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blogographos is a public blog to which anyone interested in Greek and Roman antiquity may post. This means interested laymen as well as professional classicists and students. This blog is not intended as a challenge to the resources for classicists currently available--chief among them the Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group, hosted at the University of Kentucky, and David Meadows's rogueclassicism--but rather as a complement.
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Which Alexander?
 I've a question that someone may be able to answer. Which version of Alexander is the least bad? I ask as I was wondering about getting a version for video clips or stills in presentations* and there's a choice of two. I've heard the cinema version is awful, but it does come with a disc of extras. Alternatively there's the director's cut, but that has just the one disc. Is the director's cut significantly better, or did was it so bad that the cinema version qualifies as a mercy killing?
*after getting copyright clearance from the relevant rights holders. I don't condone unauthorised use of clips in lectures. Rumour has it that the reason Paramount released Tom Cruise was because of an unauthorised clip of Cocktail was used in a Film Studies class in Lancashire.
On Edith Hamilton
There's a paean to Edith Hamilton to be found at Thrutch.
Plato as business blogger?
Copyblogger isn't sanguine about the prospects of Plato becoming an A-list blogger: "Why Plato Would Have Blown it as a Blogger".
Robert Graves in the blogosphere
Some Robert Graves-related links up at Books, Inq.
Aristotle in the blogosphere
Copyblogger offers some Aristotelian blogging advice.
Ancient History: Key Themes and Approaches by Neville Morley
[Cross-posted to Revise and Dissent]
I've mentioned Neville Morley's Theories, Models and Concepts in Ancient History before on my own site, but hadn't said anything about Ancient History: Key Themes and Approaches. This is because I thought they were similar books. I've got a couple with differing UK and American titles. In fact it's another good book - though Morley didn't write much of it at all. This is because it's a source book.
What Morley's produced is a treasure trove of opinions on various topics connected to ancient history. The first section tackles various topics. The subjects you'd expect are listed like, Christianity, Myth and Tyranny and one or who you might not, like Magic and Divination and Euergetism. Part Two tackles specific writers, both historians and people from other fields. So you get highlights from Foucault and Marx as well as Finley and Gibbon. The snippets are well chosen and give plenty of starting points for discussion.
As an example here are two from Archaeology.It is self-evident that the potential contribution of archaeology to history is, in a rough way, inversely proportional to the quantity and quality of the available written sources.
M.I. Finley. 'Archaeology and History' in The Use and Abuse of History. Chatto and Windus. London. 1975. p93. Is it really? It's a very European view of archaeology, as a tool for creating History. It does presuppose that the written sources define the past. If that is the case what happens if other disciplines disagree? Can they only be wrong?The expression of archaeological results may call for nicely written historical narrative but this is a case of choosing one particular vehicle to convey results obtained by quite alien methods. The danger of historical narrative as a vehicle for archaeological results is that it pleases by virtue of its smooth coverage and apparent finality, whilst the data on which it based are never comprehensive, never capable of supporting but one interpretation and rest upon complex probabilities. Archaeological data are not historical data and consequently archaeology is not history.David Clarke. Analytical Archaeology. Methuen. London. 1968. p12. This to me seems to be the exact opposite of the Finley quote. Is the role of history to provide a narrative? Are historical sources incapable of providing anthropological or sociological data? These questions tackle some of the basic issues in history or archaeology, like "Why do it?"
To a grad student this might all seem a bit lightweight, but to someone who hasn't had formal training, or else is starting a degree with Ancient History this sort of bite-sized introduction is a useful starting point. Obviously Gender isn't going to be comprehensively covered in a few paragraphs, but nor is it going to overwhelm, but as a companion to Theories, Models and Concepts in Ancient History it could prove very useful.
NYT Book Review: An Iliad
 The New York Times has a review of Alessandro Baricco's An Iliad. The reviewer, a certain Nick Tosches, is not wholly impressed, but happily manages to work the Honeymooners into the piece:" 'What are you doing up, and armed?' Menelaus asked. 'Are you looking for someone to send into the Trojan camp, to spy on the enemy's moves?' Baricco never indicates where we are in relation to the actual Homeric text, but we are here in Book 10, Lines 37-39, and compared with the translations of this passage by Lattimore and Fitzgerald, there is nothing of cadence or grace in Baricco's prosaic variation. It reminds me of the "Honeymooners" episode in which Ralph Kramden, with an exaggerated thespian air, rehearses bad lines for his failed stage debut at a Raccoon Lodge fund-raiser."
Cicero and Tiro--Love or Manipulation?
10 years ago or more, I read for the first time the remarkable letter from the Roman lawyer and senator Cicero to Tiro, the cherished slave he feared might be dying. This is perhaps one of the most famous letters in history as it shows that respect and tenderness could cross the boundaries set by slavery.
At the time, I knew little about these men, but Cicero's letter struck me overwhelmingly as a "love letter," and I assumed Tiro was his bed boy. Later, I was surprised to discover that serious scholars rejected this view--despite the existence of a flirtatious homoerotic poem from Cicero to Tiro. Intriguingly, this poem speaks of stolen kisses--promised but not delivered--as if Tiro cleverly kept his master guessing.
Pondering this relationship, it is clear to me that Cicero loves Tiro (there are several other letters in which Cicero all but bites his nails over Tiro's health, but is his love returned? Or does Tiro merely use his master?
Any Thoughts?
Seven...no wait, let's have a show of hands
Cross-posted from the-deblog.com.
 Here's something that annoyed me from last week's Newsweek. "Swiss adventurer" Bernard Weber (that sounds very romantic, doesn't it? I want to a be a Swiss adventurer) has launched something called the New 7 Wonders Foundation with a view to polling people--he's shooting for 100 million votes--on what the current seven wonders of the world are. Why? Well, of the previous seven wonders, only one is still standing, and besides, they were all decided on by one guy, Philon of Byzantium:"'The old seven wonders were decided by one single man,' he [the Swiss adventurer] says. 'I think today we would like to see a more democratic world where people are allowed to participate and create common knowledge.' Right. Because of course everything has to be the work of a committee or opinion poll, including "common knowledge."
But here's the irony: Mr. Weber has allowed old Philon to dictate how many wonders of the world there should be! Tsk tsk. Most undemocratic. A second irony is that there were in fact a number of seven-wonder lists floating around in antiquity. Making up lists of the seven wonders of the world was apparently something of a hobby. (It's a meme!) Philon of Byzantium is just one of the better-known list makers. And I'm no expert, but there was apparently considerable agreement among the listers, which tends to undermine Weber's complaint about the creation of that particular bit of common knowledge being undemocratic.
Tags: Bernard Weber, Newsweek, Philon of Byzantium, Seven Wodners of the World, Swiss adventurers
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