υπό κατασκευή

At the behest of the Hellenic Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, we learn via Boing Boing, architectural photographer Pygmalion Karatzas has documented the expansion of the metro systems of Athens and Thessaloniki. Dating back to 1869 as a conventional steam railway before electrification at the turn of the century, Μετρό Αθήνας (see also) has been the only subway in Greece, now serving the Piraeus, until the expected completion of the Thessalonki network in 2023. Any sort of construction—never mind mega-projects like these, present particular challenges for ancient and venerable places (relatedly) and may yield more discoveries yet. See a whole gallery of Karatzas’ works at the links up top.

divinisation or pompatus of love

We enjoyed reading this short, collective hagiography that profiles several saints named Hyacinth, including one from Fara: “A martyr about whom nothing is known,” but we were more intrigued by the footnote for namesake flower (Giancinto, Jacinto, Hyakithos) and its mythological origins in a handsome Spartan prince and his fatal love-triangle.
Hyacinth was the lover of Apollo, but he had the attention and advances of a host of other suitors including the famous Thracian singer Thamyris, Zephyrus and Boreas—respectively the West and North Winds. Hyacinth preferred the company of Apollo and together in a chariot drawn by swans, they had adventures. While playing a round of frisbee (discus), Hyacinth was struck in the head and perished, the eponymous blossom rising up where his blood was spilled—a trope appropriated by Christianity as a symbol of renewal. Devastated Apollo blamed himself but there is strong suspicion that the winds conspired to punish the prince out of jealousy, and the god wanted himself to become mortal to join him after his healing powers failed him. The Spartan month that coincided with early summer when the flowers bloom was named in his honour and included three days of festivities. Hyacinth was eventually resurrected and joined the pantheon of the gods. This attainment of godhood is apotheosis and usually in Antiquity heroes were accorded local status alone, whereas in Imperial Rome, a deceased ruler was generally recognised by his success, decree of the senate and popular consent—though some ridiculed this practise as it also included the corrupt and inept—satirised by referring to the tradition with another Greek borrowing apocolocyntosis—that is, pumpkinification with accompanying lampoon that features Claudius and Caligula in the underworld.

ars amatoria

From BBC Culture, we learn that classic art is not always just academic soft-core pornography, it can also be high-brow, heuristic potty humour, as exemplified in Titian’s masterpiece Bacchus and Ariadne (see previously)—capturing the moment of love-at-first-site when the god of revelry and his entourage chances on a freshly heartbroken maiden abandoned on the island of Naxos by her beloved Theseus rendered in a transfixing image that nonetheless has an underlying allegory that includes all the corporeal awkwardness that we’d otherwise choose to suspend.
In the foreground directly beneath Bacchus dismounting his chariot born by a pair of regal cheetahs, there is a child satyr and a caper flower, the twain representing the curse of excessive flatulence and the carminative remedy for it. Given that contemporaries also had truck with this patois, one needs to take this symbolism into account when appreciating the diorama and wonder what other mortal perils that even the body of a god might be prone to—especially one of perpetual drunkenness. Looking less relieved for being rescued the longer that one studies her, John Keats cites Ariadne in his poem “Ode to a Nightingale” written when the work was first acquired by the National Gallery—“Away! away! For I will fly to thee [the ship of Theseus still visible in the harbour], Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards!”

theophrastan model or on character and caricature

Via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump (much more to explore here), we are given the opportunity to revisit our familiar and enduring cast of personality tropes, stock characters first put forward by Aristotle’s student Tyrtamus, given the honourific by his teacher Theophrastus “divine speaker” for his eloquent writing and lucid observation in the fourth century BC and resound still throughout the ages to this day.
Though specialising in botanical studies and dabbling a bit in all the liberal arts, Theophrastus is best known for his character sketches (Ἠθικοὶ χαρακτῆρες) that class virtually every fictional and real life protagonist, couched in termsone’s virtues, faults and hubris. Though ancient and fixed, inflexible, they are sustained not only throughout the arc of narrative that they’ve been dealt but also throughout the centuries because their dispositions, relatable though one dimensional they might be, give us the extras needed to limn a society—and we recognise others in them, the Grumbler, the Boaster, the Slanderer even if we fail to see ourselves.

artemision or the streisand effect

Though it was the restored temple financed by the citizens of Ephesus themselves, a version that post-dates its infamous destruction by arson on this day in 356 BC, that sealed its inclusion in Antipater of Sidon’s tourist guide, the Seven Wonders, that earlier loss bears more notoriety for the Temple of Artemis than the other must-see attractions.
Comparing it to his other sight-seeing excursions—none of which are extant excepting the oldest and most venerable Great Pyramid at Giza, the travel writer himself pronounced, “Lo—apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.” The fate of the final temple is not well documented though it was the Christians that oversaw its slow dissolution, cannibalised for architectural elements and decorations including some of the columns of the Hagia Sophia—with archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom credited as “the overthrower of the temple of Diana, despoiling in Ephesus the art of Midas.” While this last boast sounds lofty, it is far less memorable than that of our damnable vandal, Herostratus.

an itch to scratch

An ancient and obscure word from the Greek κνῆστις for spinal column (and colourfully for a cheese-grater), the word saw a revival around a decade ago when rediscovered by a linguist who read the Oxford English Dictionary (see previously) cover-to-cover and echoed by many contemporary authors as a nominee for the favourite words, acnestis refers to the part of an animal’s hide that it cannot reach itself to relieve an itch—and by extension a blindspot or an Achilles’ Heel.
In a fashion similar to its more recent rediscovery and celebration, the word first appeared in print in the late eighteenth century in a compilation by a medical lexicographer: Acneſtis — that part of the ſpine of the back, which reaches from the metaphrenon (an obsolete term for the dorsal side of the body), which is betwixt the ſhoulder blades, to the loins...this part ſeems to have been originally called ſo in quadrupeds only, beſause they cannot reach to ſcratch it.

now off i go

The term epidemic is derived from the Ancient Greek ἐπί- (on top of) and -δῆμος (the people) but interestingly came by way of a French borrowing, which was itself introduced to the vocabulary not with a strictly medical sense in the nineteenth century but rather in the terminology associated with theophany—that is, the gods becoming incarnate and revealing themselves to their followers, traditionally during festivals or services but also in grilled cheese and manifested in suffering and pestilence. At the beginning of such celebrations epidemics were the sacrifices of thanksgiving offered to greet their arrival. Conversely apodemics were offerings on departure to either bid their return or as often as not to keep them at bay. The gods and their scourges not permanent residents and just visiting like the itinerant cult of Hippocratic healers, the case notes, medical histories (see previously) on patients kept by journeymen physicians charting the course of a disease and its response to various interventions was referred to as epidemics.

unnamed

Synonymous with anonymous and from the Greek ἀδέσποτος—that is, without a master or owner, adespota is used in classical scholarship as a collective term to cover writings that were not attributed to any particular author, especially epigrams taken from plaques and monuments whose provenance and history was lost when they were anthologised.
The related German borrowing for use primarily in the context of art history rather than written work is Notname—not a not-name a bit confusingly like a Notausgang on an exterior door isn’t No Exit but rather Emergency Exit—is a contingency or convenience name given to the portfolio of an artist or their school whose true identity is unknown—such as the Master of the Embroidered Foliage or the Berliner Maler.

for the nonce: goatforsaken

The Ancient Greek word αἰγίλιψ (aigílips) to flatten the metaphor means steep or sheer and literally a place “destitute even of goats,” sure-footed as they might be.  Homer’s Odyssey includes this epithet as an island in the Ionian Sea near Ithaca and part of the titular character’s dominion whose modern name is Μεγανήσι (Meganisi)—meaning rather unprosaically Big Island.

carmentalia

Chiefly celebrated by women (but not exclusively) in the Roman Empire on this day (ante diem tertium Idus) and then again on the fifteenth (Ides—many minor gods and goddesses had dual festiva like this to signify the beginning and resolution of a season or cycle), Carmenta was the patroness of childbirth, midwifery and prophesy.
Her name shares the same derivation as the English word charm and whose root had a range of meanings from song, oracle or magical incantation. Mother herself of the legendary figure Evander of Pallene, who established an Arcadian colony on the site of what would become Rome and who introduced the Greek pantheon to Italy, Carmenta is credited with the invention of the Latin alphabet and the consonant calendar of the old republic.

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.