Bread and Circuses

Edinburgh Festival - Carrie Quinlan

If anyone is planning on being in Edinburgh during the Festival, I urge you to go and see Carrie Quinlan's show, Fear of a Beige Planet in the Teviot Billiard Room at the Gilded Balloon from 9pm tomorrow.

A regular writer for Radio 4's Now Show and BBC4's Late Edition, Carrie is both a brilliant actor and one of the funniest comedians you are ever likely to see.

Best to avoid if you are a fan of Natasha Kaplinsky, though...

Sexaginta Prista/ Ruse

Via NS Gill, news of the discovery of the fourth century principia at Ruse in Bulgaria, then Sexaginta Prista.

Founded by Vespasian as one of the cornerstones of defence on the Moesian frontier, the city's history in the fourth/fifth century is pretty well attested. Socrates Scholasticus mentions that it was a bishopric: "Polycarp was transferred from Sexaginta Prista, a city of Moesia " (7.36); and it appears both in the Antonini Itinerarium (222.3) and, most relevantly for here, in the Notitia Dignitatum (40.14.32).

At the time the principia was built, the town housed a couple of units: the cuneus equitum armigerorum and a cohort of Legion I Italica. The picture is from Wikipedia and you can clearly see the name of the place - at least the beginning - line six:

In the chair: Peter Jones

The Spectator's policy of password-protecting articles is rather frustrating. This week, the ever-erudite Peter Jones stars in its series "In the chair", answering questions sent in by readers. Here is a selection:

Q. Why did Sulla retire from the dictatorship in 79BC?
Emma Lockwood, puzzled undergraduate

A. Ah! Why indeed. Political leaders never give up power willingly, as we know all too well (most of the emperors died or were assassinated in office, I think: not Diocletian, who abdicated to tend his cabbages, as I remember) but Sulla is the exception that proves the rule. And despite his infamous proscriptions and slaughter of opponents, he ended his days peacefully in Puteoli hunting, fishing and drinking with his chums from the theatre. In a sense, the question may be the wrong way round: better to ask why politicians hang on to power so grimly when it is obvious to all and sundry that their time has gone? Perhaps Sulla was the only sane man in Rome: he realised he had done all he could to try to restore power to where he thought it belonged (away from dynasts and tribunes and back to the Senate), and that was that. Further, he did in fact believe an ancient prophecy that he did not have long to live. That perhaps concentrated his mind. Julius Caesar, of course, accused him of political illiteracy...

Q. (a) Which successful ruler of ancient times would our present/would-be leaders be well advised to emulate?
(b) Who does Mr Blair most resemble?
K-L H E Noll

A. (a) Sulla! (see above).
(b) I shall have to think about this, but Nero rather appeals: started so well, ended so disastrously.

Q. Paul Johnson recently wrote that Gladstone made a habit of reading some Homer and a passage from the Bible in Greek every day. Do you also regard Homer as a staple and what is your own daily classical routine?
W. Smith, Oxon

A. I certainly regard Homer as a staple, since he is my favourite ancient author. I have no daily routine. It depends what I am working on. At the moment I am revising an ancient Greek course I helped write nearly 30 years ago (Reading Greek, CUP) so am thinking hard about explaining tricky linguistic concepts to pupils who will probably know nothing about grammar at all. I am writing a lecture on Ovid's Metamorphoses, wondering in what sense it is an 'epic'. Next week I shall be taking a class reading Odyssey 21 and 22 at the Durham Summer School. Then I shall read Aeschylus' Persians in preparation for a performance at New College Oxford (July 27-9). The week after that I shall be talking to a men's club in Tynemouth (I live in Newcastle) about the explosion of Vesuvius; and shortly after that lecturing on a Swan Hellenic cruise from Livorno to Venice. What could possibly be more agreeable than to spend every day writing and thinking about ancient languages and the ancient world? I really do think pleasure is the most useful thing in the world.

Q. Charles Clarke reckoned that this country would be a better place if study of Latin and Greek were to disappear completely. He then became Education Minister. Do you think this was the nadir, or will classicists have to go on making excuses for themselves in the 'modern' Britain of tomorrow?
Peter Lampton

A. That response was typical of people like Clarke who see education in Stalinist terms, as a service to the state not the individual.

Handbags at dawn - continued

The argument at the Bryn Mawr Classical Review that I mentioned last week continues. Note, by the way, Professor Nardelli's useful clarification on my original post.

David Brown, professor of classics at Brown, has now weighed in. An excerpt:

Alberto Bernabé does not need a defense of this sort. Neither Olson nor anyone else doubts his erudition or his care. We all make mistakes, and reviewers are obligated to note them, especially, as Olson says, in a work "destined to become the new standard text of the Orphic fragments." Let us not be over-sensitive.

Hannibal the movie

Something light today. It looks as though Vin Diesel's plans to make a film about the life of Hannibal have had to be scaled down. A cartoon is now likely. Defamer has some acerbic comment.

Celtic Information Bank

Apologies for those without German, but this is a pretty easy site to navigate around with even school German. The Kelten Informations Bank looks like a handy resource: links to museums and sites.

Redesign

I am in the process of redesigning the site; changing the layout, adding links etc. Bear with me if it looks a little strange over the next week or so. Inevitably there will be a fair amount of tweaking involved.

The favourites of the Emperor Honorius

The story of the emperor Honorius and the chickens has been referred to a couple of times (also here). It remains one of those stories that you hope is true even if it never actually happened. Thanks to GK for passing this on.

The painter John William Waterhouse is less well-known than his contemporary Laurence Alma-Tadema, but they are similar. I have a soft spot for it, even though this style of sumptuous 19th century classically inspired art is far removed from most contemporary taste. For more on Waterhouse see here and here.

Painted in 1883, The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius now hangs in the Art Gallery of South Australia. Image from Curculio's website.

Taq-e Bostan and Julian

There has been a fair amount of coverage of the five new UNESCO World Heritage sites.  It has taken me a couple of days to realise that the award to Bisotun (see news report here) also covers the site of Taq-e Bostan - occasionally Taq-i Bustan.

The site, one relief in particular, has long fascinated me. The identification is by no means absolute, but one of the bas-reliefs there possibly shows the Emperor Julian on the ground, his head resting on his left arm, while Shapur II stands on the emperor’s legs facing the supreme god Ahura-Mazda, who stands on Julian’s head. The god Mithras stands behind Shapur.

For the identification see Massoud Azarnoush, "Le mord de Julien l'apostat selon des sources iraniennes," Byzantion 61 (1991), 322-9.

Latin novelisations

Lovely article in the Toronto Star on children's books translated into Latin. Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis gets a name check as does Alicia in Terra Mirabili.

Here are a few more: Ursus Nomine Paddington, Maria Poppina, Asterix Gallus, Fabula de Petro Cuniculo, and, my favourite, Enid Blyton's Nuticulus Satyrique.