"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Ah, the famous "quote" of my beloved Tully, the moneymaking adornment of many a shirt and magnet from Amazon.com. Too bad it isn't a quote from Cicero, or any other recognized Latin author.

A gentleman came in to the library a few weeks back, and I, looking for any excuse to avoid my current research project ofr a few moments, watched him scour frantically through a pile of books he had collected from the stacks. Finally he admitted to the librarian that he was looking for the citation for that ubiquitous saying. A short bit of online research revealed that this quote is apocryphal (thanks to the Latin-L for this). The Latin phrase is most often rendered as ut conclave sine libris, ita corpus sine anima.

This got me to thinking about all the other things that we supposedly know were "said," but are in reality just apocrypha. A few that have always been my favorites:

"Beam me up, Scotty." - Nope, never said. The intrepid captain comes close a few times (Star Trek IV comes to mind), but never quite gets this one out there.

"Say it ain't so, Joe." - From the Chicago Herald and Examiner: after Jackson left the courthouse, "one little urchin in the crowd grabbed him by the coat sleeve. " 'It ain't true, is it?' he said. 'Yes, kid, I'm afraid it is,' Jackson replied. 'Well, I'd never have thought it,' the boy exclaimed."

"Play it again, Sam." - Bogey at his best, but he never delivers the line. Bergman does.

Who is this man?

There is no physical proof that he existed.

If he ever wrote anything himself, it hasn't survived. We only know his teachings through the writings of his disciples.

His death was ordered by the powers-that-be for upsetting what they considered the normal order of things.

He had a long beard, was a humble man of little means who often communed with nature.

Who is this man?













Socrates.

Again I say, AWESOME

I'm sure this will be all over the blogosphere tomorrow, but from CNN.com comes the following story: Scenes from Homer found in Cyprus 'warrior tomb.'

The incipit:

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) -- A 2,500-year-old sarcophagus with vivid color illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archaeologists said Monday.

Construction workers found the limestone sarcophagus last week in a tomb near the village of Kouklia, in the coastal Paphos area. The tomb, which probably belonged to an ancient warrior, had been looted during antiquity.

"The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colors used," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department.

This will come in handy when I teach the Trojan War and the Odyssey in two weeks to my Myth & Meaning class.

Even better than the last one

From Yahoo! News:

Gourmet dine & ditcher banned from Rome.

Not that the thought didn't cross my mind after dinner at Da Pancrazio (dried deer as an appetizer?), but this is pretty amusing. I'm suprised she wasn't an American.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Here's a piece from the AP World News, courtesy of the Gainesville Sun: Tunnels Used by Ancient Jews Discovered. Here's the incipit:

Underground chambers and tunnels used during a Jewish revolt against the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago have been uncovered in northern Israel, archaeologists said Monday.

The Jews laid in supplies and were preparing to hide from the Romans during their revolt in A.D. 66-70, the experts said. The pits, which are linked by short tunnels, would have served as a concealed subterranean home.

Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the find shows the ancient Jews planned and prepared for the uprising, contrary to the common perception that the revolt began spontaneously.

"It definitely was not spontaneous," Alexandre said. "The Jews of that time certainly did prepare for it, with underground hideaways here and in other sites we have found."

Awesome

In preparation for my after-Spring-Break myth classes (what a way to spend the first warm day in Illinois since last fall, eh?), I found this terrific short movie about Oedipus. It is billed as a "sword and salad epic," and it doesn't fail to please. I must say I'm a bit wary about showing some hot potato-on-tomato action in a gen ed class, but I somehow think today's college students can handle it.

FINALLY! AN UPDATE!

I find my lack of posts disturbing. But I've returned to a happy place, and hopefully things will be back on track. To celebrate one of my Latin students finally getting that acceptance letter to graduate school, it's high time for an update, both classical and non-classical.

Starting with the non-classical, since that's what I seem to be more in-tune with lately. I've been attempting to read more literature unrelated to my chosen profession. I'm teaching an English class this semester, which has given me the chance to read some of those book which are considered must-reads. Several of them even made this list compiled by a group of British librarians, and a few more made this one from Random House. I'm currently in the midst of a Vonnegut phase which fear (hope?) may be permanent. It's sad, I suppose, that I've neglected my fiction and modern literature over the years, especially when I have the Harvard Five-Foot Shelf of Classics sitting on a bookshelf in my living room (for an interesting take on this series, follow this link).

If reading isn't your thing, and we all need some visual stimulaton sometimes, I highly recommend checking out Chris Bliss' juggling act. Mirabile visu!

For all of us that have struggled through overly-footnoted works, I bring you The World's Greatest Law Review Article. While obviously a joke, I'm sure every classicist has felt the pain of reading articles like this one.

And since this will happen on my dies natalis, it's worth noting that there will be a total solar eclipse on March 29th. Some lucky buggers will be waiting it out in a Roman theater in Turkey.

From the "So Obvious It Needs To Be Said Again" file comes this review, which lends credence to the exclamation, "Etymology is addictive!"