136199 eris

Ultimately named for the dual-natured goddess of strife, on the one hand peddling in the aspirational jealousies that drive competition and one the other sewing discord—like when she tossed that bombshell Golden Apple in the ring and left it to Paris to decide whom was the fairest of them all, Eris was discovered on this day by a team of astronomers at Palomar Observatory in 2005.
Pluto having not been yet downgraded and suspecting that this new find might indeed but a planetary candidate and bigger that soon-to-be dwarf planet (Eris is indeed a quarter more massive than icy Pluto though the latter has a greater diameter), the team used Planet X as a provisional designation. With the campaign to give more representation to female deities and New Zealand actor Lucy Lawless’ Warrior Princess enjoying a cultural moment back then, X transitioned to Xena before in accordance with the International Astronomical Union’s protocols, Eris was decided upon in September of the following year. Meanwhile, it was discovered that the most massive dwarf planet and the largest object not visited by a space probe in the Solar System, had a satellite of its own and following the above conventions before an official name could be given, the team referred to it as Gabrielle, Xena’s sidekick. Eventually the moon was named Dysnomia, after one of the daughters of Eris—Δυσνομία, being the personification of lawlessness and an indirect tribute.

city on a hill

Via Language Hat, we receive a news brief that probably will leave one reeling—especially if one is disposed to reflect on how chickens are dinosaurs at least on a daily basis—in that the ruined temple of the Acropolis of Athens we refer to the Parthenon, the House of the Virgins sacred to the city’s patroness Athena is most likely not the Parthenon at all and rather what the original denizens called the Hekatompedon (the hundred foot, circa thirty metre-long, temple—though the structure spanned forty-six metres).
An impressive structure to be sure but perhaps not the centrally-enshrined personification of some attributed obsession with one definition of purity as a virtue that Moderns are perhaps too quick to ascribe to the Ancients and moreover suggests that the “House of the Virgins” is better placed at the south porch of the Erectheoin and the practical purpose—as a polling place—that the structure fulfilled was not supplanted when it was rebuilt after its destruction a decade after their victory in Marathon in 480 BC by Persians returning home after the war. What is most striking for me in this revelation is that the cartographic legend for the Acropolis is only a couple centuries old and the topography is wholly reconstructed, despite populations living with the ruins continuously. Folk-etymologies and explanations arise of course, like dragons from dinosaur fossils or Germany’s Schewedenschanze—ringworks and ramparts of early medieval to sometimes pre-historic Celtic origin but colloquially named after trenches hastily dug during the Thirty Years’ War, granted, but hopefully local, native knowledge is allowed to inform academic decisions.

ψηφος

From the Greek for the study of pebbles (used for ballots in ancient Athens—the English word itself having Italic origins, ballotta, a little ball and hence the phrase “blackballing”), psephology is a sub-branch of political science that tries to account for election outcomes in language of socio-historic studies through research and reporting on voting registries, franchisement, polling and the influence of lobbies and special interest groups in politics.
Coined for the nonce in the late 1940s, the word term was introduced by Scottish classicist WFR Hardie when fellow academic and member of JRR Tolkein’s roundtable (the Inklings) Ronald Buchanan McCallum called on him for a word to denote the study of referenda. Poltical correspondents, analysts, demographers, policy wonks and pundits could all be called psephologtist—that is, pebble-counters.

anapestic meter

Scholar Emily Nekyia Wilson’s modern translation The Odyssey has not only introduced the Homeric epics to a wider-audience, she is now, as Kottke informs, rather delightfully engaging readers to recount characters and episodes in limerick form in a lively and long thread.
One passage nicely summarises the short, tragic story of Odysseus’ youngest comrade, who managed to survive the Trojan War and accompanied the crew on the journey home to Ithaca as far as Aeaea, the Island of Circe (see previously), only to get quite intoxicated and fancied it a good idea to sleep it off on the palace’s roof.

Elpenor, poor idiot, got drunk,
and was sleeping up high in a bunk;
he fell out of bed,
went smack on his head,
and his hopes to get home went kerplunk.

Much more to explore at the links above.

opening titles

Courtesy of the Awesomer, we are treated to the musical stylings of the duo Bei Bei Zheng with piano accompaniment from Vera Yaqi Mackay performing a singular cover of Dick Dale and the Del Tones’ surf rock anthem Misirlou (previously). Bei Bei replaces the guitar with the traditional Chinese instrument called the zheng (箏), an ancient pentatonic zither dated from the Qin dynasty with twenty-one strings to the tune, itself inspired by an Ottoman folksong referring to an Egyptian girl in Turkish that was often used for belly dancing. The up and down harmonic progression is known as hijaz kar.

occultation

Via Boing Boing, we are quite the privileged witnesses to a solar eclipse caused by the shadow of Io moving across the dappled clouds of Jupiter (previously). One of the Galilean Satellites discovered by the artist and polymath in 1610 and designated Jupiter I, this innermost moon is the most dehydrated body known and also the most geologically (ionically) active with over four hundred volcanoes driven by gravitation pressures and tidal heating from its host world.
The mythological figure (whose name means moon) was one of Hera high priestesses at Argos and caught the wandering eye of Zeus, whose advances she steadily rebuffed. Unhappy with the extra divine scrutiny, Io was turned out of the temple, whereupon Zeus transformed her in a resplendent white heifer in order to hide her from his wife. The deception was rather transparent and Hera dispatched an obnoxious gadfly to pester the poor cow and drive her to wonder the Earth without rest.
She crossed from Europe into Asia at the Bosporus (oxford), where she met Prometheus chained, whom despite his own torture was able to console Io was the prophesy that her humanity would be restored. Returning to Greece, prodded still ever onward, she sought relief by taking the sea route to Egypt (the Ionian), when upon arrival, Zeus was able to disenchant her. With Zeus, Io bears Apis, king of Egypt—identified with the historical pharaoh Apophis (*1575 – †1540, BC), and primogenitor of many of the ancient, semi-legendary great houses of the Mediterranean.  Among the most frequented bodies in the Solar System and well studied, inhospitable Io has been rather ignominiously described as having (the namesake—that is) the colour of pizza.

mythos: an object lesson

Via Open Culture, we are treated with a series of short vignettes from animator Chris Guyot that communicate the timelessness and universality of Greek myths with no need for exposition but rather through digital geometric abstractions and a bit of resonant, billiard ball physics, recognising that memes are not only an expansive and wide-ranging format but loyal traveling companions as well. In case any of director Stephen Kelleher’s cautionary tales are not immediately familiar, there’s a helpful synopsis of each act at the link above.

port-of-call

In a delightful piece for Lapham’s Quarterly—which comes to us via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Links—Elizabeth Della Zazzera ponders that: “The Odyssey, if you strip away enough allegory and myth, might serve as a travel guide for the Ægean Sea: which islands to avoid if you hate escape rooms, which cruise to skip of you always forget to pack earplugs, where to get that beef that angers the gods. But how does Odysseus’ trek across the wine-dark sea map onto an actual map of the Mediterranean?”
As much as scholars might debate the merits of trying to map a myth, the places mentioned along our hero’s circuitous route for all their fantastic inhabitants and the weight of allegory and iconography are real and readily identifiable. Though an abundance of wholly serious academics have undertaken the task of creating gazetteers (long before Troy was rediscovered as a real place and not some Homeric conceit) and more recently cruises commissioned only semi-cynically for the literary criticism crowd that trace Odysseus’ odyssey and journey home exist to attest to the allure of charting a narrative, one has to wonder what one misses with interpretations and readings that adhere too closely to the text and correspondence to places one can visit.

styx

From the BBC Monitoring desk, we learn that years of neglect and crumbling infrastructure may be turned the Athens’ advantage and lead to the revival of an ancient and storied river that used to course through the city unimpeded but has been buried for decades after a post-war building boom.
Flowing down from Mount Hymettus and emptying into Phakeron Bay, the banks of the River Ilisos (Ιλισός, a demi-god, son of Demeter and Poseidon) was a favourite spot for Socrates and his pupils as well as being dotted with shires and temples to Zeus, Diana and Pan along its route. Rather than repairing the tunnel that contains the river, the plan is to return it to the surface and line its banks with a public park, emanating from the Pantheatnaic Stadium—the venue for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.

demarchy

By way of a rather violent plan to protest the US electoral system—which was thwarted, TYWKIWDBI reacquaints us with the form of governance called sortation or rule by allotment. There would be no campaigning or focus on re-election and holding on to power (though I guess there’s ever the chance for collusion and cronyism) since representatives and parliamentarians would be chosen at random (by lots) out of a pool of willing and competent citizens who all have the equal chance to govern for a term.  What do you think?
Since there’s no money to be made from this style of selecting our officials and by contrast too much circulating in partisan politics, I doubt it would gain traction anywhere today—though the ancient Athenians considered these chance appointments to be a hallmark of democracy and in many jurisdictions jurors are chosen by such means and asked to discharge their civic duty. Voting, as it’s the only voice we have politically at the moment (I am glad that the protester above failed to blow himself up to call attention to this alternative but I am also pained to think about his bleak prospects in an American gulag), is of course vital and important and not voting counts twice for the opposite party, but I am not seeing the ballot presently as the consent of the governed—a popular mandate to justify the perpetuation of polarising pander and empty promise.

8x8

deuterocanonical: ranking depictions of Judith beheading Holofernes, via Things Magazine

miami vice: a look inside the Mutiny Hotel where Scarface was filmed

stylite: an investigation into the doctored photograph of an ancient ruin reveals an ascetic tradition

knight industries two thousand: a banjo version of the Knight Rider theme

second skin: special membrane that transforms inanimate objects into multifunctional robots

plosive fricative: in English, counting from zero upwards, one’s lips won’t touch before one million, via Kottke’s Quick Links

biggs is right, i’m never getting out of here: animator Dmitry Grozov creates a brilliant anime trailer for Star Wars: A New Hope

pigpen: researchers isolate the chemical, microbial shadow that accompanies all of us

philhellene

At the sole initiative—though the effort took a high personal toll—of the attested hellenophile couple Eva and Angelos Sikelianos the first Delphic Festival took place in May of 1927, as Messy Nessy Chic informs, with the aim of promoting universal respect and understanding, hoping that the amphictyonic nature of the site—that is, a cooperative oracle shared among the city states of Greece, could be a harmonising focal point for peace. Activities included tours of the archaeological site, traditional Greek music performed by locals, lectures, athletic games and stage plays. The elaborate affair was funded exclusively by the Sikelianos and they managed another iteration three years later with the backing of the Greek government with costs defrayed with a national lottery.
The Sikelianos however did not see festivals and tourism as an end in themselves and hoped that the attention garnered would transfer to support for the establishment of an education centre based on Delphic ideals. A victim of their own success, backing for anything other than the fêtes was not forthcoming and deflated, Eva decided to return to America to try to renew her theatrical productions there, parting with Angelos on amiable terms. Invited to head the Federal Theatre Project in New York to help out unemployed actors, writers and directors during the Great Depression, Sikelianos produced many Greek tragedies and went on to form a dance company. Learn more and find a whole gallery of images from the Delphic Festivals at the links up top.

lanx satura

Though in classical myth without philosophical interpretation, the god Momus—son of virgin Nyx—is portrayed as the personification of reproach (Μῶμος) and is credited with the agitating presence that provoked the other Olympians to take sides in the Trojan War, the expelled minor deity is somewhat rehabilitated and appreciated in later traditions as the embodiment of satire and candour for his open criticism of the gods and their follies.
According to Æsop, Momus was banished for mocking the gods’ handiwork after being invited to judge them: decrying Hephaestus’ latest creation man as poorly designed as he’d failed to install a door in their chest so as to see their true nature in their hearts. Momus was equally harsh on Athena’s architecture for not being mobile to escape bad neighbours. Lastly, he pointed out that Poseidon’s bull was not as formidable as it could be because its horns got it the way of its eyes. Momus also had some choice insults for the other gods and goddesses. His cult saw a revival in the seventeenth century as a way to lampoon contemporary politics as an allegorical way to reform the Star Chamber—camera stellata, a court of parliamentary privilege that became synonymous with arbitrary judgment—of Heaven, the establishment pining for someone unafraid to challenge the hierarchy.

’αλωάδαι

A recent episode of the always engrossing and thoroughly researched History of Ancient Greece podcast told the tale of two belligerents of the Gigantomachy who had some unique and potentially all-conquering attributes. Queen Iphimedia, wife of Aloeus, somehow managed to get herself pregnant with twins by wading out into the surf by her father-in-law the god Poseidon and bore the prodigies Otus and Ephialtes who were possessed of superhuman strength and size, growing at an accelerated rate that made them towering individuals, impervious to attack by the age of nine—which reminded me of Tex Avery’s “King-Sized Canary” where an ensemble of predatory animals discover and fight over a growth-elixir. Had they been allowed to mature into adolescence, they could have reached the Heavens without a step ladder, but for now to act on their plan to storm Olympus and take respectively Artemis and Hera for their wives, the piled three mountains on top of one another and were clever enough to first capture and imprison Ares, the god of war, so the Olympians might not have the appetite for battle. The brothers began their incursion and cornered Artemis who out of cunning desperation offered herself to Otus, immediately transforming herself into a fawn. Dashing between the two Aloadae (sons of the husband of Aleous even though he was not the father) Iphimedia, they both took aim to with their spears to down their quarry and ended up hitting each other as Artemis escaped.

brooding and blissful halcyon days

Thanks to our faithful chronicler Doctor Caligari we not only learn that the period of time seven days on either side of the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, are referred to as halcyon days for a time when the seas are calmed but also the term’s etymology: from the Latin form of Alcyone, the hapless daughter of Æolus, the god of the winds, and his wife Enarete. Alcyone met and fell in love with a sailor called Ceyx—who also had divine parentage as a son of Phosphorus, the Morning Star. Husband and wife were very happy together but the king and queen of the gods took umbrage at the fact that their pet-names for each other were Zeus and Hera. I could imagine better terms of endearment than evoking a philandering, incestuous relationship but couples can be peculiar, and this sacrilege earned the scorn of Zeus, who wielded a thunderbolt at Ceyx’ ship. Alcyone was of course inconsolable and the other gods (their parents and in-laws presumably) took pity on them both by transforming them to kingfishers (taxonomically speaking, Halcyon) who migrate from Africa to Greece at this time of year to roost and the weather is fair so that they can nest in peace.

6x6

la collina dei conigli: rescued veteran laboratory rats experience the outdoors for the first time

synchronicity: Krista and Tatiana Hogan are twins joined at the head and share a unique brain configuration that allows each to experience the other’s perceptions and possibly thoughts
animoji sounds: a Finnish comedian and voice-actor named Rudi Rok gives the animated menagerie their roar

pylos combat agate: a tiny decorative seal from a Mycenaean tomb is changing conceptions about ancient artistic skills

se possible: Card Against Humanity has purchased land abutting the US-Mexico border and hired a law firm specialising in eminent do
main to make building that wall as difficult as possible

sonata primeval: the sound poetry of avant-garde exile Kurt Schwitters that Brian Eno sampled from for his 1977 album Before and After Science

procrustean bed

Reading about how medical research and treatment can at times be prone to assigning arbitrary standards and causation to particular diagnoses and projected outcomes that risks spoiling the investigation by latching itself to the serviceable led us to learn about a mutilating, rather gruesome classical metaphor: a Procrustean bed. A son of the sea god Poseidon, Procrustes was a highway man and demented blacksmith who ran a hostel on the trail between Athens and Eleusis. Inviting pilgrims to stop and rest, the demigod would show his guests to their accommodations, a bed that was inevitable too big or small for the hapless traveller. Procrustes would then proceed to adjust his guests to fit, stretching them tortuously or whittling them down to size. The hero Theseus finally dispatched this menace as his sixth and final labour by putting the monster to his own rack. Despite its horror-story roots, the reference is invoked quite a bit and in addition to the above criticism levied against medical science, the European Union in its relations to its member states is sometimes described as the same sort of arrangement. The notion of one size fitting all or reverse-tailoring also occurs in geometry and statistical analysis where data is chosen selectively in order to prove a proposition. Television editors also call on Procrustes when they are faced with the sore task of having to cut for time.

girl interruptus or from here to paternity

The introduction to a particularly brilliant crossover episode that profiled the intersection of the history of Ancient Greece with that of witchcraft was a nice reminder of the bizarre and complicated origin story behind the liminal figure of Tiresias of Thebes, the blind seer who tried to keep Oedipus from investigating too far into the murder of the former king and posthumously advised Odysseus how to return home and avoid the traps in store for him and his crew. For disturbing a pair of copulating snakes whilst hiking up Mount Kyllini, he garnered the displeasure of Hera who punished him (I guess) for his transgression by transforming him into a woman.
Seeing this baffled individual, Apollo came and offered a measure of explanation, saying that Tiresias would be made his former gender should he encounter mating serpents a second time. Legends vary but some accounts hold that female Tiresias was a prostitute of great fame, and giving birth to and rising a daughter, sired by none other than Hercules (though some dispute paternity), called Manto, who was also gifted with the curse of prophesy and was the namesake of the city of Mantua (Mantova). Seven years later, Tiresias came across another pair of snakes entwined in the act and either did or didn’t interrupt their activity (accounts vary) and his manhood was restored. At some point afterwards, Zeus and Hera were having a heated debate as to which gender derived more pleasure from sexual congress (though they didn’t specify what sort of intercourse) and at an impasse decided to bring in Tiresias who had experienced it from both sides as arbiter. When Tiresias sided against Hera once again by saying that ninety percent of the pleasure was the woman’s share, the goddess was so enraged that she gouged out Tiresias’ eyes. Out of pity and unable to countermand the punishment of his sister-wife, Zeus tried to compensate by granting Tiresias the ability to see into the future and a number of other superhuman talents plus a life extension that crossed seven generations and he became a prophet of Apollo.

mediterranean diet

Marginal Revolution correspondent Alex Tabarrok clues us in to the mysterious and probably lost herb favoured by the ancient Greeks and Romans called silphium, which was so renowned as a flavour-multiplier and for its pharmacological merits was worth its weight in gold—or salt.
Despite their best efforts to cultivate the plant in their own lands, however (and there are surprisingly many familiar staples that still defy cultivation), silphium, fantastically also known as laserwort, would only thrive in a narrow band of terrain in Libya and was the essential export item of the city of Cyrene—critical to its trade and economy—and while remembered in coinage and heraldry, no one seems quite sure of its actual appearance and properties or whether the valued herb went extinct or survives in undisclosed pockets in northern Africa. The plant’s reputation as a means to allay the maladies of those struck with love and as a mediator for one’s germinative functions may also have given rise to the ♥ symbol (as well as having been accorded its own special glyph for the flowering plant) and its connection to romance and shared affections on the speculation that supposedly related species have heart-shaped fruits. Maybe this spice being extolled as a super-food is a bit of an embellishment but the world may never know what culinary and medicinal treasures might be absent from our dining experience.  I wonder what other secret ingredients out there that have remained unknown, lost to history, over-consumption or lost of habitat. 

cross-over episode or malleus maleficarum

I’ve been enjoying listening to the History of Ancient Greece podcast researched and presented by Ryan Stitt that reminds me very much of the History of Rome series that got me back into the genre in the first place.
Recently, one of Stitt’s presentations on classical tragedians ended with a short introduction from fellow-blogger Samuel Hume on his project The History of Witchcraft: A Podcast History of Magic, Sorcery and Spells. I’ve been enjoying the first few episodes and look forward to progressing through the catalogue for this series as well. Listeners will get their share of bewitching, possession, curses and rites, but only a witch-hunt can uncover witches and the anecdotes and institutions portrayed are a fascinating, sorrowful look at how societies can punish those who don’t know their place and how the chauvinistic male psychic is particularly affronted by strong women.