Nephele

Did it come from the Sybilline Books? Or from the later Sybilline Oracles? Thanks in advance. LJV Is this the website that you got that from? http://2012-predictions-review.blogspot.co...-of-apollo.html -- Nephele

As my birthday pressie to you, I have blanagrammed a choice of two new Roman aliases for you! Agrip. Critonius Sanctus = atincishrositnargchsp -hh +uu Agrip.: abbreviation of the rare praenomen "Agrippa." Critonius: making you related to L. Critonius, an aedilis cerealis in 44 BCE, and a staunch republican. "When the Cerealia were celebrated, shortly after the murder of Caesar, and Octavianus erected the golden sella with a crown in honour of Caesar...Critonius declared that he would not suffer Caesar to be thus honoured in the games for which he (Critonius) himself had to pay the expenses." Sanctus: meaning "consecrated, holy, inviolable." Agrip. Ancharius Tigrinus = atincishrositnargchsp -ch +uu Ancharius: making you related to Q. Ancharius, a tribune of the plebs in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus (59 BCE), who "took an active part in opposing the agrarian law of Caesar, and in consequence of his services to the aristocratical party obtained the praetorship." (from Smith's Dictionary) Tigrinus: meaning "like a tiger." Grrrr, you go, Tiger! -- Nephele

May you have the best of days today! -- Nephele

I'm not sure how helpful this might be, but Pliny the Elder in Book 36 of his Natural History includes a chapter on the various kinds of glass, and their manufacture. Pliny mentions (at least, in the English translation provided by Bostock and Riley) how a mass called "hammonitrum" is submitted to fusion and eventually "becomes a mass of pure, white glass." Here's the link at Perseus: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext...lin.+Nat.+36.66 -- Nephele

When I win the lottery, you're hired! I remember about your poor knees. Ouch. I guess neither one of us would make very good winter brides. I kind of pictured you as an "autumn." -- Nephele

Nice article! No mention of the barbiton, though, an ancient musical instrument known to the Greeks and Romans that I'd like to learn more about. Fulvia, are you interested in putting together such an article for UNRV? Crispina, you mentioned you have some musician friends -- is ancient music an interest of yours? Perhaps even the two of you, Fulvia and Crispina, might want to work together on a descriptive listing of ancient musical instruments for UNRV? -- Nephele

Mmmm.... When I win the Lottery, I'm thinking of asking you to come live with us here in New York. We'll pay you out of our Lottery winnings to cook for us, and you'll have plenty of time off to look for a full-time college professor position in one of our Northeastern colleges. I don't like this changeable weather we're having. When I was a teen, I had back surgery, which brought on an early onset of arthritis in my spine. For the past four days I've been hurting real bad (it's making me extremely cranky and short-tempered). I'm on 7.5 mg of hydrocodone every six hours, which brings some relief. I'm going to ring up the Cheesecake Factory and see if they do anything like that meal you described above. That's what I call "comfort food." -- Nephele

You'll care when our government decides to send troops into Darfur next, and our tax dollars start pouring into another backward country that hates our guts. -- Nephele

You're welcome. Do we have anyone here inclined to pull together a list of musical instruments of the classical Greek and Roman world, with descriptions and accompanying mp3 links (if any sound files can be found)? What an excellent resource that would make for UNRV. -- Nephele

Charlie Collins, you are descended from that eminent Roman jurist, A. Cascellius, "a man of stern republican principles." Your cognomen is "Melior," meaning "better; a better man," suggesting that you may be an improved version of the original Cascellius. Your praenomen is "Aulus," the same as that of the original Cascellius, customarily abbreviated as "A." Your full Roman name is: A. Cascellius Melior = ceasorlhmasllceji -jh +iu Welcome to UNRV! -- Nephele P.S. It looks as though you may have left an "n" out of your scramble.

Kosmo, I'm willng to bet that you learned more useful things after you got out of school. Clearly the problems with compulsory education are universal. My man, as a successful author of novels for young adults, is frequently invited to speak at high schools and middle schools. For every kid in the classroom who has a genuine interest in writing, journalism, and publishing, there are at least three who make it painfully obvious that they would prefer to be with their friends at the local mall. I have sat in on some of these classroom presentations and watched students text-messaging their friends in class. Even in college, where students are presumably there of their own volition, one wonders whether some of these students are really there because parent-financed (or government-financed), full-time tuition was a more appealing alternative to finding a job. My man recently gave a talk to a literature class at Hofstra University, and I noticed one student in that class had her lunch spread out on her desk before her and was studiously devoting more attention to opening a container of pudding than listening to or participating in the class discussion. Sorry if this offends you Antiochus, but an appalling number of students are themselves to blame for the fact that they're not learning much -- in school or elsewhere. You wrote that you'd forgotten to mention that you did learn about genocide in Darfur in your history class, but "we never learned where Darfur was." This is what I'm talking about when I say that a lot of students expect to be spoon-fed everything, like babies. If your teacher took "about 7-10 minutes" to introduce your fellow students to current events in Darfur, then that should have sparked curiosity to go and find out more. Presumably your fellow students are given history and geography textbooks (with maps) that they might crack open on occasion. If the school textbooks are outdated, then there are computers with Internet access. Clearly you must have availed yourself of this, Antiochus, because you know where Darfur is. What was stopping your schoolmates from doing the same? In the old days, we used to call this thing "homework." -- Nephele

Pardon??? I support a view of education that promotes curiosity, personal research, and self-reliance. I oppose a view of compulsory education that promotes indoctrination, unrealistic politics-driven standards, and refusal to accept the reality that some mothers' darlings aren't going to become achievers no matter how much "feel good" encouragement they're given. Far from your assumptions about my view on education, the many bright kids (and adults) who choose to make use of my public library's print and electronic resources for their education needs don't come from wealthy homes, and quite a few of them have a less than ideal family life. A good number of them are hard-working immigrants, in fact, learning English as a second language (we have an active Literacy Volunteers program in my library). They all have the same thing in common -- a willingness to learn and the drive to pursue learning on their own. I don't just think that our state education system is flawed and "needs to be changed." I think that our state education system has perhaps outlived its usefulness. -- Nephele

You can hear the lovely sound of the epigonion here: http://www.astraproject.org/examples/dufay.mp3 -- Nephele

A design which (I believe) since at least the 19th century was to prevent children from being employed for excessive and exploitative work hours in factories, on farms, etc. I don't think that compulsory education has ever been any guarantee that all children are going to be educated satisfactorily. Compulsory education in past times merely gave the time, freedom, and opportunity of learning to children who might otherwise have been put to work to support their families or Dickensian workmasters. Times have changed -- at lease in those first world nations sensitive to international censure for the exploitation of their children. I think that in nations such as our own, which possess the advantages of modern technology (as I mentioned earlier in this thread), self-motivated students can more easily assume personal responsibility for their own education. We could do away with State education. Students who have no interest in learning aren't going to benefit from State education anyway. PP, I hear you. Perhaps a disinterest in the tyrannical regimes of Africa (especially when interest is shown in other areas, such as technology) shouldn't earn a student the label of "lazy." But another example of student ignorance cited in this thread was that only 33 percent of the students in Antiochus III's school could point out Egypt on a map. I mean, come on. I can't excuse that. Those are some pretty damn lazy, spoiled students in that "pretty good" school. Even if their teachers don't spoon-feed them, if they at least have access to a computer then there's nothing stopping them from having access to the world. -- Nephele

While I agree in general, I'd just like to add that one doesn't necessarily need to be lazy or spoiled to be disinterested in a particular current event; whether that event is historically and/or socially significant or not. Absolutely, PP. It's just that more should be expected of young people in school. They're supposed to be learning something -- that's their J.O.B. If they lack initiative and personal responsibility when it comes to learning, what does this tell us about the kind of employees they're going to be when they enter the adult world and the workforce? I have kids as young as 14-years-old working in my public library as shelving pages (the library is their second job, after their main job, which is school), and these kids are self-motivated and well-informed. They go to the same schools as the kids who aren't so interested in learning. It's not always the schools that's the problem -- it's more often the home environment and the kids themselves. -- Nephele

I don't think this is as much a reflection on your "school which is good," as it is a reflection on students themselves who must be spoon-fed everything by their teachers, by society, by their government, etc. With the vast resources of the Internet these days, students should be better informed, regardless of their school. Besides the ease with which one can access news articles on the 'net, opportunities for discussion of world events (with people from around the world) exist on countless discussion boards -- far more opportunities than ever existed in the classrooms of earlier generations. For crapsake, one doesn't even need to be a member of a history discussion forum, as one can usually find a few active threads dealing with current events on just about any sort of discussion board. Such ignorance in your school regarding Darfur can mostly be attributed to disinterest on the part of lazy and spoiled students. -- Nephele

Not to denigrate the Beatles or anything, but what the heck does one do with one's Master of Arts degree in the Beatles, anyway? Become a paperback writer on the Beatles? People are doing that already -- and successfully. I should think a degree covering the broader subject of popular music, or journalism, would be more useful. What's next? A degree in Elvis? Sounds to me like it's the university that's going to benefit the most out of this -- from the tuition money they rake in from Beatles fans. -- Nephele

Vipsania, you are a freedwoman, your slave name having been "Tyche" (meaning "luck" in Greek). And a lucky slave you were, for your master, the distinguished consul (of 101 C.E.) Gaius Rubrius Gallus, was kind to you and gave you your freedom while you were still young. As was customary, you took the nomen gentilicium of your former master (in the feminine form) for your own name, while retaining your Greek name as your cognomen. Thus, your full Roman name as a freedwoman is: Rubria Tyche = tiarce brcuh -c +y Welcome to UNRV! -- Nephele

You're welcome. I've also contacted the library at Brasenose to see if they can offer a more complete translation for you. I'll post here if/when I hear back from them. -- Nephele

"S.T.B." is a college degree that stands for Bachelor of Sacred Theology. As for the rest, I'll take a stab at it... I think "legavit" and "donavit" mean "bequeathed; gave." "Comensalis" refers to a "companion at the table," a common-fellow at the college. A "Sacellanus" is a kind of chaplain. "Libras" = British pounds donated? That's all I can get out of it. Anyone else? -- Nephele

Many thanks for providing those links to the earlier discussions, MPC, which I seemed to have trouble finding! So, we can attribute the discrepancy in Caesar's birthdate perhaps to special senatorial dispensation granted him for election to his various magisterial offices, or simply perhaps to an error on the part of Caesar's earliest historians. But certainly (Caesar CXXXVII, very funny!) not due to Caesar's vanity (at least, not in this case). -- Nephele

Out of deepest respect for the hilarious assholyness of Louis CK, I shall anagram for him a zombie alias: Louis Szekely = "Skull-Eyes" Ozi -- Nephele

Well done! Fascinating book (from the review, I've yet to get a copy of the book), and insightful interview. -- Nephele

When AncientLibrary went down last summer, that was when I decided to purchase my own set of Smith's Dictionary. I really lucked out on that deal, as I got my 3-volume set (1890 edition) for the insanely low price of no more than $50 per volume. Plus, the set I got was barely used, as many of the pages were still uncut. But, yes, nothing beats AncientLibrary for ease of navigation. I'll go back to accessing the site, to spare wear and tear on my Smith's volumes. (And I've no regrets having purchased those -- the gems among a few rare treasures in my personal library.) -- Nephele

Nero, your name can be anagrammed directly into a Roman name, without the use of blanagramming. You are a member of the Poetelii, a gens which gave birth to six consuls in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE of the Roman Republic. Your cognomen of "Vemens" means "violent; vehement," attesting to the impetuous nature of your ancestors (and perhaps even your own nature). Your praenomen is "Lar," a rare praenomen of Etruscan origin, believed to mean "Lord." Your full Roman name is: Lar Poetelius Vemens = ueemeevoarslniptsl Welcome to UNRV! -- Nephele