tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19189959242449699032024-03-19T18:30:14.529+13:00Kiwi HellenistModern myths about the ancient world.Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-60036063022975282062024-03-09T08:53:00.001+13:002024-03-09T10:13:31.438+13:00Aristarchus and the heliocentric theoryThe earth has orbited around the sun since 1609. At least that’s when Kepler’s book on the subject came out, Astronomia nova (‘The new astronomy’). Copernicus had proposed a heliocentric theory in 1543, but with circular orbits it was a lousy model. The geocentric Ptolemaic system continued to be the better model of planetary motion until Kepler came along.
But there was another precedent. Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-41226674707617952542024-01-29T16:48:00.009+13:002024-02-02T00:36:01.268+13:00Silences in the Homeric OdysseyIn the Odyssey, the following kind of thing is absolutely normal. For a regular novelist this scene would be a triumph. For Homer, it was Tuesday.
Silent silence
We’re in Odyssey book 16. Odysseus has been separated from his family for twenty years. He’s back, disguised as a beggar, doing some reconnaissance. At the moment he’s visiting with Eumaios, an enslaved herdsman. Suddenly, with no Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com2Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-72116835585890653452023-12-31T23:43:00.002+13:002024-01-03T11:44:29.076+13:00Percy Jackson, episodes 1 to 3The new Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has begun to come out — three episodes, at the time of writing. It makes many changes from Rick Riordan’s book, Percy Jackson and the lightning thief (2005). It adds many new classical references, but it also begins to address some serious problems with the book. Spoilers follow.
Percy (Walker Scobell) stands in front of Antonio Canova’s ‘Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-75045050724797086542023-12-28T16:03:00.014+13:002023-12-30T10:01:47.997+13:00How fragmentary ancient texts are reconstructed (sometimes)There’s something almost magical about how papyrologists and editors take tiny scraps of ancient papyrus and turn them into coherent texts. Here’s an example taken from the Hesiodic Catalogue of women.
P. Turner 1
Here’s a passage as it stands in one ancient papyrus, Turner papyrus 1, lines 17–24:
]θεαιεξεγενον[
]τ̣υ̣ρωνκαιαμη . . ν̣ο̣ε̣ργ̣[
]Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-29492606196376819412023-12-11T22:48:00.219+13:002023-12-30T10:41:27.196+13:00Ancient Greek punsPuns may be the lowest form of humour these days, but in early Greek literature, they’re more like word magic.
... τὸν δορίγαμβρον ἀμφινεικῆ θ’
Ἑλέναν; ἐπεὶ πρεπόντως
ἑλέναυς ἕλανδρος ἑλέπτολις.
(Who was it that named) that spear-bride,
that bone of contention, Helen? A fitting name!
Ship-destroyer, man-destroyer, city-destroyer.
Aischylos, Agamemnon 688–690
In the lastPeter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com1Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-56751540676910157192023-11-27T16:21:00.016+13:002024-02-05T09:45:14.533+13:00The camel, the rope, and the needle's eyeThere’s no good evidence that kamilos — supposedly meaning ‘rope’ — was ever even a real word in ancient Greek.
The myth we’re looking at is to do with the following passage in the Bible.
εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστιν κάμηλον διὰ τῆς τρυμαλιᾶς τῆς ῥαφίδος διελθεῖν ἢ πλούσιον εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσελθεῖν.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich toPeter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com3Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-21364217254155072002023-11-08T18:26:00.021+13:002023-11-11T10:39:52.643+13:00Textual errors in Lassus' Prophetiae SibyllarumIt isn’t often that I get to combine my interests as a choral singer and a classicist. Recently I got interested in the Prophetiae Sibyllarum or ‘Sibylline prophecies’ by Roland de Lassus, also known as Orlando di Lasso. These are twelve short pieces for unaccompanied choir, in Latin, composed around 1560.
This story is about how I noticed an error in the text.
Lassus’ pieces are startling, Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-51807111146174245582023-11-02T14:43:00.003+13:002023-11-02T23:22:56.197+13:00Who has the highest K/D in the Iliad?You’d imagine the answer would be Achilleus, right? Actually he’s only number three. Remember, he’s out of combat for most of the epic.
Now, I do have to apply some constraints, otherwise this won’t make sense.
First, people don’t get to respawn in the Iliad. (Well, mostly. I’ll come back to this.) So we’re not really talking about K/D, it’s really just K. Only a handful of characters get Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-80992554195346488792023-10-30T13:44:00.018+13:002023-11-18T18:07:11.297+13:00Who is the hero of the Iliad?Every now and then an article about Homer pops up in my alerts and I’ll see if it’s worth sharing. This one isn’t. But maybe it’s a teaching opportunity. It’s a short piece about Achilles and Hector at The imaginative conservative, by Joseph Pearce, a writer and editor attached to a Catholic college in New Hampshire.
Worshippers at the altar of ‘western civilisation’ have to put in many hours Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com2Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-62017930247327657212023-07-07T20:50:00.003+12:002024-02-15T11:43:52.876+13:00How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 4
1. The spherical earth | 2. Eratosthenes’ method | 3. Distance | 4. Angle of the sun
(e) Angle of the sun
Eratosthenes didn’t use gnomons to measure the sun’s angle.
Here once again I have to digress from telling the true story, and dispel a myth. It’s a myth that even many specialists take for granted. I’m just as guilty: in the past I’ve repeated the popular wisdom that Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com7Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-33325465739786186272023-06-29T16:05:00.016+12:002023-07-17T09:45:24.411+12:00How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 3
1. The spherical earth | 2. Eratosthenes’ method | 3. Distance | 4. Angle of the sun
Distances along stretches of the Nile as Eratosthenes described them in his Geography, fr. 98 Roller (see below for details). The ‘5300 stadia’ from Alexandria to Syene may include a 300 stadia region around Syene where the sun was overhead at the summer solstice; alternatively the extra Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com2Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-51795548555187388292023-06-10T22:57:00.028+12:002023-07-11T11:26:19.542+12:00How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 2
1. The spherical earth | 2. Eratosthenes’ method | 3. Distance | 4. Angle of the sun
Around 240–230 BCE Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth as 252,000 stadia. This translates to 46,620 km, plus or minus 1900 km. That’s 12% to 21% higher than the true distance, which is 40,008 km, but it’s still a great illustration of using down-to-earth practical observations Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-87220055709093172802023-04-17T17:48:00.020+12:002023-07-11T11:26:08.795+12:00How Eratosthenes measured the earth. Part 1
1. The spherical earth | 2. Eratosthenes’ method | 3. Distance | 4. Angle of the sun
In the 200s BCE, a Libyan mathematician and geographer by the name of Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth. He did it with pretty basic equipment, and his result was off by only 16%.
It’s an impressive story. But to tell it properly, we have to start a few centuries earlier.
Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com8Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-38085497244268872252023-03-30T15:10:00.012+13:002023-03-31T08:09:54.224+13:00Chrest or ChristThe Roman historian Tacitus mentions ‘Christians’ and ‘Christ’. He wrote his Annals in the 110s CE, so his account is one of the very earliest non-Christian reports of Christianity. But his spelling is funny.
Tacitus is talking about the fire of Rome in 64 CE. People wanted a scapegoat, and this was urgent because there were rumours (supposedly) that Nero himself had something to do with the Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com4Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-81672675457756671222023-03-14T18:25:00.004+13:002023-03-14T18:25:56.404+13:00Lies, damned lies, and ChatGPT
That isn't Iliad 8.69. Iliad 8.69 reads: καὶ τότε δὴ χρύσεια πατὴρ ἐτίταινε τάλαντα.
I apologize for the mistake. You are correct that the line I provided is not from Iliad 8.69. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
To provide the correct example, in Iliad 13.795, the word "kyaneos" is used to describe the color of Achilles' eyes: "ὃ δ' ὡς ἴδ' ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων / Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com4Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-89384546799496981982023-03-08T12:42:00.019+13:002023-03-10T23:33:30.271+13:00Homer's metre 3. Catalogue and glossaryAn appendix to the last two posts on Homer’s hexameter. Contents:
A taxonomy of violations of Hermann’s Bridge
Glossary of technical terms relating to the hexameter
1. Structure of the hexameter | 2. Hermann’s Bridge | 3. Catalogue and glossary
A taxonomy of violations of Hermann’s Bridge
Seth Schein gives a convenient catalogue of violations in his book Homeric epic and its Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-429210105671310262023-03-07T11:39:00.016+13:002023-03-10T23:41:49.332+13:00Homer's metre 2. Hermann’s BridgeHermann’s Bridge is a metrical feature in Homeric verse. Often it’s regarded as advanced — for specialists only. Well, hear this. If you’re educating someone about Homeric verse, you cannot neglect something as fundamental as Hermann’s Bridge is.
How fundamental? More fundamental than having a dactyl or spondee at the start of the line, that’s how fundamental.
1. Structure of the hexameter |Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-55449147120698866412023-02-28T18:08:00.011+13:002023-03-08T12:43:51.606+13:00Homer's metre 1. Dactylic hexameterWere you taught that the hexameter is a line consisting of six feet, each of which is either a dactyl or a spondee? If so, that was ... well, it wasn’t wrong, not in the sense of being an actual falsehood. But it certainly gave you the wrong mental model.
‘Feet’ are to Homeric poetry what roads are to geology. Handy for finding your way around, but nothing to do with the actual thing.
Let’s tryPeter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-11731501332910908692023-02-22T11:40:00.014+13:002023-02-22T12:10:04.009+13:00Translating genderIt’ll be no surprise that modern translations can give a slanted impression of ancient texts. This goes for gender too. (Yes, the ancient world had transgender people, non-binary people, non-gendered people, and more.)
Many people take care to use appropriate pronouns these days, but as far as I know that care hasn’t yet become a major concern in published translations. If you don’t know the Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com7Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-3566865690464161712023-02-13T20:16:00.012+13:002023-03-13T14:40:27.507+13:00Doctor Who, ‘The Myth Makers’ (1965)In late 1965 Doctor Who featured a four part story about the end of the Trojan War. All four episodes are lost, though the audio track survives intact, along with a selection of photos and video snippets. In spite of that The myth makers, by Donald Cotton, is widely regarded as a highlight of Doctor Who’s early years.
My aim here is to highlight how it plays on prior models. One target is Homer,Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com0Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-9168288482093852022-12-14T22:41:00.012+13:002022-12-26T20:06:53.342+13:00Santa’s reindeer, Odin’s horse, and Siberian shamanismIs Santa based on Odin? Is he a Siberian shaman? Well, if a title asks a yes-no question, you know the answer is nearly always ‘no’. At their heart, both arguments revolve around Santa’s flying reindeer.
Left to right: Odin and his horse Sleipnir (Thor, 2011); Santa Claus; shamans in northern Buryatia, Siberia
People who buy into this kind of theory often aren’t interested in probing thePeter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com16Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-24224003861063391512022-12-10T01:58:00.004+13:002022-12-14T08:17:27.589+13:00Hades IIThe sequel has been announced! Hades II, a follow-up to the smash hit Hades (2020), by video game studio Supergiant.
In the original you played the role of Zagreus, son of Hades, struggling to escape the Underworld. Hades II gives the central role to Melinoë (Judy Alice Lee), who, like Zagreus, is mentioned in ancient Orphic traditions but is a relatively obscure figure. Melinoë has Hecate (Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com3Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-55978883476935872182022-12-06T12:50:00.007+13:002022-12-06T13:16:09.895+13:00ResourcesI’ve made various resources available online over the years: the following is a static record of them. (There are disadvantages to announcing these things somewhere like Twitter: (a) the announcement will only be visible for a week or so; (b) if the Twitter account should happen to be closed the announcement will be deleted altogether.)
A searchable corpus of early Greek hexameter poetry
Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com2Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-78697597293892682022022-11-22T14:50:00.023+13:002023-10-02T11:08:29.156+13:00The library of Alexandria and its reputationMany people are aware that the library of Alexandria is hugely overblown. Sure, there’ll always be people insisting that it was a magical place that held the secrets of Göbekli Tepe, Doggerland, and blond blue-eyed Europeans building pyramids in Mexico and Bolivia: there’s no point engaging with people like that. The thing is, pretty much everyone has heard of it.
Last week the History subredditPeter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com4Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1918995924244969903.post-86826041201307925972022-08-18T11:02:00.016+12:002022-11-22T21:32:55.332+13:00Can we trust mediaeval copies of ancient books?When you open up a modern copy of Plutarch’s Lives or Tacitus’ Annals, what you’re reading is based on a mediaeval manuscript. It’s a copy of a copy of a copy. Each time a text is copied, there’s a risk of transmission errors. So how much faith can we have in the texts we have? And what kind of faith?
Take Petronius’ bawdy novel, the Satyrica. We don’t have copies written by Petronius’ own hand Peter Gainsfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17448862214081111386noreply@blogger.com24Wellington, New Zealand-41.2923814 174.7787463-69.602615236178849 139.6224963 -12.982147563821151 -150.06500370000003