Classics Salon!

[cahn]

So yeah, anyone who has been around this DW for more than a very little while has known that we had a salon in which we discussed Frederick the Great in particular and 18th-century Enlightenment figures in general.

But nooooow we are going to have a Classics salon!

My Classics background is, er, well, I guess my Classics history is pretty much on par with or somewhat worse than my general non-US historical background (read: I know almost nothing, with some random pockets of slight layman knowledge), and my Classics literary background is signficantly worse than my general literary background (no real reason, it's not like I had a vendetta against it or anything, I think I just didn't happen to have a good entry point). I've read the Odyssey last year and the Aeneid reasonably recently, and the Iliad not so reasonably recently (perhaps this will be the impetus for me to check out the Wilson translation), and Ted Hughes' translation of selected Metamorphoses.

Please feel free to tell me what books I really ought to be looking at next! (I believe there has been some discussion of Plutarch?) Feel free to wax eloquent about your favorite translations, whether it's something I've already read or not! Also please free to tell me any of your favorite Classics history you want, because I probably don't know it :)

(This is not supposed to be just for mildred_of_midgard and selenak, although of course I expect them to be prime contributors. I know that many of you, probably all of you, know a lot about Classics that I don't know, so please inform me! Tell me your favorite things! :D )

Comments

Re: Divided Populace? Fake News? Senatorial Bias vs Popularity of the Worst?

[cahn]

avoided judgment because he denied all charges and brought the prosecution in the awkward position of having to point out parallels between Caligula and Wilhelm II themselves

oh this is AMAZING, I love it!

And the case against Nero being actually responsible for burning Rome is pretty solid. (According to Tacitus, who LOATHED Nero and really can't be accused of pro Nero bias but is the first one to write about this, he was in the countryside when the fire started, he when returning upon hearing the news was pretty good at organizing fire fighting and relief efforts, and the idea that he burned the city so he could compose a song about Troy comes in with Suetonius onwards who is prone for going with the most sensational.

I had heard that Nero probably didn't burn Rome, but I didn't know what the evidence actually was, thank you! (I think in the Riordan books he just goes with the Rome burning thing, which I did point out to my kiddo.)

Plus: if the last years have taught me one thing, then that half the population absolutely loving a vile head of government who does incredibly shitty things is very much possible.

Yeah, as you probably figured out, the last few years have been what made me think of the possibility of divided opinion. I don't know that I would have thought of it as a possibility before that.

Re: Divided Populace? Fake News? Senatorial Bias vs Popularity of the Worst?

[selenak]

Yeah, the last few years really did add a new perspective. :(

Re: the Great Fire of Rome, the Wiki article on it does a reasonably good job of summarizing the current research on what happened, why Nero eventually got blamed (and blamed the Christians in turn), and why he likely didn't do it. Personally, I suspect that like the Great Fire of London in the reign of Charles II, there was no malicious perpetrator, it was the unholy combination of dense living situations with lots of wooden buildngs and stupid accidents that were to blame. (In the Great Fire of London, there was the same urge later to blame someone, and unsurprisingly given we're talking about later 17th century England, a lot of people eyed the Catholics for this. Thankfully, Charles II. wasn't Nero and didn't go for an easy scapegoat.

BTW, Suetonius - who thinks Nero did do it - still has a low opinion of the Christians as well and thinks they're a very creepy foreign cult and should be dealt with. (This is the general opinion of late first century AD Roman writer, I should add. Tacitus and Pliny also think Christians are total creeps and why any sensible Roman should want to join that cult is beyond them. Nethertheless, they also think what Nero did to them was beyond the pale, which shows an interesting modern feeling attitude which would be comparable to "no, torturing ISIS terrorists in Guantanamo is not okay!"

Re: the Caligula/Willy essay, and speaking of wiki, it refreshed my memory and pointed out that Ludwig Quidde, the writer, went on the win the Novel Peace Prize in the 1920s (and made it out of Germany in time come 1933). You can learn more about him here.

Re: Divided Populace? Fake News? Senatorial Bias vs Popularity of the Worst?

[cahn]

Nethertheless, they also think what Nero did to them was beyond the pale, which shows an interesting modern feeling attitude which would be comparable to "no, torturing ISIS terrorists in Guantanamo is not okay!"

Huh, that's really interesting.

I'm glad Quidde made it out of Germany! (And won the Nobel.)