunter Orion; he was subsequently struck down by Artemis' arrows. (But we know that later he became the constellation Orion.) She tells how Demeter, goddess of the grain "lay with Iasion in a thrice-plowed fallow field" (an obvious fertility myth); Iasion was smitten by Zeus' thunderbolt. Eos was particularly amorous, being associated in mythology with a succession of lovers, including Cephalus (see the pictures above and below) and the Trojan prince Tithonus, whose story is included in the Homeric Hymn V to Aphrodite. Aphrodite is caught by her own tricksThe Hymn to Aphrodite tells the tale of Aphrodite's seduction of another Trojan prince, Anchises. Aphrodite, goddess of desire, makes gods, mortals, animals, birds, and the creatures of the sea fall in love. Only three are immune to her powers: Athena, Artemis, and Hestia, goddess of the hearth. Zeus, of course, has fallen in love with mortal women many times. Zeus decides to give Aphrodite a taste of her own medicine by making her fall in love with Anchises, who is tending the herds. There is a delightful scene in which Aphrodite, disguised as a Phrygian princess in gold-trimmed attire and smelling of sweet perfume, wafts over mountains and woods, trailing pheromones of love that make all the animals mate madly as she goes. She seduces Anchises, who is horrified when he finds that she is a goddess, for he knows what has happened to other men who slept with goddesses. She understands his qualms, and tells the stories of other Trojan princes carried off by deities, Ganymede, stolen by Zeus to be his cup-bearer, and Tithonus, abducted by Eos. Eos fell in love with Tithonus, and the two lived rapturously together. Eos asked Zeus to give Tithonus eternal life, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. He withered away in her chamber, forever helpless and babbling. Other myths tell us that he became a cricket, eternally chirping. While sadness came to Eos and Tithonus, they were the parents of a mighty hero. The son of Eos and Tithonus was Memnon, king of the Ethiopians, subject of a lost epic, the Aithiopis. The birth of AeneasAphrodite assures Anchises that no bad fate awaits him, nor will she try to make him immortal. He, too, will by the father of a mighty son. That son is, of course, Aeneas, a Trojan hero in the Iliad. He was to become even more famous later as the hero of Vergil's epic, the Aeneid, where Aphrodite is known by her Roman name, Venus. Here, in translation, is Aphrodite's telling of the story of Eos and Tithonus:
Another interpretation of Eos and Cephalus, in terracotta (image adapted from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie.) In this version, Eos is not so attractive (more maternal?), but Cephalus looks rather contented (or is he just surprised?).
The Cumaean Sibyl, depicted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. In Vergil's Aeneid, she directs Aeneas to the entrance to the Underworld. She is an old woman, because Apollo, while giving her immensely long life, punished her rejection of him by not granting her eternal youth. Dreams of a promised futureIn January, we celebrated Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and February is Black History Month. King's two most famous speeches, the "I Have a Dream" speech of August 1963 and "I've Been to the Mountain Top," delivered in 1968 the night before his assassination, bracket his national fame. In the former, the "dream" was not a sleeping fantasy but a prophecy, not only for Black people, but for the country itself: "...I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal..." In the latter address, he cast himself prophetically as Moses, looking from Mount Nebo upon the land that will be Israel, which he will never reach: "...I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land..." Prophecies of a great nationThe prophetic dream, of course, has a long history. Dreams (the sleeping kind) were important in divining one's course of action. Among famous examples were the dreams of visitors to the sanctuaries of Asclepius, which dictated the course of treatment for the ill. This month's quotation is from the sixth book of Vergil's Aeneid, in which Aeneas, going to the Underworld, learns of his future life, as well as the future greatness of Rome, which will be founded and enriched by his descendants, but which he will never see. This, also, is not strictly speaking, a dream, except for its curious ending. It is modeled on two different episodes in Homer's Odyssey. Aeneas and OdysseusThe principal model for Aeneas' visit to the Underworld is Odysseus' adventure in the Land of the Dead in Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus, following directions from the goddess Circe, visits Hades' realm to inquire of the spirit of the great seer Teiresias what his future will be. While there, he first meets the shade of his comrade Elpenor, who, having fallen fatally from a roof, was yet unburied. He meets the ghost of his mother, who tells him of the havoc caused by the suitors of his wife Penelope. He meets the ghosts of fellow warriors, like Achilles and Ajax, heroes like Heracles, as well as nameless, wandering wraiths of no renown. Fearing that Persephone will send up the dread Gorgon, Odysseus departs in haste. In Aeneas' case, the role of Circe is filled by the Cumaean Sibyl, whose cave at Cumae (probably the wrong one!) is still pointed out as the place where she gave her prophecies. Aeneas soon meets the ghost of his helmsman Palinurus, who had likewise died in an accidental fall, from the stern of his ship. He meets his former lover, the Carthaginian queen Dido, who, abandoned by him, comitted suicide. Like Odysseus, he meets former friends and enemies, and figures from the mythic past. But in a departure from Homer, Aeneas, guided by the ghost of his father Anchises (filling a role similar to that of Teiresias) sees spirits about to be reincarnated — as Roman heroes of a glorious empire that is to come, not in Aeneas' own lifetime, but in the future! In the most poignant passage, Vergil interpolates a figure from the Emperor Augustus' own circle, Marcellus, son of his sister Octavia and his intended heir, tragically dead at the age of 20. What an impact this must have had, as Vergil recited his poem to the emperor and his family! Gate of horn, gate of ivoryAeneas' departure from the Underworld abruptly changes to the language of dreams, although this visit was not depicted as a dream. There are, says Vergil, two gates of Sleep, a gate of horn, through which true dreams emerge, and a gate of ivory, through which false dreams pass. Aeneas comes out though the gate of ivory. Why? This passage is lifted from Book 19 of the Odyssey, in which Penelope tells the returning Odysseus (whom she still does not trust to really be her husband) of her doubts concerning a prophetic dream she had of his return. In Greek the words make a pun. Dreams proceeding from the gate of "horn" (keras) are fulfilled (krainousi), but those from the gate of "ivory" (elephas) deceive (elephairontai). Why did Aeneas depart from the gate of ivory? Many theories are proposed, including a suggestion that because false dreams were thought to occur before midnight and true dreams after midnight, the gate of horn wasn't yet open. But why would he be in such a hurry? Perhaps, because these events are still, for Aeneas, in the future, they are for him just a dream, not reality? Below, in translation, are the final lines of Aeneid Book 6. Young Marcellus is seen walking beside an older hero, also named Marcellus:
"Moses on Mount Sinai," woodcut by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Moses ascended one mountain, Sinai, to receive the Ten Commandments. At the end of his life, he ascends Mount Nebo, from which he looks down on the promised land that he will never reach.
Helios, god of the Sun, pilots his chariot across the sky (image from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890). For those who sleep by day and party by night, this is a sight never seen. Winter here, summer thereIn the Northern Hemisphere, from which this Web site originates, this is the beginning of winter. The days grow shorter, and the U.S. has suffered its first blizzards, shutting down highways, trapping hikers, and bringing down power lines. The wind howls through the trees. As Hesiod says, it is then that Boreas, the North Wind,
In our modern world, in the face of the blast, Christmas and Hanukkah lights, swaying in the wind, spread cheer. For an even bigger contrast, we are mindful of our readers in the Southern Hemisphere, our Antipodes, for whom this is the beginning of summer, as the days grow longer. The Antipodes as an actual place (in Plato's Timaeus)It was known since Pythagoras that the Earth was a globe. It is simply not true that people thought the Earth was flat until Columbus proved it otherwise. (That particular canard was started by a work of fiction, Washington Irving's The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), and continued by the dubious work of the anti-religious writer Antoine-Jean Letronne in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers (1834).) Plato, as he describes it in the Timaeus, conceived of the universe as spherical, with the Earth at its center (and as having a soul). In the Timaeus (more famous today for its myth of Atlantis), he invokes the concept of the Antipodes to explain why there is no actual "up" or "down," since upness and downness depends on where you are standing. "Antipodes" literally means "with opposite feet (to where you are standing)." He is explaining that things are light or heavy not because they fall down but because elements (earth, air, water, fire) are attracted to similar elements, the elements themselves being composed of atoms shaped like different kinds of triangles (Timaeus 63a). In the Phaedo, Plato described the Earth itself as spherical, resembling, he says, a ball made of different colored strips of leather (Phaedo 110b). The Antipodes as a state of mind (in Seneca's Epistles)Seneca the Younger (1st cent. A.D.), in his ironic Epistles, turns the idea of the Antipodes on its head, so to speak, using the term humorously to describe the state of mind of those who pervert the normal scheme of things. He mocks lazy souls who sleep by day and banquet by night (whose minds, he says, are as full of darkness and fog as their lives), gourmands who cultivate flowers out of season or grow orchards on their roofs, and men who wear women's clothes. Here is the beginning of Seneca's Epistle 122, written as the days grow shorter. The quotation from Vergil is from Georgic 1.250-1, where the context shows that the poet assumes that the Sun, moving around the Earth, alternately illuminates the northern and southern hemispheres. The reference to Cato is not recorded elsewhere.
"Galileo Demonstrating His System," from Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, New York, 1856.
The constellation Ophiuchus ("The Serpent Bearer"), sometimes identified with the god Asclepius. (Detail from Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, 1856.) An ancient New Age spaImagine a New Age spa, where, after the proper rituals and having bathed in medicinal waters, you go to sleep in a temple inhabited by sacred animals, and dreams direct your cure of all that troubles you. This month, inspired by the debate in Congress and the media over what kind of health care is best for the nation (and how to pay for it), we discuss the cult of Asclepius (Roman Aesculapius), the ancient god of medicine, whose temples and sacred precincts were popular resorts for the sick, the infirm, and the worried. Healing dreams in the temple of AsclepiusIn Homer, Asclepius is apparently simply another hero, a physician, father of the two doctors Machaon and Podalirius. He was taught his craft by the centaur Chiron. As discussed in Farnell Greek Hero Cults, there is a question of whether Asclepius was a person whom the tradition gradually made into a god, or whether he started as a god who became a hero. He is sometimes portrayed as the son of Apollo. He is associated with snakes (as symbols of rejuvenation because of the way the slough off their skins) and with dogs. One tradition has him transformed into the constellation Ophiuchus, the "Snake-Holder" (see the picture above). By historic times, the cult of physicians called the Asclepiades or "sons of Asclepius" had grown around him (of whom the most famous was Hippocrates of Cos), and his shrines, in which there were often resident snakes (and sometimes sacred dogs), were places of healing. The most famous rites associated with these shrines was the practice of "incubation" or sleeping overnight in the temple, where dreams would dictate the course of treatment. Many cures were reported: sterile women became pregnant, the depressed found their spirits again. At the largest sacred sites, as at Epidaurus (south of Athens), the island of Cos, and Pergamum (in Asia Minor), there were temples, baths, gymnasia, theaters, and other buildings. At Epidaurus, the large theater is still used for performances (see the illustration below). Asclepius is portrayed holding a staff and a snake, often with the snake wrapped around the staff. The staff with the single snake is used as the symbol for a number of medical associations. (Other medical groups use the alternative staff with two snakes, topped with wings, called the caduceus (Greek kerykion) or herald's staff, associated with Hermes, the Roman Mercury. Hermes' "snakes," however, developed artistically from images of twining shoots of foliage.)
Socrates' "cock for Asclepius"The most famous (and enigmatic) reference to Asclepius is in Plato's Phaedo, which describes the last day of Socrates, condemned to drink the poison hemlock for "corrupting the youth of Athens" with his weird ideas. Socrates spends the day in his prison cell conversing with his friends, discussing the nature of the soul, reasons against suicide, arguments for reincarnation, and attitudes toward mortality, trying to console the young men for his impending death. By the end of the day, all but Socrates are crying, even the jailer whose duty is to give him the poison, who apologizes profusely for what he is ordered to do. (Socrates, in fact, had practically demanded his own martyrdom, being given a chance to ask for a lesser sentence but refusing to. When asked what punishment he should be given, he answered that he should actually be rewarded, as were Olympic victors, with dining privileges in the prytaneon (town hall)! Fat chance!) Socrates reprimands the men for their behavior — he had sent his wife and other women out of the room precisely because of their womanish crying. As he dies, Socrates' last words are a request that Crito offer "a cock to Asclepius" which he says he owes. This reference has left commentators scratching their heads for centuries. One interpretation is that the offering is in gratitude for release of his immortal soul from his mortal body. I suggest a more mundane explanation: Socrates has been trying to cheer up his followers by acting as if the whole activity were a perfectly normal medical procedure. Perhaps his request is simply to be interpreted as "Hey, Crito, remember to pay the doctor after this is over." Or maybe (assuming that the Phaedo is a more or less actual report of what happened that day) Socrates actually did remember that he owed a sacrifice to the god for some prior favor. Or, as the poison crept up his body, was his mind just starting to wander? Here, in translation is the ending of the Phaedo:
Statue of Asclepius, Louvre. The god is holding his staff and is accompanied by a snake. The snake is often depicted as twined around the staff. The staff with (single) twined snake is used as the symbol of a number of medical associations. (Image from Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1899.)
The theater at Epidaurus. (From Hanns Holdt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Griechenland, 3rd edition, 1928.) Only the theater still stands of the huge sanitorium and spa complex once dedicated to Asclepius.
The realm of Hades. (Adapted from the image of a vase from Canosa in Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1899.) Hades and Persephone appear in the shrine at the top. Notice Heracles kidnapping the three-headed dog Cerberus at the bottom center and Sisyphus pushing his rock up a hill at the bottom left. Odysseus in the realm of the deadPerhaps the most extraordinary ghost story of antiquity is Book 11 of the Odyssey, in which Odysseus visits the Land of the Dead. There, he exchanges gossip with lost loved ones, learns the fate of his fellow warriors, meets phantoms of the past, and hears of the future that is in store for him. Circe, sorceress of Aeaea ("Island of Wails"), who earlier turned Odysseus' men to swine, after a year lets Odysseus and crew leave, but first she tells him he must journey across the Ocean, the great river encircling the world, to the entrance to the home of Hades and Persephone. There he must dig a trench and make sacrifices, but he must not let the phantom dead who throng about him drink the blood (which allows them to communicate) until he has inquired of the soul (psyche) of the great Theban seer Teiresias what his own future holds, for
A ghostly stampede around the blood-filled trenchIn a shadowy land, where the sun does not shine, Odysseus, following Circe's instructions, stands at the blood-filled trench as the phantoms come, from all walks of life, crying out: brides and youths and worn-out old men, warriors in blood-stained armor, dead young girls "with their hearts new to sorrow." Odysseus feels a pang as he turns away his own mother, Anticleia, whom he last saw alive when he departed for Troy. But he can allow no one to drink the blood before he has inquired of Teiresias, the seer. Teiresias' prophecy being done, he at last lets his mother drink the blood and receives her news from home, but as he tries to embrace her, "she flits away, like a shadow or a dream." He meets famous women, including the mother of Oedipus (here called Epicaste rather than the usual Iocaste or "Jocasta"). He converses with Agamemnon, murdered by his wife, Clytaemnestra, who warns Odysseus not to trust his own wife, though admitting that Penelope is a good woman. He meets Heracles, who is chasing wild game, but it is only his "likeness" (eidolon), for "he himself" enjoys himself among the immortal gods, having Hebe for a wife. He sees the great sinners (as Dante would later do): Tantalus forever grasping at fruit overhead and thirsting for water receding around him, and Sisyphus endlessly rolling his stone uphill. Achilles: "Better to be a serf on earth than king of all the dead"Upon meeting the ghost of Achilles, who weeps at seeing him in this nightmare land, Odysseus attempts to cheer him up, contrasting Achilles' heroic fate with his own endless wanderings, but Achilles would rather be a peasant — and be alive. He is happy only when Odysseus tells him that his son, Neoptolemus, lives and is successful in battle. Ajax, on the other hand, still smarting from his loss to Odysseus in the contest for the arms of Achilles, refuses to speak to him. At last, beseiged by crowds of ghosts, Odysseus leaves, afraid that Persephone will send up the monster head of the Gorgon. Here is part of the conversation with Achilles, who asks what Odysseus is doing in Hades' kingdom:
Among the ghosts encountered by Odysseus in the Land of the Dead was that of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War. The Lion Gate that we see today at Mycenae dates from a later time, replacing the one from which Agamemnon would have departed for the war, and through which he returned, only to be murdered by his wife Clytaemnestra. (Illustration: The Lion Gate at Mycenae, from Chrestos Tsountas and J. Irving Manatt, The Mycenaean Age, 1897, from a photograph by Professor Colwell.)
Raphael, fresco "The School of Athens," in the Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican (1508-1511). Plato and Aristotle are at the center of the fresco, with Plato pointing toward heaven and the world of Forms, Aristotle pointing toward earth and the world of Things. The need for a wide educationMore than one observer of the academic world has bemoaned the fact that universities, especially graduate schools, have become more and more like trade schools, training students for a narrow proficiency in some skill at which they hope they can get a job. The aim seems to be lost of encouraging students to become well-educated, thoughtful citizens who can think critically about the world around them (and might, incidentally, be better able to change careers when necessary). Mark Taylor, chairman of the religion department at Columbia University, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, later quoted in the "College Pump" page of Harvard Magazine for July-August 2009, described graduate education as "the Detroit of higher learning," writing "Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)." We are reminded of the old joke, "A specialist is someone who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing." Obviously, it is the premise of this page that a knowledge of Classical literature, in all its many subjects, gives us insight into our world today. Plato and Cicero on career trainingOur quotations this month are from Plato and Cicero, the Greek philosopher and the Roman politician, different in many ways, but both seeing the need for a broad education for anyone in training to be a public leader. Plato, in his Republic (Politeia), laid out an entire curriculum for his Guardians (phylakes), warrior philosophers who were to protect and lead his ideal city-state, both men and women (for he thought that men and women should receive the same education, although he believed that women could never be as capable as men). Plato planned the course of study in excruciating detail. Some of his thoughts and prejudices about music were quoted in the Quotation of the Month for August (stay away from those flutes; they make you soft!). He would begin in youth with music, in which he included literature (which was only to include edifying subjects, not portraying un-guardian-like behavior), then proceed to gynmastics. Later, they would study mathematics and astronomy, which are useful to the soldier in the field, but, more importantly, provide a pattern for understanding the true absolutes that are known not by the senses but by reason alone. In Book 7, he introduces the allegory of the cave, where prisoners know reality only by shadows cast by a fire behind them on a wall before them. They see true reality, illuminated by the real sun, only when they are released from the cave. The well-educated guardians, released from their "cave" of the ordinary world of the senses, see true reality by the light of reason, but must descend back into the cave to lead those who still remain prisoners. The final stage of education for the guardians is in dialectic (dialegesthai "to dialog, discuss, argue"), through which one arrives by logic (logos) and intellect (noêsis) at absolute knowledge, and finally knowledge of absolute good. It is from this culminating stage of education that we quote below. Cicero's de Oratore (55.B.C.) is much more practical, coming from a writer who was both trial lawyer and politician. He makes the interesting point that a wide education actually makes one better at what seems to be a narrow profession of oratory. The De Oratore is presented as a dialog, supposedly taking place in 91 B.C., between Cicero's predecessor and mentor Crassus (who is Cicero's mouthpiece in the dialog) and several other eminent Romans. Cicero, in his introduction, presents the work as an answer to his brother Quintus, who apparently believed that talent and practical experience were all that was necessary to make either a good lawyer or a good speaker in the Senate. His is the view represented by Crassus' interlocutors in the dialog. Cicero's arguments for a wide education are not utopian, like Plato's, but based on usefulness. In presenting legal arguments, the lawyer must be familiar with all the topics that may come up; the same is true of speaking in the Senate. Beyond that, education (or lack of it) will show, no matter what the topic. In the De Oratore, Cicero covers many techniques (including humor and emotion) that can be used by the orator, and includes a discussion of the uses of Stoic and other philosophy in the pursuit of oratory. From this wide-ranging treatise, we quote some of the dialog ascribed to Crassus on the need for a broad-based training in oratory, which he compares to education in sports and painting.
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Party on! A Maenad (a "Crazy") plays the flute in a Dionysiac festival. Woodstock and PlatoAugust 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival. Sex, drugs, rock and roll! Woodstock has become a symbol for everything denoted by the term "The Sixties." It was a time of societal upheaval and rebellion, against targets real (Jim Crow segregation, second-class status of women) and perceived (conventional clothes, bland music, conformity in general). Much of the rebellion coalesced around protesting against the war in Vietnam, still a subject of argument today. There were assassinations (John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Lennon), riots, bombings, and bad acid trips. But many good things came out of the period, too, the civil rights movement, women's liberation, the environmental movement. The psychedelic art was imaginative and colorful. In July of 1969, men walked on the moon —but no women, who weren't allowed to be astronauts. It was a liberating time for many, but disorienting and frightening for those who felt safe within the conformity and conservatism of an earlier period. Now we have an African-American president, Barack Obama, and a Puerto Rican woman, Sonia Sotomayor, on the Supreme Court, and again there are those who feel anxiety at an unfamiliar world. And then there was the music! It was loud, all electric guitars and drums, voices that screamed and incited to licentious behavior!. The men had long hair and the women had no bras. And it sounded best when you were stoned. Today, rock and roll is mainstream, and there is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Very bourgeois. The Republic and Laws: micromanaging musicIn Classical Greece, Plato gave voice to the same concern over the power of music to promote certain kinds of behavior. In both the Republic and the Laws he attempts to micromanage the notes, rhythms, words, and instruments that are to be used in the education of his perfect citizen. We quote below excerpts from both works. In the Republic, he dismisses the Lydian and Ionian modes, as promoting indolence and softness, but recommends the Dorian and Phrygian modes, as becoming the stern soldier in war and peace, respectively. The worst kind of music is that played on the flute. The flute was considered suitable only for satyrs, prostitutes, and the Maenads ("crazy women," from mainomai, to rage, be mad) who followed after Dionysus in his bacchanals. In the Laws, a character called The Athenian inveighs against the mixing up of various kinds of music which should be kept separate (hymns, paeans, dithyrambs, etc.). People actually think they can decide for themselves what they think sounds good!
![]() Bad girl/good girl. "The courtesan and the modest wife," reliefs on the sides of the Ludovisi Throne, Terme Museum, Rome.
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The moon, in an illustration by Charles Robinson for "What the Moon Saw," by Hans Christian Andersen, in Fairy Tales, translated by Mrs. E. Lucas, 1903. A voyage to the moonForty years ago, two American astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. Since an initial flurry of return trips, no one has journeyed there, and the exploit has receded into the mists of time, and like the historic events of the Trojan War, become a myth. Even at the time, the elements of the heroic Journey theme (as identified in my book Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns) were acted out. As I further pointed out in Ancient Myths in Modern Movies, the astronauts left on the moon a statuette of the Fallen Astronaut, commemorating the astronauts and cosmonauts who died during the space program. It is a representation of the Death of the Substitute, a necessary element of every Journey myth. No one can come back from the Land of the Dead without some loss. A personal note: I watched the moon landing on a giant screen while sitting with a large crowd on the floor of the Student Union at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, a magic moment. I was attending a six-week Summer Institute on Computers and Classics, an intensive workshop that was seminal for many of us in the field of digital humanities. Now there's another event that should be repeated! The moon as goddess or as object of witchcraftIn antiquity, no one thought of the Moon as a place to go. Selene, the Moon, and Helios, the Sun, were divinities that drove great teams of horses as they "plowed deep furrows" across the sky. There was no specific cult of Selene among the Greeks (there was, though, a Roman cult of Luna). She was, however, identified with several other goddesses, including Artemis, Eos ("Dawn"), Hecate, and Persephone (the last two being goddesses associated with the Underworld). In the Homeric Hymn to Selene (quoted below) she is described as having wings, an attribute belonging to Eos. The moon was important in sorcery and witchcraft. In Theocritus' Idyll II (which we excerpted in the quotation for July, 2007), the (rather amateurish) witch, attempting to use magic to win back a boyfriend who dumped her, invokes Selene in the refrain "Tell me whence my love came, Lady Selene" (phrazeo meu ton erôth' hothen hiketo, potna Selana). Witches were supposed to be able to draw down the moon, as well as to stop rivers in their course. This month, we have two quotations. The first is the complete Homeric Hymn XXII to Selene (7th cent. B.C.?). This is one of the short Hymns, which does not tell a long story (like the Hymns to Demeter, Apollo, Demeter, and Apollo), but was perhaps used as an introductory song for a longer piece. The second is a description of one of the world's most famous sorceresses, Medea, from the Argonautica of the Alexandrian poet Apollonius Rhodius (3rd cent. B.C.). Medea, in the well-known story, helped Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece; he then married her, and took her home with him. There were many versions, but the one best known to modern playgoers and readers is the one told in Euripides' Medea, in which she kills her own children as revenge against Jason, who abandoned her for another woman, and this is where the modern emphasis lies. But in Hesiod's Theogony, there is no "Other Woman" and no infanticide; Jason and the "daughter of Aeetes" (her actual name not given) have a son Medeus, who is reared by the centaur Chiron, who also tutored both Jason and Achilles. In most versions, she is a witch, possibly a goddess. She renewed the youth of Jason's father, Aeson, by boiling him in herbs (then pretended to do the same for Pelias, but really killed him). We quote below the lines from the Argonautica in which Argos (builder of the ship Argo, in which the Argonauts sailed, and nephew of Medea), describes Medea, whom he thinks will be helpful to Jason. She is depicted with the stereotypical qualities of a well-equipped witch. The Homeric Hymn to Selene:
Excerpt from Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica:
![]() Selene, on a Roman altar in the Louvre, from Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1899.
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The judgment of a wise womanThe abundantly well-qualified Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Supreme Court, has left her conservative opponents scrambling for some flaw in her character. Judge Sotomayor would not only be one of a minuscule number of women to have served on the Court, she would be its first Latino (or Latina) member. Her foes have fastened on a remark of hers that they claim proves her lack of impartiality and hence unfitness for the position, in which she famously said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." Of course, if our life experiences were not brought to bear on all our actions and decisions, there would be little purpose in having any experience at all. Funny that no one ever thought that white male judges might not be influenced by some of their own backgrounds and life's journeys. Come to think of it, if we want a strict, mechanical, robotic interpretation of the law, which would be the same no matter who the judges were, why do we need nine redundant judges in the first place? Actually, Judge Sotomayor's judicial decisions in the lower courts have been quite centrist and non-ideological, not as her opponents would have us believe. Athena and the AreopagusWe are reminded of the most famous female judge of all, the goddess Athena, as depicted in Aeschylus Eumenides, in which she finds Orestes not guilty in the murder of his mother, Clytaemnestra. Athena, too, did not decide the case in the way that might have been predicted. In the first two plays of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, the Agamemnon and the Choephoroi (Libation Bearers), Orestes has killed his mother Clytaemnestra in retribution for her murder of his father Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan War. For this matricide, Orestes is pursued by the Furies (Erinyes). In the final play, the Eumenides (Kindly Goddesses), Orestes is told by Apollo's oracle at Delphi to seek justice in Athens. Athena herself undertakes the case, but chooses a jury of wise Athenian citizens, the Council of the Areopagus ("Ares' Hill"), to help her judge Orestes' guilt or innocence, in the very first trial for homicide. Athena's vote is for acquittal, and the trial ends in a tie, acquitting Orestes. In siding with the father' (Agamemnon's) interests rather than the mother's (Clytaemnestra's), Athena cites the fact that "no mother gave her birth," because she was born only of her father, Zeus. The Furies are mollified by being honored henceforth as the Eumenides, the "Kindly Goddesses." The Council of the Areopagus was a real court in Athens, very ancient and aristocratic, which had special jurisdiction over homicide, but had otherwise lost much of its power by Aeschylus' time. It was, however, much revered by nostalgic conservatives. Athena is literally correct but disingenuous in denying that any mother bore her. In Hesiod's Theogony we learn that she had a mother, Metis ("Good Counsel"), whom Zeus swallowed when she was pregnant with Athena so that she would not bear a son who would depose him, but she would remain inside him to give him advice. The best-known myth has Zeus give birth to Athena from his head (see the illustration above). Here are Athena's words in the Eumenides:
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"Boeotian pig" as an insultA nasty strain of flu virus has cropped up in many parts of the world, having first been identified in Mexico in a village near a pig farm. Stoked by the media, hungry for sensational stories, a panic of apocalyptic proportions circled the globe with more speed than the disease itself. Fears were raised of a worldwide pandemic killing millions, similar to the devastating flu epidemic of 1918. The disease acquired a popular name: SWINE FLU. While the first outbreak caused a number of deaths, subsequent infections have been, for the most part, no worse than the flu that visits us annually. One reason for the initial virulence may be that both the pig farm and the nearby village were scandalously overcrowded, substandard, and filthy. (Similar conditions caused the severity of the hideous plague at Athens during the Peloponnesian War, where countless refugees were crowded into the city — that epidemic was, of course, not the flu but a different disease.) Public reactions have ranged from obsessive-compulsive to the ridiculous and xenophobic. In some countries, the entire population goes around in (mostly useless) face masks; in others, travel from Mexico and the U.S. is prohibited or restricted. In the U.S., schools are closed to prevent close encounters among students (uselessly, since the young people simply go to sports events or the mall). Most bizarre of all, some people are reported to fear eating pork — or Mexican food! Pigs have always gotten a bad rap, as dirty or stupid (they are by nature neither), or just plain fat. This month, we look at pigs in ancient Greek literature. Circe turned Odysseus' men into pigs, but the swineherd Eumaeus is Odysseus' faithful ally when he gets home to Ithaca and must battle the evil Suitors. Most egregiously, an entire nation is labeled with the swinely epithet in the the phrase BOEOTIAN PIG, first made known to us, uttered in indignation, by the great lyric poet Pindar, from the Boeotian city of Thebes. Rivalry of Thebes and AthensBoeotia is a region in central Greece, north of Attica, with much agricultural land (and in antiquity famous for the delicious eels of Lake Copais, which has since been drained), but with little access to the sea. Of its many towns, the greatest was Thebes, site of some of the most glorious narratives in Greek mythology. Here we find Cadmus, founder of the city, who sowed the dragon's teeth (and who, with his wife Harmonia, became, in old age, a snake). His daughter, Semele, became the mother of Dionysos, but was fried by Zeus' thunderbolt. Another daughter, Agave, driven mad by Dionysos, killed her own son, Pentheus, thinking that he was a lion, a story told by Euripides in his Bacchae. Oedipus, whose family is familiar to us in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, was likewise king of Thebes. It is ironic that the greatest Theban stories come to us in Athenian versions, as do many of our depictions of the national character of Boeotia. Thebes and Athens were sometimes allies, often rivals (Thebes took the Persian side in the Persian Wars), and the Athenian comic poets in particular delighted in describing Boeotians as sluggish, uneducated, caring only about eating, and with a "lack of feeling" (anaesthesia), i.e for the finer things of life. Even today, the term "Boeotian" is used to imply slowness and ignorance. Actually, Thebes must have been a pretty interesting place. Far from limiting themselves to the Olympian gods, the Thebans had many unusual cults (including the mystery cult of the Kabeiroi), and were open to other philosophic and mystical ideas, such as Pythagoreanism. Women occupied a more important place in Thebes than at Athens, especially in connection with their religious life. (The receptiveness to strange cults is reflected in Euripides' description of Dionysiac madness in the Bacchae.) Boeotians excelled in music, especially in playing the flute, a talent also mocked by the Athenians. Great poets and writers came out of Boeotia, including Hesiod, the contemporary of Homer who composed the Theogony and Works and Days, from Ascra; the poetesses Corinna, from Tanagra, and Myrtis; Plutarch (46 A.D. - after 120 A.D.) philosopher and biographer best known today for his Lives of eminent Greeks and Romans, from Chaeronea; and greatest of all, the lyric poet Pindar, whose home was the only house spared by Alexander the Great when he sacked Thebes. Pindar's Sixth OlympianPindar's Sixth Olympian Ode celebrates the victory in the mule chariot race by a team owned by Hagesias of Syracuse in (perhaps) 472 B.C. These equine athletes are apparently female, as the word for "they" has the feminine form keinai in line 25. We quoted lines from the poem that celebrate the mules' strength and horse-sense in an earlier "Quotation of the Month" for June 2007, to mark the victory of the filly Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes. Below are the lines from Pindar's Sixth Olympian that refute the piggy insult. (Notes: "Aeneas" is the chorus-master, not the Roman hero. The skutale (which I translate as "enciphered dispatch") was a Spartan device, a staff around which a strip of leather was wound diagonally, upon which a message was written. When removed from the staff, the writing was illegible, but when delivered to its destination, it was rewound around a staff of identical diameter, and could be read.)
Bibliography:Nancy H. Demand, Thebes in the Fifth Century: Heracles Resurgent, London, 1982. Rhys Roberts, The Ancient Boeotians: Their Character and Culture and Their Reputation, Cambridge (England), 1895. Sarantis Symeonoglou, The Topography of Thebes, from the Bronze Age to Modern Times, Princeton, 1985. (The title of this book is disarmingly understated, as this volume comprises a thorough history of the city through all its vicissitudes.)
Columns of the temple of Hera, Olympia. (From Hanns Holdt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Griechenland, 3rd edition, 1928.)
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The goddess Flora by Hans Thoma (1882, from Thoma: Des Meisters Gemälde in 874 Abbildungen, Stuttgart, 1909). Why is April called "April"?The Roman year, ordained by Romulus, originally began with March; April, sacred to Venus, was the second month. King Numa (about 700 B.C.) added two more months, January, sacred to Janus, the god of openings, and February. Ovid, in his Fasti, or Roman Calendar, Book IV, for April, wonders out loud to Venus why April is not named for her, since the month is sacred to her and to her festival. "They say" ( memorant), Ovid tells her (and us), that the name comes from the fact that April "opens" (aperit) the fertility of the earth from its winter frost. But Ovid himself prefers to think that the name comes from the Greek name for Venus, Aphrodite. The debate continues today. In favor of the first idea is the parallel with the modern Greek word for "spring" anoixis ("opening"), but modern scholars also find a derivation from the name Aphrodite possible, perhaps through the Etruscan form of the name, Apru (although the Etruscans themselves called the month "Cabreas"; see Sarolta Takács, Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion, 2007). April is an optimistic month (despite T.S. Eliot calling it "the cruellest"). In 2009, Easter, Passover, and Earth Day all were celebrated in April. In the northeastern U.S., we went from winter-like conditions to summer in a few weeks, with all the growing things and flowers coming up from Mother Gaia. Venus, giver of fertility and cultureIn our quotation of the month, Ovid decries the etymology that denies Venus her month, and celebrates her gifts of love, creation, and civilization:
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Heracles cleaned the stables of King Augeias of Elis by diverting a river through them. (Illustration: View of Hera's temple at Olympia, from an old postcard.) A Herculean taskA Herculean task, in more than one sense, confronts the Obama administration as it attempts to solve multiple problems and effect multiple reforms in the American economy, infrastructure, and education and health care systems, and as it works to rebuild our position of responsible leadership in the global neighborhood. A sludge of fraud, greed, ignorance, and irresponsibility must be cleaned up, the flow of financial credit unclogged, and public confidence and trust in our public institutions restored. We are reminded of nothing so much as Heracles' (Hercules') fifth Labor, the cleaning of the Augeian stables. The Twelve LaborsThe Labors of Heracles are described in different versions by many Greek and Roman authors, but a rationalized and comprehensive account is in the Library of Apollodorus (first century B.C. or A.D.?), as follows: Heracles was driven mad by his stepmother, the goddess Hera, and killed his wife Megara and his children (this incident is placed by Euripides after his Labors in the tragedy Herakles, also called Hercules furens). He went into exile and was purified by Thespius, and inquired of the Oracle at Delphi as to what to do next. The Pythian priestess told him to go to Tiryns and live in servitude to King Eurystheus for twelve years and perform ten labors imposed by him (later increased by Eurystheus to twelve). The twelve Labors were:
Heracles performed the original ten Labors in eight years and one month, but Eurystheus imposed another two Labors, disqualifying the Hydra and the Augeian stables, the former, because Heracles had the help of Iolaus, the latter because Heracles was did it for pay. Cleaning the Augeian stablesAugeias was king of Elis, the district of western Peloponnesos where Olympia is located. He was variously described as the son of the Sun or of Poseidon, and was one of the Argonauts who sailed with Jason. He had vast herds of cattle and sheep, with vast stables to match. Eurystheus commanded Heracles to clean out Augeias' stables in one day, but when Heracles approached Augeias, he said nothing about Eurystheus, and offered to clean the stables in exchange for one tenth of the herd. Heracles diverted the river Alpheus (Apollodorus says the rivers Alpheus and Peneus) through the cattle-yard and cleaned it out. When Augeias learned that Eurystheus had commanded the deed, he refused to pay Heracles, and Eurystheus refused to recognize this exploit among the Labors, as he had performed it for hire. Pindar, in his Olympian Ode X tells how Heracles took revenge on Augeias and his kin, killing them and using the spoils to found the shrine of Olympia and the Olympic games. The official Olympiads begin in 776 B.C., but the discovery of Mycenaean remains at the site lend credence to the belief that Heracles — or somebody! — established the site and the games in very ancient times. Theocritus Idyll 25 (which may be incomplete and may not be by Theocritus, Syracusan Greek poet of the 3rd century B.C.) describes at great length the arrival of Heracles at the estate of Augeias, through which he is given a "guided tour" by one of the workmen, who then takes him to the king. Here is an excerpt:
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The capture of the Cerynitian hind was Heracles' third labor. (Illustration: Heracles capturing the hind, Delphi Museum, from a postcard).
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A souvenir knife and sheath from Crete with inscription; close-up of inscription and "map" of Crete. (Photo by J. Sowa.) Taking a trip into fantasylandThe stock market has crashed, taking investors' life savings. Workers cannot find jobs, and homeowners unable to pay their mortgages are evicted from their foreclosed homes; students have no money for tuition. Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and others like it defrauded investors of billions of dollars, leaving many charities, community groups, and educational institutions without funds. Meanwhile, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and now Pakistan) drag on and on, draining more resources. All of these tragedies have one thing in common: the willingness of large numbers of people to live in a fantasy world, following no roadmap of reality. (Some, Cassandra-like, saw the bad news coming but could not stop the folly). Not only was there no Plan B; sometimes there wasn't even a Plan A. Home-buyers took out mortgages they could not afford, thinking that prices could only increase. Banks and mortgage companies made loans (then packaged them and sold them off to other banks), knowing that they could not be repaid but hoped the fun would always last. Investors in Madoff's scheme did not ask how he made his money as long as they could enrich themselves, and Madoff himself thought he could get away with his shenanigans forever. Bush started the war in Iraq with gauzy ideas of destroying Saddam Hussein's (non-existent) WMD's and being greeted by Iraqis with flowers and candies. And Osama bin Laden, whose attacks on America originally set off the war, had equally unrealistic dreams of destroying all of Western secular civilization, while on Wall Street, Western civilization was destroying itself with fantasies of "a new paradigm," where gravity went only one direction — up. Wisdom on a knife bladeThis month, in somewhat of a departure, the quotation is not from ancient Greek but from modern Greek. Years ago, when I was a student in Greece, I bought a knife in Crete, which was very useful on field trips, especially for cutting bread and cheese, and the occasional piece of fruit. It also has engraved upon it a useful little verse, which has many applications. Its homely reminder not to "take a trip with your mind" into daydreams where there is "no road" of reality to follow, literally brings us back to earth, whether the topic is romantic love or untold fame and riches. Better to find a gorgeous road, however rocky, and follow it. If you do not immediately see a road, get a map, or ask for a guide! The knife is pictured above. Below is the original verse, in transliteration (with the original spacing of nomi-zes), with an English translation:
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![]() Vergil's idea of Paradise: Dyers will no longer have to dye wool, because sheep will already come in different colors. (Illustration: with multicolored apologies to Hans Thoma (German, 19th century), "Under Olive Trees near Tivoli," 1880, from Thoma: Des Meisters Gemälde in 874 Abbildungen, Stuttgart, 1909.) A new Golden AgeIn the ecstasy surounding the elevation of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States, it seems impossible that any mortal man (or even a committee of mortal men and women) can deliver on the promise of his astounding victory. The wish list is endless: restoring a shattered economy; rebuilding our decaying infrastructure and (we hope!) catching up with Europe and Japan in high speed rail and transit; healing our urban neighborhoods; bringing peace to the Middle East; protecting the environment and reversing global warming; not to mention restoring America's reputation as a leader, role model, and willing cooperator among the nations of the world. This month's quotation is from Vergil's 4th Eclogue, the so-called "Messianic" Eclogue. Among the pastoral fantasies of the Eclogues it stands out. It is addressed to Vergil's friend and fellow poet Pollio, who had been elected consul and had helped broker the Treaty of Brundisium between Antony and Octavian which, it seemed, would finally bring peace to the Roman world after decades of civil war. It didn't, of course; Antony, after becoming involved with Cleopatra, was vanquished at Actium in 31 B.C. by Octavian, who became the Emperor Augustus. A Wonder Child and purple sheepVergil envisions a new Golden Age marked by the birth of a marvellous Child, who will grow to great manhood beloved of the gods. Vergil never specifies who this Child is, or who his father is. Is it Pollio? or Antony? or Octavian? Perhaps diplomacy, or caution, persuaded Vergil to be vague. Octavian's newborn, in fact, turned out to be a girl (the notorious Julia). Some Christian writers (who, like Dante, tend to make Vergil a kind of honorary Christian) have seen parallels to Isaiah and insist that Vergil was prophesying the birth of Christ. The poem foretells the return of "the Virgin," but the reference is undoubtedly to Justice, the last of the immortals to leave Earth when men became evil. Vergil's influences include the Sibylline Books, supposed to contain the oracular utterances of the Sibyl of Cumae, Pythagorean philosophy, and perhaps even Jewish Messianic prophecies that were in the air. Vergil depicts an earthly Paradise, which frankly gets quite silly. Not only does he describe crops that grow by themselves and goats and cattle that come to be milked of their own accord, but he includes the fact that wool will not have to be dyed ("wool will not have to lie about its color") because sheep will obligingly change their own colors to shades of yellow, purple, and vermillion (see my interpretation in the illustration above). A Roman momentAt President Obama's inauguration, Chief Justice Roberts got the words wrong in the Oath of Office, whose words are decreed in the Constitution (our sacred document!). Although both he and Mr. Obama eventually recovered and said the correct words, it was later felt necessary, in a private White House ceremony, for them to repeat the entire Oath, to make sure that it was valid. How very Roman! For in Roman religion, the words of ritual had to be letter perfect, or else the entire ceremony had to be repeated. There may be elements of magic in this, as if the words themselves have the power to bring about a result, or perhaps a feeling that an "impurity" in the wording could offend the deity (see W. Warde Fowler in "The Religious Experience of the Roman People," 1911, reissued 1971). This month's quotation was suggested to me by Marilyn Skinner of the University of Arizona. If anyone has suggestions for future quotations, I'd be glad to hear them. Here, in translation, are the opening lines of Vergil's 4th Eclogue:
![]() Horace looks out at the snow on nearby hills and decides to stay indoors and have some fun. (Illustration from an edition of Horace.) The Winter Solstice is here. The days become cold and short, and the winds are howling. What to do? The Roman poet Horace contemplates the snow-covered peak of Mount Soracte (the modern Monte Soratte or Monte Sant' Oreste, about 20 miles north of Rome, across the valley from his Sabine villa), and decides to stay inside and party. Put more logs on the fire, open a jar of good wine, and forget about tomorrow. Or, if you are young, take your lover down to the public square, find a cozy corner, and make out. Here, in both Latin and English is Horace's Ode, Book I, No. 9:
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![]() Illustration: Man sailing a corbita, a small merchant vessel (the name means "basket," probably from its shape), marble relief, ca. 200 A.D., found at Utica, near Carthage, in the British Museum. Image from Wikipedia Commons. Catullus dedicates a retired ship to the godsAs our Thanksgiving offering, we present a poem by the Roman poet Catullus in which he dedicates a little ship, now resting in retirement, as an offering to the gods in thanks -- both to the gods and to it -- for a safe voyage home from Bithynia on the Black (or "Pontic") Sea. Catullus had served there on the staff of the governor, Memmius, returning in 56 B.C. The ship, a fast phaselus, is described as telling her own story of her birth and exploits. A phaselus was a slender, fast passenger boat, apparently shaped like a string bean (Greek pháselos, kidney bean). This type of vessel came in different sizes, from small river-going cargo boats to large sea-going ships that could, when necessary, be used as men-of-war. They mostly used their sails, but also used oars, when necessary. There is some question whether Catullus actually towed his little ship up the Po and Mincio rivers to his beloved home at Sirmio, or whether his offering consisted of a model of the ship. Perhaps we will never know, but it is the ship herself who speaks. (For more on the phaselus and on ancient ships in general, see Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.) Here, in both Latin and English, is Catullus' evocation of his little ship:
![]() Illustration: Merchant ship, about 500 B.C, from a painted vase found at Vulci in Etruria, in the British Museum. From Cecil Torr, Ancient Ships, 1895.
![]() Illustration: A foot race, depicted on a Panathenaic amphora in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is better to exercise the mind than the bodyWe are just finishing baseball's World Series, the New York Marathon is about to take place, and the college and professional footbal season is underway. But out-of-shape nerds and couch potatoes can take heart from the words of the philosopher Seneca, who, in a letter to his friend Lucilius, expresses the view that it is more valuable to exercise the mind than the body. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.(?)-65 A.D.) was born in Córdoba, Spain, to a family of the equestrian class, but moved to Rome as a child. His father (also named Lucius Annaeus Seneca) was a well-known rhetorician, some of whose controversiae and suasoriae survive. Seneca the Younger followed the usual political career of an upper class Roman gentleman, but was more attracted to philosophy. He became tutor to the future emperor Nero, and later an influential advisor to Nero when he acceded to the throne. But Nero fell under the influence of more malevolent advisors, and Seneca was implicated in a tenuous charge of complicity in the conspriacy of Piso, and was forced, first to retire, then finally to commit suicide. Seneca's Epistulae Morales, addressed to Lucilius, date from the end of his life, when he was living in forced retirement. These letters, which are really little essays, cover many aspects of contemporary Roman life. In his writings, Seneca was a practioner of the "pointed" style, with short, pithy, aphoristic sentences, as opposed to the resounding amplitude of the Ciceronian periodic manner. His philosophy belongs to the Stoic school, but is Roman in its emphasis on practical applications of philosophy rather than its theoretical beliefs. In Letter 15, Seneca counsels against extreme exercise and body-building, as he does against other extremes. We should make time for the soul. He is not against exercise. A little light running, jumping, and light weight-lifting is good. So is the gentle motion of riding in a litter (sort of like a rocking chair?). Likewise, one should exercise the voice, but not by shouting. Live in moderation; life is short. Here, in translation, are the opening lines of Letter 15:
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![]() "The fantasy of a statue that comes to life is as central a fable as we have. The idea of motion or speech in an inanimate stone is an inescapable possibility, a concept of a sort so basic that we can hardly call it a metaphor. Time and again, we find texts in which the statue that stands immobile in temple or square descends from its pedestal, or speaks out of its silence. Such fantasies are simply part of what we know about statues, and what statues can represent to us..." Illustrations: Robots old and new: ABOVE: Bronze figures of Minerva and the Bell Ringers, by Antonin Jean Carles, 1895, from the old New York Herald Building. Now restored in Herald Square, the bronze men strike the bell with their mallets every hour; bronze owls once flashed their illuminated eyes at press time. MIDDLE: The Autoperipatetikos, or doll that Walks-by-Itself, patented by Enoch Rice Morrison in 1862. This example is in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA. BELOW: Electro-Man entertaining children at a safety exhibit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority at the 2003 open house of the Harmon Shops, Croton-Harmon, NY. (Photos by C.A.Sowa). Moving statuesIn The Dream of the Moving Statue (Cornell, 1992), Kenneth Gross, quoted above, examines the aesthetic, psychoanalytic, and historic meanings of images that come to life, and the opposing myths of the metamorphosis of the living person, like Niobe or Lot's Wife, into a statue or inanimate object. Perhaps there are in these fantasies a desire to conquer death and transcend boundaries, perhaps sometimes a fear of retribution, or even a desire to enter oneself into the stability of a stonelike state. Gross's examples range from ancient tales such as that of Pygmalion to more modern stories like Molière's Don Juan and Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman and movies like Charlie Chaplin's City Lights and Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract. The statue that comes to life may be oracle or retribution or wish fulfillment, but stories of toys or other inanimate objects that take on a life of their own continue to be a deep-seated human fantasy. WALL-E, the lovable trash compactorOne of this summer's most popular movies was the animated Pixar film, WALL-E. It is still in a few theaters, but if you can't catch it, rent the DVD! Although billed as a children's movie, the themes treated, concerning the destruction of the environment, the relationship of humans to machines, and the power of love (even betweeen machines!), not to mention the many witty references to other films and stories, give any viewer much food for thought. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class), diligent and homely trash compactor, has spent hundreds of years cleaning up the toxic detritus left by human beings. The humans long ago left Earth to live, bloated and idle, like Homer's Lotus-Eaters, in resort-like exile on a space ship, the Axiom, waited upon by hundreds of robot servants. WALL-E's only companion is a cockroach. With childlike curiosity, he collects things that he finds, putting them in a box in his belly, and takes them to his home, a giant shipping container full of spare parts and his beloved junk collection. His finds include a Rubik's cube, a brassiere (which he tries to wear like a mask), and an old VCR tape of Hello Dolly, which he watches over and over. One day, he finds a single plant, growing in an old work boot. The tiny plant is his prized possession. Shortly thereafter, a space shuttle brings a sleek modern robot named EVE, whose name means Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Her job is to discover whether Earth, based on the renewed presence of photosynthesis, that is, of plant life, is again livable. WALL-E's awkward, adolescent-like attempts to make friends with EVE are met first with icy disdain, then curiosity, on her part. Then EVE grabs WALL-E's plant with her tractor beam and puts it in her own womb-like belly, and departs on her space shuttle for the humans' mother ship. WALL-E follows her, clinging to the outside of the shuttle. Where the first half of the film was almost wordless, the second is a slapstick farce in which the dingy and rusty WALL-E tries to evade the army of servant robots who want to clean up the mess that he represents. At last, the Captain of the Axiom, with heroic fortitude, realizes that Earth must be recolonized, and, to the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra, wrests control from the dictatorial Auto, the autopilot computer, and steers a course for Earth. Happy humans relearn to live in Earth's gravity, and prepare to plant WALL-E's little plant, and many more of them. But WALL-E has been injured, and EVE undertakes to heal him by replacing his burned-out circuit boards. Still he is listless and depressed, until EVE takes his square hand in hers, and the spark of love unites them as the cockroach chirps happily. WALL-E and R.U.R.The references are many: In his bug-eyed visage and childlike nature (and his near-death experience), WALL-E instantly evokes the extraterrestrial E.T. The cockroach (they will outlive us all!) reminds us of Jiminy Cricket, the companion of Pinocchio, another toy who comes to life. The cherished plant echoes Saint Exupéry's Little Prince, with his beloved single rose. The Captain's struggle with Auto for control of the space ship parodies the struggle with the computer HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, right down to the music from Zarathustra. Perhaps, however, the most interesting antecedent is Karel Čapek's 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which gave us the word "robot." In it, the robots, built to work as slaves for humans, rebel and take over the world, killing all the humans but one, the engineer Alquist. But the robots cannot reproduce themselves, because they do not know the secret of their own manufacture, and all the plans have been destroyed. Nor do they care that when they wear out, they are destroyed, because they have no feelings. But two robots, Primus and Helena, inexplicably fall in love, laughing together and holding hands. When Alquist proposes dissecting Helena to see how she works, Primus cries out that he will die in her place, upon which Helena bursts into tears, and offers to die instead. "We belong to each other," says Primus. Alquist, deeply moved, lets them go, saying "Go Adam, go Eve. The world is yours." By developing emotions, they have become human, the key to repopulating Earth. Like WALL-E and his EVE, they have shown the human beings how to be human. Homeric androidsFantasies of robots that come to life are as old as Homer. The Iliad, composed perhaps around 750 B.C., describes the intelligent golden maidservants and self-propelled golden-wheeled tripods that the lame technician god Hephaestus built for himself. For his work at the anvil, Hephaestus also built "twenty bellows in all, blowing upon the melting pots at his command." In the Odyssey, Hephaestus forged immortal gold and silver guard dogs for King Alkinoos of Phaiakia, whose navy also owned a fleet of self-propelled ships. In Hellenistic times, Heron of Alexandria (whose dates are uncertain, but who may have lived in the first century B.C.) actually built dancing mannequins of Dionysos and the Bacchants, powered by water and steam. In Book 18 of the Iliad, Homer tells how Thetis visits Hephaestus,
asking him to make a shield and new armor for her doomed son Achilles.
As Hephaestus rises to greet her, Homer depicts the smith's skillful androids.
As we see, Hephaestus' golden young servants, "having reason in their hearts,"
even if they do not have emotions, at least possess a sophisticated form of
Artificial Intelligence.
![]() Hephaestus at his forge (Sarcophagus relief, depicted in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890.)
![]() Hera and Zeus, quarreling over who enjoys the greater pleasure, the man or the woman, ask Teiresias, who has enjoyed both experiences. (Illustration: Hera and Zeus, metope from the Doric temple of Hera at Selinus, Sicily. About 465 B.C. Palermo, photo by R. Schoder, S.J.) A transgendered man in Oregon gives birth to a baby girlWelcome to the world, little Miss Beatie! Early in July, it was reported that the so-called "pregnant man," Thomas Beatie, had given birth to a healthy baby girl at a hospital in Oregon. Beatie, who was born a woman (and, it has been pointed out, chromosomally still is), underwent gender reassignment to become legally a man, but kept his female organs in order to be able to bear children. His wife, Nancy, has two grown daughters by a previous marriage, but is unable to bear more children because she has had a hysterectomy. The couple used donor sperm and Beatie's own eggs. Gays, lesbians, and transgendered characters in poetry and mythologyWe are all familiar with homosexuality in ancient culture and literature (the term "Greek love" was familiar long before "gay" entered our vocabulary), and the island of Lesbos, Sappho's home, has given its name permanently to gay women (although, of course, not all Lesbians are "lesbians"!). We also know the myth of Zeus, who gave birth to Athena fully grown from the top of his head (after swallowing her mother, Metis, according to Hesiod), and gave birth to Dionysos from his thigh, after he had incinerated the infant god's mother, Semele, with his thunderbolt. We are less aware that the transgender character can also be found in ancient mythology. The seer Teiresias, however, had this experience, when one encounter with a pair of mating snakes turned him into a woman, but another encounter with the same snakes turned him back into a man. Teiresias' encounter with the snakes that changed his lifeTeiresias, the great blind seer of Thebes, appears as a character in many ancient legends. He plays an important part in the story of Oedipus, and appears in the Odyssey as a shade in the Underworld, where alone among the dead he retains his mental faculties (phrenes and noon), and foretells Odysseus' future. There are different versions of how Teiresias lost his sight and gained the gift of prophecy. In one story, Teiresias, who had been both a man and a woman, is called upon to settle a dispute between Hera and Zeus over which sex enjoys love the most, He takes Zeus's position that the female has the greater pleasure. This angers Hera, who blinds him, but Zeus compensates him with the ability to prophesy the future. Callimachus followed a different version in his Fifth Hymn ("The Bath of Pallas"). In it, Teiresias as a youth sees Athena bathing, but since his mother, the nymph Chariclo, is a favorite of Athena, she does not put him to death, but blinds him, while also making him a prophet. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, follows the first of these versions. He pictures Jupiter (Zeus) and Juno (Hera) enjoying a Happy Hour of nectar and discussing the relative sexual pleasure of males and females. Remembering Teiresias' experience, they turn to him for his opinion. We translate here Ovid's version of the story. (The allusion to "twice-born Bacchus" is a reference to Dionysos' second birth from Zeus's thigh, and the "fatal oath" refers to Zeus's (now regretted) promise to Semele that he will show himself to her in his true nature -- a thunderbolt!) While these things were happening on earth because of the fatal oath
![]() Teiresias' first encounter with the snakes turned him into a woman, the second turned him back into a man.
![]() The constellation of the hunter Orion, with his dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor, in Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, New York, 1856.) A drunk looks for Orion's belt on the wrong nightOvid's Fasti or Roman Calendar extends only from January to June. We don't know if he never finished the year, or if the rest of the poem has been lost. His entry for the summer solstice, which falls in June, is short. A drunken man, on his way home from a shrine outside the city (a celebration of some sort?) scans the heavens in vain for Orion's belt, a few days early. (As a note in Frazer's Loeb edition explains, "True morning rising of middle star was on June 21, apparent, July 13. The summer solstice was on June 24."). The constellation of Orion is best seen in winter, when it is one of the most prominent features of the night sky. The three stars of his belt and the sword hanging from it are instantly recognizable. One of the celestial objects in his sword is not a star but a nebula, which appears as a fuzzy blob to the naked eye, but even through simple binoculars, individual tiny stars can be seen forming in a hazy cloud, a mini-Hubble picture of a distant world. The story of OrionThere are various myths of Orion, the gigantic hunter, with conflicting versions of his life, death, and eventual apotheosis as a constellation. Homer's Calypso depicts him as the dawn goddess Eos' lover, who was killed by Artemis (Odyssey 5.121-4). Calypso cites him as an example of how the gods begrudge goddesses that they mate with mortal men. Another story has him slain by Artemis because he insulted her, or that he was killed by a scorpion sent by the goddess Earth because he boasted that he would kill all the animals. He may have been Boeotian, as there are many legends about him from Boeotia. Other stories connect him with Chios. In any case, he now roams the heavens with his faithful hunting dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor. The prey that he hunts, Taurus the bull and Lepus the hare, are close by. (Scorpio the scorpion is kept far on the other side!) The tipsy astonomerHere is Ovid's amateur astronomer: Lo, a fellow returning, not very sober, from a suburban shrine
![]() A one-as coin with Janus on one side, prow of a ship on the other (in Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1899). Inflation in today's newsInflation is in the news. Food costs more, affordable housing is difficult to find, medical costs are up, college tuition is prohibitive, the dollar has lost its value internationally, and with gasoline at $4.00 a gallon, you can't go anywhere anyway. (Time to revive train travel!) Ancient Rome suffered from its own kind of inflation. In early Rome and Latium, the oldest medium of exchange was oxen and sheep (hence the word for property or wealth, pecunia, from pecus "cattle" and our word pecuniary). A later currency consisted of unwrought copper or bronze (aes rude), and then of bronze bars marked with an image or inscription (aes signatum). Rome came late to using actual coins, compared to the Greek and Middle Eastern world. Lydia struck coins of electrum (an alloy of gold and silver) in the 7th century B.C., followed by the silver coins of the Greek cities of Aegina, Corinth, and Chalcis. (Prior to this, the Greeks used iron spits (oboloi) as currency; a handful of six of these was a drachme.) Rome, however, seems not to have minted real coins until around 300 B.C. The earliest known coin was the copper one-as coin, which originally weighed one Roman pound, or twelve unciae (the word from which our word ounce comes). The obverse bore the image of Janus, the two-faced god of doorways and beginnings, the reverse the image of a ship's prow (see the depiction above). In 269 B.C. Rome opened her first mint, in the temple of Juno Moneta ("the Mindful One"; the epithet gives us, as a result, both the words "money" and "mint"). Silver coins were minted here after the Greek fashion, for the cities and outside trade, copper coins for the rustic countryside. Gold coins, too, were eventually introduced. But the stalwart old copper coins gradually decreased in weight, until they weighed only one uncia, and finally they were no longer minted. Over the course of the Roman republic and then the Empire, the silver and gold coins, too, underwent periodic decreases in weight, followed by periodic reforms. Ovid's Janus complains of the loss of the old coinageOvid, in his entry for the month of January in the Fasti, describes his encounter with the weird old god Janus, in a passage of which we quoted a part in the Quotation of the Month for January, 2007. Janus, at first frightening with his strange double face that "alone of the gods, can look at his own back," turns out to be a genial ranconteur. Previously, we quoted his account of the arrival of the god Saturn, exiled from the celestial kingdom by Jupiter. Prior to this story, Janus rails against the devaluation of the old copper coins that bear his image, and their worn-out condition that makes his image unrecognizable! This rant, in turn, is the result of Ovid inquiring about the various kinds of offerings that are brought to Janus at his festival. Dates, figs, and honey are among the offerings, so that the year may be sweet. But money is brought, too, and money is even sweeter than honey! In the time of Saturn, life was simple, whereas now everything must be gold and jewels, and people make money for the sake of making money. We praise the old days, but find today more useful. (Ironically, as we learn in Vergil's Aeneid, quoted for the Saturnalia in the quotation for December, 2007, the simple age of Saturn was also referred to as the "Golden Age"! These poets should get their stories straight!) . . . "I see why sweets are given. Tell me also the reason for giving coins,
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![]() Silver and gold Roman coins (in Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1899.)
![]() Relief of three-headed Hekate from Aegina (in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890). Hecate, a goddess associated with the uncanny, the Underworld, and crossroads, was among the divinities invoked in curses. The Red Sox curse on Yankee StadiumEarly in April, it became known that a construction worker building the new stadium for the New York Yankees baseball team had buried a T-shirt bearing the name of the rival Boston Red Sox in the cement floor of the stadium, in order to put a curse on the Yankees. The worker later confessed that he had buried the shirt under the floor last summer, prophesying that the curse would last 30 years. The Yankee management took the curse seriously, spending $50,000 to dig up the offending garment. When last heard, the jersey was back in Boston, where it will be auctioned off for charity. Ball players are known for being superstitious, but the idea of buried curses has deep roots in Classical culture. Ancient curse tabletsCurses, often addressed to chthonic (underground) or liminal (boundary) deities, such as Hecate, Persephone, Hermes, or Charon, scratched on lead and pierced with nails have been found at both Greek and Roman sites. Curses or spells may also have been written on materials such as papyrus, wood, or wax, but these are more perishable. A large number of lead curse tablets have been found in Athens. Many of these refer to court cases and are designed to put an evil spell on the opposing litigant. Many have also been found in Roman Britain, especially at the Roman baths in present-day Bath, England, where they tend to be aimed at thieves who stole the bathers' clothes (apparently they didn't have lockers). We also have what might be called "literary curses." In July, 2007, we quoted a poem by Theocritus, in which a young sorceress uses magic to try to lure back a young man with whom she had a brief affair (or maybe kill him!). Below, we quote one of Horace's Epodes, in which he wishes shipwreck on another poet, named Mevius. Burying the St. Joseph statueGood prayers can be buried, too. Some of the buried tablets were spells buried at grave sites to help the dead to their next life, especially if the person died young or died a violent death, and some were love spells. Today, statues of St. Joseph (patron saint of carpenters, and thus of houses) are buried by homeowners trying to sell their houses. The statue is buried upside down in the yard, then dug up when the house is sold, and displayed in a place of honor in the new home (it is suggested that the statue be buried in a plastic bag so that it doesn't get dirty). St. Joseph statue kits, with statue, plastic bag, and directions for use, are available over the Internet. The statues come in different sizes, but there is apparently no difference in their efficacy. Some real-estate agents are said to keep supplies of these statues to provide for their prospective clients. Horace's curse upon MeviusOur quotation of the month is an example of the "literary curse," Horace's ill wishes for a rival poet. Mevius (who along with another bad poet, Bavius, is immortalized by Vergil's insults in Eclogue 3.90), was apparently an enemy of both Vergil and Horace. No poetry by Mevius or Bavius survives. Mevius was about to embark on a trip to Greece. Horace calls on all the hostile winds (Auster and Notus, the south winds, Eurus, the east wind, and Aquilo, the north wind) to wreck Mevius' ship. He does not call on Zephyrus, the gentle west wind. Horace's ill-omened sendoff (Epode X), translated below, was modeled on a poem by Archilochus. Under an evil augury the ship departs,
![]() Mercury (Hermes) in his role as psychopompos, or conductor of the souls of the dead into the Underworld.
![]() Athenian women filling their water pots at a public fountain
and chatting (black-figured water pot (hydria), 6th cent. B.C. Paris, Louvre.
(image from Rostovtzeff, History of the Ancient World, after Perrot and Chipiez.)
Festivals and games of MarchThe month of March 2008 has provided us with many occasions for festivals -- St. Patrick's Day, the celebrations of Purim and of Mohammed's Birthday, the Spring Equinox, and Easter. It also gives us March Madness, the annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments. Since Title IX of the Education Amendments was passed in 1972, women's sports, including basketball, have received more prominence, although American women have always found ways to satisfy their desire for athletic competition (as illustrated by the antique picture at the bottom of this item!) In the Greek and Roman world, many kinds of ball games were played, by men and women, young and old. This month's quotation is from Homer's Odyssey, describing the ball game played by the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa and her handmaidens while their clothes dry on the beach -- setting them up to discover shipwrecked Odysseus in time to aid him on his return home to Ithaca. Athena stage-manages a rescue for OdysseusOdysseus has left Calypso's island on a stout raft that Calypso helped him build, but which the angry god Poseidon quickly turns to kindling wood. Buoyed by a magical veil given him by the goddess Ino (who used to be human herself), Odysseus swims to the rocky shore of the island of Scheria, home of the Phaeacians. Naked, covered with brine, and dead tired, he crawls under some bushes to sleep. The goddess Athena, his patron, always clever and vigilant, contrives a way to get him the rest of the way home. She puts a dream into the mind of Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, reminding her that she must wash her clothes, because she can expect soon to get married. Nausicaa coyly asks her father for the mule-chariot, omitting the idea of marriage but saying that she must wash her brothers' clothes. But Alcinous "understands everything" and lets her go. Nausicaa and her attendants take a picnic lunch and wine with them, and Nausicaa (a down-to-earth princess) drives the mule-chariot herself as they take the laundry to the washing-pits by the beach. After doing the washing -- which they turn into a competition -- and eating lunch, they play a game of ball. Athena again intervenes, making Nausicaa miss her throw and send the ball into the water. The girls shriek, and Odysseus wakes up. A comic scene ensues, as Odysseus, covering his nakedness with a branch, tries to figure out where he is, and whether the girls are nymphs or mortals. Eventually he is invited to wash up and eat something, and Athena "pours charis [beauty and charm] over him," making him incredibly appealing to Nausicaa. Again being coy, Nausicaa insists that he go by himself to ask for the king's aid, rather than accompanying her -- so that gossips won't start rumors about them! Her father again gets the point, and gently scolds her for her silliness. Eventually, Odysseus tells his tale to the Phaeacians and is at last sent back home to Ithaca. And the rest, as they say, is history. Note on mythic themes(NOTE: In terms of epic themes, Nausicaa's ball game represents a variation on the theme of "Maidens Dancing and Picking Flowers (Interrupted by a Scary Male Figure)," one of the themes identified in my book Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns.) Here is the story of Nausicaa's ball game. But when they came to the beautiful stream of the river,
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![]() Sappho's poems celebrate her women friendsSappho (b. 612 B.C), the great lyric poetess from the island of Lesbos, is known to us only in a few poems preserved in other authors and in fragmentary papyri. From these remains and from glowing opinions of ancient authors, we get an idea of what we are missing: Plato (in the Phaedrus) called her "the tenth Muse." She is known for her passionate love poems to women friends, and has forever bequeathed the name of "lesbian" to all women who love women. There were, of course, other Lesbians who were not "lesbian," including her contemporary and friend, the poet Alcaeus, author of drinking songs, love songs, and odes against tyrants, reflective of the turbulent political times on Lesbos in which both of them lived. The legend that Sappho threw herself off a cliff into the sea for love of a man named Phaon was apparently invented, but she does seem to have married and had a child. Her greatest affections and emotional attachments, however, were to a group of women friends, who perhaps formed a cult of Aphrodite and the Muses. "Longinus," in On the Sublime (Peri hypsous; the actual author, probably of the first century A.D, is unknown), quoted the poem by Sappho that we translate below, of which he included, unfortunately, only the first four stanzas. Some lines have been supplemented by papyrus fragments. The poem describes Sappho's jealousy at seeing a man enjoying the favors of a woman whom Sappho adores. She describes in detail the physical symptoms of her emotions -- recognizable to both heterosexuals and homosexuals -- as she "falls to pieces" (to quote the song by Patsy Cline!) upon seeing the object of her desire. Longinus aptly notes that where some authors "attract the listener by their selection of elements, and others do so by the way they pack them together," Sappho "excels in both choosing and combining the most intense and striking symptoms" of love. Here is Sappho's description: He seems to me the equal of the gods Sappho, No. 2 (fragmentary)
![]() Decoration from Longus, Daphnis and Chloe: A Pastoral Romance, English translation, 19th cent., engraving after a design by the Regent, Philippe d'Orléans for an edition of 1718.
![]() Illustration: Nos. 17 and 18 (upper), war ship and merchant ship, about 500 B.C, from a painted vase found at Vulci in Etruria, in the British Museum; No 19 (lower), two war ships, about 500 B.C., from a painted vase by Nicosthenes found at Vulci in Etruria, in the Louvre. From Cecil Torr, Ancient Ships, 1895. Women warriorsWith the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, we may have, for the first time, a woman President of the United States, and thus a female Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Ancient literature furnishes us with some colorful and outstanding women leaders, including Vergil's half-mythic Dido, Queen of Carthage; Boudicca, who led a revolt against Roman rule in Britain; and, of course, Cleopatra of Egypt. Herodotus (c. 484-430? B.C.), in his Histories, describes several very able women who led their cities in peace and war, including two queens of Babylon, Semiramis and Nitocris. Herodotus gives the fullest account of Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, his own native city, which, although at least partially Greek, was at the time a part of the Persian Empire. In his account of the wars between the Greeks and the Persians, Artemisia is depicted as giving wise counsel to the Persian king Xerxes, who foolishly rejects her advice. She advises him NOT to attempt a naval battle against the Greeks. He need not take the chance, she says, as he had already taken Athens, thus attaining his principal objective. For, she says, the Greek men "are as superior at sea to your men as men are to women." It would be more advantageous to wait until the Greeks ran out of provisions, or to invade the Peloponnesus and split the Greek coalition. Xerxes, spurning her advice, nevertheless engaged the Greeks at Salamis, off the coast near Athens, causing the destruction of the Persian navy. At Salamis, commanding her own ship, Artemisia fought with valor (if perhaps with questionable ethics, as described in the quotation below). After Xerxes' defeat, she again gave wise counsel, telling him to, as we would say "declare a victory and leave." This time, he takes her advice, retreating to Persia and leaving the fight to the warlike Mardonius, who was to meet his own defeat in the final battle at Plataea, in Boeotia. Artemisia at SalamisIn the great sea battle of Salamis (480 B.C.), in which the Athenians under Themistocles defeated the Persian navy, Artemisia performed an exploit that was either clever or ruthless, or maybe just fortuitous. Hemmed in by Greek ships on the one side and Persian and allied ships on the other, she rammed and sank one of her own allies. The Greeks thought that hers was a Greek ship that had rammed a Persian and stopped chasing her. Xerxes, on the other hand, assumed she had rammed a Greek, and uttered the famous words, "My men have become women, and my women have have become men." As for the rest, I cannot accurately describe what part each of the barbarians or Greeks played in the battle. Concerning Artemisia, however, the following incident occurred, because of which she gained an even greater reputation with Xerxes. When the king's situation had turned into complete confusion, Artemisia's ship was pursued by an Attic vessel. Unable to flee (for before her were friendly ships, and her ship happened to be closest to the enemy), she thought of the following plan, which, when carried out, turned out to her advantage.
![]() Illustration: Nos. 15 and 16, two war ships in action, about 550 B.C., from a painted vase by Aristonophos found at Caere in Etruria, in the New Capitoline Museum at Rome. From Cecil Torr, Ancient Ships, 1895.
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![]() Illustration: The Muse Erato (muse of erotic poetry), from a wall-painting from Herculaneum, in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890. This is the season of gift-giving, and we offer a poem by the Roman poet Catullus (84-ca.54 B.C.), better known to us as the author of passionate poems to his girlfriend "Lesbia" (real name Clodia). In this poem he presents his collection of poems as a gift to his friend Cornelius, the historian Cornelius Nepos (ca.99-ca.24 B.C.). He thanks the older writer for having looked kindly upon some of his earlier efforts. The patrona Virgo whom he addresses is probably his Muse, although she could be a goddess, perhaps Pallas. Here is the text, in both Latin and English. Cui dono lepidum novum libellum
![]() Illustration: The Muse Clio (muse of history), from a wall-painting from Herculaneum, in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890.
![]() Illustration: detail of the so-called "Harvester Vase" from Hagia Triada, Crete. This Minoan vase (ca. 1550 B.C.) is generally supposed to represent a procession of men carrying sheaves of grain. The farmer gets ready for winterAt this time of year, we think of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and harvest festivals to celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. Hesiod (the Old Curmudgeon!), however, had his mind on more practical matters, such as real estate and personnel decisions. In his Works and Days (composed ca. 750 B.C., and addressed to his ne'er-do-well brother Perses, who had squandered his patrimony), Hesiod gives advice to the thrifty farmer on how to buy a home, cut wood in season to make plows and other tools, how to care for fallow land so that it will be ready for spring planting, and how to make wise choices for obtaining help around the farm: Get a woman (a slave-woman, NOT a wife!) who can help plow; hire a man of forty years, too old to be distracted; buy two oxen of nine years -- ditto -- still strong, but too mature to fight each other instead of plowing. Make good use of your time. Here are excerpts: When the strength of the sharp sun abates
![]() Illustration: Tableau of skeletons on a boat ride in the Gardens of Xochimilco, Mexico City, for El Dia de los Muertos, purchased in Olvera Street, Los Angeles (photo by C.A. Sowa). See pictures of the real Gardens of Xochimilco, below. Theophrastus' Characters: "You might be a superstitious man if . . ."Theophrastus (ca. 370 B.C.-285 B.C.) was a respected philosopher and student of Aristotle who wrote works on such topics as botany, winds and weather, logic and metaphysics, rhetoric and politics. But he is best known today for his little book of Characters, descriptions, often very funny, of an array of character types inhabiting the Athens of his day. The work actually fits into a completely serious kind of philosophy, the division into formal categories of vices, virtues, and emotions, as exemplified by Aristotle's own Ethics. But they also belong to the comic genre, and can remind a modern audience of Jeff Foxworthy's jokes that begin "You might be a redneck if . . ." The little vignettes of the Characters include such traits as Flattery, Idle Chatter, Boorishness, Obsequiousness, Penny-pinching, Bad Timing, Absent-mindedness, Bad Taste, Arrogance, Cowardice, and Authoritarianism. In honor of Halloween and the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, we present Theophrastus' depiction of Superstition. The superstitious man is the kind who, having washed his hands and sprinkled himself with water from a shrine, puts a sprig of laurel in his mouth and walks around like that all day. And if a weasel runs across his path, he will not proceed before someone else passes between them, or he throws three stones upon the road. If he sees a snake in his house, he invokes Sabazios, but if it is a holy snake, he immediately builds a hero shrine on that spot.
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![]() Illustrations: Postcards of the real Gardens of Xochimilco, with flower-bedecked boats.
![]() Illustration: "Storming of a Besieged City," from Caesar's Commentaries, ed. Francis W. Kelsey, 1918. Can good generals serve under bad emperors?This September, we saw General David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq, defend (mostly) President Bush's position on the Mideast war, as he walked the thin line between honest portrayal of the continuing mayhem and collapse of civil authority in Iraq and his duty (as he saw it) not to undercut his boss's insistence that the war is a "success" and that the U.S. is "marching to victory." Both liberals and conservatives have tended to see General Petraeus as a kind of savior, a competent and realistic military leader who would vindicate their position, either to end the war (liberals) or "win" it (conservatives). Liberals, in particular, have been vocal in their outrage that Petraeus did not flat-out repudiate the president's muddled policy. By seeming to be a tool of the conservatives' propaganda, Petraeus is in danger of joining the list of fallen idols, along with General Colin Powell before him. The Roman historian and politician Tacitus (55?-after 115 A.D.) struggled with the same issues, as he expressed most poignantly in his biography of his father-in-law Agricola, whose "caving in" to the demands of the Emperor Domitian he defends as indicative of his courteous and practical nature. Tacitus is best known for his Annals and Histories, which chronicled events of the Roman Empire from Augustus to his own time. He was married to the daughter of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, one of Rome's most able generals, under whom the Roman armies pacified most of Britain. (Whether this was a good or a bad thing depends, of course, on one's point of view. Boudicca's brave revolt against Rome had just been put down when Agricola arrived, and Tacitus even has one of the British leaders say "To robbery, killing, and plunder they [the Romans] give the false name of empire; where they make solitude, they call it peace" -- Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.) The general Agricola and the emperor DomitianAgricola had the misfortune to be governor of Britain under the Emperor Domitian, famous as one of the most cruel and capricious of Rome's rulers. While some of Domitian's excesses may or may not have been exaggerated (the gossipy Suetonius says that the young emperor spent hours shut up in his room stabbing flies), he was apparently quick to murder enemies, of whom he made many, especially among the senatorial class, whose power he curtailed. He had good reason to fear; he was eventually assassinated by conspirators who included his own wife. Agricola was among those whose popularity he feared, and the general was recalled from Britain. He was in line to be made proconsul of either Africa or Asia, but was persuaded (by not-so-veiled threats) to "request to be excused" so that he could "retire to a life of quiet and leisure." Agricola died in 93 A.D. Tacitus survived into the more benign reigns of Nerva and Trajan, and gained the honors denied to his father-in-law, becoming proconsul of Asia toward the end of his life. His eulogy of Agricola was written in 98. A translation of a portion of Tacitus' Agricola follows. The phrase "empty boasts of liberty" refers to the nostalgic (and unrealistic, in Tacitus' opinion) desire of some for a return to the long-gone Roman Republic. The year had now arrived, in which [Agricola] was eligible to obtain by lot the proconsulate of either Africa or Asia, and as Civica had lately been murdered [C. Vetulenus Civica Cerealis, proconsul of Asia, executed by Domitian for treason], Agricola did not lack a warning nor Domitian a precedent. Certain persons approached him, well-acquainted with the deliberations of the Emperor, to ask Agricola, as if on their own initiative, whether he intended to go to the province. At first, hiding their purpose, they praised a life of quiet and leisure, then they offered their help in case he sought approval of a request to be excused, then finally, no longer hiding their purpose, by persuading and at the same time terrifying him, they forced him to come before Domitian. The Emperor, prepared in his hypocrisy and assuming an air of arrogance, listened to his prayers that he might be excused, and when he had granted the request, allowed himself to be thanked, nor did he blush at the ill will contained in such a favor. But he did not give to Agricola the proconsular salary which he himself had granted to some governors, either offended at its not having been requested, or from conscience, lest he be seen to have bought the refusal that he had commanded.
![]() Illustration: Roman soldiers, with their packs suspended from staffs on their backs, from Caesar's Gallic War, Books I-IV, ed. James B. Greenough, 1904.
![]() Illustration: Horace (on the right) with Maecenas (center) and Augustus (seated, on the left). From a wall painting found in the palace of Augustus on the Palatine. Roman roads connected the Roman worldThe tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis has made us aware of the importance of the infrastructure, especially the roads and bridges, that connect the far-flung parts of the United States. The Roman roads, well-engineered and paved, served the same purpose in the Roman Republic and later in the Roman Empire. Like the American Interstate highway system, the Roman roads were originally built for military purposes, designed primarily to move troops efficiently where they were needed. Like the Interstates, they also became conduits of commerce and of the dominant civilization. An unfortunate feature of the Interstate highway system is that a road in California looks just like a road in Pennsylvania or New York, with the same kind of rest stops operated by similar conglomerates. They are disconnected from their local context, but have had the further effect of bringing change and uniformity to the local culture itself. The Roman roads were, in some ways, more like the old Route 66 (or the even older Lincoln Highway) than the limited-access Interstates, being more intimately tied to their local environment. Accommodations and amenities varied with the location and the temper of the inhabitants. Horace has left us with an account of a two-week journey that he made, perhaps in 37 B.C., from Rome to Brundisium, to attend a meeting between Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) and Antony, which was also attended by Maecenas, the influential Roman who was the patron of both Horace and Vergil. The story is told in Satires Book 1.5. Horace's bad trip on the Appian WayThe first part of the journey, which we quote below, was begun along the Appian Way, then continued by canal through the Pontine Marshes. On this Vacation from Hell, voyagers on the mule-drawn boat are kept awake by swamp bugs and the shouting of drunken boatmen, in scenes reminiscent of the old Erie Canal. In later parts of the tale, the travelers suffer various vicissitudes, including a cook nearly burning down the dining room at an inn. Horace makes an ill-fated attempt to have sex with a girl, who fails to show up for their date. Horace falls asleep and awakes with an embarrassing wet dream. (This passage is expurgated from older textbooks!) All eventually arrive, thankfully, at Brundisium. Here, translated from the Latin, are verses 1-24: Leaving great Rome, Aricia received me
![]() Illustration: a portion of the Appian Way, from Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, 1898.
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Magic, ritual, and religionThis July, the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix opened, with the final volume of J.K. Rowling's epic of the young wizard, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, appearing later in the month. Magic was very much a part of the ancient world, and we offer an example of ancient magic by Theocritus, from his Idyll II, known as Pharmakeutria, or The Sorceress. Magic is generally distinguished from religion, although the rituals practiced by many religions have a magical element to them. Magic comprises the use of spells, drugs, herbs, human and animal body parts, incantations, etc., all of which are supposed to influence events. The influence may be over nature (such as the weather) or human behavior (such as falling in love). Magic has been compared to science, in that the same action is always supposed to produce exactly the same result. Magic may be sympathetic, where one action produces another that is similar, as when herbs are thrown in the fire to make someone "burn" with love, or it may be contagious, where something belonging to the victim of a spell, like a strand of hair or clothing, is used. In Homer, the great sorceress is Circe, who with her drugs and magic wand, transforms Odysseus' companions into pigs (she later is persuaded to un-pigify them). The god Hermes, also a practitioner of magic, saves Odysseus from the same fate by giving him the herb called "moly." Circe, falling in love with Odysseus, entertains him for a year, at the end of which she gives him the spells to call up the spirits of the dead and visit the Underworld. In myth and tragedy, the most famous sorceress is Medea, who puts her spells at the service of Jason in his search for the Golden Fleece, leading to her ill-starred love affair with the hero of the Argonauts. Thessalian witches were especially known for their ability to draw down the moon from the heavens. Theocritus, born in Syracuse perhaps around 310 B.C., is known for his Idylls. The word eidullion means "little image" or vignette. These poems, in the Dorian dialect, are mostly on pastoral subjects, and were the model for Vergil's Eclogues. But Idyll II is on an urban subject. A young woman named Simaitha has fallen for a young man, Delphis, whom she has seen walking from the gymnasium, "glistening like the moon." She, sick with love, invites him to her house, where he says he has already loved her from afar. (Liar!) They "Do the Big Thing" (eprachthê ta megista) and she becomes a "non-virgin" (aparthenon). Now he never comes around, and she hears that he has a new love -- perhaps male, perhaps female. She uses magic to try to woo him back (or if that doesn't work, to kill him!). Simaitha uses both sympathetic and contagious magic. With the help of her maid, Thestylis, she burns bay leaves in the fire to make Delphis burn with love, but she also adds a piece of fringe from his cloak. She pours libations and utters spells. She turns a magic wheel (called an iugx, after the bird (the wryneck) that witches traditionally bound to the wheel) to draw Delphis to her, providing the refrain of the poem: "Iugx, draw thou that man to my house" (iugx, helke tu tênon emon poti dôma ton andra). In the middle section of the poem, where Simaitha recounts her sad story, she uses another refrain, addressed to Selene, the Moon, "Tell me whence my love came, Lady Selene" (phrazeo meu ton erôth' hothen hiketo, potna Selana). Here are selections from the opening and closing verses of the poem:
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A filly wins the BelmontThe filly, Rags to Riches, won the Belmont Stakes on June 9, 2007, the first female horse to win this race since 1905. We celebrate this event with a passage from Pindar's Sixth Olympian Ode, composed for the winning team, apparently female, in a mule race. The Greeks raced both horses and mules. Pindar's Sixth Olympian celebrates the victory of a mule chariot owned by Hagesias of Syracuse, probably in 472 B.C. The poet asks the victorious mules to take him on a mythical time-journey to the ancestors of the winner. The mules would appear to be female. While the word for mule, hêmionos (literally "half-ass"!) can be either male or female, grammatically feminine words are used to describe them (keinai gar ex allân "they above all others"). Employing his usual verbal alchemy, Pindar takes us from the sweaty physical environment of the athletic contest into a magical world of gods and goddesses, of enchanted meadows and helpful snakes. The mules themselves, strong and dependable, become mythic animals, leading us on the path of song. We meet the nymph Pitane, beloved of Poseidon, who gives birth to Evadne, then we learn of Evadne herself, loved by Apollo, who amid colors of silver, dark blue, yellow, and violet, bears Iamos ("Violet"), who becomes progenitor of the Iamidai, a clan of seers, from whom Hagesias is ultimately descended. And so, as usual in Pindar, a long and enchanting road brings us back, once again to Hagesias, Olympia, and the victory celebration. . . . O Phintis, now yoke for me the strength of the mules
Hermes steals Apollo's cattle, on a Caeretan hydria in the Louvre. Photo by R. Schoder, S.J., as reproduced in C.A. Sowa, Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns, Bolchazy-Carducci, 1984. A trickster god sends a stormThe quotation for May is unusually late, due to the fact that some trickster god visited a severe storm on our part of Westchester County, downing trees, power lines, and phone lines, as well as gutters, siding, and roof shingles. Evangelical preachers like Jerry Falwell think that disasters like the 9/11 terror attacks and Hurricane Katrina are signs of God's wrath at a decadent society, doubtless relying on Old Testament parallels, but Homer and Odysseus could tell you that violent storms, lightning strikes, earthquakes, and famines are caused by the anger and feuding of such gods and goddesses as Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and Demeter. This month's quotation is about a trickster god, Hermes, who was also a god of invention and messenger of the gods. It tells of his birth as son of the goddess Maia, "May." Ovid's three explanations for the name of the month of MayOvid, in his Fasti (Bk. V vv.1-110), provides three explanations of the name of the month of May. He asks the Muses for their opinion, and three of them give differing explanations (a sort of quirky Judgment of Paris, but here the contest is not to judge who is most beautiful, but who has the best information). Polyhymnia's tale connects the name to that of Maiestas, the goddess of Majesty. Urania disagrees, saying that the name derives from the reverence paid to the maiores, or elders. Calliope traces the name to that of Maia, one of the Pleiades, daughters of Pleione and Atlas, who became the mother of "him who hastens his journey through the air on winged foot" (i.e. Mercury, the Greek Hermes). Actually, they are all right, in a sense. The Roman goddess Maia, also called Maiesta, was a nature divinity associated with the god Volcanus; the name comes from the same root, meaning "growth" or "increase," as magnus, maior, maiestas, etc. Her name became confused with that of the Greek Maia (whose name may simply mean "mother" or "nurse"), the mother of Hermes, about whom the well-known myths are told, as in the Homeric Hymn IV to Hermes. Hermes' exciting first day of lifeThe Hymn to Hermes begins with the god's birth as son of Maia and Zeus, and proceeds to the god's earliest exploits, on the day that he was born. A true Wunderkind, "Born at dawn, he played the lyre at noon, / and at evening stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo." Both trickster and inventor, like Prometheus or the American Indian Coyote, he "makes the tortoise a singer" by turning her shell into a lyre. He steals his half-brother Apollo's cattle by driving them backwards and disguising his own footprints with wicker sandals, to conceal their true direction. Apollo finds out, of course, but the brothers are reconciled at the end, when Hermes hands over the lyre to Apollo to be his instrument. Ever resourceful, Hermes invents a new instrument for himself, the Pan-pipes. Here are the opening lines of the Hymn. Sing, Muse, of Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia,
![]() There is a solemnity, a repose about the great trees, and the restless, ceaseless stirring of the small ones is full of mystery. So self-evident are they, so close at hand that we almost find ourselves in danger of becoming oblivious to their presence. They never intrude upon the attention; they rather pursue indomitably their own way. As landmarks of history many trees have been revered; traditions and superstitions have clustered about them while in mute eloquence they have answered the people's expectations. In England, to-day, there are oaks standing that knew the ground before its conquest by the Romans. Nothing is grander than are trees. Nothing gives of its best more freely to man. And to each one there is an individuality which having once been observed may be traced into the folk-lore of nations. Arbor Day, which has been celebrated since 1872, is devoted to the planting and nurturing of trees. National Arbor Day occurs on the last Friday in April, which this year falls on April 27. Not only does it promote the growing of trees for their usefulness -- to provide shade and windbreaks, to hold the soil, for fuel and building materials, as aesthetic design elements -- but like Earth Day (April 22, founded in 1970), it promotes awareness of the need to preserve the environment, and like Easter and Passover, it has the symbolic meaning of the resurgence of life over forces that would diminish it. Daphne, fleeing Apollo, is turned into a laurel treeOur quotation again comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, from which last month's story of how old King Kadmos and his wife, Harmonia, were transformed into benevolent snakes, also came. It tells the story of Daphne, the nymph beloved by Apollo, who was turned, in answer to her prayer, into a laurel tree. Apollo and Cupid fell into an argument when Apollo saw the boy Cupid wielding a bow and arrow, which are more properly "a man's weapons." Cupid, in anger, shoots Apollo with an arrow that makes him fall in love, but shoots an arrow that makes the recipient reject love into Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus, deity of the river that flows through the Vale of Tempe, a wild gorge in Thessaly. His speed outdoes her ability to flee, and she prays to her river god father to change her shape, whereupon she becomes a laurel tree. He still loves her, and promises to wear her leaves as his crown. Since Ovid is Roman, although telling a Greek story, he has Apollo foretell that her leaves will also be worn by Roman generals, and that the laurel tree will guard the house of Augustus! As a matter of fact, two laurel trees actually stood on either side of the doors of Augustus' palace. In the quotation below, Apollo is also called by two of his other names, "Phoebus" and "Paean." . . . Ovid, Metamorphoses I.533-567.
![]() Leaves of the white oak, from A Guide to the Trees by Alice Lounsberry, illustration by Mrs. Ellis Rowan, 1900.
![]() The constellation Ophiouchus ("The Serpent Bearer"), sometimes identified with the god Asclepius. Illustration: detail from Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, 1856. Snakes in the woods and in mythIt is spring, and all sorts of living things are stirring in the trees and grass: birds, insects, mammals large and small, and in most places -- except Ireland -- snakes. St. Patrick is supposed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. However, according to the National Zoo Web site, Ireland (along with New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Anarctica) never had snakes to begin with. These places were either under water or surrounded by water at the time snakes were developing in other parts of the world, and the myth of St. Patrick has more to do with symbolism associating snakes with paganism, which Patrick also set out to subdue. In non-Christian civilizations, including the Classical lands of Greece, Rome and also Egypt, snakes were venerated, especially as chthonian (underground) spirits, sometimes portrayed as malevolent dragons, but often as bringers of health and renewal. Snakes "renew" themselves by shedding their skin, and rising from underground, represent restoration from death. Athena wore the protective vest called the aegis, made from goatskin (Greek aix, aigos "goat") trimmed with an edging of snakes. Snakes are associated with Asclepius, the god of healing, who was sometimes represented by a sacred snake. The herald's staff entwined with snakes (Latin caduceus, Greek kerykion) was an attribute of Hermes (Mercury), the snakes having developed out of an earlier representation of shoots of foliage. Asclepius also bears a snake-wrapped staff, and the caduceus has become the recognized symbol of medicine. Kadmos, founder of Thebes, and his wife Harmonia (daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, that is, "War" and "Love") in old age were turned into snakes. Kadmos, son of Agenor, king of Tyre, was sent, when young, to search for his sister Europa, abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull. Arriving in Greece, he was told by the Delphic Oracle to follow a cow and found a city where it lay down. In Boeotia (the name suggests bous, "cow"), he founded a settlement. He killed the dragon guarding a spring and sowed its teeth, from which sprang up warriors, most of whom killed each other off. The remaining five became the founding nobility of the city of Thebes. Kadmos married Harmonia and gave birth to an ill-starred family. Their daughter Semele became mother of the god Dionysos by Zeus's lethal thunderbolt, a story told in the February Quotation of the Month, which remains below. Their daughter Agave, driven mad by Dionysos as a result of his mistreatment by her son, King Pentheus, killed her son, thinking that he was a lion (also told below). Their daughter Ino, also driven mad (in another long story involving the Golden Fleece), leaped off a cliff into the sea, together with her son Melicertes. Ino and Melicertes were both turned into sea-gods (Leucothea and Palaemon). Kadmos, long since retired as king, and Harmonia, leave Thebes, and feeling guilt at having started it all by killing the dragon, are themselves turned into snakes. Ovid's telling of this story is the Quotation of the Month. Cadmus and Harmonia in old age become benevolent snakesOur quotation comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses (tales of people who turned into other things -- animals, flowers, trees, etc.). His telling of the story of Cadmus (Greek Kadmos) and Harmonia, turning, at the end of their long and honored lives, into snakes, shows Ovid's characteristic combination of the silly and the poignant: The son of Agenor did not know that his daughter and little grandson And so they slither off into the grass, just a pair of old snakes, guardians of the garden . . .
Cadmus slaying the dragon, in a vase painting. (From Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890).
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Mardi Gras and DionysosNew Orleans' spirit is embodied in its Mardi Gras. While New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are STILL not repaired or rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina (shame, shame, shame of a nation!), those who regard the city as a national treasure can continue to send support and cheer as the Saints ALMOST make it to the SuperBowl and Mardi Gras continues to express the city's unquenchable spirit of music and joy. The rites of Dionysos (or Bacchus) are an ancient analog of Mardi Gras. The illustration above shows a Bacchic parade, with a satyr playing the double flute and participants flourishing the thyrsus, a staff wound with ivy and vines and topped with a pine cone. The quotation this month is from Euripides' Bacchae. The chorus of Bacchantes, or women acolytes of Dionysos, sing of the joys of their rites of dance and song. They are depicted as having followed him from Mount Tmolus in Lydia to Thebes in Greece, where the play takes place. Religion of ecstasy and emotionDionysos was a god of ecstatic and emotional religion, different from the more stately cults of other Greek gods. The word "ecstasy" (ekstasis) means "a standing apart," or being "beside oneself." It refers to a trance state, which may be reached by wild dancing or by madness, in which one may actually become unconscious or see visions. The cult appealed to both sexes, but particularly to women. Its female votaries, or Bacchantes, were also called "Maenads" (Mainades or "madwomen"). The origins of Dionysos are unknown, but the cult may have come originally from Thrace, via Macedonia, to the north of Greece. His other name, Baccchus, on the other hand, is Lydian. In Euripides, we find him associated with the cult of Cybele, the Anatolian Great Mother goddess. The god was believed to be able to change his appearance, sometimes to that of a wild animal. Masks were sometimes worn by the dancers, though these were apparently human masks. Dionysos was also the god of wine, but that is only part of the story. Great festivals of Dionysos, eventually "domesticated" and civilized, became part of the fabric of classical Greece, and were the origin of the great Athenian comedy and tragedy, the most important celebration being the Great Dionysia, in early spring. Euripides' Bacchae would have been produced at one of these festivals. The Bacchae and a more primitive religionThe Bacchae (written after a visit by Euripides to King Archelaos of Macedonia), reveals the savage dark side of the Dionysiac religion. Dionysos is the son of Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes, by Zeus, who came to Semele in the form of a thunderbolt, which both impregnated and killed her. King Pentheus, son of Agave, another daughter of Cadmus, now rules Thebes (Cadmus is now retired). Pentheus, along with Cadmus' other daughters, Ino and Autonoe, have been disrespecting Dionysos, casting doubt on his divinity and attempting to jail his followers, who are dancing in the mountains. Dionysos takes revenge by driving the Theban women mad, and persuading Pentheus to go to the mountains to spy on them. His mother, Agave, tears him apart, thinking that he is a lion. The episode in which Agave realizes that she has killed her own son is one of the great tragic scenes. Song of the BacchantesComing from the Asian land,
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solus de superis qui tua terga vides . . . Two-headed Janus, origin of the silently gliding year, who, alone of the gods above, look at your own back . . . (-Ovid, Fasti I.65-66) Janus is a very old and weird Italian god. Divinity of beginnings and entrances, he is depicted with two faces, facing forwards and backwards. The name is related to ianua "door," and probably to ire "to go." He had a temple in the Forum, which served as a ceremonial gate, with two opposite entrances, which were open in time of war, shut in time of peace. The month of January is his month. Ovid, in his Fasti or Year's Calendar, of course begins with January. The poet is musing on Janus and his strange form, when Janus himself appears, terrifying Ovid: But what god am I to say you are, biform Janus? But Janus tells Ovid not to be afraid, and in fact turns out to be quite the comic as he takes Ovid around and explains various rites and customs to him. Among other anecdotes, Janus tells how Saturn, hiding from Jupiter, was received into Italy in Janus' reign, a story that we presented for December as Vergil retells it in the Aeneid (we have left December's selection below). Janus (or rather, Ovid!) tells pretty much the same story of Saturn's utopian age as Vergil, but with a cheerful cynicism that sets it apart from Vergil's earnest official version. ("Why, even in Saturn's reign I scarcely saw a man who did not love sweet lucre!") Times change, Janus says, but on the subject of the new, fancy gold coinage, he makes the wisecrack that his own biform visage on an old simple copper coin is almost unrecognizable with age. The old coin also depicts the arrival of Saturn. . . . He concluded his admonitions. With calm speech, as before,
![]() The remains of Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, view from the Capitoline Hill. The Temple of Castor and Pollux (three remaining columns) is on the right. (From an old postcard.)
On the Saturnalia, best of days! (-Catullus 14.15) Saturn, the ancient and mysterious godThe Saturnalia, one of the precursors of Christmas, was celebrated at Rome on December 17, in honor of the god Saturn. It was known for great jollity. Slaves were treated as equals of their masters, and gifts were exchanged, especially little pottery figurines called sigillaria. Saturn was a very ancient god, whose origins are clouded in enigma. One theory connects his name with the Latin satus "sowing," on the assumption that his festival celebrates the end of the fall planting. There was a Roman belief that Saturn was a Greek import (identified with Kronos). He was believed to have come to Latium in the reign of the god Janus, fleeing from the wrath of Jupiter, and that he brought agriculture and civilization to the Latins, who afterwards worshipped him as a god. Another theory holds that Saturn was of Etruscan origin. The temple of Saturn, located at the western end of the Forum, just below the Capitol, was one of the most ancient temples in the Forum, although the temple whose columns we see today is late, perhaps built after the fire of 284 A.D. (see the illustrations at the top and bottom of this entry). The Golden AgeIn Vergil's Aeneid, King Evander, himself an exile from Arcadia, shows Aeneas, just arrived in Italy from Troy, the future site of Rome. (Evander's own settlement is called Pallanteum, which Vergil manages to connect with the name of the Palatine Hill.) Evander describes the arrival of Saturn, whose reign was the mythic Golden Age: Then King Evander, founder of the Roman citadel, spoke:
![]() The Roman Forum, another view, looking toward the Capitoline Hill, with the columns of the Temple of Saturn in the middle, toward the back. The columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux are on the left. (From an old postcard, before 1907).
![]() Roman soldiers, illustrations from Caesars' Commentaries, ed. Francis W. Kelsey, 1918. This month's quotation is an ode on courage and patriotism by the Roman
poet Horace (65-8 B.C.). It is appropriate for Veterans' Day (November 11),
when we honor the soldiers of our country, past and present. The most famous
words of the ode, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ("It is
sweet and fitting to die for one's country") are inscribed over the west
entrance to the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.
![]() The grave of my ancestor Silas Angier (1737-1808), Revolutionary War veteran, in the cemetery in Fitzwilliam, NH. The gravestone is modern, probably replacing an original stone, now vanished. Some of his other descendants are in the background. (Photo by C.A. Sowa.)
The constellations of Orion and Taurus, showing the Hyades and Pleiades in the head and shoulders of the bull, detail from Burritt's Geography of the Heavens, 1856. This month's quotation is from Hesiod's advice to farmers in the Works and Days, suggested by a stretch of soggy, rainy weather that has beset the Northeast following a blazingly clear Columbus Day weekend. The Pleiades and Hyades are star clusters in the constellation Taurus. Their setting in late October or early November were seen as signs of rain. In mythology, the seven Pleiades and five Hyades (actually, there are many more, but most are not visible without a telescope) were nymphs, daughters of Atlas. The Hyades were portrayed as the nurses of Dionysos, or in another myth, as the brothers of Hyas, who was killed while hunting, and who cried themselves to death. The name "Hyades" probably comes from the Greek verb huo "to rain" (though the Romans thought it came from the (also Greek) hus "pig," translating the name as suculae "the Piglets.") The name "Pleiades" may be related to the verb pleo "to sail," though Hesiod's advice indicates that the Pleiades at this time herald anything but good sailing. In the Mediterranean lands, as in the American Southwest, the rainy season (and thus the growing season) begins in November and extends into the springtime. When the Pleaides and Hyades and strong Orion
![]() "Rocks of the Strophades," engraving from H.W. Williams, Select Views in Greece, 1827.
![]() Statue of the god Hades (Pluto) with his dog Cerberus, in the Villa Borghese, in an illustration from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890. In this depiction, Cerberus has only one head, not his usual three (contrast the illustration below). Astronomers, with more snobbery than common sense, have decided that the ninth planet, Pluto, is not a planet at all, but something called a "dwarf planet." Now it seems that, since a person like the actor Peter Dinklage, who is a dwarf (and who was great in "The Station Agent") is very much a person, a dwarf planet is still a planet. Pluto is round and orbits the sun, which fits the description of a planet. It has a weird orbit, and if we want to be politically correct, perhaps we should call it a "differently abled planet," or a "special planet." In fact, several other "dwarf planets" have been identified. Let diversity reign. Astrology (which admittedly is more folklore than science) tells us that Pluto is important to the horoscopes of people born under the sign of Scorpio. I, as a Scorpio, therefore take the situation very personally. In any case, despite some hysteria from fans of Pluto, Pluto has not died. Like the Disney bloodhound of the same name, it still faithfully patrols the outer reaches of the solar system. Pluto the planet was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, and was named for the Greek god Pluto. The name was given by Venetia Phair, who was then an 11- year-old Oxford schoolgirl. Ms. Phair (née Burney), now 87, still lives in Surrey, England. Her great uncle Henry Madan, as it happens, gave names to Phobos and Deimos ("Fear and Terror"), the moons of Mars, the planet named for the god of War. Pluto, Mickey Mouse's dog, was named for the planet, not the other way around. The dog motif is appropriate (see below). Pluto is the god of the Underworld, also known as Hades (in Greek mythology, Hades is the name of the god, not the Underworld itself, which is denoted by the possessive Haidou, "Hades' [place]"). He is the brother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and Demeter. He is famous for kidnapping Persephone, daughter of Demeter, to be his consort in the Underworld. The name Pluto (Plouton) probably comes from the word ploutos "wealth," and is sometimes explained as "giver of wealth," for the precious metals and crops that originate beneath the earth. In Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Prometheus, chained to a rock by Zeus for giving fire to man, is visited by the maiden Io, as she races past him. Io, a girlfriend of Zeus, has been turned by him into a cow and is pestered by a gadfly, courtesy of Hera, Zeus's jealous wife. Prometheus foretells to Io her future wanderings, including the following warning: . . . [Beware of] the one-eyed army of the But Plato, in his Cratylus, in which he proposes many etymologies, some perhaps correct, some incorrect, thought it likely to be an apotropaic ("turning away [evil]") name, used to avoid uttering the real name of an abhorred entity. In the same way, many European languages (including English) call the bear by some name ("bear," "bruin") that means "the brown one," instead of the Indo-European word for the animal, which is preserved in the Greek arktos (a word that survives in the English "Arctic," for the constellation of the Great Bear). Actually, if the name Hades means "the Unseen One" or "He who Makes Invisible," this name too could be a way to avoid saying the name of Death, or Thanatos. . . . Pluto gives wealth (ploutos), and his name means the giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath. People in general appear to imagine that the term Hades is connected with the invisible (aeides); and so they are led by their fears to call the God Pluto instead. Pluto's mascot is Cerberus, the fierce dog usually depicted with three heads (Hesiod, in the Theogony, gives him fifty heads!) Cerberus was friendly to all who entered the Underworld, but attacked and bit anyone attempting to leave. Heracles, as one of his Twelve Labors, brought Cerberus up from the Underworld, as illustrated by the vase painting shown below. Our last quotation is from Euripides' Alcestis. Admetus, king of Pherae in Thessaly, is fated to die, but the god Apollo makes a deal with Death (Thanatos) that Admetus can live if he finds a substitute to die for him. All of Admetus' friends, and even his parents, refuse, but his beloved wife Alcestis agrees to die, and Admetus selfishly accepts. In this quotation, he addresses his departed wife, comparing his plight to that of the singer Orpheus, who charmed the spirits of the Underworld into releasing his dead wife, Eurydice, only to lose her when she looked back. Euripides' play ends happily, when Heracles restores Alcestis to her husband. But before this happy ending, Admetus laments: . . . But if I had the tongue and melody of Orpheus,
Detail of a vase painting, Heracles and Cerberus, from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie.
![]() Mosaic of Darius in battle, from the Casa del Fauno at Pompeii, redrawn. The Persian WarsThe Persians, now known as the Iranians, are in the news again today. In antiquity, too, tensions arose between the Persians and their European neighbors over control of the eastern Mediterranean. In the early fifth century B.C. these tensions spilled over into the "Persian Wars" between the Greek states, led by Athens and Sparta, against the incursions of the Persians, first under Darius, then climactically, under Xerxes. The first part of fifth century Greek history was dominated by the Persian Wars, the last part by the Peloponnesian War between the Greek states (Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies) with an intervening period of relative peace -- and Athenian expansionism -- in between. The battle of Marathon (490 B.C.) was the climactic battle of the first phase of the war, in which a large Persian force under Darius was defeated by an outnumbered force of Athenians and Plataeans, through an exercise of superior tactics and strategy. The second phase of the war was the larger invasion by Darius' son Xerxes. In the second phase, in the battle for the northern pass at Thermopylae ("Hot Gates," for its sulphur springs) in 480 B.C., it was the Spartans who won immortality by their bravery, leaving as their epitaph (in which the Spartans are called by their other name of Lacedaemonians) the following: O stranger, go tell the Lacedaemonians thatThe Persians were finally and definitively driven out of Greece in the sea battle of Salamis (480 B.C.) and the land battle of Plataea (479 B.C.). The Battle of MarathonThe Battle of Marathon did not end the Persian Wars, but it established the prestige and self-confidence of Athens, and it became part of mythology, both ancient and modern. Before the battle, the Athenians sent to Sparta, who was then their ally, for reinforcements. They sent a professional courier, a fast runner named Pheidippides (more correctly "Philippides"), who covered the 150 miles between Athens and Sparta in a remarkable two days. The Spartans were unable to send troops in time for the battle, but Pheidippides reported that as he ran through Arcadia he met the half man-half goat god Pan, who wanted the Athenians to pay him greater worship and promised in return to help them. The Athenians did build him a shrine, and Pan was said to have caused a panic -- the terror caused by Pan -- among the Persians. After the victory at Marathon, the Athenians may have dispatched another messenger to carry the news to Athens. This man, whose identity is unknown, is often confused with Pheidippides. In any case, the Athenian army was mostly intent on marching back to Athens to head off another attack by the Persians, whose ships were seen sailing off toward the now undefended city. The Persians sailed away, and the mythic run of the nameless messenger is commemorated in the modern "marathon" of 26 miles 385 yards, the approximate distance between the beachhead at Marathon and Athens. The truth about Pheidippides (he survived! -- and there were two different messengers!)Pheidippides probably was not the messenger who delivered the news from Marathon to Athens (this would have been a short run for a man of his endurance), and he didn't drop dead afterward. That melodramatic touch (and the confusion between the two couriers) was a fiction perpetrated by the Victorian poet Robert Browning, whose version unfortunately survives in modern retellings. While the Battle of Marathon was a historic turning point, we should not forget the actual feat of the real Pheidippides in his run to Sparta, and his magical encounter with the weird woodland god Pan. There is more about Pan, and his ability to cause panic, in the quotation of the month for July, which is repeated below. Herodotos' account of Philippides (Pheidippides)Here is the description in Herodotos of Philippides' encounter with Pan: And first, while they were still in the city [before leaving for Marathon to do battle with the approaching Persians], the generals sent to Sparta a messenger, Philippides, an Athenian, a professional long-distance courier (hemerodromos, "day-runner"). According to Philippides himself, as he reported to the Athenians on his return, when he was near Mount Parthenium, above Tegea, the god Pan accosted him. Philippides said that Pan shouted out his name, and told him to ask the Athenians why they paid him no attention, when he was kindly disposed toward them and had helped them, and would help them again in the future. And so the Athenians, when their affairs were once again in good order, since they believed in the truth of the report, founded a shrine to Pan under the Acropolis, and celebrate him, in accord with his request, with yearly sacrifices and a torch race.
Darius in battle, detail of the mosaic illustrated above.
![]() Statue of the god Pan, from Seyffert's A Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities, 1899.
Watch out for Pan at mid-day!In the heat of summer, we find it convenient to emulate the Mediterraneans in taking a rest in the noonday heat, rising later to resume our work or leisure. It is a wise idea for another reason, for at that time the god Pan relaxes from hunting, and he becomes angry if disturbed. The word panic literally describes the terror that this weird woodland god can inspire. The Homeric Hymn XIX to Pan (ca. 750 B.C.) tells of his birth in Arcadia as son of the god Hermes and a nymph ("daughter of Dryops" -- the name means "Oak-face," obviously a forest divinity). The infant Pan is born with goat's feet, horns, a propensity for laughing and making noise -- and a full beard! His nurse runs away in horror, but his father Hermes, a trickster god himself who played practical jokes the same day that he was born (Homeric Hymn IV to Hermes), is delighted. Typically of the folk-etymologies of the Hymns, the poem connects the god's name with the word pan meaning "all," because he brought pleasure to all the gods. More likely, the name is related to the word for "pasture," indicative of his country roots. His chosen instrument is the Pan-pipe. Theocritus (3rd century B.C.), from Syracuse in Sicily, wrote bucolic or pastoral poetry in a much later era, using the Doric dialect of Greek. His rustic Idylls were later the inspiration for Vergil's Eclogues. His first Idyll is a conversation between a shepherd and a goatherd. The shepherd, Thyrsus, asks the goatherd to play something on his syrinx, or Pan-pipe. But the goatherd refuses, for it is noon, and Pan will be annoyed. So instead, the shepherd recounts the story of how the herdsman Daphnis died, driven to death by Aphrodite when he spurned her attempt to make him fall in love. Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the poem: Thyrsis (a shepherd):
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"The Great God Pan," wood carving by Christine Cooper Angier, ca. 1935.
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Statue of Juno in the Vatican, from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1890. Our quotation for June is from Ovid's Fasti ("The Roman Calendar"). It is an excerpt from a conversation the poet has with the goddess Juno, who claims that the month of June was named for her. The goddess is in a bad mood. She is jealous over the love affairs of her husband Jupiter (Jove); she refers to Maia, goddess mother of Mercury by Jupiter, as "a concubine." She is also still smarting over the choice by Trojan Prince Paris, son of King Priam, of Venus over both her and Minerva in the famous beauty contest. Venus rewarded Paris with Helen of Troy, leading to the Trojan War. Juno wants Ovid (and the world) to know how important she is and how widely worshipped she is not just in Rome but in other Italian towns. But Ovid and Juno are joined by two other goddesses, both of whom claim that the month was named for them. In this passage, Ovid parodies many things (he was, after all, the author of the tongue-in-cheek Amores and Ars Amatoria). He parodies the Prologue to Hesiod of Ascra's Theogony, in which Hesiod, "the teacher of plowing" (a reference to his other poem, The Works and Days) meets the Muses, who teach him to sing. Parodying the Muses' warning that "We know how to tell many lies that are like reality, but we also know, when we wish, how to speak the truth," Ovid tells us "I shall sing the truth, but some will say I lied." He also makes the incestuous relations within the family of the gods seem sublimely silly as Juno describes her relationship to Jupiter -- both wife and sister; she can't decide which makes her prouder! We quote below the beginning of Juno's rant. She is countered by the goddess Juventas ("Youth," in Greek Hebe), wife of Hercules, who says that June was named for her, and by Concord, who claims that the name of June honors the joining (or junction) between the Italian kingdoms of Tatius and Quirinus. Ovid wisely does not decide between his three goddesses, avoiding the mistake of Paris. For, he says, two goddesses can destroy more than one goddess can bestow. This month, too, has a name whose origins are in doubt.
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The Parthenon after a rare snowstorm, photo by C.A. Sowa. On May 29, we celebrate Memorial Day, when we honor those who have died in war. The quotation for this month contains excerpts from Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered in memory of fallen Athenians, as recreated by Thucydides in his history of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles, the great Athenian leader, gave his oration in 431 B.C. at the end of the first year of the war, which was fought between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies. In the first part of the speech, Pericles extols the virtues of Athens, and presents a gleaming portrait of his city's view of herself, with her democracy, her bravery, and her material success. Athens is the model for every city -- the educator of all Hellas and of the world. Sadly, little more than a year later, Pericles was dead of the plague that gripped Athens, overcrowded with refugees who streamed into the city from the countryside. The war itself ground on for another twenty years, bringing strife and political turmoil both within and without Athens, and marked by faction and misguided military adventures. Sparta technically won the war, but Athens survived as a cultural center, giving us the likes of Plato and Aristotle. Athens, of course, is still very much there today, the capital of modern Hellas, a vibrant European city, whose inhabitants still speak (with a few minor changes in pronunciation) the language of Homer and Plato. ...Summing up, I say that the whole city [of Athens] is the school of Greece. To me it seems that among us each man, under the most varied circumstances and with only himself to depend on, is most able to offer himself with grace and versatility. And that this is no boast in words for the moment, but the truth of deeds, is shown by the power of the city, acquired by these habits. For it alone among cities of today comes to the contest greater than its reputation, and alone offers no reason for shame to an enemy because of who has defeated him, nor any sense of blame among its citizens that they are ruled by those not worthy...
![]() The goddess Gaia, rising from the ground, hands the child Erichthonios
("Born of the (Athenian) soil") to Athena, as serpent-tailed King Kekrops
looks on, from Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen
und Römischen Mythologie, 1890.
April brings us occasions of rebirth and celebration. Easter falls this year on April 16 and Passover extends from April 13-19. Earth Day is celebrated on April 22. We present two quotations for Earth Day, translations of an excerpt from Hesiod's Theogony and of the complete Homeric Hymn XXX to Earth, Mother of All. In Hesiod's Theogony (ca. 750 B.C.), Gaia (Earth) is the second oldest divinity, outranked in age only by Chaos. We should remark that Chaos, in Hesiod's cosmogony, is not an undifferentiated mass of primordial matter but a distinct entity, a place ("The Yawning Chasm") whose location is unclear, but is possibly underneath the Earth. Chaos is also a goddess, who gave birth to Night, who in turn gave birth to Day. Gaia herself gave birth to Ouranos (Heaven), the Hills, and the Sea. Ouranos becomes the husband of Gaia. Hesiod begins his cosmogony thus: Yea verily, first Chaos came into being, but next came (Hesiod Theogony ll. 116-117) With Ouranos as her husband, Gaia became ultimately the mother or ancestress of many gods and goddesses, including Olympians like Zeus and Hera, as well as nymphs, monsters, and strange critters such as the one-eyed Cyclopes and the mighty Hundred-Hands. During the course of the Theogony's more than one thousand verses, Gaia participates actively in the politicking and internecine strife of the gods, as well as helping to sort out their relationships. The Homeric Hymns are anonymous poems from about the same time as Hesiod and Homer, but sunnier than Hesiod, lacking his weirdness. Unlike the longer Hymns, which tell complete myths, the Homeric Hymn XXX to Earth, Mother of All is one of the shorter invocations. Here, Gaia is the "eldest" of all beings, and the giver of all good things to mankind. The final tag line "But I will remember you and another song, also" is found (with variations) at the end of many of the Hymns. In his parting greeting, the singer of this song is careful to ask the goddess for his idea of the good life -- a prosperous career as a bard! Gaia, mother of all, I shall sing of you, the well-founded, (Homeric Hymn XXX to Earth, Mother of All, ll. 1-19)
![]() World spirit and fantastic sea horses, woodcarving by Christine Cooper
Angier (my Mom!), ca. 1935.
![]() Ruins of temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), from
Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
1898.
Beware the Ides of March! Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (March 15), 44 B.C. March was the third month of the Roman calendar of Caesar's time, as it is of ours. However, March was apparently the first month of the most archaic Roman calendar, which consisted of just ten months, with an unnamed period in winter between the end of the old year and the beginning of the new. March is named for the god Mars. Most famous as the Roman god of war (identified with the Greek god Ares), Mars also had agricultural connections as protector of the fertility of the herds and fields. It is not certain which functions are the oldest. His sacred animals were the wolf and the woodpecker. The emperor Augustus built a temple to Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger") in the middle of his new forum Augustum (see the picture above). Ovid, in his Fasti, or "Roman Calendar," begins Book 3 (March) with the story of Romulus and Remus, founders of the city of Rome, who were twin sons of Mars by the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia. In the legend, the twins were thrown in the river by King Amulius of Alba Longa, who had deposed his brother King Numitor, father of Silvia. But they washed up on shore, where they were suckled by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker who brought them food. They were found and raised by a herdsman and his wife. Their identities were eventually known, and they killed Amulius and made Numitor king again. They left Alba Longa and founded their own city of Rome, where Remus insulted Romulus by leaping over Romulus' new walls, and was killed by Romulus. After a long reign, Romulus vanished mysteriously in a storm and became the god Quirinus. Our quotation begins with Ovid's invocation of Mars and the description of Mars's stolen sexual pleasure with Silvia, whom he rapes while she sleeps, and her prophetic dream. While the episode reads like a Playboy fantasy (and although the portraits of Vesta "covered their eyes" and the altar "trembled" when Silvia gave birth), Silvia herself appears relatively unscathed and propriety is maintained by the fact that Romulus and Remus will be the means of her father Numitor's revenge upon his brother Amulius, and will become the founders of Rome. Warlike Mars, come near, lay aside your shield and spear for a little while, Ovid, Fasti 3.1-42.
![]() Romulus and Remus suckled by the wolf, Capitoline Museum.
![]() Colossal statues of Amenhotep III in Egypt, identified as the famous
"singing statues" of Memnon, King of Ethiopia, son of the Dawn goddess Eos.
(Illustration in W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der
Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, 1894-1897.)
On January 16, 2006, we observed the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and February is Black History Month. Black Africans were well known to the Greeks and Romans, and they appear in Classical literature and art both as subjects and as writers and artists themselves. Homer knew the Ethiopians as a semi-mythical people, in whose company the gods enjoyed lavish banquets. One of these banquets is alluded to in Iliad 1.423-426. Achilles, smarting at the taking of the girl Briseis from him by his commander, the Greek King Agamemnon, begs his mother, the sea-goddess Thetis, to ask Zeus to help the Trojans, to punish Agamemnon for his lack of respect for himself, "the best of the Achaeans." Thetis replies that she will ask Zeus's help, as soon as he returns, but that he is presently away from Olympus, for Zeus went yesterday to the Ocean, to the blameless Aethiopians, In Iliad 23.205-207, the funeral pyre of Patroklos fails to burn, and the messenger Iris goes to the Winds to ask them to blow to ignite the fire. She finds all the winds at the home of the West Wind, Zephyros, enjoying a feast, which they invite her to join. But she, having delivered her message, declines because of a prior engagement, saying, "I can't sit down, for I am going back to the streams of Ocean, In the Odyssey, too, the god Poseidon is depicted as receiving sacrifices of bulls and rams from the Ethiopians (Odyssey 1.22-25) (here we see the common confusion in the use of the name "Ethiopian" (the name means "burnt-face") to refer to dark-skinned people extending from Africa to India, as seen in Homer's reference to the Ethiopians being "divided into two, some at the setting sun, some at the rising"). On a more human plane, Menelaos, describing his own wanderings on the way home from Troy, tells of the places he visited, including Phoenicia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya. On a still more personal note, Odysseus himself, still in disguise on his return to Ithaka, is describing Odysseus (really himself!), whom he claims to have "met," to the faithful Penelope. In Odyssey 19.244-248, he describes Odysseus' Black herald Eurybates (the name means "wide-stepping"): And there was a herald, a little older than he, An entire lost epic from the time of Homer, the Aithiopis, as well as several lost plays, were devoted to the legend of Memnon, son of the dawn goddess Eos and the the Trojan prince Tithonos. Memnon was king of Ethiopia and fought on the Trojan side in the Trojan War. He was slain by Achilles, but was made immortal by Zeus. In Egypt, he was identified with Amenhotep III (reigned ca. 1411-1375 B.C.), whose colossal statues near Thebes gave a ringing tone when they were struck by the rising sun, an event thought to be Memnon's greeting to his mother, Eos (see illustration above). References to Africans in Classical Greek theater include, among several others, Aeschylus' Suppliants, where the fifty sons of Aegyptus are described as having black limbs that stand out from their white robes. In art, there many depictions of Negro faces and figures in vase paintings and sculptures. An outstanding potter/vase painter, Amasis (several of whose signed vases still exist -- see the illustration at the foot of this item), shared a name with an Egyptian pharoah, and, according to Prof. Frank M. Snowden, Jr. (see reference below), may well have been black African. At Rome, in Vergil's second Eclogue, the shepherd Corydon is pining for a boy named Alexis, the favorite of his master. Unable to win Alexis over, Corydon yet advises the boy that he can be better off (Eclogue II ll. 14-18): Wouldn't it be better to put up with the gloomy anger of Amaryllis The Roman playwright Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, ca. 195-159 BC.) wrote comedies of character and manners that contrasted with the more slapstick qualities of the other great Roman comic playwright, Plautus; it is Terence who gave us the line I am a human being; I consider no human matter to be alien to me. Terence was said to have been born at Carthage and brought to Rome as a slave. Having been educated and set free by his master, he gained entrance to Roman society, and his daughter is said to have married a Roman knight. (It should be noted that slavery in antiquity was not associated with any particular race, but with which people happened to be conquered. At Rome, where slaves might be Asians, Africans, Jews, Syrians, Greeks, Germans, Gauls, or others, slaves were often better educated than their masters, and were frequently put in charge of educating their masters' children.) Many more references to Blacks in the ancient world can be found in Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Blacks in Antiquity, Harvard University Press, 1970.
![]() Signed vase painting by the Athenian potter/painter Amasis (6th cent.
B.C.), depicting Athena and Poseidon. The two figures are labeled
ATHENAIA and POSEIDON. The inscription down the middle reads
AMASIS MEPOIESEN ("Amasis made me"). Amasis may well have been
African. (Illustration from a lithograph by Kaeppelin et Cie., ca. 1840.)
![]() Photo by C.A. Sowa Trees are sacred in many religions. Evergreens, especially in our northern climate, are cherished for their green needles that remain, with their message of survival, when all else is bare and snow-covered. The "Christmas Tree" of Christians is a continuation of the old custom. (By the way, the German "O Tannenbaum" does NOT mean "O Christmas Tree" but "O Fir Tree." English, unfortunately, does not have a two-syllable word for "fir" or "pine" to translate the German Tanne. The words O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,/ wie treu sind deine Blätter!/ Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,/ Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit is correctly translated "O fir tree, O fir tree/ how true are your leaves!/ You are green not only in summertime,/ no, also in winter, although it snows.") The majestic, mysterious fir tree is aptly associated with Christmas, one of many festivals that occur at the time of the Winter Solstice. It is a bringer of hope at the time of the shortest day, when the sun and its warmth seem farthest away. The birth of a baby under harsh circumstances, as Jesus' birth is depicted, is likewise a hopeful sign. A similar optimistic message in conveyed by the festival of Hanukkah, celebrating the miraculously burning lights, which, with only enough oil to last one day, burned for eight days. Even the much-maligned "commercialism" of the holiday season is a sign of optimism and energy -- and for merchants and vendors, a chance to make up for a dismal year. Mercury, god of commerce and communication, flourishes. Oak trees have also been revered, and many myths have grown around them. In Dodona in Greece, the grove of oaks sacred to Zeus was consulted as an oracle. The oaks spoke, and Zeus made his will known through the whisperings of their leaves. In our quotation of the month, the Roman poet Horace dedicates a pine tree at his Sabine farm to Diana, with the promise of a yearly sacrifice of a boar (the Roman version of our holiday pork roast!). He celebrates Diana as the protector of young women in childbirth, and calls her triformis, "triple-formed" -- Diana on earth, Luna in the sky, and Hecate in the Underworld. Below is his poem, in the original Latin and in translation. Montium custos nemorumque, Virgo,
![]() Photo by C.A. Sowa.
![]() Toy church and skeleton girl for the Dia de los Muertos
(purchased in Olvera Street, Los Angeles), photo by C.A. Sowa.
November is bracketed by two holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. While in their modern form they are distinctly American, both have roots that go back to old festivals of the dead and of the harvest. Halloween, among other origins, can be traced to the Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrating the return of the herds from pasture, but involving the return of the dead to revisit their homes. It also included rites of harvest and the reaping of the last sheaf, as well as rituals connected with fire and divination. In Mexico and in Mexican communities in the U.S., November 1 and 2 (All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day) are celebrated as the Dia de los Muertos ("Day of the Dead"), which combine Catholic, Aztec, and other Mexican Native customs, celebrated with pastries, candies, and little toy scenes in the shape of skeletons disporting themselves. Family members hold picnics at the cemetery, so that dead family members can enjoy them, too. The ancient Roman world was peopled with many kinds of ghosts, appeased at various festivals. The Parentalia (13-21 February) honored the dead of each family. The Lares were also, apparently, spirits of dead family members, associated with crossroads, honored at the festival of the Compitalia, but a Lar familiaris also had a shrine with the Penates, or gods of the pantry, within each house. Larvae (spectres) were scarier, as were Lemures (ghosts). The Lemuria (9, 11, 13 May), a ritual for feeding and propiating the angry and sinister lemures, is described by Ovid, in the passage translated below.
![]() Illustration from Rodolfo Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of
Recent Discoveries, 1898.
A ritual of the Lemuria is described by Ovid in the Fasti ("The Yearly Calendar," in which, unfortunately, only the first six months are described). Black beans are thrown behind the back for the ghosts to pick up. After that, when Hesperus has thrice revealed his lovely face, For Thanksgiving, I reproduce the cover and three other pages from a delightful antique souvenir book, Souvenir of Dakota: The Artesian Wells, by Mrs. A.J. Dickinson, illustrated by Nelle B. Lockwood, both of Chamberlain, South Dakota, 1898. The text begins: On the dim silent prairie where brown grasses shiver, /And loneliness broods like a mystical spell, /There bursts on our vision a beautiful river, /Thrown up from the depths of a wonderful well. These words are illustrated by a wraithlike fountain spurting from the plain. The narrative includes such verses as Oh water, bright water, we see through thy prism /A vast panorama surpassingly grand: /We see the fulfillment of hopes and of wishes, /Good tidings of joy to this beautiful land. /We see through thy prism the gleaming and glancing /Of acres on acres of ripening wheat; /And we hear in thy music the songs of the reapers, /Who gather the food that the multitudes eat.
![]() ![]() Photos by C.A. Sowa.
In October (traditionally on October 12, but now on the closest Monday), we celebrate the voyage of Columbus and the pride of the Italian people. While the journey, as with most historic events, was ambiguous in its results and meaning, and Columbus, of course, didn't "discover" the New World at all (it had already been discovered, and people were living in it), the skill and bravery of Columbus and his men and of all the early explorers, and of all who voyage upon the sea, is undeniable. This month's quotation is translated from an ode by Horace dedicated to his friend the poet Vergil, who was about to embark on a trip to Greece. The distance between Greece and Italy seems short by today's standards, but storms can come up suddenly on the Mediterranean. Although one leaves port on a deceptively calm day, as I can attest from personal experience, one's small ship can be suddenly be tossed about by seemingly capricious gods. At such a time, passengers once prayed to Zeus or Jupiter; now they pray to the Virgin Mary. (Explanation of names (some of which are Greek, although the poem itself is in Latin): African: the "south-west" wind; Aquilonian: the "north" wind; Hyades (Greek: "the Rainy Ones"): a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus, thought to bring rain at the season of their morning setting (in November); Notus: the "south" wind; Acroceraunia (Greek: "Thunder Heights"): a rocky promontory in Epirus, Greece, jutting into the Ionian Sea.) ...
![]() Codrus, the poor man who lost everything, owned a little statuette
of a centaur, like the bronze one pictured above.
As we watched Hurricane Katrina and the breaking of the levees, and the subsequent agony of New Orleans and the Gulf coast, once again we saw how the poor are left to drown but the wealthy are enriched even beyond their previous lifestyle. President Bush gleefully described the opportunity afforded his crony, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, by the destruction of (one of his) houses: "Out of the rubble of Trent Lott's house - he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." A quotation springs to mind from the Roman satirist Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis, ca. 60-140 A.D.). In his Third Satire, Juvenal describes a chaotic urban world of fires, muggings, building collapses, and corrupt leaders that could just as well be today's news. In the excerpt translated below, the disaster is a pair of fires that consume a tenement and a mansion. The poor man, Codrus, loses "all the nothing that he owned," but the wealthy Persicus has rich friends who rush to rebuild his house. Persicus is represented as "childless," that is, without heirs, so his hangers-on hope to be named in his will. Just so, today's rich and powerful trade favors with each other. ...Codrus had a bed too short even for the dwarf Procula, and six little jugs,
Sirius, the Dog Star, shines over the sweltering heat of summer, giving its name to the Dog Days of July and August. Hesiod (ca. 750 B.C.), the Old Curmudgeon of Greek epic poetry, thought the hot summer weather made women sexy and men weak. In his Works and Days, an excerpt of which appears below in translation, he recommends that a man enjoy his lunch and a jug of wine behind a shady rock, presumably to get away from those sex-crazed women. When the artichoke blooms and the shrill cicada,
The Founding Fathers, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, et al. are our models for conducting our American Republic. The Founding Fathers, of course, not having themselves to look to as examples, turned to ancient Rome as their model. In particular, they were impressed by Cincinnatus, whom legend said was called from his farm to lead his nation in war, and who, after victory, returned to his simple life. In the early days of the Roman Republic, Rome was still consolidating her power against the surrounding tribes. Among the most important rivals were the Sabines, the Aequi, and the Volsci. In about 460 B.C., a Roman force under the consul Lucius Minucius was cut off and surrounded by the Aequian enemy on Mount Algidus. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a former consul, was called out of semi-retirement to assume the title of dictator and to lead a relief force. Under Cincinnatus' leadership, the Romans, in a short but decisive battle, rescued their brethern and defeated the Aequi. After the battle, Cincinnatus laid down his dictatorship and returned to private life. The story of Cincinnatus was embroidered and expanded by the Roman annalists, so that it is sometimes difficult to disentangle fact from fiction (for example, he may or may not have held a second dictatorship). He is an ambiguous role model for American democracy for another reason: As a member of the patrician class, which held a stranglehold on wealth and power in Rome, he strongly opposed any measure that would extend power to the rising plebeian class! George Washington, who was called out of retirement to become president, and, after serving two terms, retired again, was called an American Cincinnatus. The Society of the Cincinnati was founded by officers of the American Revolutionary army in 1783, and the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, was named for the Society of the Cincinnati. For the record, the original name of Cincinnati was also (semi-)classical; it was called Losantiville, for "town opposite the mouth of the Licking River!" Below is the account of Cincinnatus (in Latin and English) as given in the Roman histories of Livy (59 B.C.-17 A.D.):
June brings the end of the school year. For some, this means graduation and the start of a first full-time job. For others, it brings summer school or a summer job. For many, it means a vacation, whether long or short, a respite from the tedium of winter. This month's quotation is a translation of the first and last verses of an ode by the Latin poet Horace (65-8 B.C.). It is addressed to a "Vergilius," who may have been Horace's famous contemporary, the poet Vergil. In it, he invites his friend to share a drink of wine and forget, if for a little while, the cares of life. Zephyr breezes, companions of spring that calm the sea, Horace, Odes IV.12, lines 1-4, 25-28
![]() Illustration: horse with frog jockey; this drawing and the one
below by Christine Cooper Angier, ca. 1980 (for Mother's Day, I offer
a couple of my Mom's animal pictures)
The ancient Olympic Games included not just track and field events, but also horse racing and chariot racing. (The modern Olympics, too, have some equestrian sports). Yet it is only a little exaggeration to call the Kentucky Derby (run this year on May 7) the true Olympics of horse racing. Then, as now, kings, princes, and wealthy aristocrats entered horses in the contest. Pindar (518-438 B.C) composed victory odes for many Olympic winners in various events, as well as for the victors in other athletic festivals less well-remembered today -- the Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games. The musical accompaniment to these odes is, of course, now lost, but we still have Pindar's glorious, ringing words. Here, in translation, are the opening lines of his Olympian Ode I, composed for King Hieron of Syracuse, whose horse Pherenikos ("Bringer of Victory") won the horse race in 476 B.C., as he was "speeding, unspurred" along the banks of the Alpheus River at Olympia (also called "Pisa" in this poem, for the surrounding district). Water is the noblest element, and gold shines Pindar, Olympian Ode I, lines 1-23
April is tax month. Once again, our attention is called to the fact that while some people collect much ill-gotten wealth while doing little work, those who work the hardest often seem to gain the least. Our quotation of the month comes from Hesiod's Works and Days. Hesiod was approximately contemporary with Homer (ca. 750 B.C.), but his home, far removed from the heroic world of the Iliad and Odyssey, was the hardscrabble farmland of Ascra, in Boeotia. Hesiod addressed his homilies on farming and hard work and other folk wisdom to his ne'er-do-well brother Perses, who had cheated Hesiod by bribing the corrupt local lords to give him the larger share of their inheritance, then wasted his share. Hesiod describes the Two Strifes. One kind of strife is bad, and leads to war. The other is good, and is the healthy competition that leads men to earn honest wealth. Indeed, there was not just one kind of Strife, but upon the earth Hesiod,Works and Days lines 11-26 And again, Hesiod says, If your heart within you desires wealth, Hesiod,Works and Days lines 381-382
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In primis venerare deos, atque annua magnae This is the time of Easter, of the first day of spring--the Vernal Equinox--and of St. Patrick's Day. Pale Male and Lola, the red-tailed hawks whose acrobatics have for several years enchanted New Yorkers, once again are caring for eggs in their nest on a twelfth-floor cornice high above Fifth Avenue, across from Central Park. Pale Male, always the gentleman, brings offerings of pigeons to his lady-love. The exuberant limestone acanthus carvings surrounding the birds' home echoes the arrival of greenery and new life. In ancient Roman times, this was the season of the rustic celebration of the Ambarvalia, when animals to be sacrificed were led around the boundaries of each farm, to ensure the fertility of the fields. This is the ritual referred to by Vergil in the quotation from the First Georgic quoted above. Walter Pater, Victorian essayist and critic, wrote his novel Marius the Epicurean as a fictional recreation of the life of a young Roman. At the beginning of the novel, Marius is celebrating the Ambarvalia on his ancestral estate (by the end of the novel, however, he has become a Christian). In the first chapter, Pater, quoting Tibullus (ca. 55-19 B.C). evokes the mystery of a natural world alive with inhabiting spirits. (The translation from Tibullus is mine; Pater gave only the Latin.)
The quotation from Tibullus is from Book I, No. 3, ll.33-34; Pater could well have quoted another of Tibullus' elegies, Book II, No. 1, an actual (poetic) description of the Ambarvalia.
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SEX AND THE MOUNTAIN: Aphrodite, goddess of sexual desire and fertility, hastening to seduce Anchises on Mount Ida, causes the wild forest animals to mate as she passes themIn the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (a poem dating from perhaps shortly after Homer himself), Aphrodite, the "golden goddess" (polychrusos) makes everyone, including gods, mortals, and all the creatures of the land and sea, fall in love. Only the goddesses Athena, Artemis, and Hestia are immune to her snares. Even Zeus, king of the gods, has been led astray by her many times. But Aphrodite herself has never been in love. Zeus takes revenge by making her fall in love with the Trojan prince Anchises, whom she seduces as he tends cattle on a mountain top. Shamed by loss of the power which she had wielded by remaining above the fray, she nevertheless becomes the mother of a mighty son, the hero Aeneas. He, in turn, was to become even more famous in Roman times, as the founder of Rome in Vergil's Aeneid. [Zeus] put sweet desire for Anchises in her heart; (-Homeric Hymn V to Aphrodite, vv. 53-74, tr. C.A. Sowa)
Winter is for celebrating -- and for doing indoor work!The Saturnalia, the ancient festival of Saturn, was celebrated in Rome on December 17. Presents were exchanged, slaves were treated as equals of their masters, and freedom and jollity prevailed. Saturnalibus, optimo dierum! Another, more wintry view (in attitude as well as season) of this time of year is presented by the Boeotian Hesiod, who cautions the good farmer to use the indoor time well in taking care of household matters. Pass by the seat at the bronze-smith's forge and the warm lodging-house (-Hesiod,Works and Days, vv. 493-514)
"The Bloviating Politico..."
By Zeus, I too dreamed! It seemed the goddess Athena herself The Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (ca.448-ca.380 B.C.) has become particularly famous in our era for his anti-war play Lysistrata, in which the women refuse to have sex with their husbands until they stop making war. But as this quotation shows, he lampooned politics in his other plays as well, proving that he knew as well as we do the Bloviating Politico.
"Words changed their meaning..."
"Doublespeak," the deliberate twisting of words to make them mean "something they ain't," didn't begin with George Orwell and 1984. (In fact, Orwell didn't even use the word that is frequently attributed to him, although he did coin "Newspeak" and "Duckspeak.") Nor did the practice begin with recent and current wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq or with modern political campaigns. Thucydides (471?-400? B.C.) was writing about the Peloponnesian War between Athens and her allies and Sparta and her allies, in which he participated. During the fifth century B.C., Athens morphed from a democracy into the Athenian Empire, overextending her forces and ambitions. Athens reached a tragic low point in the disastrous expedition against Syracuse, eventually losing the war.
These words, translated from the Greek, are from one of the great choral odes in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.). Ares, the god of war, is the great moneychanger, exchanging men for dust. The war was the ten year-long Trojan War, from which Agamemnon returned, only to be murdered by his wife Clytaemnestra. The quotation is particularly apropos, since, as of this week,
over 1000 U.S. soldiers, hundreds of coalition forces, and over
20,000 Iraquis have died in what seems to be an exit-less war in Iraq.
Copyright © 2004, Cora Angier Sowa. All rights reserved.
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