The Daily Telegraph, Saturday January 26 02
'Herod killed by kidney disease and gangrene' argues Jan Hirschmann at the Annual Historical Clinical Pathologic Conference in Baltimore. Basing his conclusions on Josephus' descriptions of Herod's condition, which included 'itching, painful intestinal problems, breathlessness, convulsions and gangrene of the genitalia', Hirschmann thinks that chronic kidney disease, complicated by the rare Fournier's gangrene, ended Herod's 36-year reign. The kidney disease could have ulcerated the intestinal tract; that caused perforation of the intestine, which led to the gangrene extending into the genitals; or the gangrene could have been caused by scratching letting the bacteria into the skin.Previously, Herod had been thought to have died of complications arising from gonorrhoea.

The Sunday Telegraph (Magazine), 20th January 2002
Ian Hislop, a patron of Friends of Classics, expresses his concern about learning over the net and uses the new Internet Latin course as an example of where the problems lie. He quotes a letter from a school pupil who has successfully gained a GCSE in Latin thanks to the course, but even more thanks to his parents who were able to help him out when help was not otherwise available. The pupil identifies especial problems with the one-hour a week webcam lessons with the tutor (interaction almost impossible: like 'trying to teach someone over the phone'). The pupils who stayed the course all agreed that a real teacher was needed - and the pupil pointed out that the school had in fact made the Latin teacher redundant on the grounds of expense, and then spent even more money on vastly expensive multi-media equipment. Hislop concludes: 'Whatever my young correspondent's Latin results, his grasp of economics seems pretty impressive.'

The Daily Telegraph, January 18th 2002
Roman houses, originally insulae of the second century BC and adapted in the third century AD to become one large patrician domus, have now been opened to the public. The twenty rooms contain dazzling frescoes (grape-harvests, boating scenes - illustrated), restored after years of neglect. They are located on the Caelian Hill, under the fashionable Basilica di Giovanni e Paolo, two brothers at Constantine's court martyred in AD 363. The site had become a place of Christian worship in the fourth century AD and the basilica was built in the fifth. The lower levels were used as a crypt, which was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century.

In the New Year's Honours List

Friends of Classics are delighted to congratulate Wilf O'Neill, for many years Head of Classics at Ossett School (near Leeds), indefatigable servant of the ARLT and inspiration of classicists everywhere, on his appointment as MBE in the New year's Honours List for 2002.

The Times, February 25th 2002
Academic armies have come to blows in a new battle over Troy, report Philip Howard and Norman Hammond, with a symposium in the University of Tubingen ending in fisticuffs. Since 1988 excavations have been conducted at Hisarlik by a well-funded, computer-packed international team led by Manfred Korfmann of Tubingen University (Hisarlik was the site equated with Troy by Greeks and Romans, and excavated by Heinrich Schliemann from 1870-1890). Korfmann's investigations have found that, below the much later Roman streets, a rock-cut ditch snaked around south of Hisarlik, enclosing an area six times larger. Several yards wide and deep, it would plausibly have had a rampart along its inside edge. In other words, Schliemann's Troy was just the citadel, not the city, and Troy was in fact a town large enough to besiege rather than overrun. The overall layout of Troy, with its upper and newly found lower towns, is strikingly like Mycenae and many other Aegean Bronze Age communities. As a result, Korfmann believes that the city was a sprawling metropolitan and trading settlement, with a citadel and a royal palace. The other side, however, led by the ancient historian Professor Frank Kolb at Tubingen and Dieter Hertel, Professor of Classical Archaeology at Munich, accuse Korfmann of exaggeration to the point of falsification and charlatanism, and argue that the archaeological discoveries at Hisarlik from 1300 to 1200BC reveal Troy to have been a trivial nest of pirates at the margin of civilisation. The charges focus partly on Korfmann's excavations in pursuit of the lower city (the slums outside the citadel) and partly on his imaginative and populist computer- generated record of the area. Things appear to have got most agreeably out of hand and fisticuffs broke out during the final session. It is not known whether the bodies have been returned yet for burial.

The Daily Telegraph, February 13th 2002
In a Leader, the paper considers modern efforts to combat political cynicism and speculates what the founder of the philosophy of Cynicism, Diogenes (410-320 BC), might have made of it all: 'Diogenes was sunning himself in his barrel (strictly speaking, a wine jar) when Alexander the Great stood over him and said: "Ask me for anything you want." "Get out of my light," came the reply. That might indeed sound cynical in the modern sense, but the ancient Cynics were in truth idealistic, according to Dr Peter Jones, the learned founder of Friends of Classics. His view of the Cynics' philosophy is that they rejected convention because it seemed a corrupting force, but they followed "life according to nature" as the only way to virtue - an idealistic route. The serious Diogenes owned a rough cloak (no under-garment) and lived in his wine jar on a diet of water and vegetables. He performed all natural functions in the open - hence the nickname Cynic: "dog-like". But he taught in the open too; everyone was welcome. He wittily attacked all conventions - family, politicians, money-men, social and racial distinctions, reputation, wealth, power, literature, music. He rejected intellectualism, deploying all his intellect to reject it. If "cynical" is now misused to describe politicians' insincerity and callousness, the politicians are more mistaken in calling their critics cynics. Compared with Diogenes they ain't heard nothing.'

The Times, March 13, 2002
Classical Cultural Treasure at Risk
From Professor Robert L. Fowler and others

Sir, In 1752-54 excavators tunnelling into the remains of the magnificent “Villa of the Papyri” at Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples found the only intact library of books known from Roman times. These include many hundreds of lost works of Greek philosophy and a number of Roman poetry. The author most often represented is Philodemus, the teacher of Virgil and in-house philosopher of Calpurnius Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. The villa was almost certainly Piso’s seaside retreat; most of the books found so far come, it seems, from the collection of Philodemus himself.

Through the heroic efforts of Professor Marcello Gigante of the University of Naples, who died on November 22, the thousands of blackened papyri finally began to receive scientific study by an international team of scholars, two centuries after their discovery. It was the lifelong dream of Professor Gigante to complete the excavation of the villa, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79, and to locate the crates of books almost certainly still to be found there.

We are concerned that, with Professor Gigante’s passing, the impetus for these vital excavations may be lost. Flooding now poses a grave danger to the villa and its contents. The excavation must be completed, and the building preserved. Most importantly the books must be brought to light. We can expect to find good contemporary copies of known masterpieces and to recover works lost to humanity for two millennia. A treasure of greater cultural importance can scarcely be imagined.

The United Nations has declared Pompeii and Herculaneum a World Heritage Site. The Convention under which this designation is granted clearly expresses the imperative of preservation and all interested parties should take urgent action to achieve this end.

Yours sincerely,
ROBERT L. FOWLER
(H. O. Wills Professor of Greek, University of Bristol),

ALBERT HENRICHS
(Eliot Professor of Greek Literature, Harvard University),

RICHARD JANKO
(Professor of Greek, University College London),

MARY LEFKOWITZ
(Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Wellesley College),

HUGH LLOYD-JONES
(Sometime Regius Professor of Greek, University of Oxford),

DIRK OBBINK
(University Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature, Christ Church, Oxford),

PETER PARSONS
(Regius Professor of Greek, Christ Church, Oxford),

NIGEL WILSON
(Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Lincoln College, Oxford),

'The opposition by historians and archaeologists has been overwhelming', said Costas Carras, the president of the Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment and Cultural Heritage. 'Their ardent desire is for the site of Marathon to be developed in the style of other important battlefields, such as Waterloo, Verdun and Gettysburg, rather than as a sort of Disneyland.'

George Kazantzopoulos, environment manager for Athens 2004, said all the construction work was going on in an area which had previously housed an airfield, American and Greek military communications bases and a motocross track. Archaeologists are present at all the digging and no remains dating from the battle have been reported.

The Spectator, April 13th 2002
The Jealousy of God
In 'The Jealousy of God', Jasper Griffin wonders whether the ancients were not wiser with their polytheism, given that our monotheism is currently causing such trouble round the world. He argues that conflict between Islam, Judaism and the Christian west has filled the gap left by the collapse of Soviet communism and secular ideology, and compares the pantheon of gods available to our Indo-European ancestors with contemporary monotheism, with its tendency to exclusiveness and intolerance, only Hinduism in the West offering an alternative.

He identifies two ancient attempts to escape polytheism: Akhenaton's declaration of the supremacy of Atun, god of the sun, in the second millennium BC, and the Hebrews' of Yahweh. At first, the claim was that the Hebrew God was superior to all others; then that the Yahweh was the only God. This was very difficult to swallow among peoples accustomed to seeing gods everywhere and happy (like Herodotus) to assimilate foreign gods with their own or introduce them when they needed them (as the Romans introduced Asclepius during a plague). It was the exclusiveness of Jews and Christians which brought persecution down on them in the ancient world, and also which proved their strength.

Griffin laments the price we are now paying for our intolerance, and finishes 'There was, after all, something to be said for the pagan days, when a new god could be signed up and expected to fit in with all the rest, in a spirit rather like that in which a soccer club transfers a
star player from another team.'

Classical Association AGM: Edinburgh
Philip Howard reports for The Times Friday April 5 2002, p. 8

A paper by David Ridgway celebrates the life of the Scot James Byres, born 1734. Educated in France, he went at the age of 24 to Rome where he studied painting, became an architect and fell in love with antiquity. He visited Tarquinia and thought the Etruscans a stylish lot, compared with the thug-like Romans. He became the guide to many British milords on the Grand Tour, e.g. Edward Gibbon ('In the daily labour of 18 weeks, the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued'). Byres sold Sir William Hamilton the Portland Vase and influenced Wedgewood's imitations of the antique.

The Times, Wednesday May 29
The Royal We
Richard Toporoski argues that the royal 'we' derives from the time when Diocletian (who ruled AD 284-305) associated three others with himself as Roman emperors. As a result, all edicts began with the names and titles of the emperors and continued 'we ...'. When the Roman empire in the West collapsed, the chieftains of the German tribes who now set themselves up as local kings adopted this Roman habit as the only model they knew.

So classicists are obliged to use every means at their disposal to provide for Latin. Hence the host of smaller, more local initiatives - the very successful annual summer schools (two weeks in Wells, London and Aberystwyth, one-week in Durham, eight weeks in Cork), for example, and an on-line AS course, with e-mail and video-conference support, run from Wells Cathedral School, Somerset.

To that end, where normal channels fail, charities like Friends of Classics and The Classical Association exist to help state schools which would like to start the subject at any level. Advice is free; grant-aid (alas) has to be limited. Any lover of the ancient world with a million quid to spare, however, should get in contact. Then times really would change.

Contact Barbara Bell at bmbellmini@aol.com or 0117-953-1918.
Find out what CLC on-line offers at www.CambridgeSCP.com; e-mail:
spp22@cam.ac.uk; office: 01223 330579.
For details of Summer Schools, contact the Joint Association of Classical Teachers at 0207-862-8706.
Wells Cathedral School: Nigel Walkey, 01749-834240.
Friends of Classics at www.friends-classics.demon.co.uk or 0207-431-5088.
The Classical Association at 0207-862-8706.

Queen's University, Belfast, is in danger of losing its Classics Department. Here is the letter from Maureen Alden, the head of department:

On 20th June the Academic Council at Queen's voted in favour of the 'Academic Plan' produced by the Academic Planning Group. The plan included a proposal to close Latin, Greek, and Classical Studies and to move three Ancient Historians into History. Despite some opposition, the plan was endorsed by the Senate on 25th June.

The reason given was lack of student demand for the languages. We achieved the target grade (4) set for us by the University in Research Assessment Exercise 2000. Our result in the Teaching Quality Assessment was 23 out of 24. We were also asked by the university to increase student numbers, and we did. It is true that numbers taking Latin and Greek are not large, but Queen's is the only provision in Northern Ireland for these subjects at university level. Many of our students could not afford to go elsewhere for their education. Some of the mature students must study locally for family reasons. Numbers in Classical Studies rose from 25 last year to 60+ this year, and about 14 of these have enrolled for the subject in Years 2 and 3. Some of the Classical Studies students have also enrolled for courses in Latin and Greek. A number of the others will take course in Greek Tragedy and/or Roman Comedy offered as part of the English pathway. Interest in the schools is thriving, especially for Classical Studies, and we run very successful conferences for schools in the spring. This year we had over 200 pupils at the March event. It seems very hard to stifle these subjects at exactly the time when there is such a revival of interest in them.

Could I ask you, please, to protest against this closure?
Write to the newspapers: The Editor, The Irish Times, 13 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2

Maureen Alden

Book Parties With Togas, by MARTIN ARNOLD
The New York Times, July 11 2002
Close your eyes and think of being somewhere else when it's 90-plus degrees in steamy New York, or anywhere. Why not, for instance, ancient Rome? Which is synonymous with romance and conspiracy, sex and poisonings, philosophy and gladiators, things grand and profane. Writers think these thoughts, and create genres. Although it's not yet a publishing trend, there are at least a handful of recent books of fiction and non-fiction about ancient Rome in the bookstores, with more on the way. It's called "the Gladiator' effect" by writers and publishers. The snob in us likes to believe that it is always books that spin off movies. Yet in this case, it's the movies - most recently "Gladiator" two years ago - that have created the interest in the ancients. And not for more Roman screen colossals, but for writing that is serious or fun or both. So far, Random House has printed 25,000 copies of a biography "Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician" by Anthony Everitt. That's a goodly number for a book of this sort, first published in England in April 2001. John Adams, who is doing very well indeed on the best-seller lists, said of Cicero, "All the ages of the world have notproduced a greater statesman and philosopher combined." If you can't take John Adams's word, then whose? On the other end of the seriousness scale there's the pre-Caesar Roman private eye Gordianus, created by Steven Saylor. Mr. Saylor said, "I got interested in the period as a child of the 60's watching 'Spartacus', 'Ben-Hur' and 'Cleopatra' at the drive-ins." The Philip Marlowes of ancient Rome weren't called P.I.'s, but, according to Mr. Saylor's books, "finders" (at least his sleuth Gordianus was called "the Finder"). Mr. Saylor's ninth in the series, "A Mist of Prophecies" (Minotaur Press), was published in May, and like all of them was based on an actual trial. "The speeches of Cicero when he was a young lawyer defending in his first big murder trial, that sort of thing," Mr. Saylor said, adding, "I spend a lot of time with the classics department at Berkeley." As he points out, "There were no end of poisonings and murders back then" (100 to 50 B.C.).
This is how "in" the Roman genre has become: this spring Random House even published an ancient-Rome travel book, "Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists" by Tony Perrottet. Many young Romans had the cash and leisure to travel the empire, so a tourist amble of several years wasn't that uncommon, books by Homer in their backpacks, or whatever. Mr. Perrottet retraced a typical journey. There certainly seems a need for some clear thinking in Washington these days, so it's a hopeful sign that a new translation by Gregory Hays of Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" (Modern Library) is selling well there,said Ann Godoff, publisher of Random House. " 'Mediations' is the first self-help book," she said. "We need wise men today. Marcus Aurelius and Cicero were true wise men, so maybe that's why they are selling nicely."
Coming in September is Lindsey Davis's 13th novel, "The Body in the Bath House" (Mysterious Press), about crime in ancient Rome. And in November is a second novel by Michael Curtis Ford, "Gods and Legions" (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's), a novel set in ancient Rome. (His first novel, "The Ten Thousand," also published by St. Martin's, was about ancient Greece.) His editor, Peter Wolverton, associate publisher of Thomas Dunne Books, also believes in the "Gladiator" effect. He said, "There's everything - epic adventures, battle scenes galore, political intrigue brewing." With hardly any promotion, or advertising, Mr. Ford's first novel has netted more than 10,000 sales. Respectable.
"I've always been a classics fan, studied Latin," Mr. Ford said. "It's doing all the research, gathering the background that's fun. What happened then was so outrageous and adventurous, you can't imagine making it up. Why make up stories like 'Gladiator' when what really happened is beyond fiction?"
The movies "Spartacus" and "Cleopatra" piqued his interest in the period too, he said: "I'm not mining anything unknown - it's just that the stories have come to the fore again."
Could it be that Russell Crowe has reawakened our interest in ancient Greece and Rome, in democracy's beginnings? That's quite a leap, a mythology in itself. Yet the Cicero biographer Mr. Everitt, who lives in London, said: "I have a feeling that in Europe history is the flavor of
the moment. On television there are endless programs on historical figures that there wouldn't have been five years ago. The 'Gladiator' impact has been important."
He added, "There may be a concern for the past because the center isn't holding, and somehow we can retrieve our identity by retrieving the past."
Mr. Everitt, speaking to an American audience, called Cicero an honorary founding father. "Cicero seems to be, in American culture, the idea at the beginning that aristocracy and democracy had to be in balance," he said. "Democracy can get out of control without balance. All of your founding fathers read Cicero."
Irwyn Applebaum, publisher of Bantam Dell, attributes some of the publisher, writer and reader interest in ancient action to the movies "Gladiator" and "Braveheart." His Delacorte imprint has purchased a trilogy of novels by Conn Iggulden about ancient Rome in the times of certain emperors. The first, "Emperor: The Gates of Rome," is scheduled for publication in January. "It's not that the publishers were looking for something, but that the writers are discovering something, creating a genre," he said, adding, "They were reminded of heroism, conflict, high romance, wealthy homes and living, fast-moving stories."
This farrago of heroism and betrayal and lust could become such a hot genre they might soon start making movies of the books.

People in the News

Professor Richard Jenkyns (Lady Margaret Hall) has been inveighing against the assessment mentality infusing English education and the virtual criminalisation of entrance tutors at Oxford. He is taking up a position at Boston University in the USA and will make a decison whether to stay at the end of the year (The Daily Telegraph, August 17 02). Annette Thornton was head of Classics at Reading School till April this year, and is bringing an action against the school for being forced to resign because the school has so cut back its classical provision. In 1997, Latin, Greek and classical civilisation was offered at A-level.
Now only Latin is left.

Hooked on the Classics
The Daily Telegraph, September 28, 'Weekend'
'Hooked on the classics' runs the headline below a picture of undergraduates sitting and lying on the grass of an Oxford college, with suitable tomes on display. Eugenie Howard-Johnston (New College) describes what studying Classics at Oxford entails and the variety of courses now on offer. 'Classics at Oxford is constantly re-adapting itself to appeal to the modern school-leaver ... for the final exam, there are 14 options in ancient history, 25 in philosophy, 24 in literature, as well as several in classical archaeology.' She herself began Greek at Oxford and is impressed by the speed with which the crash-course got her up to pace. It was hard work, she says, but everyone threw themselves into it and the results speak for themselves. 'There is a fellowship among the classicists that helps them get through the bad bits - and revel in the good'. A don provided the best rationale for the study of the subject, she thought: 'It is multidisciplinary, combining history, literature and philosophy. It is meant to sharpen the mind, and it does - critical faculties, reasoning power, independence of thought. These are skills useful in most future careers.'

See further www.classics.ox.ac.uk

The Daily Telegraph, September 14 02
The actor Mel Gibson is planning a film about the life of Christ in Aramaic and Latin (it should be Greek, but never mind about that). The Telegraph discussed the matter in their third leader - in fairly dog Latin - lamenting the decline of Latin in schools, as follows:

Mel melior est O tempora magnifica, o mores digni. Stella magna australis, Mel Gibson, dixit se novam imaginem, The Passion, dirigere et producere velle. Haec imago, quae de Christo vita est, in lingua Latina erit. Mel Gibson pius Christianus est et imaginem insolentem, similem The Last Temptation of Christ, non producet.

Quam admirabile. Fabulae Henrici Potteri populo gratae linguam Latinam in priores paginas actorum diurnorum reduxunt. Qui non scit sententiam scholae Henrici Potteri, Hogwart's - "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus"?

Sed, adhuc, hodie pauci pueri aut paucae puellae hanc linguam discunt. Tragoedia est, quod verba bella sunt. Catullus, Vergilius, Ovidius, Tacitus - tabula historicorum et poetarum splendidorum paene sine fine est. Et omnes, qui linguam Latinam iam legere possunt, dicunt: "Sincera verba quam translationem legere melius est."

Non modo lingua iucunda est, sed etiam utilis: ut linguam discas, multi libri grammatici discendi sunt, et tum historia multorum verborum Anglorum clara fit. Difficilia verba secunda in condicione (supra videlicet) etiam intelleges - damnosa hereditas et gravamen. Tandem
iocum vetustissimum orbe in terrarum - "Caesar adsum iam forte, Pompey aderat" - et originem verbi "tandem", vehiculum rotis binis binos homines, intelleges.

Friends may enjoy spotting the infelicities. secunda in condicione refers to the second Leader in which damnosa hereditas and gravamen feature (should one read contione for condicione?)

The Times Educational Supplement, 'Teacher' magazine supplement September 27 2002
Julian Morgan, who runs the classical soft-ware company J-PROGS and teaches two days a week at Derby Grammar School, features in a double-page spread on the use of ICT in teaching classics. His pupil Sachin Gunga, at 16 the youngest pupil this year to get an A-grade at Greek A- level, has had one lesson a week for four years and otherwise used the internet, especially the Perseus on-line programme with its treasure trove of classical texts, translations and other resources, to advance at his own pace. Morgan explains how ICT can be used to make the most of a teacher's time, and also tells of an experiment he carried out with his Classical civilisation group while exploring the cult of celebrity. When pupils searched for 'Beckham' (their first choice of famous person) on the internet, they came up with 210,000 references. Tony Blair came up with 744,000 and George W Bush 1.6 million. Athena, however, came up with 4.7 million, Apollo 2.48 million and Zeus 1.19 million. Even Ares scored over half a million.

Ancient Roman 'Little Chefs'
The Times September 10 02
A chain of ancient Roman 'Little Chefs' has been found in the Egyptian desert, serving roast donkey, camel steaks and water melon to soldiers and quarry workers. The quarry sites, in the remote Red Sea mountains, supplied grey granodiorite, used e.g. for all but three of the columns of the Pantheon, and purple porphyry, the only source of the stone, used e.g. at the temple of Jupiter in Baalbeck. The Parvi Coqui lined the roads that joined the quarries to the Nile Valley. Rubbish dumps reveal that they served wheat, lentils, dates, donkey meat, wine, artichokes, pine nuts, pomegranate, grapes, watermelon and black pepper (from India).

The earliest reference to London
The Independent, Saturday October 12 2002
The earliest known physical proof of London's name in Roman times (c. AD 150-200) has been uncovered on a building site in Southwark. It is a plaque set up by one Tiberinius Celerianus moritex Londiniensium, 'of the Londoners'. It is thought that moritex means negotiator. The plaque was dedicated to Mars Camulus, who seems to have been worshipped in the Champagne region of France. Was Celerianus a wine importer?

MATHOS - Learning Ancient Greek Online
from Prof Rosemary Wright (m.r.wright@lamp.ac.uk)

The Department of Classics at Lampeter is pleased to announce the launch of Mathos, a free website for learning Ancient Greek. The site has a free download Greek font, and topics on elementary Greek grammar and syntax connected with basic verb, noun, adjective and pronoun forms, reinforced with exercises, readings, sound files (to hear the pronunciation), glossary of grammatical terms and Word Lists.

The address is www.lamp.ac.uk/classics/mathos
and for any comments or difficulties email mathos@lamp.ac.uk