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
Highlights from the Classics Library’s Collections
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:
UCBA Library’s Book of the Month for May
by Christian Boyles
How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story HD9696.8.U64 S6343 2018
About the book
The improbable and exhilarating story of the rise of Snapchat from a frat boy fantasy to a multi-billion dollar internet unicorn that has dramatically changed the way we communicate. In 2013 Evan Spiegel, the brash CEO of the social network Snapchat, and his co-founder Bobby Murphy stunned the press when they walked away from a three-billion-dollar offer from Facebook: how could an app teenagers use to text dirty photos dream of a higher valuation? Was this hubris, or genius? In How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars, tech journalist Billy Gallagher takes us inside the rise of one of Silicon Valley’s hottest start-ups. Snapchat developed from a simple wish for disappearing pictures as Stanford junior Reggie Brown nursed regrets about photos he had sent. After an epic feud between best friends, Brown lost his stake in the company, while Spiegel has gone on to make a name for himself as a visionary–if ruthless–CEO worth billions, linked to celebrities like Taylor Swift and his wife, Miranda Kerr. A fellow Stanford undergrad and fraternity brother of the company’s founding trio, Gallagher has covered Snapchat from the start. He brings unique access to a company Bloomberg Business called “a cipher in the Silicon Valley technology community.” Gallagher offers insight into challenges Snapchat faces as it transitions from a playful app to one of the tech industry’s preeminent public companies. In the tradition of great business narratives, How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars offers the definitive account of a company whose goal is no less than to remake the future of entertainment.
Is it checked out? Don’t worry about it. Here are some other titles on the subject.
Brotopia : Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley | HD6060.5.U5 C52 2018
For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It’s a “Brotopia,” where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties. In this powerful exposé, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals, why bro culture endures despite decades of companies claiming the moral high ground (Don’t Be Evil! Connect the World!)–and how women are finally starting to speak out and fight back. Drawing on her deep network of Silicon Valley insiders, Chang opens the boardroom doors of male-dominated venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins, the subject of Ellen Pao’s high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit, and Sequoia, where a partner once famously said they “won’t lower their standards” just to hire women. Silicon Valley’s aggressive, misogynistic, work-at-all costs culture has shut women out of the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world. It’s time to break up the boys’ club. Emily Chang shows us how to fix this toxic culture–to bring down Brotopia, once and for all.
Wild Ride: Inside Uber’s Quest for Global Domination | HE5620.R53 L37 2017
In your pocket is something amazing: a quick and easy way to summon a total stranger who will take you anywhere you’d like. In your hands is something equally amazing: the untold story of Uber’s meteoric rise, and the massive ambitions of its larger-than-life founder and CEO. Before Travis Kalanick became famous as the public face of Uber, he was a scrappy, rough-edged, loose-lipped entrepreneur. And even after taking Uber from the germ of an idea to a $69 billion global transportation behemoth, he still describes his company as a start-up. Like other Silicon Valley icons such as Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, he’s always focused on the next disruptive innovation and the next world to conquer. Both Uber and Kalanick have acquired a reputation for being combative, relentless, and iron-fisted against competitors. They’ve inspired both admiration and loathing as they’ve flouted government regulators, thrown the taxi industry into a tailspin, and stirred controversy over possible exploitation of drivers. They’ve even reshaped the deeply ingrained consumer behavior of not accepting a ride from a stranger—against the childhood warnings from everyone’s parents. Uber has made headlines thanks to its eye-popping valuations and swift expansion around the world. But this book is the first account of how Uber really became the giant it is today, and how it plans to conquer the future.
Silicon Valley | Streaming Film
American Experience, TV’s most-watched history series, brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today. The collection includes a number of great episodes from the series, including American Experience Silicon Valley. In 1957, decades before Steve Jobs dreamed up Apple or Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, a group of eight brilliant young men defected from the Shockley Semiconductor Company in order to start their own transistor business. Their leader was 29-year-old Robert Noyce, a physicist with a brilliant mind and the affability of a born salesman who would co-invent the microchip — an essential component of nearly all modern electronics today, including computers, motor vehicles, cell phones and household appliances.
What does records management have to do with maintenance?
In April 2016, Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel published an article in Aeon titled “Hail the Maintainers.” Russell and Vinsel called for a closer examination of how our culture venerates technological innovation. We elevate innovation and innovators, while overlooking the important role of maintenance in keeping society going. The concept took off, and there has been a subsequent conference known as The Maintainers and many academic articles on maintenance, particularly on the history of technology.
Archivist Hillel Arnold has applied the idea of maintenance theory to the work of archivists, noting that archivists “do the hard and invisible work of maintaining records. Not only do we perpetuate the physical existence of records through preservation activities, we also manage ongoing access to records, in part by maintaining the context of record creation and maintenance through arrangement and description processes.” Hillel and I collaborated last fall on a paper tracing the connections between recordkeeping, maintenance, and environmental regulation. In recent months, I’ve started to examine how the maintenance of regulatory recordkeeping breaks down during fossil fuel industrial accidents and disasters – with significant consequences both for workers and the environment.
Fossil fuel energy production is a highly regulated industry – at least on paper. However, despite the thousands of regulations that govern the extraction of coal, oil, and natural gas, and subsequent downstream production and transmission activities, these regulations have failed to protect the health of workers, nearby communities, and the environment due to several factors that include regulatory capture and lack of enforcement capabilities. Recordkeeping violations are also an explanation for regulatory failures. Industry failure to maintain authentic records – whether by manipulating existing records, or by destroying incriminating records – can accelerate dangerous situations.
Examples of these failures of recordkeeping can be found in two deadly energy industry accidents that happened just two weeks apart in April 2010. On April 5, an underground mine explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed twenty-nine miners. On April 20, an explosion occurred at the offshore drilling platform known as Deepwater Horizon, located 40 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers were killed on Deepwater Horizon, and oil leaked from the site for close to 6 months, resulting in the worst domestic oil spill in history.
Investigations of the Upper Big Branch disaster found that Massey Energy, the parent company, routinely underreported safety violations in the records they shared with regulators. In other words, Massey Energy manipulated the very records that could have demonstrated to regulators that the mine needed to make necessary safety improvements.
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, many of the recordkeeping concerns that surfaced were over questions of responsibility and accountability for the months-long oil spill in the Gulf. One BP executive was accused of manipulating oil spill estimates. Others were accused of destroying evidence associated with the post-disaster investigations.
We are currently in a period of increasing deregulation of environmental protections. When it comes to American fossil fuel companies, there is a clear role that recordkeeping – or rather, attacks on recordkeeping – play in deregulation. Effective regulation – whether over fossil fuel production and emissions, or workplace safety rules – requires comprehensive and accurate recordkeeping. In contrast, American politicians who support expansion of fossil fuel energy production in the United States routinely deride regulatory oversight as limiting economic progress and domestic energy independence. One of the primary tools of deregulation has been to cut back the amount of information that industry is required to share with regulators, or the amount of recordkeeping it must maintain internally for safety and accountability.
Recordkeeping alone cannot produce environmental health and workplace safety. But achieving either is impossible without baseline records that provide accountability and information to affected communities.
UC Libraries Names Brad Warren Associate Dean of Library Services
Xuemao Wang, dean and university librarian, announces that Brad Warren will join the University of Cincinnati Libraries as the associate dean of library services starting August 3, 2018.
Brad comes to UC Libraries from Yale University where he has served as the director of access service for Sterling Memorial and Bass Libraries since March 2009. Prior to Yale, Brad held various librarian positions at the University of North Carolina Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library and North Carolina State University Libraries. He received his BA in comparative literature and history from Indiana University and his Masters in library science from Indiana University.
Brad will be a member of the Dean’s Cabinet and his leadership portfolio will include Langsam Library’s Research, Teaching and Services Department, the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, the Albino Gorno Memorial Music Library, the John Miller Burnam Classics Library and the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services Library.
Welcome to UC Libraries, Brad!
Langsam Library Exhibit Celebrates Appalachian Culture
Cincinnati lies just at the border or outer edge of Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia and includes portions of Pennsylvania, Ohio, North and South Carolina and all of West Virginia. A new exhibit on display on the 4th floor lobby of the Walter C. Langsam Library showcases resources from UC Libraries in celebration of Appalachian culture and heritage. Included are resources from the collections of the Albino Gorno Memorial (CCM) Library, Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library, the Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Library, the Robert A. Deshon and Karl J. Schlachter Library for Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), and Langsam. Also featured are online resources that showcase and inform about Appalachian culture.
The exhibit was curated by UC Libraries’ Mikaila Corday, Susan Banoun and Carissa Thatcher. It was designed and produced by Sam Kane, communications design co-op student, and Melissa Cox Norris.
A bibliography of Appalachian resources in the exhibit and more is available online.
Congratulations to Award Winning Capstone Project
Seniors Celeste Bauer, John Meyer and Xi Ru take first prize for their Environmental Engineering Capstone Project
The Data & GIS Collab would like to congratulate Environmental Engineering Seniors John Myers, Xi Ru, and Celeste Bauer on their award winning capstone project. The project entitled “Ohio River Harmful Algal Blooms: Indicators and Real Time Monitoring” resulted in the design a geographic web application that tracks and updates river conditions from sensors set at multiple points along the Ohio River. Collab Students Shiyu Gong and Jenny Latessa worked with Ms. Ru as she investigated various web mapping tools for her team to use. This is one of several web mapping projects the Collab has consulted on recently and shows growing interest and applications for this type of mapping. It is a great pleasure for the lab to be involved and to gain knowledge about new tools and techniques. We congratulate John, Xi and Celeste on their hard work and great ideas and wish them much success in their future endeavors.
Plan your next trip with Travel and Culture Books from the UCBA Library
by Christian Boyles
Pack your bag, find your travel charger, get an electricity converter and buy some foreign currency, because the Summer is the perfect time to explore the world. Your UCBA library has you covered Continue reading
May 6, Birthday of the Goddess Artemis (Happy Thargelia and Apollo’s Birthday, too!?)
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 2nd 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.
Dean’s Corner: A Busy April Overview
It’s April at the University of Cincinnati, the end of another eventful academic year. This April was especially busy for UC Libraries, beginning with our 16th annual International Edible Books Festival event on April 3rd. Later in the month, the library hosted my Dean’s Advisory Council, and the board of downtown Cincinnati’s Lloyd Library. We honored Marian A. Spencer, this year’s recipient of the Taft Medal of Notable Achievement at UC’s Distinguished Alumni Celebration, and held our first German-Americana lecture. We celebrated the kickoff of UC’s bicentennial, participated in UC’s Research + Innovation Week and brought music to the Gorno Library.
This is just a short list, in no way comprehensive. It says nothing of UC Libraries’ hardworking faculty, staff and student workers, spread out over 10 campus locations.
From the upper left hand corner: Celebrating Edible Books; handing out snacks and giveaways at UC’s Bearcat Block Party; dining with members of my Dean’s Advisory Council Continue reading