Dear Greeks and Romans,

As you know, we take very seriously our charge to manage “the Best Classics Library in the World” with outstanding book and journal collections and exceptional individual attention to each and every one of you (including sometimes working around bureaucracies that don’t always make sense). Maybe because we work so hard, we try to maintain a sense of humor, sometimes even sarcastic or macabre as our beloved Mike posing as νεκρός. This month we thought you might enjoy the comical gargantuan contrast between book sizes in our library and the many challenges that those sometimes bring for our library spaces and retrieval services, so we asked our “honorary librarian” Angelica to pick a tiny book (by no means the smallest book in our collection!) as December’s “Book of the Month” https://www.facebook.com/notes/uc-libraries/small-wonder-pickerings-terentii-comoediae-classics-library-book-of-the-month-de/2237384109628717/

Through the photos above and below we are comparing that mini book of the comedies of Roman playwright Terence with two of our more than a thousand giant books, one a facsimile of a medieval codex of Terence’s comedies and the other, a book on the topography and history of Olympia (by no means the largest books in our library!).

Now, we can all understand the usefulness of a very large sized book in order to better examine maps, diagrams, photographs, illuminations, scholia, etc., but what is the point of a miniature book other than its cuteness and curiosity, you might ask?  Well, especially, in the 19^th century steam-powered presses mass-produced classical texts printed on inexpensive paper in small sized books to fit in shirt pockets or belt pouches for the consumption of an increasingly literate public. The railroad and steamboat aided their distribution. The small sized texts could also be conveniently perused by itinerant scholars and easily carried by traveling salesmen and studied by school children.

Smaller and more convenient book sizes in the 1800s sometimes aimed at counteracting and combating a waning emphasis on Greek and Latin in schools in Europe and the U.S. during this time, a “movement” eventually leading to such pocket sized books as a “predecessor” to the Teubner texts, also published in Leipzig. Even the volumes in the so called Loeb Classical Library series, although not miniatures, belong in this group since they were much smaller than a regular book in the 19^th and early 20^th century.  In a little known and, as far as I know, never again reproduced preface to the series appearing in a handful of the 1912 editions, James Loeb himself best explains the purpose of the LCL:

“In an age when the Humanities are being neglected more perhaps than at any time since the Middle Ages, and when men’s minds are turning more than ever before to the practical and the material, it does not suffice to make pleas, however eloquent and convincing, for the safeguarding and further enjoyment of our greatest heritage from the past. Means must be found to place these treasures within the reach of all who care for the finer things of life.”

These words could just as well be written today when more and more schools and libraries cut funding for classics and eliminate Latin and Greek from their curricula and collecting priorities. Thumb drives could perhaps serve as the miniature books of the 21^st century onto which the classical texts in the Perseus Digital Library or the PHI (though not the TLG) could be downloaded to reach a larger reading audience and attract more students. And with influential cultural icons such as J.K. Rowling and Mark Zuckerberg, who proudly profess their classics training, studying Greek and Latin is becoming cool again!

If you are interested in viewing the miniature book (with a magnifying glass!) and even touching it (!), please come to the Classics Library’s main Reading Room.

To read Angelica’s previous absolutely hilarious Facebook posts, see https://libraries.uc.edu/classics/about/book-of-the-month.html.

Titus Lucretius Carus was presumably born on October 15 (99 BCE), i.e., today 1,919 years ago (Virgil, too, was supposedly, though somewhat unlikely, born on the same day, October 15, 70 BCE; however, he will have to wait for a blog until next year or in 2020)! So we wish to honor this amazing Roman poet and Epicurean philosopher. His only known work is De rerum natura, On the Nature of Things, but what a poetic work it is. Although it influenced later thinkers, it had an impact already on contemporary poets such as Vergil and Horace. Cicero, too, was a great admirer as witnessed in a letter to his brother Quintus (QFr. 2.9):

“Lucreti poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis.“

“The poetry of Lucretius is, as you say in your letter, rich in brilliant genius, yet highly artistic.”

Ovid’s review of the DRN in his Amores (1.15.23–24) is famous:

“Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti exitio terras cum dabit una dies.”

“The verses of the sublime Lucretius will perish only when a day will bring the end of the world.”

The didactic poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six books, and explores Epicurean thought through metaphors, alliteration, assonance, archaisms. It echoes Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Callimachus, even Thucydides and in epic diction and style, “the father” of Latin epic verse, Quintus Ennius.  The poem is full of contradictions — archaic form combined with modern thought, idyllic nature imagery with dystopia and misanthropy, anti-religious sentiments with elements of prophesy and salvation, and prosaic methodology with poetic sensibility.

In books I and II Lucretius presents the principles of atomism. Lucretius and Epicurean philosophy following Democritus atomic theory of the universe argue that nature consists of indivisible and unchanging elements, atoms, whose movements and combinations give rise to the perceived world. The movements of the atoms occur according to strict mechanical principles or laws without divine intervention. Anyone who has embraced this teaching no longer should fear omens or divine punishment, or death or hell, since they would know that even the soul consists of atoms and that it is dissolved along with the body upon death. Books I and II further polemicize against the pre-Socratic philosophers Heracleitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras and the rival Stoic school. For example, Lucretius argues against those who believed that fire was the Uhr element and rejects the notion of a pre-Socratic First element altogether (1.690-712 and 1.772-781).

“Quapropter qui materiem rerum esse putarunt ignem atque ex igni summam consistere posse, et qui principium gignundis aera rebus constituere, aut umorem quicumque putarunt fingere res ipsum per se, terramve creare omnia et in rerum naturas vertier omnis, magno opere a vero longe derrasse videntur. adde etiam qui conduplicant primordia rerum, aera iungentes igni terramque liquori, et qui quattuor ex rebus posse omnia rentur ex igni terra atque anima procrescere et imbri” (1.705-716).

“Therefore those who have thought that fire is the material of things and that the universe can consist of fire, and those who have laid down that air is the prime element for producing things, or whoever have thought that water molds things by itself, or that earth produces all things and changes itself into the natures of all things, are seen to have gone far astray from the truth. Add, moreover, those who take the first-beginnings of things in couples, joining air to fire and earth to water, and those who think that all can grow forth out of four things, from fire, earth, air, and water.”

Book III explores the nature of the mind (animus) or central consciousness and the soul (anima) or sensation and explains that the soul is born and grows with the body, and that at death it dissipates like “smoke”; book IV discusses sensation and thought (sight, hearing, taste, smell, sleep and dreams) and V, for me the most interesting book, describes how the world came about and its inner workings as well as the evolution of life and human society. Lucretius delineates cultural and technological developments of humans such as the use of tools from prehistory to Lucretius’ own time. He theorizes that the earliest tools were hands, nails and teeth followed by stones, branches and fire. Copper and then bronze tools were used to till the soil until the bronze sickle was replaced by the iron plow. Lucretius suggests that the smelting of metal, and perhaps too the firing of pottery, was discovered by accident; for example, as a result of a forest fire. Before technology, Lucretius saw human life as lived “in the fashion of wild beasts roaming at large,” which, according to recent anthropological findings, is most likely a fairly accurate description of early humans (see, e.g., Donna Hart & Robert W. Sussman, Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution. New York: Westview Press, 2005).

“Necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum, sed nemora atque cavos montis silvasque colebant, et frutices inter condebant squalida membra verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti” (5.953-957).

“Not yet did they know how to work things with fire, nor to use skins and to clothe themselves in the strippings of wild beasts; but they dwelt in the woods and forests and mountain caves, and hid their rough bodies in the underwoods when they had to escape the beating of wind and rain.”

Later rudimentary huts were built and the use and kindling of fire discovered along with the creation of clothing, language, family life, city-states, and the arts; the final book VI describes and explains various celestial and terrestrial phenomena (thunder, hail, ice, wind, earthquakes, agriculture). The poem ends with a description of the plague of Athens in 430 BCE, although since the poem is unfinished we cannot be certain that it was intended to end this way even though it juxtaposes nicely with the birth of spring and Venus’ creation with which the poem opens.

Omnia denique sancta deum delubra replerat corporibus mors exanimis, onerataque passim cuncta cadaveribus caelestum templa manebant, hospitibus loca quae complerant aedituentes.nec iam religio divom nec numina magni pendebantur enim: praesens dolor exsuperabat. nec mos ille sepulturae remanebat in urbe, quo prius hic populus semper consuerat humari; perturbatus enim totus trepidabat, et unus quisque suum pro re et pro tempore maestus humabat. multaque res subita et paupertas horrida suasit; namque suos consanguineos aliena rogorum insuper extructa ingenti clamore locabant subdebantque faces, multo cum sanguine saepe rixantes potius quam corpora desererentur (6.1272-1286).

 “Moreover, death had filled all the sanctuaries of the gods with lifeless bodies, all the temples of the celestials everywhere remained burdened with corpses, all which places the sacristans had crowded with guests. For indeed now neither the worship of the gods nor their power was much regarded: the present grief was too great. Nor did that custom of sepulture remain in the city, with which this nation in the past had been always accustomed to be buried; for the whole nation was in trepidation and dismay, and each man in his sorrow buried his own dead as time and circumstances allowed. Sudden need also and poverty persuaded to many dreadful expedients: for they would lay their own kindred amidst loud lamentation upon piles of wood not their own, and would set light to the fire, often brawling with much shedding of blood rather than abandon the bodies.”

In spite of the Epicurean unorthodox view of divinity, De rerum natura as an epos follows the model of Homer and its imitators and begins with a  celebration of the divine, not the Muses as in Homer and Virgil, or Stoic Zeus/Jupiter as in Ennius and Seneca, but the goddess of love, Venus, the mother of Aeneas and Rome and the creative force behind all of nature’s things.

“Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signaquae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis: te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum. nam simul ac species patefactast verna dieiet reserata viget genitabilis aura favoni, aeriae primum volucres te, diva, tuum que significant initum perculsae corda tua vi. inde ferae, pecudes persultant pabula laetaet rapidos tranant amnis: ita capta lepore” (1.1-15).

“Venerable Venus, Mother of Aeneas, pleasing to gods and humans, who beneath the smooth-moving heavenly signs fill with yourself the sea teaming with ships, the earth that bears the crops, since through you every kind of living thing is conceived and rising up looks on the light of the sun: from you, O goddess, from you the winds flee away, the clouds of heaven from you and your coming; for you the wonder-working earth puts forth sweet flowers, for you the wide stretches of ocean laugh, and heaven grown peaceful glows with outpouring light. For as soon as the vernal face of day appears, and the breeze of the teeming west wind blows fresh and free, first the birds of the air proclaim you, divine one, and your advent, pierced to the heart by your might. Next wild creatures and farm animals dance over the rich pastures and swim across rapid rivers: so greedily does each one follow you, held captive by your charm.”

In spite of his beautifully crafted recognition of nature and the goddess Venus,  Lucretius is frequently thought of as an atheist because he described the universe as operating according to physical principles, guided by fortuna, “chance” rather than by divine intervention. For Lucretius the exemplum he uses to illustrate the absence of divine intervention and the horrible affects religion and superstition can have on mortals is the sacrifice to the goddess Artemis of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, to obtain favorable winds to allow the Greek fleet to sail against Troy (to read this passage, see an earlier blog celebrating Artemis’ birthday https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2018/04/may-6-birthday-of-the-goddess-artemis-happy-thargelia-and-apollos-birthday-too/).

St. Jerome in his Chronicon/Chronicle contends that Lucretius “was driven mad by a love potion, and when, during the intervals of his insanity, he had written a number of books, which were later emended by Cicero, he killed himself by his own hand in the 44th year of his life.” This piece of nugget appears only in St. Jerome. It seems unlikely that a man who appears to have felt disdain for passionate love would have forsaken his beliefs and imbibed an aphrodisiac. An interesting early theory by L.P. Wilkinson suggested that Lucretius may have been confused with Lucullus. who supposedly did die after taking a love potion (CR 63 (1949): 47-48). Furthermore, as an Epicure it is doubtful that he would have been inclined to commit suicide.  The Epicureans taught that in order to attain joy and pleasure and freedom from fear and bodily pain and tranquility of mind, moderation in desire of all things (romance, food, drink, emotions, etc.) was necessary as well as knowledge of the world, thoughts found already in Plato. Just like the many fantastic stories about Sappho’s alleged jump off of a cliff for a teenage boy, Phaon, were based on the works of comedy writers, Lucretius may also have been the butt of jokes if we are to attribute his death to love sickness.

In Book III (79-82) Lucretius refers to suicide:

“…intereunt partim statuarum et nominis ergo.et saepe usque adeo, mortis formidine, vitae percipit humanos odium lucisque videndae,ut sibi consciscant maerenti pectore letumobliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem“

“…some wear out their lives for the sake of a statue and a name. And often it goes so far, that for fear of death men are seized by hatred of life and of seeing the light, so that with sorrowing heart they devise their own death, forgetting that this fear is the fountain of their cares…”

In spite of the Epicurean belief in the dissipation of the atoms of the soul at death and in line with the many contradictions in the DRN, Lucretius seems at least on some level to have embraced the idea of reincarnation or at least recycling (there is no life without death):

“haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,quando alid ex alio reficit natura, nec ullamrem gigni patitur nisi morte adiuta aliena” (1.262-264)

“…no visible object utterly passes away since nature makes up again one thing from another, and does not permit anything to be born unless aided by another’s death.”

Lucretius often applies common sense and keen observation in his discussions; for example,  when rejecting hybrid creatures claiming that a fire breathing Chimaera would have been an absurdity since her different parts — lion, goat, and serpent — would all have perished by fire (5.901-906).

Optimism and love of nature and of life itself and even of humanity are themes in Book I.

“at nitidae surgunt fruges ramique virescunt arboribus, crescunt ipsae fetuque gravantur; hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum” (1.352-354).

…the branches upon the trees grow green, the trees also grow and become heavy with fruit; hence comes nourishment again for our kind and for the wild beasts.”

However, all that changes by the time we get to Book V.

“casas postquam ac pellis ignemque pararunt, et mulier coniuncta viro concessit in unum. . . . . . .cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre creatam, tum genus humanum primum mollescere coepit” (5.1011-1015)

“When they had gotten themselves huts and skins and fire, and woman mated with man moved into one (home and marriage) became known … then first the human race began to grow soft”

Although Lucretius seems to have felt compassion towards animals (to read Lucretius moving story of a mother cow who is searching for her baby calf that has been taken away from her to be killed at the altar, see the previous blog “Happy Valentine’s Day” https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2018/03/greeks-and-romans-happy-valentine/) equating humans with animals, he also refers to ‘dumb animals” a kind of trope, I guess, although stupidity for Lucretius could be said to be a characteristic also of the human animal species. For women Lucretius expresses less appreciation in spite of the fact that he invokes Venus rather than Jupiter in claiming that

“nam longe praestat in arte et sollertius est multo genus omne virile” (5.1356)

“men are far superior to women in skill and more clever”

in a passage in which Lucretius argues that weaving once used to be the prerogative of men until farmers began to tease them and subsequently the art of weaving was left to women, presumably to the detriment of the craft considering the alleged inferiority of the female sex.

In the following passage Lucretius expresses appreciation for a woman who although may not be physically attractive could still be bearable if she is obliging, neat and clean.

“nam facit ipsa suis interdum femina factis morigerisque modis et munde corpore culto, ut facile insuescat te secum degere vitam. quod superest, consuetudo concinnat amorem; nam leviter quamvis quod crebro tunditur ictu, vincitur in longo spatio tamen atque labascit” (4.1280-1285).

“For a woman sometimes so manages herself by her own conduct, by obliging manners and bodily neatness and cleanliness, that she easily accustoms you to live with her. Moreover, it is habit that breeds love; for that which is frequently struck by a blow, however light, still yields in the long run and is ready to fall.”

De rerum natura was studied by late antique grammarians such as Servius and Macrobius. Archbishop and scholar Isidore of Seville uses Lucretius passages in his Etymologiae and in his De rerum natura (named after Lucretius’ poem) to explain rerum naturam. However, Lucretius’ poem was seldom read in the Middle Ages, in part because of the perceived anti-religious position of Epicurean philosophy. Even though Lucretius’ poem was rediscovered and became influential during the humanist development of the Renaissance, cardinal Melchior de Polignac wrote as late as in 1747 a poem in Latin in nine books called Anti-Lucretius, sive de Deo et Natura which became very popular and was translated into several languages.

Nevertheless, two important manuscripts do survive from the ninth century, both owned by seventeenth-century Dutch classicist Isaac Vossius and purchased from his estate by the Leiden University Library in 1689. The formats of the two manuscripts have given them their modern designations; the “Oblongus” and the “Quadratus.” The earlier of the two, the Leiden Voss. Lat. Fol. 30, the Oblongus, the facsimile currently on display in the Circulation area of the Classics Library, has an ownership inscription dated 1479 from the cathedral library of St. Martin’s, Mainz. It is a manuscript of 192 leaves measuring c. 314 x 204 mm, with twenty lines per page, and copied in a large early Caroline miniscule. There are frequent contemporaneous corrections and emendations by a corrector, traditionally known as Saxonicus.  The corrector has since been identified with an Irish scholar, Dungal, at Charlemagne’s court. The scribe of the Oblongus took pains to produce a legible text which involved careful collaboration with the corrector of the manuscript.  The scribe left gaps at line ends for words which he was unable to decipher and omitted some lines, leaving space for Dungal to emend them.

In the early Renaissance De rerum natura was rediscovered in a Benedictine library at Fulda in Germany by Italian humanist scholar Poggio Bracciolini (for more on him see an earlier blog on the Fall of Constantinople https://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/liblog/2018/05/on-may-29-the-classics-library-remembers-the-fall-of-constantinople-and-the-byzantine-empire/). The text of the original manuscript, a copy of which is now housed in the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence, influenced such divergent thinkers as Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Michel de Montaigne.

The teachings of Epicurus are still practiced by some. The following are the tenets of modern Epicureanism, at least according to a blog of something that curiously enough calls itself “the Church of Epicurus”:

1) Don’t fear God.
2) Don’t worry about death.
3) Don’t fear pain.
4) Live simply.
5) Pursue pleasure wisely.
6) Make friends and be a good friend.
7) Be honest in your business and private life.
8) Avoid fame and political ambition.

Sounds simple enough. Would Lucretius have approved? 

Select bibliography

Bailey, Cyril. De rervm natvra libri sex; edited with prolegomena, critical apparatus, translation, and commentary. 3 vols. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1947. CLASS Stacks PA6482 .A2 1947

Gale, Monica, R., ed. 2007. Lucretius. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. CLASS Reserves  PA6484 .L85 2007

Gillespie, Stuart, and Philip Hardie, eds. 2007. The Cambridge companion to Lucretius. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. CLASS Stacks PA6484 .C33 2007

Hardie, Philip. 2009. Lucretian receptions: History, the sublime, knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. CLASS Stacks  PA6029.P45 H37 2009

Sharrock, Alison. 2006. The philosopher and the mother cow: Towards a gendered reading of Lucretius’ De rerum natura. In Laughing with Medusa: Classical myth and feminist thought. Edited by V. Zajko and M. Leonard, 253–274. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. CLASS Stacks  PN56.M95 L38 2006

Warren, James, ed. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. CLASS Stacks  B512 .C35 2009

English translation

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus). 2007. The nature of things. Translated by A. E. Stallings, with introduction by Richard Jenkyns. London: Penguin. CLASS Stacks PA6483.E5 S73 2007

Poem online

Loeb Classical Library (UC access only)

Perseus Digital Library  (Latin)

Perseus Digital Library  (English)

http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/source/an-interview-with-mike-braunlin-of-the-john-miller-burnam-classics-library

The Classics Library’s Welcoming Host Handing Out The Library Guide.

Excerpt from a dialogue between the slave Tranio and his master Theopropides from Plautus’ comedy Mostellaria, The Haunted House. Theopropides’ son has squandered his father’s fortune and the slave Tranio is trying to divert the father’s attention by asserting that the house is haunted before the money lenders arrive to claim it. 

Tranio

“sed ecce quae illi in somnis mortuos:“ego transmarinus hospes sum Diapontius. hic habito, haec mi dedita est habitatio. nam me Accheruntem recipere Orcus noluit, quia praemature uita careo. per fidem deceptus sum: hospes me hic necauit isque medefodit insepultum clam [ibidem] in hisce aedibus, scelestus, auri causa. nunc tu hinc emigra. scelestae [hae] sunt aedes, impia est habitatio.” quae hic monstra fiunt anno uix possum eloqui” (496-505).

“But look what the dead man said to him in his sleep: “I am a guest from overseas, Diapontius. I live here, this dwelling place has been allotted to me: Orcus did not want to receive me into the Underworld because I lost  my life before my time. I was deceived in violation of the obligations of hospitality: my host murdered me here and he secretly put me underground in this house without due rites, for the sake of gold, the criminal. Now move out from here. This house is under a curse, this dwelling place is defiled.” I could barely tell you in a year what apparitions take place here.”

Theopropides

“guttam haud habeo sanguinis, uiuom me accersunt Accheruntem mortui” (508-509).

“I don’t have a drop of blood! The dead are taking me to the Underworld while I’m still alive!”

The Classics Library’s staff shortage has temporarily been relieved by our most recent hire. Come meet Hecate.

Excerpts from Homer’s Odyssey.

“αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ ψυχὰς μὲν ἀπεσκέδασ᾿ ἄλλυδις ἄλλῃἁγνὴ Περσεφόνεια γυναικῶν θηλυτεράων, ἦλθε δ᾿ ἐπὶ ψυχὴ Ἀγαμέμνονος Ἀτρεΐδαο ἀχνυμένη· περὶ δ᾿ ἄλλαι ἀγηγέραθ᾿, ὅσσοι ἅμ᾿ αὐτῷ οἴκῳ ἐν Αἰγίσθοιο θάνον καὶ πότμον ἐπέσπον. ἔγνω δ᾿ αἶψ᾿ ἔμ᾿ ἐκεῖνος, ἐπεὶ πίεν αἷμα κελαινόν” (Od. 11. 385-90).

“When then holy Persephone had scattered this way and that the ghosts of the women, there came up the ghost of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sorrowing, and round about him others were gathered, ghosts of all those who were slain with him in the house of Aegisthus, and met their fate. He knew me instantly, when he had drunk the dark blood.”

“δεδάκρυνται δὲ παρειαί, αἵματι δ᾿ ἐρράδαται τοῖχοι καλαί τε μεσόδμαι· εἰδώλων δὲ πλέον πρόθυρον, πλείη δὲ καὶ αὐλή, ἱεμένων Ἔρεβόσδε ὑπὸ ζόφον· ἠέλιος δὲοὐρανοῦ ἐξαπόλωλε, κακὴ δ᾿ ἐπιδέδρομεν ἀχλύς” (Od. 20. 353-57).

“sprinkled with blood are the walls and the fair panels. And full of ghosts is the porch, full also the court, ghosts hastening down to Erebus beneath the darkness, and the sun has perished out of heaven and an evil mist covers all.”

A recent archaeological find by the UC Classics Department of the skeleton of Roman poet Lucretius, proving that St. Jerome was correct in assigning the cause of the poet’s death to a love potion. Exhibition in the circulation area.

The ghost of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Eumenides) when coming upon the furies fast asleep laments.

“ἐγὼ δ᾿ ὑφ᾿ ὑμῶν ὧδ᾿ ἀπητιμασμένη ἄλλοισιν ἐν νεκροῖσιν, ὧν μὲν ἔκτανον ὄνειδος ἐν φθιτοῖσιν οὐκ ἐκλείπεται, αἰσχρῶς δ᾿ ἀλῶμαι· προὐννέπω δ᾿ ὑμῖν ὅτιἔχω μεγίστην αἰτίαν κείνων ὕπο, παθοῦσα δ᾿ οὕτω δεινὰ πρὸς τῶν φιλτάτων οὐδεὶς ὑπέρ μου δαιμόνων μηνίεται κατασφαγείσης πρὸς χερῶν μητροκτόνων” (95-102).

“I am shunned in dishonor like this among the other dead, thanks to you. I am unceasingly taunted among the shades because of those I killed, and I wander disgraced; and I proclaim to you that I receive the greatest blame from them because, though I have suffered so grievously at the hands of those closest to me, none of the divinities is wrathful on my behalf, slaughtered as I have been by matricidal hands.”

A reference for the few…

Excerpt from a letter (XXVII) to Lucinius Sura by Pliny the Younger.

“Initio, quale ubique, silentium noctis; dein concuti ferrum, vincula moveri. Ille non tollere oculos, non remittere stilum, sed offirmare animum auribusque praetendere. Tum crebrescere fragor, adventare et iam ut in limine, iam ut intra limen audiri. Respicit, videt agnoscitque narratam sibi effigiem.”

“At first there was nothing but the general silence of night; then came the clanking of iron and dragging of chains. He did not look up nor stop writing, but steeled his mind to shut out the sounds. Then the noise grew louder, came nearer, was heard in the doorway, and then inside the room. He looked round, saw and recognized the ghost described to him.”

The Library’s most recent book acquisitions.

Dialogue between the ghost of Tantalus and Menippus from Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead, illustrating that even in death “life” is a struggle.

Cerberus as a puppy guarding the Gates of Hades.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, GREEKS AND ROMANS!

FROM THE STAFF OF THE CLASSICS LIBRARY

In an effort to raise some much needed funds for our Library as well as offer our users some very fine books dealing with classical antiquity at bargain prices, we have launched an ongoing Book Sale in the printer area to your right as you enter the Library. It is self-serve. You will need exact change to put into the piggy bank. The price of each book is indicated on the verso of the cover and on a list in the bookcase on which we ask that you write your name next to the book(s) you purchase (List of Books).  All book lovers,

Happy Bargain Hunting!

The Facebook posts by Ph.D. candidate Angelica Wisenbarger introducing the Classics Library’s “Book of the Month” are now also available on the library’s website under “About”:

http://libraries.uc.edu/classics/about/book-of-the-month.html

^{Reference list to the Book of Daniel. Fragment of a 15th century manuscript on vellum. England.  UC Classics Library’s Paleography Collection.}

The Classics Library has added a brief description of its holdings to its website under “About”:

http://libraries.uc.edu/classics/about/snapshot.html

as well as highlights of a few of its many precious books:

http://libraries.uc.edu/classics/about/highlights.html .

In Europe, practically every day is a communal holiday of some kind. Various saints are celebrated among Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, one of countless remnants of pagan gods and goddesses, the original protectors and healers, and whose birthdays were celebrated with processions, song and dance, athletic competitions, the eating of special foods and fasting, libation offerings and purifications, and sometimes with a sacrifice of plants or animals.

On Sunday, therefore, we will take the opportunity to celebrate the “birthday” of Artemis (St. Artemisius and St. Artemidos) and on Monday, it’s Apollo’s turn (7. Thargelion). The Athenian Thargelia festival dedicated to both Artemis and Apollo is most famous for picking two scapegoats (φάρμακοι) that were driven out of town to rid it of sins and plagues. In Ionia, including at Ephesus, one of the months was named after Artemis, Artemision (corresponding more or less to April [with lunar and lunar-solar calendars versus solar it’s a bit complicated]) and in Macedonia, Artemisius (corresponding more or less to May).

May 6 (6. Thargelion) is the Athenian birthday of the greatest of the Greek goddesses – Artemis (as Artemis Ephesia worshiped by “Asia and the whole world” ([Acts 19:27]). In the 2^nd century an entire month named after the goddess, Artemision, was a non-working holiday at Ephesus (IvE I 24). After a hectic year, the library staff would, I’m sure, happily embrace an off-work month-long period of celebration (or rest;-)!

^{Artemis Ephesia, providing sustenance to all (Orphic Hymn 36 (To Diana), 12).}

Artemis’s temples were the most numerous, especially on the Peloponnese, and the number of her epithets was surpassed only by those of Zeus. One would think that it should also be the birthday of her twin brother Apollo.  However, traditions vary. In some she has no connection to Apollo and in others she even acts as midwife at the birth of her own twin brother.

Artemis was the goddess of all living things, animals and plants, but really all of nature – mountains, groves, marshes. Only later did she become the goddess of hunters. The hind was her companion, not her victim. She was associated with several Near Eastern goddesses – Anath (Hazleton, 2004, p. 114), Tanit (who shares many of Artemis’ attributes, the dove, palm tree, fish, and moon crescent), Belili (goddess of trees, the moon, wells, springs, and the willow – all sacred to Artemis), Astarte (Ishtar) (LIMC 2: 1, p. 618), Isis (LIMC 2: 2 912-913), Tyche (LIMC 2: 2 (Artemis) 893-899), Bendis (Hdt. 4.33; 5.7), Cybele (LIMC 2: 1 p. 618), the Minoan-Mycenaean goddess (Nilsson, 1971 [1950], p. 503), all stewards of nature; she is clearly mentioned in a Linear B tablet from Pylos — a-ti-mi-te (Bennett, 1955, p. 209, classification Un 219.5).

οἴκτῳ γὰρ ἐπίφθονος Ἄρτεμις ἁγνὰ πτανοῖσιν κυσὶ πατρὸς αὐτότοκον πρὸ λόχου μογερὰν πτάκα θυομένοισιν, στυγεῖ δὲ δεῖπνον αἰετῶν… τόσον περ εὔφρων ἁ καλὰ δρόσοις ἀέπτοις μαλερῶν λεόντων πάντων τ᾿ἀγρονόμων φιλομάστοις θηρῶν ὀβρικάλοισι τερπνά… (Aesch. Ag. 134-143).

For holy Artemis, out of pity, bears a grudge against the winged hounds of her Father who slaughtered the wretched hare, litter and all, before it could give birth; she loathes the eagles’ feast…So very kindly disposed is the fair one to the unfledged seed of fiery lions, and so pleasing to the suckling whelps of all beasts that roam the wild… (modified Loeb trans.).

^{Pavement mosaic. Thysdrus, Tunisia. 2nd-3rd cent. CE.}

^{Another pavement mosaic from Tunisia from the same period.}

^{Goddess of animals. The so called potnia thērōn (πότνια θηρῶν, “mistress of animals”) motif. Boeotian pithos-amphora, c. 680-670 BCE. Athens, National Museum (NM 200).}

However, she was also a goddess of culture – presiding over the education of young girls and boys and of cities, too. She was the protector of youth, especially young women during rituals celebrating their menarche (at Brauron, Mounychia, Sparta, Larissa, Halai Araphenides, and many more). Song and dance took center stage in these ceremonies. Girls and young women in choruses for Artemis abound in literature.[1]

^{A ”bear” (ἄρκτος) to-be (the menarchical stage during rites of passage) at the Artemis sanctuary in Brauron, north-east of Athens, giving a rabbit as a gift to the goddess.}

^{Minoan-Mycenaean seal-ring of gold discovered at the Ramp House on the Mycenaean acropolis.  Possible “rites of passage” scene in an outdoor setting with sun and moon, river, trees, cliffs, mountains, groves with the “labrys” (butterfly, poorly labeled, “double axe”), a symbol of the goddess, similar to the fish and cross as symbols of the Christ figure, and the goddess as “larva” (poorly labeled “shield of eight”), the earlier, younger, stage of the butterfly. Young women collecting various flowers used to alleviate and reduce cramps and labor pangs and bring about the onset of menstruation and ensure the health of a potential future mother — saffron crocuses, lotuses, poppies (a check on menstruation), lilies (an “emollient of the uterus,” Pliny. NH 21.126). CMS-I-017-1.}

^{Girls with shaved heads as part of their “rites of passage,” picking saffron crocuses in preparation for and celebration of their menarche.  Even today, saffron is used to alleviate menstruation cramps and premenstrual symptoms. Wall painting from the East Wall of Room 3a of House Xeste, Akrotiri, Thera, c. 1700-1450 BCE.}

^{“Minoan girl,” c. 1600-1500 BCE. Cleveland Art Museum, Ohio. Unique bronze statuette of a pre-adolescent girl with partially shaved hair.}

As a virgin goddess (in fact, she is one of only three goddesses (Hestia and Athena being the other two) over whom Aphrodite has no power (Homeric Hymns [to Aphrodite, 6-32]), she is the patron of unmarried women and men, children, and all first born, human and non-human alike.

ἣ δὲ μάλ᾿ οὐκ ἔθελεν, ἀλλὰ στερεῶς ἀπέειπεν,
ὤμοσε δὲ μέγαν ὅρκον, ὃ δὴ τετελεσμένος ἐστίν,
ἁψαμένη κεφαλῆς πατρὸς Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο,
παρθένος ἔσσεσθαι πάντ᾿ ἤματα δῖα θεάων.
τῆι δὲ πατὴρ Ζεὺς δῶκε καλὸν γέρας ἀντὶ γάμοιο…
(Hymn. Hom. Ven. 25-29).

She was wholly unwilling, even stubbornly refused;
and touching the head of father Zeus who holds the aegis,
she, that fair goddess, swore a great oath
that she would be a virgin always and
her father Zeus granted her a fine privilege instead of marriage…
(modified Loeb trans.).

^{“Diana of Versailles,” a Roman marble copy of a Greek original from c. 325 CE by Leochares  Louvre.  In simplified terms, Diana was the Roman equivalent to Artemis.} 

…ὡς ὅτε πατρὸς ἐφεζομένη γονάτεσσι παῖς ἔτι κουρίζουσα
τάδε προσέειπε γονῆα δός μοι παρθενίην αἰώνιον, ἄππα,
φυλάσσειν, καὶ πολυωνυμίην, ἵνα μή μοι Φοῖβος ἐρίζῃ…

…δὸς δέ μοι ἑξήκοντα χορίτιδας Ὠκεανίνας, πάσας εἰνέτεας,
πάσας ἔτι παῖδας ἀμίτρους…δὸς δέ μοι ἀμφιπόλους
Ἀμνισίδας εἴκοσι νύμφας… δὸς δέ μοι οὔρεα πάντα·
πόλιν δέ μοι ἥντινα νεῖμονἥν τινα λῇς… (Call. Hymn 3.4-7; 19-20).

…when sitting on her father’s knees, still a child,  she spoke these words to her father:
“Let me keep my virginity, Father, forever: and give me many names,
so that Phoebus may not compete with me…

…And give me sixty daughters of Oceanus for my choir, all nine years old,
all virgins yet ungirdled…and give me for companions twenty nymphs of Amnisus…
And give to me all mountains; and for city, assign me any, even whichever you will…
(modified Loeb trans.).

Her mythical companions included several famous virgins (Iphigenia, Atalanta, Callisto, Hippolytus, and countless more). Euripides’s famous play tells the tale of the tragic fate of the virgin Hippolytus.

^{Hippolytus and sad dog, presumably sad over the pending death of its guardian. Marble sarcophagus, c. 290 CE. Louvre. MA 2294.}

ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: ὦ τλῆμον, οἵᾳ συμφορᾷ συνεζύγης· τὸ δ᾿ εὐγενές σε τῶν φρενῶν ἀπώλεσεν.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ:  ἔα· ὦ θεῖον ὀσμῆς πνεῦμα· καὶ γὰρ ἐν κακοῖς ὢν ᾐσθόμην σου κἀνεκουφίσθην δέμας·  ἔστ᾿ ἐν τόποισι τοισίδ᾿ Ἄρτεμις θεά.
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: ὦ τλῆμον, ἔστι, σοί γε φιλτάτη θεῶν.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ: ὁρᾷς με, δέσποιν᾿, ὡς ἔχω, τὸν ἄθλιον;
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: ὁρῶ· κατ᾿ ὄσσων δ᾿ οὐ θέμις βαλεῖν δάκρυ.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ: οὐκ ἔστι σοι κυναγὸς οὐδ᾿ ὑπηρέτης.
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: οὐ δῆτ᾿· ἀτάρ μοι προσφιλής γ᾿ ἀπόλλυσαι.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ: οὐδ᾿ ἱππονώμας οὐδ᾿ ἀγαλμάτων φύλαξ.
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: Κύπρις γὰρ ἡ πανοῦργος ὧδ᾿ ἐμήσατο.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ: ὤμοι, φρονῶ δὴ δαίμον᾿ ἥ μ᾿ ἀπώλεσεν.
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: τιμῆς ἐμέμφθη, σωφρονοῦντι δ᾿ ἤχθετο.
ΙΠΠΟΛΥΤΟΣ: τρεῖς ὄντας ἡμᾶς ὤλεσ᾿, ᾔσθημαι, μία.
ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣ: πατέρα γε καὶ σὲ καὶ τρίτην ξυνάορον (Eur. Hipp. 1389-1404)

Artemis: O poor man, to what a calamity you are yoked! Yet it was the nobility of
your mind that destroyed you.
Hippolytus: But what is this? O breath of divine fragrance! Though I am in misfortune
feel your presence and my body’s pain is lightened. The
goddess Artemis is in this place!
Artemis: Poor one, she is, dearest of gods to you.
Hippolytus: Do you see me, lady, see my wretched state?
Artemis: Yes, but the law forbids my shedding tears.
Hippolytus: No more do you have your huntsman and your servant!
Artemis: No, but though you die, I love you still.
Hippolytus: No one to tend your horses or your statue!
Artemis: No, for unscrupulous Cypris willed it so.
Hippolytus: Ah, now I learn the power that has destroyed me!
Artemis: The slight to her honor angered her, and she hated your chastity.
Hippolytus: One power destroyed us three, I see it now.
Artemis: Your father, you, and Theseus’ wife the third (modified Loeb trans.).

Artemis had also healing powers. As Artemis Podagra she cured gout, as Artemis Chelytis coughing (Clem. Alex. Protrepticus 2, pp. 32, 33 quoting Sosibius), as Artemis Rhokkaia rabies (Ael. NA 14.20) and as Artemis Kokkōka menstruation cramps and labor pangs (incomprehensible to poor Pausanias 5.15.7-8). As Artemis Thermia she presided over healthful hot springs (CIG 6172) and as Artemis Sōteira and Artemis Locheia she helped women in childbirth (Paus. 3.22.12).

She sought to protect virgins in her fold from men pursuing them, but also animals. According to some versions of this famous myth, Artemis transformed the hunter Actaeon into a stag to be torn to pieces by his own hunting dogs after he killed a deer. The more popular version, though, is the one in which Artemis punished him after he had come upon the goddess bathing naked in a stream with her companion nymphs (Ovid. Met. 3.138ff.). Euripides in Bacchae uses a version in which she kills him for having boasted that he surpassed her as a hunter (339-340). A children’s cartoon on American TV a couple of years ago featured a version in which Artemis transformed the hunter Actaeon into a stag to teach him a lesson about not killing animals. The terrified deer (Actaeon) attempted to speak but was unable to make himself understood without a human language. As his fellow hunters are poised to throw their spears and shoot their arrows and the hunting dogs are about to pounce upon the deer Actaeon, he promises Artemis that, if she would only change him back into human form, he would never harm another living being and that he would educate his fellow hunters about the plight and suffering of hunted animals, which was indeed the happy outcome.

^{Metope from Temple E, Selinus, Sicily c. 460 BCE.}

We could end on this cheerful note, but Artemis was a complex goddess. Human sacrifice was also associated with her, especially at Taurus, of all foreign males.

τὰ τῆς θεοῦ δὲ μέμφομαι σοφίσματα,
ἥτις βροτῶν μὲν ἤν τις ἅψηται φόνου,
ἢ καὶ λοχείας ἢ νεκροῦ θίγῃ χεροῖν,
βωμῶν ἀπείργει, μυσαρὸν ὡς ἡγουμένη,
αὐτὴ δὲ θυσίαις ἥδεται βροτοκτόνοις (Eur. IT 380-384).

I criticize Artemis’ clever logic if a mortal
is involved in bloodshed or touches a new
mother or a corpse, she shuts him out from
her altar as polluted, but she herself takes
pleasure in human sacrifice (modified Loeb trans.).

But also of women, virgins, to which the famous sacrifice of Iphigenia, to allow the Greeks favorable winds to sail against Troy, attests.

^{As a “deus ex machina” in Euripides’s play Iphigenia at Aulis, Artemis appears in the last minute to rescue Iphigenia. As with most literary motifs in classical antiquity there are numerous versions. In the 7th century Kypria by Stasinos (a summary in Proclus, Chrestomathia, 47-51, as preserved in Photius), Artemis substitutes Iphigenia for a hind as in Euripides.  Stesichorus in the Oresteia, on the other hand, follows Hesiod in the Catalogue of Women fr. 19 (Philodemus Piet. 2.5; Oresteia – Piet. 215 — book 1 or 2) in substituting Iphigenia for an image (εἴδωλον), after which Artemis makes her immortal as Artemis of the Crossroads (Εἰνοδία), i.e., Hecate (Paus. 1.43.1). In Pindar’s eleventh Pythian Ode, Iphigenia is killed without any substitution or rescue. In the scholium of the Leiden manuscript of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 645, Euphorius claims that Iphigenia was sacrificed at Brauron (not at Aulis as in Euripides and others) and that a bear was substituted for her, and Nicander and Phanodemus (FGrH. 325 F14 – Etym. Magn. s.v. Ταυροπόλον) claim it was a bull. In most versions, though, Artemis substituted Iphigenia for a hind deer making Iphigenia her priestess in the land of the Taurians (Proclus’ Chrestomathia [from the Kypria]), Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis; LIMC 2: 2 1373-1384). A reconstruction from a marble sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. Copenhagen.}

In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (209-217), the seer gives Artemis as the cause of the sacrifice.

μιαίνων παρθενοσφάγοισιν ῥείθροις
πατρῴους χέρας πέλας βωμοῦ·
τί τῶνδ᾿ ἄνευ κακῶν;
πῶς λιπόναυς γένωμαι
ξυμμαχίας ἁμαρτών;
παυσανέμου γὰρ θυσίας
παρθενίου θ᾿αἵματος ὀργᾷ
περιόργῳ σφ᾿ ἐπιθυμεῖν θέμις.

polluting a father’s hands with streams of a
slaughtered maiden’s blood close by the altar.
Which of these options is free from evil?
How can I become a deserter of the fleet,
losing my alliance? That they should long
with intense passion for a sacrifice to end
the winds and for the blood of a virgin (modified Loeb trans.).

^{The Sacrifice of Iphigenia. Casa del Poeta Tragico, Pompeii, c. 79 CE, terminus ante quem. Naples.}

Lucretius’ famous polemic against an unjust religion uses the sacrifice of Iphigenia as an exemplum:

…as when at Aulis, the altar of our Lady of the Crossroads
was foully defiled by the blood of Iphianassa [Iphigenia], shed by chosen
leaders of the Danai, best of men. As soon as the ribbon had
bound her virgin hair falling in equal lengths down either
cheek, as soon as she saw her father standing sorrowful
before the altar, and by his side attendants hiding the knife,
and the people shedding tears at the sight of her, mute with
fear, she sank to the ground on her knees. Poor girl! It did not
help her at such a time that the name of father had been given
the king first by her; for lifted up by the hands of men, all
trembling she was brought to the altar, so that she not in
solemn and sacred ritual might be escorted by loud
wedding song, but a pure virgin to fall by impure hands
at the age of marriage; a victim sorrowful killed by a father’s
hand; all in order that a fair and fortunate release might
be given to the fleet. So powerful was Religion in persuading
evil deeds (Lucretius. De rerum natura 1.83-101, Loeb trans.).

Feminists can claim Artemis as theirs because of her eternal virginity and refusal to marry and have children, and instead choose the company of women, nymphs, and animals. Sexists may also have a case since Artemis could turn against women who defied her by either voluntarily (e.g., Melanippe) or involuntarily (e.g., Callisto, Polyphonte) lose their virginity. Animal rights advocates can also claim her as a protector of animals and all of nature, but those who take pleasure in killing animals, hunters, can also claim her as theirs. Those who celebrate life can claim her as a protector of children, human and non-human, also her association with Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, in spite of her own virginity, but so can those who relish in death and destruction since she also demanded human sacrifice and ruthlessly killed all seven of Niobe’s daughters (notwithstanding variations on “all” and the number). Witches can claim her as their high priestess. Many of her festivals were at night under torch-light and the full moon (also her associations with Selene and Hecate) and many healing herbs were under her purview. Witch-hunters can also claim her for the same reasons, honoring Tatian’s famous aspersion against her as a poisoner and Torquemada’s claim that she was the Devil. However, she was also a goddess of light who spent her days bathing in springs and hiking in the mountains; and, of course, she was a goddess of nature (the countryside) but also of culture (the city) — these seemingly contradictory attributes all at the same time. It has been pointed out that the dualism of our modern western Judaeo-Christian thinking was unknown to the ancient Greeks for whom life and death, light and darkness, were simply inextricably connected aspects of the same thing (there is no death without life and vice versa).

Artemis was a complicated, confusing, and contradictory goddess already in antiquity as many regions claimed her as theirs and assigned her various powers to suit their needs, which also varied throughout the centuries. More than most deities in the Greek pantheon, Artemis has suffered from distortions, confusions, appropriations, misrepresentations, and misinterpretations, beginning already in antiquity and it’s been downhill from there (we as classical scholars are not exempt:-).

Brief recent book bibliography (currently on display in the Classics Library’s Reading Room):

Budin, S.L. 2016. Artemis. New York.
Ellinger, P. 2009. Artémis, déesse de tous dangers. Paris.
Galiano, P., & Vigna, M. 2015. Diana e Apollo: La selva e l’urbe. Rome.
Janda, M. 2016. Artemis mit der goldenen Spindel. Innsbruck.
Léger, R.M. 2017. Artemis and her Cult. Oxford.
Rogers, G. M. 2012. The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos. New Haven.
Vincenti, M.C. 2010. Diana: Storia, mito e culto della grande dea di Aricia. Rome.

Critical editions to Callimachus (Hymn 3 to Artemis) and the Homeric Hymns (27 to Artemis and 6 to Aphrodite):

D’Alessio, G.B. 2007. Callimaco. 4th ed. Milan (BUR).
Asper, M. 2004. Kallimachos von Kyrene: Werke, griechisch-deutsch. Darmstadt.
Pfeiffer, R. 1953. Callimachus, vol. ii: Hymni et epigrammata. Oxford (OCT).

Allen, T.W. 1912. Homeri opera, vol. 5. Oxford (OCT).
Baumeister, A. 1894. Hymni Homerici. Leipzig (Teubner).
Càssola, F. 1975. Inni Omerici.  Milan (Mondadori).
Crudden, M. 2001. The Homeric Hymns. Oxford.
Humbert, J. 1936. Homère, hymnes. 2nd ed. Paris (Budé).

[1] ^{Hom. Il. 16.181; Hom. Hymn 5 to Artemis 27; Hom. Hymn 3 to Apollo 190; Hom. Hymn 5 to Aphrodite 115; Apoll. Rhodius Argon. 1.1225; and Ael. NA 12.9.}