Classics in Contemporary Culture

Aristotle at the Beeb

The RogueClassicist notes some interesting stuff at Alun's Archaeoastronomy blog...I'll chime in, noting also his link to a BBC broadcast on Aristotle.  Here's Alun:

The Mark Steel Lecture for this week on BBC7 is Aristotle. There are plenty of things to quibble with, I’m pretty certain Solon didn’t create the first constitution. Nevertheless quite funny and interesting in comparing Aristotle to modern times.

Colosseum vs. Capital Punishment

This was news to me...In the midst of pro/con death penalty agitation surrounding the case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams was the following:

Rome's Colosseum, once the arena for deadly gladiator combat and executions, has become a symbol of Italy's death penalty opposition. Since 1999, the monument has been bathed in golden light every time a death sentence is commuted somewhere in the world or a country abolishes capital punishment.

"I hope there will be such an occasion soon," Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said. "When it happens, we will do it with a special thought for Tookie."

Here's a BBC article from the 1999 campaign, in which then mayor Francesco Rutelli said:

"I think all over the world the Colosseum is known as a place of death and as a place of amusements linked to death...Today we want to make a positive link between the Colosseum and life."

And here's more on the Colosseum...er, Flavian Amphitheatre...

 

Teutoburgerwald?

Martin van Creveld, in Forward, draws a parallel between ancient and modern at the conclusion of an article on the Iraq war [thanks to Hume's Ghost at Crooked Timber]:

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

Not so, says another commentator at Crooked Timber:

Van Creveld needs to read up on history. Those legions were not lost after being “sent in”, they were the garrison engaged in the normal Roman pacification process after the inital conquest had already been accomplished (Varus, their commander, was the newly appointed governor of Germania). The rebellion led by Arminius was both energized by Varus’s heavy-handed tactics as governor, and enabled by his failure to respond to quite specific warnings about the plot. Unlike Iraq, this may actually be a case where a very obtainable objective was sabotaged by incompetence. So it’s pretty a dicey example to use in the current case.

For more on "Give me back my legions" Varus, see (e.g.) Livius.org.

Busted, Busting Myths

From the latest Onion:

SAN FRANCISCO—MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who dared challenge the sacred explanations of the order of the universe, were destroyed by Zeus Monday. "I soared ascending to the ethereal sky, and by merest nod massed a fearsome storm, and with mine lightnings struck down the naysayers Adam and Jamie," Zeus said in a press conference called to warn all doubters of his thunderous might. The MythBusters producers have issued a statement apologizing to the entire Olympian community and declared that, from now on, the program will focus only on myths unrelated to the Greek, Egyptian, or Norse pantheons.