ante diem vii idus martias

• Festival of Mars (day 9) which included another procession of the Salian priests around the city
  320 A.D. -- martyrdom of Candidus and the other "Forty Armenian Martyrs"

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:33:20 AM::
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Today's 'selection':

imbue @ Merriam-Webster

That's it!

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:27:54 AM::
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Semifrater Saddami deprehensus (4.3.2005)

Semifrater et consiliarius Saddami Hussein, cui nomen est Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, deprehensus est. Regimen Iraquiae temporarium nuntiavit illum ex Syria una cum undetriginta magistratibus administrationis Saddami sibi traditum esse. Sabawi unus ex ducibus esse dicitur, qui rebellionem contra Americanos ex Syria moliebatur.

Tuomo Pekkanen
Nuntii Latini, Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE)
(used with permission)

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:25:37 AM::
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::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:18:53 AM::
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From the Daily Times, inter alia:

General Musharraf’s epic journey reminds one of that of Coriolanus, a military and political leader of ancient Rome whose career is described by the Greek historian Plutarch in his Lives. Born Caius Marcius into a rich and famous family, he earned the title Coriolanus after a major victory at Corioli in 493 BC against the Volscians, a neighbouring tribe of Rome.

Around the year 1600, William Shakespeare drew upon Plutarch’s history to dramatise the life of Coriolanus. TS Eliot considered this play to be Shakespeare’s finest tragedy yet other critics rank it below Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. Coriolanus, as a proud general, is the least sympathetic protagonist among Shakespeare’s tragic figures. This may be the reason for the mixed appraisal of the play.

However, it has more contemporary relevance than anything else in the bard’s repertoire, since it is embodies a long-running debate on autocracy versus democracy. Shakespeare depicts a society undergoing tumultuous change, struggling to adjust to a new form of government. Rome had earlier been ruled by a king. The people had had no independent voice. Now, in the early years of the republic, they participated in the election of consuls. Tribunes, representing their interests, defended them against abuses of power. In many ways, the situation resembled today’s Pakistan, a young republic struggling to define its body politic after centuries of imperial rule.

One of the play’s main characters, an aristocrat named Menenius, compares the state to a human body in which different classes of society represent various organs. The aristocrats (i.e. the landowning classes) are the “belly” and the lower-class commoners the “toe”. Coriolanus, as a fierce, noble and proud military leader, represents the “arms” of the Roman state.

General Coriolanus dominates the play, just as General Musharraf dominates Pakistan’s political stage. Both are men of action whose physical strength and courage are legendary. Coriolanus is perhaps the greatest warrior of his age. It is said that Musharraf’s personal heroism inspires other soldiers and men willingly follow him into battle. Like Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, he is not a natural leader.

In the denouement of Shakespeare’s play, after failing to persuade Romans to align themselves with his rule, Coriolanus turns against Rome and is banished. In the ultimate irony, he joins the Volscians and makes war on Rome. His mother, however, persuades him to call off the attack. This enrages the Volscians under Aufidius so much that they kill him. To paraphrase Aufidius, the virtues of war had become the vices of peace for the man on horseback. Dismounted, he was a sorry creature.

Coriolanus approximates the tragic heroes of an ancient Greek drama, a great man who is brought low by his hubris. Overriding egoism can only terminate in desolation, as Plato said. Such an ego prevents Musharraf from developing an exit strategy. He is convinced of his indispensability.

Shakespeare endues his central character with a deeper flaw in the form of a pathological dependency upon his mother. As she reminds him in two pivotal scenes, he is her creation. In the end, Coriolanus cannot simply sever himself from the body politic of his motherland, for his identity depends upon his mother’s esteem.

General Musharraf is a creature of the army — his “mother”. The corps commanders, symbolising this mother, lurk in the background and appear on stage whenever major decisions are being made. In the end, they were the ones who prevailed upon Musharraf to change his mind about the uniform.  [the whole thing]

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:16:35 AM::
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From IST Results:

Getting a glimpse of life as it was originally lived in places such as Pompeii seems no longer impossible. The IST project LIFEPLUS enables an immersive 3D-reconstruction of ancient Pompeian frescos through the real-time revival of its fauna, flora and population.

"At Pompeii for example, the visitor would not just see the frescos, taverns and villas that have been excavated, but also people going about their daily life," explains Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalman of the Swiss research group MiraLab and scientific coordinator of LIFEPLUS.

A prototype augmented-reality (AR) system requires the visitor to wear a head-mounted display with a miniature camera and a backpack computer. The camera captures the view and feeds it to software on the computer where the visitor's viewpoint is combined with animated virtual elements.

"We are, for the first time, able to run this combination of software processes to create walking, talking people with believable clothing, skin and hair in real-time," says Prof Magnenat-Thalman.

[more]

Better yet, just visit the LIFEPLUS website ... or go straight to some scenes ... or movies

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:13:32 AM::
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::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:07:05 AM::
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I haven't quite figured out whether this is more appropriate here at rc or over at our incipient forum Classics Central:

 Announcing Brill's New Jacoby (BNJ)

Editor-in-Chief
Ian Worthington

Editors Hans Beck (Köln); A.B. Bosworth (Western Australia); E.M. Carawan (Southern Missouri); Craig Cooper (Winnipeg); John Dillery (Virginia); K. Dowden (Birmingham); R. Fowler (Bristol); Stephen Hodkinson (Nottingham); Amelie Kuhrt (London); J. Roisman (Colby College); Nicholas V. Sekunda (Torun); J. Sickinger (Florida State); David Whitehead (Queen's Belfast)

With the successful publication of the CD-ROM of F. Jacoby, FGrH I-III + Bonnechere's appendices, E.J. Brill Academic Publishers will soon begin to publish Brill's New Jacoby (BNJ).  This is new edition of FGrH I-III with significant changes.  Each fragmentary author will have a Greek text (changes from Jacoby's text where relevant), English translation, new, critical commentary, and an encyclopaedia-style entry about the author's life and works followed by a bibliography.  Jacoby's numbering system will be retained; new authors and/or fragments of authors unknown to, or omitted by, him will also be included in BNJ.

BNJ will appear online at the rate of 80-100 authors per year (approximately half of this number appearing every six months) beginning in January 2006.  Each author will be subject to peer review and revision before publication.  The advantage of online publication is that authors will be published as soon as all revision stages are complete, rather than having to wait years before appearing with others (in a numerical sequence) in a hard copy volume.  When all 856 authors are online, in approximately ten years' time, hard copy volumes will be produced.

As editor-in-chief, I have assigned 830 of the 856 fragmentary authors to almost 100 scholars in 16 countries.  Delivery dates of authors range from December 2004 to August 2012.  I have 26 lesser (and briefer) authors that still need to be assigned, and so this is a general call for anyone qualified to work on the following:

445 Demognetos; 446 Jason; 447 Posidippos; 738 Eustochios; 744 Anon; 745 Eratosthenes; 747 Antiochos; 751 Androkles; 752 Asklepiades; 753 Kreon; 754 Timomachos; 755 Xenophon; 756 Demetrios; 757 Paean; 758 Anon; 763 Hesianax; 764 Anon; 766 Menippos; 777 Demetrios; 778 Nikostratos; 791 Zeno; 794 Anon; 847 Anon; 849 Anon; 852 Demetrios; 855 Anon

Please contact me directly if you would like to work on any of the above.

Ian Worthington (Editor-in-Chief, BNJ)
WorthingtonI@missouri.edu

... seen on the Classicists list

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 5:04:18 AM::
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8.00 p.m. |HINT|  Secrets of Archaeology: Greek Cities in Italy
Nearly 2,800 years ago, a group of Greek settlers landed on the coast of Italy, an event that marked the start of the process that created Magna Graecia--(Latin for Greater Greece)--Greek colonization of Southern Italy and Sicily. Explore the computer-recreated streets of the original Greek colonies as we walk through Cumae, Pasteum, Puteoli, and Neapolis, reconstructed using the most advanced computer graphics.

9.00 p.m. |HISTC|Great Fire of Rome
In the early hours of July 19, 64 A.D, fire broke out in Rome. More than one million people ran for their lives as flames devoured their homes. The fire raged for more than a week. For centuries, questions surrounding the fire have remained unanswered. What—or who—started this raging inferno? This program takes viewers back to ancient times in search of definitive explanations.

10.00 p.m. |HINT|  Time Team: Cirencester
Around 1,700 years ago, Corinium--modern day Cirencester--was the second-most important city in Roman Britain after Londinium. By about 300 AD, it had developed into a bustling, wealthy city. Time Team was drawn to Cirencester by the opportunity to excavate in the gardens of a number of properties near the center of old Corinium. Though it has been said that you can't put a shovel into the ground in Cirencester without unearthing Roman relics, Time Team adds their 2-spades worth!

HINT = History International

HISTC = History Television (Canada)

::Wednesday, March 09, 2005 4:58:51 AM::
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