Posts by Bryan

Hello! Thank you for joining and thank you for that story -- it almost makes me want to start leaving copies of Lucretius in public places! It is exciting to have someone with such credentials here!

Quote from Cassius

You have a couple of versions of each sentence joined with a sort of "nodictionaries.com" word by word definition?

It is comparable to "nodictionaries.com" but I think their formatting is superior. I intended to have the vocabulary at an intermediate level, but that formatting for "nodictionaries.com" allows for full flexibility to toggle between levels. This makes it more alive, which I really appreciate.

Quote from Don

And that vocab list was generated automatically by ChatGPT?

Yes it was and (I think even more helpfully) it put the text into sections (I attached the prompt, but it is nothing special). Although, I did make the large breaks (eg, breaking [44] into [44a] and [44b]) and added the translation comparisons. I'll be going through it in 2024 and add etymological notes and another translation. It's much better than a crossword puzzle.

"I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more careless of my unfinished garden.” —Montaigne

The results are mixed, and the robot translations are bad, but just producing this "backbone" would have previously taken a lot of time yet this only took a few hours. With this as a starting point, producing another translation (not that another one is needed) is made fun and easy --- as most of the pieces are put right in front of you.

Just bought it -- should be here in two days, thanks Nate!

I love that you are lecturing Cicero as though he is sitting next to you.

Their recommendation for alpha to be pronounced as the "a" in "bad" is surprising. I am not sure I have even seen that suggested before. I suppose they did that to distinguish it from their recommendation of omicron to be pronounced as "o" in "got" (which is reasonable) but also is very close to the more normal range of recommendations for the pronunciation of alpha.

As they say this is for "degrees in ancient history, archaeology or classical archaeology where a high level of language expertise is not required" I know they are in the UK, so the "a" in bad is not as far off as it is in the US, so even if we pronounce "bad" like the king does, the recommendation still seems bad. A little IPA would have gone a long way.

They also say "αι combines the sounds of alpha and iota, producing a diphthong similar to the English ‘eye’." I agree with this, but I think it contradicts their recommendation for alpha to be pronounced as the "a" in "bad."

If we take the "a" in "bad" and slide it with an iota (either as "beat" or "bit") - we do not get "eye" but "a-ei" in "Maggie." However if alpha is pronounced as Smyth recommends (Spanish "casa" or "father") the slide of the diphthong correctly produces "aye."

I agree. Let me throw these into the mix.

Quote from Don

Is that a metaphor for using elephant-mounted troops in warfare?

Yes I agree that war elephants are the main thing -- and probably the only thing -- that Lucretius is referring to. But the Dio Chrysostrom quote had me thinking for the first time perhaps there could be a bit more to it. We know that frozen Mammoth tusk huts are some of the oldest architecture discovered... Maybe there was a time in India when Elephants were as common as buffalo were in the Great Plains 150 years ago, and their bones were really so common that they became part of the architecture for some tribes for awhile.

This is all wild speculation. The climate in India would not preserve this, so the signs from which we can infer are few.

Of course, elephant bones were present and recognized as such by those who were familiar with them.

I recently was thinking about "elephantos, India quorum milibus e multis vallo munitur eburno" "Elephants, many thousands of which fortify India with an ivory wall " (DRN 2.537), I always thought this "wall" was just poetic. I still do, but there is this:

Dio Chrysostrom (Discourse 79.4) “Again, if ivory is a marvelous possession and worth fighting for, the Indians are of all men most blest and pre-eminent by far, for in their land the bones of the elephants are tossed aside and no one troubles to go near them, just as in our land the bones of cattle and of asses are treated; they even say that in many places the skulls of the elephants, tusks and all, are built into their house walls”

Quote from Nate

I self-published is a collection lyrical poetry from three albums I wrote:

That is beautiful. However much we may like Latin, I am ready to put my vote for a nice new script for writing English! Honestly, I have always thrown the fictional baby away with the religious bathwater. Having been burnt by the Bible, I spurned all fiction since childhood. I need to get over it and try to read some Tolkien! There are infinite worlds, after all. We know there are worlds similar to ours, but we must also see that there are worlds very dissimilar from ours. It's wild out there.

Quote from Don

This is a highly controversial topic in some circles

Yes it can be a hot topic! I respect those who feel strongly about it, but I do not. We can tolerate academic fussing, but we don't want to get yelled at in Greek about the national spirit. I learned from Smyth, and it seems I have stuck to it, despite being somewhat bothered by the anachronistic φθχ fricatives at times (as you indicated, we can hold onto the 1st c. BC "Pompeian" usage like a life raft).

I compared Smyth to his recommendations from the 6th to the 1st c. BC. I see mostly agreement (to the extent that I am correctly connecting it to the IPA). Good stuff, thanks again for pointing it out!

Comparison with Ranieri's Greek Pronunciation Chronology

Quote from Don

It's just really hard, as an English speaker, to distinguish and produce the required contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops.

It really is -- and the video does a good job of highlighting those difficulties. I know that many teachers will mention the fact that this was the more nearly correct pronunciation of Attic, but will discard it on the first day in favor of φθχ fricatives. I like the idea, but it is difficult. Attempts to adopt the older pronunciation lead me to the expected awkwardness and errors, mostly over-doing the aspiration to provide a contrast with the unaspirated (a common mistake, as he says).

That is a good chart, thank you for sharing!

Regarding vowels: as I am looking at his chart, although I am consistent, I'd be guilty of the dreaded "anachronistic combinations of phonemes." Is it too sloppy to say that if it was used before the common era it is fair game? Some town could probably be found using that mix.

Quote from Don

It's an interesting thought experiment to consider how "evolved" Epicurus's pronunciation was toward fricativization and other features

Exactly, I think all we can say of the Greek used in the garden is that it was somewhere in the evolution -- even possibly including features more associated with later dates.

Quote from Nate

I published a little Tolkien project a while ago

I am interested, but sincerely ignorant of Tolkien (beyond the fact he is the author of The Lord of the Rings). I just did a quick wikipedia read however - interesting stuff! Is the script of Tengwar actually printed in the books and legible?

This is great. I see that for classical Attic he is recommending light aspirated stops, which is excellent. This chart shows clearly what I think is one of the more complicated parts of pronunciation.

I will throw these in as well:

[ U74 ] Plutarch, Against Colotes, 1114A: When he proposes at the beginning of his treatise that "the nature of existence is atoms and void," he treats that nature as one, dividing it into two parts, one of them actually nothing, but termed by you and your company "intangible," "empty," and "incorporeal."

[ U75 ] Sextus Empiricus, Against the Dogmatists, 3.333: Epíkouros was in the habit of using the terms holon (whole universe) and pan (all existence) equivalently when describing the nature of bodies and of the void. For at one point he says, "the nature of the whole universe is atoms and void."

[ U76 ] Plutarch, Against Colotes, 1112E: When Epíkouros says "nature of existing things is atoms and void," do we taken him to mean that "nature" is distinct from "existing things," or simply indicate "existing things," and nothing more, just as it is his habit for instance to use the expression "the nature of void," for "void," and indeed "the nature of all existence," for "all existence?"

I agree that epibole tes dianoias (mental focus) and prolepseis (anticipations/stereotypes) are two facets of the same faculty. I also agree every sensation (the criteria of reality) is prerational.

All ideas that are based in reality must necessarily be based upon images.

If the idea is not based in reality -- not based on images -- then it is not a prolepsis but a hypolepsis (post conception, afterthought, supposition) [DL 10.124].

Πάσα φανταστική ἐπιβολή is something like “the entire graphic perception” “the full pictorial focus” “the complete visual attention.”

I think the use of φανταστική (‘graphic’) here is only further explaining the process of mental focus; the whole phrase is therefore equivalent to ἡ ἐπιβολή τῆς διανοίας (‘the focus of the mind’), which Lucretius translates as animī iniectus ‘a casting of mental energy’ or ‘a throwing out of the attention' [DRN 2.740].

Instead of using the modern analogy of ‘focusing’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a camera), Ἐπίκουρος and Lucretius use the analogy of ‘throwing’ or ‘casting’ the mind (as though the mind were something like a net). The paraphrases animī iniectus and ἡ επιβολή τῆς διανοίας therefore are equivalent to our modern use of ‘attention.’

Basically, we need to distinguish between sensations and ideas. Sensations are true per se, but ideas are only true if they accurately reflect our repeated sensations. If we accept any idea as true per se, without demanding any evidence, we have undermined our sensations which are the only foundation we have to accurately understand our environment.

This is great, thank you!

As Epicurus said "those who have advanced sufficiently in observing the impression of the whole still must remember the arrangement of the whole topic -- therefore we often need the condensed view, but the particulars, not as frequently." [DL 10.35b]

I can confidently give one recommendation — do not watch television! I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house without television and I sill keep a far distance from it just as I would for any other screaming lunatic. Life IS easy and great — but your TV will argue against this fact!

(Giovanni Indelli construction) καὶ τὸ κακὸν οὐ μόνον ἔχον ὅρους κατὰ τὸ μέγεθος καὶ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ εὐεκκαρτέρητον, ἐπειδήπερ οὐδὲν ὄφελος ὡρίσθαι μέν, ἡμῖν δ' ἄκτητον ἢ δύσκτητον εἶναι τἀγαθόν, ἢ πεπεράνθαι μέν, ἀνεγκαρτέρητον δ' εἶναι διὰ τὴν πολυχρονιότητα τὸ κακόν.

"since it would be no use for it to be limited - ἐπειδήπερ οὐδὲν ὄφελος ὡρίσθαι μέν"

"while also, for us, the good is unattainable or difficult to get - ἡμῖν δ' ἄκτητον ἢ δύσκτητον εἶναι τἀγαθόν"

The word here is ὁρίζω

Therefore "defined" (as in "limited") has the correct sense.

(Voula Tsouna trans.) "…for otherwise it would be of no use that the good should be limited but impossible or difficult for us to attain..."

"Epicur.Fr.2" mentioned in the dictionary entry above is Usener Epicurea U2, which is the same as Diogenes Laertius 10.136 "Peace of mind and freedom from pain (ἀπονία) are pleasures which imply a state of rest..."

This is the only use I see in Diogenes Laertius book 10. Epicurus typically uses a construction with τὸ ἀλγοῦν (pain), for example "ἡ παντὸς τοῦ ἀλγοῦντος Ὑπεξαίρεσις - the Removal of all pain," "οὐκ ἔστι τὸ Ἀλγοῦν - there is no pain," (KD3)

"Τhis very thing is the good: Escaping from the bad -- because It is not possible for the good to be placed anywhere when neither what is painful nor what is distressing is any longer making way for it" (Plutarchi Non posse) 1091 A-B

If I were to chart my pleasure, it would most usually be at total pleasure with only occasional dips down due to uncommon circumstances (sickness, unexpected occurrences, etc).

The removal of pain, and the painlessness that results when pain is removed, is exactly what pleasure is.

I achieve full physical pleasure frequently and naturally by the internal process in my body when I have the necessary accommodations of food and shelter.

I achieve full mental pleasure just as naturally and frequently, by realizing the ease of obtaining physical contentment and fostering gratitude for my success in doing so.

In failing to appreciate this fact, the public (even when they are in a painless bodily state) tries to add to their pleasure by engaging in further activities (the things that produce pleasure of degenerates, τὰ Ποιητικὰ τῶν περὶ τοὺς ἀσώτους ἡδονῶν, KD10), which usually leads them to further pains and worries!

KD3 "The limit in the amount of pleasures is the removal of all pain."

KD4 "Pain does not last continuously in the body..."

This is great! The combination of audio and graphics in a short video is more likely to keep people's attention!