Progress in Summer

Today I have been working on composition (in Latin of course) to better my skills. I am hoping to start posting bilingual posts in conjunction with this endeavor and welcome any and all corrections. The Wikilang for Latin is coming along nice and soon I will work on finishing the verb page. It's hard to find time between learning Greek and Latin and working on active use. I have also found myself enraptured with a number of other languages which I hope to learn in the future.

Hodie compositionem Latinam scribebam ut peritus fierem. Spero nuntia in linguis duobus scribere cum hoc commisso ac correctiones de compositionibus meis sunt boni. "Wikilang" Latina est bona moxque paginam verborum finire temptabo. Difficile est finire cum Graecum et Latinum discam usumque activum laborem. Inveni multas linguas alias, quas spero discere quoque.

Latin and Feminism

I recently came across an interesting article written by Alice Garrett, an high school Latin teacher, dealing with the growing relationship between the the field of Classics and Feminist studies. Last semester I happened across a collection of Feminist essays dealing with gender and sexuality in Antiquity, to which I was surprised to find a great amount of scholarship. Mind you, these articles were not written by leading Classical scholars nor were the authors Classics-focused scholars. Giving leniency to the fact that: a) I, as a reader and undergrad, am not as well-versed as I should be concerning Antiquity and b) these were not Classically raised writers who spent far too much time working with dead languages, I was surprised at how well most of them were written. There were a couple of articles which I felt had no solid basis (if only I had the collection in front of me!), but for the most part each added something new to something familiar (especially seeing Ovid from a Feminist point of view).

It was this surprise at such a combination that garnered my attention to read Garrett's article. To my surprise on the very first page she brought up a personal experience of which I too have gone through, and perhaps, as she says, most students of Classics have:

My teachers presented me with an intellectual, historical, cultural, and literary world which was exciting and lived in by men only. There were female characters, women created in the imaginations of men, but real women were conspicuously absent. No one seemed to think that this was astounding, so neither did I.

I always assumed that the lack of female voice in Antiquity came form the general lack of female authors during the time period. What I failed to see, was that the reason there is such a lack of female authorship, is that the history-makers--the scribes and officials who kept records of events--either deliberately or unconsciously kept female voice out of the annals of history. As Garrett aptly puts it:

[T]he problem is not the past itself, but what we decide has been important about the past, since history-making is an act of selection, an act of deciding what is important. The past itself is not male-centered. Women have never been excluded from life. They have been involved in every human venture. What they have been kept from is the writing of history, the act of deciding what is important and what is not.

She proposes looking at the contributions of women in the society of the time based on archaeological evidence, and the evidence we see in the masculine authorship, with writers such as Ovid and Pliny. This is a topic I have only lightly touched, and thankfully so, due to my interest in the voices of the everyday people of Roman and Greek society. For I found myself confronted with the writing of the intellegentia yet not the writings of the vulgus.

Garrett identifies the lack of little more than cursory notation of women in some of the more popular textbooks in use today, and discusses the weaknesses realized therein due to the inability of the student to empathize or identify with a female character. She does however like the amount of feminine perspective used in the more obscure Ecce Romani series of books, with which I was taught Latin in high school.

I recommend giving it a read. Here you can see the article for yourself.

Wikilang

Over on the forums at Unilang I found a link to a wonderful new wiki project called Wikilang. It is still in the early stages, but whatever help can be found is beneficial. I am personally working on expanding the Latin section and maybe moving on to the Ancient Greek section if time permits.

Today, I also finished my letter to Father Reggie Foster. For those who do not know, he is the Pope's Latinist and one of the very few people in the world fluent in Latin. I hope to send it out today or tomorrow and will anxiously await the arrival of his response.

Letter 9B: Epistulae VI.7 Pliny

This is a short letter from Pliny to his wife discussing his absence from her and the ways both of them deal with the distance. His wife's personal interest in his literary works is also identified and discussed.

Gaius Plinius to his dear Calpurnia, Greetings:

(I) You write that you are affected not slightly by my absence and that you have solace alone in the fact that you hold for me my speeches [libellos] which often lay in my place (at your bedside).

(II) It is pleasing that you miss me, and also that you find pleasure in these alleviations; in turn, I read your letters over and over again, and again and again I take them up in my hands as if they were new.

(III) But all the more I am kindled by desire for you: for whose letters have so much sweetness, how much charm is present within our conversations! Nevertheless write as frequently as you can, even if this pleases me as (much as) it also pains me. Farewell.

Letter 5: Ad Quintum Fratrem II.10

This is Cicero's reply to a short, hasty letter written to him on a tablet (codicillus) by his brother Quintus. Instead of a short, hasty response, Cicero takes this time to send some news to his brother.


Written in the month of February AUC 700 (54 B.C.E.)

Marcus to his brother Quintus, Greetings:

(I) With an outcry your tablets demanded this letter; for certainly the matter itself and this day, on which you have set out, gave me no reason to write back; but, just as when we are in each other's presence speech is not absent for us, in the same way our letters ought to ramble from time to time.

(II) Therefore, [in other news,] the liberty of Tenedos was beheaded by its own political axe, since no one defended them besides Bibulus, Callidus, Favonius, and I; an honorable mention of you has been made by the Magnesians of Sipylus, when they said that you alone had resisted the demands of Lucius Sestius Pasa (an unknown person). On the remaining days [in the senate about this business], if there is anything which you may need to know, or also if there is nothing, I will write something everyday regardless; the day before the Ides (the 12th) I will not fail you nor Pompanius (Atticus of the first letter I posted).

(III) The poems of Lucretius are as you write: with many flashes of ingenuity, but also of great learning; but, when you come, I will think you a hero and not a [mere] man, if you read the Empedoclea of Sallustius.

Letter 5: Epistulae I.9

In this letter we have Pliny writing to his friend Minicius to whom Pliny had written many other letters. In this letter he shuns the city life and espouses the more leisurely relaxed pace of life in the country villa.  He even invokes this villa on the shore as a remote shrine to the Muses [secretum mouseion] and lauds its ability to inspire and form new ideas for his writings.

Gaius Plinius to his dear Minicius Fundanus, Greetings:

(I) It is amazing how, taken one day at a time, in the city everything balances out and how, taking many days together, it does not balance.

(II) For if you should ask a man, "What are you doing today?" he would respond, "I was at a coming of age ceremony [donning of the toga virilis], I visited some betrothals and marriages, that man over there asked me to sign a will, that one there consulted me, and that one met with me."

(III) You have made these things a necessity for yourself each day, if you should recall that you did the same thing every day, those things would seem inane, even more so when you are on vacation. For at that time comes to mind the recollection, "How many days did I waste on fruitless activities."

(IV) Because this happened to me, when afterwards in my Laurentine villa I either read something or wrote something or even freed up my body for leisure, whose poor soul had needed supports.

(V) I neither hear nor say anything I would regret to hear or say; no one slanders anything with perverse speech before me, I myself reprehend no one, unless my own self when I write very badly; I am bothered by no hope, by no fear, I am disturbed by no rumors: I speak only with myself and my dear books [libellis].

(VI) O righteous and sincere life, o sweet leisure--honest and nearly more beautiful than any job. O sea, o shore--truly remote shrine of the Muses--how much you devise, how much you dictate.

(VII) You too leave behind this same way as soon as the occasion arises, the noise and meaningless running about and the completely absurd labors, and trade your studies for leisure.

(VIII) For it is more than enough, as our friend Atilius says so learnedly and at the same time so wittily, to be at leisure than to do nothing. Farewell.

Two interesting anecdotes concerning the last section of this letter. Their mutual friend Atilius was apparently a man known for his zealous pursuit of learning and to whom Pliny makes himself an Achilles to Patroclus. The other thing of note is something that I am quite surprised I never noticed before, but thanks to the semi-helpful commentary of Cecilia A E Luschnig the relationship between otium [leisure] and negotium [work] is apparent. For negotium is NEGATIVE otium. The Romans' word for work was "lack of leisure"! I for one am humored greatly by this discovery. I guess from now on I should pay closer attention to contrasting pairs of words.

Pliny Letter 1, Book I.1

This is a short little introductory poem to Pliny's collected letters, which he wrote for the occasion. Pliny lies a little here, when he says that the order of time is not saved [non servato temporis ordine]. For the books that hold the letters are generally categorized to time periods, though they do cover a wide variety of subjects. It shall be interesting to see what other letters Pliny has written. I think the next one may be his account of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Videbimus.

Gaius Plinius to his dear Septicius, Greetings:

(I) You frequently ordered me to collect and publish letters, if I had written them somewhat more carefully. I collected them not with the order of time preserved (for I am not setting down a history), but as each came into my hand. It remains that neither you regret your council nor do I regret following it. For thus it shall happen that those which still lie neglected I shall search for, and if I am to add them, I will not withhold them. Farewell.

Epistulae Morales I

Seneca's letter writing differs dramatically both in structure and diction. Cicero's letters are known for being very colloquial and idiomatic with the structure being very loose and seemingly at his whim. Seneca's on the other hand mark the evolution of letter-writing as a genre and show a more formalized structure and read very clearly. Seneca does differ from the authors of this category in that he writes moralistic essays in the guise of letters similar in a sense to Socrates' moralistic dialogues (teaching in the guise of argument).

Without further ado:

Seneca to his dear Lucilius, Greetings:

(I) Do this my Lucilius; set yourself free for your own benefit, and time, which till now was either being carried off or stolen or slipping away, gather and protect it. Tell yourself that this is how it is, as I write: certain times are being snatched away from us, are being led off, are running out. Nevertheless it is the foulest loss, that happens through negligence. And if you shall have wanted to attend to those times, a great part of life slips from those who do bad things, the greatest part slips from those who do nothing, and all life slips from those who pay no attention.

(II) What time will you give me, you who are the sort who places some value on time, who values the day, who understands that he may die any day? For in this we are wrong, we look forward to death; whose great part already has passed by; whatever life we had before, death holds it now. Therefore do this, my Lucilius, because you will write that you do, embrace every hour. It will happen that you will be hung up less on what must be done tomorrow and throw your hands upon what must be done today. While these things are put off, life runs past.

(III) All things, Lucilius, belong to another, however time alone is ours. Nature sends us into the possession of this one fleeing slippery thing, from which she expels whomever she wants. And there is so much stupidity in mortal beings, as those who are least in life and cheapest, certainly recoverable, are charged against themselves, when they suffer to gain only for themselves, let no one judge whether he owes anything, who receives time, when meanwhile it is this alone, which cannot return favor.

(IV) Perhaps you will ask, what do I do, who advise you thus. I confess openly: it comes with luxuriousness but diligence also, my expense balances it out. I cannot say that I lose nothing, but what I lose and why and how, let me say; let me relate the causes of my poverty. But it comes to me, that mostly you do not return to poverty by your own vice; everyone forgives but no one helps.

(V) What then is it? I do no think poverty, to whom however little remains, is enough. Nevertheless I prefer that you guard your time, and may you begin in good time. For as it seemed to our ancestors, "It is too late to be thrifty at rock bottom." For not only will it remain at the lowest point but it will remain the worst. Farewell.

Epistulae ad Atticum I.2

Written in Rome in the month Quintilis (July) in the year 689 (65 BCE)

Cicero to Atticus, Greetings:

The first part of the letter starts with a traditional opening with the sender in the nominative and receiver in dative along with some form of greeting. Cicero's announcement of the consuls serve the dual purpose of identifying the time when he composed the letter as well as letting Atticus know the results of the recent consular election. I am not entirely sure what all the nos's are referring to, I take some of them to simply mean Cicero himself and the others to him and his associates.

The prosecutor of Catiline was a good friend of his so Cicero is happy that he managed to get some of his men in on the jury whom the prosecutor approved of.

(I) With Lucius Julius Caesar and Gaius Marcus Figulus as consuls know that my little boy has been born [filiolo me auctum] and that Terentia is in good health. For so long there have been no letters from you! I wrote diligently to you before concerning my affairs. At this time I [nos] think that I should defend my [nos] competitor for office Catiline. We have the judges whom we wanted, with great approval of the prosecutor. I hope, if it will be absolved, that that conspirator of ours will be included in the reckoning of the petition; if it does not happen otherwise, we shall bear ourselves with equanimity.

This section was a bit troublesome in the wording: summa hominum est opinio tuos familiaris nobilis homines adversarios honori nostro fore. I took summa as agreeing with opinio and hominum as the plural genitive of them both. tuos familiaris nobilis homines came together as a chunk meaning Atticus' friends who came from senatorial families and adversaries as being what they WOULD be concerning Cicero's election.

(II) There is need for your speedy arrival to me [nos]; for certainly it is the greatest opinion of man that your noble men of Rome [famliaris] will be adversaries to my election. I see that you will be the greatest use to me at winning over their desire for me. Therefore in January, as you desired, take care that you are in Rome.