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We've completed Homer's Odyssey and now need nominations for the next Classics book that we'll read together.
Please give us your nomination! |
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Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars
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The only complete Latin novel to survive, The Golden Ass - Lucius Apuleius
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I would like to suggest "Antigone" by Sophocles. It is, I think, mainly about the conflict between man-made law and what an individual believes to be divine law.
Another suggestion would be "The Aeneid" which might logically follow the Odyssey being set after the fall of Troy.
A lot of choices out there!!!!!!!!!!! All good!
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Suggest:
Epic of Gilgamesh
The Shahnamek: The Persian Book of Kings
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I would like to try the Aenid if there is a brave soul to lead it. The blurb on my book says that it is the Roman answer to Homer.
If you all want something lighter and much , much shorter how about Lysistrata by Aristophanes. I saw the play many , many years ago but never read it. It's about women who wish to stop the Pelopennisian wars and organize . They refuse to have sex with their husbands till peace is negotiated.
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WELCOME to our new site. Anyone who didn't get their last thoughts in can put them here. As well as your suggestions.
Someone in the other site had suggested "Plutarch's Lives". Who was it?
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JoanK, if I'm not mistaken, it was Mippy.
I remember seconding the idea at the time.
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I agree with all the abovementioned choices. Probably prefer Suetonius over the others though. Plutarch has both Roman and Greek lives. My choice would be obvious there.
Plutarch's best-known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving Lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek Life and one Roman Life, as well as four unpaired single Lives.
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I brought up Plutarch this time around, though someone else did initially in our
first book selection. Several other good suggestions here, though some might be
difficult to find, and one I've never even heard of. "Shahmanek; The Persian Book
of Kings". I suspect that one might be difficult to find.
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What happened to all the classics we voted on last time? We ought to feed them in here, or at least the ones that got a lot of votes.
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Shahnamek: The Persion Book of Kings may be purchased from Amazon. $395 or $13 for the paperback.
Composed more than a thousand years ago, this national epic of Persia tells the story of Iran from the first "lord of the world," Kayumars, through the seventh-century Arab/Islamic conquest of the Sassanid dynasty. With a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, and illustrated with Persian lithographs, Davis's translation of this epic poem is an accessible combination of poetry and prose.
This immense volume translates into clear, accessible prose the bedrock work of Iranian literature. Compiled and cast into verse by a tenth-century bard, Shahnameh contains the stories of the kings of ancient Iran before Islam overwhelmed the land in the seventh century. The first half deals primarily with mythical and semimythical figures, chief among them the great hero Rostam, while the latter half, beginning with the conquest of Sekandar--that is, Alexander the Great--records historical persons and events. In the concise, informative introduction, Davis calls attention to the entire book's recurrent themes of father-son conflict and contrast between kings and heroes, the latter of whom are nobler in character than the former; indeed, so noble that they invariably decline the throne when it is proffered to them. Davis encourages viewing both themes as reflections of a detached and critical attitude toward formal power and markers of a humane spirit that has allowed the epic to persist as the supreme classic of its nation.
Some of the stories are here: http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.html
I would also like to try Aeneid as it has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for years.
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Found these nominations in Odyssey discussion (#160)
The Odyssey
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Antigone
Sophocles (c.496-406/5 B.C.)
The Aeneid
Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)
Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
Poetics
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Aesop's Fables
Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
On Old Age
Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Metamorphoses
Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
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Your review of 'The Persian Book of Kings' is intriguing, KIDSAL, tho' I confess I find "immense
volume" a bit daunting. I do hope you left a '0' of the end of that book price. It's not really
$395. is it?
Thanks for digging out that list of previous nominations. That's a good long list to work from
as it is.
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Working on the list. Bear with me.
The Odyssey DONE
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
"Antigone" Sophocles (c.496-406/5 B.C.)
"The Twelve Caesars" Suetonius
"Lysistrata" Aristophanes
"The Golden Ass" - Lucius Apuleius
"The Persian Book of Kings" Shahnamek
Epic of Gilgamesh
"The Aeneid"
"Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)" Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
"Poetics" Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
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The list above is a mess, but I'm afraid to work on it when the site is squerrelly for fear of losing it. Better later.
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The Odyssey DONE
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
"Antigone" Sophocles (c.496-406/5 B.C.)
"The Twelve Caesars" Suetonius
"Lysistrata" Aristophanes
"The Golden Ass" - Lucius Apuleius
"The Aeneid" Virgil
"Poetics" Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
"The Persian Book of Kings" Shahnamek
Epic of Gilgamesh
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Yes, that is $395.00
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MERCY!! :o Anyone who bought that book must want it badly.
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Lets wait til Ginny gets back August first to actually vote. She may have some suggestions. In the meantime, what do you think of our list above?
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Joan K
What do I think of that list?
Well it looks like a syllabus for a degree in Ancient Lit. from a good Univ.
That might be a BA,MA, and possibly a Doctorate if we choose to dwell too long on one of the cultures surrounding one of the titles.
Then of course there would probably be Greek, Latin and now Arabic(or is it Persian) language classes.
So, yes, it is a fine and all encompassing list.
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It took us very little time indeed to come up with this longish list. And, of course, there are sooooo many more waiting. I think what we have is just fine.
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Great List - but it's going to be hard to choose the next read.
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Isn't Farsi the primary language in Iran? It's sounds so exotic. It's certainly not one of the
more common foreign languages that Americans decide to learn.
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Farsi is certainly spoken there. I don't know if it's the primary language or not.
Yes, the list looks pretty good. but if anyone thinks of others, please speak up! We have Latin classes, we used to have a Greek class, but no Farsi.
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Do you often wonder where clearly Latin words come from. here's one from "The Story of civilization."
" Syphilis, in ancient mythology was a shepherd who decided to worship not the gods, whom he could not see, but the king, the only visible lord of the flock; whereupon angry Apollo infected the air with noxious vapors, from which Syphilis contracted a disease'"
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I bought a Rosetta Stone Arabic years ago -- gathering dust on my bookshelf. Have a keyboard program for it but it is extremely difficult to read Arabic.
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I think it was ROSE who posted in the library a list of 1001 books you have to read before you die. Homer wasn't on the list, and some decidedly mediocre modern books were. GRR
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Yes. I own up. I was a bit disappointed too. Maybe the list was put together by "Many Dead White Unknown Under Graduates".
If you struggle understanding the little bits of Greek that some of us added to The Odyssey topic, you will most certainly not want to see any Farsi turn up. ???
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;D So true!
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ROSE: "Many Dead White Unknown Undergraduates"? Hilarious.
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Ah, all the posts were moved so we don't have to relist our nominations. Thanks.
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My thought is that we should vote in August, after Guinny is back. If "The Aeneid" were to be chosen, I would want to have Ginny as a leader, but she can't do it due to her heavy Latin commitment. So I suggest, if it is chosen, we read our second choice in the Fall, hoping to persuade Ginny to do "The Aeneid" next Summer.
ginny put a farewell message in the old site, if you want to read it. It will be archived ina few days.
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Found on a shelf -- bought them about 50 years ago:
Euripides Plays: Alcestis, The Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippoytus, The Cyclops and Heracles, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Helen
Most translated by Latimore.
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I agree, JOAN. If I'm going to tackle the Aeneid, I would definitely want GINNY's
terrific input. Trying some of the plays sounds like it would be fun for summer reading.
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I'm back and excited about the slate I see here. I appreciate the kind words and I am so excited to be able to announce that Joan K and PatH, our Dynamic Duo (did you know they are twins?) will lead the way for our next Classics Read in October!
So we have to get cracking with the vote!
Are there any others that need to be added? Do you want to discuss any particular ones?
Now a couple of these are not Greek or Roman, do you want to leave them in or branch out in that way?
Of all the worthy titles here I sure would love to read some Plutarch. He's Greek but he wrote about the Noble Lives of the Greeks and Romans. He's good. He's interesting. Shakespeare certainly read him. We'd need to choose the subject carefully but I have always wanted to read Plutarch in company, there's nobody quite like him. I suggest the Death of Pompey and Antony and Cleopatra.
But really any one of the candidates would be wonderful. We'll need all hands on deck with lots of background information to bring to the table.
I guess we need to decide if we leave the list as JoanK has put it or add the others to it?
She has:
The Odyssey DONE
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
"Antigone" Sophocles (c.496-406/5 B.C.)
"The Twelve Caesars" Suetonius
"Lysistrata" Aristophanes
"The Golden Ass" - Lucius Apuleius
"The Persian Book of Kings" Shahnamek
Epic of Gilgamesh
"The Aeneid"
"Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)" Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
"Poetics" Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
Sally has added:
Euripides Plays: Alcestis, The Medea, The Heracleidae, Hippoytus, The Cyclops and Heracles, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Helen
Do we need to add any more candidates or winnow the list down? Or vote?
I am so glad to see this important addition to our schedule take on a life of it's own and continue, congratters to you all!
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Our Athena is back! How are your siolver sandels holding up?
Sally: do you want to pick a play of Euripides? Or several?
After that, I suggest that anyone who wants to describe their selection should do so: it's been a long time since we made some of these suggestions. I'm completely unfamiliar with some of them.
Then we could start the voting by voting for three. And have a run-off among the top vote-getters.
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First on the list: Plutarch. Ginny suggests The Death of Pompaeii and Anthony and Cleopatra. Anyone have any comment, or want a different selection?
"Antigone" by Sophocles is next on the list. I might have suggested it. it's a play: we know the story: she's Aggamemnon's daughter. I just remember that I read it 30 years ago, and it blew me away. But if we're reading Sophocles, maybe we should read more than one play. Whaty do you all think?
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Euripides plays: Iphigenia in Tauris (romantic comedy) and Alcestis (a tragicomedy)
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I think I'm in the mood for plays. A couple by both Sophocles and Euripides
would be fun. And I'd feel so intellectual. I would like to get to Plutarch at some
point, though my copy is quite old. This edition just names the individual; ie, Pompey, Anthony. (No Cleopatra in the title though doubtless she must appear
in the account.) Actually, I'm sort of interested in the first, Themistocles, and
the last, Artaxerxes. After all, we do know quite a bit about Anthony and Pompey.
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As I recall, Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus so probably doomed from birth. Her great conflict is between the law of the king and the law of religious convention about the burial of the dead - in this case, her brother. Huge tragedy ensues. The play does raise interesting questions. It's an awful heartbreaker though!
I did nominate it but I would be happy with Plutarch too since I haven't read him and understand that it's a "good read"!
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We've completed Homer's Odyssey and now are voting for the next Classics book that we'll read together.
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(http://seniorlearn.org/bookclubs/graphics/vote.gif)VOTE NOW UNTIL AUGUST 26! (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CRGVGSH) click the link to vote.
Vote in the Survey in the link ABOVE for your top three choices of the following titles:
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, (selections) by Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
"The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius"
"Antigone" by Sophocles
Euripides plays: "Iphigenia in Tauris" (romantic comedy)and "Alcestis" (a tragicomedy) by Euripedes
"The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius"
Lysistrata" by Aristophanes"
Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)" by Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
"Poetics" by Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" by Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" by Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" by Ovid (43 B.C.-18 A.D.)
"The Persian Book of Kings" by Shahnamek
"Epic of Gilgamesh"
"The Orestia" by Aeschylus
Babi - There is a great poem by Cavafy about Themistokles and Artaxerxes called "The Satrapy" . I have already posted it in Barb's Poetry discussion board, but would be happy to post it again..
I am very interested in the First and Second Triumvirate. Is there a source which covers both?
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I don't mind what we do really, but at this point I would actually prefer to read The Orestia by Aeschylus, translated by Fagles, which is described as "the only extant complete Greek trilogy." It consists of Agamemnon which deals with his return and death at the hands of Klytaemnestra, the Eumenides which describe her punishment--death at the hands of Orestes her son, and the Libation Bearers which deals with Orestes trial for the crime of matricide by Athena.
I think this fits in nicely with what we have just learned about these characters from the Odyssey, and furthers our discussion of what is tragedy. We could follow it up with a reading of Hamlet which has a similar theme I guess in some ways, and it would be nice to compare Greek tragedy with the Elizabeathan version.
Also the Fagles translation is supposed to be super.
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You are right. My confusion!
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I am very interested in the First and Second Triumvirate. Is there a source which covers both?
This is a good question, RoshanaRose. So far as I know it's bits and pieces. I would think Plutarch, Dio Cassius, Suetonius for gossip, a little in Tacitus, the occasional Cicero letter, Appian, until the death of Sextus Pompeius, Paterculus, and bits and pieces from a few others, perhaps incidental, concealed in other works, like Apuleius, etc.
I thought this was intriguing, Babi: After all, we do know quite a bit about Anthony and Pompey.
Do we?
I found myself thinking what IF we took the list soon to appear in the heading and made our own private list which nobody would see and listed what we DO know about everybody on it? I fear mine would have gaping holes and it's possible that what we DO know, or think we know, may in fact not be quite what was the actuality. I find that idea quite exciting actually.
(I guess I enjoy listing what I don't know hahahaa) I mean I've got some gaping holes.
I liked Dana's idea of building on what we just read. The most obvious successor is the Aeneid, but I think we'd do a lot better to wait on that and all tackle Book I sometime during the year to see if we really want to embark on it. That way, if we get seasick next summer, we'll be able to bail with dignity, lifeboats planned at the ready. hahahaa
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"The Satrapy" was about Themistocles and Artaxerxes? I need to read that again, ROSE.
Sounds heavy, DANA. Maybe too much tragedy one after the other. A leavening of lighthearted
comedy would be nice.
I thought this was intriguing, Babi: After all, we do know quite a bit about Anthony and Pompey. Do we?
Well, comparatively speaking, anyway, GINNY. Obviously we can't know as much about them as
we do about more contemporary figures. Anthony and Pompey both received quite a bit of historical attention. I would blush to list what I actually know about most of these classical figures. I can only hope I've forgotten more than I now know! ??? ;D
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Oh, ROSE, I almost forgot. I think you'd like Michael Grant's "Readings in the Classical Historians". It includes readings from different historians on Caesar, Pompey and Crassus
of the First Triumvirate and Octavian, Anthony and Lepidus from the second.
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I have that book too, and enjoy it.
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Rose: is "The Satrapy" long enough that it would need a discussion, or short, that you could post here?
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Babi-you're intriguing me with this Plutarch guy--he has been mentioned a number of times; not sure how i feel about plays, how do they mesh with reading them mind you having said that did read a play... amazing about an ageing woman going into a 'home' and the other players were herself at ages 30, 40, 50, and 60--was 'waiting for godot' a play?--guess whatever is picked will just look at it as 'educating me'
Dana;--also like 'building on what we know'---which for me as a newcomer to the classics, feels like a good idea, as still feel quite at a loss as what the classics comprise and never had a course on it/them before this group
Deb ::)
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Babi and Ginny - Thanks for the information about the Triumvirates.
JoanK - Cavafy's poem is not very long, but would be appreciated more if you know about Themistokles' "grand and noble acts" and finally his ostracism from Athens. Plutarch writes about Themistokles.
www.livius.org/th/themistocles/themistocles.html
The Satrapy
Too bad that, cut out as you are
for grand and noble acts,
this unfair fate of yours
never helps you out, always prevents your success;
that cheap habits get in your way,
pettiness, or indifference.
And how terrible the day you give in
(the day you let go and give in)
and take the road for Susa
to find King Artaxerxes,
who, propitiously, gives you a place at his court
and offers you satrapies and things like that -
things you don't want at all,
though, in despair, you accept them just the same.
You're longing for something else, aching for other things:
praise from the Demos and the Sophists,
that hard-won, that priceless acclaim -
the Agora, the Theatre, the Crowns of Laurel.
You can't get any of these from Artaxerxes,
you'll never find any of these in the satrapy,
and without them, what kind of life will you live?
Constantine P. Cavafy
The Satrapy has special significance for me as it was the first Modern Greek poem I translated from English into Greek. The translation above is very similar to mine except for a couple of lines. Cavafy also helped me during my Greek exams in a way that I still find difficult to believe. Cavafy includes a great deal of the life and soul of Themistokles in this relatively short poem.
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Was the Aenid cut by mistake or on purpose? I hope it was a mistake.
If we are looking for poetry of the period from what I've heard the poems of Sapho are supposed to be truly great.
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Was the Aenid cut by mistake or on purpose? I hope it was a mistake.
It isn't being cut, but if we discuss it the discussion should be led by Ginny--she's the expert--and she's not available this fall. (Nine Latin classes plus grandchild minding) No point in voting for something that couldn't be discussed yet. It will be back in the running when Ginny's free.
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Cavafy includes a great deal of the life and soul of Themistokles in this relatively short poem.
As I read it, I could feel the emotion in the poem. Thanks for posting it, Roshanarose. I have very little exposure to Greek poetry. (except for Homer)
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This is our list. Details on voting soon. (It started to be in chronological order, but got mixed up)
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, (selections) Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
"Antigone" Sophocles
Euripides plays: Iphigenia in Tauris (romantic comedy) and Alcestis (a tragicomedy)
The Orestia by Aeschylus
"The Twelve Caesars" Suetonius
"Lysistrata" Aristophanes
"The Golden Ass" - Lucius Apuleius
"Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)" Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
"Poetics" Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
"The Persian Book of Kings" Shahnamek
Epic of Gilgamesh
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I really like The Satrapy. It's an interesting and poignant story.
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bookad - Many of us are unfamiliar with the works put forward here. We may have heard of Antigone, the Oresteia, Aristophanes, Gilgamesh et al, but we haven't necessarily read them. Just go with the flow and enjoy what you/we learn.
I keep thinking about that play that you mentioned about the woman who finds herself in an elderly persons' home where she "meets" herself at different times in her life. Is there such a play? I would enjoy reading it.
Glad you enjoyed Cavafy. He is a modern poet but he and Seferis often base their themes on events in antiquity. Cavafy's Modern Greek is flawless and quite easy to read for the beginner.
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Roshanarose-the play was called 'Albertine', by Michael Tremblay & translated by Linda Gaboriau
Talonbooks, Vancouver, British Columbia
97808892262
it made me think of Gail Sheeney ??
her book called 'Passages', that came out in the 1970s
Deb
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DEB: that sounds very interesting.
The Classics ibn this sense usually refers to writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Because these writings jhave been so influential on the writers in the European tradition that followed, I have always felt a lack because I haven't read them. And I think many of us feel the same. Here is a chance to read them with friends, with no tests, or no feeling that we "ought" to like them if we don't.
Sometimes I feel that many of our High School and college literature classes scare us away from the classics rather than introducing us to them. We must be dumb if we don't understand "Beowolf", right? WRONG! We can read things together, with no one to tell us what to understad or feel!
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Although I nominated Antigone, I've been doing some more thinking. We've just finished a long and highly dramatic epic so perhaps something a bit more sober might be in order! The Plutarch "Lives.." would be great - I am totally unfamiliar with them and would like very much to make their acquaintance. My library has 2 different vols. of them and I believe there are 4. Is there a whole one-vol. edition or are we to choose one of them? Or are we talking about the 'lives" or the "histories"? Seems to be a lot out there!!
Maybe after sobering up on Plutarch, we can go back to high tragedy!
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JOAN: If Plutarch is chosen, we'll rely on Ginny to pick selections for us.
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TIME TO VOTE!
Go into the web site below and vote for THREE. If there's no clear winner, we'll do a runoff later.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CRGVGSH (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CRGVGSH)
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The link is in the heading as well.
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Something that always amused me about the study of literature, JOANK, was
hearing of some professor expounding the 'deeper meanings', and discovering
the author never even thought of such a thing.
Oops. I didn't realize there were other, different 'Lives' by Plutarch. I
just have the one volume and that was all there was. What if we wind up
with different volumes of different lives?
Took the survey, and wound up not voting for one of the books I suggested.
Hey, I liked some of the others better, okay? ;)
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BABI: I had a good illustratiion of that. When we discussed "The Jane Austen Book Club", the author, Karen Joy Fowler, joined us. Smarty me, who has taken my share of lit classes, asked her at one point if the dog in such-and-such a scene was symbolic of ..... "Oh", she said, "I never thoughht of that. That's a good idea! Of course it is."
I still laugh when I think of that. I'll never take these deeper meanings quite as seriously again.
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would an idea be to pick something from the i.e.
'Gutenberg' site so all could be on the same page so
to speak!!....and there would be no problem for anyone getting
a source book from a library which would be problems
trying to hold onto the book if it were to develop
the read took as many months as 'the odyssey'
Deb
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After seeing the list I researched Ovid's Metamorpheses and found the following:
Ovid pokes fun at the Epic genre.
The Metamorphesis consists of stories connected by the theme of Metamorphisis.
Augustine exiled Ovid because of his "lecherous poetry".
Ovid is the best source of classical myth.
Ovid was the major inspiration for Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton.
Seems to me that he is a mighty interesting guy and has my vote.
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I think it's Ovid's reputation for 'lecherous poetry' that has had me wary of
reading him. But perhaps he has been maligned. Or perhaps it was just another
time. I remember the first time I read, cautiously, Boccaccacio's supposedly very
naughty work. I had to laugh. By today's standards those people were downright
modest and circumspect.
Did the Odyssey really take us months? I was so engrossed I didn't even notice.
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BABI: what a nice thing to say. Yes, we've been traveling for awhile (although not ten years, like Odysseus).
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the odyssey from mid feb to roughly the end of july!!!!
Deb
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Time flies when you're having fun!
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it sure does
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I have Michael Dirda's "Classics for Pleasure" - a great introducton to a lot of great reading.
He says that "if one had to pick the most influential poem in world history, a good choice would be Ovid's Metamorphoses. For 2000 years it has provided subjects for painting and opera, inspired poets and playwrights ...."
Of Plutarch's "Lives" ... can make a strong claim to be the most intertaining book in all antiquity...
Also: " For centuries Plutarch graced every gentleman's library as a bible of moral lessons and noble examples".
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JoanR - Plutarch is very easy to read, I agree. I went to my library yesterday to pick up "The Rug Maker of Mazar i Sharif" and looked up their catalogue for Plutarch. I was hoping to find one book containing all four of his "Lives". I was not successful.
Suetonius is even easier to read. The Twelve Caesars reads a lot like "The Bold and the Beautiful" with similar themes :o
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"The Bold and the Beautiful"?? But how could anyone take it seriously?
Actually, Michael Grant's analysis of Suetonius says that he is a biographer who
did not trouble to flatter or overpraise his subjects. He served in posts where
he had good opportunity to observe and to know what was going on. For example, he served for a time on the staff of Pliny, the younger, who spoke well
of him.
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Babi - The Bold and the Beautiful is a classic, isn't it? 8)
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If you say so, MIPPY. ::)
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The vote seems to be going really well, and it occurred to me this morning, thinking about what Deb said about texts online the Gutenberg, etc., and the thoughts here on how many books of Plutarch there are, and on Suetonius and some of the Greek plays nominated, that most of the writings of the Greeks and Romans we are considering are online.
We're somewhat talking here about apples and oranges as far as a reading experience goes. You'd not try or even consider to try reading Plutarch like you would Suetonius: you could no more do that than read an encyclopedia for a book selection of the month.
You could read Suetnoius straight thru, you would not try that with Plutarch. Should something like Plutarch win, you'd all want to decide here who or which excerpt you wanted to read about.
Thank you for those quotes, JoanR, he's right.
It occurred to me that since most of these works are online, we might put here a couple of excerpts from whatever we nominate so people can see the style?
Since Suetonius would be read from the beginning, as a book, here's his opening of the Divine Julius: (Julius Caesar)
Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars
The Life of Julius Caesar
1 In the course of his sixteenth year1 he lost his father. In the next consulate, having previously been nominated priest of Jupiter,2 he broke his engagement with Cossutia, a lady of only equestrian rank, but very wealthy, who had been betrothed to him before he assumed the gown of manhood, and married Cornelia, daughter of that Cinna who was four times consul, by whom he afterwards had a daughter Julia; and the dictator Sulla could by no means force him to put away his wife. 2 Therefore besides being punished by the loss of his priesthood,a his wife's dowry, and his family inheritances, Caesar was held to be one of the opposite party. He was accordingly forced to go into hiding, and though suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, to change from one covert to another almost every night, and save himself from Sulla's detectives by bribes. But at last, through the good offices of the Vestal virgins and of his near kinsmen, Mamercus Aemilius and Aurelius Cotta, he obtained forgiveness. 3 Everyone knows that when Sulla had long p5held out against the most devoted and eminent men of his party who interceded for Caesar, and they obstinately persisted, he at last gave way and cried, either by divine inspiration or a shrewd forecast: "Have your way and take him; only bear in mind that the man you are so eager to save will one day deal the death blow to the cause of the aristocracy, which you have joined with me in upholding; for in this Caesar there is more than one Marius."
Since we would not be reading Plutarch as a book here's Plutarch on an early event in Julius Caesar's life: Caesar and the Pirates:
....and then, on his voyage back,6 was captured, near the island Pharmacusa, by pirates, who already at that time controlled the sea with large armaments and countless small vessels.
2 To begin with, then, when the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty. 2 In the next place, after he had sent various followers to various cities to procure the money and was left with one friend and two attendants among Cilicians, most murderous of men, he held them in such disdain that whenever he lay down to sleep he would send and order them to stop talking. 3 For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. 4 He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth. 5 But after his ransom had come from Miletus and he had paid it and was set free, he immediately manned vessels and put to sea from the harbour p447of Miletus against the robbers. He caught them, too, still lying at anchor off the island, and got most of them into his power. 6 Their money he made his booty, but the men themselves he lodged in the prison at Pergamum, and then went in person to Junius, the governor of Asia, on the ground that it belonged to him, as praetor of the province, to punish the captives. 7 But since the praetor cast longing eyes on their money, which was no small sum, and kept saying that he would consider the case of the captives at his leisure, Caesar left him to his own devices, went to Pergamum, took the robbers out of prison, and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them on the island that he would do, when they thought he was joking.
If I were choosing passages from Plutarch that is not one I'd choose but it does show you the style of both men. If we have any kind of run off we'll want all the examples we'd actually be reading given as part of the ballot, I am thinking?
What do you think?.
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By pure chance, I caught a TV program on one of the local Community college stations, where they aired scenes from Antigone. It blew me away!
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Ah! For those interested in Plutarch there is collection of his books in one volume, and it is available from Amazon, Google etc in the US.
As Ginny says, one would hardly be likely to sit down and read it from cover to cover, but it would be great for reference.
PLUTARCH: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans (Complete and Unabridged) by Plutarch, Arthur Hugh Clough
PLUTARCH: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans (Complete and Unabridged) 0.00 · rating details · 0 ratings · 0 reviews
The complete text of Clough's edition of Plutarch's Lives; containing fifty lives and eighteen comparisons.
Hardcover, 1008 pages
Published December 1st 2010 by Benediction Books
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ISBN1849025797 (ISBN13: 9781849025799)
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Get a copy:online stores ▼Amazon
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We each meander down the corridors of our own interests. I will present a wee bit of Ovid, the book I borrowed from a friend.
It is a 1963 edition translated by Rolfe Humphries.
These intros we are presenting are like Tapas_abite of this , a taste of that and before you know it-a fine feast.
The Creation
Before the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,
Nature was all alike, all rude and lumpy matter,
Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusion
Discordant atoms warred: there was no sun
To light the universe; there was no moon
With slender silver crescents filling slowly.
In general this is an easy read-self explanatory but filled with ideas we can compare to other sources.
Very poetic.
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We have a winner!!
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/Pluitarch200.jpg)
A page from the 1470 Ulrich Han printing of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
The readers have spoken and our next read October 1 will be: Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.) in his famous "Lives" or Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans; also called Parallel Lives.
A perfect fit for our next read in October! Help us choose 4 likely subjects from this list, one for each week in October! What do you think?
THESEUS
ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS
LYCURGUS
NUMA POMPILIUS
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS
SOLON
POPLICOLA
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
THEMISTOCLES
CAMILLUS
PERICLES
FABIUS
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
ALCIBIADES
CORIOLANUS
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
TIMOLEON
AEMILIUS PAULUS
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS PAULUS
PELOPIDAS
MARCELLUS
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
ARISTIDES
MARCUS CATO
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
PHILOPOEMEN
FLAMININUS
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
PYRRHUS
CAIUS MARIUS
LYSANDER
SYLLA
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
CIMON
LUCULLUS
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
NICIAS
CRASSUS
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
SERTORIUS
EUMENES
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
AGESILAUS
POMPEY
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
ALEXANDER
CAESAR
PHOCION
CATO THE YOUNGER
AGIS
CLEOMENES
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
CAIUS GRACCHUS
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
DEMETRIUS
ANTONY
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
DION
MARCUS BRUTUS
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
ARATUS
ARTAXERXES
GALBA
OTHO
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Jude - love the line "Discordant atoms warred". Took me back to the Milesians, namely Thales who put forward the theory of "atoms" discovered in the Greek world that we are made of "atoms". In Greek "atom" actually means individual. Beautiful snippet from Ovid - didn't he write a lot of love Poetry?
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Joan K-
It is the ninth printing (1963) of the translation by Rolfe Humphries.
A friend used it in College and lent it to me.
Roshanarose
Yes he wrote a great deal of Love Poetry and was ultimately exiled because of it. However this book seems to be a book of stories.
Is anyone familiar with the book?
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I was pleasantly surprised to learn, over in Poetry, that John Dryden was not only the first poet
laureate, he was also a highly respected translator of the Classics. He invented what he called the 'paraphrase', and is credited with producing the best ever translation of the Aeneid.
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Here is a paragraph from the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche from "Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)" Apuleius (c. 155 A.D.)
The King, sometimes happy when he heard the prophesie of Apollo, returned home sad and sorrowful, and declared to his wife the miserable and unhappy fate of his daughter. Then they began to lament and weep, and passed over many dayes in great sorrow. But now the time approached of Psyches marriage, preparation was made, blacke torches were lighted, the pleasant songs were turned into pittifull cries, the melody of Hymeneus was ended with deadly howling, the maid that should be married did wipe her eyes with her vaile. All the family and people of the city weeped likewise, and with great lamentation was ordained a remisse time for that day, but necessity compelled that Psyches should be brought to her appointed place, according to the divine appointment.
translation by William Adlington -- first published 1566.
This is the same translation used in Project Gutenberg if you want to read it on your computer. The type is easier to read online than the type Gutenberg uses. http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/language/a/goldenassconten.htm
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Here are the first four paragraphs of Aristotle's "Poetics":
I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin with the principles which come first.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one another in three respects- the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.
For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit, imitate and represent various objects through the medium of color and form, or again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken as a whole, the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,' either singly or combined.
Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, 'harmony' and rhythm alone are employed; also in other arts, such as that of the shepherd's pipe, which are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone is used without 'harmony'; for even dancing imitates character, emotion, and action, by rhythmical movement.
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Man, don't you love these excerpts? The different voices, the different subjects? It looks to me as if we can't go wrong no matter what you choose.
Jude, our Latin classes actually read Ovid's Metamorphoses in Latin so anybody from 104 up has read them in the original.
It's an epic poem, longer than the Aeneid, at 15 books. I love the translation you cited, have never seen it before, isn't it beautiful!
The Orpheus section is a bit brutal but I think any work cited here might have its bad parts, certainly there are parts of Suetonius we'd (or definitely I) would not want to read.
The Metamorphoses would be great for anybody who liked or wanted to know more about Greek or Roman mythology, we could really get off on the different treatments of each myth in history, as it does some very picturesque myths including Arachne (I never see a spider without thinking of Arachne) and Baucis and Philemon. Pyramis and Thysbe is Babylonian, and then there's Jason, Proserpina, Ceres and the 4 seasons, Echo and Narcissus, Daedalus and Icarus, Phaeton driving his chariot of the sun, and many others.
It's an intriguing nomination.
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JudeS--wish i had done a bit more research on the books, really like the way
that author 'Ovid' ?is that correct presents this, --the little poem excerpt
??was Plutarch just some guy writing about event & people he deemed
important??
all this classics is new to me
the first author noted on pg 2 kinda put me to sleep
Deb
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Ginny
Thanks for the heads up on the story of Arachne!
I thought it simply the scientific word for Spider.
Lo and behold a fascinating tale of a weaving battle between Minerva and the Maiden Arachne.
Minerva is angry about the content of Arachne's weaving designs and hits her with the shuttle over and over. Arachne hangs herself . Minerva says:
"Live , wicked girl; live on but hang forever,
And just to keep you thoughtful for the future,
This punishment shall be enforced for always
On all your generations".
Hot stuff!
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I'm the one who hasn't voted: can't make up my mind. But tomorrow the voting closes!
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OOPS, I'm wrong. We have til the 26th. Anyway, I voted, but I wish we could read them all! (Maybe we will, sooner or later).
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We really can't go wrong: they are all super and we'll have plenty to talk about over the holiday dinner tables. :)
Jude, hahaha yes, very hot stuff and if somebody likes mythology very exciting: just seeing the constellations, some amazing myths are in the constellations, and the names like Arachnida for spiders and knowing who and what it refers to would be a lot of fun.
Deb: ??was Plutarch just some guy writing about event & people he deemed
important??
Yes, he was a biographer/ historian and philosopher living about 46-120 AD who wrote about people who interested him, like modern historians/ biographers do, but he liked to compare the Noble Romans with the Greeks, and he was concerned with the moral character of each (That's unique today) haahhaa. The thing with him is, we think we know these people, but we don't know them like he wrote about them, and nobody could ever forget some of the vignettes or their surprising affecting nature today, like the death of Pompey or Cassius, or Marc Antony, or Brutus. Shakespeare used him a lot in his plays Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Plutarch makes it come alive.
We can't go wrong with any of these nominations. Can't wait to see who wins!
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Me, either, GINNY. If I were a bit younger I'd be bouncing on my toes. If I were a kid, I'd
be asking "Are we there yet?!"
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A Greek Tragedy as only the Greeks could write :
"You will remember (what Theseus unfortunately forgot) that his father, King Aegeus, had enjoined it upon him to hoist sunshiny sails, instead of black ones, in case he should overcome the Minotaur, and return victorious. In the joy of their success, however, and amidst the sports, dancing, and other merriment, with which these young folks wore away the time, they never once thought whether their sails were black, white, or rainbow colored, and, indeed, left it entirely to the mariners whether they had any sails at all. Thus the vessel returned, like a raven, with the same sable wings that had wafted her away. But poor King Aegeus, day after day, infirm as he was, had clambered to the summit of a cliff that overhung the sea, and there sat watching for Prince Theseus, homeward bound; and no sooner did he behold the fatal blackness of the sails, than he concluded that his dear son, whom he loved so much, and felt so proud of, had been eaten by the Minotaur. He could not bear the thought of living any longer; so, first flinging his crown and sceptre into the sea (useless baubles that they were to him now), King Aegeus merely stooped forward, and fell headlong over the cliff, and was drowned, poor soul, in the waves that foamed at its base!"
by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Tanglewood Tales (I think).
Plutarch writes about Theseus. The Aegean Sea was named after King Aegeus. Ahhh those black ships!
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Last day to vote on which classic you want to read.
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WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!
Plutarch "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans"
Of course, we won't read the whole thing. I suggest we ask Ginny to help us pick enough deselections to read for a month in October.
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Oh that's a shame I think. I hope he won't put everyone off. Not that the content of his stuff in uninteresting, but he's hardly great literature, more of a reference work really, to be dipped into, not perused. I only have the Dryden vesrsion mind you, which I would not recommend for easy reading.
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Good show!!! Good choice.... Lots of interesting people to read about.
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Read them both eons ago. I'll have to cruise on over to Gutenberg and see which version they have since I no longer have my old books. What a list of names. My top pick would be ALCIBIADES.
Decisions, decisions. Gutenberg has Clough's translation which, according to the preface of the other verison, is a re-editing of Dryden's translation. The "other" version is done by Stewart and Long in four volumes. I only see three listed. This is a paragraph from the Stewart and Long preface.
"Without denying that Plutarch is often inaccurate and often diffuse;
that his anecdotes are sometimes absurd, and his metaphysical
speculations not unfrequently ridiculous, he is nevertheless generally
admitted to be one of the most readable authors of antiquity, while all
agree that his morality is of the purest and loftiest type."
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Plutarch, it is. My volume is one from a set of "The World's Greatest Literature", published by
Spencer Press. A foreword has much to say about Spencer Press bindings and choice of
books, but nothing whatever on who translated this edition of Plutarch. It includes lives of
12 "illustrious" men, plus a 'comparison' of two of them, Demosthenes and Cicero. We may
need to compare our various volumes, so that we end of discussing 'lives' that appear in
everyone's edition.
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The selection that Ginny posted from Plutarch about Caesar and the pirates was so fascinating that it sent me to the library on a Plutarch quest! I came home with Plutarch's Roman Lives (Oxford World's Classics) translated by Robin Wakefield. After reading some of it, I ordered my own copy and will now be looking forward to the discussion.
I also found in the library a useful book on Plutarch and his life and work by D.A. Russell which gives, it seems, a pretty good picture of the times in which Plutarch lived.
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I am so glad to see so many people eagerly awaiting Plutarch because he's somebody you really want to have read, even if only for a month, then you can decide for yourself if you enjoyed him or not. You'll never forget him, I can tell you that.
Reading Plutarch is, to me, as JoanR said here, addictive: once you read a little you're hooked and reading a lot and it's also important to cast your own cynical eye on it too. He's unique I think, and his voice is so memorable. But which voice? This is going to be like the Odyssey: choose the one which YOU like best.
Dana, Dryden? Hopefully it's not in verse? I'd look out another translation, giving Dryden the credit, all the credit and more he's due, I can't imagine Plutarch in rhyming couplets. Does it?
No wonder you're not enamored.
Everybody, choose a translator whose style you like, just like we did for The Odyssey. Let's see how many are online, Frybabe has found the Clough and Stewart and Long. That's just one source.
Don't anybody BUY a volume till we've decided what sections you want to read. You need to know that, for instance, if we're reading Brutus, he's in more than one section, and don't let that put you off.
I would say we should compare, for instance what Shakespeare did with the same people but there's really no use, when you read, for instance, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, you're reading Plutarch, he took the stuff almost verbatim.
For my part, in doing my own assignment, to help select passages, we must decide who and what to read, because he's like the World Book was (an encyclopedia here in the States) which was...(was it?) primarily for children, sold door to door (remember that?) Lots and lots and lots of photos and illustrations, you'd start to read one and get hooked and you'd be off reading another and another, Plutarch is like that.
Ok here are some suggestions, this by Babi gave me a lot of pause: Demosthenes and Cicero
Now THERE'S a combination, why are THEY compared? What, quick, quick, write down what you know about either in two columns. What have you got? Marbles? What else? Be honest!
I can't FIND my Plutarch!!! I've had it 50 years and it's a beautiful volume, I must read it if we're going to read but where IS it? Whose translation is it? It's not where it belongs, I shall tear the bookshelves (now lamentably double shelved) apart.
So till I find it here is what I suggest, do any of these topics entice at all?
Oh Joan R said: I also found in the library a useful book on Plutarch and his life and work by D.A. Russell which gives, it seems, a pretty good picture of the times in which Plutarch lived.
Ok we need that desperately. We also need for our readers to bring us stuff here about the backgrounds of the people involved. A "tidbit" if you will, not a link to an 800 page article but a tidbit, you get to be Plutarch like, see what YOU think is interesting.
Roshannarose mentioned a new interest in the "First Triumvirate." Just about every night on TV there is a commercial with...who ARE those Romans? There are three, Cassius? Brutus? I can't read the third. It's a joke, is it an ad for imeet or something?
Wouldn't it be nice to have the real skinny on who these people are? On the "First Triumvirate?" Maybe not Plutarch's skinny but an overview and then how he presents them? Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Crassus, Antony, Cleopatra, Cicero, Augustus: all of this period and time.
A new movie by George Clooney is called The Ides of March, wouldn't it be nice to have the background from the POV of the best sources of the day?
We'll need everybody to bring to the table a nugget or two or three, about the subjects at hand.
________________________________________________
Here are some beginning suggestions, lacking my own BOOK!
Week I: (1) The death of Pompey and what led up to it.
This will encompass as background the "First Triumvirate," the assassination of Caesar, what to do with Crassus? Crassus in his golden armor, a modern day Gordon Gekko in every sense of the word. Do things never change? Here was the richest man in the world, one of the three running the Roman Empire (the so called "First Triumvirate), so he held the highest political office in the land, what more could anybody want?
He wanted to be a victorious general in battle.
Quick quick, what was his most famous conquest? Don't look it up!
Then he had himself a suit of golden armor made and set out for the East. His end is surely memorable but too long and involved for our purposes. The Pompey section would touch on Marc Antony also. Also includes Ptolemy.
Week II:
(2) Antony and Cleopatra (3) possibly Caesar's death. I think the Cassius selection is too long. Maybe Brutus in his tent.
Weeks III and IV: up for grabs, who do you like?:
The OCCL says the following are noteworthy:
the historical passages:
1. the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
2 Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder (Week I)
3. the death of the younger Cato
4. the suicide of Otho
Battle pieces:
Marius over the Cimbri
The victory of the Corinthian Timoleon over the Carthaginians at Crimisus (would tie in nicely with Gaddafi)
The siege of Syracuse (when Archimedes was there)
The happy state of Italy under Numa
Sicily pacified by Timoleon
Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony (Week II)
Alcibiades
Babi mentions Demosthenes and Cicero. I must find out if the deaths of both are covered, we might want to really get into that.
Lets pick two more weeks worth? You to decide or throw out the first two if you like and suggest there too, they are only suggestions, and see if we can get manageable pieces. Then we will need to limit the readings to something doable in a week.
We really ARE going to need all hands on deck with the background information. It will be a pot luck supper, nobody wants to come without at least one dish, but everybody wins, at the end. We shall be replete with knowledge the next time a Caesar reference comes to the theater or the television.
Yippee!! You don't want to be in the position of having missed Plutarch! Now's our chance, great pick!
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Friends
I was blown away by the suggestions on Amazon and at least four other sites I perused loooking for this book. Too many choices! Some books give six lives, others twelve. Some cost five dollars, others sixty or even one hundred.
I am at sea!
Don't have any idea what to choose. Nearly all are translated by Dryden.
Help!
Would like to order before Weds when we are on vacation in Southern CA for a week.
Thanks
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For myself, I will probably stick with the two versions on Gutenberg. Free is good. Oh, I should probably look at what my library has.
I'd like to read about some of the people we don't already know a lot about, or who are not regularly written about.
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I'm happy with the choice but my head is spinning from Ginny's suggestions - how to winnow it all down to something managable is beyond me.
I hunted around my shelves but can only find one old and foxed Penguin titled "The Rise & Fall of Athens" It contains 9 'lives' - Theseus - Solon - Themistocles - Aristides - Cimon - Pericles - Nicias - Alcibiades - Lysander - it's translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (from UK) and dates from 1960.
I did have a companion volume 'Makers of Rome' or some such which I think also had 9 lives but it seems to be missing. I'll check with my son as to its whereabouts - For years he's read the classics every morning before he gets up often 'borrowing' material from my shelves - so I'm guessing he's the culprit.
What to choose - now that really is the question! ;)
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JUDE: where are you going in Southern California? that covers a lot of area, but if by chance, you're in my neck of the woods (Torrance, south of LA), maybe we could say "hi" on the phone, or meet for coffee.
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OK we all need to remember that we're talking about an October 1 starting date so we have lots of time to get the book and decide, if we're deciding on the last two weeks, or all 4.
I found my Plutarch's Lives!!! It's the Modern Library edition (edited by Bennett Cerf, remember him?) apparently no longer available, and I am shocked to see that it's the Dryden done over by Clough. I personally love it. Everything we'll talk about is in it. Clough is online free, so that should not be an impediment. This is a big book, it's got 1200 pages and is probably free for e readers, too, as so many of the old ones are.
Most of the sections seem to fall very neatly (hooray!) into an interesting week's read. The issue will be whom to choose.
The Antony section, including Cleopatra, is approximately 53 pages in a 5x8 book with normal smallish print. He is compared with Demetrius as both being "examples of the vicissitudes of fortune." Demetrius's biography precedes Antony's, and his is 22 pages. The comparison of their characters takes up 2 1/2 pages.
Pompey is 56 pages, preceded by Agesilaus whom I am unfamiliar with for 26 pages and then compared for another 3 1/2 pages. We need not read the comparisons of each when given nor the extra biography, it's just whatever we'd like to do.
The death of Cicero is covered and he is compared with Demosthenes, that is a separate life of Demosthenes a Greek is written, it's about 18 pages, then the life of Cicero, it's about 50 pages, then they are compared with each other, an interesting concept, for about 3 pages. It's not one of the ones particularly cited as relatively interesting, but his death is also unforgettable and this interests me, anyway. :)
Caesar's is about 40 pages, it takes up Brutus and Cassius indirectly, (Brutus has his own section, compared with Dion) but Caesar is not compared to anybody. Which makes sense. :) neither is Alexander, the chapter between Pompey and Caesar.
All the others are here, including Alcibiades, who is compared with Coriolanus.
Now if these names are not familiar to us, (I'm drawing quite a few blanks, myself, with the Greeks), let's make a vow this fall to take ONE month, October, and find out what we can about them. We would have no better source, but we want other sources for a full picture, we really NEED all hands on deck. If nothing else it will make great table talk for the holidays. Even those whom we think are familiar we might find something new about. I'm thinking of Pompey, whom we think we know well; I wonder. Antony's another one. I do love Richard Burton's performance and movie but it makes a point now hotly disputed by many historians and unfortunately that's how Antony has been known ever since. He's fascinating, to me. And so is she. And Plutarch actually gives one of the only physical descriptions of her extant.
At any rate, these little biographies are very doable, each in a week's time and seem to me at least to promise some people and events we don't know a lot about as well as some old familiar names we may not, despite Hollywood, know as much as we think, so it's something old something new perhaps.
How do you want to go about designating the 4 weeks reads?
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OK these are just all over the internet. I mean everywhere. But the "volume" thing is confusing. We can't go by "volume number."
We need to go by the Table of Contents?
My book is quite old and has no volume number, it's got them all, but as I said it's 1200 pages. This is apparently no longer done.
But there are several reasonable alternatives and prices. And lots of them free online and as e readers.
Here's a Clough online, which appears to have all of the ones we've discussed as potential contenders:
http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index-Plutarch.html
Here's another one, this covers the Table of Contents we want:
http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-b/plivs10.htm
Plutarch's Lives, trans by A. H. Clough
by Plutarch
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Plutarch's Lives
Edited by A.H. Clough
Contents
THESEUS
ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS
LYCURGUS
NUMA POMPILIUS
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS
SOLON
POPLICOLA
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
THEMISTOCLES
CAMILLUS
PERICLES
FABIUS
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
ALCIBIADES
CORIOLANUS
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
TIMOLEON
AEMILIUS PAULUS
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS PAULUS
PELOPIDAS
MARCELLUS
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
ARISTIDES
MARCUS CATO
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
PHILOPOEMEN
FLAMININUS
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
PYRRHUS
CAIUS MARIUS
LYSANDER
SYLLA
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
CIMON
LUCULLUS
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
NICIAS
CRASSUS
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
SERTORIUS
EUMENES
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
AGESILAUS
POMPEY
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
ALEXANDER
CAESAR
PHOCION
CATO THE YOUNGER
AGIS
CLEOMENES
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
CAIUS GRACCHUS
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
DEMETRIUS
ANTONY
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
DION
MARCUS BRUTUS
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
ARATUS
ARTAXERXES
GALBA
OTHO
That's the table of contents we're looking for? Many times the "Look Inside" feature of Amazon or Barnes and Noble online will reveal the above.
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Ginny - Thanks for all your work preparing this list for us. And what a List!
My choice would be:
Pompey and Agesilaus (I know nothing about Agesilaus)
Demosthenes and Cicero
Alcibiades and Coriolanus
Themistokles (who has noone to compare with in the list that I am aware of)
Solon and Poplicola (obviously a popular Roman beverage)
Romulus and Theseus
Would love to reacquaint myself with Alexander and Caesar (separately). I think that Plutarch did compare them, but we have lost that comparison. In addition, neither Alexander or Caesar's bios are extant.
Some historians have taken it upon themselves to compose their own versions of Plutarch's missing works regarding the comparison of Alexander and Caesar. A search should reveal some of them, including this one by J. Trumbull. The search term I used was Alexander and Caesar.
www.bostonleadershipbuilders.com/...comparison_alexander_caesar.htm
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Plutarch explains his 'comparison'of Demosthenes and Cicero. Following the 'Lives', he
writes that there was much yet fit to be said about their "respective faculties in
speaking".
My copy has twelve lives, JUDE, and does not identify the translator. I would be pleased
to find it was Dryden.
Obviously, if our choice falls on other than those twelve, I'll need to head for the
library...bless them. For the record, this Spencer edition contains Themistocles,
Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Lucullus, Pompey (Ginny's favorite), Alexander, Caesar,
Demosthenes, Cicero, (plus the comparison), Antony and Artaxerxes. All of them are
interesting.
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That's a good list, RoshannaRose! (who IS PepsiCola er... Poplicola hahaha anyway?) I thought he was a misprint! hahahaa
You've got 6.
Why don't we all list our 6, (even if we don't know who they are, we might take the time to read a paragraph about the one that interests us online), and we'll all present 6 and then we'll see if we can get 4 out of them? 4 we agree on for the 4 weeks?
You have to think that with a name like Poplicola he wasn't destined for greatness but then, look at Ptolemy. :)
Why don't we say why we might be interested in one or the other? We really need to read at least one paragraph to make sure they are not a total dud, check the recommendations of the OCCL above as a check list, but of course there are others.
So let me go follow my own advice and come back in the morning with 6. We can do another vote too!.
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Hi, I just got home from a trip to Canada and looking thru my books I find have 3 Plutarchs--the Dryden edited by Clough, the fall of the roman republic tr. by Rex Warner, and lives of the noble Greeks by Fuller. Warner is the most readable. I won't be joining you as I have read these over the years (in small pieces at a time I may say). Marius and Sulla are fascinating, also Alcibiades., but at the moment I've started Agamemnon (Aeschylus), first part of the Orestia, which is what I really want to concentrate on now. So far its heavy going but fascinating--Agamemnon and Klytaemnestra as depicted by Aeschylus are much more equally portrayed than in the Odyssey, ie she is not the evil wife here by any means, and I have already discovered that Greek tragedy does not end with everyone dying, but usually on an upbeat note!! (but I'm a long way from the end yet.......)
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Here's my six:
ALCIBIADES - very interesting guy, kept swapping sides
ARTAXERXES - referenced in Bible, gave Themistocles asylum, Roger Williams (1st gov of RI) cited him to support limited government and separation of church and state.
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON - Roman and Greek reformers
THEMISTOCLES - for the Battle of Salamis
ARISTIDES - Themistocles' arch-rival'
SERTORIUS - he picked the wrong side, against Sulla, and almost got the better of Pompey
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I have the Oxford World's Classics Plutarch Greek Lives - A Selection of Nine Lives translated by Robin Waterfield, 1998. Includes Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Agesilaus and Alexander.
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OK, Plutarch-Clough is on kindle with half a dozen versions. Some are free, but after looking at several, I recommend one that costs 95 cents (even my budget can take that). It has the table of contents Ginny mentioned, and the TOC is electronic, so you just click on a name to go to the selection . Its labeled "improved 8/11/2010".
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Thanks, JoanK. I'll take a look at it. The TOC links will be a great help.
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OH good, JoanK!!!~ And having the book free online also means that we, even if we have at home a book with only the Greeks or a limited bit of the 50 biographies, we can still participate!
And we can still read on, ourselves, too, if the particular one we've nominated is not chosen?
Great nominations here. My fear is somewhat now that we may, in the interest of finding somebody we never heard of, inadvertently stumble into one of the less interestingly written accounts in Plutarch, and there are some? And we would then take away as a book club eager to try an ancient author, a somewhat false impression of Plutarch who really doesn't deserve it, as some of his "biographies" are better than others and we can't read all 50.
Of course we can read something that particularly interests us by ourselves. And of course any list is arbitrary. I finally found "Poplicola," for heaven's sake, he's pre Roman Republic and all those guys, he, and Romulus being raised by a wolf, and Hostilius and Priscus, etc., and the early kings are really the stuff of legend: very little is actually known. If we're wanting to know more about real people, little tidbits which show their character, perhaps Lucius Valerius "Publicola," nicknamed "Poplicola," which itself may be inaccurate, would not be a candidate. Plutarch, writing 600+ years after the last king passed on, is unlikely to have had much except rumor and legend about these people who are the King Arthurs of Roman history: legend and fable. But of course it's up to you all.
I got stuck in Brutus's tent yesterday and could not put it down.
I think we owe it to ourselves and the readers to at least take TWO weeks of the recommended most interesting vignettes, hopefully we can get 2 hahaaa. Who knows what we may emerge with at the end?
The master list of 50 is here:
THESEUS
ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS
LYCURGUS
NUMA POMPILIUS
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS
SOLON
POPLICOLA
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
THEMISTOCLES
CAMILLUS
PERICLES
FABIUS
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
ALCIBIADES
CORIOLANUS
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
TIMOLEON
AEMILIUS PAULUS
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS PAULUS
PELOPIDAS
MARCELLUS
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
ARISTIDES
MARCUS CATO
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
PHILOPOEMEN
FLAMININUS
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
PYRRHUS
CAIUS MARIUS
LYSANDER
SYLLA
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
CIMON
LUCULLUS
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
NICIAS
CRASSUS
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
SERTORIUS
EUMENES
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
AGESILAUS
POMPEY
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
ALEXANDER
CAESAR
PHOCION
CATO THE YOUNGER
AGIS
CLEOMENES
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
CAIUS GRACCHUS
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
DEMETRIUS
ANTONY
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
DION
MARCUS BRUTUS
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
ARATUS
ARTAXERXES
GALBA
OTHO
The recommended as particularly interesting bits are here:
the historical passages:
1. the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
2 Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder
3. the death of the younger Cato
4. the suicide of Otho
Battle pieces:
Marius over the Cimbri
The victory of the Corinthian Timoleon over the Carthaginians at Crimisus (would tie in nicely with Gaddafi)
The siege of Syracuse (when Archimedes was there)
The happy state of Italy under Numa
Sicily pacified by Timoleon
Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony
We've had two great nominations of 6 and one of 2:
--Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder
--Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony
--Pompey and Agesilaus (I know nothing about Agesilaus)
--Demosthenes and Cicero
--Alcibiades and Coriolanus
--Themistokles (who has noone to compare with in the list that I am aware of)
--Solon and Poplicola (obviously a popular Roman beverage)
--Romulus and Theseus
--ALCIBIADES - very interesting guy, kept swapping sides
--ARTAXERXES - referenced in Bible, gave Themistocles asylum, Roger Williams (1st gov of RI) cited him to support limited government and separation of church and state.
--COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON - Roman and Greek reformers
--THEMISTOCLES - for the Battle of Salamis
--ARISTIDES - Themistocles' arch-rival'
--SERTORIUS - he picked the wrong side, against Sulla, and almost got the better of Pompey
Pompey has appeared twice so I suggest since he's also on the "most interesting" list he be Week I.
So that leaves three more weeks.
Let's do this: since I was asked to pick the passages and I really wanted your help in deciding, I suggest this:
Week I: Pompey
Week IV: Cicero and Demosthenes, who is one of the suggestions here. That leaves 2 weeks if you agree.
We really could spend months trying to pick from the 50, let's just vote here?
Who should get Weeks II and III?
Here's who is left:
--Alcibiades and Coriolanus
--Themistokles (who has noone to compare with in the list that I am aware of)
--Solon and Poplicola (obviously a popular Roman beverage)
--Romulus and Theseus
--ALCIBIADES - very interesting guy, kept swapping sides
--ARTAXERXES - referenced in Bible, gave Themistocles asylum, Roger Williams (1st gov of RI) cited him to support limited government and separation of church and state.
--COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON - Roman and Greek reformers
--THEMISTOCLES - for the Battle of Salamis
--ARISTIDES - Themistocles' arch-rival'
--SERTORIUS - he picked the wrong side, against Sulla, and almost got the better of Pompey
I do see Timoleon mentioned twice in the suggested most interesting list by the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. I know nothing at all about him, but apparently he had an interesting life?
Let's fill Week II and Week III with somebody from these combined lists, YOU to choose. Can you read online a bit in each? About 10 lines would suffice to cement in your own mind if the style is good.
Dana I'm sorry you won't be joining us, the problem with voting is that our choice does not always win, but maybe next time, we're only taking a month. I enjoyed your insightful comments on the last one and I agree that Agamemnon is interesting and powerful. Maybe next time.
Just the same here, we can't have all the nominees, we need TWO from this somewhat long list:
Let's ask everyone to vote for TWO from this list for the center two weeks. If a person's personal fave does not make it: you can always read it on your own, they are only 50 or so pages, and report along as we go.
Pick TWO from these 19:
(and before you choose, read 10 lines of the one you picked to be sure it's written in an engaging manner):
the historical passages:
1. the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
2 Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder
3. the death of the younger Cato
4. the suicide of Otho
Battle pieces:
5. Marius over the Cimbri
6. The victory of the Corinthian Timoleon over the Carthaginians at Crimisus (would tie in nicely with Gaddafi)
7. The siege of Syracuse (when Archimedes was there)
8. The happy state of Italy under Numa
9. Sicily pacified by Timoleon
10. Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony
11. --Alcibiades and Coriolanus
12. . --Themistokles (who has noone to compare with in the list that I am aware of)
13. --Solon and Poplicola (obviously a popular Roman beverage)
14. --Romulus and Theseus
15. --ALCIBIADES - very interesting guy, kept swapping sides
16. --ARTAXERXES - referenced in Bible, gave Themistocles asylum, Roger Williams (1st gov of RI) cited him to support limited government and separation of church and state.
17. --COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON - Roman and Greek reformers
18. --THEMISTOCLES - for the Battle of Salamis
19. --ARISTIDES - Themistocles' arch-rival'
20. --SERTORIUS - he picked the wrong side, against Sulla, and almost got the better of Pompey
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To summarize:
Vote for TWO from these 19:
(and before you choose, if you can, read 10 lines of the ones you picked to be sure they are written in an engaging manner):
the historical passages:
1. the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse
2 Pompey's defeat by Caesar and his subsequent murder
3. the death of the younger Cato
4. the suicide of Otho
Battle pieces:
5. Marius over the Cimbri
6. The victory of the Corinthian Timoleon over the Carthaginians at Crimisus (would tie in nicely with Gaddafi)
7. The siege of Syracuse (when Archimedes was there)
8. The happy state of Italy under Numa
9. Sicily pacified by Timoleon
10. Cleopatra and her barge down the river Cydnus to Antony
11. --Alcibiades and Coriolanus
12. . --Themistokles (who has noone to compare with in the list that I am aware of)
13. --Solon and Poplicola (obviously a popular Roman beverage)
14. --Romulus and Theseus
15. --ALCIBIADES - very interesting guy, kept swapping sides
16. --ARTAXERXES - referenced in Bible, gave Themistocles asylum, Roger Williams (1st gov of RI) cited him to support limited government and separation of church and state.
17. --COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON - Roman and Greek reformers
18. --THEMISTOCLES - for the Battle of Salamis
19. --ARISTIDES - Themistocles' arch-rival'
20. --SERTORIUS - he picked the wrong side, against Sulla, and almost got the better of Pompey
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JoanK, you are right. The 95 cent edition for the Kindle is much nicer to get around in since we are only doing selections from the list. Trying to find them in the Gutenberg books would be a real pain without the link from the TOC. Manybooks probably has the same as Gutenberg.
Will be back with my two picks later. Too much to do today.
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JUDES will be here in half an hour!! I'm so excited to meet her and her husband! Will tell you all about it later.
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We have a winner!!
(http://seniorlearn.org/latin/graphics/Pluitarch200.jpg)
A page from the 1470 Ulrich Han printing of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
The readers have spoken and our next read October 1 will be: Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.) in his famous "Lives" or Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans; also called Parallel Lives.
Schedule:
Oct. 1-7: Pompey
Oct. 8-14: Artaxerxes
Oct. 15-21: Alcibiades and Coriolanus
Oct. 22-28: Demosthenes and Cicero
Oct. 29-31: Windup
VOTE: ARTAXERXES and SOLON
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Thank you, Sally!
I've put a link to clickables of each of the people in the heading: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/lives/
Makes it easy to search them out.
JoanK , can't wait to hear about your visit from JudeS and her husband!
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Oh, this is harder than I thought. My off the cuff list is way more than two; it's even way more
than four. I'm going to have to pore over these a bit more. but I'll vote as quickly as I can.
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Yes it is hard to pick. I downloaded a version from Amazon that has a very nice preface, a bio of Plutarch and a section on the Civil Wars in Rome. I just realized that it does not include the comparisons. Hmmmm. Good thing Kidsal put up the University of Adelaide site. Too bad I didn't see this before I ordered. Oh well.
I think I will go with Alcibiades and Sertorius.
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Okay, first of all, this was hard. And I am impressed to see that so much of what we know of
these ancient Greeks and Romans is due to Plutarch. Some, like Cicero, Cato, Caesar, are
written about by a number of historians. I found two that seem to be know to us only thru'
Plutarch. One is Lycurgus, (of Sparta, not Athens) who seemed to be most influential in shaping
the history of those two countries. And Artaxerxes II, brother of the younger Darius, a most
colorful figure who also is little known outside Plutarch (and the Bible, of course).
So, for those reasons, I'm voting for Artaxerxes II and Lycurgus of Sparta.
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Great choices, Babi and Kidsal. I almost picked Artaxerxes too, but finally decided on Sertorius.
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I had a GREAT time, yesterday with JudeS and her husband Don. They came to my place and we talked non-stop for qalmost 3 hours. My son told mr later that there had been a small earthquake while we were talking, but I hadn't even noticed. What nice funny, interesting, intelligent people. SENIORNETTERS ROCK!
Now to do my homework on the Plutarch selections!
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ARTAXERXES AND CLEISTHENES (OR POMPEY)
I hope you realise that being a Libra this is an almost impossible task for me. I mean culling out such fascinating people and having to make a decision ???
I would love to meet my fellow senior learners, but it's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll. Stolen shamelessly and reworded from AC/DC.
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Perhaps that explains it, ROSHANA. I'm a Libra, too. ;) :-\
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Babi - It's very handy having a valid excuse for procrastination. :)
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Shucks, ROSHANA, at our age we don't need excuses. :P
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It IS a hard, almost impossible choice and we really appreciate your trying to make it. Here's the slate so far: (please DO holler if I missed your vote).
Week I: Pompey
Week II: Artaxerxes (3 votes: not compared with anybody)
Week III: ??
ARTAXERXES and SOLON
Alcibiades and Sertorius.
Artaxerxes II and Lycurgus of Sparta.
ARTAXERXES AND CLEISTHENES
Week IV: Demosthenes and Cicero
OK last call, what is it the auctioneers say? Going once, going twice.....it looks like Artaxerxes may be one of those for Week II? Or Week III, he's been voted on three times, so let's give him a slot, but who else?
OR will those we have not heard from yet swing the vote?
I could write down what I know of these Greek gentlemen on the palm of my hand (and could not spell any of them) so I'm excited to be participating in our second read. At the end I will be interested to see which biography I thought was the most surprising and memorable. I hope. So exciting!
Going once, going twice.....what's YOUR vote for Week III?
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My youngest son is a Libra. They like justice, peace, and calmness. Have any of you read Linda Goodman's Sun Signs or wait.... I think it's her Star Signs? I found, laugh as anybody will, she's got them pegged pretty well. Unfortunately now it appears we're not as we're supposed to be. I hate that because if ever an Aquarius lived, c'est moi. hahahaa
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JoanK, I am so glad to hear about your visit with JudeS, and her husband!! I wish I could have been there too, you make it sound so fun! I love meeting fellow SeniorLearners, you do come away with such great memories.
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procrastination
Funny you should mention that word Roshanarose. ;D
Ginny, I read Sun Signs when I was in my early twenties. While on a bus back from DC, once upon a time, the girl that sat next to me (or just behind, I forget which) saw I was reading the book. We got to talking a little bit, and after a while she asked what sign I thought she was. Well, right away I said Pisces. She was absolutely floored. The fact was, just from the half hour or so we were talking, she reminded me of my middle sister who is a Pisces. It was an interesting book.
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There are still some people who haven't voted yet, including JoanK and me. Let's try to get things settled in a few days, to end the suspense.
Libras, you have nothing on me (a Leo) when it comes to indecisiveness.
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Don't wait for me to make up my mind! I'm not a Libra, but I'm tearing my hair out! I'll go with those who want Artaxerxes, but which one?
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please don't wait for me to vote...none of this really makes much sense to me...
interested to see this taking shape though
Deb
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We have power!! Lots of people around this area still do not, however. I'm sure the power co. is doing the best they can with so many downed trees, but there are some angry folks beginning to complain about the time it's taking.
I've just looked at the choices and I think Alcibiades and Coriolanus might be good since there is a comparison of them,
but I'll be happy whatever we do!!!
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JoanR, glad to see you back up. And I thought 16hrs. was excessive. :P
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Great, we're rolling now!
Deb, all we're trying to do now is pick somebody for Week III from that list in the heading.
Here's how it's stacking up:
Week I: Pompey
Week II: Artaxerxes (3 votes: not compared with anybody)
Week III: ??
Nominated for Week III :
SOLON
Alcibiades and Sertorius.
Lycurgus of Sparta.
CLEISTHENES
Alcibiades and Coriolanus
Week IV: Demosthenes and Cicero
There is only one Artaxerxes in the Table of Contents so that's the one for week II:
And there are now two votes for Alcibiades for Week III who is compared to Coriolanus in the text.
So it's important to vote for Week III as that's all that's left, moving right along!
Welcome back, Joan R, 16 hours is a long time!
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Good heavens. Do I still have to vote for one more week?
I'll stick with Alcibiades and Sertorius or Alcibiades and Coriolanus, whichever. I really want to read about Alcibiades. The Amazon book I downloaded doesn't include the comparisons :( , but I can pick them up on the site Kidsal posted in the header.
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hahahaa, no, you voted, but many have not, so those are the ones mentioned, for Weeks II and III. Nobody got more than one vote except Artaxerxes, who got 3, so he got Week II, but there is no person standing out by more than one vote for Week III.
So I thought I'd make it more plain (shows you how effective that was). hahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Perhaps a deluge or landslide of votes will come in and push one candidate to the top!
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I'm feeling particularly dim, I guess, but where are we voting?
Perhaps my mentioning Alcibiades & Coriolanus didn't sound like a vote. I vote for Al & Corio!! Sorry if that sounds rather flip - I don't mean any disrespect - it's just what I've been calling them in my head! That's what a diet of reconstituted powdered milk on my Wheaties has done.
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lol @ JoanR - When we were studying them at Uni we would call SOLON, SO LONG, and poor old PLATO was THAT GREEK DISH WASHING LIQUID. ALCIBIADES we called THE BAD BOY and SOCRATES earned SO CRATES (Of milk). ARISTOTLE was irreverently called A BUGGER FOR THE BOTTLE from Monty Python. We didn't much like Aristotle - . ALEXANDER we just called RAGTIME. CAESAR, of course, was BIG JULIE. Often we would let them slip in tutorials, much to the tutor or lecturer's displeasure. The chief Roman Professor went by the name of "ICE EYES", boy,was he tough. He would tell us if the essay isn't in on time, that he would only accept one excuse - that we were dead! And he meant it!!!
Peeping up - The Bad Boy is my vote - ALCIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS. I had a quick look at Coriolanus' parallel with Alcibiades', and Corio's is quite a long story. Yes JoanR - one does get sick of typing those looong names.
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Well, I was the one who brought up Lycurgus and I'm still interested, so I guess I'll
cast my vote for him, GINNY. I'm also happy to know I've got that Michael Grant book to
refer to, and his introduction to Plutarch I think will be helpful.
And I, GINNY, am a typical Libra. While I find the explanation of the whole astrology
thing hard to swallow, I can't deny it happened to fit me well. I believe, tho', that
those on the outer edges of those groups...cusps?...may have some characteristics of the
next over sign. Always good to have a reasonable explanation of the ones that don't fit. ;D
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Sorry not to be clear. :)
If you mentioned, nominated, suggested or even spelled a name here, it was definitely counted (see the lists above) and that was glommed on as a VOTE. Why not vote here rather than do another survey, I reasoned, we've got Three weeks sewn up?
What I should have done is put the name of the person nominating/ voting/ mentioning after his suggestion or submission, the bottom line remaining being that none of those left had more than one vote or a majority?
So we had, left over for Week III from previous nominations:
Nominated for Week III :
SOLON....nominated by Kidsal
Alcibiades and Sertorius....nominated by Frybabe
Lycurgus of Sparta....nominated by Babi
CLEISTHENES......nominated by RoshannaRose
Alcibiades and Coriolanus....nominated by Joan R
That was the original list, whose suggestion/ nomination/ vote did I miss?
BUT now this morning Roshannarose has sealed the deal with ALCIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS, a second vote by somebody other than the original nominator, and a third for Alcibiades as JoanR points out.
That's two for Alcibiades and Coriolanus and three for Alciabiades. So unless somebody NEW comes in with a new vote/ nomination/ suggestion, it looks like Alciabiades and Coriolanus are Week III!!
I must admit all this talk of Alciabiades really makes me want to read him, and I had decided to do it anyway, on my own. I know NOTHING about him.
So let's do it? Or is there a last minute suggestion/ nomination/ vote for a dark horse from somebody other than those nominating the original which would swing the deal?
Reconstituted milk!!!! UGGERS!!! AGG.
That's very cute, Roshannarose on the names. I suspect we'll be doing that here, too, funny! Your name is always in peril with my poor typing, I may have to resort to RR.
What do you all think about Alciabiades and Coriolanus for Week III?
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I'm a dark horse (i.e. Odyssey dropout), but am not going to vote. Am delighted with the choices made, especially Pompey, Demothxxxx and Cicero. Am not familiar with the others, but bad boy sounds good.
Yesterday I downloaded two more Plutarchs for my Kindle that included the above. They don't have clickable table of contents, so finding them will be the problem. Looking forward to learning more about Pompey, at least.
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Dark horse or not, pedln, it's good to see you here.
I remember learning about Alcibiades in 4th grade, but it's pretty dim now. I do remember he was a bad boy and a smart Alec, and was accused of chipping the ears and noses off the busts of Mercury.
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PEDLIN the version of Plutarch on the kindle that has an interactive table of contents is labeled "improved 8/11/2010". and costs 95 cents. I found it by searching on my kindle (you seem to get different options that was than by searching in Amazon on the computer.
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Alciabiades and Coriolanus for Week III? OK with me!
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PatH, I'e got to know where Alcibiades was being taught in the 4th grade!! I don't even
remember what we were taught in 4th grade; I just assume the three 'r''s and some history
and geography.
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A recap of the final lineup:
Week I: Pompey
Week II: Artaxerxes
Week III: Alcibiades and Coriolanus
Week IV: Demosthenes and Cicero
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Sounds great! I can't wait for Pompey! I hope Pliny the Elder is featured (a great story!)
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PatH, I'e got to know where Alcibiades was being taught in the 4th grade!!
JoanK and I went to school in Washington, DC, but there were a few years when we were home schooled (following an available, approved curriculum) and that was one of them. History that year was Greece and Rome, and we had a book "Famous Men of Greece", followed by "Famous Men of Rome". After an introductory who's who of the gods and goddesses, there were many 3-4 page descriptions of the men, with background of how they fitted into the historical events of the time. Now that I think of it, I bet it was bits of Plutarch re-worked for 9 year olds. Anyway, I found Alcibiades particularly memorable, so I'll be glad to see what I make of him now.
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PAT, on Cicero and Demosthenes, are we doing the bios., the comparison, or all three?
(This is going to be great!)
I think I would have really liked your homeschooling program. Did your Mom handle that?
I don't remember 4th grade at all. 3rd, now, was memorable for a really unpleasant teacher,
called back from retirement due to the wartime teacher shortage. :-\
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We've got a new home for the Plutarch pre-discussion and discussion. It's HERE (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=2489.0/)
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BACK FROM READING PLUTARCH!
Wiser, but not sadder,
Now we are back in our old home. A place to discus any contacts you have with the classics and think about our next adventure.
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I'd like to either go straight on to a selection of Plutarch's Greek lives or maybe take a break and read some of Cicero's work since we were just discussing him. No specific thoughts on which pieces yet, except for Cicero's "On Old Age" (I wonder why ;) ).
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I think Pat and I need a break before a formal discussion. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about any classics we read, or want to read, just like in the mystery and sci-fi discussions.
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For example, do we know enough about Greece to know which Greeks we would like to read about?
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JoandK and Pat H
Thanks to you both for leading this past discussion. I would never have read any of "Plutarch Lives" if it wasn't for this discussion. I learned a lot.
Evelyn
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JoanK - Is my memory fading faster than I thought, but as I remember we had already picked out some Greeks to discuss from Plutarch.
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My memory is definately fading too. I'll check.
Now that we've read some Plutarch, we know that some of is essays are more readable than others. I'll start reading ahead to see which ones are good, so we don't get too bogged down.
Do you all agree that it is good to read about people who lived in about the same time, so we can get a picture of that time?
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It does seem to help get what you learn more firmly implanted, doesn't it? My
mental 'retainer' seems to develop larger holes as time goes by. :P
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Have we given up on the Classics??
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I think it's just been the 'time of year', KIDSAL. We enjoyed our last classic
so much, I'm sure we will be picking it up again. According to PatH's post of September 6, we should be starting with Pompey.
Let us know when, PAT.
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Are you all ready to start thinking about what to read next? We can read some of the Greeks in Plutarh, or do one of the other selections that didn't win last time. If we do more Plutarch, I think we should do what we did with the Romans and pick a time, and read about the characters in it. Who knows enough about the Greeks to help with that?
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I will check out a Ancient Greek timeline and compare it to Plutarch's Greek Lives if you wish.
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http://ehistory.osu.edu/ancient/index.cfm
Here's a link that might be helpful. You will note the Greek era is listed
510 to 148 BC, with the Classical period being 510 to 404 BC.
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That's helpful. thanks. More later.
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Greek Lives for your consideration:
Alcibiades
Pericles
Themistocles
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Great! I'll check it out!
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We have things planned for February and March, so, we wouldn't start another Classics before April. But I'll start assembling a list to vote on in the next few days.
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What to tackle next? We seem to be agreed to switch from Rome to Greece for now. We could do it one of two ways: we could continue with Plutarch, picking a cluster from the same time so we wouldn't have to learn too much different history too quickly. Or we could take a break from Plutarch for a while and read a play or two. The top vote-getters before before were:
Aeschylus: the Oresteia (5)
Euripides: Iphigenia in Taurus (romantic comedy) and Alcestis (tragicomedy) (5)
Sophocles: Antigone (4)
What does anyone think? Both paths have advantages, and doing one doesn't mean we can't do the other too.
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I'd love to do some plays, but not until this summer. The only play I ever remember reading was Oedipus, I'd like to savor and study them, so I'd like to have my classes out of the way first.
Continuing with Plutarch is fine with me for now. I like Roshanarose's selections.
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FRYBABE'S preference seems reasonable. The suggestons previously listed
were good, I thought. Has anyone a preference in those?
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Anything is OK with me. Would like to read the plays at sometime, but have no objection to Plutarch Greek Lives.
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"Oedipus Rex" is a great play, so is "Antigone".
If the three men I have proposed are studied, may I suggest that we study them in chronological order:
1. Themistokles 524-459 BC. Populist from humble beginnings. Clawed his way to fame. Moving force at Salamis in routing the Persian fleet.
2. Pericles 493-429 BC. Aristocrat who, along with his family, would probably have been evacuated from Athens at the time of the Battle of Salamis. He would have been about 13. Politically active from c.461 BC.
3. Alcibiades died c.404 BC. The Greek Bad Boy. Makes interesting reading. Aristocratic, said to be descended from Ajax. Adopted by Pericles.
"In him nature seems to have tried what she could do; for it is agreed among all who have written concerning him, that no one was ever more remarkable than he, either for vices or virtues. Born in a most distinguished city, of a very high family, and by far the most handsome of all the men. of his age, he was qualified for any occupation, and abounded in practical intelligence. He was eminent as a commander by sea and land; he was eloquent, so as to produce the greatest effect by his speeches; for such indeed was the persuasiveness of his looks and language, that in oratory no one was a match for him. "
Quote from Lives of the Eminent Commanders. Cornelius Nepos.
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the most handsome of all the men.
Roshana
Alas, that often proves to be a great misfortune, as it has ruined many a
man. Women, too.
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Oedipus Rex was part of my High School curriculum and it deeply inprinted itself on my mind.
I'd really like to read Antigone. Always wanted to but never got around to it.
Reading Plutarch was like reading History- a really good history writer. However in the plays we get both History and Literature. More than anything we get the zeitgeist of those times.
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I don't believe I've read any of the ancient Greek plays. I'll be happy to try whatever the rest
of you decide on, if we go that route. They must be good, to have survived so long. 8)
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We'll vote soon, with the idea of starting in April, after Dickens and "Destiny of the Republic".
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Why not combine Sophocles "Antigone" with one or two of Euripides
comedies? Give us newcomers to Greek drama a taste of both.
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Great idea, Babi! Would love to re-visit Antigone - it's been eons since I read it and I remember it making a huge impression on me.
A Greek comedy would be fun - all I recall really is the frog chorus, "brek-e-kek-kek" and that's a peculiar thing to carry around in one's memory!!!
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Ah, yes. I is sometimes mortifying the things that stick in your mind
when you would far rather they would go away. Who's the boss here?!
Obviously, it's not us. :-X :)
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" Who's the boss here?!
Obviously, it's not us. "
Obviously, it's the frogs.
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Nasty things! ;)
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JoanK - Wasn't that play called "The Frogs" by Aristophanes? I love his play "Lysistrata" - quite modern in so many ways.
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Let's start out making our choice of book for April. Let's start by deciding whether we want to go on with Plutarch, or read a play.
The choices will be:
A. Plutarch: the Greeks (Themostokles, Pericles, Alcibiades)
or
B. A Greek play, to be chosen (Sophocles, Aeschyles, or Euripides)
Please post either A or B.
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A for April.
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A
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B
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A
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B I think I'd enjoy some plays.
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Great. keep the votes coming!
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Can I have a B please?
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A B, please.
O have fallen seriously behind but look forward to becomig more aaciveagain.
Traude
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It's neck and neck! Any more voters?
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We may have to solemnly promise to do both, asap. But for right now...what are you more in
the mood for, for Spring?
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I would like to recommend the following: "An Essay On the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting" by Jane Collier(1753) (160 pp), and Katharine Craik: Wickedly funny and bitingly satirical, The Art is a comedy of manners that gives insights into eighteenth-century behavior as well as the timeless art of emotional abuse. It is also an advice book, a handbook of anti-etiquette, and a comedy of manners. Collier describes methods for "teasing and mortifying" one's intimates and acquaintances in a variety of social situations. Written primarily for wives, mothers, and the mistresses of servants, it suggests the difficulties women experienced exerting their influence in private and public life--and the ways they got round them. As such, The Art provides a fascinating glimpse into eighteenth-century daily life; perhaps the first extended non-fiction prose satire written by an English woman, Jane Collier's An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753) is a wickedly satirical send-up of eighteenth-century advice manuals and educational tracts. It takes the form of a mock advice manual in which the speaker instructs her readers in the arts of tormenting, offering advice on how to torment servants, humble companions and spouses, and on how to bring one's children up to be a torment to others. The work's satirical style, which focuses on the different kinds of power that individuals exercise over one another, follows in the footsteps of Jonathan Swift and paves the way for Jane Austen. The Broadview edition uses the first edition, the only edition published during the author's lifetime. The appendices include excerpts from texts that influenced the essay (by Sarah Fielding, Jonathan Swift, Francis Coventry); excerpts from later texts that were influenced by it (by Maria Edgeworth, Frances Burney, Jane Austen); and relevant writings on education and conduct (by John Locke, George Savile, Dr. John Gregory); check the paperback edition on Amazon...very reasonable, and some used editions at quite reasonable prices.
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In the book The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton she compares Aeschylus with Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame.
She claims that both satirist give us the deepest insight into the real life of their times.
If a play then how about "The Birds" by Aeschylus?
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I still prefer to do a play after the middle of May. Then I can give my full attention to unfamiliar territory. My final two accounting classes are time killers.
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Pat and I put the classics on hold, since we felt that reading both Dickens and a classic at the same time would strain our brains. But Dickens will end in early May, so a classic will be scheduled for may 15th.
We voted on whether to continue with Plutarch or read a greek play. The vote came out as follows:
A. Plutarch 3: Frybabe, Rose and joanR
B. Play 4: Kidsal, Babi, Jude, Straude
Did I leave anyone out? Anyone else? Any changed votes? Get your togas on (what is the greek equivelant of a toga?) and let me know.
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Just for the record I'm confirming my participation in Option B.
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Great, thank you. I'm accumulating copies of the plays that have been mentioned.
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Back when we voted on plays, most of the plays suggested revolved around strong women characters, good or bad. Clytemnestra, the avenger from the Orestia, Antigone, who gave the argument for Civil Disobedience millennia before the Civil Rights movement, Ipigenia, who rose from being a victim to saving herself and her brother. How did such a male-dominated society give rise to such fictional women? I suggest this as a theme for our reading.
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Oh, now I am definitely looking forward to reading about Antigone and Iphigenia. May 15 isn't
so far away. Be nice if I could find all three plays in one collection. Do you know of any, JOAN?
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I'm still working on the details. Don't buy anything yet.
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I went to my local library Friday, and they had just about every play we've even mentioned here, so there's a fallback plan.
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I am happy to report that there is a good chance I will be able to participate. Classes are done on May 11. George's surgery is in about 12 days. Hopefully he will be at least partially recuperated by then too.
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Great!
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That's good news, FRYBABE. Is this the last of your courses? Are you all done? That would
definitely be cause for celebration.
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Yes, this is the last of it. Hurray!
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HOORAY! We returning students ROCK!!!
The plan is to start the pre-discussion April 15 and the discussion May 15th.
I notice that of the plays that got the most votes, three of the plots turn on strong women who (for better or worse) take their fate in their own hands: Agammemnon by Aesculus, the first play in the Oresia, (please excuse my horrible spelling: it's bad in English, and impossible with Greek names, but I can't think and spell at the same time), Antigone by Sophecles, and Ipegenaia (?). The first two plays are considered real classics of literature: the third is on a different level, but has a (believe it or not) happy ending: a good antidote to the others.
The plus and minus of this is that they are all by different authors. We would experience the three greatest authors in Greek literature, but we would have to find three different plays. They are available online, and in libraries however.
I'm thinking we start with Antyigone, see how long it takes, and then do the other two (which are related).
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I can't think and spell at the same time..
That would make it difficult, JOANK. :D
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JoanK,
Antigone is an exciting project. The net has ample information on English translations, also the full text online, and even videos of modern-day adaptations.
Amazon carries an English translation by Pal Woodruff, professor and author, and one by the late Robert Fagles, eminent author, poet and translator.
We will be drawn into Antigone's family, but thankfully we have Edith Hamilton as the perfect guide.
Looking forward.
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I am all set. I downloaded both Antigone and Agamemnon. I don't know which translations they are yet.
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Frybabe,
May I point out that several years ago, when we discussed Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov , and a few years after that when we did Stendhal's he Red and the Black (Le rouge et le noir), DL JoanP inddicated (quite rightly so) that it is generally helpful in group discussions that members use the same translation, if it is at all possible. If memory serves, similar considerations applied when we did the Iliad and the Odyssey. The pre-discussion is a time of preparation, after all. But I'll leave that in JoanK's good hands.
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Thank you for that vote of confidence, but suggestions are always welcome. As you say, the pre-discussion will iron that out.
There are advantages and disadvantages both ways. One thing I don't want is people struggling with translations in arcane language, when there are so many good alternatives available.
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My Antigone is part of the Oedipus Trilogy from the Loeb Library published in 1912. The translator is F. Storr. The Agamemnon is a rhyming verse translation by Gilbert Murray. I don't see a publication date on that one. I may just see if I can't find another version; rhyming verse is not my forte.
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Good point. I'm reading the Fagles, which is on Kindle. It may also be available online.
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Greetings budding classicists -
I refer to a question earlier about what the Greeks wore. In brief, men wore a chiton, and women wore a peplum.
I hope you find this link about Greek clothing informative and interesting:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/AncientGreekClothing/Ancient-Greek-Clothing.htm
For the record chiton is not pronounced as it spells. That "ch" sound in Greek is more like the "ch" in loch, or nicht (night). Coming from deep in the throat. We don't have to worry too much about pronunciation as we can't hear each other. However, it is useful to know these bits of trivia for cocktail parties and soirees in general.
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My copy of Antigone is a 2005 edition translated by J. E. Thomas and published by Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics.
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Welcome back, roshanarose and kidsal. It's good to know you'll be with us. This is going to be fun.
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ROSE: thanks for the link. Apparently, Greek women wore "chitons". There weere dorian and Ionian versions. Here is a dorian one:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2010/10/08/your-greek-costume.htm (http://ancienthistory.about.com/b/2010/10/08/your-greek-costume.htm)
(not as beautiful lines as what we think of as greek cotumes, with that extra fold of material over the abdomen. The Ionian version has the extra materia on top:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/reenactgarb/ss/062910-Model-Your-Greek-Costumes-On-Ancient-Greek-Clothing_2.htm (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/reenactgarb/ss/062910-Model-Your-Greek-Costumes-On-Ancient-Greek-Clothing_2.htm)
I'll bet the extra material was like a purse with slits to put things in. but that's a guess.
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I'm starting to sew my chiton now (this from someone who can't sew a botton on).
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Doesn't look like a lot of sewing, especially if you use decorative pins on the arm seams. I expect you to wear yours the next time I come out to see you. ;D
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Don't forget that your hair needs to be worn in a certain style.
On a good hair day I wear a French Roll or Twist. On a bad hair day I resemble Medusa :o
Check this link for how your hair must look Joan and Pat, et al.
http://www.beauty-and-the-bath.com/ancient-greek-hairstyles.html
And don't forget your footwear:
Early Minoan and Mycenaean men and women living between about 3000 B.C.E. and 1200 B.C.E. mostly went barefoot, but they did have a variety of sandals, shoes, and boots for outdoor wear. Early Greeks living between about 800 B.C.E. and 146 B.C.E. followed this tradition as well. All classes of Greeks went barefoot when indoors, removing their shoes when entering a house or temple. The proof of these practices has been discovered by archeologists, scientists who study the physical remains of the past. They have found that the outside steps of palaces and temples are far more worn down than the indoor steps, indicating that shoes were not worn indoors. Even outdoors, however, many children, slaves, and those who could not afford them wore no shoes. The Spartans, mainland Greeks who were famous for being great warriors, prided themselves on the toughness they showed by never wearing shoes. As shoemaking became a more developed craft, and shoes became more useful and comfortable, more and more Greeks began to wear them.
Footwear of all sorts was made mostly of leather, and occasionally of felt, or smooth cloth, or wood. Greeks tanned the hides of cattle for the majority of their footwear and developed a process known as tawing to cure the softer hides of calves, sheep, and goats for the finest shoes. Tawing produced soft white leather shoes. Tanned hides were a natural tan color but were sometimes dyed black, red, or yellow. For the very wealthy, shoes could be gilded, or coated in gold.
Footwear came in an abundance of styles. Styles were named after the place of origin, the famous people who made the style fashionable, as well as an assortment of specific names for certain styles. Greeks identified with their footwear so much that some people were given the nickname of their favorite shoe style.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Batterberry, Michael, and Ariane Batterberry. Fashion: The Mirror of History. New York: Greenwich House, 1982.
Symons, David J. Costume of Ancient Greece. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Read more: Greek Footwear - Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/The-Ancient-World-Greece/Greek-Footwear.html#ixzz1rhC3H65q
Oh! We forgot to mention the "himation" a kind of short cloak worn by both men and women. Women would often wear the himation as a head covering as well.
I think that by now we are beginning to get an idea of what the Greek women of our plays may have looked like.
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ROSE: thank you for that importantinformation. Guess I won't get my hair cut as planned: I would hate to be mistaken for a slave. I think I'll go with the bun. But I get to wear a crown (diadem) with it!
As to shoes, I've always envied Athena her silver sandals.
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I have always envied Hermes' footwear. I often wish I had wings on my ankles :)
As for you JoanK - I am certain that PatH will inform us as to whether you are appropriately attired Greek style!
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Barefoot I can handle. Sandals also avaialble. I wonder if an old nightshirt belted up to make a 'hangover' would serve as a chiton?
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Rose: unfortunately, PatH and I, though united in spirit, live 3000 miles apart. The curse of a big country!
Oh, wait -- with my new sandals I can fly and visit her in a trice! Or you! I'll be there for afternoon tea!
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Babi - You will look great in whatever you wear. Although perhaps we "ladies of more experience" (euphemism) should not attempt to wear what women wore for Hera's games held at Olympia. The women wore Amazon attire. I am sure you know what that is.
Oh, that is unfortunate about you two living so far apart. As for me, I am not only tucked away globally, but locally as well. Brisbane is a very big city and when I had to move out into the 'burbs I left several friends who dwell closer to the city behind, so it would be great to have you for afternoon tea as I don't see them often and would enjoy having a guest or two. Las time they came they had to take a packed lunch as they came by bus. I shall serve up my favourite Greek dessert "galaktoboureko" and will make Greek coffee where the teaspoon stands upright in the cup 8)
A recipe for galaktoboureko:
http://greekfood.about.com/od/phyllopastriesbaklava/r/Custard-Phyllo-Pie-Recipe-Galaktoboureko.htm
Is anyone else getting the feeling that some procrastination is happening here?
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Oh, not procrastination. Pat and our devoted techie geniuses have been setting up the discussion room. The old one got archived and had to be retrieved, and some links re-instated.
I'm confidant they will be ready on time to begin the pre-discussion.
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Is anyone else getting the feeling that some procrastination is happening here?
It's not procrastination, it's scheduling. (That sounds funny, but it's true.) We don't have enough discussion leaders to run multiple discussions--it takes more time than you'd think, and most of us need breaks between. At the moment JoanK and Babi and I are part of a 5 man team taking turns leading a massive discussion of Dickens' Bleak House. We probably said this somewhere up above, but the plan is to move to a new prediscussion site on April 15 and talk about background and conventions of Greek plays, maybe pick up a few more participants, though we already have a nice bunch of superstars. On May 15 we'll start Antigone. By then Bleak House will be almost done.
I'm getting impatient too, but that's the schedule that works for the site as a whole.
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Roshanarose, save me a piece of galaktoboureko, I love Greek pastries. And the coffee! Are you of the drink-the sludge-too school, or the leave-it-in-the bottom-of the-cup school?
By the way, I'm glad to see you back posting again. There was almost a 3 week gap, and I was just starting to wonder if I should send out the St. Bernards.
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We have a new home for the Greek plays. You can get to it HERE (http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=3156.0)
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You ladies never cease to amaze and inspire me. Please forgive me for my hint of procrastination, I had no idea that there was so much behind setting the whole thing up.
Truly beautiful pic of Epidavros ... well chosen.
When in Greece I have Greek tea, when in Australia we have endless varieties of coffee so I can drink by mood.
Speaking of drinking, PatH, don't forget to send the big pup with the brandy cask. My favourite. As for my absence - just too busy for SL, which is not a good thing. I am just about to write my first clues in Author, Author.
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Is this an ongoing discussion group? As a former classicist,I'd love to be in a group discussing this sort of literature.
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HI Lorac, we post periodically although it looks we'be been pretty quiet here lately. I don't know when our next classics book discussion is going to be.
We usually gather together a list of books and then vote on which one we want to do next. So far, we've done several bios from Plutarch's Lives and three Greek plays. If you have any suggestions for our next read, this is the place to make them.
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Hi. Lorac! Welcome! It is an ungoing group, but we don't discuss all the time. A few months ago, we finished a discussion of Greek plays that featured strong women. We'll probably start talking about the next thing to read after we finish reading Shakespeare's "The Tempest" in October. Do join us for that.
What has been your experience with the classics?
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Looking in the Tempest, I see you HAVE joined us. Hooray. I've been off the computer for days, due to a computer problem.
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Ooh,I hate that! We got hit by lightning last year and were without internet for 3 weeks,and only got it fixed when we went out and trimmed the Brazilian Pepper and other pesty things back ourselves. Comcast said FPL should trim,and FPL said it would be at least 6 weeks before they could even put us on a waiting list...I thought I would go nuts! I assume you discuss actual ancient books,like Caesar's Gallic Wars or plays by Plautus,not books ABOUT classical times. I'd have to think on that one. I only read them in the original Latin or Greek,so I don't know what I would want to dig into. I'm sure there is a lot! I will think about it when I am not reading The Tempest.
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Lorac, this is a relatively new discussion, but the idea was to read the original classics in translation. It's ongoing but not continuous--we have a new discussion at intervals. In addition to the Plutarch selections and Greek plays, we read The Odyssey, and if Ginny can ever make time in her busy Latin schedule, we will do The Aeneid. We did the Iliad some years ago. It's too bad you weren't here for the Greek plays--different texts were so different, it would have been great to have someone who had read the original. Aside from the pleasure of reading the plays, I was surprised at how much there was to learn about background and conventions--it changed my thinking about the time.
We would love to have your input about possible choices for next time.
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I have read the Aeneid in Latin,and it is a wonderful book in Latin or translation. it would be a good reread.
I think the thing I most hated reading in the original was anything NT by Paul- aside from being a misogynist,he was just not a pleasant person! If I hadn't already begun to turn away from Christianity by then,reading Paul would have done it!
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Poor Paul. A pity not all our 'saints' are gentle, kindly souls like Mother Theresa. Think how difficult it must be to be
an ordinary human of whom so much is expected. The hermits probably had the easiest job of it.
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That's why I emulate them. Returning to my cell...
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Uh-huh. Beautiful photo, LORAC. How old were you then? ::) :D
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Actually,the photo was taken by my son when he was 10,(he hated the fact that as a small and short child he couldn't take good pictures of adults,so he took this while I was tying my shoes)- that's 6 years ago. I have gotten a little grey,and went back to glasses instead of contacts and reading glasses, but at 53, I look much the same.
I really enjoyed what little I have read of Julius Caesar. (Yes,"Gaul is divided in three parts...). Don't think much of him personally or politcally,but he was good at writing,I thought.
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Glad to know he could count to three, also. ;)
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And that he was clever enough also in 45 BC to reform the calendar which was used by the entire world thereafter: in Russia until 1919, in the current Greek Orthodox Church, and in England until 1752, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in that country. The modern calendar is still essentially Julian and is used for dates preceding 1582.
He was also clever enough to invent something that in 2012 people still use every time they get in any kind of motorized vehicle and go anywhere on the public streets.
He managed to build a bridge across the Rhine, using materials at hand, and the structure was of incredible dimensions, and strong enough to move an army across.
Too bad he was assassinated, his plans also included draining the Pontine marshes, and building housing complexes over what had been an unhealthy swamp, cutting thru the Isthmus of Corinth to join the Ionian and Aegean Sea, to open wide roads across the Apennines, to dig a canal from the Anio and the Tiber to the sea, to rebuild Carthage and Corinth, to establish public libraries in Rome, to revise the code of Roman Law of the Twelve Tables (which needed it) to a simpler form, and many many others.
Even Caesar's enemies considered him a brilliant man, and in natural talent, one of the most remarkable men who ever lived. He was a "military genius, an orator, a statesman, an historian, an astronomer, an engineer, a poet, a grammarian, and even an horticulturist." (Warsley) And, of course, an author. He also wrote a book of grammar and one of jokes but they have not come down to us.
I'm a major Caesar fan, I wonder if you can tell? :)
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Hooray for Julius Caesar. I'm with you all the way, Ginny, another Caesar fan.
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I'm greatly impressed. I've always had respect for Julius Caesar, but knew nothing of the plans he had for the
future. It is a pity he didn't have a chance to do some of those things. I don't think he could have done them
all in one lifetime. Just opening roads across the Apenines would have made a tremendous difference, and of
course, we all would rejoice in the public libraries. But why the teaser about 'something' he invented that every
driver still uses, GINNY? What was it?! ???
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:) I'll never tell, unless somebody guesses. It's one of the Food for Thought items we do in Latin. If it's guessed, I'll tell.
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Babi, I don't know who invented them, but we owe the odometer to the Romans, as well as an improved axle for wagons. While they didn't invent roads, they came up with an improved way to make roads by layering stone and gravel under the top layer for strength and to improve drainage; methods we still use today. They also devised a suspension system for their wagons.
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Did FRYBABE identify it, GINNY? How about maps? Weren't they used before Caesar's time?
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;) No but the answers here are very clever indeed. Not the one I'm referring to, but very good.
That's a good question on the maps, Babi.
The Greeks attributed the earliest maps of the inhabited world to Anaximander in the 6th c. BC.
In Rome under the Empire maps were pretty commonplace, mentioned by many Roman writers, and added to by the builders of the Roman roads. In Augustus's reign a map of the empire was displayed in public. Geographical knowledge at that time was widespread.
That's not the invention, however. :) Good guesses.
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Not surprised to learn that, GINNY. In my mind, the waging of war, which seems timeless and universal, would surely
require detailed maps for the strategists. Before they were possible, one just relied on the observations of scouts and
spies.
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Are you talking about "cement"?
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we've talked about reding Herododus here. Now we don't have to. Join us for "Travels with Herododus" in January.
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Hi everyone, I just joined SL a couple of days ago. I found it while surfing for some resources to revive a VERY rusty knowledge of Latin. I'd like to hop on board for the "Travels with Herodotus" discussion in January. I'll check back!
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Happy to hear that, Lisa - We'll be looking out for you!
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Wonderful. it has its own discussion here.
http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?board=143.0
Come and say hello if you want.
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Did we run out of the classics???
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Not at all. I'm kind of considering "Travels with Herototus" as our classic for awhile. Some are reading the original, along with the "Travels" book.
But once that's over, we'll be back to picking a selection. Any ideas?
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Can we lighten up a bit with "The Birds" by Aeschylus? A Comedy written in 414 BCE in which the seeds of satire, and to a certain extent, the start of Sci-Fi and/or fantasy appear.
Perhaps the light hearted approach is wrong for you but I certainly need a laugh to battle off the freezing weather, my flu
ridden body and achy bones.
I would love to put this play on my brand new NOOK which is waiting in sad silence for something to opoen its screen and start it on it's journey of bringing me pleasure and knowledge.
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Oh, Judi, I'm sorry to hear you have the flu. With all the news about it saying it is an epidemic, you are actually the first person I know that actually got it. We must be in a pocket, here, that hasn't been hit or hit hard yet. My Dr's. office hasn't even been inundated yet. Get well soon!
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So sorry to hear you have the flu, JUDE. The cold weather and achy bones are trouble
enough without being ill on top of it. (Our situation here is somewhat complicated by the
fact that my daughter is very warm-blooded, and possibly in menopause, and is usually
complaining that it's too warm!)
Your suggestion of "The Birds" sounds good to me. I'm all in favor of something with
lightness and fantasy in the chill of winter.
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Poor Jude! But you picked the right time to get the flu, if you have a new Nook. Is this your first e-reader? If it's like my kindle, you will find that classic literature is free or almost free on it. Have a ball loading up on the Greeks and Romans, Shakespeare and just about any other work of literature your heart desires for almost nothing.
A warning: most classics offer several differant versions, and some are better than others. I usually get at least samples of several, and try them out, both for translation, AND for the transcription to e-book. Some of the latter are really clunky. If it's an anthology, it's worth paying a few dollars more to get an electronic table of contents.
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Going to get "The Birds", and look at it. I'm up for it, but I have to see how it fits into our schedule. I don't want to take away from our regular monthly selections. I wouldn't be able to do it in February, as I'm having a minor procedure that might sideline me for a couple of weeks.
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You know how to rope me in, Jude, calling The Birds sci-fi. I've got some plays of Aristophanes; I'll take a look at it.
We're already familiar with the structure and conventions of Greek Drama (of course we all remember everything ;) ) so we might as well use our knowledge.
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It has been quiet on this discussion for a while.
I've been looking for a classic to suggest for future reading this fall or winter. In the process, I came across something interesting. Homer wasn't the only ancient who wrote about the fall of Troy. His pupil, Arctinus of Miletus, wrote an account as did a fellow by the name of Lesches. None or almost none of these survive. I ran across all this when researching Quintus Smyrnaeus and his account. Smyrnaeus wrote his Fall of Troy much, much later (guesses range from the 2nd to rth century AD).
Anyhow, back to my hunt. We could always go for more Plutarch. If I remember correctly, we did some Greeks but haven't discussed any Romans yet. Right now I feel like something humorous, though.
addendum: Here is our original list from way back in 2011, not including the Odyssey and Antigone which we already did.
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch (c.46 A.D.- c. 120 A.D.)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
"The Twelve Caesars" Suetonius
"Lysistrata" Aristophanes
"The Golden Ass" - Lucius Apuleius
"The Aeneid" Virgil
"Poetics" Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
"Aesop's Fables" Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)
"On Old Age" Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
"Metamorphoses" Ovid (43 B.C.- 18 A.D.)
"The Persian Book of Kings" Shahnamek
Epic of Gilgamesh
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Okay. Comedy. Aristophanes - take your pick. He wrote a bunch. Someone had suggested The Birds; I would add The Frogs.
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Sounds good. Let me get them and see what I think.
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Back to the drawing board. I agree; it's time to work on the next discussion. Two people have suggested Aristophanes, so I'll take a look. (Yes, I know, I said that in January.) But comedy seems appealing.
Lysistrata is out for good. It's very funny, and has lots of good discussion points, but it's WAY too raunchy for this site. It's about the most x-rated thing I've read in some years, certainly violates the rules for the site.
Plutarch: actually, we did three Romans--Pompey, Antony, and Cicero--and no Greeks. There's lots more material left. Plutarch is a lot of work, but it pays off, as we found out last time.
The Aeneid: anytime we can snag Ginny to take an active part we should do it, but I don't see that happening in the near future. It shouldn't be done without her.
The other suggestions stand just where they did, and we're always open to more ideas.
What does everyone think?
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Now I must read Lysistrata - I just will have to keep it to myself!
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;D
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Hepeskin, what would you suggest for reading here?
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PatH: I am not sure - I am not really familiar with the Greek comedies but I recall from college days having read, "The Frogs." I do not recall what it was about but it might be fun to read it so many years later.
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It can be something Roman, too.
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I can think of two Roman writers that wrote comedy at the moment, Plautus and Apuleius. Apuleius's The Golden Ass was nominated before. I am not familiar with any of Plautus's works, but I understand he modeled his plays after the Greek plays.
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I've never read any Plautus, but I understand A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is based on some of his plays.
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I think it is about time to think about reading another classical offering, maybe for after the holidays or for Feb.
My post of July 12, 2013 has a list we put together earlier. PatH pointed out that we haven't done any of the Greek bios that Plutarch wrote. She also suggested Plautus, whose plays, Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus (The Swaggering Soldier) and Mostellaria (The Haunted House), are the basis for the play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Pseudolus seems to be the primary influence.
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Hello, anybody home? This discussion group, sadly, seems to have died on the vine.
I am reading a Scifi book where one of the characters is trying to translate Antigone into the native language. It appears that the natives of this found (and apparently soon to be lost) civilization loves tragedy. Antigone is one of the plays someone nominated to read once upon a time back in 2011. I forget if we read it, but I don't see it in the archived discussions.
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It's there, Frybabe, filed under Women in Greek Drama. We discussed it in May of 2012, and you were there. I just spent the last hour rereading the discussion. That translation would be quite a job.
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I thought we did, but then since I couldn't find it (looking in the wrong places) I decided it was my imagination. I expect a translation would be difficult considering the linquists in the book were still trying to get a full command of the language. It is really fun to run across little bits like that. Usually it is Latin passages or phrases. My last was "numquam demitto", never let go.
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I have just retired from my 25-year practice as a clinical psychologist and want to be back with you folks after a hiatus of 10-years plus. Do I understand from the dates I have seen here that this section has not been active for a while?
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You are correct, but now you're here, we can change that. do you have something in mind?
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What would you consider as the definition of "Classics" and from that I may come up with a suggestion.
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It's pretty amorphous. We started out doing Greeks and Romans, but other works have been suggested. What's your suggestion?