@keith.latinlexicon.org
Why'm I here? Don't know yet. Could this be an intellectual space for me? I have a master's in classical languages and literatures. OK at Latin. Greek needs work. Spanish, German, Sanskrit, etc are rusty. Proprietor of https://latinlexicon.org. 📚🏳️🌈🇺🇸🐻
There are lots of little snippets of Latin peppered throughout Sapkowski's new Witcher book, "Crossroads of Ravens."
Quirky characters. Funny! Bloody good read. Lots of vocabulary in the English translation that challenges my knowledge of archaic and medieval words.
They used to call it Southwest Airlines, way way way back in 2024. 🤣
Inscriptions, epigraphs, both Latin and Greek along with different scripts and letter forms used plus the archaeological context.
I found that seeing thousands in the real world made my Classical lit background much more salient e.g. Aquincum near Budapest. Not many Classical cemeteries in the US.
I finished up "Pompeii: The New Dig" on PBS Passport ... enjoyable!
I bought the DVD but it only has the first 3 episodes. The 4th looks like add-on, as it was released a year later.
I wonder if it'll ever be on DVD. Seems unlikely, but one can hope.
Donate and support PBS, if you're in the U.S!
Indeed He also had some dead pen pals.
"[He] also published many volumes of his letters, including a few written to long-dead figures from history such as Cicero and Virgil. Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca were his literary models."
It's starting to feel like Halloween up in here.
Now back to Poe.
Except English. And Poe. And Bluesky. 😝
But definitely not the 14th century Italian Renaissance humanist who rediscovered Cicero and also collected and preserved a large bulk of the Roman and Greek literature that exist today. Not *that* guy. 🤓
In any case, we both got caught hook line and sinker in the ... uh ... lesson ... of the epigraph. 🧐😜
That's hilarious 🤣
Definitely a Poe-ism.
Although not quite fake, it seems. Perhaps a game of telephone before the telephone was invented? Somebody quoting Petrarch quoting a non-extant work of Seneca?
I like this rather vulgar translation, although its looseness is probably not all that fitting for either context: "Don't be too smart for your own good."
From acuere and acus.
www.etymonline.com/word/acumen?...
latinlexicon.org/definition.p...
As always, Poe is foreshadowing something here. What could it be? Hmm. Something dreadful no doubt.
The subtext of the quote is negative, nefarious, because of Poe and all that. What was Seneca's intent?
"Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio."
-Seneca, by way of Poe in "The Purloined Letter"
"Nothing is more hateful to philosophy than excessive acumen."
Acumen, a word lifted unchanged from Latin, probably could do with something more colloquial here. Shrewdness, sharpness, often cleverness.
Copy in hand.
I'm enjoying this! I even bought the DVD. I've been to Herculaneum. Someday I'll return to Italy to visit Pompeii.
And then later, "In pace requiescat!"
"May he rest in peace!"
In Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", the motto on the arms of The Montresors says, "Nemo me impune lacessit." That is, "Nobody provokes me without punishment." A creeping bit of foreshadowing if ever there was one.
For #RomanSiteSaturday, the remarkable Ponte Mallio, Cagli, #Italia, which carries the Via Flamina across the Bosso. Some obvious Augustan improvements to an older structure, but there are parts of the bridge that appear to predate even the Roman period. It's an extraordinary thing, and I adore it
Newspaper article describing alleged murder of family by Andrew (Andy) Bockmeier.
Highlighted section of newspaper article describing Andrew Bockmeier as a graduate of Classical Studies at the University of New Mexico.
Facebook post listing Andrew Bockmeier, along with advisors and cohorts, as a participant in an event with the Junior Classical League.
I am both sad and disturbed to report that a cohors, evidently, murdered his entire family and burned down their house.
If the allegations turn out to be true, damnatio memoriae. But for now...
www.abqjournal.com/news/article...
I hit a bit of a milestone. Last Friday, I retired from the rat race. Next up, gentleman scholar. Or perhaps landscape painter. Or nude sculptor -- in the classy, artistic sense!!
#lingualatina
Thanks, Apple. Thanks for suggesting "who're" and "white" for "whore."
“The moon doesn’t have its own light: its light comes from the sun!” CAPITVLVUM TERTIVM DECIMVUM [XIII] 🙏
#familiaromana #llpsi #learnlatin #latinsaveslives #latin #lingualatina
I read Roman Homosexuality by Craig Williams for my thesis. Actually met him once when I was a grad student.
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/roman-homo...
Slightly idiomatic and archaic English: "Fighting must be done by trickery when one is not equal in arms."
More modern English: "You have to fight with deception when you have inferior weapons."
Did you fall for any #AprilFools gags today? The water dispenser at work wouldn't give me water.
It's almost time for another trip to England!
