Books
Most books mentioned can be orderd from the Bookshop - link on the right.
- Helen of Troy, Goddess, princess, whore
Published this month [October 2005] - following in the footsteps of the original glamorous "TV historian" Michael Wood (In Search of the Trojan War), Bettany Hughes' book promises to prove that Helen was a real historical figure - possibly "bald-headed, bare-breasted and bloodthirsty". See Jonathan Thompson' article in Independent on Sunday (http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/news/article318223.ece), and a review, also in the Independent, which praises the scholarship, while teasing the author for her "girly romanticism". http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/article320995.ece
For the Classics Pages take on Helen, try here.
- Troy Effect
BRAD Pitt's film role in Troy has helped make Homer, who has been dead for 2800 years, Britain's favourite poet. Online sales of works by the ancient Greek writer outstripped any other poet in the past year. His epic The Iliad, about the Trojan War, sold most. Next was The Odyssey, dealing with hero Odysseus's adventures returning home from Troy, says a survey by internet firm Amazon. Fiona Buckland, of Amazon, said: 'We have seen a huge revival in classical Greek epic poetry this year, which we have put down to the Troy effect.' [Source:The Daily Record, Oct 07, 2004] - Atlantis : latest nonsense
I had ignored the theory that Atlantis was the drowned city of Helike (Eliki) on the south coast of the Gulf of Corinth, despite a recent UKTV "documentary". The fact that a web search for Helike/Atlantis comes up with a local olive oil company probably tells you all you need to know. But a new book by Eberhard Zangger [The Future of the Past, Weidenfeld £20.00] argues passionately that Atlantis was Troy. Plato's date of 8000 years before Solon is explained away by counting years as Egyptian lunar years, ie months. 8000 months before Solon's Egypt trip would indeed take us to the Mycenaean period - which ties in with Plato's descriptions of weaponry and fortifications, and the Atlanteans skill in the arts. If Troy was the only enemy of Greece in this era, Troy must have been Atlantis. [Zangger makes it sound more convincing in the book!]. Appropriately, the theory has been ridiculed by the experts - archaeologists say it's "out of the question", and the philologist Daniel Mannsperger thinks, like me, that an archaeological dig for Atlantis is as good an idea as trying to dig up Plato's Republic (or Utopia, or Erewhon, or Liliput, or Neverneverland). As one reviewer brilliantly puts it: "the most likely provenance of the tale [of Atlantis] - somewhere between Plato's ears - is rarely considered by Atlantis enthusiasts." [Chris Lavers in the Guardian, 5 January 2002] - Harrius Potterus et Philosophi Lapis
Harry Potter, the world's most famous boy wizard, is to have his daring exploits translated into Latin and ancient Greek, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported yesterday. Bloomsbury, the publishers of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, have hired retired classics teacher Peter Needham to write a Latin version. J. K. Rowling hopes the translations will inspire children who are learning Latin and ancient Greek at school. The Philosopher's Stone is the first of Rowling's four Potter novels and the Warner Bros. film version of the book is claiming box-office records around the world. The Potter novels have sold more than 100-million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 40 languages. "We aren't under any illusion that Latin and Greek [translations] will be bestsellers, but we think that it will mean much more fun lessons for anyone studying Latin and Greek," Rowling's editor at Bloomsbury, Emma Matthewson, told the paper. Rowling is a classics fan. She started studying the subject with French at university before focusing solely on the modern language. Her Potter books are studded with classical references. Many of the spells are in Latin. Fluffy, the three-headed dog that guards the philosopher's stone, is based on the mythical beast Cerberus. And the motto of the Hogwarts School for Wizards is Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus, which means "Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon." Needham expects to finish his Latin translation by August next year. "It's an ideal job for an old bloke in retirement," he told the paper. "For the time being I'm calling Harry 'Harrius Potter.' It declines perfectly well so that, for example, we could have Harrium Potterum. "The literal translation of Potter would be Figulus, but I very much hope that Potter will survive." Agence-France Presse,Tuesday, December 4, 2001 - Pottering in Academia
In the mid-1980s, Joanne Kathleen Rowling studied French and Classics at Exeter University in southwestern England. Eliza T. Dresang, a professor at Florida State University's School of Information Studies, told UPI that the literary allusions in Rowling's popular works have provoked much serious scholarship throughout the English-speaking world and would generate many doctoral dissertations. Not since "Alice in Wonderland" has children's literature received this kind of highbrow attention. Dresang herself has written a chapter to the forthcoming academic tome "Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower" in which she devotes 11 typescript pages to Rowling's choice of the first name of Harry's friend Hermione Granger -- the series' principal female character. The professor wrote that a Hermione appears in Greek mythology (see Euripides' Helen), in St. Luke's Acts of the Apostles, in Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale," as a character in D.H. Lawrence's novel "Women in Love," and as the title ("HERmione") of the autobiographical novel of imagist poet Hilda Doolittle, Lawrence's friend… [UPI 18 November 2001] - see also Benefits of a Classical Education - Sulpicia - Girl Power from the 1st century BC
Soon to be published for the first time in Engish - the only woman from ancient Rome whose poetry survives - and that in half a dozen short elegies, less than 50 lines altogether. Long dismissed as "written for her by Tibullus" (among whose work they appear) - or bad verses from a schoolgirl's exercise book they are now being actually read - and their flavour is unmistakably 21st century. She comes across as sexy and uninhibited. The new translation is published by Hearing Eye, 999 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX (£ 6.00 + postage). Check her out first in my translation on the new Sulpicia page. - All you wanted to know about sex in Greece ...
A new book about ancient Greek sexuality is on the best-seller lists (in Greece). It's already been translated into 5 languages. It's called (in English) Love, Sex and Marriage, A Guide to the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks by Nikos Vrissimztis. But, contrary to most scholarly work of the last 20 years, it attempts to show the Greeks as repressed Victorians. He ignores the brilliant work of Sir Kenneth Dover in unravelling the subtleties of same-sex relationships, discounting the vast amount of contrary evidence in order to preserve his illusion of the purityand nobility of the ancients. "The Greeks had a healthy aversion to abnormal relations", he avers. Instead, read Dover's BookGreek Homosexuality - or, a more recent and superbly balanced assessment of his views - Martha Nussbaum's
Sex and Social Justice. [Article by Ben Rogers in the Guardian, August 26, 1999]
- What about the Lion on the Cheesegrater Position?
A new book by James Davidson called Courtesans and Fishcakes has been published by HarperCollins. It paints a far more attractive view of Athenian sexuality than recent scholarship has suggested (eg Eva Keuls in The Reign of the Phallus). Current orthodoxy has interpreted all sexual encounters as showing male dominance - whether over women, boys or whatever. But Davidson suggests that we put the fun back into our interpretation of the Athenians' sex-life - his theory on why so many acts seem to done standing up is both intriguing and convincing. What's the link with fishcakes? Well. The popularity of fish - an expensive luxury in days before refrigeration - and sex both show the Athenians in transition from citizens for whom only the polis mattered to individuals who could afford to spend money on enjoying themselves, and did so to glorious excess. They knew where you could stuff your meden agan. [June 1997] - Ovid wins again
Ted Hughes' magnificent Tales from Ovid has now won a third award - the £10,000 W H Smith Literarary Award, to add to the two Whitbread Awards (Poetry Award and Book of the Year). Hughes gives the main credit to Ovid, but Professor John Carey (Professor of English at Oxford) says "this is the only translation I have read that turns great poetry into great poetry."(Times 5th March 1998) I can only agree, having read the book non-stop from cover to cover on a recent long-haul flight. - Ovid is Book of the Year
Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid has deservedly carried off the Whitbread Prize for Book of the Year 1997. Among the chosen tales from the Metamorphoses is one which a British reviewer recommends to Bill Clinton for bedside(?) reading: the story of Atalanta, where Hippomenes seems uncannily to have been where BC did not fear to tread. Luke Harding suggests subsituting Hillary for vengeful Aphrodite and Ms Lewinsky for for Atalanta. As for the temple where the fornication occurred - the Oval Office. See my Atalanta page for details of the story. (Guardian 29th January 1998) - The Great Athenian Novel
Newly out in paperback (Warner) is Tom Holt's two-part trilogy The Walled Orchard. The hero is a 5th century comic playwright and arch-rival of a loathsome Aristophanes. He survives the Pelponnesian War, the Plague, the post-war decline of Athens and perversion of her democracy - all with one-liners and wisecracks appropriate to a "fifth-century Hawkeye Pierce". And the details are accurate - the author spent years researching Athenian economics in the hopes that this would explain the development of democracy. He decided it didn't and started writing the novels instead. (Independent on Sunday 21 December 1997) - Lexicon Recentis Latinitatis
The eagerly awaited new dictionary of the Latin language (or more accurately dictionary of new Latin) is now out. 15,000 new concepts unknown to Livy and Tacitus - from toyboy to sellotape, from voyeur to stripper - can now be discussed in the "decent obscurity of a learned language". It's the work of the Vatican's Father Carlo Egger, who hopes it proves once and for all that Latin is not a "dead language". Details and examples on Varro's Page[UK Press October 6 1997] - Ted Hughes does Ovid
The Poet Laureate escapes from the duty of providing doggerel for Britain's sad royals and gets his teeth again into some real red meat: the Metamorphoses have been waiting 2000 years for the Hughes treatment. His newly-published "Tales from Ovid" (Faber & Faber) is brilliant: 24 stories of passion, perversion and lust. Perhaps he will be emboldened by his success in this book to forget about his mimsy birthday odes and give us the real Hughes treatment of the royal soap-opera: certainly the possibilities for giving Fergie Charles and Di the full Ovidian monty must be very tempting! [reviews in most papers and magazines weekend of 24-25 May 1997] - Cicero was right about old age!
Cicero's recomendations for a long and healthy life have been confirmed in a book published in UK this week. American doctor Dharma Singh Khalsa - without admitting any debt to the first century BC pop philosopher - claims that a simple diet, mental activity (reasoning and memory exercises and no TV), plus regular reading or writing will stave off the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. Cicero in De Senectute recommends mental activity (learn something new - like Greek!), exercise, moderation in diet. In fact his work seems very much in tune with the modern idea of "dying young as late as possible". [Brain Longevity published by Century]