Livy Book 21

Though I mentioned it before in this part of my work, which in the beginning of the total summary of my profession which for the most part I was writing, especially about every memorable war by which route and how they carried it about, that Hannibal led the Carthaginians carried out a war with the Roman people. For it is certain that no cities nor nations have thrown against one another arms with only his great supply or strength; And by no means were they unknown to the arts of war but were experts from the first Punic confrontation, and to that point the fortunes by Mars of the conquerors were the ones closest to peril. Yet their hate against the other was unlike the rivalry of any kind, the Romans were indignant as the conquered had taken up arms against the conquerors, The Carthaginians (Poeni) were upset with the imperious pride by which the conquerors conducted themselves about. Yet Hannibal was nine years old when he boyishly flattered his father Hamlicar to lead him to Spain, and when sacrifices were given during the end of the war in Africa, Hannibal was led to the alter and made to swear an oath with his hand touching the sacrifice that when able to, to destroy the people of Rome. The loss of Sardinia and Sicily wearied his spirit: But now the cession of Sicily had been made excessively in speed and Sardinia had been affected by the deceit of the Romans in Africa, even this was imposed as I mentioned above was intercepted.

Hannibal: Mythical Figure

Hannibal was very much feared by the Romans, and for good reasons to. Hannibal had completed feats that were once thought impossible by any mere man, but he had accomplished them with a seemingly uneasy simplicity. Some examples of his mythical accomplishments were the uniting of the Gaulish tribes two years after it disbanded, the destruction of multiple legions at the battles of Rubicon, Trebia, and Tresimene, the crossing of the Alps with his entire army including elephants undetected, and most importantly the reaching of Rome with his army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal

Nova Roma

Carleton has five movie productions underway already this year, one of them being the much anticipated "Nova Roma" by Alexander Cooney. Cooney's movie is about his theory of what the world would be like if the Roman Empire never declined and fell. The staff includes 50 members from Minneapolis and St. Paul including a 22 member art staff. The movie will take place in the modern day and the Romans will have made many more technological advances than we have today, but they still enslave humans and make sacrifices. This movie will be out in 2010.

http://apps.carleton.edu/news/features/?story_id=587234

Secular Games

This Roman religious celebration, involving sacrifices and theatrical performances, lasted three days and nights and marks the end of saeculum and the new beginning of the next saeculum. Saeculum means a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a human population and was first used by the Etruscan people who were the original inhabitants of Italy. The games date all the way back to 509 BC and put down in 14BC as there were sacrifices to the gods of the underworld. Augustus revived them in 17BC and were also held by Claudia in 47AD in honor of the 800th anniversary of Rome's founding. These games even inspire Horace's Carmen Seculare.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/531988/Secular-Games

Horace

Born in Venusia on December 8, 65BC Horace was born into the family of a freedman who owned a small farm. They later moved to Rome so his father could be a coacter (an auctioneer) and sent his some Quintus Horatius to Athens to study philosophy and Greek. After the assassination of Caesar, Horace joined the army on the side of Brutus, where he spent most of the time routing instead of fighting. He returned to Rome after Augustas accepted everyone back and soon started to write poetry under the support of Maecenas , whom also supported such famous poets as Virgil. He died in Rome on November 27, 8BC. His works included Ars Poetica, The Satires, Odes, Epodon, Carmina, and The Epistles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace

Hero Story

Dimitri was born into a modest middle class family in Kiev, Russia. His father had died when he was only eight years old and his last dying words to Dimitri were, “Protect them,” which were the words that Dimitri would live and abide by for the rest of his life. After his father’s death he and his mother were adopted into his Uncle’s family where he learned the art of hunting and stealth in the Kiev forests. Dimitri’s apparent skill in the art prompted his uncle to send him to a military school with board. Here Dimitri learned the virtuosity of command and strategy toward which he would follow in his Father’s footsteps of serving in the army, which after his father’s service in The First World War had been taken over by the Communist regime of Lenin and recently been replaced by Stalin. The school, Dimitri found, was more of an agenda than an actually learning facility as it taught more about tactics pertaining more about the politics of the Communistic military than the actual strategy that is essential in driving a successful battle. Because of this the school did not produce traditional military officers but rather political war Commissars.
Nonetheless Dimitri excelled and by the end of his graduation in the beginning of the month of July, he was riding home to Kiev by way of the train from Moscow. The trip itself took four days, and Dimitri was excited to spend his three months of leave with his Mother and Uncle. Un fortunately his trip was cut short when he was recalled two days into his trip, back to Moscow to be assigned to a position on the front. Dimitri was afraid for his family, as they were only miles away from the front lines and hoped they would be able to get out alive, as the Russian line quickly collapsed to the German Blitzkrieg. Dimitri received his orders from headquarters, and headed with his newly drafted unit over to Rostov to link up with the 11th Army to help repel the Germans.
As he and his unit rode in the truck bed over to the front lines they were hit by a shell and thrown out of the truck. Many were killed and Dimitri was thrown unconscious into a bush, where he was concealed from the outside. After about four hours Dimitri came to and quickly looked out from his concealed position. There he saw that the front line had fallen all the way back to his position, so he quickly jumped out of the shrub and grabbed a rifle. He used his knack for hunting to continuously knock off the enemy until another shell knocked him out. The next thing that Dimitri saw when he came to again was that he was in a truck with many other prisoners and civilians who were marked with a star. Dimitri asked a guard when they stopped the truck, “Where are we going?” The guard replied, “Der Arzt.” This would not be the traditional doctor that Dimitri was expecting though, and it would certainly be his last.
Dimitri met Doctor Josef Mengele in Camp Koldichevo, and was quickly placed in an isolated room for one of the doctor’s special treatments. Dimitri was given a shot of what looked like water, but with a brackish tint. Dimitri became horribly sick within the next few days, and was diagnosed with Malaria. He was given a series of tests, which came to no avail, until he finally became well on his own. The doctor noticed Dimitri’s unusual strength and assigned him to another room where he was burned with gas and placed in a special bed next to the doctor’s office where his burn was continuously aggravated with the poking of wood shavings and glass. It wasn’t until three days after he was exposed to the gas, that he was given a strong dose of sulfonamide. Hours after the dose he began to contract a metallic tint to his skin. As the hours grew so did the color of metal on his skin. The doctor took quick note of this, thinking that it could have been a possible reaction between the sulfonamide and the various malarial treatments that they had given him to have Dimitri receive this metallic look. Dimitri also noticed that he felt much better and stood up, feet clanging to the floor. The doctor took one step back but Dimitri was too quick and crushed him with one blow. It seemed as if this new metallic skin had given him super strength. As he walked out of the camp he was shot at by various guards, but he took no damage; the bullets just seemed to bounce off of him. He crushed the gate and picked up a weapon from a fallen guard and killed the rest of the camp personnel, freeing the rest of the prisoners along with himself.
He and his unit continued to fight as resistance behind enemy lines until they reached their own at the city of Stalingrad. Here he was to report to commanding officer to be reassigned once again, and this time on a secret mission along with a unit of veterans trained in special tactics. They were assigned to go underground into the sewers, and come out behind the city and harass the enemy supply lines. As the Germans could not get supplies into the city, the German force in Stalingrad surrendered and the tide of the war turned. His new mission was a recon in Kiev, his old home; it was there he hoped to make his greatest mark by finding his family.

Horace Quotes

Whichever way the wind takes me, I will go.
Quo me cumque rapit tempestas deferor hospes.
Epistles 1.1.15


He appears mad indeed but to a few, because the majority is infected with the same disease.
Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.
Epodon 8.7

Many heroes lived before Agamemnon, but they are all unmourned, and consigned to oblivion, because they had no bard to sing their praises.
Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi: sed omnes illacrimabiles Urgentur, ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
Carmina 4.9.25

It makes a great difference whether Davus or a hero speaks.
Intererit multum Davusne loquatur an heros.
Ars Poetica 124

Patience makes lighter what sorrow may not heal.
Omnes una manet nox Et calcanda semel via leti
Odes 15

I teach that all are men are mad.
Doceo insanire omnes.
Satires.2.3.81

Essay

Ovid was Roman poet who wrote about love seduction, and most importantly mythological transition. Ovid completed Metamorphoses in 8 AD and remains one of the most popular mythology books today. The set of work includes 15 books of poems, including the one that is going to be discussed, Metamorphoses Book II. Book II of Metamorphoses includes episodes with the main characters of Jupiter, Callisto, Europa and Phaeton. In the case of the eighth story of Metamorphoses Book II the main characters include Minerva, Aglauros, and Mercury. The following will be breaking down and discussing the six parts of structural analysis which are plot, hermeneutics, semic, symbolic, reference, and diagetic. All of these parts of structural analysis combine themselves to help the reader fully understand the story and what the author is trying to present in his work. In the case of The Story of Aglauros, transform'd into a Statue these play an almost imperative role in understanding the poetry by dissecting each part of it to try and understand the authors meaning, and perhaps even the moral or humor behind every line and stanza.
The plot of the story opens up with the opening of Minerva’s feast, in which all of Minerva’s maidens had to come and pay homage to her. During this an evil maiden named Aglauros came to pay homage to her goddess Minerva, but was not true to Minerva’s core values as she had an evil heart. The author even goes as far as to say that Lucifer himself expelled the maiden from the depths of Hell. As Aglauros prepares herself for the festivities Mercury comes in all dressed up in his armor and passes her by. Aglauros catches him and asks what his business here is, and he replied that he was her to marry one of her sisters to make her an aunt. Aglauros knows that as a maiden of Minerva that she nor her sister may marry because they must stay celibate as a maiden of Minerva. But she takes interest in Mercury instead and agrees to help him marry her sister only if he brings Aglauros a gift, probably of money. As a result Minerva becomes deeply upset and sends someone to deal with Aglauros as she did not heed Minerva’s warning of staying out of love’s affairs. Minerva then sends a god to go to the house in which Aglauros sleeps and the god touches her with her thorny and defiled hand and tells her that she has disobeyed Minerva and must pay the price. Aglauros goes to get up after her but finds she cannot as she has started to turn into a statue, in which is the state that she will ultimately end up in and remain in forever.
The semic part of this essay, or the connotation that Ovid is trying to make to real life is that when one decides to deviate from a course that one has already decided and committed to that one must suffer the consequences as a result of their decision whether it is made in poor or good-hearted spirit. In the case of Aglauros, she had already made the decision to remain celibate to Minerva for the rest of herself as a maiden, but had other thoughts as she was jealous of her sister going to get married. Aglauros had already made a promise to stay celibate and after Minerva got word of Aglauros’ plan she warned her of what might happen, but Aglauros decided to ignore Minerva’s warning and as a result suffered the consequence of turning into a statue. Although one will not turn into a statue if they break a promise, they will still ultimately suffer a consequence undoubtedly harm the person who the promise was made to, and perhaps even in the long run even the one who made it. Aglauros also mainly suffered from her own envious heart as she was jealous of her sister’s marriage. This is the main connotation that Ovid is trying to get across. Because of Aglauros ruining the chance of her sister getting married, even after Minerva’s warning, she is turned into a statue so that she cannot meddle in anyone else’s affairs ever again. The lesson in this is that no one should meddle in someone else’s affairs with an envious heart on the mind.
There are very many different examples of Hermeneutics in the poem about Aglauros getting turned into a statue. One such example is when Minerva calls upon another god to take care of Aglauros for her, and the statements are, “She never smiles but when the wretched weep,
She pines and sickens at another's joy.” The parallels in this are very similar to each other in the way that they are both emotions in the beginning of the statement that have an opposite connotation to what a normal person would associate with the reaction. For instance the first line says that she only smiles when the wretched weep, which is different in that most people get upset when other people are sad and the other line says that she gets sick at the notion of another’s joy whereas other people are happy when other people are happy. Ovid takes two total polar opposite emotions and associates them each to a total polar opposite association of reaction. Another example of parallelism in the story is, “In tears all night, In darkness all the day.” In this Ovid is using the opposite of normality only this time for days not emotions. This example is showing that the evil god spent all their time in the darkness and as a result was evil. The use of night with the darkness of day is a sort of oxymoron in that you would have night and light in the day or just night. Without light, though, you would have nothing to compare darkness to, which is what Ovid maybe trying to point out as the evil god spends all their time in the darkness that they know no light. A final example of parallelism is, “Consum'd like ice, that just begins to run, When feebly smitten by the distant sun; Or like unwholsome weeds, that set on fire Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire.” In this example Ovid is using two illustrations of something dying or going away just as in the story Aglauros dream of marriage leaves her as she turns to stone.
The symbolism in the poem includes the feast in which all of the Maidens gather to celebrate Minerva. Minerva, of course, is the goddess Athena in Greek religion and they celebrated the feasts of their gods to in Greek religion. The Romans, though, celebrated more often, and so often in fact that about one day in four was a celebrated feast with sacrifices and games in honor of the god or goddess in whose name it was celebrated in honor of. The feast of Minerva lasted five days, and all offerings were made by all artists, mechanics and scholars. Games would also be held at the feasts, so these became a very important day or series of days in Roman citizens lives. Another symbol in the story is the aegis which was, as stated in the Iliad, a shield or buckler of Pallas Athena or Zeus and was fashioned by Hephaestus. This is the buckler that Athena would wear when she became angry, which in this case of the story she became angry with Aglauros and put on the buckler. The buckler also linked the gorgon and serpents upon herself which was who was used to kill Aglauros because Medusa, whose powers were transferred to Athena with the buckler, could turn people into stone.
Referential analysis in the story consists of the Temple of Minerva which was built between the Via Labicana and the Aurelian Walls and just inside the Anio Vetus and on Anventine Hill. The architecture consists of Roman secular architecture with some Greek columns. Another piece of architecture is the apartment in which she was staying at during the time at which she was turned into stone. During the Roman period, though, they were called insulas. These insulas were the homes of the plebs, and as a result of urbanization single house homes were scarce on the market and as a result of the scarcity they were very expensive. As a resolution to the problem apartment buildings were built because they could build up when they needed more room. The top floors were the cheapest as they were without running water and other necessities. These were limited to the poorest of the poor and all of the rooms of the apartments overall, were relatively small compared to the apartments of today’s housing market.
The diagetic part of the poem appears as one pattern throughout the poem. The poem expresses a positive tone and then a negative tone, and continues this pattern for the rest of the poem alternating about every other stanza of the poem. The opening stanza has a positive tone as it talks about the opening of the feast of Minerva and everybody is cheerful and enjoying the festivities and this continues for the next two stanzas. Then in the fourth stanza of the poem it talks about the darker part of the poem with it being about the person that Lucifer expelled and was going to the feast of Minerva, and then in the fifth stanza it takes a more positive, heroic approach as it talks about Mercury going to the feast to tell Aglauros that he is going to marry her sister. In the rest of the poem it takes a dark stance as envy takes over Aglauros heart and steers her to ask for a reward before he can marry his sister. This is followed by Athena’s warning and then the transformation into the gorgon to go and turn Aglauros into the statue. This is the pattern that sets the mood throughout the poem.
Without the tools of structural analysis to properly examine a piece of work, one is not able to understand the work full enough to know what the author’s message is. The dissection of the plot of the story allows for the reader to examine what is happening and what the possible message or moral of the story is. The semic part of the story allows for the reader to understand what connotations the author is make to real life and what he’s trying to relate, while the hermeneutic part of the analysis allows for the parallelism of the story to be explored to understand the emotions of the characters and mood of the story. The symbolic part of the analysis allows for the reader to explore the parts of the story which have meaning behind them or that the reader has to understand to completely recognize what is happening in the author’s work. Referential Analysis allows for the reader to understand what is happening in the story just like the symbolism part but only with the explanation of the buildings, and the diagetic part of the story allows for the reader to understand why the author puts the elements of the story where they are just as in the story of Aglauros where there is a positive and dark pattern of the setting. In the case of The Story of Aglauros, transform'd into a Statue these play an almost imperative role in understanding the poetry by dissecting each part of it to try and understand the authors meaning, and perhaps even the moral or humor behind every line and stanza.

Werewolf Poem

Lycaon served the flesh rejected by the gods,
Virgil changed the tale from with herbs he ate to change,
But Church ends all the doubt with sword,
Farmer's scare is no more but gone.

History of Sicily

Sicily has been controlled by many great ancient powers such as the Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Spanish, Islamic, Byzantine, Catalan, and Hohenstaufen. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and its strategic importance for trade among the nations of the Mediterranean is of the utmost importance for getting the upper hand in trade. Greece began to colonize Sicily in 750 BCE, and the natives were absorbed into the Hellenic culture. During the Peloponnese War Sicily, particularly the city of Syracuse, was the target of the Athenians and there the Athenians lost the war. The Carthaginians also held some land on the western side of Syracuse while to the northern end the Romans had made themselves at home. During the First Punic War the Romans crushed the Carthaginians while in the Second Punic War the Carthaginians tried to take the island but utterly failed. the Vandals took over the island in 400 AD, then the Goths took it over in 488 AD, and then the Byzantines took it over in 535 but the Saracens soon conquered it in 652 AD. After the Byzantines took the island once again soon after they moved the capitol to Syracuse in 660 AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicily

Crete Quarry Could be OriginalSite of Greek Labyrinth

An Anglo Greek team believes that they have found a wall that has as much claim to be the Labyrinth as the Minoan Palace at Knossos 20 miles away, which they have found in their dig at Gortyn. The labyrinth was once told to have held the Minotaur, which came from the King's wife and a bull. the 2 1/2 mile long tunnels of interlocking chambers and dead ends was once widely visited, but when Knossos was discovered it fell into neglect and was even used as a Nazi ammunition dump at one point during World War II.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/6343458/Crete-quarry-could-be-original-site-of-ancient-Greek-Labyrinth.html