Roman History Books and More

ovid at britannica online: testing webshare feature

Ovid
Roman poet
Latin in full Publius Ovidius Naso

(now, if only JSTOR would follow suit)

ovid: 'full view' google books

Google Books has a number of 'full view' books of and about Ovid, the former mostly 19th century translations.

[Blog: Inside Google Book Search]

theoi e-texts library of classics

In connection with yesterday's post on Virgil I discovered this great site:

The Theoi Classical E-Texts Library

"A collection of works from ancient Greek and Roman literature in translation. The theme of the library is classical mythology and so the selection presented consists primarily of ancient poetry (epic, lyric, bucolic, et. al.), drama and prose renditions of myth."

Explore it and enjoy!  Don't miss the Gallery.

juvenal on the beeb

Towards the end of last year we read Juvenal's Satires.  Those who want to explore Juvenal some more may be interested to know that BBC Radio 3 is featuring Juvenal in their series Greek and Roman Voices next week. The programmes will be broadcast at 11pm (BST = GMT +1) each night from Monday 14 April to Thursday 17 April, and available on the internet for seven days after being broadcast.

before this gets lost in the shuffle: illustrations to ovid's metamorphoses

From The Ovid Project. The text links for the Baur – in German – are next to the plates:

• The Metamorphoses by Ovid. Engravings by Johannes Baur. 1703.
  (A couple of typos:  It should read Verwandelungs Bücher, and the artist is Johann Wilhelm Baur)
• Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished Mythologized and Represented in Figures

Image: Baur Plate 3: Aetas aurea

looking ahead to june chats: ovid translations

In June, we plan to discuss a cross section of Ovid's work.  In our Reading List for 2008, I promised to research good translations.  I still have to check what of Ovid is in print besides Loeb Classical Library and wander down to the library to see what's out there and cull the selections and comment in a later post.

Meanwhile, if you want to look at online editions before you spend any money, there are:

• Perseus (scroll down) various translations from the 16th through early 20th centuries.
• Sacred Text (Metamorphoses 1717, Love Books 1930).
• THEOI, E-TEXTS LIBRARY
• A.S. Kline, Poetry in Translation & Mirror site (scroll down on each) contemporary.  You can either read this online or download.  The site is free but the author would appreciate a donation.  Certainly a lot of work and thought has gone into this.

gaius valerius catullus in words and music

N.S. Gill at Ancient/Classical History in today's blog takes National Poetry Month as an occasion to honor the 1st century BC Roman poet Catullus.  Go take a look.

She also wrote on Carmen 85, Odi et Amo in the past.

All 116 extant poems can be found in translation online.  In print, we have  The Poems of Catullus, Peter Whigham, translator.  More Catullus editions.  And here is more on the poet from the University of Saskatchewan.

For a general overview, there is Catullus and his World : A Reappraisal by T. P. Wiseman.  Our group has discussed this book in the past.  Wiseman's writing is always clear, and here, he is often quite amusing to boot.

There is also a musical treatment: One of my favorite oratorial pieces is Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina which can be found here together with Trionfo di Aphrodite, and samples can be listened to.

And from an earlier entry of mine:  Chris Weimer of  Thoughts on Antiquity has taken a fresh look at Catullus’ poems and has translated  two of them here, and added a poem of his own, addressed to Catullus.

dr. johnson's imitations of juvenal

Samuel Johnson, aka Dr. Johnson, (1709-1784) was the compiler of the first comprehensive English dictionary. He is also known as an essayist, literary critic and novelist, and above all as the subject of James Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (the whole thing comes also in one very big file from Project Gutenberg and broken down year by year as far as 1763, or alternatively abridged audio download).

As well as using quotations from Juvenal's Satires (our book for 21 November 2007) as epigraphs for some of his essays in The Rambler (The University of Virginia has Nos. 1-54, Nos. 55-112, and Nos. 171-208, but not Nos. 113-170 for some reason), Johnson published two poems in imitation of Juvenal.  (Selected Essays, Penguin Classics)

caelius sedulius, fifth century christian poet

On Saturday before Christmas, we went to The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park, NY, which houses the bulk of the Medieval collection of the Met Museum.  We went there mainly to listen to a concert by the Pomerium, an a cappella group which sings Gregorian chants and Renaissance music.  Samples of their work.

The concert was mostly Gregorian chants and their Renaissance elaborations.  One was “A solis ortus cardine,” the text by the early fifth century Christian poet Caelius Sedulius, best known for his Carmen paschale.

From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica:

SEDULIUS, COELIUS or Caelius (a praenomen of doubtful authenticity), a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century, is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree.

for catullus lovers: two poems

With acknowledgement to David Meadows of  rogueclassicism, and as an introduction to Chris Weimer’s blog  Thoughts on Antiquity:

Chris has taken a fresh look at Catullus’ poems and has translated  two of them here, and added a poem of his own, addressed to Catullus.

An earlier blog of mine on T.P. Wiseman and Catullus

*****

wine in the roman world – and a poem by catullus

"Now nearly extinct in the wild, grapes (vitis vinifera) grew throughout the ancient Mediterranean. In Italy, grape vines were cultivated both in the north by the Etruscans and in the south by Greek colonists. Wine growing was less important to the Romans, who, in the early years of the Republic, were fighting to expand their domination of the peninsula. By the middle of the second century BC, however, with the defeat of the Etruscans and the Samnites, Pyrrhus and the Greeks, Philip of Macedonia and the Carthaginians, Rome controlled the Mediterranean, and there was the wealth and markets to invest in vineyards." So says the Encyclopaedia Romana: Wine.

A nice informative site is Roman Wine: A Window on Ancient Economy. This comes from the University of Pennsylvania, which has another site on wine also.

Book Review: T.P. Wiseman, Roman Drama and Roman History

When I googled – without success – for Syme's lecture on historical fiction last week, I came across a review of T.P. Wiseman's Roman Drama and Roman History (Exeter Studies in History). Scholia Reviews.

I then remembered that I do have the book in my library. It's an interesting read, as the above review and overview indicates. Some of us will remember Wiseman from our recent discussion of his Catullus and his World : A Reappraisal. Wiseman's writing is always clear, and in the above book, he is often quite amusing to boot.