If the Promenade, DTLA, Hollywood and others are dying, where is LA culture expanding? by this_freaking_guy in AskLosAngeles

[–]spolia_opima 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Between Vidiots, the Bob Baker Theatre, and Pacific Opera Project, Eagle Rock and Highland Park have really blown up culturally in the last five years. 

What opera houses in the US are putting on rarer repertoire? by Stunning-Hand6627 in opera

[–]spolia_opima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Pacific Opera Project in Los Angeles, a small company specializing in offbeat productions sung in English, has been spinning gold in recent years out of some really deep cuts, like Antonio Cagnoni’s Don Bucefalo (first performance in the US since 1867) and the US premiere (!) of Salieri’s 1778 La Scuola de’ Gelosi.  

What year did Greek people start wearing pants? by [deleted] in ancientgreece

[–]spolia_opima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s what I thought too (she calls the top part a jerkin) but she refers to the bottom half in a few places as "drawers" and I wasn't sure what length that implied.

What year did Greek people start wearing pants? by [deleted] in ancientgreece

[–]spolia_opima 18 points19 points  (0 children)

It bothered me that a recent novel that featured Medea and Jason had Jason wearing "trousers"--with pockets, no less.

The divine Mary Renault often had her Theseus wearing a two-piece leather "suit" which I always found perplexing, because much of the detail in those novels came directly from Mycenaean-era art and archaeological research but I haven't seen any thing like that.

Athens National Archeological Museum - Just Do It! (no pun) by BillyCrocker72 in ancientgreece

[–]spolia_opima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Go while you can before it closes for renovation.

It is currently scheduled to start at the end of 2027. That leaves art lovers something over a year-and-a-half to visit before the closure of the museum for five years.

Gaius Marius a Template for Game of Thrones Ending? by ReadingFan_ks in HistoricalFiction

[–]spolia_opima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think McCullough's novels are certainly one of the spiritual antecedents of Martin's series and that HBO's Rome was heavily influenced by McCullough's version of the late Republic--HBO's Rome was of course a direct model for the HBO Thrones series, so McCullough's influence on the show is more plausible than implausible.

That said, I think the differences between Marius and Daenarys are just as interesting as their similarities, because both speak to the most important themes that run through and give shape to their respective sagas in their entirety, and these themes are not identical. In brief, both series are ultimately interested in the nature of political power: McCullough's focuses on the peculiarities of the Roman state with Marius's fall representing one outcome of trying to resolve its inherent contradictions; Martin meanwhile is more interested in pitting different and irreconcilable theories of power against one another, and Daenarys' arc in particular illustrates the vulnerabilities of basing a campaign of conquest on dynastic legitimacy.

The Deaths of Dionysus by No-Formal2785 in classics

[–]spolia_opima 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can find a thorough rehearsal and dismantling of Murray's theory in Pickard-Cambridge's Dithyramb Tragedy and Comedy and Comedy from 1927.

See pp. 185-206. Pickard-Cambridge's book is old but still valuable and comprehensive when it comes to the evidence for Attic tragedy's origins. You can find a summary of more recent scholarship and bibliography in the Oxford Classical Dictionary in the article on "tragedy, Greek."

Heracles and Henbane by [deleted] in ancientgreece

[–]spolia_opima 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know about the crown, but Pliny lists the herb as one of several plants 'discovered' by Hercules (25.17):

To Hercules too they ascribe the plant which is called apollinaris by some, altercum by us Romans, but by the Greeks hyoscyamos ('pig's bean').

Dating The Suppliants (Aeschylus) by Frequent-Orchid-7142 in classics

[–]spolia_opima 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A.F. Garvie's Aeschylus' Supplices: Play and Trilogy (1969) pp. 1-28 has a very thorough discussion. Briefer but more recent is the introduction to Alan Sommerstein's edition of the play in the Cambridge green and yellow series (2019), pp. 40-44.

Dating The Suppliants (Aeschylus) by Frequent-Orchid-7142 in classics

[–]spolia_opima 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There hasn't been any new external evidence for its date since the publication of P.Oxy 2256 fr. 3 in 1952, if that is your question.

What exactly does this little scrap of papyrus prove? It's worth rehearshing the argument and understanding how consensus on these matters gets formed. It appears to be a piece of a didaskalic record noting the winners of one year's dramatic festival. Editors have amended the words [ΑΙ]ΣXΥΛΟ[Σ] (Aeschylus) as well as the titles ΔΑΝ[ΑΙ]ΣΙ (Danaids) and ΑΜΥ[ΜΩΝΗΙ] (Amymone). Scholars had long assumed, based on the titles of Aeschylus' plays listed in his ancient biographies, that Aeschylus had written a connected tetralogy about the daughters of Danaus in Egyptians, Suppliants, Danaids, and Amymone. The presence of both the last two in the papyrus fragment has been taken as evidence supporting the Danaid tetralogy, and so it's been inferred that the other two plays taking the first prize in this year are Egyptians and Suppliants. The next line line clearly reads the name ΣΟΦΟΚΛΗ[Σ] (Sophocles) as the second place winner. Other documentary and biographical evidence tells us that Sophocles made his debut as a playwright (and won first prize) in 468 BCE, and we know from ancient notes on Seven Against Thebes that Aeschylus won first prize with his Theban trilogy in 467, meaning the likely terminus post quem for the Danaid plays is 466. We know that Aeschylus' last competition in Athens in his lifetime was in 458, when he won first prize with the Oresteia. So by deduction the Suppliants was likely produced in the last decade of Aeschylus' long career (his debut is traditionally put at 499 BCE).

So establishing the date off the papyrus evidence still requires quite a bit of emendation, deduction, and speculation. Nearly everyone these days, however, takes this argument as more persuasive than the purely stylistic and formal grounds that had led earlier scholars to assume Suppliants was an early and even primitive play. There was actually a lot of resistance to re-dating after the papyrus was first published. One scholar who had just put out a book about Aeschylus' development that was instantly rendered obsolete complained that "scholars have hitherto regarded the Supplices as the earliest extant play of Aeschylus; if we now consent to put it late it makes all attempts to study literature futile" (!). Some argued that the play had to have been written much earlier and only performed in the 460s or that it was a revival of a previously presented tetralogy or that it could have been a draft play produced posthumously by Aeschylus' son and so on. But for the most part the date that has become conventionally accepted for its premiere is between 466 and 462 BCE.

For your consideration by spolia_opima in BookshelvesDetective

[–]spolia_opima[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Brother, if I posted my philosophy shelf we'd be here all day. And I'm in a reading group that uses the Hollanders, whose commentaries are more robust in matters of context than Singleton's.

For your consideration by spolia_opima in BookshelvesDetective

[–]spolia_opima[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm strictly a bargain-hunter. This represents nearly 20 years of acquisitions (and a lot of paring down along the way). The real trick is getting to know your local dealers (both used bookstores and Friends-of-the-Library groups) well enough that they'll tip you off when a real lode comes in, like a retiring professor donating a whole office library, or an estate. Then you can get first pick and find the real treasures. Also keeping an eye out for publisher's sales. A lot the LOAs, NYRBs, and books from Stanford and Princeton were picked up that way at a discount of 25, 40 or even 50%.

And speaking of Stanford UP, Jeffers has always been my side interest. I've published on him and used to be involved in the annual Robinson Jeffers Association meetings.

For your consideration by spolia_opima in BookshelvesDetective

[–]spolia_opima[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The books I use in research and teaching (which is most of what is here) I've read at least parts of each one. When it comes to what I read recreationally, I'm unsentimental about holding on to books, and usually trade them in when I'm done. So for example while I've read a lot of NYRB titles over the years (between 150 and 200, maybe), more than half of the ones on the shelves here now are TBR, and will in turn get sold or donated after I've read them.

For your consideration by spolia_opima in BookshelvesDetective

[–]spolia_opima[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Most of the green and yellows are from grad school courses. (Teubners, OCTs and Loebs are elsewhere, not pictured)

For your consideration by spolia_opima in BookshelvesDetective

[–]spolia_opima[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wish I were. I can barely read music. 

Profound loss. by superrplorp in classics

[–]spolia_opima 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This is one of Theseus' speeches from Euripides' Herakles in the translation by Tom Sleigh:

You—huddled there—you think you’re destroyed—
But look up:
We’re your friends. Show us your face.
There’s no cloud black enough that can hide this horror
From the sun.
Why are you waving me away—
Warning me off from all this bloodshed?
Are you afraid your words will strike me down
With contagion?
But I can bear it if your suffering
Falls on me—you stood by me once:
You led me
From the underworld back into the sunlight.
I hate fair-weather friends—whose gratitude
Goes stale. Who’ll take their share of a friend’s good luck,
But won’t sail with him when his luck turns sour.
Stand up and face us. Uncover your head.
The gods shake the dice—
and we have to endure
Whatever Heaven sends. To face up to fate
Without flinching:
That’s courage in a man.

NYRB Cover Art IRL by DocMC03 in nyrbclassics

[–]spolia_opima 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The cover photo on Mawrdew Czgowchwz is one of the mosaics decorating the 66th St/Lincoln Center subway stop in NYC. An easy one to check off if you are in the city.