Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. CXII

As referenced earlier in the week, this is a busy and fun time of the year for people who enjoy classical history and dipping into the hagiography of the Catholic church.  Which is true:  I haven't been quite this busy blogging for three or four years, at least.  Four entries in one week?  Amazing.


And what have I talked about?  Oh, the usual things.  I've just rehashed the fact that I like desserts (especially pie), drinking, and redheads.  Nothing new here, I know.  Hope you were sitting down for that shocking revelation.


I glossed over the murder of Caesar for the Ides of March post in favor of the murder of Odoacer, Rex Italiae, since I felt like mixing things up a bit for the Ides of March post this year.  Same with St. Patrick:  I didn't so much discuss Patrick's life, legend, and legacy so much as I focused on some of the peripherals that are associated with Irish "history" and St. Patrick's Day celebrations.


Anyway, as is known, Julius Caesar was murdered in the Theater of Pompey on the Ides of March--March 15th--because various senators were worried that he had accrued too much power for himself and the Republic was moving toward rule by a single citizen...which, of course, happened a few years after Caesar's murder.  His murder was the thing that precipitated the end of the Republic; I think we call that irony.


Caesar was stabbed 23 times, and according to some "forensic" studies I've read, only one of the stab wounds was really deep enough to kill him.  It may have been that murder was not what was on the senators' minds when they attacked him, but more just to teach him a lesson.  Although, 23 stab wounds is quite a lesson.  What they didn't tell you is that there was one last senator in the group who had a bunch of lemon juice to pour in those wounds.  Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!


Famously (thanks in part to Shakespeare's dramatization of the event), Caesar withstood the attack until he saw his friend Brutus among the attackers.  In the play, Caesar asked aloud "Et tu, Brute? Then here falls Caesar."  In actually, he probably said "Kai su, teknon?" (according to Roman historian Suetonius, at least), which means "And you, child?" in Greek.  Whichever is more correct is debatable (not like we can ask anyone, unless the Doctor shows up to clarify Caesar's final moments), but I like to think that right before asking either of these questions, Caesar queried the senators as such:

"Estne pugio in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?"
Pronounced: "Est-nay poo-gee-oh in toh-ga, ahn so-loom tee-bee lee-bet may wee-dare-ay?"




That's no dagger.
Translation in the hovertext (I remembered how to do it).

Pugio was the Latin term for a dagger.  It's related to the word pugno which means "I fight" or "I combat" and several terms in English have been derived from this root, including "pugilist" which is a fancy word for "fighter" or "boxer."  To tie this all up together, my beloved Fighting Irish play their opening round tournament game today against the hated skunkbears from Michigan.  In Latin, the term for "Fighting Irish" would be "Hibernii Pugnaces," ergo I shall be watching the game tonight and shouting "Imus Hibernii Pugnaces!" at my computer screen.

Well, not really, but you get the idea.

In case you can't hovertext:  "Is that a dagger in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?"

Cave Idus Martias...

This particular week of the year is a big week for this blog.  One thing that always fascinates me, or at least tickles that little piece of my brain that implores me to write, are the various holidays, observances, and feast days that litter our calendar.  Monday (March 14) was Pi Day, or, if you're into that kind of thing, Steak and Blowjob day (which I've never observed/celebrated).  Thursday of this week is St. Patrick's Day, which has a special meaning to me since I went to Notre Dame AND my blog readership saw a sudden uptick in traffic when I first began writing summaries of a few of the big saint feast days, St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day.

But Tuesday...Tuesday was the Ides of March, which, on the Roman calendar, translated to the fifteenth of March.  In case you've been living under a rock, you should know that I love some Roman history as well as Shakespeare.  That makes the Ides of March one of those days that, as a blogger with a penchant for writing about ancient history, I should circle on the calendar and put gold stars in the little box marking the date.  It was especially fitting because Tuesday, on the Roman calendar, was dedicated to Mars...for whom the month of March was named!  The Ides of March on the day honoring Mars!  Whoa!

Stabby stabby.

And...I kind of dropped the ball on that one. 

The Ides of March are famous for being the day that Julius Caesar was murdered in the Theater of Pompey by a gang of sixty senators who feared that Caesar had grown too strong politically and was looking to consolidate his power, thus ending the Roman Republic.

Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, then, when the murder of Caesar was one of the events that sounded the death knell for the Republic and ushered in the age of the Empire.

But, I have not come here to bury Caesar.

No, our story takes us to a time roughly 500 years later.  Even though the Roman state--kingdom, republic, empire--had existed for some 1200 years, all good things must come to an end.  By the end, the Western Empire was a ramshackle shell of itself, a ghost barely clinging to the territories that men had conquered and secured centuries before.  The last Roman Emperor--and that's a contentious title--was Romulus Augustulus, who knelt before a Germanic invader named Odoacer in 476.  This ended the Roman Empire in the west and ushered in the very first Kingdom of Italy on that fateful September morning.  Odoacer placed the crown upon his head and was ever since known as the first Rex Italiae, or King of Italy.

For all intents and purposes, Odoacer was allowed to rule in Italy (which included some of modern day France, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia) by the grace of Emperor Zeno, who controlled the Eastern Roman Empire (later, the Byzantine Empire).  For the most part, Odoacer was a decent king.  He settled the unrest within the kingdom, helped secure the borders against outside tribes (especially the Burgundians), and generally saw himself as a proxy ruler for the real last Roman Emperor, a man named Julius Nepos, who had been deposed (but not killed) by Romulus Augustulus' father.  Told you that "last Roman Emperor" title was contentious.

Unseating the "rightful" Roman Emperor in the West had never sat well with Zeno, and so he tried to control both parts of the empire by setting Odoacer upon what was essentially a throne in Italy.  As mentioned earlier, for the most part, Odoacer was a decent guy (for a barbarian) and a fairly good king.

It's good to be the king.

We know this both from records that exist as well as the fact that he became popular enough and powerful enough that Zeno began to worry.  A man of Odoacer's status and charisma (he was a very successful military leader, prior to becoming King of the Italians) would most likely chafe at Zeno's hegemony and eventually become a threat.  To that end, Zeno decided that Odoacer must be killed.

Odoacer, for his part, was satisfied with just being Rex Italiae and not worrying about the East so much; he saw Zeno and the Eastern Roman Empire as allies and friends and had no designs on conquest of the other half of the Roman Empire.  Zeno didn't see things that way, however.

This was not the first rodeo for Zeno in which he murdered someone he had set up on a puppet throne to ostensibly extend his rule.  Which is why Theodoric the Ostrogoth--or Theodoric the Great--was so eager to lead the invasion of the Kingdom of Italy from his home in the Balkans.  Theodoric had already seen Zeno assassinate and murder several other men who were in positions of power--positions that Zeno had set them in.  Theodoric, who was smart enough to know what was up, saw that he, too, would probably soon become one of Zeno's targets, and so he decided to get the hell out of Dodge.

Theodoric and his merry band of warrior Goths--along with some other tribes--led a very successful invasion of Italy, beating back Odaocer's forces time and again.  Odoacer managed to punch back and hold off Theodoric's forces for a while, even besieging a city in which Theodoric and a large portion of his army was trapped.  However, in a very strange, and likely one of the few moments of Gothic solidarity, one of Theodoric's cousins sent over a large force of Visigoths to savage the Italian countryside. 

This spelled doom for Odoacer.

In addition to protecting and rewarding his people, Odoacer had been good to the church.  Odoacer had been very respectful of all of the various Christian sects that were spreading out across Europe at the time, even though he, himself, was an Arian Christian.  With Theodoric's forces pressing in, Odoacer retreated to Ravenna--the seat of his power, where he had been crowned king when Romulus Augustulus abdicated--and continued to fight what he had to know was a losing battle.  Finally, in 493, the Bishop of Ravenna, a man name John, out of respect to Odoacer and all he had done for the Italian people and the church, brokered a peace between Odoacer and Theodoric.

The war ended and things were promising to become a little more normalized.  To celebrate the peace, Theodoric invited Odoacer and some of his men to a feast.

This is fabulous.

Cue the Rains of Castamere.

In a very Game of Thrones twist, Theodoric planned and planted several of his men among the crowd at the feast with the very intent of killing Odoacer and his allies.  Odoacer, who was not quite the bumbling idiot that Theodoric assumed him to be, caught wind of the plot against him and planned appropriately.  When the time came for the attacks, Odoacer and his men were able to foil them.  Theodoric, however, would not suffer defeat lightly.  In frustration, he drew his sword and hurled it at Odoacer, striking him somewhere in the upper chest/throat area--it was described as "hitting his collarbone."  Odoacer fell and died there at the feast with Theodoric standing over him.

The date:  March 15th, 493.

In another very Game of Thrones twist, Theodoric hunted down and killed Odoacer's family, including his wife and daughter.  His son was exiled to Gaul, but when he entered Italy later in life, Theodoric had him captured and executed. 

So, while the Ides of March are most famous for being the day that Julius Caesar was cut down for having too much power and potentially tearing down the fabric of the Republic, the Ides of March are also famous for being the day that the first King of the Italians was cut down for having too much power and potentially tearing down the fabric of Zeno's rule in the East.

If you're an Italian ruler, you would be wise to beware the Ides of March, indeed.

Happy Floralia

I wouldn't want to break with tradition here, and since today marks another obscure Roman holiday, I thought I would go ahead and write about that.  I mean, I could be doing work.  Or writing about work.  But I'm not.  I'm also heading a lot of sentences with conjunctions, which is a no no.  But, what are you going to do?  Not read my blog?  You and 7 billion other people.

Anyway, April 28th is the first day of Floralia, sometimes known as ludi Florae, or the Games of Flora.  Flora was an ancient goddess sacred to the Romans, most likely arriving in their culture via all the Sabine women that they kidnapped and raped incorporated  into their society.  A temple dedicated to Flora was built on the Aventine Hill, very near the Circus Maximus.  There was a second temple dedicated to her, or to Flora Rustica (she liked it rough), on the Quirinal Hill.  One or both of these were dedicated during the Roman "regal period," when Rome was ruled by a king, before the Republic and the Empire.

If I keep this up, I'll name all seven of the Roman hills.  Four more to go, meretrices!

Flora was a goddess of flowers, plants, vegetation, and fertility.  You probably could have guessed that much without the explanation, just based on her name along.  With the coming of the new growth and the reemergence of green vegetation after the winter, it was natural for the celebrations surrounding Flora to occur during the spring.  Thanks to this, she was assumed to be a personification of the spring, or a goddess of the spring.  Thus, she was venerated during the games that came at the end of April; her celebration lasted for six days.  While she was not one of the "big" names in Roman mythology, she was nevertheless important, especially considering her association with the spring, rebirth, and the growing of plants.

One important note about the Games of Flora, especially for us Westerners and especially for Christians:  animals, especially goats, rabbits and hares, were released during the games to celebrate Flora and her gift of fecundity.  These animals were chosen based on their "fertile and salacious" nature, according to Roman poet Ovid.  Another interesting tie-in with modern Christianity, although possibly more loosely tied-in, is the notion that, for Floralia, Romans eschewed the wearing of white garments and instead chose more colorful attire, similar to the pastels we associate with the spring and especially with Easter.  Hell, might as well stretch all the way to the coloring of eggs, too, right?  Why not.  It's Floralia, after all!

The celebrations involved plays, dances, and, of course, games.  Two things of note for the Floralia, though:  one, it was more a Plebian holiday, whereas most of the other celebrations in Rome heavily favored the Patrician families.  Since the common folks participated so readily in the celebration, Floralia was popular with the people, even if Flora was not considered one of the big, important goddesses--especially if you compare her to Ops or Ceres.  The other interesting thing about Floralia was that prostitutes actively participated in the games.  Normally, prostitutes were kept on the edges of society, no matter how valuable their services were to the populace.  Since most prostitutes were slaves, they were excluded from society and were not considered citizens of Rome.  Even women who were not slaves but entered into prostitution were thusly excluded from society.  However, all prostitutes, even prostitutes who were not slaves, participated in the games, showing that even the whores were not completely excluded from Roman society.  Their activities, aside from the obvious, included mock gladitorial battles, dancing naked (now we're talking!) in public displays, and performing their own plays--hopefully naked, as well.  Hooray, prostitutes!

So, gather up your goats and rabbits, pelt your friends with beans and lupins, and go watch some strippers dance around a pole or two.  It's Floralia!  Get out there and celebrate it!

Felix Dies Natalis, Roma!!!

I keep meaning to tell you about my new life, but, hahahahahahahahahahaha, whatevs.  I'll get to it eventually.

The one thing that has struck me as strange is that I picked up a new follower, though I can't identify who the noob is.  I find this remarkable because I've been staring at the same 107 pictures and names for the past year or so, and then someone new pops up and confuses me.  Regardless, welcome to the fold, my new friend.  I hope you're not scared away by the word "vagina."

The reason for not telling you about the "exciting changes" in my life today, however, is that we have a very important birthday to celebrate today:  Rome's.  That's right, the Eternal City was founded on April 21st, 753 BC.  In Roman terms, this was year 0 AUC, which stands for ab urbe condita, or "from the founding of the City."  It was a Roman demarcation of time, which makes sense.  The Romans didn't give much of a shit about what happened before their majestic home and city was founded.

They didn't give much of a shit, not because they were proud (well, okay, they were a little full of themselves), but because the place where Rome currently sits was a majestic slophole of a swamp prior to Romulus cracking his brother over the head with a spade and then breaking ground on his new home.  A slophole, I might add, that was inhabited by a bunch of fucking savages--like a town in New Jersey with a Quick Stop.

You've heard about the Seven Hills, right?  The Seven Hills are the seven hills (duh) surrounding the Tiber river on which the city of Rome was built.  The ancient Romans chose to live on those hills because the valley was an insufferable bog rife with malaria-bearing mosquitoes, and the lowland wasn't really all that habitable until the Cloaca Maxima (or, "largest sewer") was constructed.  Even then, in the beginning, it was more for draining the lowlands and may not have been the best at removing waste from the city itself.  It took subsequent improvements on the sewer system to make it more effective.  In the beginning, it was still open the atmosphere around, so mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects could still breed in the water that was being transported away.

It's kind of strange to think about how far we've come in 2700 years...

Romulus went on to become the first king of Rome.  We don't know who his parents were, because he was found in the wild and suckled by a she-wolf until he became a man, along with his twin brother, Remus.  I mean, his real parents.  Romulus and Remus were the offspring of a Vestal Virgin and Mars, the Roman god of war (and, originally, agriculture).  However, Virgil, while writing the Aeneid, was able to link Romulus and Remus (they're a package set, until it became king-making time) to the hero Aeneas, who fled the burning city of Troy after Odysseus et al. snuck into the city and ended the war.  You remember that, right?  Big wooden badger horse and all?  Good.

Aeneas, after doing his own tour of the Mediterranean world--including plowing Dido, Queen of Carthage--went on to become one of the people who helped found Rome.  After plowing Dido's fields for a while (figuratively, as Carthage didn't have a lot of agricultural lands), Dido wanted a little more commitment, and Aeneas said, "Pax, ex sum!"  He then crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa to the boot of Italy.  There, he met a cat named Evander who told Aeneas where a great place to found a great city was.  That place, naturally, was the Seven Hills (and nasty swamp).

So, here we are, celebrating Rome's birthday, with three possible founders.  Incidentally, Evander was a Greek who fled the southern part of Greece and settled with his many followers on one of the hills of Rome--the Palantine Hill, if you must know.  It is from here that we get the word "palace."  When Evander was showing Aeneas around, he probably said something like, "See, this is my hill.  You go over there and settle on one of those other six hills.  Capisce?"  He totally said that, because it's Italian, and when in the place where Rome will eventually be founded, do as the people who will eventually become Roman do.  Er, yeah.

This is what the founding of Rome most likely was:  an accumulation and aggregation of the tribes that lived on the seven hills under one crown, the king being Romulus.  From there, with the city founded, they went on to war with the surrounding tribes, including the Latins (from whom the Romans stole a language), the Sabines (from whom the Romans stole women), and the Etruscans (from whom the Romans stole a peninsula).

So, in your post-Easter ham coma, and before we start planting trees on Earth Day tomorrow, if you're feeling like you need a reason to celebrate, why not take a moment to wish Rome a happy 2767th birthday.  Darling, you look marvelous, not a day over 2500, if I do say so, myself.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. CVIII

April was an exciting month in the life of Emperor Caracalla.  Oh, you weren't familiar with Caracalla?  He was Roman Emperor from 198 to 217, part of the Severine dynasty.  To give you the short history of Caracalla, he was a dick.  Don't believe me?  Just ask his brother, Geta, with whom he co-ruled the Empire after their father, Septimius Severus Snape died.  That is, until Caracalla had Geta murdered in 211.

Caracalla was born on April 4, 188, in Lugdunum (which we call "Lyon" nowadays) and was saddled with the name Lucius Septimius Bassianus.  There we go with the names ending in "-anus" once again.  Understandably, ol' Low Asshole (rough translation) changed his name to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Caesar to better connect with former, greater emperors, Marcus Aurelius and a couple of the Caesars.

The name Caracalla?  Oh, I'm glad you asked.  He earned it because he went everywhere wearing a cloak with a hood.  It was a bit of local fashion among the Gauls, and when Caracalla became Emperor, the fashion really took off.  Kind of like a Ronald Reagan jelly bean theme or a Bill Clinton saxophone motif. 

Caracalla was a military man, which was important for two reasons:  one, commanding the army (and having their support) went far when trying to stake a claim to the throne in Rome.  Just ask Geta.  You know, if he wasn't murdered by his brother's goons.  The second reason it was important was that it helped him keep the throne after he won it.  It also was nice that his soldiers decided that they would also wear caracallae, thus helping make the garment popular.

Caracalla gave a finger to the traditional look of an Emperor, wearing his hair and beard in traditional short, military fashion.  Also, most of his depictions showed him scowling; Caracalla wasn't going to take your shit.  He was one of the first Emperors who didn't try to beautify his image, and it showed.  Oh boy, did it show.  Diocletian is usually the first name on list of megalomaniacal asshole Emperors, but Caracalla was near the top.  Thousands died in the persecutions under Caracalla, mostly for supporting his brother Geta's claim to the throne.  Or for just pissing him off.

The boys had been sparring on-and-off for years about co-rulership of the Empire, so their mother, Julia Domna, arranged to have her sons get together, sit down, and work things out.  Caracalla did, sort of.  He ordered those members of the Praetorian Guard loyal to him to kill his brother.  Geta ended up dying in Julia Domna's arms.  Classy, Caracalla.  He then ordered the military to slaughter anyone who supported his brother's claim to the throne, pretty much ending all threat to his rule.

Caracalla then claimed that he killed Geta in self-defense, the old "he's coming right at me!" defense.  The people of Alexandria did not quite believe the Emperor, and thus produced a satirical play about the subject.  Caracalla, who didn't have time for your shit, was unamused and, when 20,000 citizens of Alexandria came out to welcome him to the city, Caracalla had them slaughtered.

For all that, Caracalla also did some good things.  His big thing, the thing that he might best be remembered for, the thing that almost absolves him of the boorish dickishness was known as the Edict of Caracalla.  In it, he extended the rights of citizenship to every free man and woman (this was a big deal) in the Empire.  Previously, citizenship had been granted only to those who lived in Rome and was extended out to cover the Italian peninsula.  Caracalla thumbed his nose once more at tradition and extended citizenship to anyone living within the borders of the Roman Empire.

Caracalla is also known for construction of one of the last major public works in Rome:  the Baths of Caracalla.  Covering a sprawling 33 acres, the baths were one of the few to also include a public library with rooms for reading in both Greek and Latin; two palaestrae or gyms for practicing boxing and wrestling; a row of shops; a dedicated swimming pool open to the sky and featuring bronze mirrors to warm the water; and several large gardens for bathers to stroll in after they finished splashing about in the heated waters of the baths.  It was all open to the public; an estimated 1600 bathers could be accommodated at one time at the Baths.

Though this might seem like an exceedingly generous thing to do, it was one of the ways that Caracalla kept his enemies at bay.  He taxed the rich families heavily in order to provide for these public works.  After killing Geta, Caracalla took the army and began moving around the northern and eastern provinces of the Empire, demanding more money from the rich families to support his army's movements.  He also levied heavy taxes in order to pay for meaningless temples, palaces, baths and other such constructs in these outlying provinces.

However, the Baths were his most famous and lasting works.  They are still a popular tourist attraction in Rome today, and there is written evidence that the Baths were used well into the 19th century in Rome, though they had to be rebuilt a few times thanks to the ravages of time, earthquakes and the odd band of savages moving through the area.

Seems fitting that we should honor Caracalla with today's Latin phrase:

Balineo utimur!
Pronounced:  "Ba-lynn-aye-oh oo-tee-myur!"

Um...yeah.  Hovertext.

I mentioned April being a big month for Caracalla.  Well, the always-friendly and terribly-tactful Caracalla had been offered a marriage proposal with a Parthian bride that would bring about peace between Rome and neighboring Parthia.  In true Caracalla fashion, he went through with the sham of a wedding and then had the bride and all the guests put to death. 

Damn.  Red Wedding, anyone?

The Parthians, none too pleased about this, threatened and then attacked Roman lands and so continued the Parthian War of Caracalla.  Satisfied with his handiwork, Caracalla mustered his soldiers and headed east, hellbent on finishing off the Parthian threat once and for all.  Many had thought or hoped that Caracalla's daddy, Septimius Severus Snape had ended the Parthian threat, but it turned out only he could keep the Parthians at bay.

On April 8, 217, while on the way toward the enemy capitol of Ctesiphon, Caracalla called a halt to the march and headed off to the side of the road to toss a whiz.  A man named Julius Martialis, pissed because Caracalla had killed his brother, went Inigo Montoya on the Emperor and killed him with a single sword-stroke while the Emperor was pissing.  There's a good chance that Caracalla died with his dick in his hand, the attack was so fast and so decisive.  The assassin was then shot through with an arrow ending his fifteen minutes of fame right then and there.

Conveniently, the chief of Caracalla's Praetorians was a man named Macrinius who, amazingly, succeeded Caracalla as Emperor.  Macrinius was Emperor for about a year before he, too, was assassinated.  No word on where his dick was when he died.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson: Vol. CV

Thank Gods it's the Day of Venus!  See what I did there?  A little bit of Latin/English bastardization!  It's brilliant, I tell you!

Fine.  Be that way.

Anyway, we're sliding down the back-half of February now as yesterday was the mid-point of our only four-week month.  There was something else that went on yesterday, too, but we've already covered that a few times in ye olde blogge.  Yes, I'm a shameless self-promoter.  Actually, I'm just backing up my claims with...well, not fact, since a lot of that was speculation.  So, yeah, shameless self-promotion it is!

The fifteenth of February, though, marked the final day of the Roman celebration of Lupercalia.  The Lupercalia was a three day festival, beginning February 13th and running until the 15th, in which the Romans honored the god Lupercus, sometimes identified with the (somewhat more recognizable) Faunus, who really resembled the Greek deity Pan.  Lupercus was the god who watched over shepherds.  More importantly, Lupercus stood in (and presumably helped protect) the cave where the twins Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf lupa when they were abandoned in the wild.  You might remember that Romulus grew up and later founded the city of Rome (after bashing his brother over the head with a shovel).

Incidentally, a slang word for "whore" in Latin is lupa...not a very loving remembrance for what could be considered the city's matriarch.

So...if we celebrate the Lupercalia in February, why is February not Luperary?

It all boils down to where the month falls on the Roman calendar.  This is the time of year when the world begins to emerge from its long winter slumber (the world here being the Mediterranean...when Minnesota conquers most of the known world, then we'll talk about when spring arrives).  As such, thoughts turn to planting of crops and birthing of babies, which all ties back to fertility.  Februus was a Roman god of purification, and in order to get the world ready for planting of crops, it was time for purification.  Februus is possibly linked to a much older purification and fertility rite, Februa, which was probably adopted in after the Romans conquered the Etruscans.

There is also a chance that Februus is tied to the Roman goddess Febria, who was the goddess of the fever.  The fever (also associated with malaria) was seen to be a sort of internal purification flame; if you survived it, your body was purged of whatever ills had caused the fever, and you were the stronger for it.  Remember, viruses were a couple of thousand years away from being known.

While we were busy celebrating the purification of the world and preparation for planting and birthing the spring clutches of agricultural animals, we might as well throw in human babies as well, right?  So, all of the celebrations about purifying the land and body were lumped in with the Lupercalia.  The final day of Lupcalia was recognized as the Februa.

Lupercalia involved young men of the city running around the city walls.  It wasn't a race so much as it was just a tradition.  All of the women of the city who were pregnant or who were hoping to be pregnant, or who might get pregnant, lined up along the streets and the course of the run, holding out their hands.  The youths running through the streets and around the walls struck the waiting ladies' hands with thongs made from the skin of the goats sacrificed in the name of Lupercus (because wolves like eating goats and sheep--get it!?!?).  This would then bless the women of Rome with ripe, fertile uteri, ready to be impregnated.  It was also to help ease the pain of childbirth and to make sure healthy babies were born, so it wasn't all just foreplay.

As Christianity took hold in the Empire, the Lupercalia was frowned upon (as were most pagan rituals); it was essentially phased out by the fourth century.  There is no real proof, but given the church's predilection toward placing "major" Christian feasts and holidays around popular pagan rituals, there is a chance that the Saint Valentine story was retconned so that he conveniently died during the middle of the Lupercalia.  Here, instead of celebrating a guy with furry goat legs, let us celebrate a man who may not have existed and who was martyred for performing these Christian weddings.  Killing goats, bad; beheading peaceful men, good.

As someone who grew up in northern climes, we didn't start thinking about such things as planting and such until much later in the year.  February was always pretty harsh--it was cold, snowy, and there was a lot of flu and colds going around.  Maybe, for the folks in the south, Februus and his prepping the land for planting season makes sense, but for those in the frigid north, Febria is more appropriate.

Either way, these days February usually invokes images of cold and snow, which provides a perfect backdrop for today's Latin lesson:

Quoniam figeo, tremo!

Pronounced:  "Kwo-nee-ahm fri-gay-oh, tray-moh!"

Shaky translation in the hovertext

As if on cue, the master prognosticators of the area have told us to be ready for snow over the weekend.   It's not supposed to be much, which means that the mass panic will be somewhere short of riotous stampedes in the street, but with minor bouts of teeth-gnashing and wailing.  Thank God no one has decided to name this "winter storm".  Regardless, stay safe, stay warm, and brew up an extra pot of coffee.  I might drop in for a visit.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol CIII

We've celebrated a lot of things around here on Fridays.  For instance, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, various and sundry minor Roman holidays.  Lief Ericson Day.  Even the Ides of March.  Plus various birthdays:  mine, Hugh Hefner's and Elvis.  I think we should combine a couple of special days and throw them all together here.  What say you?  Good.  Let's go.

Today is Friday, of course, but it's also Friday the Thirteenth!  Gasp and swoon.  It's also July 13th.  The significance?  Traditionally, it's been accepted that July 13th was the birth date of one Gaius Iulius Caesar, that wee little man that brought most of the world around the Mediterranean into Roman control.

Let's start with the dispelling of rumors, shall we?

Caesar was not cut from his mother's womb.  Gaius was a popular Roman name and Iulius was his family's name, tracing their ancestry back to Aeneas (one of the founders of Rome) who was the son of Venus.  Handsome.  The name "Caesar" reflects, maybe, one of his ancestors being born by caesarean, but it could also refer to the thick head of hair that the babies were born with, their blue-grey eyes or maybe that someone down the line had slain an elephant in battle.  For reference, Julius' father was named Gaius Julius Caesar (the Elder) and his father was named Gaius Julius Caesar (the really elder), so the Caesar part had been around the family for a long time.

Ceasar also did not utter his famous words "vini, vidi, vici" upon conquest of the Gauls.  The area around the Black Sea, a place known in Roman times as "Pontus", had been a troubling spot for a while.  Previously, a man named Mithridates (read about him here) had vexed Roman dictator Pompey, who also happened to be one of Caesar's main political enemies.  It took a while for Pompey to deal with Mithridates--he was really charismatic, ambitious, owned a brilliant strategic mind, and was fucking insanely paranoid--so when Caesar arrived to put down a different rebellion, he did not mess around.  Pretty much as soon as Caesar arrived in Pontus from Egypt--where he was diddling a certain Egyptian woman--the uprising was over.  Caesar's report of "I came, I saw, I was victorious" was mostly a school yard taunt at Pompey's inability to take care of that shit effectively.

Lastly, Caesar was not the first Emperor.  At least not this Caesar.  That would be his nephew and adopted heir, Octavian who later became Augustus Caesar (and who is not a very good leader in Civilization IV, at least not in the early part where you have to fight everyone to survive).  He did set himself up to be Dictator for Life, however.  Despite the Republic still chugging along, whenever there was a crisis, political and military leaders could set aside the rule of the Senate and make themselves the Dictator, who then guided the Roman people/lands/government/military through whatever terrible thing was happening.

One interesting thing was that, after his conquest of Gaul, Caesar became more popular with the soldiers he commanded than with the rulers of the Senate--for good reason:  he was powerful and powerfully charismatic, but even better, he had the backing of one of the best fighting forces on Earth.  Caesar was warned to leave his army in the field and return to Rome.  Instead, he crossed the Rubicon (a river demarcating the boundaries of Italy at the time) with a single legion, and Civil War erupted.  When Caesar emerged victorious, he then declared that he was Dictator for Life...which he was, until March 15th, 44 BC.  That's, of course, the date when Brutus, Cassius and company decided they would try to re-establish the rule of the Republic by ending Caesar.  Unfortunately for their plans, they sparked a series of Civil Wars in which Augustus emerged as the winner and was then seated upon the throne as the first emperor.

Now, here's an interesting notion.  It's been kicked around for a while that Caesar's death on the floor of the theatre of the Curia of Pompey was not as clear cut as some would have us think.  Several people, who were not part of the conspiracy to kill Caesar, were aware of the plot, including Marcus Antonius (not the singer) who was one of Caesar's triumvirate (rule by three men).  Anthony then tried to warn Caesar, but Julius sort of...ignored him.  Caesar then went into the place where the Senate was meeting and was stabbed those infamous 23 times (though only one was deep enough to kill him).

Apparently, Caesar's health was beginning to fail--and he knew it.  While his body was beginning to decline, his mind was not; he knew that, if he were to seat himself upon a throne, he would not last long, either by being too weak to control the power or by being too sick to survive.  With that in mind, he willingly walked into the place where the Senate was meeting, knowing that he was about to be murdered.  This would go along with the notion that Caesar did not fight back much and so willingly gave up when he saw Brutus among the conspirators/assassins.

That all makes for a rather grim story to tell, especially on someone's birthday.  In lieu of the grisly--albeit, potentially altruistic--outcome, let's just get to the Latin translation, shall we?

Dies meus natalis est.  Iacite mihi dona.

Pronounced "Dee-ace may-oose nah-tah-leese est.  Ee-yah-kee-tay mee-hee doh-nah."

View the hovertext for the translation presently.

Et non obliviscere femellas.

Pronounced:  "Et noan oh-blee-wee-scare-aye fay-may-lahs.

Youthful translation in the hovertext.

As with most historical figures (for reference, see Christ, Jesus), there is some debate as to when the actual date of Caesar's birth was.  July 13th has been the traditional date for, well, a really long time.  We know that he was born somewhere near the middle of the month of July--hence the name of the month.  His heir, Augustus, gave us the name for "August".  Clever, no?  Despite there being debate and some confusion as to the date of Caesar's birth, we'll go ahead and recognize the 13th as his birthday.  If April 23rd can still be Shakespeare's birthday, then the 13th of July can belong to Caesar!

A note on the translation (aside from the caveat that I'm still learning and might not have the word order and the declensions perfectly correct...I couldn't decide on whether we should "shower him with presents" or "shower the presents upon him"), I used the term femella for "women".  It is, roughly, the word that the Romans would use for young women, as opposed to puella, which means girl, or femina which means "wife" or "woman".  I figured Caesar was probably a lech and would have approved of the younger stock.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson: Vol. CII

While we're brushing the dust off archaeological digs (read: my blog), we might as well dive right into the deep end of the dead language pool. Plus, someone said they missed the Friday Morning Latin Lesson; that's like inviting a vampire into your home. Ill-advised at best, and down-right encouraging of debaucherous behavior if we're being frank.

What's the occasion? Well, there's a couple of things going on today. On May 25, 240 BC, the first recorded track of Halley's comet was noted in some Chinese scientific writing. There's a chance that the comet that was reported in Greece (and possibly Babylon) in 467 BC was also Comet Halley, but we can't be certain of that. Evidence points in that direction, but no one has the balls to come out and say it. Yet.

Again, on May 25, in 567 king Servius Tullius held a triumph to celebrate his victory over the Etruscans. Servius Tullius was the sixth, and probably best, King of Rome (the first was the Big R himself, Romulus). He was a bit of a socialist, though, as he was one of the first to want to spread the wealth from the noble families to the poor of Rome's citizenry. This would prove to bite him in the ass later on. He also helped to lay the foundation for what would become the Roman Republic. In general, Servius was pretty well-liked, aside from his political rivals, who ended up murdering him. Details, details...

As with any character of Roman history, there's an entertaining backstory with Servius. His mother was a lady named Ocrisia who was probably captured from the Latins (there was an actual people, from whom the language arose...they lived in the "flat lands") during one of the wars between Rome and the Latin League. She arrived in Rome pregnant (most likely) and as she was a woman of noble birth, she was given to the king's wife to act as a servant. There, she gave birth to Servius; the baby, being born in the king's household, became a member of his extended family. Eventually he would grow up and marry the king's daughter and, when the king (Lucius Tarquinius Priscus) was murdered, Servius ascended the throne in Rome.

There's also a story that Ocrisia (still captured from the Latins) arrived in Rome as a virgin and was given over to serve as a Vestal Virgin (Vesta was keeper of the hearth flame at home, and she was one of those ever-virgin goddesses). Ocrisia, by her noble birth, was then sent to serve in the king's household, performing the rites and rituals of Vesta for the king. One day, after offering a sacrifice on the holy fires within the king's hearth, Ocrisia damped the flames. Apparently, Ocrisia turned around and shook some of that sweet virgin ass at the hearth, because a disembodied dick rose from the remains of the fire and penetrated Ocrisia. The child she bore was Servius Tullius, the child who would become king.

Oh, and despite the fact that she was a servant of Vesta (who presumably didn't have a dick), it was widely accepted that Vulcan was the father of the child...which is probably why he moved his forge under Mount Etna, to avoid child support payments and such. While Vesta was in charge of the sacred flame of the hearth, Vulcan was the god in charge of fire used in defense of the city.

This wasn't the only run-in that Servius had with the divine, however. During his reign as king, Servius expanded Rome's territory, spread the city across the surrounding hills, founded several temples in the name of various goddesses (Diana and Fortuna being the main ones), expanded the vote, reorganized the divisions of Roman society, improved the military and helped to keep the plebians happy by spreading some of the wealth from the top of society down through the lower ranks. It was said that Servius had so much luck on his side that Fortuna, the goddess associated with good luck, sneaked in through his window at night so that they rucked like hounds. Apparently, he did not inherit daddy's floating dick trick.

Wow. Not only did he get to bang the daughter of the previous king, but he also spent his nights in the arms of the goddess of good fortune? Talk about one lucky bastard. It sure brings this little phrase to mind:

Bonum est regem esse!
Pronounced: "Boh-noom est ray-gaim aye-say!"

Regal translation in the hovertext!
The name Servius is an interesting one. Since Ocrisia was most likely a slave--at the very best, a servant for the queen--people have noted the similarity between her son's name "Servius" and the Latin word for "slave", which was servus. Servius as a name probably comes from a root meaning "to keep or to preserve", but the similarity was enough that Rome's enemies used it as a sign of weakness in one of the Republic's founding fathers. Mithridates, the Poison King of Pontus, whom Julius Caesar had to personally destroy after Mithridates' fourth or fifth rebellion (incidentally, it was Pontus about which Caesar uttered his famous "vini, vidi, vinci"), was one such person to pun on Servius' name. He pointed out that even the Roman kings included "slaves and house servants of the Etruscan (people)", basically thumbing his nose at Roman rule, their citizens and their leadership.

Whatever the story, the links between the slave class and the name Servius was enough that the name fell out of vogue by about the time that the Roman Republic was established, despite the popularity of the king who carried the same name. Despite being born a slave (or of a slave), Servius is considered Rome's best king and overall one of the best rulers the city/republic/empire had.

Not bad for a guy whose father was a severed dick.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol LXXVIII

Do you know what today is? It's Harry Potter's Birthday! Actually, no, Harry's birthday is July 31st, so NEXT Saturday. Today is Daniel Radcliffe's birthday. Radcliffe is, of course, the cat who plays Harry Potter in the movies. He is 21 today.

21?!?!? Woot! Butterbeer for everyone!!!

This is, of course, significant because Ol' Danny Boy (the pipes, the pipes are calling) has had himself quite an acting career...revolving around Latin. In addition to all those Latin spells he's throwing around in the movie adaptations of the Harry Potter books, he's also rather famous for appearing nude (and quite nude, from what I hear) on the stage performance Equus, which is, of course, Latin for "horse".

If you want to get technical, equus, equi is a horse (or horses) that is a fine, noble steed. A rundown bitch of a horse destined for the inside of an Elmer's glue bottle is termed caballus, caballi. Think of it as a "nag", or a "Lohan" if you must.

Should the word equus look somewhat like something else, there might be a reason for that. According to one legend I read, the word equus was linked with our word "equal" because a team of horses pulls a plowshare or a carriage or a wagon equally. The Greek word for horse, which cognates (read: has a familiar origin) with equus is hippos.

In case you've ever taken a paleontology class, or you're just a fossil nerd like me, you'll recognize all the various forms of the horse as it was evolving as having the root word "hippos" in it--except for Hyracotherium, which should be called Eohippus, but, you know, c'est la vie--or, I guess c'etais la vie since they're all dead now.

And, yes, hippos is where we get the word "hippopotamus", which means "river horse" (potamos being Greek for "river"). However, you'd have to be drunk to either think a hippopotamus looks like a horse or to ride one. Although, riding a hippopotamus into battle would be full-frontal awesome.

The word poto, potare in Latin means "to drink liquor"...which brings us right back to Daniel Radcliffe's 21st birthday. I am nothing if not full-circle in my reporting of things thousands of years old.

Of course, while we're on the subject of Greek horses, I can only think of one Greek horse famous enough to survive through history: Secretariatus The Trojan Horse.

And the Trojan that fit on that horse must have been fucking massive!

*ahem*

Perhaps we had better just get on with the Latin lesson:

Equo ne credite! Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!
Pronounced: "Aye-kwoh nay cray-dee-tay! Tee-may-oh Dah-nah-ose ate doh-nah fay-rain-taise!"


Translation in the hovertext!
What? Sororities are Greek, right?

I believe the "horse" comes in with the one on the left...though I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers. Or baklava. Or sugar cubes.

The above phrase is taken from Virgil's Aeneid, the great epic which surrounds the founding of Rome by Aeneas, one of the few Trojans to escape Troy as it was being burnt to the ground. He sailed around the Mediterranean for a few years, fucked whatever didn't get away fast enough, and then made it up to the Italian peninsula where he was met by Evander, who told him he had prepared a place for the Trojan refugees and, badda-bing, badda-bang, Rome is founded. You know, where Romulus and Remus founded it. And where Evander founded it. And, you know, some Etruscan settlers.

But, fuck those other guys, hooray Aeneas!

The question you should be asking, though, is why the Trojans were speaking Latin. But that's probably a question left for another day.

And, one final note, you'll notice that the word for "Greeks" is Danaos (I think Danaus would be the singular...I think it's a second Declension noun, but I can't find any reference...so if anyone knows for certain, drop a comment for me). We would translate that as "Danaans", which is a sort of catch-all name for the Greeks. Remember, at the time when these epics were written, nations didn't exist so much as did city-states (like, for instance, Rome), so to avoid listing all the Greeks' cities of origin, something like "Danaans" was used.

This becomes imperative when trying to warn someone to stay away from the big wooden horse filled with enemy soldiers and their pointy, pointy swords.

I can imagine it went something like: "Beware the Athenians, and the Spartans, and the Laconians, and the Myceneans, and the Argosians, and the Ithacans, and the Myrmidons, and the--you know what? Fuck it! Beware those filthy gods-damned Danaans!"

Anyway, the term Danaos comes from the name Danae, who was Perseus' mother (his father, of course, was Master Thunderhead himself, Zeus). Perseus was kind of the first Greek demigod hero, and so all the Greeks wanted to trace their ancestry back to him. Thus, if all the Greek tribes came from Danae, then they were Danaans.

The Greeks' name for themselves? Hellenes.

With that, Happy Birthday Daniel Radcliffe! And you all have a Hellene of a good weekend!

Forever in Debt to Your Priceless Advice

I read yesterday that Rick Riordan is planning a new series based on Greek mythology. In case you're not familiar with Monsieur Riordan, he's the author of the best-selling young adult series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the first book of which, The Lightning Thief, was released as a movie earlier in the year.

So, Rick Riordan is that guy down the street gleefully rolling in a pile of cash thanking Zeus as he does so.

He might squeeze in a little bit of thanks for Ra, too, as Riordan's written a series of books based on the Egyptian pantheon, as well.

A quick read of his Wikipedia Biography shows that the native Texan dons the burnt orange and white as a Texas alumnus, and that he still lives in San Antonio. I'll bet he remembers the Alamo. While at Texas, he studied English and History.

Fascinating, I know. You woke up this morning and wondered all about the life of the author of the Percy Jackson books. Or didn't. And you're probably wondering why the fuck I'm so interested, other than the fact that I generally like people from Texas.

For the answer to these questions, we'll have to go back to 1993, when I was beginning to shift my focus from what was inside Jodi Hippensteel's shirt (mental note: stalk her on Facebook later today) and more what I would do with the rest of my life. More specifically, I was pondering what it was I should major in when I got to college.

My first inclination was to study English, as I was rather fond of English and language as a whole, and I also enjoyed dissecting books other than The Scarlet Letter for their depth, meaning and symbolism. As a backup plan, I pondered studying history, focusing on ancient history since I had been almost singularly obsessed with the Roman Empire since the sixth grade. Given this, I'd probably have sought a degree in the Classics.

Even then, I had aspirations of becoming an author (something I had been working on since the third grade). I was working for the local newspaper and also for the student-run newspaper at my high school, so I had some writing experience under my belt. I was just going to start getting serious about my possible career.

I voiced these opinions to my parents who enjoyed dangling me upon marionette strings, ensuring that they controlled as much of my life as humanly possible were interested in helping me make a sound and wise decision.

My father just seemed happy that I was going to college. My mother, on the other hand, began growling the moment I started speaking.

"I'm not paying for you to go to school and study some la-di-da subject that you'll never be able to get a job doing!" she howled, banshee like in the pitch and timbre of her vitriol. "I'm not wasting good money on you to tiptoe through the daisies for four years. You're going to go and study something that you can make a career out of!"

And that was the end of that. Since I had done well in my high school chemistry classes (in which things like "reaction mechanisms", "kinetics", "quantum mechanics" and "physical chemistry" aren't ever really mentioned, giving you that whole false sense of security thing), I opted for a major in chemistry.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my undergraduate institution. It's just that...well, the facilities were a bit dated and we didn't have a whole lot of laboratory equipment, especially instrumental equipment. So, while still in high school and weighing the idea of studying a scientific discipline, I pondered going to a larger school where I could get things like "hands on learning" and stuff like that.

My mother would have none of this. "You're not going to a big state school!" she hissed. "They don't teach you anything there. You just get an indoctrination!"

Incidentally, I converted to Catholicism whilst in college.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Also, incidentally, my mother snarled--actually snarled! Feral growl, teeth-bearing rictus and all--that I should "get real" when I was thinking about going to graduate school, and tossed around the words "Notre" and "Dame". At this point, I had wriggled out from under her thumb enough that I wasn't going to put up with her bullshit and then I pointed out that I would actually get paid to go to school there. I guess a degree in the sciences does have its advantages...

It shut her the fuck up, which accomplished my prime objective, but anyway, back to the story.

So, I ended up studying a subject I wasn't really that fond of at a small school with limited resources to help bolster that study wondering if my job is going to be shipped to India tomorrow or next week.

Meanwhile, in my spare time, I study Latin and the history of Rome, from the founding of the city to the fall of the Empire and the transition period after that where the great kingdoms of Europe slowly rose from the ashes of the Empire. I am also writing a book featuring Greek gods and working desperately to sketch out a fiction series that will be an allegory to various aspects of the rise of the Roman Empire that may or may not be geared toward middle school girls so that I, too, can shit gold bullion.

So, Rick Riordan? I admire you, sir. Please, don't stop wallowing in that pile of cash. Enjoy every moment of it. You've certainly shown what a waste of time a degree in history and language is, not to mention how unhealthy it is to have an obsession with ancient mythological stories. Yessir, I'll bet you're regretting that degree these days.

Because I enjoy my own cleverness so much, I thought I'd share this little sniglet of what I wrote last night in my Greek gods story (though if you've read my status updates on Facebook, this is old hat):

"Walking into the bedroom, Amanda rolled her eyes. 'Please,' she reproached, 'Priapos you're not.'"

By the way...if you're not familiar, don't look up "Priapos/Priapus" at work...