Athens: Ancient City of Stories

As an avid student of Rome, for me Athens is inescapable. The poetry, the drama, the teachers, the art, and the philosophy shaped the culture, history, and self-perception of the Romans. Much like the art historians who base much of their knowledge of Greek art on the surviving Roman copies, my knowledge of Athens is largely filtered through the writings and perceptions of the Eternal City. However focused my classics education may have been on the Italian peninsula, I still stumbled across many mentions of Athens and Greece during the course of it, more than I initially remembered.

Strategies for Gifted Children

I was bored to death in elementary and high school. I got better grades in college than I had in my life. I'm in a pedagogy class right now, and we are learning strategies for teaching kids who have a harder time.

I found this article on strategies for teaching gifted kids: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10075.aspx

THIS is what would have helped me not be bored for 12 years straight as a kid.

Assignment for Feb 2

1. Read the little Classics book.
2. Read Mary Beard's essay.
3. Consider the major premise: Classics is not merely the study of old, but the study of the gap between that world and ourselves.
4. Read the Oxford Classical Dictionary entries on Catullus and Horace and Claudius.
5. Look at same entries in Oxford Companion to English Literature.
6. Write three questions that I would pose to each of the individuals on three occasions (27 questions total):
  1) In 41 CE, Claudius became Emporer. At the press conference for that occasion.
  2) 1776: Philadelphia: Interview a group of classicaly educated white British men who are redefining the government structures as a new nation whose political system draws heavily on Greek and Roman republican models.
  3) 2012: American undergraduates and graduate students begin a branch of Occupy called Occupy Academia which demands that classics gets more, rather than less, attention at colleges and universities.
7. Prepare to perform as one of the three people in class. We will role play the different press conferences. Use the impersonation principles - you don't know anything more than Catullus (e.g.) would have. Also, write the questions as a peer of the time.

What is classical reception?  It is not THE classical tradition. The Classical Tradition has all the social baggage that comes with study Greece and Rome. The phrase has been faulted for deemphasizing the peoplehood of those who use it.

Horace's father was born a slave and was later freed. He was about 20 years younger than Catullus.

Latin Composition Begins

My formal study of Latin as a language has come to a middle. I have two classes left before I graduate, but neither of them will involve Latin translation. That is why this blog has been so neglected as of late. There are still many interesteing things to study, but creating a useful and coherent blog post out of them sounds like a whole lot of work that I will neither money nor credit for.

However.

I have a collection of Latin textbooks that I recieved as a trust/gift from a former professor who moved to Rome to study canon law. Most of them I haven't touched, although some have been decidedly useful and saved me the trouble of buying a couple textbooks. I was cleaning this morning and noticed a slim volume entitled "Latin Composition." It was published in 1904, and it is filled with exercises of translating English into Latin, based on Caesar Gallic war writings. I think I'm going to work through the exercises on this blog for a bit. No promises of great Latin, but I don't want to lose it and this seems a good way to keep it up. I have also noticed that the rigor of Latin studies has dropped a great deal - what I can do with an advanced degree used to be expected of Latin students entering Harvard undergrad. Very humiliating. So, I am going to get better.

Lesson I

First, the English. Then, my translation. Then, when I'm done, I'll look up Caesar's original and put it in parentheses.

1. Gaul as a whole is divided into three parts. Gallia tota tres partes dividitur.(Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres) My translation has the present passive - Caesar's the perfect passive.
2. The Belgae, Aquitani, and Celts inhabit Gaul. Belgae et Aquitani Celtique Galliam incolunt. (quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae) Celts are feminine - I had them as masculine.
3. The Romans call the Celts Gauls. Romani Celtos Gallios appelant.(Nostra Galli appellantur.) The Gauls are the subject and the sentence is passive.
4. These all differ from each other. Illi inter se differunt.
5. The Marne and the Seine are rivers. Marna Sequanaque flumena sunt.
6. The Belgae are the farthest away from the province. Belgae maximae procul provincia sunt. (provinciae longissime absunt)
7. The Belgae and the Germans wage war continually. Belgae et Germani semper bellant. (continenter bellum gerunt) Caesar's is better - I didn't know the best verb or the adverb to use. Mine is technically correct.
8. Merchants very seldom visit the Germans. Mercatora minime saepe Germanos visitant.
9. Merchants import articles which tend to weaken courage. Mercatora ea ad effeminandos animos inferunt.