Home of Daily Classics, where I translate a passage every day that I can, in the interests of keeping myself sane. (Page above if you want to browse the collection). Also home to a vast number of Classics/art/photography/history/fashion reblogs. Which most people find more interesting.
“As night fades, we are born again, day upon day; of our previous life, nothing still remains to us; we leave the road we trod yesterday, never to return; we begin today the rest of our life. So don’t tell yourself all those years are too much, old one: they’re past and they mean nothing to you today.”
—
Palladas in the Greek Anthology (10.79); my translation
As night fades, we are born again, day upon day;
of our previous life, nothing still remains to us;
we leave the road we trod yesterday, never to return;
we begin today the rest of our life.
So don’t tell yourself all those years are too much, old one:
they’re past and they mean nothing to you today.
Palladas in the Greek Anthology (10.79); my translation
This was the pirates’ most offensive practice: whenever someone they’d captured told them that he was Roman and gave his name, they’d pretend to be struck by fear and terror. They would beat their thighs and prostrate themselves to him, pleading for his pardon; seeing them pleading with him and abasing themselves, he’d be persuaded by the show. Then some of them would tie up proper Roman sandals on his feet, and others would dress him in a toga, so that they’d know his citizenship for certain next time.
So they’d have their mummery and their fun with this man for a good long time, but finally they’d let down a ladder while they were out on the high seas, and order him to go ashore and leave them with good cheer. And if he wasn’t willing, they’d just throw him off and drown him.
(Plutarch, On The Life of Pompey, 24.7-8; my translation)
~ Artemis of Ephesus.
Date: Second half of the 2nd century CE.
Head, feet and hands restored by Valadier in bronze
Medium: Alabaster, bronze
Provenance: Naples, National Archaeological Museum
(Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli)
Ajax carries the body of the fallen Achilles off the battlefield at Troy. Side A of an Attic black-figure amphora, attributed to Exekias; ca. 540-530 BCE. From Vulci; now in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich.
This memorial was raised by Damis for his horse:
steadfast, now passed, since bloody Ares
stabbed him through the chest. His black blood
bubbled through his courageous flesh,
and he soaked the earth with his agonising slaughter.
For her cricket - nightingale of the fields - and for her oak-dwelling
cicada, a single grave was made by Myro,
the girl weeping her maiden's tears all the time; for both her playmates
were taken by the hard-hearted god when he came: Haides.
Anyte in the Greek Anthology (7.190); my translation
Hello, I saw you mention the Ugaritic Texts in an earlier post. I was wondering, are there any good english translations of those currently in book format or otherwise?
I’m afraid I have no idea: it’s not really my field. I’m a very amateur Sumerologist at best, and even that just means I occasionally have to interact with Akkadian and other languages that used a cuneiform. You might do well to ask mostlydeadlanguages, from whom I reblogged that post.
I hope this helps, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more use.
For in his invective against Philip's friends, he says, "Meant to be man-slayers by nature, they were man-layers in practice; though called courtiers, they were escorts."
Fragment of Theopompos in Demetrios' On Elocution (1.27); my translation
And I saw, and - there! - a white horse, and the one riding it held a bow, and he wore a garland, and he went out conquering and for the sake of conquest. …
And another horse came out, red, and to the one riding it was given the power to overpower the peace in the land - even so that he could turn its people to slaughtering each other - and a great sword was given to him. …
And I saw, and - there! - a black horse, and the one riding it held a balance in his hand. And I heard a voice among the four living beings saying, “A day’s food for a denarius, and three day’s barley for a denarius, and do no ill to the oil or the wine!” …
And I saw, and - there! - a pale horse, and the one riding upon it was named “Death”, and Haides followed him; and dominance was given to them each over a quarter of the land, to kill by blade and by hunger and by death and by the wild beasts of the land.
(Christian Bible, Book of Revelations 6.2-8; my translation)
Modern pop culture prefers War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, though here we have no Pestilence (this seems to derive from a peculiar translation of the θανάτῳ that is one of the Horsemen's weapons as 'pestilence' or 'plague' in certain editions, despite the Horseman Θάνατος remaing the simple and literal Death earlier in the very same sentence).
Instead, by my reading, there is Conquest and Strife, so to speak - the division is between Greek πολέμιοι and ἐχθρός, or Latin hostis and inimicus, the enemies of the public state and the private individual. This was an intuitive and often-invoked duality (Plato, Cicero, &c.) in the Classical period, and so not likely to be subject of one complaint I heard on translating this elsewhere: that Conquest and Strife are too similar and therefore uninteresting to a modern culture.
I here break my general rule of not translating the Christian Bible because its language is so direly uninteresting.
And I saw, and - there! - a white horse, and the one riding it held a bow, and he wore a garland, and he went out conquering and for the sake of conquest. ...
And another horse came out, red, and to the one riding it was given the power to overpower the peace in the land - even so that he could turn its people to slaughtering each other - and a great sword was given to him. ...
And I saw, and - there! - a black horse, and the one riding it held a balance in his hand. And I heard a voice among the four living beings saying, "A day's food for a denarius, and three day's barley for a denarius, and do no ill to the oil or the wine!" ...
And I saw, and - there! - a pale horse, and the one riding upon it was named "Death", and Haides followed him; and dominance was given to them each over a quarter of the land, to kill by blade and by hunger and by death and by the wild beasts of the land.
(Christian Bible, Book of Revelations 6.2-8; my translation)
As soon as he took the mortal blow, he immediately filled his hand with his own lifeblood, and hurled it into the air, and said, "You've won, Galilean."
Alleged final words of Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor (Theodoret, Church History 3.20); my translation
J. C. Mann, ‘Gymnazo’ in Thucydides’ 1.6.5′, CR 24, 178, quoted in L. Llewellyn-Jones, ‘Domestic abuse and violence against women in Ancient Greece’, in S. D. Lambert, ed., Sociable Man, 2011. (via newfavething)
Meanwhile, the son of Peleus did not yet forget
his spirit, for in his unconquerable limbs
the black blood still boiled with eagerness for war.
Then not one of the Trojans dared to come near him,
even after he was shot, but stood far far away, like when a lion
makes countrypeople in the woods stand in awe, though it
has been shot by a hunter; despite being struck in the heart by an arrow,
it does not forget its courage, but stares about savagely
and roars terribly from its bristling jaws.
Just so, anger and the deadly wound roused the son of Peleus'
spirit to its highest, though the god's arrow broke him.
Even so, he sprang up and charged among his enemies,
mighty spear poised: he killed godlike Orythaon,
Hektor's noble companion, having struck him through the temple -
his helmet did not stop the great spear as it was intended to,
and instead it went straight through helm and skull
into the nerves of the brain, and put an end to his great life.
Hipponoos too he broke, thrusting his spear under his brow
into the roots of his eye; his eyeball fell to the earth
from under his eyelid, and his spirit flew down to to the house of Haides.
Alkathoos then he stabbed through the jaw
and cut away his whole tongue: he fell to the ground,
breathing his last, the spearpoint coming out of his ear.
And these he slew when they rushed to face him,
that godlike man, and he took the spirits of many others
as they fled, for in his heart the blood still boiled.
(Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 3.138-63; my translation)
~ So-called “Vase of Patroclus”/Red-figure volute-krater.
Place of origin: Apulia
Artist: Darius Painter
Date: 340—320 B.C.
Medium: Clay
Provenance: Naples, National Archaeological Museum
(Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli)
