Saving the Colosseum

There is news out of Rome that the Culture Ministry is soliciting bids from private sponsors to raise funds to help preserve the Colosseum. There are reports that the iconic monument is not aging well and is in dire need of attention. This is a problem which continues to get worse (and increasingly dangerous) as the crush of tourists grows. When I visited the Colosseum for the very first time in July 1982, there were not a large number of visitors, and we could walk directly into the monument and wander at will, but when I visited the site in July 2007, there were mobs of people circling the amphitheater with very long lines snaking into one entrance after everyone passed through a ticket booth and a metal detector. Once inside, there was the unpleasant shuffle and bumping, with the attitude of get out out my way so that I can take a picture.

Now that there is an entrance fee of 15.50 euros, where does the money collected from visitors go? There is the hope and expectation that a great majority goes toward repair and preservation after the requisite administrative costs are satisfied.

Now that corporate sponsorship is being sought, which has a precedent in the successful cleaning and restoration of the Sistine Chapel by the Sony Corporation, there is also the hope and expectation that a significant infusion of funds can be secured to help preserve the Colosseum and other monuments throughout Rome. What we do not want to see, though, is the sponsor's logo spread across the facade of the structure. Imagine the sight -- "Ancient Arches Preserved by the Golden Arches: I'm Lovin' It!"

Calling Off the Hunt

http://www.imageenvision.us/images/070724181742_Bullfighting_Scene_in_Barcelona_Spain_LG.jpg

In the news today, we learn that Catalonia has brought an end to the long tradition of bull fighting. The article cites that the government of this region of Spain has come to realize that this popular and iconic form of entertainment exhibits cruelty to animals.

Now let's travel back in time about 2,000 years and take another look. The games in any Roman arena would typically begin the day with a venatio, or a beast hunt. Specially-trained fighters called bestiarii would fight all sorts of wild animals - lions, tigers, bears, boars, and, oh, yes, bulls - for the purpose of warming up the crowd for more violence to come. Several sources say that, in some events, thousands of animals would die. According to Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar was the first to bring the hunting of bulls to Rome:

Thessalorum gentis inventum est equo iuxta quadripedante cornu intorta cervice tauros necare; primus id spectaculum dedit Romae Caesar dictator. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History VIII.70)

If it was good enough for the Greeks, it must be good enough for the Romans, but around the same time, Cicero writes that he does not share the appeal of seeing animals die for entertainment and that others shared in his sentiments. In his Ad Familiares VII.1.1-3, he writes:

Reliquae sunt venationes binae per dies quinque, magnificae—nemo negat—, sed quae potest homini esse polito delectatio, cum aut homo imbecillus a valentissima bestia laniatur aut praeclara bestia venabulo transverberatur? quae tamen, si videnda sunt, saepe vidisti, neque nos, qui haec spectavimus, quidquam novi vidimus. Extremus elephantorum dies fuit: in quo admiratio magna vulgi atque turbae, delectatio nulla exstitit; quin etiam misericordia quaedam consecuta est atque opinio eiusmodi, esse quandam illi beluae cum genere humano societatem.

"The rest are hunts twice a day for five days, magnificent -- no one denies it --, but what pleasure is there able to be for a refined man, when either a feeble man is torn to pieces by a very strong beast or a beautiful beast is pierced through by a hunting spear? However you have seen these things often, if they must be seen, and what new have we seen, we who have watched these things. The last day was for the elephants: on which day the crowd and mob had great wonder, but no delight came forth; on the contrary a certain pity and impression of this type followed, that there was a certain relationship for that beast with the human race." (The translation is my own.)

To be sure, the popularity of beast hunts in the arena did not suffer with the comments of Cicero. It is comforting to think, though, that there are some people who have always thought that there was something inherently wrong about watching animals die for entertainment.

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.

Of Conspiracy and Preservation

I have just turned the last page of Robert Harris' Conspirata. This impressive novel tells the story of Marcus Tullius Cicero's rise to the consulship, his preservation of the res publica against the machinations of Catiline, and then his slippery fall into exile due to the vengeful plots of Clodius, and all of this is told in first person by Tiro, Cicero's most faithful slave, secretary, and companion.

In all, this was an outstanding read, and I declare that this should be on the required reading list for all who still teach Cicero. Furthermore, this work of historical fiction needs to be reviewed by all who teach (or soon will be teaching) about Julius Caesar in the upcoming AP curriculum. While the work strongly portrays Cicero's eagerness and commitment to working within the rules to preserve the state and the power of the Senate, it very effectively brings across the message that Julius Caesar was a rogue who purposely and willfully ignored the Roman constitution and tradition to further his own goals to rule to world.

I have heard it said that Julius Caesar was one of the biggest criminals in history. After reading Harris' Conspirata, this assertion is obviously true. It will be interesting to see how Latin teachers across the country dust off their notes on Caesar and present him in the classroom. Will he continue to be presented "as the most famous Roman of them all" or will there be mention made of his infamy?

Mapping the New World

A colleague, who is an outstanding teacher of geography, is conducting some research and came across this map of what is now eastern North Carolina. She needed a translation of the title in the upper right-hand corner and asked if I would translate it for her. The Latin reads:

Americae pars, nunc Virginia dicta: primum ab Anglis inuenta, sumtibus Dn. Walteri Raleigh, Equestris ordinis Viri, Anno Dni. MDLXXXV regni Vero Sereniss. nostrae Reginae Elisabethae XXVII, hujus vero Historia peculiari Libro descripta est, additis etiam Indigenarum Iconibus / autore Ioanne With; sculptore Theodoro de Bry, qui et. excud.

I had to do a little digging to understand some of the abbreviations, but here is my translation:

"Part of America, now called Virginia: first discovered by the English, by the expenses of Sir Walter Raleigh, a man of the rank of knight, in the year of the Lord 1585, indeed in the 27th (year) of the rule of our fairest Queen Elizabeth, indeed in that one's (Raleigh's) own book the history was described, also with the images of the natives added / with Ioanne With (John White) the author; with Theodoro de Bry the engraver, who also printed it"

I enjoy this type of exercise because it allows me to keep my skills in practice and apply them to assist others in learning. I learned that sumptus, sumptus, m. is the Latin word for "expenses, costs". I also learned a bit about Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the early exploration of the New World.

What About Facebook?

There's an interesting article on teachers, students, and their relationships on Facebook. All teachers should take a moment and read. As a rule, I do not "friend" students until graduation day. That way there is no notion of anything inappropriate. As teachers, just like Caesar's wife, we must be above reproach.

Hanging Out in the Forum

When I was a student at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (ICCS) in Rome during the fall semester in 1985, one of my favorite haunts was the Roman Forum. At that time the entrance to the Forum was through a gate and down a ramp next to the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. I think visitors had to pay 12,000 lire (around $6) for admission, but I was lucky enough to have a card for free entrance to that site and many others. To say that I visited often would be an understatement.

I remember that one late afternoon in October I was sitting against the base of a column in the ruins of the Basilica Iulia working on a translation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria for class. As I was working, a family soon appeared and was looking around at what remained of the basilica. They were speaking English and I easily identified them as Americans. They noticed me and deciding that I, too, was American, and after exchanging greetings, they asked me about what they were looking at. I briefly offered a description and purpose for the basilica, and they must have been impressed. From their inquiries I told them that I was a student studying in Rome for the semester.

Discovering that I was somewhat knowledgeable, they asked me about the Forum in general. I noticed that they did not have a guide book or map, but had just wandered in wanting to take a look around. Feeling a bit cocky, I volunteered to give them a tour. I started off trying to include as much as I could remember about every little rock and stone there, but soon came to realize (through glazed expressions?) that I was providing too much information and was probably acting as if I was showing off. I made a mental adjustment and quickly moved to cover the highlights of the site. I remember that they were most impressed with the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Curia, the Temple of Vesta, and the Arch of Titus. Of course these monuments would be the most impressive because they are the best preserved and offer the most to see. I ended our tour at the Arch of Titus and showed them the exit towards the Colosseum. They offered to pay me, but feeling charitable (and still cocky, I imagine), I refused and wished them a happy visit.

I remember this encounter because it was one of the first times that I was able to use and pass on my knowledge of something that was very important and dear to me. Even at that time I was sure that I was going to be a Latin teacher and this was one of my very first lessons. My impromptu tour made me feel useful and gave me the opportunity to try out my teaching skills. Realizing that I had to make adjustments to my presentation to keep the interest of my audience was a skill that I would certainly have to use again in the future.

I also remember this encounter as an example of how some tourists approach their visit to sites. This family had decided to visit Rome and explore on their own. Of course they were visiting the Colosseum and St. Peter's, but I was impressed that they took the detour and descended into the Forum. The Colosseum (at that time) and St. Peter's were free and open to the public, but they made the effort to pay and visit something off the beaten track. I was surprised that they did so without any real notion of why they were there or what they were looking at. To stumble across someone willing and able to give them a tour was pure chance.

A visit to the Forum today is a different experience. Admission is free and the site, which used to have only the occasional visitor or group, now has hundreds of pairs of feet and eyes wander through every day. Excavations have enlarged the site as it grows toward the imperial fora, work continues to reveal the remains of structures at the base of the Palatine Hill, and the paved road leading up to the Capitoline has been removed, but the increase of visitors has caused curators to put up barriers which direct the flow of traffic to a meandering and very limiting path around the Forum, all in an effort (I suppose) to promote safety and protect the individual monuments.

Sad to say, the opportunity to lounge quietly among the ruins of Rome's glorious past is no longer available.

Whodunnit in Ancient Rome?

I have just finished reading Nemesis, the latest installment of Lindsey Davis' series of novels dedicated to the exploits of Marcus Didius Falco, an informant-for-hire who solves mysteries from the seedier side of Rome during the reign of the Emperor Vespasian. I began reading this series, now up to an impressive twenty volumes, quite a while ago and impatiently wait for the publication of the next story. So impatient is my wait that I typically order the book from Amazon.co.uk where they are released a couple months before being available in the United States. There is an outstanding website dedicated to Davis and her works, well worth a visit for anyone interested in this entertaining series.

Soon after I began reading Lindsey Davis, I discovered Steven Saylor and his books dedicated to Gordianus the Finder in his Roma Sub Rosa series. He, too, has been quite prolific in producing twelve volumes, as well as the clever tome Roma, which recounts a huge sweep of Roman history, and soon to be joined by its follow-up volume Empire to be released at the end of August 2010. I can hardly wait.

In keeping with the genre of sleuthing in an ancient Roman setting, quite by accident I tumbled upon Ruth Downie and her three works featuring Gaius Petrius Ruso, a doctor assigned to the Roman legion in Britain, who becomes a reluctant investigator of murders on the island as the Romans seek to gain control of the province. These stories are well-written and have captured by attention and imagination. I await her next release as well.

Who would have thought that books set in an ancient Roman setting and featuring charming, down-to-earth, believable investigators of murder would be so appealing? I am thrilled that there is a market for this genre so that these authors continue to create the ancient Roman world in their version. It is exciting to read stories set in Rome and elsewhere around the empire where I can say, "I've been there! I've seen that!" or "Is that really what they envision that site tyo look like?"

What I enjoy most about these stories is the opportunity to create my own vision of the ancient world by sharing the visions of others, who are certainly much more creative than I.

Digging Up A Vocabulary List

I was asked by my sister-in-law to provide a simple list of Latin words to help her young daughter learn vocabulary and reading. I thought such a list would be easy to find and I put the task off until the last minute. When I began my search in Google, I quickly discovered that there are any number of specialized lists, but there really isn't a generic list of basic vocabulary for someone who is not (at the moment) interested in learning Latin. I finally settled on the "First Latin Book Beginners Vocabulary" list from http://www.textkit.com/. There is a good mix of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and such with, most importantly, the English meanings. I printed out this hefty list (amounting to four pages) and felt that was a decent place to start.

My search did recall to my memory an outstanding book, The Usborne First Thousand Words in Latin, which I hope to find in the neighborhood bookstore when we visit. This would certainly be much more appropriate for my niece's purpose.

In any case, I do plan to warn my sister-in-law that learning lists of vocabulary words is not the same as learning the language. While the vocabulary words are the building blocks, one cannot merely stack them randomly and call it a wall. Further, forcing the memorization of lists of words no more constitutes the learning of language than does committing to memory the numbers zero through nine and calling it mathematics.

The Parthenon

This was the view of the Parthenon, under repair, in July 2005. Quite an impressive sight!

The New AP Latin Curriculum

The big news at this year's ACL Institute was the new AP Latin curriculum for the May 2013 exam. This summer's announcement brought some relief to those who were bewailing the Vergil-Caesar combination, particularly after some suggestions were given for teaching by theme.

The new requirements for Vergil's Aeneid (rather, the pared-down list) are:

• Book 1: lines 1-209, 418-440, 494-578
• Book 2: lines 40-56, 201-249, 268-297, 559-620
• Book 4: lines 160-218, 259-361, 659-705
• Book 6: lines 295-332, 384-425, 450-476, 847-899

The mention was made that this selection of lines was made with much soul-searching, tears, and regret. More regrettable, though, is the announcement that the student is required to read only Books 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 12. Why not the whole Aeneid? I may still require that the student read the entire work in order to completely appreciate this important piece of literature. I'm intrigued by the inclusion of Book 8.

The required lines for Caesar's Bellum Gallicum are:

• Book 1: chapters 1-7
• Book 4: chapters 24-35 and the first sentence of chapter 36
• Book 5: chapters 24-48
• Book 6: chapters 13-20

The required reading in English is the entirety of Books 1, 6, and 7.

I plan to take a much closer look at these lines later in the summer.

I am pleased, though, with the suggestion of themes for this new combination of authors. I was initially disappointed, maybe even let down, with the announcement of Caesar as the author who would be paired with the vates, but these suggestions are exciting:

• literary genre and style
• war and empire
• view of non-Romans
• history and memory
• Roman values
• leadership
• human beings and the divine

I am most interested in the last four items of the list, particularly Roman values and the relationship between humans and the gods. As I become more familiar with these lines, I will be able to make a better stab of their application.

I am hoping that there are good textbooks produced to make this combination of authors interesting and exciting. I'd write my own, bu there are other things to do.

Keeping the Spirit

The Virginia delegation heading to the National Junior Classical League's annual convention in Fargo, North Dakota, in a few short weeks is carrying with it, in their minds' eye, a large, shiny number "8". Virginia, as a large delegation, has won the spirit competition at this week-long event for seven years in a row. They have out-cheered, out-shouted, out-danced, and out-costumed all the other delegations in their division. Their rivals, as I understand, are Florida and Texas.

Leading the cheers at the NJCL Convention in 2009.

To win this award for the eighth year has become an unquestionable expectation, a self-imposed requirement, if you will. Planning for this event began back in February, and the details have been revisited, on occasion, every month since. The frenzy of preparation began this week at the inaugural "Spirit Castra" held at our Riverbend High School here in Fredericksburg. For four days out of their summer slumber, a few Latin students from around the state, some coming more than an hour away, have gathered to draw, paint, cut, glue, shout, jump, and cheer... all in the name of Virginia, but more impressively, in the name of Latin and the classics!

The Virginia delegation shows their spirit in 2009.

These students who choose to attend the annual Latin convention, and those who plot and plan to cheer on the name of Latin, are unabashed lovers of the Latin and the ancient world, and our students here in Virginia want to shout it out louder than all others!

Scenes from the ACL Institute at Wake Forest

Zee Poerio has put together a neat presentation showing scenes from this year's ACL Summer Institute. She thought it appropriate to create this collage in keeping with one of the themes of technology. I think it appropriate too! What a neat tool!

Tag! You're It! (Or Not)

Since I have returned to my blog, I have been tinkering with templates and layout. I have discovered that nifty gadget called a "label cloud," and installing this and viewing its results has caused me to rethink my practice of tagging or labeling each entry. This cloud reveals, in a graphic way, which topics occur most often by presenting that label in a larger font size. Many labels are the smallest, default size and form a crowd with only a few names more noticeable. Now I am obsessing over each appellation and asking myself whether it is too descriptive, obscure, redundant, not descriptive enough, or just plain wrong. I am going back and changing tags, adding and deleting some, and all this effort is compelling me to find some standard. In all, not only am I moving forward with Marginalia, but I also seem to be moving backward.

ACL at Wake Forest

I attended this year's American Classical League Institute and Annual Meeting held on the gorgeous campus of the Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. All things considered, it was a great conference with some good ol' fashioned Southern hospitality!

I particularly enjoyed the presentations on Vergil and using technology in the Latin classroom. It was good to hear about the new AP Latin syllabus (a future blog entry on that), the NJCL National Classics Exams, and the status of Latin in this "age of accountability."

Of course, the best part of attending is the opportunity to learn, share with colleagues, and network with those who love the same things you do. If you are a Latin teacher, you MUST join the American Classical League, an organization whose sole purpose is to support the teaching of Latin, Greek, and the Classics.

Next year ACL will be held in Minneapolis!

Oh Those Aqueducts

This is a section of the Aqua Claudia outside Rome. It was taken in June 2010 by Susann Sowers Lusnia, Professor of Classics at Tulane University.

Summertime... and the Working is Easy!

Apologies to the original song lyrics celebrating easy summertime pursuits! The July 4th holiday has passed and I can turn myself to numerous projects put aside during the busy school year. I dare to say attention to this nearly-abandoned blog is now high on my list! I admit that I get excited and begin to post, only to become distracted by things which push other projects out of the way.

Labor est etiam ipsa voluptas.

"My Latin Teacher is a Scrooge!"

The last day of school before Winter Break was Friday, December 18. At the beginning of the last block of the day, I had a student, with contempt in her voice, ask very loudly, "How come we're the only foreign language class not watching a movie?" To be honest, the idea of a movie had not even entered my mind.

My plans for the class included a review and quiz on the comparison of adjectives, practice with participles, and then a group-effort translation on a neat story involving a werewolf. Werewolves are the "in" beastie right now!

I do know for a fact that a couple of my colleagues were showing a Christmas-themed movie in the target language as an "extended listening exercise." They have that option and that resource. Good for them.

My thoughts were to bring closure to the regular comparison of adjectives and continue to recognize and translate participles in context. The translation of the story was a timely and interesting exercise and provided us with the opportunity to see both comparative and superlative adjectives and participles in context.

I had a plan and I carried it out. In my mind, the students had made an effort to be in school and come to class (the entire class was present!), and I wanted to make their time worthwhile. Oh yeah, my assignment over break was to place the textbook and the notebook in the locker and to enjoy the vacation. After all, it's a break, right?

VJCL Storms Richmond

Over 1,300 students, teachers, and chaperones took possession of the Greater Richmond Convention Center on November 22-23, 2009. By all accounts, the 56th annual Virginia Junior Classical League convention was a rousing success! So much Latin energy packed into one room!

Saxum Volvens: Keeping Up the Momentum

We return to school tomorrow after a five days away; before that we had only a two-day week. Needless to say, the students will not be their sharpest when they come into the classroom. What to do?

Keeping up momentum in the classroom is very important, if the teacher wishes to keep the students learning and the material flowing along. The best way to push that stone on which moss is beginning to grow is the catch their attention with something interesting and then ease into a review of the last subject covered. Then slip something new and tie the two together.

My plan? I found a couple interesting clips from YouTube/eClassics... we'll start there.

As a general rule, I do not give homework over breaks from school. I know from experience as a teacher and a parent that many other teachers don't feel this way and a five-day break from school is the perfect time to assign essays and reading and worksheets and... Guess what, most of it doesn't even make it out of the backpack until the evening before the big return. What kind of quality work does that promote? At that point, the notion of learning anything is gone and the need to complete the letter, but not the intent, of the assignments take center stage.

This time of year does create issues with momentum. Fall Break, i.e., Thanksgiving, is over and Winter Break, viz. Christmas and the Holidays, will soon be upon us. There will be many a distraction in the next three weeks, then a two-week break, then wintry weather, then exams, then wintry weather... I wonder if Sisyphus is looking for a replacement soon?

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.

Missing the Mark

The first marking period has now come and gone. Report cards have been distributed, and students' abilities, interests, and efforts are now coming into focus for many parents. For those students who are new to high school, the sorting now begins.

I have some of the best averages ever for students in Latin I and Latin II. Their scores are solid and the results of their preparation is obvious. I even have one student whose work is practically impeccable. I didn't realize it until today, but she has scored a 100 (or better) on every single assignment. Wow! She makes me proud.

What is disturbing, though, are those students who receive a printout of their grades and they are surprised or upset that their averages are so low. When questioned as to why they received a 21 on the test or a 45 on the quiz, they readily admit that they did not study. More than once. Often. They don't write down their assignments. They don't take their books home. They don't study for their quizzes. They don't prepare their translations. Why, then, do they think that they should receive a higher grade? In what class are they receiving good grades for next to no effort?

After every marking period, I announce to my students, "If you're happy with your grade, keep on doing what you're doing. If you're not happy with your grade, you need to make some adjustments." Sometimes there are adjustments, and sometimes they continue to be shocked.

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!

Translating Cicero in Word Order

I have encouraged my students this year to read and translate their Latin passages in the order in which they appear, left to right. We have endured the "Yoda-speak" and seem to be making progress. After we translate in the word order, we do, of course, go back and "English it up."

In his First Oration Against Catiline, Cicero writes in chapter 11:

Tune eum quem esse hostem comperisti, quem ducem belli futurum vides, quem expectari imperatorem in castris hostium sentis, auctorem sceleris, principem coniurationis, evocatorem servorum et civium perditorum, exire patiere, ut abs te non emissus ex urbe, sed immisus in urbem esse videatur?

When we approach this from the beginning and move from left to write, we end up saying, with appropriate inflection of our voice in English,

"Do you [something] him whom you have discovered to be an enemy, whom you[etc.], whom you [etc.], whom you know to be an author of crime, a chief of conspiracy, an inciter of slaves and of evil citizens, to leave you will allow..."

The advantages of this technique allows the student to know immediately that the speaker of the passage (in this case, the personified Republic) is asking a question of Cicero about Catiline (Tune eum). Then there are three full relative clauses and then three more relative clauses abbreviated by ellipsis, and then an infinitive and (finally!) the main verb. If a student were to hunt and peck through this sentence, she would be hopelessly lost. Indeed, after the first reading in Latin, the relative clauses would be easily identified and mentally bracketed, then leading to a easier discovery of exire patiere to complete the main sentence. The students do need, of course, a prompt that patiere is really a patieris. The student then passes to the rest of the sentence, a subordinate clause, happliy marked by the ut.

Vigilium

All Hallow's Eve has come and gone, and here I sit in the early morning. The time will fall back soon, so I will get an extra hour of sleep in there anyway. I have my playlist from iTunes running in the background (the latest album from Steve Perry) and I have been searching the various blogs related to classics, teaching, and other such things. I then remembered I had a blog...

My last post heralded my decision to teach Cicero's First Oration Against Catiline this year and I do not regret the decision. Reading, translating, and understanding Cicero requires much from a Latin student, and he has certainly provided that. Most students have responded well, and we are slogging our way through. I have had to jump through portions of the text, though, in order to keep it interesting and moving along. I have plans to stick with my tribute to Latin prose and teach some letters from Pliny the Younger next. He's always fun.

The class reading Cicero is moving quite slowly, though, because it is combined with AP Vergil... yeah, that's right, I'm teaching Cicero and Vergil in the same classroom at (roughly) the same time. Things are working fairly well, but this is, by no means, the best way to do things. My Vergil students are moving slowly, too, but the other alternative was for me to not teach them at all.

The way my class works is that it meets on the block during which the lunch shifts operate. I give my full attention to my Cicero students for the first half-hour while my Vergil students eat lunch. During the next hour both sets of students work on reviewing particular points of Latin grammar or syntax, sight translating, or similar cooperative work. When the Cicero students go to lunch, I teach the Vergil students for half an hour. Yeah, that means I don't eat lunch, but that is survivable.

My frustration is increasing lately because I am realizing that I cannot teach what I want to teach in the way I want to teach it because of my workload. I have five preparations spread through six classes which meet every other day. I am barely keeping my head above water and, occasionally, I do go under and claw my way back to the surface gasping and sputtering. I've always called this my grand juggling act -- I can almost keep all the balls in the air but don't expect me to do anything fancy with them. Sometimes I drop the some of the balls, but I pick them up and keep tossing.

Vetus Novus Homo

"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" It has been quite some time since these words have been heard aloud in my classroom. I have to admit that I have not taught Cicero since way back in the mid-90's. When the Advanced Placement bandwagon ran roughshod over our school system's curriculum over a decade ago, the emphasis in Latin turned away from the authors of Latin prose and grounded itself solidly in poetry. Since that time we have usually finished the Latin II textbook in the first quarter or half of Latin III and then spent the balance of time in making the transition to the reading and translation of authentic Latin literature. Sure, prose authers were a big part of that, namely selections from St. Jerome's Vulgate, some letters of Pliny the Younger, and some war correspondence from Caesar, but there was never room or a time for the rhetoric and philosophy of Cicero. I reluctantly pushed him aside as Latin IV and V alternated between the epic poetry of Vergil and the lyric and elegiac poetry of Catullus and Ovid. Now, times have changed.

I have brushed off Jenney's Third Year Latin, dug through my filing cabinet, and reacquainted myself with this long-neglected prose author. I have always been an advocate of Latin prose and a fan of Cicero and look forward to his reappearance in my classroom. His return has been made possible by the College Board's elimination of the AP Latin Literature examination. The Latin teachers in my system have agreed to teach AP Vergil in the fifth-year Latin class, thus opening up (for me, at least) a class of fourth-year Latin students who now have the opportunity to read and translate a wide variety of Latin authors and works. I know by experience that Cicero will be difficult for many of my students and that the subject matter can be a bit challenging, as well. We'll take it slow and I will make every effort to make the class interesting and meaningful. Updates in our endeavors will follow.

The True Story of Troy, Really!

I watched The True Story of Troy (The History Channel, 2007) on the History International Channel last night. I try to watch as many documentaries on the ancient world as I can. I was, of course, attracted to the presentation by the mention of Troy and the Trojan War, but was immediately alarmed by the title claiming it to be the true story, as if all others were not so true. Indeed, I found very little in the two-hour production to be original or new; what was interesting was the segment on the underwater archaeology and some background information on the site of Hissarlik and the major players, particularly Heinrich Schliemann and Carl Blegen. I also found amusing the narrator's claim that archaeologists have located what they believe to be the "true site" of Troy in a tone which would lead the viewer to believe that it was discovered last Tuesday. Nothing new there, either. The film footage took us back to that familiar arrangement of stones on top of that hill overlooking that plain which we have all seen before.

I have seen several documentaries on the Trojan War, including Michael Wood's epic In Search of the Trojan War, and there were elements from these presentations throughout this "True Story". One of Michael Wood's episodes involved locating and interviewing modern-day bards and I enjoyed this presentation's segment on the bards in Serbia who can still chant an Iliad-long tale on the Battle of Kosovo back in the 14th century. I wasn't quite sure how the producers were checking their facts when the claim was made these bards were telling the unembellished truth about the historical Battle of Kosovo and that these modern singers-of-heroic-deeds prove that Homer did tell/could have told the truth as well. Big leap there!

The literary story of the war, mostly from Homer, but from other sources as well, was well done and the artwork, most of it applicable, was a treat. Much emphasis was given to the sacrifice of Iphigenia and unfaithful Clytemnestra who avenged the death of her daughter by murdering her husband Agamemenon when he returned home. There was also the brief discussion of human sacrifice among the Greeks, but that it wasn't really human sacrifice because slaves and prisoners of war were not human. Hmm...

I was pleased to watch the attention given to the Trojan Horse and the story told by Vergil. All too often this part of the tale gets short-changed (I guess) because this Roman poet wrote as many years, if not more, after Homer as Homer did after the actual events of the conflict, and he stole the story from the Bard and other Greeks anyway. Satisfying was the mention of Aeneas leading his followers of refugees to Italy and the angle that the Trojans were the ancestors of the Romans. I found interesting the whole segment (again, not new) that the conflict was a clash of East vs. West, that Xerxes visited the site of Troy before storming into Greece as if to seek revenge, that Alexander the Great visited the site before setting off to conquer the Persians as if to bring Greek vengeance against the Persians (and the curious story of Alexander taking Trojan armor [Achilles'?] from some ancient museum and wearing it on his campaign, and finally that the Trojans were reincarnated into Romans who finally conquered and absorbed that Greek and took possession of Asia Minor, all as the story of the Trojan War coming full circle.

I am always drawn to the explanations given for the Trojan Horse. This "True Story" rationalized this gift of the Greeks (with an aside to tell the tale of Laocoon and his sons) as a siege engine. They claimed that the Hittites and others has this technology and that this was nothing new. No mention was made that the Horse was a metaphor for an earthquake, although earthquakes were mentioned soon after. They missed an opportunity there.

What was most intriguing, and a bit academically uncomfortable, to me was the discussion of Homer. I have never dug deep into Homer's origins and was surprised to learn that he was "thought to have been born" in Smyrna or Chios. They played up the angle that he was born near Troy so that helps to make his story more believable. That's another thin thread there. Mention was made of Homer's blindness and illiteracy, but none of how he actually learned the stories. He was at one point in the documentary called a rock star, filling ancient theaters and stadia (exaggeration my own - I wish I could remember the exact reference). What I repeatedly found disturbing about the discussion of Homer was the notion that the Greek alphabet was invented (borrowed and modified from the Phoenicians), and thus Greek writing itself was invented, for the sole purpose of recording Homer's stories. I don't buy it and I don't believe that the documentary made its case at all on this claim.

I also found fascinating the stories about Carl Blegen and Heinrich Schliemann. It seems that ex-patriate Blegen was actually the first archaeologist and had been digging in and around Troy for years before Schliemann arrives on the scene. Blegen had quite a few objects and artifacts to show Schliemann when he comes in search of his boyhood dreams. I was a bit surprised to hear that Schliemann, always the sensational showman, "stole" the hill of Hissarlik from Blegen and claimed to have found Troy when Blegen had already decided it was there. More interesting, and a little disturbing, was Schliemann's background. He was always, uncannily, present and lucky for the discovery of gold and amassing of wealth. He speculated on and benefited from (and participated in?) the Gold Rush in California, he was present at, worked for, and increased his wealth with the Czars in St. Petersburg, and then (strangely), there was some story that Schliemann dressed as a Bedouin, circumcised himself (!?!), and snuck into someplace in the Middle East. These are tantalizing elements for the True Story of Troy.

So, was the story of the Trojan War true? This documentary certainly does not prove the story true. There was certainly not enough new evidence presented to make its case. I would argue that the truth of the story (interesting, to be sure, and admittedly fascinating to me) is not important. When the epics are read and enjoyed, when those thoughts and images and messages from the past are relayed, scientific and historical truth is not needed or even required. Are other works of ancient literature true? How much of the Aeneid can we really believe? How much do we want to believe? Why can't we accept that Homer is just telling a good story? Modern day epics which immediately come to mind are Star Wars and the Harry Potter series. Few will argue that these are not compelling, well-written, and important stories meaningful and entertaining to the modern world. Centuries from now, though, will archaeologists and historians set out to find the true location of Hogwarts Castle or argue over which sandy planet is actually Tatooine? I hope not, because it really doesn't matter in the light of the stories themselves.

Sometimes finding the truth hurts. The "True Story" mentioned a couple times that Schliemann was disappointed in the size of the site of Troy. He kept digging deeper and deeper into the hill so that he could find what he wanted to find, all the while not paying attention that what he was casting aside as rubbish was what he was looking for all the while. What if Schliemann's excavations had, in fact, discovered that the site of Hissarlik was indeed Troy and that bodies and tombs clearly labeled as the key players in the conflict were discovered? What if he had discovered a written narrative, say, a diary, that revealed that a Trojan War actually occurred but not as Homer imagined it? Would it be immensely disappointing to learn that the real Troy was a wide spot in the road, a man named Priam was chieftain over an extended family of horse-breeders, and when one of his sons, while traveling in Greece, had insulted a Greek mafia boss, almost a dozen ships were launched and these two families feuded for a while.

Not knowing the truth about the characters and deeds or the Trojan War, or the true location of the Troy, does not decrease the value of the story, nor would finding them legitimize it. These pursuits of science would strip away the fantasy, the romance, and the other elements which make a story so appealing, even after two thousand years.

Getting Down to Business

I read an article in the local paper this morning about how small businesses must cater to their clients in order to establish working relationships. Big business pretty much works on the cookie-cutter model, but small businesses can tailor their services to the individual client. A teacher must function in the same way. In order to have a truly successful program, the teacher must establish, cultivate, and maintain relationships with both the students and the parents.

One of my goals this year is to be more aware of the need to establish and work with relationships with what the "teaching industry" calls "the stakeholders." I'll try.

Teaching Caesar

It has been said that Julius Caesar is the most famous Roman of them all. Everyone has heard about Caesar and something of his exploits (right or wrong) in Rome. Many cite their exposure to be the tragedy by Shakespeare... who, I must remind them, wrote literature, not history.

I, like a good number of other teachers, was quite surprised (and even a bit disappointed) when the College Board announced that Caesar would be paired with Vergil on their upcoming capstone AP Latin exam. My first thoughts were, "Ooh, how boring!" and "What does Caesar have to do with Vergil? How disjointed can that be?" I am waiting for the CB's announcement of what work(s) and sections from Caesar will be required before I make any final decision on how I feel about this unlikely combination.

In an effort to cozy up to the idea, I pulled out Caesar's De Bello Civile the other evening, opened the text at random, and started reading. Hoping that things would be diffent than his De Bello Gallico, I was sorely mistaken. Most of what I read was about troop movements, crossing rivers, obtaining supplies (and depriving Pompey of them), and worrying about where his transport ships were. Um, not exactly stuff to interest the typical teenager in the typical public high school!

Here's hoping that the College Board will announce an interesting syllabus combining Caesar and Vergil in some sort of meaningful and natural way... and NOT taking the direction of the art of war in the second half of the Aeneid and in Caesar's illustrious career!

An Old-Growth Forest of Columns

This is what happens
when you don't prune back columns as they grow.

I took this photograph in Paestum in July 2005.

Declining in Greek

We have put AP Latin Literature to bed -- hopefully for not too long a nap. The College Board will issue their proclamation soon about what road we will all be taking in a couple years.

The class is not over yet, though. We are playing in Greek: learning to read and write the alphabet, working with some prefixes, roots, and suffixes, learning some vocabulary, and (today) we learned how to decline a noun. Our goal is to read and translate the first story or so in Athenaze.

So, I write on the board ho anthropos mikros (transliterated into the English alphabet here). My students made me proud several times today. Right off the bat they recognized that Greek had an article.

Another student quickly asked, "Does the -os ending have anything to do with the -us ending in Latin?" I beamed.

When I demonstrated the declension, they were fascinated that Greek did not have an ablative case. I explained that the Greek genitive and dative took up the slack. Another student commented, "Good! I never liked the ablative anyway." (Boooo.....!)

After the declension (and a little prodding from me), they recognized that the omega in the dative singular was analogous to the -o in Latin and that the -oi (nominative plural), -ois (dative plural), and -ous (accusative plural) were not too far removed from the Latin. It is interesting to note that they don't think the -on and -um are close cousins.

I love my students and I love when we are learning for the sake of learning!

The Tatters of the Year

It is Memorial Day and tomorrow we will enter what I have come to call the tatters of the year. The AP and state exams are over. The weather is warm. The finish line is in sight. I try to tell my students that, even though you can see the end of the course, the race is not yet finished. Too many, though, have set their goal well short of that chalk line ahead.

Even though there are still three weeks left in the school year (time enough to learn some new things!) instruction is effectively over. The seniors, who will graduate a week before the end of school and (most of whom) are grade-exempt from final exams, have already stopped coming to school. This has a profound impact on the motication of the rest of the student body who also want to check out early. There are also fieldtrips, assemblies, and other activities to distract them from their studies. Oh yeah, there are still second semester exams to be given...

OK, what to do?

In the words of the Borg (from Star Trek: The Next Generation), "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." I have learned that I can beat my head against the wall and drag the students kicking and screaming (or, worse, chatting or snoring) through a lesson on the ablative absolute or I can change things up and work toward application of the material learned in an earlier, more focused period of their education.

In AP Latin, we dutifully said our farewells to the Latin Literature syllabus and didn't look back. We are now learning the Greek alphabet and will try to cover the first chapter or two of Athenaze. I am surprised at how excited the students are to start something brand new. They tell me that it is like going all the way back to starting Latin I, when everything was fresh, new, and exciting. Ah, but our time in Greek will be too short... just a taste for now and encouragement to take it in college.

In my other classes we are moving toward reading and translating. To teach the uses of the subjunctive mood at this point would be a Herculean effort which would quickly turn, I fear, into a Sisyphean labor. These new things are best left for the next school year. Why not take everything we have done this year and apply it to readings and translations in their textbooks and a few outside items I bring in? We can polish these skills and reinforce the material taught this year as an effort of moving toward their finals. Application is to be stressed over acquisition.

It's a plan.

Pegasus in the Wild

Imagine my surprise as I was driving along Route 1 in Ashland and we spied this Pegasus on the side of road! Makes me feel sort of like Bellerophon!

Calling a Spade a Spade

I was listening the other day to a colleague who teaches Spanish. She was talking about the difference between -ar verbs and -er verbs. She mentioned the yo form. Without ever taking Spanish, I knew exactly what she meant, particularly since I had an idea of the origins of these Spanish elements.

I have often thought that I could change the names of the categories of Latin verbs and nouns in order to make the idea of what I'm trying to say clearer for my students. After all, the names are, for the most part, descriptive and help to identify the category or use of the form. When I say something like, "That's an ablative of accompaniment," the students (should) think, "Oh yeah, that noun is the last in that declension thingy and it is being used to show who they're doing the verb with." When I tell my students that the Romans had no idea of what the phrase "ablative of accompaniment" meant, they pause for a moment and demand to know why. I tell them that this is a phrase we, who are not native speakers, have created in order to describe the use of that noun. I also tell them that if they asked the average Latin speaker on the street to decline a noun, he would look at you puzzled and probably run away. At once the students are amazed and confused. I ask them to decline a noun in English. Again they sratch their heads and shrug. I usually give them an example, the best being the declension in English of the pronoun "he" -- I say, "He, his, him, they, their, them." I mention things like subjective, possessive, and objective case. Some of the sharper students eagerly write down this valuable nugget in their notes, others just wave me off and think that I'm crazy. They never learned this in English... why in the world would I be bringing it up in Latin class?

Anyway, I'm drifting off my topic - the names of things. What if, at the beginning of Latin I, when the students are most excited about learning a new language and most impressionable, I called first conjugation verbs "-are verbs"? What if I called third conjugation verbs "short -ere verbs"? The description would go right to the crucial element which determines the conjugation of a verb and, hopefully, this would better enable the student to conjugate it. They might think, "That's an -are verb, I have to keep that -a- in there when I conjugate it." or "Yuck, a short -ere verb... I think something happens to that short e." What does second conjugation really mean to the student other than it is usually taught after the first conjugation?

Taking this idea further, why not change the nomenclature for nouns? Why not have an "-ae declension" or an "-is declension" noun? This name would call attention directly to the genitive singular form. Then the student, looking at puella, puellae would (hopefully) think, "Oh yeah. I need to use those -a, -ae, -ae endings."

Taking this strange idea a step further, why not teach the conjugations and declensions in a different order? With the restraints of "first declension" and "second conjugation" removed, there would be little confusion in reordering the traditional grammar. Having said that, I would probably limit myself to rearranging the introduction of the nouns; I think everyone would agree that teaching the -are and long -ere verbs is easier than teaching those short -ere verbs with all those changes. Declensions are declensions and each requires a different set of endings which must be committed to memory. What Latin teacher hasn't lamented that the students have first and second declensions down cold but they just can't master that pesky third declension? I can't back this up with solid data at the moment, but there are more third declension nouns in the Latin language than any other declension, so why not teach the -is nouns first? Imagine the possibilities of a wider choice of vocabulary words at the beginning of the course. What reinforces the success of understanding -is nouns is what psychologists call the primacy effect -- what is learned first is remembered better than what is learned in the middle.

Before the purists attack me for messing up the natural order of things, I readily admit that I will have to teach my students the tradional nomenclature because all their resources, their textbooks, online help, parents and friends who already know Latin, other teachers, will call an -ire verb "fourth conjugation" and I would not want my students to be confused or lost. I would use my terminology at the beginning and then introduce them to the other names not much later in the course.

This, ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues, will be my experiment for the coming school year. It may be a benefit, it may be insignificant, or it may fail... In any case, the world won't be lost.

Hannibal is not yet at the gates...

but there are reports of elephants in the Alps.

Disturbing news arrived from the county administration office today. In anticipation of a very tight budget for the 2009-2010 school year, the topic of class size has been discussed. The report suggests that, unless a class has a minimum of 20 students, the class will not make. The report specifically mentioned that even a combination of level IV and AP classes in world languages may not reach the magic number of 20. The alternative seems to be Adventa and VirtualVirginia. In other words, students will be offered the opportunity to take advanced level classes online or sign up for something else.

This unofficial announcement leaves me a bit stunned and numb. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. Am I to teach at three different schools next year? Will I have a combo III/IV/AP in the same room?

It is (hopefully) too early to speculate and give in to a suggested threat. I'll wait a little more before I panic but, just in case, I will read up on how to survive elephants on the battlefield.

Stacking the Tabellae, Sorting the Papyri

I have begun a project of which Psyche would have been proud. I am storing all of my notes, handouts, quizzes, tests, and other school-pertinent information electronically... AND (here's the amazing part) I am eliminating all the hard-copies. I have discovered that I use my electronic files much more often than opening the drawers of my filing cabinets. That's right, cabinets with an "s" -- one at home and one at school, both filled to overflowing and, often, difficult to search. Now I can already read your minds and can hear your warnings:

I) Make sure you have a back-up!

Yup. Got that. I keep my files on my trusty Dell and have a back-up of my files on an external harddrive. That's the storage part. The functional part is that I have my files on a flashdrive and keep a back-up disk at school in case the flashdrive fails... and, believe me, Murphy should have written a law about flashdrives!

II) Don't get rid of all that paper! Think of the trees who gave their lives so that your students could learn Latin!

Yup, yup. Considered that too. I am going through the folders and distributing extra copies I put into storage last year thinking I might use them this year. As the folder empties, I toss it into the garbage.

III) But what about the stuff created before desktop computers roamed the earth?

Yup, yup, yup. Got a plan for that as well. The true oldy-but-goody stuff from the pre-electronic age gets scanned into the computer OR I look for or make a new version. For stuff that isn't easily scanned to recreated... well, some files will have to remain.

I'm not fooling myself and believing that I will accomplish this Herculean labor this year or even next year; it will be most definitely an ongoing process.

Grabbing at Toss-Ups

We returned today from a very poor showing at the Classical Cottage Certamen. For the first time since I transfered to Riverbend, no teams placed in and brought home a trophy from a Latin tournament. I'm not yet ready to declare our teams dead but the interest, particulary at this time year, is beginning to wane. This should come as little surprise. Once the weather begins to warm and the trees begin to bud, students' thoughts begin to turn to other matters... as it should be.

The Classical Cottage Certamen was good but quite small. The flagging interest does not seem to be a factor just at RHS. It was a shame, though, because Susan Schearer does an outstanding job at organizing and running a tournament. It is always a pleasure to attend any competition sponsored by this woman. Thank you, Susan!

We have one tournament left in the year... the "state championship" sponsored by the Virginia Senior Classical League and/or the Virginia Junior Classical League. I have always been confused as to who was actually in charge but the events always seem to work and champions crowned. Participation by RHS may be off for this tournament as well, seeing that it falls on the last Saturday of our Spring break. We shall see...

Tolkien and the Power of Language

There is an excellent piece in today's (1/3/09) The Writer's Almanac about J.R.R. Tolkien and the power of language. The best quote from Tolkien comes at the end of the article, "I wish life was not so short. Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about."

Into the Field!

I took some of my students on a real fieldtrip to the National Gallery of Art. We took a day over Winter Break, boarded the Virginia Railway Express (local commuter rail), and made our journey into Washington, DC to take a look at their exhibition titled "Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples". This exhibit was quite good and featured several quality items we had seen only in books or other sources. Favorites included the busts of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caligula, and Nero, and there was also an awesome, ornate gladiator's helmet. My students and I heartily recommend it if you find yourself in DC between now and March. Afterwards, the exhibition will travel to Los Angeles for you guys on the West Coast. A must-see for all Latin students!

Comparative Studies, or is that Comparative Studying?

While grading Latin I tests yesterday, I came across some interesting notes a student had scribbled in the margin of her paper. In the section for conjugating verbs, she had written out her personal endings -o, -s, -t, etc., and then she had written out the equivalent in German! While she's just a beginning Latin student, I believe she is also taking German II or III. By the way, she did quite well on the test, earning a 97%. Needless to say, her conjugations were impeccable!

Temple of Aphaia

Time for another posting a picture for the heck of it. This is the Temple of Aphaia on the Greek island of Aphaia in the Saronic Gulf. I took this photograph in July 2004.

Tombstones as Toilets

In Latin II class today we were reading the werewolf story in Chapter 33 of Ecce Romani II. The students thought it odd that the slave and the soldier were walking down the road and then suddenly the slave would have to wait while the soldier went off into the tombstones. I told them to think about it for a moment but not say anything. Lightbulbs went off over a couple of students' heads and the others looked perplexed. I then explained that tombstones would provide some privacy for those needing to relieve themselves. A couple students, not open-minded enough that urinating or defecating anywhere but in a toilet was even in the realm of possibility, didn't believe me. Unfortunately, I was unable to provide evidence. Doing a quick search after class didn't support me either. Certainly I remember requests or curses on tombstones in the ballpark of "Don't pee on me." I'm not making this up, am I?

Amore, More, Ore, Re

While looking online recently for a good Latin quote on love, I found

amore, more, ore, re

I stopped. I reread the quote. I thought this was the most ingenious thing I had ever found! The quote was attributed to Vergil (actually it said "Virgilius") and I assumed that this was something very few people knew. Boy, was I wrong! When I googled the phrase, I discovered that lots of people already knew this phrase, called it their favorite Latin quote, used it on their blogs, and even had it tatooed on their wrists! Thirty years ago this fall I stepped into a Latin classroom for the very first time. Since that time I have been learning, studying, translating, reading, and teaching the language and literature and never came across this clever item. I felt like I had missed out on something!

Next I started to search for the source. Several people attributed this ditty to Vergil but it didn't seem very Vergilian. It doesn't sound like something Vergil would say and the meter doesn't work. Nevertheless, I began a search on the internet and had very little success. At one point I was directed toward the story of Nisus and Euryalus in the Aeneid and thought that I was making progress, but skimming the lines in the text produced nothing. I remembered that I had A Vergil Concordance and pulled that out, but soon found nothing there as well. I was beginning to have my doubts that this quote was classical at all.

I did find that the entire quote was

Verus amicus amore, more, ore, re cognoscitur

but again there was no citation... so I posted the request on LatinTeach and received a wealth of information. I should have started there!

*Robert Maier found

Amore, more, ore, re, Iunguntur amicitiae!

and suggested that it was medieval. He was among the first to mention that it didn't fit a meter.

*Dennis McHenry II found

Ob id ergo maximas agimus gratias vestrae amori et labore verus enim amicus cognoscitur labore, amore, more, ore, re.

and cited the closing of a letter by the Dutch cartographer Nicolaas Witsen (1641-1717).

*Laura Gibbs revealed: "About the widely used and re-used amore more ore re, you are not likely to find a specific literary source (i.e. in the sense of who said it "first"), and that kind of word play is not the sort of thing you would expect from Vergil or a classical Roman writer. It is much more typical of later Latin - and it shows up in the work of the Jesuit author and scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) in an even more elaborate form, with clamore added in as a first term in the series: Tibi vero gratias agam quo clamore? Amore more ore re.

For the friend version - verus amicus noscitur ex amore more ore re (and also: amore, more, ore re iunguntur amicitiae), see #1436 in this marvelous collection: Philosophia patrum versibus praesertim leoninis, rhythmis Germanicis adiectis, iuventuti studiosae hilariter tradita by Julius Wegeler (1869).

It's online at Google Books - and it is a treasure trove of fun stuff (hilariter tradita indeed!). You can download the PDF of the book, or read it online - just click the "read this book" tab. http://books.google.com/books?id=iGcCAAAAQAAJ.

There are all kinds of delightful word play represented here. I especially like all the rhyming verses. Here are just a few:
- Dum canis os rodit, socium - quem diligit - odit.
- Res satis est nota, foetent plus stercora mota.
- Non de ponte cadit, quocum sapientia vadit.
- Vultus fortunae mutatur imagine lunae: Crescit, decrescit, in eodem sistere nescit.
etc.
It's a shame the ancient Romans did not go in for rhyme!"

I thoroughly enjoyed my little foray into finding "who dunnit". The bottom line? The quote isn't classical but much later. It's still ingenious, and my students love it! I noticed a couple have already written it on the cover of their notebooks or textbooks where they record and preserve those lyrics from a special song or meaningful comments or notes from friends. The phrase lives on!

Figures of Speech: Why Save Them for Upper Level?

I have gotten into the habit of introducing figures of speech to my Latin I and II students when we come across them. In Ecce Romani I, "Getting Up Early" in Chapter 8 includes Aurelia clamating:

"Agite, molesti servi!" inquit. "Cur nihil facitis? Cur vos ibi sedetis? Cur non strenue laboratis" (ll. 3-4).

This is as good a time as any to introduce anaphora, tricolon, and even tricolon crescens.

Early in Ecce Romani II, the servi in Chapter 32

"in Forum missi sunt et ibi comparaverunt holera, panem, pullos." (l. 3)

Asyndeton, anyone?

I don't dwell on these items nor do I test them in the lower levels, but it certainly makes the job a bit easier a couple years down the line when the whole list of devices appears for memorization and application.

An Eye in the Sky

The first thing we visited on my very first trip to Rome as a student in 1982 was the Pantheon. This magnificent building remains my favorite site in the City. My daughter took this photograph on her first trip there in 2007. Notice the yellow balloon caught in the coffer behind the beam of light.

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...

How Old Is Your Mother?

I have read several articles over the past few days concerning the claim that the bronze statue of the Capitoline Wolf, that iconic image from ancient Rome, is not as old as previously thought. The Lupa Capitolina has long been revered as the image of the she-wolf who found and nutured the babies Romulus and Remus after they had been cast into the Tiber River. Romulus would, of course, go on to found the City of Rome.

Anna Maria Carruba, a member of the team that restored the statue a decade ago, claims that carbon-dating methods show that the statue was cast in the 8th century A.D., not around 500 B.C. as commonly believed. I have also read that the statue could be as late as the 13th century! History of the piece reveals that Pope Sixtus IV donated the statue to the Capitoline Museums in 1471 and that the twin babies were added during the 1500s. More information is needed to find out when and how the statue was "discovered" and where it was kept before the Pope gave it away.

Another argument which casts doubt on the ancient date of the statue is that the restorers discovered that it was cast as one piece, not separate units joined together after casting. Most, if not all, of the bronze statues created by the Etruscans in the time period in which the she-wolf was thought to be created, were made and assembled piecemeal. To have the statue cast as one unit would represent technology unavailable until the medieval period.

These articles also bring to mind another claimed revision to art history in that the magnificent statue of the death of Laocoon and his sons, a piece housed in the Vatican Museum, is not ancient but a fabrication, complete with burial and a staged discovery in the ruins of the Domus Aurea of Nero, of the Renaissance master Michelangelo.

I am intrigued by the claims concerning both statues, but I remain unconvinced. I'm not being close-minded, I just need more information.

Regardless of whether the Capitoline Wolf is ancient or medieval, it still remains as a symbol of Rome and is no less dear to me, nor should it be for others, for its supposed new-found youth.

ACL 2008

The 61st Annual Institute of the American Classical League has come and gone and I sit to write about it from the other side of a short family vacation to Long Island. The University of New Hampshire in Durham played an outstanding host and Sherwin Little, Tom Sienkewicz, Geri Dutra, and all others involved in the planning and execution of this outstanding gathering are to be commended.

I took the slow and liesurely route and drove to the Institute from Virginia. I set out on Tuesday morning and reached my goal of getting past most of the New York metropolitan area about mid-afternoon. In all, not a difficult drive but getting across the George Washington Bridge and navigating through the Bronx amid a sea of tractor-trailers was a bit of a pain. The next morning I easily completed the trip to New Hampshire and spent the night in Dover, about five miles outside of Durham. I stayed in Dover because, alas, there was no room in the inn at Durham when I made arrangements for lodging. The next day I move my belongings to the Holiday Inn Select at Durham and settled in for the Institute. On my return trip, getting past the traffic and bother of New York City was again my goal and I spent the night at East Windsor, New Jersey (near Princeton) via the Massachusetts Turnpike and a scenic trip through the Berkshires.

Anyhow, back to the Institute. Here are some highlights: My first interest involved Advanced Placement Latin and the College Board... Too much time was spent at the first session involving the grading of this year's exams with the presenters talking about how they had nothing to do with the decision about cancelling the AP Latin Lit exam and how we all must be calm and reasonable. No problem there. The later plenary session, titled "Latin Advanced Placement Tests: Responses and New Directions?", promised to be more interesting but I left disappointed and feeling no better (and no more informed) about the entire situation. No one was present who had actually had some say in the decision, just those who had something to say. Primarily, and I find this impressive after the initial reaction on LatinTeach and elsewhere, there were no fireworks, yelling, screaming, or crying. Everyone remained civil. We were assured that the Vergil exam would not change (probably) for the next three years or so and that we all, teachers, professors, professional organizations, would have input into future changes. I don't know how this was promised when there were no "officials" present. Most of the comments and suggestions were interesting and reasonable but there was nothing new or even reassuring that we had regained control of what and how we teach on the upper levels (if, indeed, we ever had control). I was annoyed at the presenter from a very prestigious prep school who suggested that we really don't need the AP exam. His school had dropped the entire AP program several years earlier and, guess what, their students continued to have no problem getting into Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Um, when your prestigious prep school carries instant name recognition, it is true that AP results make no difference in the admissions offices, BUT your average high school in your average town across the country has to buy into the AP program in order to level the playing field just a bit for their students. Like I said, I did not leave the plenary feeling better about things.

I was very interested by Matthew Hartnett's presentation on "Inscriptions and Graffiti in the Latin Classroom" and I intend to bring this genre of authentic Latin into my classes as soon as possible. Just because it isn't great literature doesn't mean it isn't interesting and has value in the classroom.

Ken Kitchell's "Teaching Latin Comp the Fun Way - The Long and the Short of It" was thoroughly enjoyable. It was refreshing (and a little reassuring) to learn that colleges and universities assign creative projects for their students and they end up having a great time while learning.

I was the presider for "Latin Via Storytelling: Backwards Design to Fit Any Textbook" and this session may well prove the most useful for me. Bob Patrick, Stephanie Sylvester, and Rachel Ash did an outstanding job of presenting the techniques and benefits of TPRS in the Latin classroom. The almost painless method of teaching and learning new vocabulary is alone worth consideration of this method. I need to apply some more thought here.

More than anything else, the benefit and purpose of attending an ACL Institute are the opportunities to meet new teachers and reconnect with old fiends and acquaintances. Putting a face with a name only seen on LatinTeach is great. It is very important that a professional establish contacts and networks in order for ideas, help, and suggestions to flow freely. No one can teach on an island and expect to grow.

Finally, there was the clambake. Not being a fan of seafood, I must admit that I opted for the barbequed chicken. I know that I wimped out but I have never found seafood to be palatable (and to think that I live so close to the Chesapeake Bay!). I did enjoy the company of my colleagues who were enjoying their lobsters and clams, though, and that's the best thing!

Next year in LA? We'll see!

Returning to the Task at Hand

I have been ignoring this blog for way too long. It is time to get back to writing and putting down into words my thoughts and ideas about Latin, the ancient world, and teaching.

Riding Those Ponies

In this day of quick and easy answers from the internet, it is too easy for our students to give in to the expedient and avoid the honorable. I have seen students take a question and make a bee-line for Wikipedia and not really read the article but scan it and hit the print button. They will read the copy later. On top of that, they also make multiple copies and distribute them to their classmates. They too will read the copies later. I have seen Latin students (gasp!) Google a poem of Catullus, make copies, and pass them around. No problem, though, their homework is done and they can move on to more important things.

O tempora! O mores! What would Cato say? What would Cicero think? What would Quintilian do?

The answer lies in what we expect from our students. They have ready access to all the answers and this resource is not going away. We as teachers need to refocus our efforts and teach our charges how to handle and understand all these answers. What is a good answer and what is bad? Why? How can one tell the difference?

Unfortunately the machines are now the vessels of knowledge. The belief among the students are that there is no longer a need to learn and memorize, regardless of the need to spout forth these seemingly random facts on the so-called high stakes test du jour.

I tell my students that they need to learn how to think, how to analyze, and how to understand what is being said by the author we are reading. If they take the easy path and print out someone else's translation, they are, in fact, defeating the purpose for being in the class. Anyone can read off from someone else's efforts and feel satisfied... but to what end?

More thoughts later -- I think I'm just rambling here.

O Fortunate Rock

In my Latin III classes we are translating O Fortuna from the Carmina Burana. The Latin is not difficult and the students enjoy honing their skills on something short and sweet. What made the class sweeter was playing the music to this poem and seeing my students' eyes light up as they immediately recognized the tune. I asked them where they had heard this music before and they offered several movies and commercials... one girl even suggested The Lion King.

I then played the rock version of O Fortuna by a band called Therion and I had them hooked. If you haven't heard this version before, go to iTunes and give it a listen... it is truly impressive and will replay over and over in your head.

There's something to be said when the Latin students leave the room and saunter down the hall whistling or humming the music from O Fortuna!

A Rosetta Stone on the Acropolis

Archaeologists have unearthed a stone on the Acropolis in both Greek and Latin! :)

My daughter took this photograph in June 2007.

Ha! So Much for Therapy!

It is Presidents' Day, February 18, and I am making my first post since August. I had said posting to my blog would be therapy for seven classes with five preps, department duties, Latin Club, certamen, and other outside professional responsibilities... Who has time for therapy?

The year has been very busy (as you would expect) and time just slips away. I can barely keep all my classes up to speed and sometimes that doesn't even happen. I often describe myself as a juggler. I have so many balls to juggle, though, that it takes all my talent just to keep them in the air -- don't expect me to do anything fancy with them. And, yes, sometimes I drop one or two and they may lie on the floor for a little while, but I snatch them up and toss them back into the air.

I really do want to get back to my blogging.

The Wheel in the Sky

I was listening to the local classic rock station driving to the first teacher workday this morning and when I turned onto the street on which the school is located, I heard these lyrics:

Oh, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning
Ooh, I don`t know where I`ll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps me yearning
Ooh, I don`t know, I don`t know

This song by Journey is not perhaps the most appropriate song (Google the lyrics) but the first line which Steve Perry kept singing was fitting. Each year is a new beginning. The graduating seniors have been replaced by the eager, tentative, incoming freshmen, and the retiring teachers have been replaced by eager, tentative, incoming rookies. Everyone gets a new, fresh start and the wheels keep on turning.

Here We Go Again!

It is the evening before veteran teachers are to report to school. The rookies have already spent three days in training camp. The supplies have been ordered. The floors are waxed. There's no doubt that a new school year is about to begin.

I look back at my summer with mixed results. I am a bit surprised because I am not even sure that summers are supposed to have results. I had grand plans of revamping all my classes and having all these amazing handouts and presentations ready to go. Ha-ha... no. There's no great disappointment, though, because things can always be revamped as we go, and that's probably better pedagogy because any revision will fit the students in their present situation, not in some pie-in-the-sky, administrative expectation.

I am embarking on my 21st year of teaching and, guess what, I'm still trying to figure it all out. If any teacher tells you they have all the answers and know exactly how things work, look at them askance, make up some excuse that you left your first day handouts on the copier machine, and move away. You may need to smile and nod, but that usually covers the requisite response.

I am planning to post more this year, if, for nothing else, as a means of therapy. For the first time in many, many years, I am the only Latin teacher in the building and will be teaching all five levels: Latin I, Latin II, Latin III, Latin IV, and AP Latin Literature (Catullus & Ovid). Add to this mix an active Latin Club, competitive certamen teams, and a bunch of other professional responsibilities. My wife is the head teacher-librarian (NBCT!) where I teach, my daughter will be entering the same high school (and having me as a Latin teacher) and my son will be in his last year of elementary school. They all have active schedules and life for the next 10 months or so is looking to be quite hectic. Therapy will be a necessity!