Golden Dawn is scary stuff

I've been dealing with end-of-term matters, not leaving much time for deeep thoughts about the ancient world. But I did want to say that the news coming out of Greece right now scares the heck out of me. Just recently, it seems, the media has started describing them in unironic terms as "neo-Nazis."

I also read that their slogan in TV ads is "get rid of the stench" (referring to immigrants). What in the world?!

I spent only a month over there, about 2 years ago, but I have to say the only jobs I saw that were overwhelmingly held by immigrants were itinerant toy and flower sales. Really? The Greek economy would be rescued if only ethnic Greeks were permitted to sell roses at outdoor cafes?

Scary, scary stuff. Pin It

Minoan flush toilets?

This review of Frank Joseph's The Lost Worlds of Ancient America made some pretty startling (to me) claims about Minoan civilization:

"Each palace had bathrooms with flush toilets. The rooms also had heat and running water suggesting that the Minoans had a considerable civil engineering capability. They understood water flow, elementary thermodynamics and heat transfer."

The claims about heat and running water are pretty decently supported, if I understand correctly. But this was the first time I had heard about the toilets! I took a few minutes to research this claim with the tools at hand (the Oxford Classical Dictionary and Google Books). As a result, I have a new perspective on my own research as seriously lacking in unintentional hilarity. Take this subheading from what I am sure is a very fine archeological report from Israel:

"The Toilets Excavated By Woolley 

The number of well-preserved bathrooms and restrooms found at Tell Atchana is extraordinary in comparison to that found at any other Middle or Late Bronze Age Levantine site...."

A footnote mentions a dispute as to whether the seat of a Minoan toilet was a true seat or a "squatting board". In all seriousness, I know someone has to study the history of toilets. I often experience a sincere envy towards those who study the really practical aspects of ancient life (as opposed to my own field, which is something like "guessing what ancient poets were thinking, what they thought the audience was thinking, and what they audience thought that the poet thought they were thinking.")

Basically, it seems that although some dispute the presence of toilets at Minoan palaces, most accept their existence. They appear to have resembled the outdoor latrines you often see in Roman archeological sites (only with fewer seats, one assumes) and used stone drains.



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Don't make me use this: Odysseus to Thersites

From Stephen Mitchell's Iliad (2.244-248):

"But I swear to you now -- and if I don't do what I say,
may somebody come and cut my head from my shoulders --
that if I ever catch you spewing such nonsense again
I will strip you naked and whip your a** out of here
and send you back to the ships, howling and bawling."

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Classical myth and the Hunger Games

I planned to base a mythology lesson on The Hunger Games, although ultimately it did not fit into the schedule. Although I enjoyed the book, and thought there were a lot of general parallels with the classical world, the movie really brought the classical parallels into focus for me.

1. Theseus and the Minotaur
This is the source mentioned on Suzanne Collins's Wikipedia page. I have to say, I mocked Athens quite a bit in class this semester (Hercules murdered his whole family! But then Theseus takes him to Athens where anything can be fixed!). So I have a hard time getting really into this as a source myth. I'm not saying that THG is not a worthy modern interpretation, just that the comparison doesn't fire my imagination.

2. Antigone
This is a parallel the movie brought into focus quite beautifully for me. Covering Rue with flowers and gesturing accomplished in a couple of minutes much of what it took Sophocles hundreds of lines (and one really annoying heroine) to do.

3. The Iliad
Something about the luminous lighting in President Snow's garden (and his revolting detachment from the Games) really suggested the Greek gods to me. Maybe this is the approach the next movie about Greece should take -- skip the togas and just get a really scary white-haired man in a rose garden to play Zeus. Pin It

College graduation in the Bronze Age

Cool quote from the intro to Stephen Mitchell's Iliad:

"Here, amid all the sorrow and concern and deep husbandly love, in what both these admirable people sense may be their final meeting, at the climax of a prayer Hector must know will never be fulfilled, is the image of a mother rejoicing at her son's return from battle with the bloody armor of the enemy he has just killed, as if she were watching him in his robe and mortarboard graduating from college."

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Achilles the vampire?

Last week's myth class perked up briefly when, in a sudden fit of inspiration (desperation?), I compared Achilles to a vampire. Prior to the poems' conclusion, he stops needing to eat and reaches almost demonic heights of rage, so I said that he was "almost an undead figure." The students seemed quite taken with this idea.

No doubt if I rewrote the poem to include some zombies and vampires (a la Jane Austen), some of them would actually read it.* Never mind that the work's humanity is supposed to be the point ...

*Emboldened by the fact that I'd already given the evals, I asked recently if anyone had actually done the reading. (This was after asking several factual questions about the text that no one would answer.) The response was, shall we say, less than heartening.

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'Our way is the old way'

It seems like everyone in Game of Thrones is a classical scholar. Ned Stark is killed more or less because he borrowed the wrong book on genealogy from the Grand Maester. Jaime Lannister studies the White Book of the Kingsguard for tips on how to stop being a massive jerk. Tyrion Lannister gives his evil nephew Joffrey a rare biography of four ancient kings (which he promptly destroys).

Bits of treasure and knowledge survive from Valyria Before the Doom, which is also where the old ruling family of Westeros came from. House Targaryen sounds like a hideous domestic disaster to me -- brother-sister marriage, madness (no doubt aided and abetted by a limited gene pool). But the new ruling family wants to be just like them. Jaime Lannister fantasizes about making his sister/lover an honest women; Tywin Lannister obsesses over owning a Valyrian steel sword. Something about that connection to the mysterious, fragmentary past...

Anyway, I finally gave in and started reading the Song of Ice and Fire series (=Game of Thrones). It's fantastic, and I can report that even the lower-rated fourth book is enjoyable. Its flaws, such as slightly slow pacing and a length(ier) list of characters, are the sorts of things classicists tolerate well. Pin It