we know how things burn when you don’t watch the flame

[hawkwing_lb]

I thought I'd be studying Homer and Herodotos this year. This may yet happen, but apparently I misread the handbook for my Greek language lessons. The Homer and Herodotos classes are texts in translation: Greek Language is Lysias' On the Murder of Eratosthenes.

Oh, well. Yay, murder and adultery and good Attic Greek?

In other news, I'm slacking on my thesis this week in order to get some paid work done. As always, woe is cashless me - except this year, cashless me is actually in-debt me. Good thing we don't have debtors' prison anyway, yes?

(It was worth it to do the research in Greece. It was.)

I presume holding myself to a daily minimum of 1,000 nonfiction non-thesis words for this week counts as a Best Work Practice? Or perhaps I need to find new ways of directing biting sarcasm at myself? Lately, I've shown a deplorable tendency to forgive myself for being merely human and not doing All The Things to the Highest Possible Standard.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

That's the same Lysias speech we got at the end of summer introductory Greek, and we're supposed to get it next in this semester of second-year Greek as well. I swear, it must be the iconic Greek oration or something. (Me, I'm more interested in the upcoming Antiphon speech about the singer who died after being given a potion that was supposed to improve his voice.)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Apparently it possesses every construction known to Attic Greek, so we will be spending from now to the winter holiday picking it to pieces. I would account it of great worth, O men... if I never had to parse a sentence in public ever again.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

And I though our Antiphon speech was daring for having both a future perfect and a pluperfect!

Though I think in our case, our professor chose the Lysias because she likes murder cases. She's been promising to do one class period, near the exam, just giving the powerpoint presentation on the divisions and prosecution of murder cases in Athens.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Mmm, murder.

Murder and assault is fun. In my copious spare time (i.e., sometime next week, I hope) I need to make a start on translating boring inscriptions on cult regulations. "The priest is entitled to four-fifths of a share," is... not fun.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Inscriptions sound awfully tedious. (Me, I'm a little disappointed that we're not doing the speech about the man accused of digging up an olive-tree stump. Edge-of-the-seat grove-desecration action!)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Sometimes there are good ones. Seldom, I will admit, but sometimes. I prefer being able to read them in English (or even French) translation - it's so much easier - but occasionally there just aren't any.

And me, I had to pick a research area where a lot of the excavation/epigraphic work has been done in German. Which I cannot read at all. Yet. So German translations of the Greek help me not at all.

(Sexy despoiliation! I'd be disappointed too.)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

Your thesis and reading sound fascinating (says this Born Again Classical Archaeology fan who laid the Ancient Greeks to rest for around thirty years or so - my loss, I guess!!!)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I think they're fascinating, at least. Which is all to the good, because I have to live with 'em for the next three years still. :)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I veered off to become a rabid Barbarian apologist... Bronze Age metalwork and all that.

I rediscovered the Greeks via the Medieval period, and I have to admit they are indeed fascinating (and of course they've shaped our modern world so much!). It's probably not the kind of thing you should admit in polite company, but... I've got a soft spot for the Spartans. They were just so weird. Or at least, they managed to convince everyone else that they were weird. Come to think of it, the Ancient Greeks ARE pretty weird a lot of the time.

Can't stand Romans though! IMO, they took all the best bits from Ancient Greek culture and twisted them into something warped and a bit 'orrible.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Plutarch did a lot of the convincing. Discussions of the Spartan 'mirage' revolve a lot around him. :)

I find them all weird. I do have a soft spot for the Romans, if only because they give us a little more scope for looking at interesting, politically influential women, but there's no denying there aren't very many nice people that history remembers.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed 'On Sparta' - I found the sayings of the Spartans quite amusing. I don't know if the Spartans would approve, but their cutting quips can be really funny.

When I was young and silly, the Classical people just weren't weird enough for me. And I still find the Romans uncomfortably close to our modern selves.

Not that I'm suggesting that things were all rosy in the strange and wonderful world of prehistory. Far from it - I'm sure people have always been brutal, unpleasant and greedy. Or am I just a confirmed pessimist?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. The Sayings of the Spartans.

If you are a pessimist, then so am I. The more I read, the more I begin to believe that scum always rises.