We begin in Rome, where the famous Capitoline Wolf has been found to have been made in the medieval period: specifically, in the 13th century CE, not in the 5th century BCE. The twins Romulus and Remus, suckling underneath, were added later, probably in the 15th century CE. This statue was long thought to have been ancient–Pliny the Elder writes of it, and Cicero mentions a statue of a wolf twice (De div. 1.20 and 2.47) among the objects damaged by a lightning strike in 65 BCE–but there have been doubts about the statue’s authenticity since at least the 17th century. These questions have now been put to rest by radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating, which establish the 13th century date. Furthermore, the casting method by which the wolf was constructed was not developed until the 12th century anyway. This news will come as quite a disappointment to those of us who were taught from an early age to view the statue as the exemplification of The Grandeur That Was Rome, but it’s still an impressive and beautiful piece of art nonetheless.

Next on our travelogues, we come to Greece, but let’s stay on the topic of non-ancient artifacts–or at least possible hoaxes. The Phaistos Disc has remained an indecipherable artifact of Minoan Greece since its discovery in the early 20th century. Its pictograms, unrelated to anything else in the world, may represent some sort of form of Greek, or they may not–nobody has been able to figure them out yet. But there’s a new theory that states that the disc might be a hoax, a fake created by one of the archaeologists who excavated the site. There are, apparently, problems with the way the clay was fired and the way the impressions were made on its surface, and of course it hasn’t been deciphered yet. My prediction: debate on this issue is not likely to cease any time soon.

Finally, also from the Greek Islands, there have been new developments in understanding the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient analog calculation device that is (by some definitions) the world’s oldest computer. This device was built sometime between 140 and 100 BCE and was recovered a hundred years ago in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, but until recently nobody really had much of an idea what it was for or how it worked. The mechanism possesses a complex series of gears and wheels which calculated dates of solar eclipses and, according to new evidence, the calendar according to the four-year Olympiad cycle. X-ray tomography and other advanced imaging techniques have revealed lengthy inscriptions in Greek on the device, but the calendar in use was the Egyptian one, and it shows evidence of having been altered after its construction. Thus, this device, according to Paul Fenwick’s masterful talk “An Illustrated History of Failure” given at OSCON 2008, is the world’s earliest examples of software collaboration, code modification, and feature creep.

This concludes our whirlwind tour through the recent awesomeness of ancient history and archaeology. Stay tuned for future instalments!

On the other hand, there is the Hockey Hall of Fame. A pilgrimage was made. We also visited the Royal Ontario Museum, which rather disappointingly tries to be all things to all people. One whole floor is pleasingly devoted to Greece and Egypt and Cyprus and much of the rest of the ancient Mediterranean, while another is devoted to dinosaurs and yet another to Canada’s aboriginal peoples. The curating wasn’t all that good or consistent either; often we had no idea what it was we were looking at, some dates and times were missing, and (possibly worst of all) there was a teensy bit of orientalist fetishization of aboriginal cultures…but more about all that in a future post.

For now, enjoy this sampling from all the photos from Toronto:

The plan for the next few days is to drive northwest round the Great Lakes. Next stop: Sault Ste Marie, hopefully!

CAESAR. The Ides of March are come.
SOOTHSAYER. Ay, Caesar, but not gone.

His famous last words are, naturally, legend. As the inimitable folks of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again once put it:

Bill Oddie: Well, I know his famous last words!
David Hatch: And what were they?
Bill: Err…quod erat demonstrandum.
David: That means ‘which was to be proved’.
Bill: What was to be proved?
David: Which was to be proved!
Bill: Well, no wonder they were his last words.

Caesar’s last words were reported by Plutarch to be καὶ σὺ τέκνον; (’You too, my son?’) and literally translated by Suetonius as tu quoque, fili mi? (’You too, my son?’). However, the translation given in Shakespeare of et tu, Brute? is undoubtedly more popular and famous. Also, it flows better, despite the fact that Caesar, like other educated, upper-class Romans, would have probably spoken Greek in day-to-day use, unlike the vulgar Latin of the vulgar masses. In fact, there’s a terrific bit of dialogue from the beginning of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that picks up on this quite nicely:

CASSIUS. Did Cicero say anything?
CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.
CASSIUS. To what effect?
CASCA. Nay, an I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

But let turn back to ISIRTA for the last word:

David Hatch: Eventually, Caesar was stabbed in the Appian Way.
Bill Oddie: And that’s a very nasty way to be stabbed!
David: I’m sorry, did I say he was stabbed in the Appian Way? I meant he was stabbed in the Senate.
Bill: That’s even nastier.

My students asked me what they could do to commemorate the Ides of March, and I told them to stab their best friends before their friends could stab them. A good bit of advice, that, especially if you’re an ancient Roman, but I wonder how much utility it has today. I do hope they didn’t take me seriously. Ave atque vale, Caesar.

The status quo is oppressive. In fact, it’s a bit like studying Greek: you get up early in the morning to come in here and talk about Pindar, and you do it because you like it. But you only think that because you’ve been oppressed!

I’m not sure I agree with T. Rex, however—and I’m not sure the classics world would either. As the chorus say in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus 1225, μὴ φῦναι τὸν ἅπαντα νικᾷ λόγον, ‘By all reckoning, it is best not to be born.’ Utahraptor would have something to say to that, I’m sure.

They say that Philoxenus, the poet who wrote dithyrambs, was the biggest glutton of all time. This one time in Syracuse, they say that he bought and ate all of a two-foot-long octopus—almost, except the head. Seized by heartburn, he was in a bad way. A doctor came to him, and seeing that he wasn’t feeling so well, he said, ‘Philoxenus, if there’s anything you need to set straight in your domestic affairs, do it right away, because you’re going to die at the seventh hour.’ Philoxenus replied, ‘All of my belongings are in order, doctor, and were set straight long ago. I leave behind my grown-up dithyrambs, all crowned by the grace of the gods, which I have consecrated to the Muses and Aphrodite and Dionysus—but my will makes all that clear. Seeing as Charon (as in Timotheus’ Niobe) does not permit lingering, and is shouting that his boat is departing, and dark Fate calls, and we must heed her—and so that I can go below with all of my stuff, give me the leftovers of the octopus.’

—The comic poet Machon, in Athenaeus 8.341a–d