It is giving Tuesday. You might be the giving sort. You might not.

Link to Give.

Here’s my plea. I set down a sabbatical to finish book three and picked up the chairship of my department in large part because I believe in the LGI and the right of everyone regardless of family background or economic means to learn Latin and Greek. (an earlier essay on the value of studying ancient languages)

The LGI is older than I am and has trained the best philologists in our field and enabled hundreds of others who came late to the field to pursue their dreams of studying the Greek and Roman World. There are a hundred more medievalists, and political scientists, and religious scholars, art historians and philosophers who used and continue to use the LGI to access more directly and accurately the texts relevant to their research.

It has no permanent faculty. We count on our long term PT faculty giving up their summers (and good deal of their springs in preparation) year after year to make this possible. They do. The LGI engenders deep commitment from all its faculty and staff. It is a grueling intensive program that gets results. Our students wouldn’t succeed without this dedicated faculty.

Enrollments are high. We could admit more if we could support more to study in NYC. We could admit more if we could recruit and train more faculty. If we had staff to support the back end.

This campaign is our first giving Tuesday ask. The LGI needs an endowment to protect it from the winds of fortune at a public institution of higher ed.

And, once it is more secure, I can more comfortably go back to writing books (and more blog posts along the way).

So if you are giving sort and like this blog, please chip in a little something. Each donor shows that we have supporters. Give 100. Give 10. Give 1000! Give 10,000?

Anyway. I had to ask.

Link to Give.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I’m just archiving a Blue Sky conversation and ensuring I can find the topic of erotes (cupides) and child labor and slavery when my brain wants to return to it. I put the bibliography at the end because I wasn’t sure how ‘original’ my thinking was on this. Sometimes I say stuff so much I come to believe it without remembers to check in with my colleagues. Sloppy intellectual thinking.

Just a little possibly relevant bibliography

This deck contains slides used in all four talks but is not the precise deck used in anyone version.

If you follow me on social media you know that I had quite the odyssey to get to McMaster because while I am something of a Diva, I can’t compete with the Diva queen who performed in Toronto last night clogging every airport, rental car counter, and highway between NYC and points north. I made it by re-routing through Buffalo and renting a electric Kia Niro (strongly recommend) in a lovely shade of green. Yesterday’s heart-pounding stream of rebookings were made up for by the gorgeous venue, mouthwatering dinner, lively conversation and falling into a truly lux hotel bed.

So after minor struggles with chargers in the rain (gas stations sorted this back in the 1950s or earlier clearly we can do better!), I’m in a great mood at the Buffalo airport and thinking about the future of this paper over a plate of wings and a bloody maria (tequila, because vodka is boring).

I said as I presented this talk that this was its last outing. 4 times feels like the end of the road for any research topic. I’ve in the past resisted any repeats for research talks. But, in this model where I don’t script, just talk, the multiple instantiations have helped me figure out what the hell I’m talking about. Is there a there there?

I think in the end the answer is yes. It’s just in answering my research questions and returning to old projects, I find I can finally articulate why this material interests me and what the real gut level question has been all along.

DOES MONEY MATTER?

Let’s narrow that down a bit. Is money a factor in political shifts? And if so, how and why? Can we separate out economic factors from politic and can we disentangle which drives which? This was the first time presenting this paper post election (no I don’t want to go there, but I insist on being radically honest about influences on my thinking past and present).

[I’ve switched to a virgin mary, no I don’t really write while drinking even this kind of mind dump research journalling.]

So I started from a desire to ask: are economics or social factors driving politics?

Then I moved to wondering more if the right question was between economics driving politics or politics driving economics or at least economic anxieties. For a while I wanted to know if this was even a question like the dichotomy of the first question. Can’t we just throw our hands up like good Episco-peeps disputing the nature of communion and declare a both/and paradox where we must seek to trace the via media, the middle way.

[ten minutes until boarding]

And yet I don’t think any of this is really the issue. I don’t believe a significant economic or monetary crisis contributed in the slightest to the conditions that allowed Caesar to cross the Rubicon and change Rome forever ever more.

Yes, property was overvalued in the city of Rome in the 20 years before.

Yes, Rome had a sophisticated system of credit and interest rates were determined by the relationships of borrower and creditor, meaning that interest and payment schedules fluctuated in an unpredictable manner.

Yes, Rome was deeply committed to extracting wealth from the wider Mediterranean and yes there was the a deep entanglement of taxation of and private lending to communities and individuals.

Yes, war and social unrest created widespread economic anxiety and true hardships for some.

Yes, the Roman mint was not striking sufficient small change for the general population and ridiculously curtailed mint out put of silver in the four years before Caesar’s crossing. This is best explained by a surplus of struck coin and plenty of silver reserves in the state treasury.

No one voted Pompey or Crassus or Caesar in because of the cost of milk, bread, and gas.

So does money matter? Yes, I think it does, but I THINK it matters because of the economic differential between the state and the wealthiest individuals.

Rome was and remained wealthier than any one of the ultra wealthy, but private individuals could and did spend money of public affairs to rival the state. This ability to spend, this wealth hoarding, could and did destabilize the Roman state.

And, with some relief I can tell you that at present our own modern day ultra wealthy cannot spend anywhere near the spending of the major world governments. And therein is the difference between my modern contemporary anxieties and my cool headed reading of the ancient evidence. There is no one on this planet who is as rich as Crassus at least in comparison of spending power to the government.

Crassus shows that money was not enough. Leadership mattered. Talent and acumen count for a great deal. And, yet I think I might be able to defend a position that argues the economic crisis of the 50s (if we can call it such) was the demonstration that individuals could and would spend more on public affairs than the state itself, thus usurping state prerogatives and eventually destabilizing the very constitution.

I need to go board, but this is a first stab at expressing some of the ideas that evidence of this paper might reasonable support in a fuller formal version.

link to object in trade

Ever since getting back from Buffalo and the Lockwood collection I’ve had so-called peace medals on the brain.

This isn’t a totally new interest for me, but came up as I was preparing my 2018 article:

Liv Mariah Yarrow, The tree and sunset motif: the long shadow of Roman imperialism on representations of Africa, Classical Receptions Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3, July 2018, Pages 275–311.  (link without paywall).

The key portion is below.  When I published this I had not yet thought more about the Lewis’s speech and its rhetorical antecedents.  (a blog post).

Above is a pretty standard design. The ANS has arguably the largest collection in the world (link to all photographed specimens in their collection).

My interest started from the reception of classical iconography of the clasped hands. This blog post is inspired by the image of the native leader wearing a medal. This is a key feature of the Morro Velho medals used as a form of slave control. Again discussed briefly in my 2018 article. I did go the UTAustin and read all the mine’s archival records looking for details of the production of this medal and have my own scans. It was a book plate engraver in London who made them not one of the major token/medal producers. I need to circle back to that project and get that published. Maybe the connection to early peace medals will get me more motivated to do that.

Early Post. ANS link.

For the prevalence of these medals in the Lewis and Clarke expedition don’t just use key word medal but also meadal a common spelling variation. A theme of these journal entries is that size matters to recipients.

The other thought I want to write about down the road is the occasional cuff on the indigenous hand on the clasped hand medals. The white wrist is a military cuff, the eagle seems to be a fictive(?) medal bracelet with a design at once patriotic and tied to the distinctive fauna of the land.

Is the axe a weapon of war ‘tomahawk’ or is it meant to represent the felling and clearing of trees to make way for agriculture? Notice it is on the ground in the design of the top medal.

ANS link.

Why does class prep have to be full of such interesting and relevant images for my research?! This is raising my blood pressure. And of course a student walked in an I had to go all geek out special interest telling them why this image made me so excited.

Detail of Cancelleria Relief

I’ve been worried for so so long about the notches in the spearhead of just some of the amphora/spearhead currency bars (so-called Aes Signatum) and NOW I HAVE A PARALLEL in the ritual attribute of a figure typically identified as Honos personified. Nope. I think as I look closer that the object is held by the guy who looks a little like Nero and has a round disc (shield) clasped in his other hand.

I totally don’t have time to write this post. I’m prepping a new class and a talk for Buffalo. Yet, I have to get this down. (Link to Berlin specimen)

But F— It. I want to write. So I’m going to write.

This images of ‘Jupiter’ recalls the portrayal of the disputed Veovis/Apollo types on the republican series. Wiseman wrote about this and Macer, but you can see an overview on p. 148 of my book. Maybe I’ll even drop in an image of that down the road. Those representations are not bearded.

Veovis is a disputed god. I’m sure I’ve got a blog post or three on that.

If we don’t see the above coin through a Republican lens how would it fit into an imperial context

Jupiter isn’t that common on the Roman mint coins.

IOVIS TONANTIS: Augustus 19 BCE (with variations)

IVPPITER CVSTOS: Nero, c. 64-65 CE (with variations)

The above coin unlabeled and paired with the Genius of the Roman People (so republican!)

The pairing might make this next type with GPR and IOM CAPITOL (Paris) a kissing cousin.

BUT I don’t think so.

RIC Civil Wars 123-128 have lots of busts of IOM CAPITOL and the iconography of the busts is v different (the pairing on these is with Vesta).

Not the reverse view, diadem not wreath crown, palm if any attribute not thunderbolt (fulmen).

The Civil War also gives us

IVPPITER CONSERVATOR paired with:

• anonymous type paired with a Venus-like female bust and AVGVST legend
• ROMA RESTITVTA

IVPPITER CVSTOS paired with:

• Roma
• ROMA RESTITVTA
• VIRT[us]

IVPPITER LIBERATOR paired with:

• ROMA RESTITVTA

Otho uses a seated Jupiter with the legend PONT MAX as a reverse type.

Vitellius uses I O MAX CAPITOLINVS and IVPPITER VICTOR reverses.

Once established in 76 CE Vespasian revives IOVIS CVSTOS.

84-85 Domitian revives IVPPITER CONSERVATOR and IOVIS VICTOR but primarily on Bronze

There are quadrans that use Jupiter as an obverse type from this this period or later. The interest in Jupiter qua Jupiter with aspect labeled in legend fades.

The anonymous issues of the Civil War continue to intrigue me for their republican allusions. More later I hope.

Yesterday was grading (today as well). I posted this to Twitter while giving myself a micro-break with a museum database to refresh my soul.

In response an anonymous post shared this.

The parallel between the nineteenth century intaglio and this gold piece is … concerning. The Cameo is in the Boston MFA (Beazley link with many other imitations illustrated).

I would have questioned the antiquity of the cameo too but after consulting with more learned friends I’m now convinced that its 16th century provenance (said to be discovered at Sentium before 1572, sold at Venice, and in the Howard collection, and known to Stosch) makes it almost certainly ancient.

Looking briefly at Cupid and Psyche iconography I can find no great ancient parallels (YET!) and no I haven’t been through LIMC plates yet.

But my finds of unknown date include these parallels:

and this lovely Wedgwood glass paste (BM)

Ok. I hope this post is enough to restore my focus to more pressing tasks.

From RASPE

See in future:

WARNING: This blog post contains SPOILERS about Greek myth and history, a little Shakespeare, and a 1991 SF novel.

Yesterday and today I am struggling with how to address the use of what we’ve been calling AI — it’s just a large language model, for now. All educators are dealing with this these days and the answers have not been great. Some educators at both the HS level and the college level are simply not giving any assignments completed outside the classroom any weight in the assessment of student learning.

What’s the problem with that you ask?

First, Time. My time with my students is precious. According to our bulletin (most accredited institutions)students should dedicate twice the amount of time outside of class learning as in class. If I only assess work completed in the classroom, the time to complete that work comes out of my teaching time. Students get less instruction.

Second, Power Dynamics. When instructors obsess over policing academic integrity we lose sight of our relationship with students. We become primarily rule-enforcers rather than mentors, educators, and coaches. We lose the ability to reach our students across the gaping power differential. There are always ways to break the rules (and even get away with it). If a student doesn’t value the learning and respect integrity of the assessment process, more dystopian futures of enforcement won’t help. It only feeds a technological arms race with students consuming technology to enable ‘easy answers’ and educators and institutions will always be looking to buy better ‘detectors’ or ‘prevention methods’.

The solutions must be cultural and based on the relational rather than transactional aspects of education.

Why do I believe this? Why do I want to stay in relationship with students who have sought or may seek to deceive me? Why do I hope they may wish to stay in relationship with me?

Largely because humans have been struggling with these issues for millennia and telling stories about the risks they entail. My experiences with A.I. and my students and colleagues resonates with the fantastic narratives I read or watch for pleasure and the texts I have taught for more than 20 years.

Pithy Answers

Apollo slew the great Pytho^* to win his shrine at Delphi. In honor of this his priestess, his voice on earth, his oracle, was named the Pythia. When something is said in a witty, concise manner we describe that as “pithy” to recall the nature of the responses given by the Pythia to those mortals who came to seek answers to difficult questions. The Pythia is always right but almost always misinterpreted. Oedipus’ parents are told their son will kill his father and marry his mother. They toss him away only to have him found and reared by other parents. He hears his own fate and trying to avoid it flees his adoptive parents and ends up killing his birth father and marrying his birth mother. Croesus wonders what will happen if invades Persia and is told “a great empire will fall”. Of course, being an optimist, he goes ahead only to have his own great empire of Lydia toppled by Cyrus the Great. If only they understood the ‘true’ answers and how to use that knowledge!

Or, maybe it is worse to have access to these questions and be tempted to use it? Socrates rebuked Xenophon for asking the wrong question before his ill-fated expedition with a much less great Cyrus. Xenophon tried to constrain the answer through the forming of his question: “What gods should I propitiate to have success in this endeavor?” Xenophon and a few of his comrades reached the sea and made it home to inspire others on their own ill-fated retreats. Many did not return. All were scarred. What if he’d asked a better question: “What will it cost me if I go?”

Weird Answers

I thought a great deal about the Delphic oracle while watching Macbeth with members of the BC Classical Society, a wonderful student club, which initiated a group viewing of campus production of “the Scottish play”.

Shakespeare reworked historical fiction to tell a story of the evils of “true” answers caused by the limits of human understanding. Macbeth was a real person, so Duncan, and so Malcolm, but none lived lives as we see on the stage or remember. Banquo and MacDuff were not purely Shakespeare’s own invention but may be considered shared fictional characters. Macbeth is tempted by seemly miraculous access to information. He asks again and again. And each ‘true’ statement brings him only deeper toward his own tragic end. Banquo tries to abide by his own moral code even as he asks and receives delicious answers. Macbeth is jealous of his access to this knowledge and Banquo’s own demise is the cost of knowing. We are also left to wonder if the answers given to Banquo are even correct. Shakespeare does not have them manifest on stage. Malcolm takes the crown. Sure the Stuarts claim Banquo’s equally fictional surviving son Fleance as an ancestor to legitimate their rule, but is it true? Did the audience believe it to be true? How can we verify the weird answers of the three sisters?

You can read those those better versed in these things to learn about how Shakespeare intersects with the classical tradition of riddles and prophecy.^**

A Bird^*** of a Different Feather?

I finished the last 20 minutes of my latest audiobook, All the Weyrs of Pern (1991), on the drive home from the dropping my children at school. I’d guessed from the foreshadowing how it would end and yet nonetheless it was poignant and I find myself writing now instead of addressing some most necessary piece of bureaucracy or service.

Pern is a world created by Anne McCaffery in the late nineteen-sixties and is still to some degree being created by her children and intellectual heirs. It was colonized by future Earthers looking to start afresh by using technology to escape the devastation of this world. (A dangerous SF trope influencing the minds of men with too much money today.). All goes well until unforeseen natural disaster on the new world returns the descendants of the original colonists to a pre-modern state. Fast forward more than two millennia and Pernese start excavating their past. The discoveries influence fashions and create social unrest. The best and worst of the discoveries is the A.I.V.A.S. or the Artificial Intelligence Voice Address System.

Let me tell you how disappointed I am to find no actual SF scholars have yet written about A.I.V.A.S. (as far as I can find)!

This character and how society reacts to it speak volumes to our present moment and has had me pause the playback on many occasions just to let the implications of this 1991 vision of today’s reality sink in fully. A.I.V.A.S. will remind readers of the computer in Star Trek and similar remarkable seemingly all-knowing data storage and computation tools from other SF worlds. A.I.V.A.S. holds necessary information for the Pernese to overcome the constant threat of natural disaster and thus have the material and temporal resources necessary for more than a subsistence living.

And, once the mission is accomplished, the machine destroys itself. Without the specific mission and focus of its energies, it will only disrupt society rather support it. The information it held is still accessible, but the ability to rely on the character of A.I.V.A.S., the interface that demands little or no comprehension of the mortal human accessing it must be removed.

What now?

I don’t think any of our AI will turn itself off. It has been programmed to capture our eyeballs and continually fascinate us, rather than to protect us and our intellectual autonomy. It is closer to Macbeth’s weird sisters than A.I.V.A.S. At best it might be pithy, a clever tool, of which we may if we dare ask questions and try to use the answers without (too much) risk. Futile attempts to smash AI, ignore it, or calling ‘the abomination’ will get us nowhere. Thoughtful, cautious engagement is where we must start.

I do know that thinking about the character of AI is something I want to do more and something I will invite my students to do alongside me.

* –

Python as we use the word today was imposed during the European taxonomy revolution and is only first attested in 1803. It is a borrowing of the classical to describe the ‘exotic’ without any inquiry of

** –

Davies, Malcolm. “‘All’and ‘Nothing’: Existential Riddles and Cosmic Pessimism in Ancient Greek Literature and Shakespeare.” GAIA. Revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grèce ancienne 18, no. 1 (2015): 455-469.

Fontenrose, Joseph. “The Oracular Response as a Traditional Narrative Theme.” Journal of Folklore Research (1983): 113-120.

*** –

Avis is Latin for bird. I’m playing with the homophone and wonder if the author may have intended this.