Andrew Dalby

At least you can't go wrong! Which reminds me, I must get down to Anchor soon...I'm in need of good local :beer: We had a cider tasting last night. Eight different ones from last year's apples, made by me and various neighbours. Very instructive (and more and more cheerful as the evening wore on). In the early stages I was trying to remember which Roman sources mention cider ... in the later stages, I had forgotten the question and why it mattered.

Hold on, Pertinax, since when was Fowey near Poole? Several hours' driving even now! But, yes, it's on the south coast, and anywhere along there -- especially a river mouth as at Fowey -- would be a good spot for trade contacts from across the Channel. One coin by itself means contact in some form, though, as observed above, it would almost certainly be indirect contact via the Gauls. It doesn't in itself mean regular trade. One coin, if it's unlike all others found nearby, would perhaps have been brought and exchanged as a valued object, a prized gift, rather than as a piece of money.

Yunan=Greece Yunani=Greek I think they used it even then. I believe when Christianity took root, Greeks felt more into the Eastern Empire then a Roman would. Lets not forget it also encompassed: Phoenicia, Syria, and Egypt. The capital was set up by Romans, but the Greeks had a large amount of influence. It is not uncommon to see some Christians call themselves Byzantine. In one Greek Orthodox Church I visited, some of their hyms were in 'Byantine.' They certainly did use the term Yunani back then. It has a very long history, from the time when the Ionians (the Greeks of much of the Asia Minor coast and Aegean islands) came into contact with, and partly became subject to, the Persian Empire (6th-5th century BC). To the Persians, therefore, the name 'Ionians' came to be synonymous with 'Greeks' because these were the Greeks the Persians knew best. From ancient Aramaic (lingua franca of the Persian Empire) Ionian > Yunani gradually spread into other Asian languages including Sanskrit and Arabic.

Oh, yes, Cyril was the prime mover. Wouldn't want to deprive him of his credit. One of the few people who can claim to have invented two alphabets (Cyrillic and Glagolitic). As to your second question, I don't know at what period the Arabs adopted their numeral system from India. Until that date, it wasn't available for the Byzantines to borrow! Does anyone know the answer to that?

That is interesting. It leads me to this question: Weren't the 'Byzantines' using Roman notation? No, it seems to go with language (or rather, with alphabet). As Greek became the Byzantines' main language (and had already been the main language for science and mathematics) their normal numeral system was the Greek one (the later, alphabetical, version). This was to be expected because, as I've already said, it was more practical than the Roman system anyway. No doubt, as Julius Ratus says, the idea was borrowed from the Byzantines by the Slavic peoples in the same way as they borrowed (and adapted) the Greek alphabet.

Oh, yes, I agree that the two cannot be distinguished totally. However, I'm trying to think of another culture in which it is actually claimed, explicitly, on record, that criminals are killed as an offering to the gods. Enemy warriors, maybe, but criminals? I mean, would you expect the gods to be grateful for this? I expect you're right about the Druids but I can't remember what source supports the claim that Druids did this.

Is it known why they changed? Not by me. I wondered about this question, as I was writing my earlier posting, but I have no answer ready. Maybe someone else knows. I have a suggestion, though. The later Greek system is admittedly less handy than "ours" (because you have to learn 27 characters instead of 10; 9 differs from 90 and again from 900) but it still makes it fairly easy to add up columns of figures and to do other similar operations, subtraction etc. With a system like the Roman or the earlier Greek, such calculations on paper are more difficult to do. I say "ours" in quotes because Rameses reminds me that "our" system is borrowed from the Arabs, who borrowed it from the Indians.

I'd be careful with that! Sacrifice is very difficult to ascertain from mere ritualistic or ceremonial killing. Crucifixion was ritualistic and ceremonial, and so is the gas chamber or the electric chair. To really nail it down, you need a clear indication of religious motivation, discrete from any other possible motivations. I agree with Edgewaters' doubts on this. It's always seemed to me that Tacitus (in 'Germania') provides one possible and quite convincing explanation of the "bog bodies" when he describes the method of execution for shameful crimes. It doesn't necessarily give a complete explanation but it can't be discounted as evidence.

Just as you said above, the concept of "nothing" existed but I am aware of no mathematical notation for it. They apparently did not see the need. As for calculus, I can't do calculus so I'm not qualified to pronounce on whether the Greeks could or not ...

Coming from one who is usually so scrupulous about source information, Cato, that remark takes me by surprise! 100% love? Not even 0.1% doubt?

Yes, the system GO mentions uses the 24 letters of the alphabet plus 3 others that were not in the normal Greek alphabet. That makes 27 in all, covering 1-9, 10-90, 100-900. The highest number you can notate using this range is 999. For numbers above that you can add an accent above or before the letter; the accent means "multiply by 1000", so that takes you up to 999,999. Earlier, in 5th century BC Greek inscriptions for example, there was a quite different system, very much like Roman numerals, with symbols for 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, etc. The Greek scientist Aristarchus wrote a book whose title translates into English as "The Sand-Reckoner". Its aim is to describe a system of notation for very large numbers.

Did you think Augusta was correct when she wrote " People's perceptions of beauty change with the ages. For instance, all those Rubenesque ladies who were depicted as the epitome of feminine beauty would hardly find takers these days, with our tastes for skeletal women!"? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the "something" on which you and Augusta agree. ... I did actually go on to say precisely what I agreed with the Augusta about. But since you ask me, I agree roughly with this statement too. I would add, though, that it isn't just a matter of time passing ("the ages"), but also of cultures, social groups, and fashions. There are people in the world right now who think Rubenesque ladies are beautiful; but (I think) there are few such people in the region where Rubens once worked, in social groups comparable to those who bought his pictures. I think this may be used in evidence, though certainly it's far from sufficient evidence in itself, that fashions in human body shape vary and change. I'm disputing the idea that Rubenesque ladies were once considered the "epitome of feminine beauty." My claim is that the evidence from art isn't sufficient to justify this claim. Sorry, I wasn't clear. The "people" you referred to, whom I don't know, were "classicists who are raised up on the notion that art history tells us something profound about the "history" of human psychology". But your example of Philippe Ari

I never got to look at the base of the spine of a Swiss person (or of Attila), so I can't comment on that. But as for whether the Huns were Mongols, no, apparently not. The best piece of evidence known to me is an oracular statement made to a north-eastern Hun monarch, in the year 329, by a Chinese sage. What he said was Syog tieg t'iei lied kang b'uok kuk g'iw t'uk tang It rhymes, as you see. But it made no sense to any modern readers until the linguist Louis Bazin (in 1948) translated it as an early form of a Turkic language, in which it means: Send out your army, Capture the warlord! The Hun in question took this advice and became emperor of China, founder of the Later Zhou dynasty. So, anyway, Bazin seems to have shown that the Huns (or, at least, the Huns addressed by this sage) spoke an early Turkic language, not Mongolian.

Even if we assume that there was a market for Rubens' work, we can't conclude anything about changes in taste over time. One, Rubens may have been catering to a niche market: the fact that his paintings sold at best tells us that there were as many fat-lovers as there were paintings to be sold. Two, we don't actually know how Rubens' women were perceived: maybe people liked them for their novelty or even comical value rather than finding them sexy. Third, the mere existence of other works like that of Rubens is equally consistent with either a change in taste or a mere artistic fad--e.g., does anyone really want to claim that during Picasso's lifetime, men found distorted heads and disfigured bodies sexy? Fourth, and most importantly, if there were historical changes in what people found sexy, we should find the evidence from human behavior (e.g., from marriage records), from non-artistic works (e.g., in discussing private lives in letters and literature), and from works that were not meant for public display (e.g., in everyday pornography, erotic literature, diaries, and so on, and the examples should far outnumber the counter-examples.) To my knowledge, no one has ever produced such evidence. Instead, the evidence for an historical change in sexual tastes depends entirely on a small number of paintings by a single school of painters in a small geographic region over a small number of years. I'm tempted to say, "a swallow doesn't make a spring," but in this case, I have to say, "a tail feather from an unidentified bird doesn't make a spring." Yes, I realize that this line of argument is heresy to classicists who are raised up on the notion that art history tells us something profound about the "history" of human psychology. Frankly, at the scale we're talking about (i.e., at the grain of decades rather than epochs or even millenia), I think this notion is hogwash, akin to inferring the history of the brain by comparing Chaucer to Marlowe. Art history is interesting, to be sure, not because it tells us about sexual preferences but because it tells us about...art. I don't know any of the people whose views you're disputing, so I can't really comment except to say that, from your description, they sound pretty silly. As to whether one can do social history from literature, art, etc., my answer is that one can. You seem to slide off into illogicality there: why from pornography and erotic literature (both of them very rare genres before the 18th century) but not from other literature or art? I don't understand the reasoning behind your rule. Yes, one can use such sources -- as well as private records and documents, and archaeology too -- but in the case of each kind of source one has to recognize what it may show, what it probably won't show, and what it may conceal. Not all social historians make sweeping generalizations. [Added a moment later:] We're talking about later Europe, here, it seems, rather than the classical world. A social historian who used just the kind of sources that you're recommending, and who ''never'' generalized (I think!), and whose work I enjoy very much and I guess you might also, is Richard Cobb. Perhaps you know his books already. He generally wrote about Paris before and during the French Revolution.

Sorry, Cato, I have to disagree here. Rubens was a commissioned artist and many of his works are indeed reflecting the tastes of a group. Many artists in his position didn't just paint whatever took their fancy; he received commissions from the Spanish court - among others to paint some of his more voluptuous offerings (Garden of Love etc). Other baroque artists adhered to this robust feminine form too, so I think I can safely say that it was within the taste of at least the high brow art lovers of that generation. Again, I don't doubt that there were then--as now--a range of of tastes in body fat. But you can't compare a non-representative sample from one historical period to a non-representative sample from a later historical period to make sweeping generalizations about historical changes in taste. The data are equally consistent with changes in sampling rather than historical changes in taste. I'm glad to have your wholehearted agreement, Cato! As you noticed, I cited the two images specifically in order to contradict a sweeping generalization. But I think the Augusta's right about something. Rubens (like many successful artists) wasn't powerful enough to impose his own tastes wholesale. To live, he had to sell paintings. To sell, his work had to be admired. If people thought his paintings of beautiful women were failures, they wouldn't have bought them, and he would have had to adjust to that.

No doubt there are many facts in sociology, but I doubt that one. The chubby ladies that you see in paintings by Rubens didn't come from a noticeably poorer society than the slim ladies of medieval paintings and Lucas Cranach. Currently you can see a comparison right here Judgement of Paris in these two paintings all six women (or rather goddesses) are supposed to be stunningly beautiful. As we know, Venus/Aphrodite had to cheat to win the competition!

Like others, I don't go with the word "steal" -- maybe you didn't mean it quite literally! Languages are free of copyright! But there's a lot in what you say. It really is true, apart from their status as cognate languages, that Latin "borrowed" or "took" a great deal from Greek, because, especially in the times of the late Republic and early Empire, Greek culture was often seen as superior (in some ways, though not in all ways!). Greece was where you went to complete your education, and to be a really cultured Roman you had to be bilingual in Greek. Therefore words etc. would cross from one language to the other. Modern Greek has quite a lot of Latin loanwords for the same reason.

I'm quite sure that's true. As for the coin thing, there is another point. The coin that got into the news this week (for no very special reason!) is a fairly worn specimen. Hellenistic and Roman coins of that period were modelled in very high relief, so when they became partly worn and discoloured the result might be not what the artist had first thought of. Cleopatra's lined face (irregular discoloration) and bony chin (heavy wear) are partly explained by this.

It's a good story about Decebal and Traian fighting after school. Maybe a good thing that Attila didn't turn up as well ...

Well, it's nice that we turn out to agree, Divi Filius!

I don't like to talk about things I haven't really studied (though Mrs Dalby believes that doesn't stop me) but I, too, don't see how such a sample in itself could prove what is claimed. You have to assume that Alaska was the only migration route. It's very likely that some settlement of the Americas took place via that route; but at how many different date(s), and whether there were other routes too, are big questions!

My initial observation is that honey farmers planted many types of fragrant tree/shrub/plant to give specific savour (and mixed fragrance) to the product. Faas (Around The Roman Table) cites oregano,poppy, saffron,ivy and clovers as the Lme,peach , almond and oak are attested likewise. Honey from vegetable dominated holdings was considered inferior.Var RR II speaks of "the fig supplies poor honey, a good quality comes from alfalfa [multi mineral fixative] and the best from Thyme". Andrew Dalby ( Empire of Pleasures) mentions the excellence of the thyme flavourd Grecian honey supplied to Rome from Hymettium.As a counter to this Corsican honey is mentioned for its biterness (wether due to hemlock or box he demures to say).I think AD may wish to speak for himself though... So the infusion was "in the pre-packaging stage". Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. It all depends on the bees. Where the bees browse, there browse I. Notice that Trimalchio (in Petronius's Satyricon), missing a crucial detail, imported bees to Italy from Hymettus (I think it was) so as to get the best honey. All those sailors stung by bees, and all to no purpose, since he failed to import a hillside of thyme at the same time. My daughter has given me a pot of borage honey. Lovely. And borage grows wild in our garden (like it or not) and I am wondering whether to learn the gentle art of beekeeping ...

GO can you give me a link for this at all? I would have expected Datura stramonium as the likeliest N African recreational relaxant . http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...=si&img=180 Yes, I'd like more on that. In what form was the cannabis discovered? You can make ropes from this species, as well as smoke it ...

No, they are quite different. And it's true that the largest single community of Zoroastrians is in Bombay. The Zoroastrian scriptures have been published in Nagari (north Indian) script so that they can more easily read them -- we had a set of these scriptures at the library where I used to work.

Chewing gum is also a very good idea, as I believe some people on the other side of the Atlantic have rediscovered in recent years. The preferred Mediterranean chewing gum is not chicle but mastic (I mean, natural mastic, not the kind you buy in a tube at do-it-yourself shops). It tastes good once you get used to it.