2012 November « [quem dixere chaos]

ROMARCH instructions

29 November, 2012

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On 15 April 1995, ROMARCH was founded as the first Internet e-mail discussion and distribution list for early Italian and Roman art and archaeology. Its mission has been to:
- foster communication between professionals, students, and laypersons;
- serve as an exchange for queries and answers;
- be a sounding board for testing ideas and arguments;
- provide a ‘forum’ for general discussions;
- act as a bulletin board for recent discoveries and news;
- supply notices of jobs, excavations, projects, and publications in the field.
ROMARCH is now a blog at: http://quemdixerechaos.com/category/romarch/.

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Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: ROMARCH Tags: instructions, ROMARCH
Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 3. The Historian’s Request

28 November, 2012

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Bay of Naples: pulcherrimarum terrarum

6.16.1-3: The Historian’s Request

With the background established, let’s read the letters. The Latin is in italics; English translation follows in Roman text, indented, and then commentary in brown text. Parentheses indicate (‘understood’) words that are not explicit in the Latin. Remember: our purpose here is as much to give a look at the process of translating as to provide another translated product. So I will tend to err on the side of a technical rather than a fluid English translation.

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

Gaius Plinius greets his dear (friend) Tacitus. Continue reading »

Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: Latin, Liberal Arts, Pliny, Pompeii Tags: history, Tacitus, Vesuvius

Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 2. Dramatis Personae

26 November, 2012

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Lake Como: hometown of the Pliny family

Dramatis Personae

Both Vesuvian letters (Ep. 6.16 and 6.20) are addressed to the historian Cornelius Tacitus. The first (6.16) responds to a request that Tacitus has made to the Younger Pliny for information about how the Younger Pliny’s uncle (the ‘Elder Pliny’) died in the AD 79 eruption. The second (6.20) gives more information, again at Tacitus’ request, about how Pliny and his mother (Plinia) survived the disaster. One other character also appears in the latter letter: a mysterious unnamed friend from Spain. Let’s meet them all. Continue reading »

Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: Latin, Pliny, Pompeii
Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 1. The Manuscripts

19 November, 2012

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Looking from Cape Misenum towards Mt. Vesuvius in the far right distance

This begins a series of posts that will translate and comment upon Pliny the Younger’s two letters (6.16 and 6.20) about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79–the disaster that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites. These posts are part of a book project that intends to understand the scholarly and popular reception of those letters. I am also teaching these letters in LAT 223 at DePauw this Fall term, so this is a good time to do it.

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Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: Latin, Pliny, Pompeii Tags: Pliny

Dark matters in Latin poetry

16 November, 2012

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Visualizing Dark Matter in the Early Universe, though we can’t really see it.

Today’s TED blog asks “What is dark matter and what does it have to do with stars?” and it is a typically clear review of what we think we know about the dark matter (and also the dark energy) that make up 96% of the universe. We’ve all heard of ‘Physics for Poets‘ as the stereotypical class for the quantitatively challenged, but what about ‘Poetry for Physicists’? Specifically, pre-atomic, pre-industrial poetry. In Latin.

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Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: Latin, Liberal Arts, Technology
Learning from struggle and failure

12 November, 2012

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This morning Alix Spiegel had an interesting story on NPR’s Morning Edition concerning differing attitudes about the value of struggle in education. It said that parents and teachers in ‘Western’ countries see intelligence as the cause of a positive outcome (like a good grade), whereas parents and teachers in ‘Eastern’ countries such as China and Japan value the role of struggle in the learning process. This recalled a conversation about parenting that I once had with a colleague at DePauw, Matt Hertenstein, a professor in the Psychology Department. Continue reading »

Posted By: Pedar W. Foss Category: Latin, Liberal Arts, Martial Arts, Pompeii, Soccer, Technology

[quem dixere chaos]

an archaeology of landscapes, mindscapes, and playscapes

Monthly Archives: November 2012

ROMARCH instructions

Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 3. The Historian’s Request

Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 2. Dramatis Personae

Translating Pliny’s letters about Vesuvius, pt. 1. The Manuscripts

Dark matters in Latin poetry

Learning from struggle and failure

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