®

A publication of the American Philological Association Vol. 6 • Issue 1 • Spring 2007

THE MINOAN TSUNAMI, PART I Film Review: 300 by James P. Rooney by Monica S. Cyrino

ne of the ways humans attempt he film 300, Warner Bros.’ brawny and Oto understand momentous Tcompelling new addition to the genre of events is to see if they have any modern films about the ancient world, precedent. Not long after the first takes its name from the number of Spartan reports of the devastating tsunami that warriors who, led by their king Leonidas, originated on December 26, 2004 off the west coast of Sumatra, the press held the narrow pass on the northern started to look for other tsunamis equal- Greek coast at Thermopylae against the ly as destructive. In Indonesia, you need massive forces of the Persian army led by look no further than 1883 when the King Xerxes in 480 B.C. (see Fig. 2). On eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait the film’s opening day (March 9, 2007), I between Sumatra and Java cost 36,000 joined about the same number of students people their lives, most of them killed by tsunamis. In the more distant past, from my epic film class at the local cinema 3,500 years ago, similarly powerful where the audience was filled with boister- tsunamis may have struck in the Aegean ous fans. Sea, as reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. The film is based on 300, the graphic noted: novel by Frank Miller and colorist Lynn Var- ley (published in 1999). Miller was Roughly three centuries before the Trojan War, the Santorini volcano, 200 Fig. 1. Detail of fresco of life-sized inspired by the earlier epic film, The 300 times as powerful as the Mount St. papyrus plants from Room 1 of the Spartans (1962), directed by Rudolph House of the Ladies (ca. 1500 B.C.). Helens explosion, sent waves hun- Maté. When he first saw the film as a boy, dreds of feet high across the Mediter- Found in the excavations at Akrotiri, ranean, devastating Crete, capital of Santorini. Miller recalls: “I stopped thinking of heroes the Minoan empire, its fleet and its as being the people who got medals at the ash on Santorini (see Fig. 1), the evi- coastal cities. Fatally weakened, the end or the key to the city and started think- empire was conquered by the Myce- dence remaining of any tsunamis associ- ing of them more as the people who did naeans of the Greek mainland. (The ated with the eruption of Santorini’s New York Times, January 2, 2005) volcano is sparse, sometimes microscop- the right thing and damn the conse- ic. In the absence of any written records, quences” (Lev Grossman, “The Art of McNeil repeats a well-known and researchers have relied on pottery War,” Time, March 12, 2007, 60). The remarkable theory to explain the shards, buried volcanic ash, shell historical battle of Thermopylae, one of the destruction of the Minoan civilization fragments, and tree rings. by a volcanic eruption on Santorini continued on page 2 continued on page 4 (ancient Thera), an island sixty miles Book and Audio Review: PAKISTAN’S PESHAWAR MUSEUM, HOME north of Crete in the Aegean Sea. But “Mater Anserina” ...... 3 OF GRECO-BUDDHIST TREASURES, after the passage of so much time, how CELEBRATES ITS CENTENNIAL...... 12 can we know if it is true? Immediately “From Gatekeeper to Gateway”: Progress in the APA's Campaign Book Review: “Empire of Ashes” ...... 15 afterward, it was all too easy to see the for Classics...... 5 horrific destruction wrought by the Book Review: “Heroes: Saviours, THE HOPI MYTH “FIELD MOUSE Traitors, and Supermen”...... 16 tsunami of December 26, but with time, GOES TO WAR” AND THE WORLD OF that will no longer be so. Some of the GREEK EPIC ...... 6 APA Comic Contest: Thai resorts hit by the tsunami Ceres in Chicago ...... 17 “ORBIS GRAMMATICUS: PARTIUM reopened quickly. Now two years later, GRAMMATICARUM EXPLORATIO”...... 8 Book Review: “The Orchard many towns, roads, and bridges Book of First Greek Myths”...... 18 throughout the region have been Inside A PLUM EATER AMONG THE GOPHERS: TEACHING CLASSICS FIFTY YEARS NICOLAUS HUSSOVIANUS: rebuilt. After 3,500 years, despite the AGO IN MINNESOTA...... 10 HUNTING THE LITHUANIAN BISON ...... 20 excavation of numerous Minoan-era sites on Crete and the discovery of Ask a Classicist...... 11 Did You Know ...... 21 Akrotiri, a town buried under volcanic Guidelines for contributors ...... 24 THE MINOAN TSUNAMI, PART I continued from page 1

The theory that the Santorini erup- central Crete survived but showed evi- Before erupting, the volcano on tion devastated Crete and the Minoan dence that the Mycenaean Greeks had Krakatoa was one-half-mile high and civilization came not from an examina- taken over (see Fig. 2). the volcano on Santorini twice that. tion of the physical evidence that Sir Arthur Evans, who discovered Afterwards, little was left of either remains of the eruption but from an and excavated Knossos beginning in mountain except a deep, watery caldera analogy made in 1939 between the San- 1900, thought an earthquake was the where the volcano once stood. Having torini and Krakatoa eruptions by Spyri- culprit. Knossos had previously been read the official account of the Krakatoa don Marinatos, who later served as destroyed by a quake in 1700 B.C. and eruption by engineer Rogier Verbeek Director of the Greek Archaeological shows extensive rebuilding occasioned for the Dutch colonial government, Service. What was known at the time by minor quakes. Marinatos was skepti- Marinatos knew that, during the erup- was that the idyllic existence of the cal that a quake wiped out the entirety tion, a series of tsunamis, some as much Bronze Age Minoans came to an appar- of eastern Crete because, historically, as ninety feet high, broke on the coasts ently abrupt end in the Late Minoan earthquakes on Crete tend to have a of Java and Sumatra and swept miles period when the palaces and settle- more localized impact. So he turned his inland destroying villages and lives. ments in eastern Crete were destroyed attention to the nearby island of Santori- Marinatos thought the consequences to and abandoned. The main palace at ni and to Krakatoa, thousands of miles Crete from the Santorini eruption must Knossos (Gnosos on the map) in north to the east. have been worse, in part simply because

Map by Richard A. LaFleur and Tom Elliott. Copyright 2000-2001, Ancient World Mapping Center: http://www.unc.edu/awmc

This map may be reproduced and redistributed for non-profit educational and personal purposes only. The authorship, copyright and redistribution notices may not be removed from the map or altered.

Fig. 2. Ancient Greece and the Aegean. 2 the Santorini eruption was larger – it immediate, interest in Marinatos’ theo- Book and Audio Review: created a caldera four times larger than ry. Not until the 1960’s did Marinatos the caldera left by Krakatoa’s volcano. get around to excavating at a selected Mater Anserina But for all the havoc Marinatos attrib- site, Akrotiri, a Minoan town on the by Diane Johnson uted to tsunamis, he recognized that southern shore of Santorini. By then, he wave impact on Crete would have been was not alone. Given the extraordinary Milena Minkova and Terence Tunberg. limited to the coastal plain. With Crete possibility that a volcanic eruption Mater Anserina: Poems in Latin for Children criss-crossed by three mountain ranges brought an advanced civilization to its with accompanying audio CD. Focus Pub- each 6,000 feet high or more, the knees, it is not surprising that the sub- lishing (http://www.pullins.com), 2006. Minoan palaces and towns of the interi- ject has attracted the attention of or would have been beyond the reach of archaeologists, geologists, and volcanol- Pp. 68. Hardcover $24.95. ISBN 978-1- any tsunami. The eruption on Krakatoa, ogists worldwide, much of it encouraged 58510-193-1. however, offered other destructive pos- by Marinatos and his successor at the sibilities. Ash spewed forth from the Akrotiri excavation, Christos Doumas, his slender volume, which has the sturdi- volcano on Krakatoa, turning day into who organized three conferences in ly bound cover and the bright, simply night for one hundred miles around, and 1969, 1978, and 1989 to discuss the T the blast from the explosion cracked implications of the Santorini eruption. drawn illustrations of a book intended for walls to that distance as well. Marinatos After persistent scientific scrutiny, children, contains twenty-eight English hypothesized that, similarly, a “rain of some of Marinatos’ contentions have poems rendered into Latin. Each original mud and ashes, some cold, some blazing been rejected. The ash that fell on English text is set out with its Latin version and burning” struck Crete. And to finish Crete was cold, not hot – the ash did not facing. Below the Latin text is “a list of it off, a series of earthquakes occurred. even burn wood in the houses excavat- words that the reader may not remember The Minoans were dealt an “irreparable ed at Akrotiri – and any earthquakes blow,” in Marinatos’ view, from the ash associated with the eruption on Santori- immediately” (Preface). Attached to the fall, tsunamis, and then earthquakes, ni were too weak to ruin buildings on inside back cover is a CD containing per- and “from then onwards declined and Crete. Other contentions have been formances, by vocalist William du Cassé sank into decadence,” leading to the reworked. Marinatos’ rough comparison and by the authors, of all of the lyrics in the takeover of the island by the Myce- of the size of the Krakatoa and Santorini collection: some are sung, others recited. naeans. calderas does not quite fit because a In their preface, Minkova and Tunberg Marinatos explained his theory in a portion of the Santorini caldera was cre- 1939 article in the English periodical ated in an earlier eruption. Nonetheless, describe their intended audience: Antiquity (13: 52, 425-439). At the time, volcanologists still think the Santorini the only archaeological evidence he had eruption was the more powerful of the We not only hope that the Latin texts will to support it came from the ruins of two. provide delight, especially for the many Amnisos, a harbor town north of Knos- Although skepticism abounds, some people deeply familiar with the English sos. A pit in the lower levels of a build- evidence, but not unequivocal proof, songs since childhood, but will also help ing near the shore was full of pumice, has been found in favor of Marinatos’ students of Latin develop their sense of the and at a villa further inland, foundation theory. Take the ash fall, for instance. accentuation of Latin words. (1) blocks facing the water were missing Exploration of the eastern Mediter- while the same type of blocks perpendi- ranean has turned up some ash deposits With this in mind, we must re-evaluate the cular to the shore were bowed unusual- to the southeast of Santorini, in the collection’s subtitle, Poems in Latin for Chil- ly. Marinatos concluded that a tsunami direction of the wind that prevails there dren. Mater Anserina does indeed contain washed away the upper levels of the during the late summer and fall. Ash poems in Latin for children; the question of building near the shore along with the blown in this direction would have fall- foundation blocks of the villa that faced en mainly on eastern Crete. This would who these children are, and of how these the shore; then, the receding tsunami be consistent with damage to that part poems are pragmatically to be pulled out of line the sides of the foun- of the island alone. But the latest find- approached, is not addressed. My own dation perpendicular to the shore. A ings suggest that ash fell mostly to the feeling is that readers must become as chil- tsunami would not explain the presence east of Santorini. Ten inches or more of dren in order fully to appreciate Mater of pumice in the lower level of the ash fell on islands in this direction. On Anserina and must introduce these verses to building near shore, however, because a Crete, at most four inches, and probably tsunami, so powerful when it strikes the more like two inches, fell on the eastern Latin students as older children to younger shore, is only a few feet high in the tip of the island, while near Knossos, or as parents to toddlers in the ancient oral open ocean and could not have carried less than an inch fell. According to the tradition of transmission. floating pumice from Santorini to Crete. U. S. Department of Agriculture, four or I can attest to the delight the Latin verses Marinatos thought the pumice floated to more inches of ash can bury topsoil suf- convey. They are undeniably and irre- Crete after the eruption and was ficiently to make it sterile for years, but sistibly charming, for their charm taps the deposited in the ruined building by a two inches may or may not have an subsequent storm. impact on crops, depending on their very source Mother Goose had accessed: The editors of Antiquity, noting the maturity and depending on whether simple, strong rhythms and end-rhymes. dearth of evidence, took the unusual rain, which frequently accompanies Each Latin version replicates the accentual step of commenting at the end of the eruptions, compacts or washes the ash pattern and does its best to retain the sylla- article that “the main thesis of this arti- away, thereby decreasing the risk of ble count of the original. Here is “Hickory cle requires additional support from harm. Also critical is whether the ash dickory dock” with the stress accents of the excavation at selected sites.” Little did is acidic and scorches the crops. It is Latin lines provided by the authors. they appreciate the intense, if not continued on page 14 3 continued on page 23 Film Review: 300 continued from page 1 Sword,” Entertainment Weekly, March 16, 2007, 38). Women viewers may respond to the film because 300 overturns the typi- cal convention of epic films by showcasing a strong female lead character. Queen Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, played by British actress Lena Headey, gets a more promi- nent role in the film than in the graphic novel (see Fig. 3). Over Miller’s initial objection – “this is a boys’ movie,” he said – Snyder and his wife, Deborah (who is also his producing partner) decided to aug- ment the queen’s role, believing that “Leonidas needed something specific to fight for and female ticket-buyers needed someone to identify with” (Daly, 38). 300 introduces Gorgo as a political and sexual equal to Leonidas: her prominence in the film accords well with the fact that Herodotus mentions Gorgo by name in two anecdotes that emphasize her morality and Fig. 3. Gorgo (Lena Headey), right; intelligence (The Histories 5.51 and most heroic moments in Greek history, is Leonidas (Gerard Butler), center; and the recounted by Herodotus (The Histories Spartan fighter known as “Captain” (Vin- 7.239). Early in the film, she joins her hus- 7.176-239), and the Spartans’ ultimate sac- cent Regan) speak to a messenger (Peter band to meet the Persian envoy and nods rifice is commemorated in the epigram by Mensah) in 300 (Warner Bros., 2007). her stern approval before Leonidas kicks the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos (556- him into a pit. Later in bed together, Gorgo 469 B.C.): “Go tell the Spartans, passerby: scenes are edited in slow-to-fast motion encourages her husband to take on the sui- that here, by Spartan law, we lie.” Miller technique, with computer-generated blood cidal task of warding off the Persians and lifts this and other memorable lines directly gushing from impaled torsos and severed then shares an erotic sequence with him from the ancient Greek sources. For exam- heads. The result is a stunning virtual recre- that is atypical of the Hollywood epic film ple, when ordered by the Persians to hand ation of this authentic yet highly idealized genre for its length and explicitness. Stand- over their weapons, the Spartan king moment in history when a band of Spartan ing in a shoulder-high field of wheat, an Leonidas says, “Come and take them,” a warriors refused to surrender their freedom emotionally-charged epic film site ever line from Plutarch (Spartan Sayings and so saved the Greek-speaking world. since Maximus ran his fingers through the 225c.11); or when the Persians warn that With so much visual artifice, the only golden stalks in Gladiator,Gorgo speaks their mass of arrows will blot out the sun- “real” thing in the film is the well-toned the famous “with your shield or on it” line light, a Spartan officer gives the reply, physical presence of the actors. As the to the departing Leonidas. The film also “Then we will fight in the shade” noble King Leonidas, Scottish actor Gerard adds a new subplot for the queen: after (Herodotus, The Histories 7.226). Butler is leonine and somber as he growls Leonidas leaves to confront the Persians, Just as Miller draws on the Greek his famous battlefield one-liners through his Gorgo fights off the corrupt politician sources, so also director and co-screen- bronze face-mask. While the Spartans most Theron (Dominic West), who extorts sex writer Zack Snyder follows Miller’s stirring likely did not fight wearing just long, red from her in exchange for his support of the narrative, images, and dialogue closely as capes and leather briefs, their bare abdom- war. Gorgo stirs excitement with her subse- he recreates the graphic novel’s austere inal muscles rippling with every sword quent appearance in the Spartan council aesthetic vision in his high-concept film. thrust, the producers chose to stay true to hall, where her act of revenge on Theron is Snyder skillfully employs bluescreen technol- the graphic novel’s pictorial vision. Snyder the signature applause moment of the film. ogy in filming the actors, then computer also wanted to create a film that would The film has also drawn attention for the technicians fill in the background imagery attract an audience beyond the young male way it seems to tap into current debates and digitally shade every frame in intense fan base of the graphic novel: “The buff, about the American role in the Middle East, hues of smoke and metal. For anyone who largely unclad Spartans are also the pro- though the filmmakers unequivocally dis- thought Gladiator (2000) and Troy (2004) ducers’ main hope of getting anyone other avow any political subtext to the film. More- did not have enough violence and sex for than straight men to see 300” (Grossman, over, the modern Greeks and Persians (now their tastes, 300 will be much more to their 61). After test screenings, the producers Iranians) have registered their reactions. liking. The film is spectacularly violent, but were astonished to discover that the film The Iranian government decried the film as the violence reveals a heavy dose of post- engaged female audiences to an extraordi- “insulting” to its civilization, calling it Matrix cinematic stylization: the battle nary degree (Steve Daly, “Double-Edged “psychological warfare” against its people 4 “From Gatekeeper to Gateway” (“Iran Condemns Hollywood War Epic,” Progress in the APA’s Campaign for Classics BBC News online, March 3, 2007), and banned it from its theaters. Some Greeks As Amphora readers know, the APA has received an extraordinary Challenge have been troubled by the film’s presenta- Grant of $650,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Cam- tion of “pompous interpretations and one- paign for Classics in the 21st Century. The Association has embarked on this campaign to generate the resources necessary to develop the next generation of dimensional characters,” though one Greek educational and research resources and to involve a wider public in the work of film critic offers a voice of reason: “This is classics scholars. You can obtain information about the campaign, follow its not a university lecture, it’s a movie” progress, and make a donation yourself on the APA web site: http://www.apaclas- ("Greek Critics Lash Hollywood’s Ancient sics.org/campaign/campaign.html. Epic 300,” International Herald Tribune online, March 8, 2007). Recent progress in the campaign includes: To be sure, the film and the graphic • Former Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, a classics major at Dartmouth, has novel engage in the kind of politics of repre- agreed to join Michael Putnam as Co-Chair of the Campaign Committee. sentation that would have been familiar to • Former Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland and his wife, Christine, a classics teacher Greeks in the early fifth century. Soon after for many years in Baltimore, have also become Co-Chairs. 480 B.C., the Battle of Thermopylae was mythologized in Greek art and literature as • At the request of Ed and Betsy Cohen, the Arete Foundation has recently pledged a donation of $100,000. This is the first “six-figure” gift received by the Campaign, an epic showdown between manly, free- and we are grateful to the Cohens for the leadership they have shown with this dom-loving Greeks and the enslaved hordes contribution. of effete Asian tyrants. As ancient historian • The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation has made a $40,000 grant that will permit Victor Davis Hanson notes: “The Greeks the APA to expand the Minority Summer Scholarship program. We thank the themselves often embraced such impression- Delmas Foundation trustees for their support of this important work. istic adaptation” in their vase-paintings and dramatic plays (“Viewers Still Get the Right • The APA has received over $300,000 in pledges and about $75,000 in partial and in some cases complete fulfillment of these pledges, and these funds are being invested. Message in Dramatized 300,” syndicated column, March 25, 2007). • The first deadline for claiming matching funds from the National Endowment for One of the film’s more controversial rep- the Humanities was January 31, and the gifts described above made it easy for the Association to claim and receive the full amount offered by the Endowment for the resentations is that of the Persian king, Xerxes. first year of the challenge grant ($10,000). Although he is not described in the historical sources, from ancient relief images we can surmise that the king probably wore a long caps with long ear-coverings, and the depic- was stunned by the magnitude of the Spar- beard and sat on his throne away from the tions of Greek warriors with their arms and tan victory” (Josh Rottenberg, “The Con- front lines of battle. Yet Miller portrays Xerx- legs bared in “heroic nudity,” images that quering Heroes,” Entertainment Weekly, es as a hairless giant who gets in Leonidas’ may have resonated with an ancient Greek March 23, 2007, 27). Viewers should face and demands submission, and Snyder audience just as they do with modern movie- keep in mind, however, that 300 is not a follows suit to intensify the threat: “What’s goers. Such images in the film are intended documentary: it is a film based on a graph- more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a to encourage the viewing audience to identi- ic novel based on an earlier epic film that giant god-king who wants to have his way fy with the Spartan hero-protagonists, a was based on a historical account of a with you?” (Daly, 38). In the film, Brazilian common strategy of the modern epic war. Ultimately the film 300 challenges the actor Rodrigo Santoro plays Xerxes as a film.Yet the most sinister character in the film viewer to engage with modern adaptations sexually-ambiguous figure, covered in jewel- is not the gold-pierced Xerxes but rather of the ancient past, especially the films and ry, with dark eyeliner and long fingernails. Theron, the Spartan traitor who calls himself graphic novels that render antiquity so By showing multiple piercings on his body, “a political realist.” Theron represents the vividly imaginable, so we may continue to the film offers a visual signal of his corrup- true outrage in this beautiful, surrealistic understand and define our ever-shifting con- tion that would have been familiar to the world where three-hundred near-legendary temporary relationship to the ancient world. ancients, since the definition of a Greek citi- warriors made a valiant last stand for the zen male was the impenetrability of his concepts of duty, honor, and glory. Monica S. Cyrino ([email protected]) is body (most recently: Marilyn B. Skinner, The story of the Battle of Thermopylae is Professor of Classics at the University of Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture as awesome as any in history, and 300 New Mexico. She is the author of Big [2005], 7). The Spartans, on the other does an exceptional job of offering a rous- Screen Rome (2005) and has published hand, exhibit unpainted skin that is smooth ing, spectacular-looking recreation of the several articles on classics and popular cul- but for battle scars. These contrasting tale. When the film reaped a record-break- ture. She is currently editing a collection of images bring to mind the distinct visual con- ing $71 million on its opening weekend, essays on the HBO-BBC series, Rome (forth- trast presented in Greek vase paintings with the largest-ever box-office total in coming from Blackwell, 2008). between Persians with their elaborate cloth- March history and the third-highest for any ing, including highly patterned leggings and R-rated film, one critic noted: “The industry 5 THE HOPI MYTH FIELD MOUSE GOES TO WAR AND THE WORLD OF GREEK EPIC by T. Davina McClain

hat do the story of a dirty little Hopi text; and now-renowned Hopi (1971, 451), one recently put forward Wfield mouse and the epics of artist Fred Kabotie, who illustrated the again by Richard Janko (Classical Quar- Homer have in common? The story (see Fig. 4). The genesis of the terly 48 [1998], 1-13), that the versions of works of Joseph Campbell and David recording of Field Mouse appears to be the Homeric epics which have come Leeming, in particular, have shown that the Bureau’s response to a report in down to us were performances given for similarities exist among the myths of 1938 detailing its failure to provide serv- someone whose purpose it was to write different cultures. Although these writ- ices for American Indians (as required down these works, we find a situation ers are not without their critics, their by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act). that closely approximates the way Field works chronicle many examples of strik- As part of its mission to improve educa- Mouse Goes to War became a written text. ingly similar images and archetypes (the tion, the Bureau began publishing writ- After the Indian Reorganization Act of hero, the trickster, older women with ten versions of Hopi stories in English 1934, which stopped the official system- magical powers, and others) in the and Hopi as a means for teaching Eng- atic destruction of Native American cul- myths of cultures from around the lish. Currently available editions of the ture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs began world. For those more familiar with the text offer both English-only (Kiva Press, to ask the Native Americans to tell their myths of the Greeks, learning about the 2000) and bilingual (English and Hopi stories so that they could be written stories of non-Greco-Roman cultures in side-by-side columns, Filter Press, down. Thus, just as the Greek singer can provide new insight into the Greek 1999) versions. The story itself is about was asked to “tell” the Iliad to someone myths through comparison and contrast 2,500 words (English), with thirteen full who wrote it down, so also someone was and provide an opportunity for a new pages of illustrations. asked to tell this story so that it could be understanding of other ancient and An unknown narrator begins by say- recorded. How this process may have modern cultures. ing that the story is not an old one and affected the translation of the English One Hopi story, Field Mouse Goes to that it happened in a specific place, in version we have is unclear. (The exis- War, offers just such an opportunity. the Hopi village of Mischongnovi, (a tence of the Hopi version will allow The Hopi live in northeastern Arizona key Hopi village on Second Mesa) when other scholars the opportunity to exam- on the Hopi Indian Reservation, an area the villagers’ chickens – a recent addi- ine that question.) that surrounds and includes First Mesa, tion to their food resources – began to What else does Field Mouse Goes to Second Mesa, and Third Mesa, on disappear. (Chickens were brought from War share with Greek epics like the which the Hopi live in long-established Europe to North and South America in Iliad and Odyssey? First, the Greek gods, villages. The Hopi trace their ancestry the 1500’s.) The people had become goddesses, and heroes of the epics have to the Anasazi, the inhabitants of better very proud of their chickens, so their epithets: owl-eyed Athena, white- known sites such as Mesa Verde and although they had plenty of other food, armed Hera, swift-footed Achilles. The Chaco Canyon, and archaeological exca- they worried only about the chickens mouse (homichi) too has his epithet – vations document the Hopi presence in and talked as if the people would soon tusan (dirty). Since “dirty” is not a par- Arizona to A.D. 500. The Hopi have a starve without them. ticularly appealing description, the rich mythology about the origins of their Then they discovered that a hawk translator appears to have chosen to people, the traditions of different clans, living above the village on Corn Rock (a leave it out in all but three occasions: he and a wide variety of individual charac- place sacred to the Hopi and near is called a “dirty little field mouse” once ters. Although scholars have explored Mischongnovi) was taking the chickens. by the Chief, when he reports the offer the Hopi stories of their origin and the Everyone – the men, women, and chil- of help to the Crier (25), and twice by stories of the Hopi trickster figure, the dren – knew that they must kill the the people who doubt his ability to kill coyote, Field Mouse has not received any hawk, but no one knew how. Tusan the hawk (30 and 56). Thus, although attention, perhaps because it was not Homichi (Hopi for “Dirty Mouse”), Greek epithets tend to be complimenta- included in either of the two early col- who lived on the south side of the vil- ry or neutrally descriptive, Tusan lections of Hopi mythology compiled by lage, heard the fears of the people and Homichi’s epithet – at least to an Eng- H. R. Voth (Traditions of the Hopi, 1905) felt sorry for them. He decided he lish-speaking audience – casts him in a and Edmund Nequatewa (Truth of a would kill the hawk for the people. He negative light. Hopi, 1936). Field Mouse, therefore, pro- went to the Chief of the village and Second, the Greek poems display vides a wonderful new opportunity for asked that the village Crier announce a repetitive language, especially in pas- comparative study of the hero myth in war dance. Although the Crier thought sages in which an envoy is asked to two cultures – Hopi and Greek – and a the Chief was crazy or perhaps that the deliver a message in the Iliad (for exam- chance to ponder the affinities between mouse knew some magic, he carried out ple, Zeus’ command to Agamemnon at geographically and chronologically dis- the request. After Tusan Homichi suc- 2.11-15 repeated in a dream at 2.28-32; tant traditions. ceeded in killing the hawk, the people Agamemnon’s message for Achilles at Field Mouse Goes to War (Tusan honored him. 9.122-157 repeated by Odysseus at Homichi Tuwvöta, in Hopi) was originally For those familiar with the Greek 9.264-299; and Zeus’ message for published by the Bureau of Indian epics, Field Mouse Goes to War offers the Achilles at 24.113-116 repeated by Affairs in 1944 as the joint project of Dr. opportunity for a useful comparison. If Thetis at 24.134-137). The rhythmic, Edward Kennard, the translator; Albert we accept the argument of Milman repetitive nature of the language of Yava, a Tewa-Hopi who provided the Parry in The Making of Homeric Verse Field Mouse Goes to War, especially when 6 the story is read aloud, begins to feel prepares for a single fight. ration that the hawk will not be able to familiar to those who have also read That Field Mouse Goes to War is about kill him, even though it kills chickens and Homer. When the mouse tells the Chief war at all makes it unusual among Hopi rabbits, is meant to draw his opponent what to announce, the Chief repeats his myths: as a rule the Hopi are a peace- into his trap: “The hawk kills chickens. words to the Crier in essentially the oriented nation (their name comes from The hawk kills rabbits. But the hawk same form (24-27), and the elements of Hopituh Shi-nu-mu, “peaceful people”) won’t kill Tusan Homichi. Monster Hawk the announcement are repeated while whose myths focus on creation, sexuali- will surely die” (48). the people make preparations (30). ty, or the coyote (a trickster figure). As Sixth, there is defeat by cunning. Third, one of the hallmarks of Richard Erdoes (a scholar and compiler When the hawk finally does attack, he Homeric society is the importance of of Native American myths) has pointed swoops low along the ground to seize the guest-host relationship. In The out in American Indian Myths and Legends the mouse, but instead he kills himself Stranger’s Welcome (1993), Steve Reece (1984), the “Southwestern desert peo- by slicing his neck on a sharp stick that details a pattern of hospitality in ple have traditionally been too peaceful Tusan Homichi has pushed up through Homer’s poems (6-7). There are many to generate a large body of war myths, the ground. This trick likens the mouse elements of interaction between the though some tales of Apache and Nava- to Odysseus who defeats the Trojans guest and host in the Greek poems, but jo raids do exist” (246). That Field Mouse with the horse and uses his cleverness three acts are constant: first, the guest is Goes to War does explore a battle may be and a sharp stick to defeat the Cyclops, offered food; then, guest and host share attributed in part to the late date of its Polyphemus (Odyssey 9.315-99). an after-dinner drink; then, the host creation, after the coming of Europeans Seventh and finally, just as Greek questions the visitor. There are clear and after the introduction of chickens. warriors earn rewards in the form of similarities between the Greek process spoils or armor or slaves (especially of receiving a guest and that of the Hopi women) for valor in battle, the people of in Field Mouse Goes to War. When Tusan Mishongnovi honor Tusan Homichi for Homichi comes to the Chief’s home, defeating the hawk: the Chief and Crier and when the Chief goes to the Crier, present him with prayer sticks, prayer their interactions reveal a set of rituals feathers, and sacred corn meal, and and rules very similar to those in Home- sprinkle him with medicine water; and ric society: first, food is offered to the the women bring all sorts of food to the guest and the guest eats; then, the door of his home. Although there are tobacco brought by the guest is smoked; certainly differences between the Hopi then, the guest answers the host’s ques- world of Field Mouse Goes to War and the tions. Interestingly enough, Tusan Greek world of the Iliad and Odyssey, Homichi is more careful about guest- these points of comparison give Tusan host propriety than the Chief: the Chief Homichi a place in the heroic tradition. begins to question Tusan Homichi Field Mouse Goes to War deserves more before they have smoked, but the study in its own right, especially for what mouse brings out his tobacco and pipe it may reveal about a later stage of Hopi and agrees to talk only after they have culture and storytelling. For those inter- shared the tobacco. ested in Greek epic, this Hopi story Fourth, both the Iliad and Field Mouse offers valuable parallels for what can Goes to War include detailed arming seem a complicated and foreign world. scenes as an essential part of preparation Fig. 4. The cover of Field Mouse Goes to Especially for students coming to the for battle. In the four arming scenes in War features Tusan Homichi, the mouse Iliad or the Odyssey for the first time, the Iliad (Paris at 3.328-338, Agamem- warrior brought to life by Hopi artist reading and discussing Field Mouse non at 11.15-55, Patroclus at 16.130-154, Fred Kabotie, dancing his war dance to beforehand can serve as a way to intro- and Achilles at 19.364-424), the warriors lure the hawk to his trap. Used with the duce key elements of the epic and heroic begin with the greaves and move up the permission of Doris Baker, Filter Press. world. For anyone who loves the story of body, ending with placing the helmet on a hero, Field Mouse Goes to War is a won- their heads as the final part of the war- Fifth, there is the boasting of the war- derful tale that can provide a starting rior’s preparation. The warrior then goes rior. In the battle between the mouse and point for the exploration of Hopi culture right into battle. In comparison, Tusan the hawk, the mouse dances and sings and the world of the Greek epic. Homichi begins by tying eagle feathers songs to anger the hawk – something sim- on his head and moves down his body as ilar to the boasts that Homeric warriors T. Davina McClain (mcclaind@ he dresses for battle. He does not go offer. Aeneas boasts that, if he had hit nsula.edu) is Associate Professor of Classics immediately into battle, but rather the Meriones, he would be dead (Iliad 16.617- and Director of the Louisiana Scholars’ Col- narrator tells us that the mouse “sat 618); Meriones responds that Aeneas is lege at Northwestern State University in down and thought about his songs. mortal and will die if Meriones strikes him Natchitoches, Louisiana. She earned her Dressed like a real warrior, he thought (16.620-625). Euphorbus boasts to Ph.D. in Classical Studies from Indiana like a real warrior” (40). This contempla- Menelaus that he was the first to strike University. Her publications include articles tion is possible because of the time Patroclus (17.12-17); Menelaus responds on the Roman historian Livy and the between preparation and battle, which that he will send Euphorbus’ shield and Graphic Greek Grammar (Bolchazy-Car- for Tusan Homichi is preceded by feast- head to his father when he kills him ducci, 2005). She hopes that her Comanche ing and a war dance. Unlike the fighters (17.34-42). In contrast to the Homeric ancestors won’t mind that she wrote about a in the Iliad who are already in the midst boasts, which are aimed at frightening Hopi story. of war, the mouse sits in his home and one’s opponent, Tusan Homichi’s decla- 7 ORBIS GRAMMATICUS: PARTIUM GRAMMATICARUM EXPLORATIO by Christopher Grundke

he following description of the to passing travellers. They are extraordi- Despite their obvious differences, the Tgeography of Orbis Grammaticus narily small and nimble, and therefore Passiva and the Activa reckon them- was obtained from a traveller they often earn their pay by travelling selves as belonging to the same tribe: from our land who was mysteriously and conducting business on behalf of the Indicativa. The two groups never- transported thither in a fashion that he their larger and more ponderous fellow theless rarely intermarry, for such neither understood nor was capable of citizens. unions often give rise to the alarming relating in any intelligible way. He Deponentia and horrifying Hemideponen- reported that he had accidentally TERRA ADJECTIVORUM is found in tia, both of which are compelled to live stepped out of our world by means of a the south of Orbis Grammaticus, between in separate colonies upon maturity. The mirror and lost his way in the land in the two rivers that flow from the Silva Verba are firmly convinced of the exis- which he thereupon found himself. Conjunctionum. The servile inhabitants tence of a transcendent Caelum Subjunc- Apart from hastily drawing a map and of these low-lying plains are entirely tivorum, the abode of the souls of briefly describing the lands of Orbis subject to those who dwell in neighbor- departed Indicativa, to whom they Grammaticus, he would say no more (see ing Terra Nominum and exist only to address their prayers and wishes con- Fig. 5). Not having explored these terri- serve the needs of the Nomina. On occa- cerning things that may come to pass; tories himself, the present author cannot sion, the Adjectiva slip unnoticed into their theology is ill understood and vouch for the truth of all aspects of the their masters’ land, not by means of the remains to be thoroughly examined but account and merely offers it as a curiosi- bridge over which the caravan route is reportedly shot through with elements ty to travellers seeking paths to other passes but over a ramshackle crossing of fear. worlds of enlightenment. far to the south near the Scalae Substan- tivae, a series of natural steps that lead SILVA CONJUNCTIONUM is a dread ❧❧❧ down from the tableland in the south- forest at the very center of the Orbis western extremity of Terra Nominum to Grammaticus, in which are to be found TERRA NOMINUM, perhaps the best the western bank of the river dividing the Conjunctiones, fierce creatures that known of the lands within Orbis Gram- the aforementioned land from Terra exist in bewildering variety. Small trad- maticus, extends from the foothills Adjectivorum. Adjectiva that manage to ing caravans must occasionally travel beneath the Montes Gerundiorum in the infiltrate Terra Nominum usually attempt through the forest or under its eaves, northeast to the river running along its to gain such profit as they may by and when the Conjunctiones discover sev- eastern border with Terra Adjectivorum. impersonating Nomina, until the intoler- eral such caravans passing nearby, they The inhabitants of this territory (called ant Nomina detect their true nature and occasionally venture forth from their Nomina) are solid, down to earth, and deport them back to Terra Adjectivorum dens to coordinate the caravans with imperturbable. They are also sound in chains. each other or subordinate one to anoth- masters of military strategy, having er. This is sometimes quite distressing almost completely subjugated their TERRA VERBORUM, located in the for the travellers in the caravans but neighbors over the river. This country is northeast of Orbis Grammaticus, consists may work to their advantage, as the dotted all over with small settlements of of rolling hill country in the west but newly-linked caravans may be able to related Nomina; the rulers of the country gives way to plains in the east. The accomplish more than they would other- are the Pronomina, who dwell in their Verba, denizens of Terra Verborum, wise have done individually. Caravans own city. The Nomina and the Verba, include horsemen, the Equitantia Activa, nevertheless travel under armed guard who live beyond the Montes Gerundiorum who gallop madly by day and by night whenever possible. Waters descending and the Silva Conjunctionum, are the par- over the countryside on errands of gal- from the Montes Gerundiorum through ties chiefly responsible for organizing lantry best understood by themselves the Silva Conjunctionum are divided into the trade caravans that travel throughout alone. The Activa revel in action, unlike two rivers: one flows southeast through Orbis Grammaticus on the main road, the the Dormientia Passiva, who pass most of the Oppidum Adverbiorum and thereafter Via Mercatoria. The social structure of their lives in slumbrous repose, usually gives rise to the trackless marshes of the the Nomina is a complex class system: rolled into small balls with arms held Palus Participiorum; the other runs various subgroups include the Abstracta, protectively over their heads. The Passi- southwest and divides the plains of the Concreta, the Vulgata, and the Pro- va may be found tucked into hollows in Terra Adjectivorum from the tablelands pria. the hillsides, in which they seek refuge of Terra Nominum. from accidents beneath the hooves of OPPIDUM PRONOMINUM is the great- the Activa, or else in holes that they dig OPPIDUM ADVERBIORUM is a est of the cities in Terra Nominum. Its in the plains. Both the Activa and Passi- bustling merchant city that straddles the residents, called Pronomina, are superior va delight in joining caravans that travel river running between Terra Adjectivo- to the ordinary citizens of the country in throughout Orbis Grammaticus, although rum and Terra Verborum. Its residents, that they are shape-shifters; they may at the Passiva insist on being rolled about Adverbia by name, conduct trade will assume the forms of other Nomina. in barrels by their fellow travellers, between these two lands and also Their city lies close to the caravan route whereas the Activa ride proudly in train, among themselves within their own running through Orbis Grammaticus, sometimes bearing banners of crimson city. Being merchants careful and 8 hence they frequently join themselves and green embroidered with gold. shrewd, the Adverbia founded their city they may serve the Nomina even as the Adjectiva do. The Participia are also wont to creep up the Scalae Substantivae in order to impersonate Nomina (again mimicking the Adjectiva), but they are easily spotted in most of their guises.

MONTES GERUNDIORUM is a range of mountains in the northern portion of Orbis Grammaticus, lying slightly north and west of the Silva Conjunctionum. Were it not for the unhappy fact that these mountains are filled with the lairs of dangerous giants named Gerundia who delight in nothing more than decapitating unwary travellers, all traders in Orbis Grammaticus would hasten thither to mine the various rare ores that may be found hidden in the stones here. As it is, however, the route through the mountains is only infre- quently travelled, and those who pass unscathed through the mountains often have tales of horror and woe to tell. [author’s note: the traveller whispered briefly of an especially fierce sub-variety of giant known as the Gerundiva but then blanched❧❧❧ and fell silent.] No more would the traveller divulge concerning his adventures in Orbis Grammaticus, although much more could doubtless be written by someone suffi- ciently bold to attempt a systematic exploration of these territories. Trav- Fig. 5. Orbis Grammaticus. Courtesy of are by nature somewhat haughty and ellers with greater experience in these Christopher Grundke. therefore unconcerned with the ground realms would assuredly be able to shed dwellers and their affairs. Certain Nomi- light on many obscure matters to which not only on a main waterway but also on na (especially residents of a village only the slightest allusion has been the caravan route. called Accusativum) and Verba, however, made here, yet if this brief account be are said to be capable of summoning of any aid, comfort, or delight to hardy CASTRA PRAEPOSITIONUM is a per- Verba Infinitiva as temporary servants at souls embarking upon such journeys, manent outpost located in the foothills great need; although the Verba Infinitiva the author shall be well satisfied. between Terra Nominum and the Montes are reportedly reluctant to be so com- Gerundiorum. It is inhabited by Praeposi- pelled, they have not found any way of Christopher Grundke (christopher. tiones, mercenaries who occasionally raid freeing themselves from the burden of [email protected]) is an instructor in Hebrew the villages and lesser settlements of this servitude. and occasionally other subjects (including the Nomina, whom they often kidnap Latin) in the Classics Department of Dal- and compel into servitude. Such raids PALUS PARTICIPIORUM is an all but housie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, are generally launched at the behest of impenetrable swamp formed between where he has taught since 2001. He thanks Verba (both Activa and Passiva), who Terra Adjectivorum and Terra Verborum his colleague Dr. Peter O’Brien for the idea reward the Praepositiones for their serv- by one of the two rivers flowing from of the Caelum Subjunctivorum but must ice, but wealthy Adjectiva sometimes the Silva Conjunctionum. As the plains bear the blame for all the rest of Orbis hire the Praepositiones, and even the become more nearly level, the river Grammaticus. Nomina occasionally employ them spreads and becomes not merely a shal- against other Nomina. low river, but a broad marsh, a trackless mire of shifting bogs and quagmires. NUBES INFINITIVORUM are silvery The swamp is inhabited by fierce Par- vaporous masses that may be seen in ticipia, hybrid monsters formed by an the upper atmosphere above Terra Ver- unholy union of Adjectiva and Verba. borum. Within these clouds dwell They partake of the natures of both winged spirits known as Verba Infinitiva, sides of their parentage but tend to which rarely descend to earth, for they favor the Adjectiva side slightly; hence 9 A PLUM EATER AMONG THE GOPHERS: TEACHING CLASSICS FIFTY YEARS AGO IN MINNESOTA by Christopher Arnander

o, No, Mr. Arnander, you Great, but nothing about Xerxes or Mar- “Nare a plum eater and do not cus Aurelius; I translated a big chunk of eat the cake.” With these Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur into Homeric words, Eduard Fraenkel, former Corpus hexameters but hardly knew a line of Professor of Latin at Oxford University, Ovid or Pindar. My students, on the poured cold water on my aspirations to other hand, mostly did not major in clas- devote my life to classical scholarship; sics and were after the big picture, what he thought me, perhaps rightly, too the first President Bush called “the much of a dilettante. It was the summer vision thing.” They wanted an overall of 1956, and I was having tea with him Fig. 6. Garrison Keillor (as himself), left; vision of Greek tragedy or Roman socie- before setting out for a job half way with Meryl Streep (as Yolanda John- ty, illustrated by the work of the great across the world – a one-year instructor- son), center; and Lindsay Lohan (as Lola poets, philosophers, and historians, ship in the Classics Department of the Johnson), right, in A Prairie Home Com- preferably in English translation. The University of Minnesota, home of the panion (Picturehouse, 2006). study of classics was secondary to their Golden Gophers. Norman DeWitt, its major subjects, such as literature, histo- departmental head, was off on a sabbati- because the Soviets brutally crushed ry, and religion. cal, and another pair of hands was need- Hungary’s bid for freedom at the same My three full-time colleagues taught ed to share the teaching load. time. When the Federal Reserve gave a courses well beyond their special sub- For a twenty-three-year-old Brit, it was nod and wink that it would not stop the jects. Bill McDonald had a global repu- a marvellous opportunity. Britain was run on sterling, Britain had to climb tation for his archaeological work in poor, hungry, and gloomy – we had lost an down or face bankruptcy. It was an early Messenia. Donald Swanson was a empire, but not yet found a role, in the example of the sudden power of global learned and entertaining linguist, who words of the American statesman, Dean money flows and a terrible humiliation taught me about glottal stops. Margaret Acheson. America was the land of the free for Britain. The wretched Prime Minis- Forbes was a pioneer who translated and had rescued us in two world wars. It ter, Anthony Eden, was lampooned as a Americana into Latin, thus popularizing was also the land of plenty; I was to be sheep in wolf’s clothing in Punch and classical studies; one of her pupils was paid the princely sum of $4,000 – not bad soon left the scene, his health and repu- Garrison Keillor, Minnesota’s best when I could get a reasonable breakfast at tation in ruins. known, at least to the British, son (see my local diner for a quarter and a pair of Luckily, the Suez crisis was not held Fig. 6). Margaret was an intellectual stout jeans for 99 cents on Hennepin against me, and everybody was most wel- ancestor of the Eton schoolmaster, Peter Avenue, in downtown Minneapolis. coming. The atmosphere was informal Needham, whose Harrius Potter et The journey was truly memorable. and entertaining, though no less scholar- Philosophi Lapis has received rave How can I ever forget standing on the ly for that. One day, a student of mine reviews. Tom Jones was a versatile head deck of the Queen Mary and seeing for appeared in class sporting an “It’s A of Ancient History, who also wrote a the first time, through the dawn mist, Girl” badge and smoking a cigar; smok- splendid book on South America; he the Statue of Liberty, which had wel- ers were not yet treated as moral lepers, was an excellent cellist, with whom I comed so many new Americans over the and my Winston cigarette (subliminally used to enjoy chamber music evenings. years? A Greyhound bus took me to chosen by me for its Churchillian over- Across the lobby, a fast-growing beast Chicago, where I boarded the Burling- tones) cost me far less than a smoke in was nibbling at our turf. This was the ton Zephyr for the Twin Cities; its England. My student was paying his way Humanities Department with its wide- observation car let me take in the Mis- through college by working nights as an ranging interdisciplinary courses. These sissippi meandering through the autum- armed guard in a warehouse; between his courses were popular with students nal landscape. I was soon billeted with hourly routine of punching time-clocks, seeking the big picture and were pre- an elderly lady, a short walk from my he got a lot of reading done. Here was a sented by charismatic lecturers, among office in Folwell Hall; it was quite near big difference from Oxford, where manu- them lions of the American literary the great train marshalling yards, fre- al or clerical work was considered scene, such as Saul Bellow and Allen quented by one of my most enterprising demeaning for scholars. Working one’s Tate. We classics scholars used to mock students, who rode trains with the way through college struck me as very them with snide comments about their hobos from coast to coast, no doubt with practical and character forming; it cer- courses, calling them things like “Eng- Homer’s Iliad in his back pocket. tainly did not stop this student of mine lish Literature: From Beowulf to Vir- I started my new job in the midst of a and many others from going on to distin- ginia Woolf in Eight Hours,” but we presidential election. Soon, I was pitch- guished academic careers. recognised in our heart of hearts that forked into the awkward position of Another difference was in the special- they were trying to do something impor- having to defend my country’s indefen- ist/generalist contrast. My knowledge tant, even if it was a recipe for inter- sible actions: Britain, France, and Israel and skills were profound in a few small departmental friction and there was a had invaded Egypt and seized the Suez corners of classical antiquity. I knew risk of superficial dilettantism. Professor Canal. Universal outrage was the greater almost everything about Alexander the Fraenkel would certainly have deemed 10 continued on page 19 Ask A Classicist

tions about the behavior and biology of the not-terribly-abundant literary sources for Did the ancient Greeks and domestic cat, and Greek physicians recom- Roman cats, we find Pliny the Elder’s accu- QRomans keep cats as pets? mended the use of cat excrement mixed rate description of the way cats silently and with vinegar as an external medicament. patiently stalk birds and mice (Natural His- We also find the domestic cat among the tory 10.94 [202]). Epigraphical evidence creatures described in ancient fables writ- from hundreds of tombstones erected for Dogs were the most beloved of all ten by Aesop and others, both in the barn women from the Western Roman Empire pets among both the Greeks and A (as the bane of chickens) and in the house with Felicla or Felicula (“Kitty”) as cognomi- Romans, but the domestic cat, while not (as a crafty predator of mice). na (nick-names) attests, perhaps, to the exclusively a pet, has probably been, Domestic cats were widely distributed presence of domestic cats and to the popu- according to Donald Engels, of greater beyond Greece in Western Europe by the larity of cats among women in the imperial practical value to human beings. third century B.C. and interbred with local period. The cat was associated with Roman The evidence we have about ancient wildcats. Although it is commonly believed Diana (Greek Artemis), a goddess popular cats (more than one might imagine) indi- that domestic cats came to Italy from Egypt especially among women and connected cates that the ancient Greek and Roman around 30 B.C. after the defeat of Cleopa- with ancient witchcraft. Here we find the domestic cat, and indeed all house cats tra and Antony, evidence from bones and origin, perhaps, of the link between throughout the world, had its origin in Felis Italian coinage indicates that domestic cats women, witches, and cats that led to the sylvestris libyca, the wildcat of Egypt, may have been in Italy much earlier, by the horrible atrocities committed against which was domesticated around 2000 B.C. fifth century B.C., thanks to Greek coloniza- women and their cats from the thirteenth In Egypt, domestic cats (called miu) were tion in southern Italy and to merchant ships through the seventeenth centuries. But that valued for their ability to kill grain-eating that lost their useful rodent killers to the call is another story. and disease-carrying rodents. By killing rats of terra firma. Evidence of Roman domestic For further reading, see Juliet Clutton- and mice, they helped to protect the human cats (called, in Latin, feles, faeles, aelurus, Brock, Cats: Ancient and Modern, 1993; population from starvation and illness. Cats and much later catus, perhaps from the Malcolm Drew Donalson, The Domestic Cat were revered in Egypt and associated with Berber word kaddiska) has been found in in Roman Civilization, 1999; Donald W. Isis and the cat goddess Bastet. Herodotus the imperial period at Roman military sites, Engels, Classical Cats: The rise and fall of wrote that cats were embalmed and buried villas, and towns. The Romans kept domes- the sacred cat, 1999; and J. M. C. Toyn- in sacred receptacles and that, when a cat tic cats as rodent killers, and among the bee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 1973. died a natural death, people sharing the house with it shaved their eyebrows (The Histories 2.66). In Egyptian art, a favorite scene was a cat (wild or feral) hunting water birds. This hunting scene made its way to the Roman world, and we find it on a mosaic from Pompeii (see Fig. 7). Although the Egyptians did not officially export their sacred cat, Greece eventually became the important distribution point for domestic cats into Europe. Domestic cats have been identified on Greek artifacts from as early as the Late Bronze Age. The Greek domestic cat, which was called aielouros and ailouros after its quick-mov- ing (aiolos) tail (oura/orros), was primarily valued for its rodent-killing abilities. Ancient Greek scholars of natural history made careful, and reasonably accurate, observa-

Fig. 7. Cat with bird; Ducks and sea life. Floor mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii. Before A.D. 79. Photo credit: Laura Maish and Bill Storage, from their catalogue of images of ancient Rome at http://www.servius.org/ Pompeii. Used with permission.

11 PAKISTAN’S PESHAWAR MUSEUM, HOME OF GRECO-BUDDHIST TREASURES, CELEBRATES ITS CENTENNIAL by David Pinault

ew buildings have functioned invading Kushans of Central Asia estab- Fsimultaneously as a dance hall and lished control over the area in the first a showcase for exquisite ancient centuries of the Common Era. At that artifacts. Pakistan’s Peshawar Museum time, Gandhara formed part of the Silk has done both (see Fig. 8). When it first Road linking China with Rome. Artisans opened a hundred years ago, the Victo- and craftsmen from the Mediterranean ria Memorial Hall (as it was then called) joined the merchants and other travelers served as a social center for officials and who ventured along this route. soldiers of Britain’s Indian Empire. But In Gandhara, a style of sculpture and it also displayed recently excavated carving evolved that combined the Fig. 9. A grass-cutter offers a sheaf of Greco-Buddhist statues from India’s iconography of the Indian subcontinent mown grass to Siddhartha. Second-third Northwest Frontier. Party-goers could with the canons of Greco-Roman por- century A.D. Donated by the Queen’s pause between dances to admire the traiture. The result: a unique and Hell- Own Corps of Guides, Mardan. massive stone Buddhas and Bod- enized form of Buddhist statuary. hisattvas that lined the walls of the cen- Afghanistan’s Kabul Museum once collection in 2002 and again in 2005, tral ballroom. A second-floor balcony boasted a superb collection of Gandha- when I took time off from my research above the ballroom provided seating ran art. Then came 1996 and the mili- on ritual practices among Pakistan’s reli- that allowed onlookers to admire the tant-Islamist rule of the Taliban. gious minority populations. In touring dancers and sculptures below or gaze Despising Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic the museum’s old ballroom-cum-display upward at the coffered ceiling with its heritage as pagan, Taliban zealots sys- hall, I saw that the explanatory texts intricate leaf-and-flower pattern. The tematically vandalized Kabul’s archaeo- accompanying a number of the objects Indian Empire is gone, and Peshawar is logical holdings. They did the same indicated that many pieces had been now part of Pakistan. But the balcony elsewhere in Afghanistan as well, donated to the museum in the days of and coffered ceiling are still there, as is destroying the colossal cliff-face Bud- the Indian Empire by the Queen’s Own the old ballroom, which is now the main dhas of Bamiyan in March 2001. Corps of Guides. hall of the Peshawar Museum. Luckily, Gandharan art survives else- How the Guides acquired these Today the museum’s collection where, most famously in Pakistan’s objects is a story in itself. The Corps of includes coins, manuscripts, Kashmiri ‘Aja’ib-Gher (“Wonder-House”), other- Guides (the first unit in the British shawls, and folk art from South Asia and wise known as the Lahore Museum. Army to be issued khaki uniforms Iran. But the Peshawar Museum is Anglo-Indian author Rudyard Kipling instead of conspicuous scarlet) was cre- especially known for its Gandharan art – had a special affection for this place – ated in mid-nineteenth century India the largest such collection in the world. his father worked there as curator. In his especially for reconnaissance and “col- The term Gandhara refers to a land that celebrated novel Kim (1901), Kipling lecting trustworthy intelligence beyond, in antiquity extended from Kabul (in described the Lahore Museum’s Gand- as well as within, our borders,” as what is now Afghanistan) to the Indus haran artifacts: “In the entrance-hall reported in Colonel G. J. Younghus- River valley of the Punjab. Gandhara stood the larger figures of the Greco- band’s history, The Story of the Guides formed the heart of the Indo-Greek Buddhist sculptures done, savants know (1908). Captained by British officers, empire ruled by successors of Alexander how long since, by forgotten workmen the Guides recruited tribesmen from the Great, who conquered the region in whose hands were feeling, and not throughout the Northwest Frontier – the fourth century B.C. Later, the unskillfully, for the mysteriously trans- Afridis, Khuttucks, and Yusufzai mitted Grecian touch.” Pathans, among others. The headquar- Less well known, but far more ters of the Guides was situated close to extensive, is the Gandharan col- the old Afghan-Indian border, in the vil- lection at the Peshawar Museum. lage of Mardan – which also happened I had the opportunity to see this to be just a few miles from the ruins of Gandharan sites such as Jamal Garhi, Fig. 8. Exterior and front entrance Takht-i-Bahi, and Shahbaz Garhi. of the Peshawar Museum, con- A number of officers of the Guides structed in 1906. The cupolas and and Royal Engineers chose to use their domes are typical of the Indo- leave-time excavating for Greco-Bud- Saracenic architectural style that dhist artifacts at these sites. Their boy- was in favor in the late Victorian hood education in classical studies and Edwardian eras. Photo Credit endowed them with an enthusiasm for all images on pages 12 and (attested in the memoirs of various offi- 13: David Pinault. Courtesy of Dr. cers serving in India at that time) for Ihsan Ali, Peshawar Museum. any traces of Greco-Roman antiquity 12 they might encounter in the ruins of Also showing influence from the Alexander’s Asian empire. Mediterranean world is a pair of sculpt- Some finds they donated to the ed Buddha portraits, both from Sahri British Museum in London; others Bahlol (a Gandharan site that was exca- found a home in the Guides’ mess hall in vated by the Archaeological Survey of Mardan. There the artifacts shared space India from 1906 to 1926). The forehead with other trophies in the dining room – of one, a pedestal-mounted sculpture heads of ibex and Marco Polo sheep, (see Fig. 10), bears a gouge-mark that banners and swords taken in battle, and once held a gemstone signifying the prizes for triumphs in polo. In his history “third eye” (representing the Buddha’s of the Guides, Colonel Younghusband state of “enlightened perception”). The describes the Mardan dining hall as it facial features of both Sahri Bahlol looked a century ago: “The present mess sculptures, together with the carefully is full not only of historical mementoes, articulated drapery of the second Bud- as is only natural, but also of archaeologi- dha’s garment, however, are reminis- cal treasures.” He goes on to say of the cent of Hellenistic and Roman depic- Gandharan artifacts: tions of the god Apollo (see Fig. 11). The main hall of the Peshawar Muse- The archaeological treasures consist of Fig. 11. Fragmentary statue of the Bud- um is crowded with panels representing sculptures and friezes of Greco-Bud- dha. Second-third century A.D. Sahri scenes from the Buddha’s earthly life. dhist origin, illustrating incidents in Bahlol, North-West Frontier Province. One shows Siddhartha’s father, turbaned the life of Buddha, while the statues Islamic heritage). The only exception: if and shaded by a parasol, leading a pro- represent the life of Gautama and a looter is in the neighborhood and is cession (including an elephant bearing a some of his disciples. Most of these are still in perfect preservation. . . .They ready with cash, the find might survive royal howdah) to welcome his son home were all discovered, many years ago, to appear on the illicit-antiquities mar- after young Siddhartha’s victory in an within a few miles of the mess, and are ket in Peshawar and abroad. In this athletic contest (see Fig. 12). The ele- naturally preserved with the greatest instance then, the Guides’ careful phant and line of celebratory figures care. Savants from even so far afield as preservation of such treasures at Mar- recall Roman artwork depicting the god France, Germany, and America have dan and subsequent donation of the Dionysus and his triumphal march journeyed to see them. artifacts to the Peshawar Museum have through India. Worth noting here is the turned out to be essential to their Nowadays, amateur treasure-hunting of preservation. this sort is illegal. But it might be worth Among the Corps of Guides’ dona- keeping in mind something told me by tions now on display at the Museum is a Pakistani scholars I met in Peshawar. sculpted panel depicting a scene from To this day, many tribesmen and peas- the life of Siddhartha (see Fig. 9). The ants in the North-West Frontier Buddha-to-be, accompanied by his Province still consider it an act of piety, attendant Vajrapani, is on his way to if by chance they unearth a Gandharan Bodhgaya (where he will sit in medita- figurine while plowing fields or planting tion until he attains enlightenment). On crops, to smash the thing at once (after the way he meets a grass-cutter, who all, the Urdu term for idolatry is but- humbly presents a gift to Siddhartha of parasti “Buddha-worship,” a less-than- all he has to offer: a sheaf of mown grass flattering evocation of the region’s pre- (which the Buddha will use as a seat while he meditates). Sculptures such as this, illustrating the stages of Sid- Fig. 12. Panel fragment showing King dhartha’s spiritual evolution, were Suddhodhana leading a procession to meant to be viewed by pilgrims and welcome home his son Siddhartha. other worshippers at public shrines Second-third century A.D. Donated by along Gandhara’s Silk Road. the Queen’s Own Corps of Guides, The Buddhist iconography in this Mardan. work is unmistakable – Siddhartha’s elongated earlobes, his halo and piled- historian Arrian’s remark that when up knot of hair (signifying spiritual Alexander reached Nysa (in the Kabul knowledge). But even more remarkable Valley region, near the present-day are the marks of classical Greco-Roman Afghan city of Jalalabad), his troops took influence: the toga worn by Siddhartha the presence of ivy growing on nearby and the portrayal of Vajrapani. The lat- Mount Merus as an auspicious legacy of ter figure, known as “the Thunderbolt the ecstatic god’s conquest of the region. Wielder,” was revered in the Gandharan On all the occasions I visited, I had era as a chastiser of sinners and protec- the Peshawar Museum pretty much to tor of devotees in need. Here his beard, myself. The few visitors I saw were local muscled figure, and club-like weapon residents, who confined themselves to Fig. 10. Head of a Bodhisattva. raised in a clenched fist all suggest the the newly installed manuscript gallery Second-third century A.D. Sahri Bahlol, hero Hercules. featuring exquisite hand-calligraphed North-West Frontier Province. continued on page 16 13 THE MINOAN TSUNAMI, PART I continued from page 3

possible that some parts of Crete suf- caused some of the Krakatoa tsunamis. fered severe crop damage from the ash. Both pyroclastic flows and lahars played Geologists Floyd McCoy of the Univer- a role in the Santorini eruption as well, sity of Hawaii and Grant Heiken of the adding over a mile of new land to the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Los south and east of the volcano. Tsunamis Alamos, New Mexico, in a review of the created by these volcanic forces could effects of the Santorini eruption pre- have traveled south toward Crete. sented to the Geological Society of Minoura and Dominey-Howes have America in 2000, concluded that, more tried to find out whether they reached likely, the ash created just a “gritty Crete by looking for onshore evidence. inconvenience.” A tsunami leaves little behind when it As for tsunamis, no one questions recedes, but it can deposit a tell-tale that the Santorini eruption created layer of marine sand containing micro- them, but there is considerable debate scopic shells of planktonic organisms about whether they had any impact on that live in the open ocean (as opposed Fig. 13. Image of the Santorini volcano Crete. Estimates have varied widely, to microscopic shells that live near shore taken by the Advanced Spaceborne but it is most unlikely that the Minoans washed up by an ordinary storm). Thermal Emission and Reflection had to face the towering tsunami imag- Marshes are the best place to look for Radiometer (ASTER), flying aboard ined by Marinatos. A tsunami of monu- such tsunami residue because marshes NASA’s Terra spacecraft. November 21, mental height is generated only if the are more likely to trap them than allow 2000. Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/ run-up to shore is shallow, which it is them to wash away. Crete is not, howev- METI/ERSDAC/JAROS and U. S./Japan not at Crete. A computer modeling per- er, an ideal place to hunt for tsunami ASTER Science Team (http://earthobser- formed by Japanese sedimentologist evidence because its coast lacks old vatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewIm- Koji Minoura predicted that a tsunami marsh sediments. Not surprisingly then, ages/Images/aster_santorini_lrg.jpg). created by the final collapse of what when Dominey-Howes checked soil remained of the Santorini volcano into samples from forty different spots on Turkey, but Dominey-Howes questions the caldera, a collapse in which any- Crete, he found none. Minoura did not whether the tsunami Minoura purports where between four and nine cubic exactly find compelling evidence on to have found is associated with the miles of rock crashed into the sea, Crete either, just a layer of marine sand Santorini eruption because, by all would have generated a more moderate- below a Santorini pumice layer at a site accounts, ash from the eruption fell on ly sized, but still deadly, thirty-foot-high east of Knossos. He also found a layer of Crete and Turkey before any tsunami wave in Amnisos harbor. sand with microscopic offshore shells arrived – thus, the ash layer should be The geography of Santorini rules out just below a Santorini ash layer at two below, not above, the sand layer. even a wave of this height according to old marshes in Turkey. Minoura thinks It is possible that a tsunami generat- geologist Dale Dominey-Howes of Mac- his findings, when put together, show ed during the middle of the eruption quarie University in Sydney, Australia. that a tsunami struck Crete as well as could have washed away the initial ash Present-day Santorini is shaped like the fall and then deposited sand, which was mirror image of the letter C, with open then covered by ash that continued to water to the west (see Fig. 13). To fall, but at best, opinion is still divided Dominey-Howes, this means that any Coming in Future on whether a tsunami struck Crete. tsunami generated by the caldera col- Issues of Amphora The story of “The Minoan lapse in the center of the island traveled Tsunami” continues in issue 6.2 of west out the only available open water The Minoan Tsunami, Part II Amphora (December 2007) – Part II, path, not south to Crete. what pots and pine trees show. The Krakatoa eruption is here help- Re-reading Laura Riding ful to Dominey-Howes. To the west of James P. Rooney ([email protected]) is Krakatoa, the Sunda Strait is open A New Antigone an attorney in Boston who judges environ- water. Tsunamis passed readily out of mental disputes for the state of Massachu- the Strait and crossed the Indian Ocean The Art Infusion Project at the U. S. Mint setts. He is also a member of the adjunct fac- killing a woman as far away as Sri ulty at New England School of Law. An Lanka. But to the east, the Sunda Strait What’s New in Sappho Studies undergraduate course he took while attend- narrows, and islands blocked the way, ` ing Cornell University spurred his interest in preventing any significant harm to Theater in Chicago and the demise of the Minoan civilization. communities which lay in that direction. That is not the end of the story, for Mary Zimmermann’s Argonautika volcanic eruptions can create tsunamis in many ways. Fast moving clouds of Teutoburg Revisited hot lava, ash, and gas, known as pyro- The Colony of Augusta Emerita clastic flows, and muddy landslides of volcanic debris, known as lahars, can in Roman Lusitania cause tsunamis as well. Pyroclastic flows 14 Book Review: Empire of Ashes biographies of A. B. Bosworth, Peter by Jeanne Reames Green, or J. R. Hamilton. The scholarship consulted on Greek culture and warfare (by James Davidson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Nicholas Nicastro. Empire of Ashes: A Alexander displaced or who dislike histori- Sarah Pomeroy, for example) is more Novel of Alexander the Great. Signet cal novels that depart from the probable authoritative. (http://us.penguingroup.com), 2004. may not appreciate the twist. And although In the Afterword, Nicastro does explain Pp. 384. Paperback $7.99. ISBN 0-451- Nicastro’s Alexander is far from unsympa- his choices about changes in the historical 21366-1. thetic, those who prefer Mary Renault’s details in a sensible and logical fashion. more heroic conqueror may also find them- Some of these chosen alterations were hree historical novels about Alexander selves disappointed. I admit, however, that deliberate. Nicastro’s version of Alexan- Tthe Great were published in 2004 to I was charmed by the notion of a teenaged der’s death is unusual, to say the least, but coincide with the November release of Alexander with greasy hair and acne -- an to reveal it here would spoil the scene. He Oliver Stone’s epic film on the conqueror: image characteristic of Nicastro’s humaniz- mentions the possible pregnancy of Sta- The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield, ing approach. He avoids both apologetics tiera, Darius’ wife, and her death in child- who is best known for Gates of Fire (1998) and exaggerated sensationalism. birth (141-143) but says nothing about Bar- about the Battle of Thermopylae; Queen of sine, Alexander’s known concubine. It the Amazons by Judith Tarr, who wrote seems a strange omission, as Alexander’s about Alexander once before in Lord of the involvement with Barsine was well docu- Two Lands (1993); and Empire of Ashes by mented, but anything with Statiera was relative newcomer Nicholas Nicastro. Nicastro’s pacing moves rumor only. In fact, the name “Barsine” is Empire of Ashes utilizes a frame format, the story along in a way used for Darius’ daughter and may account narrating Alexander’s story within the larg- that keeps the reader for the elimination of Barsine, Artabasos’ er context of the trial of Machon, a fictional engaged. daughter – an attempt to avoid too many Athenian in the retinue of Alexander. characters with the same name. Sometimes Machon stands accused of impiety and a historical alterations are done to avoid con- failure to fulfill his oath. The tale itself fusing readers. As Nicastro himself says in begins in Chapter Two where Nicastro his notes: “not all inaccuracies are mis- describes life in ancient Athens with a vivid- takes” (367). ness that leaps from the page. The trial is As an example of his more balanced When reading a historical novel about seen from the point of view of a jurist nick- approach, consider Nicastro’s treatment of Alexander, however, I am more interested named Swallow who first hears Aeschines Alexander’s sexuality. A number of modern in whether the writer has captured the over- argue the case against Machon and then critics of Stone’s film were either unable or all feel of the ancient world, even if the hears the detailed defense, given – to unwilling to grasp that the ancient world story may contain some incorrect details. everyone’s surprise – by Machon himself. might have seen sex differently than we do. Nicastro has indeed done so, making Nicastro captures the timbre of ancient Alexander, who reputedly said that “sleep Empire of Ashes one of the best recent nov- Athenian court rhetoric with Aeschines’ and sex remind me I’m mortal” suddenly els on the conqueror. prosecution, but the bulk of the story is became the subject of a media exposé. For- related in Machon’s more straightforward tunately, Nicastro treats the matter with Jeanne Reames is Associate Professor of first-person narrative. Nicastro’s obvious appropriate (and refreshing) nonchalance. History at the University of Nebraska, familiarity with ancient writing styles should He neither avoids mention of Alexander’s Omaha, specializing in Alexander and be well appreciated by classicists and histo- probable long-time attachment to Hephais- Argead Macedonia. She also has an rians of the ancient world, and his pacing tion nor dwells upon it. undergraduate degree from the University moves the story along in a way that keeps Empire of Ashes is not, however, without of Florida in creative writing and has kept the reader engaged. historical error, although most are minor. a review web site since 1997: Beyond Nicastro employs a bit of mystery involv- For instance, Nicastro mentions Macedon- Renault: Alexander the Great in Fiction ing Arrhidaios, Alexander’s half-brother, in ian military “buzz cuts” (19), which is far (http://myweb.unomaha.edu/~mreames/ order to hook the reader. He asks, “What if too modern, and his depiction of Olympias Beyond_Renault/beyondrenault.html). Alexander wasn’t the military genius that (74-75) might have benefited from reading history paints him? What if that were the work of historian Elizabeth Carney to Arrhidaios instead?” Nicastro’s Arrhidaios provide a more nuanced view of the polyg- is an “idiot savant” – autistic – with this one amous Macedonian court. Nicastro’s extraordinary gift for strategy. Is this histori- choice of biographies could have been cally likely? Not really. But is it possible? more critical as well. He lists the popular Yes, of course – and that is all one needs works of Mary Renault, Robin Lane Fox, for fiction. Those uncomfortable seeing and Michael Wood but not the scholarly 15 PAKISTAN’S Book Review: Heroes: Saviours, Traitors, PESHAWAR MUSEUM and Supermen continued from page 13 by Thomas J. Sienkewicz texts of the Koran and Persian poetry. Museum staff members informed me Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Heroes: Saviours, Trai- ister of Victor Emmanuel. that funding for this gallery was provid- tors, and Supermen: A History of Hero Also like Achilles, the heroes in this ed by the U. S. Embassy – a well-placed Worship. Viking Canada, 2005. Pp. 294. book are not the altruistic, humanitarian goodwill gesture. While in Peshawar I asked whether 44 illustrations. Hardcover $45.00. ISBN heroes often admired in the twenty-first cen- foreigners often visit the museum. I was 0-670-06364-9. Also Knopf, 2005. Pp. tury. There is little self-sacrifice in the lives told that occasionally Japanese tourists 513. 44 illustrations. ISBN 978-1-4000- of Hughes-Hallett’s heroes; as a rule, they turn up here on “Buddhist heritage 4399-6. Also in paperback as Heroes: A act for personal gain and fame. Perhaps tours.” And in December 2005, The History of Hero-Worship. Anchor, 2006. alone in this group stands Cato the Frontier Post, one of Peshawar’s local Pp. 528. $16.95. ISBN 1-400-07979-9. Younger, who ended his life fighting for a newspapers, published a photo of a “friendship delegation” from China noble cause he knew was lost. posing in the main hall for snapshots eroes is a twenty-first century British beside various Gandharan Buddhas. But Hrevision of Thomas Carlyle’s On in general, the foreign tourist presence Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in is low – understandable, given the History (1841). For the Scottish historian A well-ordered state volatile politics along the Afghan-Pak- has no room for her istani frontier. Carlyle, great men were not self-made but Dr. Ihsan Ali, Director of Archaeolo- “heaven-born” and “forces of nature,” and insubordinate heroes gy and Museums for the North-West his definition of the hero was based upon who demonstrate a Frontier Province, hopes to find ways to the collective portrait of one mythological pattern of conflict with attract more tourists. On my most recent and nine historical figures. Similarly Hugh- their superiors. visit to the Museum, in December 2005, es-Hallett, a critic for The Sunday Times, Dr. Ali took me on a tour of a freshly constructed building that will house the seeks a heroic epitome in Homer’s portrait museum’s Islamic and ethnological of Achilles in the Iliad. She applies the collections. The transfer of these objects character traits exhibited by the enraged All these heroes raise issues of what is from the main building, he explained, Homeric hero to six historical subjects, all meant by “immortality” and challenge us to will permit the display of more Greco- of whom are special, dynamic, and seduc- think about our own mortality. Thus, in a Buddhist material (over three-quarters tive men – not necessarily virtuous, and cer- final chapter entitled “Odysseus,” Hughes- of the museum’s four-thousand-plus Hallett discusses the dead hero Achilles and Gandharan artifacts are currently locked tainly not role models – but nevertheless the away in outdoor storage sheds). objects of hero worship both during their his status in the underworld. The great hero In January 2007, the museum lives and after their deaths. Beginning with of the Iliad, who chose a short but glorious marked its hundredth anniversary with the fifth-century Athenian demagogue Alcib- life over a long life lived in obscurity, rejects conferences, speeches, and celebrations iades, Hughes-Hallett seeks Achilles-types the value of his fame and glory when his in the main hall. The old ballroom once in the first-century B.C. Roman Cato the ghost speaks with Odysseus in The Odyssey. again echoed with the sound of festivity In death, Achilles reverses his choice and and life. The vanished dancers and Younger; the medieval Spanish knight party-goers of a century ago would have Rodrigo Díaz, “El Cid”; the sixteenth-centu- opts for life instead of fame, by affirming to liked that, I think. ry English explorer and privateer Sir Fran- Odysseus that he would rather be a slave on cis Drake; the seventeenth-century German earth than king of the underworld (Odyssey David Pinault ([email protected]), Asso- general Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von 11.489-491). This final chapter of Heroes is ciate Professor of Religious Studies at Santa Wallenstein; and the nineteenth-century Ital- not biographical in format. Instead, Hughes- Clara University in California, is the Hallett here contrasts the heroic features of author of Notes from the Fortune- ian freedom fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi. Telling Parrot: Islam and the Struggle Hughes-Hallett’s heroes stand alone. A Achilles and Odysseus. She employs for Religious Pluralism in Pakistan well-ordered state has no room for her Odysseus’ story of travel and return to reflect (forthcoming from Equinox Publishing, insubordinate heroes who demonstrate a on the ways her heroes have been trans- 2008). He thanks Dr. Ihsan Ali, Director of pattern of conflict with their superiors. formed after their deaths, especially in the Archaeology and Museums for the North- Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon is repeated nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, she West Frontier Province, for his kindness in shows how the liberator Garibaldi was emu- permitting him to photograph artifacts from in Alcibiades’ clashes with the Athenian the museum collection. He also thanks Dr. democracy; Cato’s with Julius Caesar; El lated and invoked by the Italian poet Jody Rubin Pinault of Santa Clara Univer- Cid’s with both Christian and Islamic supe- Gabriele D’Annunzio and by Benito Mussoli- sity for her comments and suggestions. riors; Drake’s with Elizabeth I of England; ni in their early twentieth-century cries for Wallenstein’s with the Holy Roman Emper- Italian nationalism. In this way, the father of or Ferdinand II; and Garibaldi’s especially modern Italy became an unlikely model for with Count Camillo Cavour, the prime min- Italian fascism. 16 So, too, the Nachleben, or cultural after- propriate for her to include heroes from female models of the Western hero would life, of these historical figures shows how Asia or Africa because the Achillean heroic mean softening the definition of the hero to the Achillean model is adapted, remod- tradition is “continuous and self-referential.” include females who displayed male char- eled, and transformed into a national icon. Her heroes, that is, share a specific cultural acteristics. Yet comparing male heroes to Over time, Sir Francis Drake came to be view of the heroic that can be traced direct- some female counterparts would actually viewed as a British imperialist, a role he ly back to Homeric ideals. The British Hugh- provide another powerful layer of definition certainly never played in real life. In the es-Hallett, however, does not explain why of the white European male hero who so twentieth-century Spain of dictator Francisco she limits her choices to the Old World, fascinates Hughes-Hallett. Franco, the mercenary El Cid, who in real when many inhabitants of the Americas While Hughes-Hallett’s study of the hero life sometimes fought against his beloved would appear to share the same cultural may appeal largely to readers interested in Spain, became a celebrated hero of Span- heritage as their Old World counterparts the biographies of the famous white Euro- ish glory and empire. The German leader and could serve to illustrate the geographic pean males whose lives she celebrates, her Wallenstein became, in the twentieth centu- extension of this heroic model. use of the Homeric Achilles as model for ry, the conscious model for another dicta- While self-referencing may be a legiti- understanding the lives of these men is, tor, Adolf Hitler, in whose Nazi Germany mate feature of heroic status in the Western nevertheless, a powerful reaffirmation of Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes suffered radi- world, studying the Western hero in such the continuing influence of Greek culture in cal political transformation and was read cultural isolation does not necessarily make the modern world. widely as a source on fascist hero-worship. sense. Indeed, the special features of the These modern reworkings of the older Western hero would be better understood Thomas J. Sienkewicz (toms@monm. heroes are, in large part, the result of and appreciated when compared to heroes edu) is the Minnie Billings Capron Professor Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of Übermen- from other cultures. To what extent is the of Classics at Monmouth College in Illinois. schen (Supermen). As a result, Drake, El model of the hero as “insubordinate loner” He is Vice-President of the National Com- Cid, and the others become “higher men,” unique to the West? This is, unfortunately, mittee for Latin and Greek (NCLG), one of as Hughes-Hallett calls them. They tran- a question that Hughes-Hallett does not the founders of National Latin Teacher scend the mundane in order to achieve a pose. Recruitment Week (NLTRW), and Vice-Pres- form of immortality founded on the accept- All Hughes-Hallett’s heroes are also ident of the American Classical League. He ance of life, rather than its rejection. This is exclusively male. She has, in fact, intention- is author, with LeaAnn Osburn, of Vergil: A why Hughes-Hallet thinks that Odysseus, ally excluded women from her list in order LEGAMUS Transitional Reader (2004) and, not Achilles, is the model for the twentieth- to avoid what she says would have been a with Kenneth Kitchell, of DISCE LATINAM! century hero, the hero of eternal return epit- “kind of emollient falsification.” Masculini- an elementary Latin textbook for college omized by the Ulysses of James Joyce. ty, she argues, is bound with heroic status students (forthcoming from Prentice Hall in All of Hughes-Hallett’s choices for hero in the Western tradition. Achilles dressed 2010). status are conspicuously white Europeans. as a girl on Skyros is not a hero, while She argues that it would have been inap- Achilles the warrior at Troy is. To search for

APA Comic Contest: Ceres in Chicago

ontestants are invited to create and submit a comic dealing with some aspect of the myth of Ceres C(Demeter) as the goddess of grain who stands atop the Chicago Board of Trade building (see Fig. 14). This contest is open to anyone, anywhere. Entries will be judged on the basis of content, style, and originality. There will be three grand prizes: one for students, grades K-6; one for students, grades 7-12; and one for adults, including members of the American Philological Association. There will be a number of honorable mentions in each category. Grand prize winners and honorable mentions will all receive certificates of recognition, and all their entries will be on public display at the 2008 meeting of the American Philological Association in Chicago and may also become part of a traveling poster show. Winning entries will also be published in Amphora and on the APA website. All entries become the property of the American Philological Association. Format Guidelines: Entries must be on one-page, 8.5” x 11”, in black-and-white. Color entries cannot be accepted. Materials, style, layout, and format are all at the discretion of the artist, but each submission must be able to be reproduced on a standard page. Only one entry per contestant is permit- ted. The entry should be titled appropriately. All text must be in English. The name of the author should not appear on the entry, which must be accompanied by a 3” x 5” index card with the following information: name and age of entrant, title of entry, full mailing address, and e-mail address. Mailing Instructions: Submissions are to be mailed flat, preferably with a cardboard backing, to Dr. Chris Ann Matteo, Department of Classics, 2407 Marie Mount Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD U.S.A. 20742 and postmarked by November 1, 2007.

Fig. 14. John Storrs, "Ceres" (1930). Artist’s maquette for sculpture atop the Chicago Board of Trade building. Photo Credit: Marilyn Brusherd. © The Illinois Classical Conference. 17 Book Review: The Orchard Book of First Greek Myths by Miriam Riverlea

Saviour Pirotta. The Orchard Book of First ically housed within this box, demarcated king in his father’s place, Theseus reassures Greek Myths. Illustrations by Jan Lewis. as the property of the publisher. The story his subjects that he will “never do anything Orchard Books (http://www.wattspub. collection is contained and complete; these rash or foolhardy again” (42). The moral of co.uk/orch.html), 2003. Pp. 96. Paper- are the myths, evidently, that children ought the story – obey the instructions of your par- back $21.59. ISBN 1841217751. to be told. ents – is reiterated in the tale of Icarus, who shares Aegeus’ fate and tumbles to a he author and critic Rosemary Sutcliff has watery death after he flies too close to the Tobserved that “myths and legends cer- sun, melting the wax on his wings. He, too, tainly not meant for children in the first place The stories aim to have disregarded the advice of his father. The have been largely taken over by them” (“His- a positive influence on narrative holds Icarus directly responsible tory and Time” in Fiona M. Collins and young readers, chiefly by for the fact that his father lives “alone in Judith Graham, eds., Historical Fiction for presenting models of how sadness for the rest of his life” (60). Children [2001], 112). The Greek mythic not to behave. Like Theseus and Icarus, the majority of corpus, full of complex and often quite adult the text’s characters function as negative themes, has to a large extent become the paradigms. One should not be curious, like property of the young, in the belief that the Pandora, who cannot resist opening the act of imparting myth to children has social- secret chest, or greedy like King Midas, or izing benefits. The stories of Pandora’s Box, The fact that this box shares an unmistak- arrogant like Arachne. Helen “should have Jason, and the Trojan War articulate the cen- able correspondence with the “Secret been happy and content” (44) being mar- tral ideologies of Western culture, providing Chest” of Pandora, which is described in ried to Menelaus, but instead elopes with paradigms for how we ought to live, or more the first story in the collection, has intriguing the Trojan Prince Paris. At the conclusion of often, how we ought not to live. implications for the text’s representation of this narrative, Helen is returned to her hus- A text dedicated to communicating myth the function of Greek myth. The design, band, who, “in time, forgave her for run- to a young audience is Saviour Pirotta’s dimensions, and location of the two boxes ning away” (52). This ending highlights The Orchard Book of First Greek Myths. are identical, suggesting that their contents that some misdeeds can be pardoned, Although written for children aged nine to are also to be equated. While it is easy to though no mention is made of the couple twelve whose contact with mythology may imagine why the author, illustrator, and pub- living happily ever after. Instead, the focus be well underway, the inclusion of the word lisher, on page 16, would want to associate shifts to the fame of Odysseus, who on “first” in the title suggests that this book their story collection with Hope (the spirit account of his brilliant Wooden Horse is aspires to have a formative influence. The that brings “help to those who need it"), the “remembered as a hero forever” (52). back cover proclaims that it is “the perfect reasons why they would also want to liken The text transforms traditionally rich and introduction to Greek myths” and lists the the stories to the other forces dwelling in strange mythic narratives into what the clas- stories included in the collection. Each is Pandora’s Box (the “curses sent by the Gods sicist Page duBois might describe as a given an appealing title (some of them clev- to punish people for the things they had series of “moralizing parable[s]” (Trojan erly reference contemporary culture: done wrong") are less transparent. Horses: Saving the Classics from Conserva- “Goldfingers” is the story of King Midas, The answer seems to lie in the book’s tives [2004], 13). At other times, it reduces the man with the golden touch; and “Spider didactic treatment of Greek myth. The sto- their complexity. The protracted conflict at Woman” tells of Arachne, whom Athena ries aim to have a positive influence on Troy is treated in just three sentences: “The transforms into a spider after she boasts young readers, chiefly by presenting mod- soldiers surrounded the city of Troy. But, try about the quality of her weaving), which els of how not to behave. The themes of dis- as they might, they could not capture it. together with Lewis’ vibrant, quirky illustra- cipline, guilt, and wrongdoing pervade the After nine long years of fighting, the soldiers tions, makes the book immediately inviting. text, and each story concludes with a moral were tired and wanted to go home” (44). The title-page illustration features a natu- lesson that is specifically tailored to a Character development is also minimal. ral landscape, dotted with trees, and col- young reader. As he is sailing home to No attempt is made to justify why ored by a dramatic sunset. The antiquity of Athens after vanquishing the Minotaur, The- Bellerophon, who fights the monstrous this setting is established by a classical tem- seus is so busy celebrating that he forgets Chimera “was the bravest man in the coun- ple visible in the distance. Dominating the to honor the promise he made to his father try” (72) or why “there was no more evil foreground is a sturdy wooden box. Its lid to signal his victory by displaying white king than King Minos of Crete” (36). The is firmly closed, and emblazoned on its sails. Catching sight of the black sails and polarized division of good and bad char- side is the logo of Orchard Books. The believing his son to be dead, Aegeus com- acters is reflected in the illustrations, where implication of this illustration is clear: the mits suicide by hurling himself from a cliff there is a straightforward link between dis- stories featured within the book are symbol- into the ocean. As he is being crowned position and physical appearance. The 18 heroes and heroines smile or, when in trou- A PLUM EATER AMONG THE GOPHERS ble, look concerned or confused. The nasty continued from page 10 gods, kings, and pirates are easily identi- fied by their knitted eyebrows, pointy it food for plum rather than cake eaters. trace their development, if not their noses, and even pointier beards. Of my students, I have the warmest origin, to the classical era. The adoption memories. From my first morning, when of the alphabet helped create and per- The text also contrasts ignorant, sceptical one of the graduate assistants told me petuate a matchless body of literature, adult characters with wise, well-informed that Minneapolis was “the buckle of the easily accessible in translation, but par- children. As he is searching for the flying Bible Belt,” life was full of fun, surprise, ticularly rewarding in the original Greek horse Pegasus, Bellerophon finds that it is and friendship. Several of my students or Latin – the building blocks of some not the old but the young who are able to were years, even decades, older than of the most widely spoken languages of guide him: myself, and most of them were much our time. The study of classics has even more widely read; one of them wanted percolated into the world of psychology. to talk about Kant and Hegel, who, In London, a new breed of counsellors, “Pegasus – what’s that?” asked one man. being totally out of fashion in Oxford who use the works of classical philoso- “A flying horse!” said another. “Are you philosophical circles, were known to me phers, such as Plato and Epictetus, to mad?" only by name. Teaching classical litera- help patients come to terms with the But a small boy told him, “Every night ture, particularly poetry, in translation is stresses of our age, has sprung up. when the moon is shining brightly, Pegasus not easy. In my Aristophanes course, I Then there are lessons to be learnt. lands to drink from a spring in the was flummoxed by the difficulty of History does not exactly repeat itself, hills." explaining the puns, many of them of an but the Roman Empire’s chronicler, “It’s true!” said a small girl. “He stays on extremely obscene nature. The English Edward Gibbon, tells us that it can be the ground for a few seconds, then he’s translation was, of course, well sanitized, “usefully applied to the instruction of back up in the air, flapping his enormous and the plots, such as in Lysistrata, were the present age.” Rome spent too much wings.” (75) usually clear enough, but a good deal of on consumption and warfare, manufac- the fun and absurdity could not be tured too little, depended too much on In this story, children are more closely con- brought out in translation. taxes from foreigners, and ran out of nected to the mythic realm. Much like Pega- All too soon my year was over, but bullion. The story has a familiar ring to sus, a hybrid creature who inhabits both the Minnesota threads continued to appear it, except that we depend on the invest- earth and the air, these children have the in the texture of my life. After leaving ments, rather than the taxes, of foreign- ability to traverse the boundary between the the Twin Cities, I was interviewed by ers, and it is oil, rather than bullion, the Bank of Montreal, using a québécois which is likely to run out. No doubt, as mundane and fabulous spheres. This capac- version of the Minnesota Multiphasic so often in recent decades, technology ity, the text implies, is also open to young psychological test. When I checked the will come to our rescue, aided by the readers by way of their engagement with preference box for looking at flowers tools of economic management – an the stories in the collection. rather than growing or selling them, activity paid little attention and barely Much as Pandora’s Box contains both they decided that I was quite unsuitable understood by the Romans, despite Hope and bleak curses, The Orchard Book to be a banker. But a year later, I was their great organizational skills. No with a London bank, and one of my first longer can the advice of the painter of First Greek Myths is a mixed text. It is deals was to advise a great Minneapolis Apelles to the cobbler be considered committed to the promotion of Greek company, Pillsbury, in acquiring a cake valid: Apelles is said to have told the mythology to a young audience and gives mix company in England. One day, I cobbler, who first criticized his inaccu- children special roles that highlight their received a call from a recently graduated rate depiction of a sandal and then his proximity to the world of myth. Yet its classicist, Humphrey Maud, who had depiction of a leg, to stick to the sandal approach is extremely moral and, at times, been offered a similar job to mine at the – in other words, to what he knew best. University of Minnesota; my spirits rose, Like the cobbler, we too must have the overly simplified. It raises the question as another over-specialized Brit would courage to question (a skill that training whether it is most important for Greek never have been taken on if my teach- in classics can teach us). We must all mythology to remain in circulation, regard- ing career in the land of the Golden learn to adapt to globalization’s unruly less of how it is represented. As Daedalus Gophers had been a total disaster. Sub- momentum, which can turn our lives reminds his wayward son, “we’ve still got a sequently, he had a very distinguished upside down in the twinkling of an eye. long way to go” (57). Perhaps the same career as a British diplomat, having been our first Ambassador to Argentina after After Minnesota, Christopher Arnander can be said of the perception of myth as the Falklands War; today Sir Humphrey ([email protected]) spent over children’s literature. Maud serves as Chairman of an forty years in the finance industry in the City admirable organisation, the Common- of London and the Middle East. After retire- Miriam Riverlea (m.riverlea@pgrad. wealth Disaster Management Agency. ment, he has come back to his long neglected unimelb.edu.au) is a Classics Postgraduate As I look back at the study of classics classical studies. He has studied and has at the University of Melbourne, Australia. half a century ago, it seemed then to be written about the roots of globalization in drifting into an elitist and eccentric the classical era. His book Think Globally, She has just submitted her Master of Arts backwater. Instead, it now flourishes Spend Locally (2003) is a simple guide to thesis, which explores the myth of the strongly on both sides of the Atlantic. recent globalization, using New Yorker and Wooden Horse in ancient and contemporary Why? Perhaps it is because the Greeks Punch cartoons. Its web site http://www. contexts. and the Romans anticipate so much of thinkglobally.co.uk carries extracts from the our lives today. Most branches of human book. endeavour, from athletics to zoology, 19 NICOLAUS HUSSOVIANUS: HUNTING THE LITHUANIAN BISON by Fred Booth

n 1521, Nicolaus Hussovianus founders of Polish humanism, briefly I(Mikolaj z Hussów or Mikolaj addressed bison hunting in his “Ad Vis- Hussowczyk), an aide to the Polish tulum fluvium ortum et exitum eius delegate to the Vatican, was watching describens de bisontibus et eorum vena- the bullfights at a papal celebration in tionibus” (On the Vistula River Describ- Rome. The fury of the wounded ani- ing Its Source and Its Outflow and the mals reminded him of the bison hunts Bison and the Hunting of Them), pub- he had witnessed as a young man in the lished in the first volume of his Amores. Lithuanian woods. As he himself tells it, In a short passage written in a naturalis- his loose tongue earned him a writing tic style similar to Hussovianus’, Celtis assignment, for his patron asked him to describes the bison’s size, shaggy pelt, write a poem about the bison. and shining eyes. It is not certain Hussovianus’ 1,072-line poem, De statu- whether Hussovianus was familiar with ra, feritate ac venatione bisontis carmen (A the Celtis work, but Hussovianus’ poem Poem about the Size, Ferocity, and the Hunting is far more ambitious in the scope of its of the Bison), was written in Italy and pub- natural history, ethnography, and current lished in Krakow in 1523. It is a learned political events. and exciting work that is both a natural Fig. 15. Bos (Bison) bonasus (the Euro- Hussovianus narrates the poem in history of the magnificent European bison pean bison). Photo used with the permis- the first person. He presents himself as and its habitat, as well as an ethnography sion of Professor Robert Hudson, Depart- an expert who knows his subject first- of the region’s rugged people. ment of Agricultural, Food and Nutrition- hand and who therefore is qualified to In the tenth century, Roman al Science, University of Alberta. pass judgment on other writers’ Catholic missionaries had introduced accounts of the bison. Among the Latin and, with it, literacy to Poland. guages of Poland, Lithuania, and Greeks, Aristotle, Pausanias, and Oppi- During the Middle Ages and the Belarus, all of which have claimed him an had written about the bison. The Renaissance, Polish intellectuals adopt- as a native son. Roman author Pliny the Elder had ed Latinized names and traveled to Hussovianus came under the patron- described the bison in his Natural Histo- Italy and elsewhere throughout Europe age of the eminent Bishop Erazm ry, while Seneca in his Phaedra and Mar- to study, bringing their learning back Ciolek, Polish ambassador to the Vati- tial in On the Spectacles both mentioned home with them (for further reading, can during the papacy of Leo X, the son the animals. In the Middle Ages, Alber- see Harold B. Segel, Renaissance Culture of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Pope Leo tus Magnus had discussed the bison in in Poland: The Rise of Humanism, 1470- had been educated by the best Italian his writings on animals, and Paul the 1543 [1989]). Latin, the common literary humanists of his day, including Deacon wrote of them in his History of language, enabled Polish humanists Poliziano and Ficino, and he surrounded the Lombards. such as Mikolaj Kopernyk, better himself with some of the most promi- Of his predecessors, Hussovianus known by his Latin name Copernicus, nent intellectuals and artists of Renais- names only Pliny the Elder and Paul to participate in the cultural, artistic, sance Italy. Raphael’s famous portrait of the Deacon, both of whom he respects and scientific dialogues of their times. Leo hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. for their accuracy. Pliny had called the In 1385, the Polish princess Jadwiga Pope Leo staged lavish spectacles bison iubatum, meaning “maned,” and married Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithua- featuring the exotic wildlife that was had located its habitat in the region of nia, who then became king of Poland, being imported into Europe during Age Poland and Lithuania, and Paul had cor- effectively creating the largest kingdom of Discovery. The pope, who was also rectly described the span of the animals’ in Europe. A strong army was needed to an avid devotee of hunting, was fasci- horns. But Hussovianus finds most earli- protect the realm against attacks by Tar- nated by stories of the primeval Polish- er writers deficient and cannot recom- tars, Turks, and Muscovites, and bison Lithuanian forests, and he asked Bishop mend their work (69-80): hunts were introduced to maintain the Ciolek to obtain the hide of a Lithuan- army’s military skills in the wintertime ian bison to be stuffed and put on dis- Nescio quae patula deducunt cornua nare, lulls between battles. It was these hunts play in Rome. Ciolek sent to Lithuania Longe aliud, quam sit, corpus habere ferunt, that the bullfights in Rome brought to for a bison hide and commissioned Pondera monstrosi tribuunt ingentia labri; Hussovianus’ mind. Hussovianus to write a poem about the Ipsorum fuerit non meus ille bison. Little is known of Hussovianus’ life animal to accompany the gift, but before Multa ego Roxanis legi antiquissima libris, Quorum sermonem Graeca elementa notant, outside of what can be deduced from the plans could be carried out, the pope Quae sibi gens quondam proprios adscivit in his poetry. He was born sometime and the bishop had died. Hussovianus usus between 1475 and 1485, and he died returned to Poland in 1522 and put the Et patrios apte miscuit ipsa sonos; after 1533. His father taught him how to finishing touches on his poem, which he Multaque complexi loca sunt, diversa vetusti stalk his quarry amid the natural dan- then dedicated to Bona, Poland’s cul- Per varias gentes temporis acta ferunt: gers and the harsh climate of the tured Italian Queen. Tale animal nusquam visum est, nisi forsitan Lithuanian forests. Hussovianus was Thirty years before Hussovianus’ ante acquainted with the customs and lan- poem, Conrad Celtis, one of the Diluvium gelido ferre sub axe moras. 20 continued on page 22 ® (ISSN 1542-2380) is published twice a year Did You Know… by the American Philological Association (APA). The APA, founded in 1869 by “professors, friends, and patrons of linguistic sci- A “dido” is a foolish or mischievous act, According to the 1990 Census of Inhabited ence,” is now the principal learned soci- a prank, or a caper (New World Dictio- Areas in the United States, eight of the ety in North America for the study of ancient Greek and Roman languages, nary, American Heritage Dictionary, major Greco-Roman gods and goddesses literatures, and civilizations. While the Oxford English Dictionary). The word usual- provide the inspiration for the names of majority of its members are university ly appears in the phrase “to cut a dido/to American towns or townships. Flori- and college classics teachers, members also include scholars in other disciplines, cut (up) didoes” perhaps referring to the da boasts locations named after Apollo, primary and secondary school teachers, trick Dido used in gaining land to found Jupiter, Juno, and Neptune. Apollo shows and interested lay people. The APA pro- Carthage: when she was told she could up in Pennsylvania, as well. Minnesota has duces several series of scholarly books have the amount of land she could cover a Jupiter; Georgia has a Juno; New Jersey and texts and the journal Transactions of the American Philological Association. It with an ox hide, she cut the hide into one has a Neptune; and South Dakota and holds an annual meeting each January in long, thin strand and encircled her new New York each have a location named conjunction with the Archaeological land with it (Vergil, Aeneid 1.365-368.). after Diana. On the Greek side, only Institute of America. The Oxford English Dictionary also offers Athena gives her name to a town (in Ore- All of the APA’s programs are grounded in the rigor and high standards another entry for “dido” as a “thrice told gon). The most common deities whose of traditional philology, with the study tale” or an old story. names appear on the U. S. map are both of ancient Greek and Latin at their core. Roman: Mars (in Arkansas, Iowa, Maine, However, the APA also aims to present a broad view of classical culture and the Paul McCartney (see Fig. 16) released a North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) and ancient Mediterranean world to a wide new classical oratorio called Ecce Cor Vesta (in Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, audience. In short, the APA seeks to Meum (Latin for “Behold My Heart") in Sep- New York, and North Dakota). preserve and transmit the wisdom and tember 2006. The BBC quotes Sir Paul, values of classical culture and to find new meanings appropriate to the who studied Latin at The Liverpool Institute The movie Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) complex and uncertain world of the High School for Boys, as saying that “he features the Romulans who experience twenty-first century. felt it would be appropriate to employ Latin takeover of their political order (composed The APA’s activities serve one or more of these overarching goals: at times during the oratorio as it was of a senate and a Praetor as leader) by • To ensure an adequate number of known and sung by choirs all over the their own military – somewhat reminiscent well-trained, inspirational classics world.” Sir Paul found the title and the of the imperial Roman army’s role in pick- teachers at all levels, kindergarten inspiration for the piece while waiting to ing emperors – and the Remans, who have through graduate school; perform in the Church of St. Ignatius of Loy- been enslaved by the Romulans and forced • To give classics scholars and teachers ola in New York. “While I was waiting to to work in dilithium mines and become the the tools they need to preserve and extend their knowledge of classical do my bit, I was looking around the church force by which the Romulan military plans civilization and to communicate that and I saw a statue, and underneath it was to conquer the Federation. In addition to knowledge as widely as possible; written ‘Ecce Cor Meum.’ I had done some the allusion to the Roman twins, Romulus • To develop the necessary infrastruc- Latin at school and I always had a fond- and Remus, the movie explores the dynam- ture to achieve these goals and to make the APA a model for other soci- ness for it. So I worked it out” (Ecce Cor ics between two other “twins.” One set of eties confronting similar challenges. Meum at Carnegie Hall – 01.10.2006 “twins” is Jean-Luc Picard (captain of the The APA welcomes everyone who Press Release at http://www.paulmccartney. Starship Enterprise) and Shinzon (a clone of shares this vision to participate in and com). Picard who was sentenced to work in the support its programs. All APA members mines with the Remans and becomes the receive Amphora automatically as a ben- efit of membership. Non-members who new Praetor of Romulus). Another set is wish to subscribe to Amphora (for a very Data (a highly developed android who modest annual subscription fee of $10 serves on the Enterprise) and B-4 (a proto- U. S. in the U. S. and Canada; $15 else- where) or who wish further information type android also made by Data’s creator, about the APA may write to The Ameri- Dr. Sung). Just as there is a hierarchy in the can Philological Association, 292 Logan Roman world between Romulus and Remus Hall, University of Pennsylvania, 249 S. (with Remus ranked as the lesser of the 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104- 6304, apaclassics@ sas.upenn.edu. The two), so the Romulans ultimately prove their APA Web site is www.apaclassics.org. superiority over the Remans, Picard proves Members attending meetings of or making presentations to interested non- Fig. 16. Paul McCartney, left, not very to be the moral and intellectual superior to members are urged to request sample Shinzon, and Data is more evolved in his long after his Liverpool Institute days, copies of Amphora from the APA office for rides the train with his cinematic grand- knowledge and understanding of the world distribution to these audiences. father (Wilfrid Brambell) in A Hard than B-4, just as their names suggest. Day’s Night (United Artists, 1964).

21 NICOLAUS HUSSOVIANUS Tranabam, per aquas aufugiente fera: Non ut acerba libens vitare pericula nolim, continued from page 20 Sed sociis et in hoc cedere turpe fuit; Multaque Litphanis venatibus aspera passus, They report some kind of horns pro- with allusions to Vergil, and by employ- Hac fueram, fateor, non nimis arte rudis, truding from the nose, or bodies dif- ing the techniques of epic poetry, Artis et haec summa est: silvestris parcius ferent from what they really are, or Hussovianus elevates his subject mat- ergo great monstrous lips. Their animal is ter. His description of the bison’s beard Dissona, qui legitis, carpite verba viri. not my bison. I have read much borrows from Vergil’s portrait of Atlas in ancient lore in Russian books written While this [hunt] was going on in the in Greek letters, which the Russians Book 4 of the Aeneid. Atlas’ appearance, like the bison’s, embodies the harsh deep woods, I was working as hard as long ago adopted for their own use my companions. I relied on my horse and which they aptly fit to the sounds wintry climate. Hussovianus’ barba riget to carry me across rivers and the deep of their own language. The books took late pendentibus horrida villis (line 57) channel of the Dnieper in pursuit of into account many locations and echoes Vergil’s et glacie riget horrida fleeing prey, not that I welcomed fac- reported various events in ancient barba (Aen. 4.251). To describe the ing harsh dangers, but because I was times among diverse people. Such an bison’s mane, Terribilesque iubae collo ashamed to show myself inferior to my animal has been seen nowhere, unless funduntur in armos (59-60), Hussovianus comrades in this. After enduring many perhaps it lived during the ages before uses diction from a simile comparing hardships on the Lithuanian hunts, I the Flood under the cold Northern Turnus, Aeneas’ fiercest and noblest confess that I was not too inexperi- pole. enemy, to a horse who has broken free enced in this art, and this work is the from its tethers and whose mane “plays culmination of that art. Therefore The European or Lithuanian bison, readers, do not be too harsh in criticiz- over its neck and limbs” as it runs: Bison bonasus, Europe’s largest land ani- ing the dissonant words of a man of luduntque iubae per colla, per armos (Aen. mal, now survives only in forest pre- the woods. 11.497). The allusion enhances the serves (see Fig. 15). The animal’s meat, bison’s ferocity and dignity. horns, and hide made it valuable prey Hussovianus is also an ethnographer for prehistoric European hunters, as and stresses the value of the woods as a Cro-Magnon cave paintings attest, but source of wealth for the nation, provid- by Hussovianus’ day, the bison had ing lumber, pitch, and furs. He become extinct in Western Europe and Hussovianus offers describes the ingenuity of the people, was growing increasingly rare in Poland who hollow out the tops of high trees to and Lithuania. a glimpse into the attract bees for their honeycombs, hunt Hussovianus offers an anatomically broad international game and fowl with bows and guns, and accurate description of the bison (51-60): exchange of ideas in catch wild asses that beaters drive into nets. Hussovianus marvels at the land’s Haec fera Litphanis longe saevissima silvis sixteenth-century Europe. opulence and wonders whether it is Nascitur et fieri corpore tanta solet, caused by God or magic. Ut moriens si quando caput vi victa reclinet, The dramatic climax of the poem is a Tres sedeant inter cornua bina viri. description of a near-disaster during a Tanta quidem cervix nondum satis ampla hunt when a wounded bison charged videri, Hussovianus also makes reference to the royal viewing stand from which the Si conferre velis cetera membra, potest. Ovid. He borrows the phrase gelido . . . nobles, presumably out of the reach of Barba riget late pendentibus horrida villis, sub axe, “under the cold Northern pole,” Lumina terrorum plena furore rubent danger, could observe the hunters from Ovid who had used it twice in his below. There is a mood of pathos as the Terribilesque iubae collo funduntur in exile poetry (Tristia 5.2.64 and Ex Ponto armos wounded beast, drawn by the bright col- Et genua et frontem et pectoris ima tegunt. 2.10.48). The Slavic Latinists in general ors of the ladies’ costumes, approaches were fond of Ovid whose exile from the platform and seems to assume This most savage of wild animals is Rome to Tomis on the Black Sea had human emotions as it examines the born in the Lithuanian forests and brought him into their territory, where he faces of the spectators. Hussovianus usually grows to such a great size that, composed his exile poetry in elegiac cou- writes (919-928): when the head of a fatally wounded plets, the meter of Hussovianus’ poem. animal sinks to the ground, three men But as good a scholar as he is, Husso- Indignata sua spectacula caede parari can sit between the horns. Indeed its vianus admits that he cannot equal the Instantem voluit nobilitare necem. neck, large as it is, does not seem suf- literary polish of the Latinists whom he Infremuit tandem nares inflata tumentes ficient in proportion to the bison’s has encountered in Italy. He is afraid (Agminis hoc signum terga sequentis erat) other limbs. Its shaggy beard bristles that the literati will disdain his Latin Suppositamque petens excussit fronte with whiskers hanging. Its frightful style as that of an unsophisticated for- columnam eyes are red with rage. A terrifying Et vix dimidia parte pependit onus. mane, growing down from its neck eigner, but he is constrained by time to complete his work. Hussovianus makes Si structura cadens fato delapsa fuisset, over its limbs, covers the animal’s Sanguine quam multo demaduisset humus knees and forehead and its entire it clear that his knowledge comes not Et quam crudeli rubuissent cornua caede, chest. from books but from time spent in the Fingere mens magno victa timore nequit. woods (135-144): Hussovianus’ straightforward Latin style Indignant that a spectacle was being is almost entirely free of mythological Talia dum fierent silvaque agerentur in alta, made of its slaughter, the animal ornamentation, but it contains many ref- Aequabam socios saepe labore meos, wanted to ennoble its impending erences to classical authors. Husso- Flumina equo fidens altumque Borysthenis death. The bison roared, its swollen vianus colors his portrait of the animal alveum nostrils flaring (this was a sign for the 22 herd following behind). Charging, it Mater Anserina Fig. 17. The fine art of knocked down one of the supporting dandling: a young woman columns with its forehead. With continued from page 3 bounces a child on her almost half of the supports destroyed, knee in rhythm with the stand threatened to fall. If the accents in the verses. Used falling structure had been destined to Músculum cóncitat vóx with permission of Focus collapse, the mind, gripped with great horárum; pétit móx Publishing. fear, could not imagine how much cleps´ydram quaé blood would have soaked the ground tinnívit túnc. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. and how much gore would have Músculus fúgitat núnc. stained the animal’s horns blood-red. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

In a poem ostensibly about hunting and To make this work, we must The Latin has to reach to imi- wildlife, Hussovianus also takes the avoid the temptation to tate this. This sequence of opportunity to comment on the all-too- read quantitatively – that is, short and not-too-long words real carnage taking place in Europe, to according to the ancient works well: deplore the political turmoil of the system of patterning by syl- times, and to make an urgent plea for labic length. To explain their choice, Minko- unity among the Christian states of Múro laéte séderat híc. Europe. He worries that Europe’s va and Tunberg provide a little scholarly ref- Át nunc praéceps cécidit síc . . . Christian kings are engaging in sense- erence in their preface to Medieval Latin ver- less internecine warfare while Turks are sification and cite A Primer of Medieval Minkova and Tunberg rhyme most of their invading Christian lands. In shocking Latin by Charles Beeson (1925, repr. 1986) verses, sometimes closely following the orig- detail, Hussovianus presents the Turk along with An Introduction to the Study of inal’s rhyme scheme, sometimes ignoring it as a depraved killer who slaughters the Medieval Latin Versification (2004) by Dag completely. Mother Goose’s own rhymes aged and infants, disembowels pregnant mothers, and commits other atrocities. Norberg et al. Accent and rhyme, they are always stunningly obvious: In desperation, Hussovianus turns to insist, have been used to create both high the Virgin Mary as a source of hope for and low Latin poetry for a very long time: Snips and snails suffering mankind. In stark contrast to “The medieval Latin verse-techniques based and puppy dogs’ tails. the description of the Turk, a simile on sequence of word-accents and rhyme compares the Virgin to a bird cherishing seem . . . to offer the medium most appropri- Mater Anserina likewise lays the rhymes on her featherless chicks or a human moth- ate for a Latin version of . . . nursery pleasantly thick, as the examples above er protecting her infant (1045-1048). As demonstrate. the poem ends, Hussovianus implores rhymes” (1). This collection fully justifies their the Virgin to speed Pope Adrian VI, choice. Had the Latin not followed the Eng- In their preface, Minkova and Tunberg Leo’s successor, from Spain to Rome to lish rhythm, we might have pretty poems, state that their poems will help the student of provide the strong papacy that the vio- but we would have no Mater Anserina. Latin cement the Latin accent of each word lent age demanded. As Latin scholars, then, we may wel- permanently in place. There is also plenty of De statura, feritate ac venatione bisontis come Minkova and Tunberg’s prosodic useful grammatical material simply and rhyth- carmen is a remarkable achievement. In mically presented in each piece. Students his monumental poem, Hussovianus man- choices. As readers intimately familiar with ages both to present detailed accounts of Mother Goose, however, our expectations will welcome the Latin vocabularies clearly the behavior of the bison and its hunters in terms of content and style are pretty positioned at the foot of each Latin page. and to place his subject within its broader strong. Any changes introduced in this To use these rhymes most effectively, we geographic and historical context. As he regard have the potential to evoke an should perform their Latin versions out loud expresses his concerns about writing immediate and negative response. For (see Fig. 17). The accompanying CD pro- Latin to be read by the most accom- vides a guide to how one might sing or plished Italian scholars, Hussovianus example, the authors have chosen to ignore offers a glimpse into the broad interna- Mother Goose’s nonsense syllables. While I recite the rhymes in Latin. Mr. du Cassé has tional exchange of ideas in sixteenth-cen- find this to be unfortunate – I want my “hey the clear and compelling voice of a man tury Europe. That a northerner could diddle diddles” – I can understand the who loves music and who can render a attain such scholarly sophistication and authors’ position: nonsense refrains are not melody in a pure and fluid manner. Minko- find himself in the daunting intellectual within the Latin tradition. Each line here va and Tunberg supplement the songs with circle of a Medici pope is a testament to recitations. The lines are spoken slowly, the mobility possible for educated men in means something. “A-tishoo a-tishoo!” in the Latinate culture of the Renaissance. the penultimate verse of “Ring a-round the clearly, and very rhythmically: exactly the Roses” has become “cúrrite cúrrite,” and for way Mother Goose meant them to be. Fred Booth ([email protected]) is Chair- Georgie Porgie’s “puddin’ and pie” read man of the Classical Studies Department at “tót puéllis óscula dás.” Diane Johnson (diane.johnson@ Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He has English can access many more monosyl- wwu.edu) is an assistant professor of classics just finished writing a book manuscript, in the Department of Modern and Classical Five Neo-Latin Poets of the Polish labic words than Latin can. Mother Goose, Renaissance, and is currently working on in addressing very small children, must use Languages, Western Washington University, the first complete English translation of short, simple words. The old poems achieve in Bellingham, Washington. Her three grown Hussovianus’ poem about the bison. their best effects when monosyllables high- sons know their Mother Goose, as they too light a pleasingly ridiculous name: were dandled and taught the old rhymes. 23 ® GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS A Publication of the American Philological Association Sponsorship and Readership: Suggested Length of Submissions: Amphora, a publication sponsored by Articles (1500-1800 words), reviews the Committee on Outreach of the (500-1000 words). Amphora is footnote Editor American Philological Association, is free. Any pertinent references should Anne-Marie Lewis published twice a year, in the spring be worked into the text of the York University and fall. Amphora is intended for a wide submission. [email protected] audience that includes those with a strong enthusiasm for the classical Offprints: Authors receive ten free Assistant Editor world: teachers and students, present copies of the issue that contains their and former classics majors, administra- submission. T. Davina McClain tors in the field of education, communi- Louisiana Scholars’ College at ty leaders, professional classicists, and Addresses for Submissions: Northwestern State University interested academics and professionals [email protected] in other fields. General Enquiries and Articles Professor Anne-Marie Lewis Editorial Board Submissions: Amphora welcomes sub- Editor, Amphora Adam Blistein missions from professional scholars and Department of Languages, Literatures, Executive Director, APA experts on topics dealing with the and Linguistics [email protected] worlds of ancient Greece and Rome Ross Building S 561 (literature, language, mythology, history, York University Sally Davis culture, classical tradition, and the arts). Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 CANADA Arlington County (Virginia) Submissions should not only reflect [email protected] Public Schools sound scholarship but also have wide [email protected] appeal to Amphora’s diverse outreach Reviews audience. Contributors should be will- Professor T. Davina McClain Elaine Fantham ing to work with the editors to arrive at Assistant Editor, Amphora Princeton University a mutually acceptable final manuscript Louisiana Scholars’ College at [email protected] that is appropriate to the intended audi- Northwestern State University Helene Foley ence and reflects the intention of 110 Morrison Hall Barnard College Amphora to convey the excitement of Natchitoches, LA 71497 U. S. A. [email protected] classical studies. Submissions will be [email protected] refereed anonymously. Mary-Kay Gamel University of California-Santa Cruz [email protected]

Barbara Gold Hamilton College [email protected] American Philological Association Non-Profit Org. 292 Logan Hall, University of Pennsylvania U.S. Postage Judith P. Hallett 249 S. 36th Street University of Maryland, College Park PAID Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304 Permit No. 2563 [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Philadelphia, PA Web site: www.apaclassics.org Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow Brandeis University [email protected]

Chris Ann Matteo The Edmund Burke School [email protected]

Daniel Mendelsohn [email protected]

Andrew Szegedy-Maszak Wesleyan University [email protected]

Susan Ford Wiltshire Vanderbilt University 24 [email protected] Copyright © 2007 by the American Philological Association