HUM/REL 493 - Continuation of Intermediate Latin
Course Notes - Week 5
The photo on page 81 is of a carving on a late 2nd century AD funerary monument, showing a teacher (center) with two pupils who are reading their lesson to him from papyrus scrolls.
The photo on page 82 is of the restored facade of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus. The library at Ephesus was built in 148 BC by the consul Gaius Julius Aquila in memory of his father Julius Celsus Polemeanus, who had been a magistrate at Ephesus.
The first public library in Rome was founded by Asinius Pollio in 39 BC. By the end of the Empire there were 29 public libraries in Rome.
The great Library of Alexandria in Egypt was founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus (283-247 BC) who commissioned the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek which is now known as the Septuagint (pr. sep-TYOO-ah-jint or SEP-tyoo-a-jint)
The picture of Ovid, page 85, is not drawn from life, but is an imaginary portrait painted on the wall of the Duomo (Cathedral) at Orvieta. The frescoes at Orvieto commemorated learned people from both pagan and Christian cultures.
The photo on page 89 shows the bronze statue of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, at Artemision in Greece. The statue is nine-and-a-half feet tall. Originally there was a trident (now lost) in the god's right hand.
The story on page 82 describes Clemen's sons making a paraphrase of some Latin poetry. This was one of the standard training exercises, "progymnasmata" for students progressing from a "grammaticus" to a "rhetor"
Quintilian, in his "Institutio Oratoria" gave instructions for how this was to be done :
"versus primo solvere, mox mutatis verbis interpretari, tum paraphrasi audacius vertere, qua et breviare quaedam et exornare salvo modo poetae sens permittitur."
First, turn the verse into prose, and express it in other words, then change it further (more boldly) by means of a paraphrase, shortening some expressions and embellishing others while keeping the poet's meaning.
The story illustrate's Quintilian's low social status - Epaphroditus interrupts the lesson, and speaks first to the boys before acknowledging Quintillian's presence.
The story also illustrates the fear that children often had of punishment for having done something wrong without even being aware that they had done so.
Tacitus (Histories, VI), writing about the Reign of Terror under the Emperor Tiberius, gives an account of how his one-time favorite, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, Commander of the Imperial Guard and senator, was executed on suspicion of conspiracy. Sejanus had arranged for Tiberius' son Drusus to be poisoned, though that was not the charge against him.
After the execution, Tiberius went after Sejanus' family. The little boy realized what was happening and why, and went quietly with the soldiers to prison and death, but the little girl asked why she couldn't just be beaten "like other children", and told what she had done wrong, and she would promise not to do it again.
What happened to her was that, because she was a virgin, and Roman virgins could not legally be executed, she was raped by her gaoler. Then both children were strangled, and their bodies thrown out onto the Gemonian steps.
The story on page 85 starts with a description of Domitian trying to kill flies by skewering them with his pen (stylus) - that he did this was recorded by Suetonius (Domitian 3)
Ovid - Publius Ovidius Naso (someone in his family must have had a big nose) lived 43 BC - ca. AD 17. His family sent him to Rome, and then to Athens to study law - but he decided to write poetry.
The verses on pages 89-90 are a selection from his "Metamorphoses" - a series of poems on mythological transformations - a mixture of fantasy, mythology and history. The verses may be difficult at first sight, because we are meeting new vocabulary, and the word-order tends to be unusual - notice the separation between adjectives and the nouns they describe (shown in the text-book by underlining). In line 24 we might expect "quā" to come before "modo"
The changes in normal word-order were quite often made to emphasize some picture or point that the poet wanted to make, or to fit the meter of the verse.
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Source : mainly from the Cambridge Latin Course Teacher's Manual
