EXPERIMENT: Last Post

I'm thinking of 'ending the day' with a cartoon post, so folks will know there isn't anything more to come on that day. And so, the publishing day will begin with the AWOTV for that day; the a.m. posts will end with This Day in Ancient History and the p.m. posts end with a cartoon, something like this one (and/or an auction image ... I suspect I'll run out of comics quite quickly):

-- from Frank and Ernest's "Hallway of Doors" site ...

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 7:06:05 PM::
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ALSO SEEN: Of Interest to Latin Teachers

A press release begins:

Carpe diem: Seize the day. For thousands of students across the country, this adage can be applied to any difficulties they will encounter in their Latin studies. For those who cannot seize the day in their classes, John Bonynge offers help. His new book, Notes to Help Students of Classical Latin (now available through 1stBooks), is a helpful book for those learning one of the world's greatest languages.

Bonynge addresses what the student needs to succeed in learning Latin. Among other materials, the student needs a book that clearly and dependably explains important grammatical points. Notes to Help Students of Classical Latin is that reference book. Useful for both beginners and advanced students, it is meant to supplement, but not replace, formal grammars and other classroom materials.

The rest ...

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 3:11:08 PM::
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AWOTV: Weekly Listings

The weekly version of my AWOTV listings have just been posted, ad free as always.

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 12:45:24 PM::
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THIS DAY IN ANCIENT HISTORY

ante diem xiv kalendas novembres

• Armilustrium -- a festival in honour of Mars which officially (it
  seems) brought the campaigning season to an end. The Salii (the
  dancing priests of Mars) were likely heavily involved with their
  characteristic dance and with the storage of their figure eight
  shields. A lustratio (purification ritual) also took place on
  the Aventine, with the goal of removing the 'blood guilt' the
  army had taken on that year.

I also have as an unconfirmed date:

• 202 B.C. -- Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Zama

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:55:10 AM::
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NUNTII: Greek Shipwreck To be 'Excavated'

I just discovered last night that Google now has news searches in Italian and Spanish (woohoo!), and the first results of my figuring out the best search terminology is this: La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reports on the discovery -- 15 years ago -- of a Greek shipwreck which went down 2500 b.p. The article mentions that the wreck is in excellent condition, measures 21 m by 6.5 metres, and the first piece has been brought to the surface. Hopefully we'll hear more on this one!

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:45:34 AM::
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CHATTER: Why I Watch Football

From the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

That's the wonderful aspect of football. It often resembles a morality play, a Greek tragedy in shoulder pads.

Actually, I watch it because it's hoplite warfare ...

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:32:47 AM::
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NUNTII: Leo Strauss Watch

The Open Democracy site has recently put up an interview with the University of Saskatchewan's Shadia Drury, "a leading scholarly critic of Strauss", (she's a political scientist, not a Classicist). Snippets:

Leo Strauss was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics.

[...]

How could an admirer of Plato and Nietzsche be a liberal democrat? The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty. Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination – and in Strauss’s estimation they were right in thinking so.

[...]

Strauss rarely spoke in his own name. He wrote as a commentator on the classical texts of political theory. But he was an extremely opinionated and dualistic commentator. The fundamental distinction that pervades and informs all of his work is that between the ancients and the moderns. Strauss divided the history of political thought into two camps: the ancients (like Plato) are wise and wily, whereas the moderns (like Locke and other liberals) are vulgar and foolish. Now, it seems to me eminently fair and reasonable to attribute to Strauss the ideas he attributes to his beloved ancients.

In Plato’s dialogues, everyone assumes that Socrates is Plato’s mouthpiece. But Strauss argues in his book The City and Man that Thrasymachus is Plato’s real mouthpiece (on this point, see also M.F. Burnyeat, “Sphinx without a Secret”, New York Review of Books, 30 May 1985. So, we must surmise that Strauss shares the insights of the wise Plato (alias Thrasymachus) that justice is merely the interest of the stronger; that those in power make the rules in their own interests and call it justice.

Leo Strauss repeatedly defends the political realism of Thrasymachus and Machiavelli (see, for example, his Natural Right and History, p. 106). This view of the world is clearly manifest in the foreign policy of the current administration in the United States.

A second fundamental belief of Strauss’s ancients has to do with their insistence on the need for secrecy and the necessity of lies. In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons – to spare the people’s feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals.

The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave, the husband over the wife, and the wise few over the vulgar many. In On Tyranny, Strauss refers to this natural right as the “tyrannical teaching” of his beloved ancients. It is tyrannical in the classic sense of rule above rule or in the absence of law (p. 70).

Now, the ancients were determined to keep this tyrannical teaching secret because the people are not likely to tolerate the fact that they are intended for subordination; indeed, they may very well turn their resentment against the superior few. Lies are thus necessary to protect the superior few from the persecution of the vulgar many.

The effect of Strauss’s teaching is to convince his acolytes that they are the natural ruling elite and the persecuted few. And it does not take much intelligence for them to surmise that they are in a situation of great danger, especially in a world devoted to the modern ideas of equal rights and freedoms. Now more than ever, the wise few must proceed cautiously and with circumspection. So, they come to the conclusion that they have a moral justification to lie in order to avoid persecution. Strauss goes so far as to say that dissembling and deception – in effect, a culture of lies – is the peculiar justice of the wise.

Strauss justifies his position by an appeal to Plato’s concept of the noble lie. But in truth, Strauss has a very impoverished conception of Plato’s noble lie. Plato thought that the noble lie is a story whose details are fictitious; but at the heart of it is a profound truth.

In the myth of metals, for example, some people have golden souls – meaning that they are more capable of resisting the temptations of power. And these morally trustworthy types are the ones who are most fit to rule. The details are fictitious, but the moral of the story is that not all human beings are morally equal.

In contrast to this reading of Plato, Strauss thinks that the superiority of the ruling philosophers is an intellectual superiority and not a moral one (Natural Right and History, p. 151). For many commentators who (like Karl Popper) have read Plato as a totalitarian, the logical consequence is to doubt that philosophers can be trusted with political power. Those who read him this way invariably reject him. Strauss is the only interpreter who gives a sinister reading to Plato, and then celebrates him.

... the rest ...

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:28:12 AM::
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NUNTII: Nuntii Latini

The latest Latin headlines from YLE:

De volatu cosmico Sinensium
Sinenses hac septimana primum volatum cosmicum confecerunt, cum astronauta sive taiconauta...

Graves tumultus in Bolivia
Iam tres septimanae sunt, cum Pacipoli, in urbe capite Boliviae, graves tumultus commoventur, quibus ...

Ebadi Nobelista pacis huius anni
Collegium Nobelianum Norvegiae decrevit ...

Saddam e tesseris aufertur
In Iraquia veteres chartae nummariae cum ...

Consumptio piscium in incremento
Esus piscium annis proxime futuris in orbe ...

lege plura ...

audi ...

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:13:28 AM::
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NUNTII: New Explorator Out

As expected, there's a new issue of our "explorator" newsletter available, chock full of bits of news about the world of archaeology (and related fields) ... not much Classical this week, I'm afraid, but it's still ad free!

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:08:26 AM::
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AWOTV: On TV Today

Nothing .... other than that previously-mentioned remake of Goodbye Mr. Chips on Masterpiece Theatre tonight. Check local listings.

::Sunday, October 19, 2003 9:07:08 AM::
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