What is pizza? And what is in that picture from Pompeii?

https://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/best-veggie-pizza/

What is pizza? I know that is a silly question, but there are so many varieties and toppings that settling on one definition, so dependent on personal preference, is next to impossible. The Romans got it right with the Latin phrases, quot homines tot sententiae and, of course, nil disputandum de gustibus.

The quintessential pizza, as if described by the philosopher Plato, to which all other pizzas aspire, is obviously a crust, sauce, cheese, and perhaps a variety of toppings. It bakes until the crust is done and the cheese is melted. This is the simplistic recipe for pizzaness or a pizza-like object. All pies are, indeed, a variation on a theme.

https://www.pizzanapoletana.org/en/ricetta_pizza_napoletana

In an attempt to protect their heritage and define more clearly this culinary gift to the world, Italy has an official and legal definition of pizza, which sets the requirements for crust, sauce, cheese, toppings, and baking. Pizzaioli who follow these directives even display a sign or a sticker (pictured above) on the front door of their shop, advertising the authenticity of their product so that patrons know they are getting the real thing. (On a side note: While searching for this information on the official rules, I came across a great article from Pizza Bien which tells us where to buy real pizza in Italy. It is well worth a read.)

Although this gastronomic delight is now a staple around the world, pizza may have its origins in the ancient Roman world. For those who argue that this delicacy did not originate in ancient Rome, a pizza of sorts is mentioned in two passages of Vergil's Aeneid as a part of the same story arc.

https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses/celaeno/

In their journey to found a new Troy somewhere in the west, the beleaguered Trojans attack the Harpies and kill some of their cattle. The harpy Celaeno (pictured above) then curses these wandering warriors to endure so much hunger that they cannot reach their promised land until they have eaten their very tables:

una in praecelsa consedit rupe Celaeno,                            245

infelix vates, rumpitque hanc pectore vocem:

'bellum etiam pro caede boum stratisque iuvencis,

Laomedontiadae, bellumne inferre paratis

et patrio Harpyias insontis pellere regno?

Accipite ergo animis atque haec mea figite dicta,              250

quae Phoebo pater omnipotens, mihi Phoebus Apollo

praedixit, vobis Furiarum ego maxima pando.

Italiam cursu petitis ventisque vocatis:

ibitis Italiam portusque intrare licebit.

Sed non nate datam cingetis moenibus urbem                   255

quam vos dira fames nostraeque iniuria caedis

ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas.'

Aeneid III.245-257

And my translation:

Celaeno alone settles on a very high rock,

an unhappy prophetess, and calls out this voice from her heart:

'Is it war actually for the slaughter of our herds and cattle laid low,

sons of Laomedon, war you intend to bring in

and drive the innocent Harpies from their native kingdom?

Therefore receive and fix in your mind these words of mine,

which the all-powerful father foretold to Phoebus, then Phoebus Apollo to me,

then to you I, the greatest of the Furies, reveal.

Italy in your course you seek and you call upon it with the winds:

You will go to Italy and you will be permitted to enter its ports,

but you will not surround your owed city with walls

before cruel hunger and the wrongdoing of our slaughter

forces you to eat your tables gnawed by your jaws.'

https://dcc.dickinson.edu/cultural-context/german?page=15

Further on, Aeneas' son Ascanius jests that the Trojans are eating their tables:

Aeneas primique duces et pulcher Iulus

corpora sub ramis deponunt arboris altae,

instituuntque dapes et adorea liba per herbam

subiciunt epulis (sic Iupitter ipse monebat)                            110

et Cereale solum pomis agrestibus augent.

Consumptis hic forte aliis, ut vertere morsus

exiguam in Cererem penuria adegit edendi,

et violare manu malisque audacibus orbem

fatalis crusti patulis nec parcere quadris:                              115

'heus, etiam mensas consumimus?' inquit Iulus,

nec plura, adludens, ea vox audita laborum

prima tulit finem, primamque loquentis ab ore

eripuit pater ac stupefactus numine pressit.

Continuo 'Salve fatis mihi debita tellus                                  120

vosque' ait 'o fidi Troiae salvete penates:

hic domus, haec patria est. Genitor mihi talia namque

(nunc repeto) Anchises fatorum arcana reliquit:

"Cum te, nate, fames ignota ad litora vectum

accisis coget dapibus consumere mensas,                              125

tum sperare domos defessus, ibique memento

prima locare manu molirique aggere tecta."'

Aeneid VII.107-127

And this is:

Aeneas and the first leaders and handsome Iulus

lay down their bodies beneath the branches of a tall tree,

and they set up their meals and they spread out their spelt cakes

through the grass for their dishes of food (thus Jupiter himself advised)

and they pile Ceres' plate with wild fruits.

With other things here eaten by chance, as their lack of eating

drove them to turn their bites onto their scanty Ceres/grain/cakes,

and to break the plate with their hand and bod jaws

and not to spare the spread out tables of fated baked item:

'Hey! Are we eating our tables too?' says Iulus, joking,

and there were no more. This statement having been heard

first brought an end of their labors, the first from the mouth of the speaker

the father snatched and stunned by the divine will he pressed.

Immediately he says 'Greetings, land owed to me by the fates

and greetings, i you faithful gods of Troy:

here is our home, this is our country. For my father Anchises

(I recall now) left behind such secret things of the fates:

"Son, when hunger will compel you, carried to unknown shores,

to eat your tables at a hewn feast,

then weary hope for homes, and there remember

to place with your first hand and to build houses with a wall."'

In these passages we clearly see that the Trojans are using their bread as plates to hold other food (VII.111: Cereale solum pomis agrestibus augent). The reference to gnawing or tough chewing (III.256-7: vos dira fames nostraeque iniuria caedis / ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas) indicates that these could very well be a form of hardtack (survival bread) typically used by sailors and other wandering groups for millennia.

https://secretsofsurvival.com/how-to-make-hardtack/

It makes perfect sense that pizza, as we know it, would have its roots in vegetables, fruits, meats, mushrooms, seafood, etc. placed upon various types of flatbread (leavened or unleavened). These foods add flavor, convenience, neatness, or even assist in the ability to eat the hard, dried-out wafer. Even though many will call this the ancestor of pizza, in reality there are many examples of this type of food from around the world: think about a tostada from Mexico, a gyro from Greece, a sandwich from Britain, and even that cheese on a cracker you constructed and ate yesterday.

The earliest mention in writing of the actual word "pizza" dates to AD 997 in the Codex Diplomaticus Cajenatus, a collection of documents pertaining to the governance of Gaeta in central Italy. The passage in medieval Latin records an annual requirement of payment to the house of the bishop:

Tantummoduo persolvere debeatis omni anno salutes in dies natali domini sive vos sive vestris heredes in suprascripto episcopio tam nobis quam a nostris posteris successores duodecim pizze et una spatula de porco; et unum lumbulum; simul et in die sanctum pascha resurrectionis domini annualiter duodecim pizze et unum parium de pulli.

And my translation:

You merely must pay in every year of salvation on the birthday of the Lord either you or your heirs in the aforementioned bishop's house either to us or to our following successors twelve pizzas and one leg of pork, and one loin; and likewise on the holy day Easter of the resurrection of the Lord annually twelve pizzas and one pair of chickens.

There is no description of what form this pizza takes, but the word is there. A search of the origin of this term reveals, in a variety of online dictionary sites, that pitta may be a variation in Italian (and, yes, pita should come to mind), maybe coming from the Vulgar Latin picea, and related to the Greek petea, or possibly even the Old High German bizzo or pizzo. What this tells me is that the origin of the name is unknown and most likely impossible to prove.

The impetus for this discussion of the definition and origin of pizza comes from the 2023 discovery of a fresco in Pompeii which seems to show a pizza with abundant toppings. Take a look at the entree on the left:

https://www.popsci.com/science/pompeii-ancient-pizza-fresco/

The item certainly looks like a pizza, and it surely looks appetizing! Both the daily British paper The Guardian and the American Smithsonian Magazine (along with numerous other news sources) ran articles announcing to the world that a snapshot of the ancestor of the pizza had been discovered.

The question remains, though, is it really a pizza? If we go by the official definition provided by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana listed above, we have to say no. Why does the dish in the fresco not make the cut? The main reason is that tomatoes were not introduced to Europe by the Spanish exploring South America until the 16th century. There is also some discussion that true mozzarella cheese may not have been available until the 12th century, but variations of this necessary topping may have been around since the 1st century AD.

So what mouth-watering dish do we see in this fresco? Publications which did not jump on the pizza bandwagon (including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and even Popular Science) claim that this is merely an ancestor of our modern staple, a sort of proto-pizza, or maybe even a tasty focaccia.

So, what does it all mean? My thoughts are that the entree represented in the fresco is not a pizza, but a disk of bread providing a base for other items, most likely a mix of fruit and vegetables. This does reflect the historical use of hardtack I described above, and continues a tradition of providing a platform for foods even exiled Trojans would recognize and enjoy.

Venus Pays a Visit to Jupiter

I posted this pic of the conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter on the evening of March 1, 2023 on my other social media and added the caption, "Jupiter and Venus canoodling in the heavens this evening." Even better, a few fellow Latin teachers suggested this passage from Vergil's Aeneid in which Venus visits Jupiter and pleads for rest and safety for her long-suffering Trojans:

Atque illum talis iactantem pectore curas
tristior et lacrimis oculos suffusa nitentis
adloquitur Venus: 'O qui res hominumque deumque
aeternis regis imperiis, et fulmine terres,
quid meus Aeneas in te committere tantum,
quid Troes potuere, quibus, tot funera passis,
cunctus ob Italiam terrarum clauditur orbis?
Certe hinc Romanos olim, volventibus annis,
hinc fore ductores, revocato a sanguine Teucri,
qui mare, qui terras omni dicione tenerent,
pollicitus, quae te, genitor, sententia vertit?
Hoc equidem occasum Troiae tristisque ruinas
solabar, fatis contraria fata rependens;
nunc eadem fortuna viros tot casibus actos
insequitur. Quem das finem, rex magne, laborum?...
Hic pietatis honos? Sic nos in sceptra reponis?'

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum,
voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat,
oscula libavit natae, dehinc talia fatur:
'Parce metu, Cytherea: manent immota tuorum
fata tibi; cernes urbem et promissa Lavini
moenia, sublimemque feres ad sidera caeli
magnanimum Aenean; neque me sententia vertit.
Hic tibi (fabor enim, quando haec te cura remordet,
longius et volvens fatorum arcana movebo)
bellum ingens geret Italia, populosque feroces
contundet, moresque viris et moenia ponet,
tertia dum Latio regnantem viderit aestas,
ternaque transierint Rutulis hiberna subactis.
At puer Ascanius, cui nunc cognomen Iulo
additur,—Ilus erat, dum res stetit Ilia regno,—
triginta magnos volvendis mensibus orbis
imperio explebit, regnumque ab sede Lavini
transferet, et longam multa vi muniet Albam.
Hic iam ter centum totos regnabitur annos
gente sub Hectorea, donec regina sacerdos,
Marte gravis, geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem.
Inde lupae fulvo nutricis tegmine laetus
Romulus excipiet gentem, et Mavortia condet
moenia, Romanosque suo de nomine dicet.
His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono;
imperium sine fine dedi. Quin aspera Iuno,
quae mare nunc terrasque metu caelumque fatigat,
consilia in melius referet, mecumque fovebit
Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam:
sic placitum. Veniet lustris labentibus aetas,
cum domus Assaraci Phthiam clarasque Mycenas
servitio premet, ac victis dominabitur Argis.
Nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar,
imperium oceano, famam qui terminet astris,—
Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo.
Hunc tu olim caelo, spoliis Orientis onustum,
accipies secura; vocabitur hic quoque votis.
Aspera tum positis mitescent saecula bellis;
cana Fides, et Vesta, Remo cum fratre Quirinus,
iura dabunt; dirae ferro et compagibus artis
claudentur Belli portae; Furor impius intus,
saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus aenis
post tergum nodis, fremet horridus ore cruento.'

Vergil's Aeneid I.227-241, 253-296

And here is my translation:

And so Venus, rather sad and swollen around her eyes glistening with tears,
pleads with that one pondering such concerns in his heart:
"Oh you who rule the affairs of men and gods with everlasting power,
and you who strike fear with the lightning bolt,
what so great offense has my Aeneas, what have the Trojans,
been able to commit against you, for whom, having suffered so many deaths,
the whole, wide world is closed because of Italy?
You actually promised that after this there would be Romans one day,
in the coming years, that after this they would be the leaders,
rising from the renewed blood of the Trojans,
who would hold the sea, the lands under all their domain.
What notion has changed your mind, father?
On my end I was soothing this fall and the sad ruins of Troy,
weighing out their past fates against future ones;
now the luck fortune pursues these men driven by so many misfortunes.
When will you, great king, bring an end to their sufferings?
This is their reward for our dutifulness? This is how you put us in power?"

Smiling down at her, the father of men and gods,
with that expression, by which he calms the sky and storms,
gave a kiss to his daughter, and then  says these words:
"Don't be afraid, Cytherea: the fates of your people remain unchanged for you;
you will see the city and the promised walls of Lavinium,
and you will carry great-souled Aeneas on high to the stars of heaven;
and no notion changes my mind. This one will wage a huge war
for you in Italy (for I will prophesy, since this concern worries you,
and I will reveal further things unknown), and he will defeat fierce peoples,
and put in place customs and walls for these men,
until a third summer has seen him ruling in Latium,
and a third winter has passed with the Rutulians subdued.
But the boy Ascanius, who now is called Iulus,
-- he used to be Ilus, while the kingdom of Troy stood --,
will fill out thirty great years in power with the months rolling along,
and he will move the kingdom from the seat of Lavinium,
and he will build Alba Longa with much strength.
Here now it will be ruled for three hundred whole years
beneath the race of Hector, until Ilia, a queen, a priestess,
pregnant by Mars, will give birth to twin offspring.
From that point Romulus, happy in the tawny hide of a nursemaid wolf
will continue the race, and will found the walls of Mars,
and he will name his people Romans after his own name.
I do not put limits or a timeframe on this things;
I have granted rule without end. Indeed harsh Juno,
who now wears out the sea and lands and heaven with fear
will change her plans for the better, and along with me
she will cherish the Romans as the masters of all things
and the toga-clad race: in this way it will be pleasing.
The time will come in the passing years,
when the House of Assaracus will hold sway over Phthia
and famous Mycenae, and it will be lord over the conquered Greeks.
A Trojan Caesar will be born from a glorious family,
who extends the empire to the ocean, and his fame to the stars,
-- he will be called Iulius, a name sent down from great Iulus.
One day you, untroubled, will welcome him, laden with the spoils
of the East, to the heavens; he, too, will be called upon by prayers.
Then these harsh ages will become calm with wars put aside;
grey-haired Faith, and Vesta, Quirinus with his brother Remus,
will give laws; the dire gates of War will be shut by iron
and close-fitting locks; wicked Madness, sitting inside
on top of savage arms, and bound by a hundred bronze knots
behind his back, will roars horribly from his bloody mouth."

Reading the English on the New AP Latin Exam

Since the recent announcement of the changes to the curriculum in the new AP Latin exam, I have been pondering the required readings. For Vergil we are returning to the old curriculum of selections from Books 1, 2, 4, and 6; gone are the tedious selections about the hand-to-hand combat between Aeneas and Turnus in Books 10 and 12. I never really liked those passages at the end, but that could be due more to the tiresome forced march through the previous 1,500 lines than the actual content.

I am intrigued, though, with the inclusion of being responsible for the content in English for Books 8 and 12. I have long enjoyed they the episode where Aeneas arrives at Pallanteum and Evander tells him the stories associated with archaic Rome. The presentation and description of the shield are also fascinating and seems to fit nicely with the themes of history, values, leadership, and the relationship between the human and the divine. The content of Book 12 provides a good cap for the story as Aeneas reaches his goal which seemed so out of his reach at the beginning of the story.

I am a bit stumped, though, with the inclusion of Book 7 in English for Caesar's De Bello Gallico. While it is true that this book handles in large part the conflict between Caesar and Vercingetorix, it has been added to the curriculum for its content and contribution to the story in English and not for its Latinity.

What we, as teachers, need to know from the College Board is how much importance will be given to knowing the content of the works as literature instead of knowing how to read, translate, and understand the assigned Latin passages? Although knowing the stories in English has always been important for the AP Vergil exam, now that we have (again) a combination exam, why has importance been given to what the students will read in translation? Not only will we have to provide translations (for loan or for purchase) for the Aeneid, but now also for Caesar. Are there good translations out there? I will have to find out.

What's Going on in the Middle?

We came across this line in our AP Vergil class recently:

Quos inter medius venit furor (I.348)

and I finally took the time to really notice what is going on in this sentence. I had always assumed that Quos inter was an example of anastrophe until I realized that inter medius venit could be a good example for tmesis and Quos was simply being used as a connective relative pronoun. At first I thought Vergil was being clever by placing medius in the middle until I moved further back and realized that inter medius venit furor would make a nice synchesis (of sorts), a figure of speech used often in the Aeneid.

My thoughts were not confirmed, though, when I conducted a search on Google for this sentence. There was no discussion (I could find) on anastrophe or such. Indeed, my thoughts were clouded when I realized that other texts read medios instead of medius. Suddenly that emendation makes this line less worthy of comment.

Aeneas Meets a Girl in the Woods

Aeneas and his surviving crew are shipwrecked somewhere in northern Africa. He and his right-hand man Achates set off to take a look around and see if they can find civilization or any other survivors. While stomping off through the woods, Aeneas comes across his mama in disguise.

Cui mater media sese tulit obvia silva
virginis os habitumque gerens, et virginis arma
Spartanae, vel qualis equos Threissa fatigat
Harpalyce, volucremque fuga praevertitur Hebrum.
Namque umeris de more habilem suspenderat arcum
venatrix, dederatque comam diffundere ventis,
nuda genu, nodoque sinus collecta fluentes.
I.314-320

Not knowing who this babe-in-the-woods is, Aeneas responds to her greeting,

"Nulla tuarum audita mihi neque visa sororum --
O quam te memorem, virgo? Namque haud tibi vultus
mortalis, nec vox hominem sonat: O, dea certe --
an Phoebi soror? An nympharum sanguinis una?"
I.326-330

One of the first reactions of my students concerning this exchange is that Aeneas has some pretty lame pick-up lines! Their feelings are that Mother Venus has been described in some fairly alluring terms and that Aeneas is trying (unwittingly) to hit on his mother!

Is this Vergil's intention? Hmm... let's take a look. He describes Venus incognita as virginis os habitumque gerens (l. 315). He intends her to be a maiden and reinforces this notion later when Aeneas repeats the word in line 328. The focus is on her mouth (os, line 315) as a primary description by synecdoche. He continues a physical description with her shoulder (umeris, line 318), her hair blowing in the wind (comam diffundere ventis, line 318), and (gasp!) her leg exposed all the way up to the knee (nuda genu, line 320). Why would Vergil give such emphasis to her physical description, if he didn't wanted to paint this image of an attractive maiden bounding through the woods? She is Venus, after all, and deserves a description such as this. If we read this description as an intentional effort at allurement, this makes Aeneas words all the more provocative. He starts off by asking her with a plea (O, line 328) how he is to remember this encounter (quam te memorem, line 328), and he caps it off with the vocative virgo (line 328). Aeneas obviously is not aware that this is his mother, but he makes the assumption that she, based on her looks, is a maiden, not a puella, not a femina, not a mulier nor matrona. He then comments on her heavenly face (haud tibi vultus/ mortalis, lines 328-329) and her divine voice (nec vox hominem sonat, line 329). Again, why the emphasis on the physical? Finally, the weak pick-up line, O, dea certe (line 329). At least that's what my students think!

It's A Pizza

The harpy Celaeno, offended by the Trojans for the slaughter of her cattle, prophesies to Aeneas,

"ibitis Italiam portusque intrare licebit.
sed non ante datam cingetis moenibus urbem
quam vos dira fames nostraeque iniuria caedis
ambesas subigat malis absumere mensas."
(Vergil, Aeneid III.254-257)

Which I translate to mean,

"you will go to Italy and you may enter the harbors, but you will not surround
with walls your given city before harsh hunger and the wrong of our
slaughter forces you to eat your tables consumed by your jaws."

Interestingly, mAla means "cheek-bone, jaw-bone; jaw, cheek." That's not one of those Latin words you come across too often.

Anyhow, what the soon-to-be residents of Latium are doing is eating pizza! The "table" is, of course, the place where the food rests. I remember from my Medieval Romance class in college the professor discussing how sailors and others would bake thin round loaves of bread which would become very hard and, thus, preservable (hardtack? crackers?). When mealtime came, the hard bread could serve as a plate and all the other food (vegetables, meats, cheeses) was piled upon it with the expectation that juices from these toppings would soak into bread, flavoring and softening it for consumption at the end. If one was particularly hungry, why couldn't he eat the "table" and all at the same time?

Of course, the Latins did not have tomatoes or tomato sauce...

Authors as Prophets

On the day when the world was tearing into J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book in the wildly successful series about the boy-wizard Harry Potter and his fight against evil, I must admit that I, at last, picked up her first book, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. I am familiar with the characters, the plot, most details of the story, and (being the parent of a 14- and 10-year-old) have seen all the movies multiple times. I discussed the seventh book with my wife and daughter who finished the tome the very same evening they waited in line to get their copies. Now that I know how the story ends, I am reading all the works with an eye to how the author develops her story and seek to tie up the loose ends as I come across them. I am still enjoying the story and expect to learn, first-hand, many more details of the story.

Early in the first book (toward the end of the first chapter), I was struck by a passage in which Professor McGonagall claims, "[Harry Potter will] be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry -- every child in the world will know his name!" When Rowling was writing this first book, surely she didn't believe that her books would be so wildly successful. She could certainly hope so, but hindsight now proves her prophetic statement to be amazingly correct!

Immediately I thought of Latin authors who had made similar prophetic statements in their own works. Ovid writes, Mantua Vergilio, gaudet Verona Catullo;/ Paelignae dicar gloria gentis ego (Mantua rejoices in Vergil, Verona in Catullus; I shall be called the glory of the Pelignian race)(Amores III.15, ll. 7-8). Of course Ovid is writing after he has accumulated some fame but he has no doubts that he will be famous and deserves (rightly so) to be included in the same club with Vergil and Catullus. Further, Martial writes toto notus in orbe Martialis/ argutis epigrammaton libellis ([I am] Martial, known around the world for his clever little books of epigrams)(Epigrams I.1, ll. 2-3). He, also having already attained fame, has correctly predicted the future. Finally, there is the famous Latin quote which immediately came to mind as soon as I read Rowling's words, Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei/vitabit Libitinam; usque ego postera/crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium/ scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex. (I shall not entirely die and a big part of me will avoid Death; I will continue to grow fresh with following praise as long as the pontifex climbs the Capitoline with the silent virgin.)(Horace, Odes III.30, ll. 6-9). Horace is confident in his permanent place in literary history. He, too, though, writes with the knowledge that he is already a great poet. What did Rowling know of her coming fame and prosperity? Will her works become classics and be read many, many years from now? She (and we) really have no way to tell. Her legacy will assuredly rest in bringing countless people, including school children distracted by so many things outside of formal education, to opening a book and (obsessively) devouring it's words.

As a side note, I pondered Horace's words and realized how true his prediction still is. He said that he will continue to live, and subsequently be read, as long as the Pontifex climbs the Capitol accompanied by the silent Virgin. A different Pontifex (the Pope) still climbs a hill (the Vatican which is the Capitol of the Catholic Church) accompanied by the silent Virgin (Mary, the Mother of Christ).