How an Italian Volcano Changed America

Amy Barr, January 31, 2020, in part originally a June 2012 article for The Old Schoolhouse

Villa San Marco (and the Lukeion Educational Tour group)

Several years ago, I visited our nation’s capital. My kids were still young at the time so standing in line was great for teachable moments lest boredom became an issue. While waiting to see The National Archives an impromptu group of listeners formed as my husband and I, both Classical Archaeologists, explained the neoclassical images ornamenting the building. An eavesdropper remarked, “I didn’t know this art had to do with Greece and Rome!” Almost every artistic element on the building intentionally refers to our two Classical civilizations.

Thomas Jefferson was more than the architect of our Declaration of Independence; he was also fascinated by real architecture as he imagined the construction of our new nation. He gave considerable thought to crafting buildings to last for generations. Jefferson could have recommended the flowery architecture of European cathedrals or the onion-bulb towers of Russia or even down-to-earth austere Colonial style. Instead, he dreamed up enough columns and capitals to make Caesar himself feel at home.

Certainly, our nation’s founders drew inspiration from the Classical world but particularly Roman ideas were brought to the fore in the late 1700s because two factors came to play at that moment in time. First was Jefferson’s brilliant Classical education in both Latin and Greek. Second, was the unearthing of thousands of mysterious things in northern Italy that had remained hidden since the tragic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Essentially, the rediscovery of all things Rome came to light during our nation’s most formative years.

Pliny (the younger) tells us that one warm August day his uncle Pliny (the elder) noticed a strange cloud in the distance near what is today Napoli, Italy. He observed that this cloud was shaped just like a pine tree. If you haven’t been to Italy, you may not know that there, pine trees are shaped like umbrellas. Pliny was grasping for words to describe this event since such a catastrophe had never been witnessed before.  Romans would eventually learn to call this natural disaster a volcano.

Natural curiosity and steadfast Roman bravery would win out over terror on the day of the eruption.  Pliny the elder rushed to help the panicked residents of the area as darkness closed in around him and his military craft. Pliny the younger, however, did not go. His uncle had assigned him a writing project so that 17-year-old decided to finish his schoolwork instead of sailing headlong into an exploding mountain. His uncle would not survive the adventure. He himself would provide one of our only eye witness accounts. 

The eruption would last for three excruciating days. When it was over, what had once been lush vineyards, pleasant hillsides, and thriving towns—most notably Pompeii and Herculaneum—would look lifeless and ashen like the surface of the moon. The dead remained where they fell, utterly forgotten for seventeen centuries.

In 1738 excavations began in Herculaneum, well before archaeology included any science. Workers knew nothing about the events that placed these items in the ground. Mystery added to the beauty of the discoveries. Soon Europe was engrossed with the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, her sister city, discovered in 1749. As workers uncovered perfectly preserved homes, temples, baths, sculptures and paintings, a remarkable thing happened: the world’s imagination was captured by ancient Rome and, by association, ancient Greece. What had once been forgotten now retook center stage in the minds of the best thinkers and doers of that day.

When Thomas Jefferson was ambassador to France from 1784 to 1789, he took a few well-earned breaks. He scoured France looking at her Romanesque architecture, he toured her Roman ruins, and he voraciously read Classical authors (both Latin and Greek) looking for insight, inspiration, and warning.  Having started his Classical education at age 9, he was fluent in Greek, Latin and at least three other languages, skills that would inform every aspect of his career. He too felt the powerful pull of Pompeii and the potent words of Roman authors. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would work together to craft a constitution with a tripartite system of government which found its roots in Rome. Jefferson himself would introduce the neoclassical style of architecture to the United States.

All this enthusiasm was not just because he thought Roman buildings were majestic, but because he believed that the Roman Republic’s system of checks and balances was a brilliant idea for our new nation. What better model for our architecture?  Ever the student of Roman history, he also knew that a nation must be vigilant lest it topples at the hands of a tyrant as Rome once did.

Intellectual souvenirs from his time in France included his design of the Virginia State Capitol, the University of Virginia, and Monticello, his home. He would suggest the name “Capitol” after the Capitoline hill in Rome and would inspire the plan for our Capitol building modeled on the ancient Pantheon of Rome. So, when you look at it this way, from the ruins of Rome and the ashes of Pompeii would come the enduring structures of our nation. At least in some small way, the tragic end of the cities of Vesuvius would inspire the rise of America.

Want to Major in Classics in College? Here's How to Start in High School

By Amy E. Barr of The Lukeion Project

Becoming a Classics major is exciting stuff. Several instructors at The Lukeion Project studied a variety of Classics-linked fields including Latin, Greek, ancient history, archaeology, art, architecture, plus anthropology, field excavation, osteology, museum studies, artifact illustration, artifact conservation, and more. Our broad experiences prompted our enthusiasm for our interdisciplinary approach. Add the perks of travel abroad plus the benefits of several foreign languages! If you are like us, a Classics degree is perfect for anyone who has more interests than they can count. How does one get started?

Going down the Classics rabbit hole means you may have to run around a bit until you find your preferred path. Most will choose either a Classics major (often a second major in Classics makes sense) or a minor in college. Even after finishing a degree in Classics, many find themselves in fields that seem distant to Classics but are actually closely linked: law, medicine, science, business, writing, teaching. A Classics degree need not limit one to a Classics career.

When shopping for college Classics programs, look at the various interdisciplinary opportunities available in various departments. In addition to Latin and or Greek, you can find ways to follow personal interests like museum internships, excavation volunteer posts, College Year in Athens, language immersion in Rome, etc. Interview various faculty after you shop programs to find a department that feels right. Now your first job is to be a good candidate when you find the program of your choice.  

What’s a good high school path for a future Classics major/minor?

Start with Classical languages and plan to do as much Greek and Latin as possible. Pick Greek or Latin as your primary (it doesn’t really matter except to your personal tastes) but plan on doing both languages sooner rather than later. Want to make your future college professors swoon? When it comes to Latin and Greek, complete at least four years of one and at least two years of the other before graduating from high school. Classics majors tend to add French, Italian, or German at college or graduate school so fear not, you'll add modern languages eventually.

Many students prefer to do four (or more years) in Latin with The Lukeion Project since a nice fat score on the AP Latin Exam (year four) can pave the path to scholarship money or, at certainly multiple college credits. Other students prefer Greek but will complete the SAT Special Latin Exam (an easier exam compared to the AP Latin exam) after the second or third year of Latin.

My second bit of advice is to travel. Any student who is interested in Classics will be taken more seriously if he or she has traveled to destinations that not only represent the literary aspects of Classics, but also the culture, history, art, and archaeology. A "study" trip to Greece and Italy will make you a strong college applicant. Adding Spain, France, Turkey (etc.) will make you a shining star in a sea of applicants all the way through graduate school. Plan to major in Classics? Plan to travel. This is not optional.

In addition to language studies and travel, I make several complementary recommendations below. Many of these courses require you to read, think, and write broadly. These courses will support your mastery of Classics which is, by definition, an interdisciplinary field. First, let me tackle a couple more issues:

Should Classics majors expect to go to graduate school?

With few exceptions (like teaching high school Latin at a public school) the answer is a firm yes, graduate school is normal for those who want a career in Classics. Your undergraduate program should give you a broad introduction to all things Classical while your graduate program(s) will help you refine your particular focus: language (philology), history, archaeology, anthropology, etc., may all be on the table depending on the graduate program you pursue. You must complete some graduate work (at least an M.A. but normally a Ph.D.) to teach at the college level, work as an archaeologist, or work at a museum (just for example).

Get started during your high school years

Conventional programs will offer few chances to broaden Classical studies before college starts but the more you tackle now, the more interesting you will be to the admissions committee at the college programs of your choice. Love Classics but plan to major in something different? If you have time and interest you can complete the equivalent of a Classics "degree" while still in high school at the Lukeion Project. Here's how a person could get the most of our program:

7^th/8^th/9^th grade

• Witty Wordsmith
• Barbarian Diagrammarian
• Lester’s Logic Lounge

8^th/9^th grade

• Latin 1 or Greek 1·
• Muse on the Loose (Survey of Greek Literature in Translation) and
• Muse Reloosed (Survey of Latin Literature in Translation)

9^th/10^th grade

• Latin II or Greek II plus start the second language (Latin or Greek)
• Mythology Alpha (includes Iliad, Odyssey) and
• Mythology Beta (including Aeneid, Metamorphoses)

10^th/11^th grade

• Latin III or Greek III
• Latin II or Greek II
• Classical History: will cover Greeks and then Romans

11^th/12^th grade

• AP Latin or Greek IV (we offer Latin VII and Greek VII)
• Optional 3rd year of the second language
• Rhetoric
• College Composition and College Research Writing (perfect English credit for students in final year(s) of high school)

12^th grade

• The Classical Bard: Shakespeare
• Classical Philosophy
• AP English Lit.

The Reign in Spain

By Amy Barr of The Lukeion Project

Segovia, Spain

The ancient city Tyre in Lebanon has been continuously occupied for longer than most cities in the world. Phoenician Tyre used to be an island until Alexander the Great used his signature problem-solving skills to build a handy bridge to her sea walls, thus ending his stubborn--and successful--seven-month blockade of the (until then) perfectly fortified city. Before proud Tyre ran up against the likes of Alexander, she was building her wealth through trade networks throughout the known world. Carthage, founded about 60 years before Romulus named Rome would be one of her best ideas.

Carthage straddled the midpoint of the Mediterranean and, as the world’s first big-box-store, she became staggeringly wealthy and self-important. The rather earthy Romans took offense at her hubris, her bedazzled purple fashions, and her insistence on taking over all the islands closest to Rome’s expansion zones. Stubborn to a fault, the Romans taught themselves how to build and sail the battleships she needed to combat Carthaginian claims on Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. As was often the case for young Rome, she won the first Punic (Phoenician) War mainly because she refused to quit and, secondarily, because she figured out how to use land battle techniques against a bunch of sailors.

Carthage took her toys and went home, at least for a little while. Undaunted, she soldiered through post-war financial setbacks by sleuthing out juicy new trade opportunities. Spain, it turned out, was jam-packed with gold, silver, and timber. The Phoenicians knew a good deal when they saw it and moved in.

While the two old enemies continued to glower at each other for quite a while, cheeky Hannibal fanned the flames when he terrorized Saguntum, one of Rome’s protectorates in Spain. Hannibal surprisingly saddled up an assortment of confused elephants and doubled down: Nobody expected elephants nor sun-loving Carthaginians to stream into Italy from the north. Things went badly for a long time (Hannibal was tricksy).

While Hannibal Barca, the apparent brains of the operation, was busy bamboozling Romans in Italy, Scipio, a sort of Roman Chuck Norris, winningly attacked Hannibal’s less capable relatives in Spain in 206 BC.  No more Spanish groceries for Hannibal meant Rome would astonishingly mark another win, mainly because she refused to quit.

In less than a decade, the Romans had her new prize, Spain, split in two. Creatively, she named the two provinces Spain-Over-Here (Hispania Citerior) and Spain-Over-There (Hispania Ulterior).

Eventually, Rome took Spain over everywhere as she put down rebellion after spicy rebellion. 
In 61 BC, Julius Caesar as a praetor (governor) in Hispania Citerior used ersatz Spanish-rebellion-squashing as an excellent way to pay off his massive political debts.

Augustus formalized Rome’s new ownership of the peninsula by adding a third regional distinction, Hispania Tarraconensis (modern Tarragona). As Rome settled in, she established her signature infrastructure.

What did the Romans ever do for Spain? Soon everyone enjoyed excellent roads (900-mile superhighway), fresh water (massive aqueducts dotted the land), and top-notch entertainment in nice new theaters. Veterans, promised a plot of land upon retirement, started choosing sunny Spain as Romans founded Augusta Emerita (Merida), Asturica Augusta (Astorga), Colonia Caesar Augusta or Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), and Lucus Augusti (Lugo). Two of Rome’s best emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, came from Spain. Let's not forget Rome's contribution to Spain's languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Mirandese, Asturian, Leonese, Aragonese, Ladino, Catalan/Valencian, Occitan, and Gascon -- all maintain a link to the Latin language.

You Must Visit

Founders of The Lukeion Project have been leading annual tours to Italy, Greece, and Turkey since 2008. While it is impossible to grow bored with these destinations, as Classical Archaeologists we are more aware than most that the Greeks and Romans left their deep and lasting imprint throughout the Mediterranean, not just a few popular regions. Contrary to Wikipedia, Spain’s rich history begins long before the Middle Ages. We invite you to join us in our first tour of Spain. Expect a very busy two weeks, May 18-31, 2020. Here and here are the details. The bus (our own private bus, mind you) is already half full. Register now.

Here are the highlights:

• Barcelona
• Las Ramblas
• Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia visit
• Barcelona City History Museum
• Tarragona
• Pont de les Ferreres Aqueduct
• Archaeological Museum Visit
• Roman Ruins & Theater
• Castle visit
• Sagunt (Saguntum – the city that prompted the second Punic War)
• Valencia
• Cartagena
• Nova Cartago, founded by Phoenicians
• Muses del Teatro Romono
• Muralla Byzantina
• Granada
• Royal Chapel
• Alhambra
• Ronda
• Puente Nuevo
• Seville -- the birthplace of emperors Trajan and Hadrian
• Bullring visit (not a bullfight)
• Amphitheater
• Mosaics (Casa de los Pajaros and others)
• Italica
• Merida
• Roman Ruins
• Museo Nacional de Arte Romano
• Toledo
• Madrid
• Royal Palace
• Prado
• National Archaeological Museum
• Segovia
• Historic Castle
• Roman Aqueduct

Seeing the World is Worth It

By Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project

Are these people actually having fun with travel? Maybe not.

The first time I traveled abroad, I was a college sophomore. I was so nervous on the flight to Amman, Jordan, that I barfed…twice. Perhaps you imagine something more glamorous for world travel? Maybe a luxury for trust-fund kids and their wealthy parents?

I had saved every penny for 10 months to pay for my first trip. I was an archaeology major. I hoped with every fiber in my being that this would be my first excavation of many. I needed to pay for the international flight and two months room-and-board in Jordan, in advance. I was putting myself through college with a part-time library job and student loans (mom or dad never volunteered to pay a dime). I skipped owning a car, buying clothes, or eating anything but bad cafeteria food for my first year of college. I even made a little cash by dumpster diving for aluminum cans back when recyclers paid for them. I sent letters asking for travel donations from distant relatives. The financial challenge of travel seemed completely impossible right up until the moment my plane took off. Those were well-deserved barfs if I do say so myself.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Since then I have done my best to "see the world" by but even after many trips and nations, my bucket list is still quite long. Here are a few things that world travel taught me and why I’d recommend everyone make the sacrifices necessary to see this world. There are many benefits of real travel but these are the three most formative reasons I included my children in travel as early as possible.

1. World travel makes you thankful.

Travel in one’s home country is comfortable stuff. Restaurants, stores, language, clothes, and even social customs are relatively uniform. Aside from unexpected traffic jams, most surprises will be voluntary (Yosemite vs Niagara Falls, In-N-Out Burger vs Skyline Chile, Disneyland vs. Disneyworld).
Travel abroad will stretch your perspectives in ways your perspectives need most desperately to be stretched. Approximately one block from the airport, your travels will begin to show you how much you take for granted. Your little corner of the world is not normal for all human beings.
Breakfast cereal and a big mug of coffee in the morning? Easy commute and plenty of parking for your car? All types of food options for lunch? 8-hour workdays in temperature-controlled cubicles? Fast food for dinner by 6 PM? Single-family home? Virtually nothing about your normal day is normal everywhere.
As you travel you might begin to experience longing and then thankfulness for the small pleasures you regularly enjoy that, perhaps, others do not. Thankfulness, in time, gives way to increased inquisitiveness. Newness stops being scary and starts being desirable.

2. World travel makes you open to newness.

Ever spent time with a rigid person who needs everything just “so”? Not a ton of fun. There will always be those that cling to the details of their personal preferences as if they had been handed down as divine law. I can't say that travel will ever change such a person. As a tour organizer, I can happily say those that encounter new experiences, view them in a spectrum from delightfully exotic, to mildly inconvenient, to occasionally uncomfortable. This is normal and this is what begins to change us.
Depending on your personality and the length of your trip, you will begin to view an increasing number of cultural differences as positive, if not desirable. Italian coffee? Greek souvlaki? Turkish baths? French pastry? Jordanian hospitality? Yes, please!
Travel always makes one more open to newness.

3. World travel makes you more tolerant.

Remember when tolerance truly meant “live and let live”? The more you travel outside of your home country, the more tolerant you must become. It is a natural side effect of seeing life, the universe, and everything through dozens of new lenses. You aren't permitted to go about your day as usual. You must learn to adapt or you won't be able to navigate even the simplest task of eating or getting to your next location.
Travel makes you more tolerant of both inconveniences and people who are not at all like yourself. Travel makes you more open to viewing differences as not only good but often preferable. In turn, I would hope we become more thankful when pleasant days go our way. Can you imagine a world full of truly tolerant, thankful, inquisitive people?

Shameless Self-promotion Department

Join me next year, May 18-31, 2020, in Spain. My husband and I are filling up a busload. There's still time to join now. We use the WorldStrides travel company and they'll arrange financing, flights, hotels, everything. In case you would like to know more follow this link. Our best price ends on October 2. Those who register by then and complete the trip will also receive 1 free Lukeion semester course of your choice (giftable if you don't feel like being a student any time soon).

Tales of My Days of Archaeology, Part 1

by Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project (educator, Latinist, archaeologist, traveler, mom to 3 grown children, 6 goats, 13 chickens, 2 ducks, 6 cats, 2 dogs)

Choosing the most amusing tales from my excavation field days presents challenges. First, many of you will believe I’m just making this stuff up. Second, how do I pick my favorites stories? I have optimistically described this blog as “part 1” since, no doubt, my children will ask me why I didn’t include this story or that one. Nevertheless, names have been changed or avoided lest I succumb to the third challenge: avoiding vendetta from those involved. You'll notice that the best stories have to do with the archaeologists themselves.

As writer Agatha Christie, wife of well-known archaeologist Max Mallowan, might attest, nothing will make one contemplate murder more than an archaeological excavation. The group of people that assemble to excavate a site generally have several dangerous qualities in common. Any time you concentrate those qualities by aggregating archaeologists, shenanigans begin.

Archaeologists tend to be fearless, ambitious, comfortable with risk, and opinionated. Most of them are also introverts who “live in their heads.” Yank this type of person out of the library, irritate them with heat and privation, then force them to live in social groups…well, you’ll soon have the perfect habitat for mischief.  

I’ll start my list of short stories with Tales of Satan. Satan is the nickname some of us gave an elderly architect at a certain excavation in Jordan. While his many advanced years should have earned him a kinder title than “Satan,” his complete lack of judgment lost him all points on both the social and intellectual scoreboard.

 

I won’t even begin to mention the fact that Satan felt it was beneath his dignity to flush whenever he used the community in-ground “Turkish” toilets. Likewise, here, I will not at all remark on how this was discovered and announced--the evidence utterly unavoidable--during dinner when all 20+ of us were enjoying after-dinner watermelon. No, such a discussion would be indelicate. I’ll start, instead, with Satan and his toothbrush.

 

Excavating in Jordan is not a task for dainty people. There are bugs, grit, heat, bugs, sleeping on sketchy foam mattresses on the floor, and bugs. Showers are available because somebody hooked garden hoses over the tops of in-ground toilet stalls. Clothes are washed in buckets during rare intervals of boredom. Days begin at 4:30 am so we can crawl into our excavation trenches before the sun is up.

 

Dinners were important times to recover a sense of ease. After dinner, we’d sit at the table on the porch to tell stories as we sipped hot cups of mint tea or sweet black tea. Others—parched from the sun--would gulp glasses of cool refreshment from the enormous ceramic communal jug of boiled/purified water. This was the jug we would return to each morning to fill our canteens for a day in the field. A big aluminum mug was kept on top so we could respectfully dip out our share of water and pour it cleanly into our glasses or canteens whenever we liked.

 

Our evening meals on the porch were lovely. We sat next to well-loved rose bushes and carefully tended mint planted by our cook for evening tea time. Tales from the day’s excavation, however, would be typically interrupted by Satan. He preferred to go to bed at least an hour or two earlier than everyone else. We whippersnappers (anyone under the age of 60) were told to clear off and quiet down…by 7 pm. Our excavation house was in the middle of nowhere. The only other place to convene was on the roof exactly 20 feet above that same porch but with a good view of the courtyard and improved breezes.

  

One time after a bit of early-evening-fist-shaking from Satan, we relocated to the roof but decided to pay careful attention as Satan finished his evening ritual trudge to the outhouse and then a return to brush his teeth. 

Wait. Why is he brushing his teeth on the porch?  The only available running water supply at the camp could be found in the outhouse facilities which he had just left…or perhaps he is using his canteen water. A dozen or more of us, bored, lean over the edge of the roof, watching, nosy.

   

Satan is vigorously brushing his teeth with a toothbrush that dates to just before WWII. As he finishes the battle, we watch what comes next in horror. I still see it now—almost in slow motion. He dips the well-foamed ratty taupe-bristled brush INTO the communal water mug.  He swirls and swirls. He tosses his used frothy water into the rose bushes. Next, he leans—AND SPITS HIS TOOTHPASTE---into the mint garden, spewing foam like a shotgun blast. Finally, he dips the now ill-used communal cup back into the water jug a second time and takes a glurgy swig—SLURP—directly from the communal cup. He sloshes for eternity and—AGAIN—spits a broad blast into the mint patch: Our tea mint. 

It silently dawned on all of us at the same time. Ease suggested practice and constancy. Satan had been swirling his toothbrush in the community water supply and spitting on our tea mint since the start of the whole rainless summer.

  

Nothing will make one contemplate murder more than an archaeological excavation.

The Lukeion Project Instructor Favorites 2019

Most Beautiful, Weirdest, and Most Informative

[Note: this was originally intended to be part of a series of weekly notes sent to all current Lukeion students but we decided this was certainly blog-worthy!]

By now you know that your Lukeion Project Instructors love many things about the ancient and not-so-ancient world, but do you really know their favorites?  This week I asked our instructors to tell me their favorites in three categories: 

• Most Beautiful
• Weirdest
• Most Informative. 

Choices were hard, the competition was fierce, but the results are in, and if you look carefully you can see which time period we tend to gravitate toward!

MOST BEAUTIFUL:

Mrs. Barr: The Blue Cameo Vase from Pompeii. Why? Because that specific color of blue is my favorite but (to sound more scholarly) also this: How the Roman artists made this vase is still largely a mystery. I love when ancient skills are better than what the modern mind can conceive!

Mr. Barr: After anguishing over my answer, I've decided to go with the Temple of Athena Pronaia at Delphi because of its beauty within the context of its environment.

(Although the Nike of Samothrace was a very close second!

 Mrs. Baty: The play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” because it’s just so much fun!

Dr. Fisher:  The bee pendant from Malia, Crete.  Why: it's gold and who doesn't like shiny things? Plus, the technique including granulation on such a small scale is very impressive, especially for c. 1800 B.C.!

(Although I’m also REALLY partial to the Apollo Kylix from Delphi, Greece c. 480-470 B.C.)

Dr. Haggard:  Marcus Aurelius. What is most beautiful is that he was a man of privilege as one born into nobility and nurtured by emperors, yet he learned from a Stoic slave to be humble and more concerned for others than himself.

The WEIRDEST:

Mrs. Barr: Mine isn't a specific artifact, but a study was done on human remains from Herculaneum and nearby villas. Residue inside the cranial cavities reveals that the poor victims of the pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius were not only instantly vaporized but their bones (which were not vaporized) actually floated midair for a fraction of a second.

Mr. Barr: I'm going to go with the mosaic of the skeleton carrying jugs from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. Even if the skeleton were able to get water or wine or whatever if it tried to drink, where would the liquid go? (The Memento Mori mosaic with the monkey skull was a close second.

Mrs. Baty: Shakespeare’s “second best” bed, which he left to his wife in his will.

Dr. Fisher: The bronze liver of Piacenza.  Seriously? Who builds models for reading sheep entrails?  The Etruscans did, that’s who!  And if sheep entrail reading wasn’t enough, it is inscribed in the Etruscan language which is largely untranslatable.

For some more info go here.

Dr. Haggard: Diogenes. When Alexander the Great offered him anything at all, Diogenes asked him to move out of the way since he was blocking the light. In a rich man’s home, Diogenes was asked to not spit on the floor so Diogenes spit in the man’s face claiming, “it was the only worthless thing in the room on which to spit.”

(And then there was that whole hanging-out-in-a-tub thing) 

MOST INFORMATIVE:

Mrs. Barr: This was a very difficult category to answer so I'll have to say the remains of the scrolls at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. This villa (which was packed full of perfectly preserved bronzes) is a dream come true! It is a preserved ancient library! Although it was first discovered in 1752, modern research is finally starting to pay off so we can read the hundreds of burned scrolls. There are high hopes that archaeologists will find hundreds more in the years to come. 

Mr. Barr: The archaeological site of Akrotiri on Santorini because it is a time capsule of the Minoans.

Mrs. Baty: The First Folio.  Many of the plays that we love from Shakespeare wouldn't still be in existence if his friends hadn't decided to gather everything up after his death and get it published.

Dr. Fisher: I’m a big fan of the crossover of archaeology and literature, especially in the Archaic period when the Greeks first began writing their poetry down. Therefore, the Mykonos Vase c. 670 B.C. with its earliest depiction of the Trojan War gets my vote for most informative, as it helps us date the canonization of Homer’s epics.

Dr. Haggard: Aristotle. As wiki says, “his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be central to the contemporary philosophical discussion.” And I am in full agreement. He formalized logic and reason. Had the east had a student of Eastern Philosophy such as he, Confucianism and Taoism might not be the fortune cookie mysticism people take them for today.

More Keys to Memorization

Quid dicam de thesauro rerum omnium memoria?
What shall I say of memory, the repository of all knowledge? 
(Cicero - De senectute)

by Amy E. Barr

Homer, many would argue,* was the composer of the Iliad, an epic describing the almost final days of the Trojan war. I say “composer” nor writer because it is unlikely he had the luxury of being able to write down those 24 books of Greek poetry in dactylic hexameter since the Greek alphabet was still on the drafting table. Even if he was able to enjoy a beta test on that new Greek alphabet, he was blind, so there’s that.  Homer also composed and recited the Odyssey, the tale of Odysseus’ struggle to get home, in much the same way: all from memory. Both epics are 24 books written in meter (an arrangement of long and short syllabus) rather than rhyme.
*It is common for some to sneer that the Iliad and Odyssey were written by committee and perfected gradually over time rather than composed by Homer. First, I hate people that sneer but, second, I’ve never seen a convincing argument for how a committee would be able to write a better epic than a single author. These sneering types probably actually enjoy committee meetings. I bet they are the ones that regularly schedule them on Fridays before holidays. 

My point is this: Homer composed and recited and then MEMORIZED very long epics. As one might imagine, the need to memorize these epics (and others from this same early period) lasted quite a while until that Greek alphabet finished up the GoFundMe period and eventually launched. Even then, memorization continued. As an educated Greek or Roman person, one memorized parts, or even all of these epics, plus plenty more.

Memorizing fast amounts of information used to be standard. What happened to us? I think we forgot how the brain can do amazing things! While there are plenty of techniques you can use to memorize large quantities of information, I recommend two that everyone can use right away: writing and sleeping. Sleep is a fabulous study aid as long as you are not sleeping through the block of time scheduled study.

Rewire Your Brain Every Day 
Daily study alternating with other normal activities and a full night's sleep is the best stress-free way to soak up something complicated like Latin. I’ll use Latin as my example because I am a Latin teacher. These techniques work for anything complicated.  Try this: Spend about 8-12 minutes on vocabulary right before you go to sleep EVERY night. Your brain will work on it all night for you while you get some quality snoozing done. First thing in the morning, zoom through your deck once more. You’ll find your retention is pretty good! Your brain chewed on those facts for you all night.
Next, look at a chart of endings or forms that you taped to your bathroom mirror, just think them through while you are brushing your teeth. Then make yourself write them out quickly on a piece of scrap paper from memory. When you are riding in a car, spend 10 minutes flipping through flash cards or getting to know some noun or verb endings. Short study periods. No late-nighters.

LONG CRAM SESSIONS ARE A WASTE OF TIME
Cram sessions (when you sit for extended periods trying to ‘cram’ knowledge into your brain right before the test) don’t work. This rule is true for any complex body of knowledge like math formulae or points of history or scientific names for seaweed. Break up your study sessions into short periods (20 to 30 minutes) that are never longer than 45 minutes to an hour. Even on a day off, do 15 minutes of study (I like a ton of homemade flash cards or reading the chapter), but do this especially before you go to bed. I recommend that you involve as much writing and rewriting as possible. Got a stack of principal parts to learn? Tell yourself you can go to bed after you’ve written them all five times each.
People who play instruments are already familiar with this mastery method which is why musicians tend to be really good Latin learners. “Music makes you smarter” because it teaches you how to learn. Constant practice and repitition does the job in music and in language.

Use all your senses
You might be surprised to hear this, but I’m not a proponent of approaches that have you mindlessly chanting Latin all day. Most of those Latin learning systems don’t teach you much except for how to make an hour boring while your dog or cat looks at you funny. There IS, however, something to be said for employing multiple senses to memorize things. So chanting (or drawing, or writing, or listening) can be a great tool depending on your learning style. Most of us benefit from the simple act of writing things out because slowing the brain to carefully compose letters on paper is a big boon to mastery.
Just like you wouldn’t lift weights with only one arm, why study only one way? Work out different parts of your brain by using all your senses to memorize. Get creative:  Read, write, draw, doodle, pronounce, even act out your data list. Some attempt to write a story in Latin each week using that chapter’s vocabulary correctly. This technique can be done for most subjects.

Some create a pictorial system for flash cards, drawing a doodle for a term to help cement a concept visually. Others enlist a study buddy who is willing to help wflashcardssh cards on a regular basis. 
Remember, study some every day, write things out, and get a good night of rest. Your brain will double your efforts for you!

Roman Ghosts

Ave atque vale dis manibus

By Amy E. Barr

There’s a crisp feel in the air, your neighbors might be decorating their yard in zombie themes, and most people are planning on at least a slight uptick in sweet treats soon.  Now is the right time to serve up a seasonally appropriate topic of Classical ghosts. While Classical cultures generally enjoyed their occasional specters, it was the Romans who adored their ghost stories.

Now to clarify, I’m not talking about current Roman hauntings like this story from Hadrian’s Wall or this group of Roman soldiers sighted in 1953, York. The Romans themselves enjoyed ghosts of all sorts very much. They were also careful to tend their ghosts to keep them happy.

One of the best examples of ghosts with the most was the assortment from "the very helpful" di manes category that Vergil includes in the Aeneid. In book 1, we have Dido’s dead husband telling her to grab the gold and clear out quickly to found the city Carthage before her creepy brother could catch her. In book 2, we have a very grisly Hector telling Aeneas to wake up and leave Troy. Soon after that Aeneas’ (recently dead) wife, Creusa tells him to get a move on, thank you very much. Not satisfied with earthly specters, Vergil visits his hero to the di inferi and the fabulously eerie underworld (book 6), where Aeneas has an awkward conversation with recently dead Dido. Fortunately, Aeneas has a more fruitful exchange with dear-old-dead-dad who encourages him in fine Stoic fashion to follow his fates. Aeneas also runs into his freshly deceased helmsman who is in need of a nice burial.

That’s a pretty good body count! Clearly, Vergil considered ghosts to be the best way to advance a plot and hold a Roman audience. The Romans had certain rules about the type of dead person who might appear in dreams. Only friends and loved ones could pay a visit while you snoozed. When they did, they usually had dependable advice which should be immediately believed. Thus, Vergil describes these sorts of ghosts as extremely reliable sources of information.

Historian Pliny the Younger wrote this chilling ghost story, complete with rattling chains and a haunted house. This one serves as a good example of how properly level-headed Roman philosophers can help even an old dead guy, all while getting a great bargain on a house. My Latinists might want to try to translate this story from the Latin by visiting here.

Don't worry! Only improperly buried folks felt restless (and extra spooky) which made the Romans incredibly focused on the details of a proper burial. If you tended your dead well, the Romans reasoned, they would keep an eye on the whole family and even offer occasional advice. The friendly types were referred to as Di Manes. One would inscribe a memorial to them as dis minibus (or D.M., for short) which you can still see inscribed on even later Christian gravestones. The di manes were your friends and family but belonged to the larger category known as the di inferi, “those who live below.” 

February rather than October was the normal month for Romans to attend family graves which were all placed on the roads outside of town limits. If you ever visit Pompeii, be sure to take the path out of town to the Villa of the Mysteries to get a good look at the rows of Roman grades still in place there.

Old fashioned Diagramming, New Fashioned Comprehension

Do a little Google or Bing search and you’ll find a blog lamenting a sad plummet in basic grammar skills among modern English speakers. More times than not, the writer will opine that texting and tweeting are clearly to blame for the whole mess. After all, nobody is refining writing talents with “tnx ttyl omwh.” Any parent of a phone-owning teen must expect to master such mysteries quickly or miss the fact that your son just said, “Thanks, talk to you later. On my way home.”  I’m expected to respond with an appropriate emoji and count myself lucky that my teen remembers to text me when he starts his drive home. Is this playful form of communication to blame for the collapse of communications in the modern world? I say, “No!... At least not most of it.”

My middle school had three 6^th grade English classes. Students were assigned randomly to one of the three. My teacher, it turns out, was on the verge of retirement. He insisted that he finish his career teaching grammar the same way he had always taught it. I remember that he explained this to all of us as we were handed some primeval old textbooks. The other two classes were taught by much younger educators who welcomed the state’s largess of shiny new workbooks and “cutting edge” language arts methodology.

All three educators were unknowingly participating in an accidental experiment that would be years in the making. Two taught English “by immersion.” This trendy “new” method meant students were given stacks of worksheets and tasked with circling nouns, verbs, and other important tidbits in random paragraphs. A job well done meant students knew their parts of speech.

My teacher taught sentence diagramming.  OHHH, sentence diagramming was SOOO last decade! 

The other teachers openly scoffed at him for it. He didn’t care. 30 awkward 6^th graders were marched to the chalkboard to diagram sentences. By the end, we were fiercely competitive grammar tigers asking our teacher to throw us tougher and tougher challenges. Rawr.

That teacher retired soon after and sentence diagramming was no more. Language arts had modernized.

Fast forward to high school. Students were sorted into language arts classes once again but this time, with very few exceptions, the honors English program was populated by students from that old middle school sentence diagramming class.  Look at the top of the graduating class! Most were from that same middle school group. Most went on to some challenging college programs.

There is no mystery here. There’s a qualitative difference (to say the least) between learning to passively recognize what a noun looks like in random paragraphs and learning how the gears of English work, right down to the smallest mechanical elements. This is like the difference between a person who buys a watch because it is lovely and a person who is a watchmaker.  One recognizes beauty and can point out a few appealing features. The other can build the watch for himself or describe how another craftsman (Dickens, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Dickinson) built an even better masterpiece. Learning to diagram sentences makes you a watchmaker of English, not just a casual observer.

Over the next several months we at The Lukeion Project will be rolling out the first part of the print version of our celebrated Barbarian Diagrammarian™ program, which we continue to offer as a live synchronous spring semester class each year. We designed the Barbarian Diagrammarian™ program almost a decade ago when we discovered that most incoming high school students starting our Greek and Latin program needed help with English before they could hope to succeed at Latin or Greek. Very few had ever gone beyond being casual observers in their native tongue.

It isn’t enough to know the difference between a noun and a verb! What’s the difference between transitive and intransitive? Active and passive? Direct and indirect object? Adverbs vs. prepositions? Aspect vs. time? Dependent clauses introduced by subordinating conjunctions vs. relative clauses introduced by relative pronouns? Now considered advanced grammar, these foundational ideas used to be standard knowledge for middle school.

We are developing a multivolume self-paced program that will allow anyone, especially our middle school students, to become English masters. Expect our signature Barbarian Diagrammarian™ quirky style but now new and improved because story-telling and fantastic illustrations are the spoonful of sugar that will help the grammar go down. We brought a trial version of Volume I to our conferences this last summer and were thrilled to see students grab the book like it was a tasty new epic as they connected instantly with Leland the Barbarian and his buddy, Lambert. 

We’ll keep you posted as we get closer to pre-orders. For now, you should know there are only 6 seats left in our 2:15 PM ET Barbarian Diagrammarian spring 2019 semester class, so the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion says you should register right away or miss out.

3 Things your High-schooler needs for College Success

These Things May Not be What you Expect

Amy E. Barr

Everyone who teaches classes for The Lukeion Project has also taught (or is even currently teaching) at the college level. When we say our classes are college-prep, we don’t just mean they are a tad demanding and look good on a transcript. From the first day of our first semester-class, we have been preparing people to flourish in challenging academic environments. This includes everything from managing time well, to learning how to successfully self-advocate by communicating with instructors, to writing a properly analytical research paper.  

Through the years, Lukeion faculty periodically gather at the water cooler and have collectively grumbled and harrumphed about the following skills that are absolutely 200% necessary for best success in college:

1. Successful students know how to fail well. 

This is not to be confused with "fail a lot." 

Ask any modern collegiate professional and they’ll likely put this issue high on their list as well: Academic stakes have become so high and so expensive that many students and their parents feel they can't recover from even a minor academic failure!
Each semester a few of our students predictably withdraw immediately after earning their first low quiz score. Sometimes this happens at the very start of the semester. Worse, it even happens when most of the semester has already passed...sometimes after two semesters have passed. "Failure just isn't an option," they opine. But failure is always an option! Failure is also normal. Your student needs practice experiencing failure and productively recovering from it.
Giving up after a bad week or two was so rare a decade ago we used to be able to remember specific details. For example, I once had a student who quit Latin after the third semester because she scored a 96% instead of 97% on a weekly quiz. It was the first time she didn't earn an A+! Her mom withdraw her from the class, fully supportive of ending her daughter's Latin studies due to this "failure." Certainly, such extremes are rare but becoming less so each year. Such students will meander through 7 years of middle and high school without suffering, surviving, and growing from a single failure. They will have developed almost no life survival skills. Even the smallest failure will eventually bring a catastrophe of epic proportions.

The qualities needed to endure a setback and return stronger are summed up as “grit.” Students must know how to have a bad week or two and still land on their feet. Second chances, no firm deadlines, and daily do-overs may seem like a great way to keep your kid happy but, be careful! Persistently protecting a child from failure will do the worst type of damage. Shielding kids from failure will never develop confidence, self-esteem, or resilience but rob them of those things most cruelly.

2. Successful students have lots of practice in academic writing.

In elementary school, even the most hesitant writer can be induced to produce when assigned creative writing projects. Limericks are tons more fun than book reports so creative projects rule the day. 

Too often students are never transitioned to academic writing until very late in their high school years, if ever. Aside from a rare few classes in college, students will never again be asked to produce creative writing projects. Lab reports, academic essays, research projects, literary analyses, and peer critiques are on their college schedule. Students won’t be taught how to write these things in college. If they don't know what they are doing, they will be assigned to a remedial course (code for “expensive class that doesn’t count toward graduation”) or they will require long hours with a tutor at the writing lab. All of our literature courses, history, and Latin 3 and beyond (including Transition), have academic writing requirements to help grow these necessary skills. 

3. Successful students have good time management.

Help students move toward independence by quitting your job as manager early in the teen years. There are plenty of job openings available in mentoring. Mentor was a character developed by Homer in his epic, the Iliad. Athena, disguised as Mentor, helps teenaged Telemachus safely cross the bridge to adulthood with timely words of advice. The modern idea is no different. A mentor does not manage the phone, calendar, and computer while handling every detail of a child’s life. Instead, she offers timely guidance while the young person does the hard work of navigating life himself. 

Parents must let adolescents do the legwork and heavy lifting now while there’s a safety net in place. Let your teen make his own arrangements with employers, pack leaders, teachers, and tutors. Let him coordinate his own details to find rides, attend a class, or practice a sport. When illness strikes, let her ask for make-up extensions on her own--even when she has the sniffles and doesn't feel like writing that email. 

The biggest obstacle to practicing this skill is the well-meaning parent. If you are an excuse-maker (“he didn’t finish because he was tired”), a second-chance giver (“please let her take the missed quiz”), or an extension-granter (“he is pretty busy, so you should give him extra time”) you’ll likely have a student who struggles with time-management issues. Your teenager will expect extensions and second chances from everyone if he has always gotten them from you.   

So Your Child wants to Be a Classics Major…

What's Next?

Amy E. Barr

"To study Latin is to encounter face to face the smartest, funniest, most beautiful minds that have ever lived."
—R. J. Teller

“Have her take Latin,” they said. “It will be good for her,” they said. Now 4 years of Latin and a couple years of Greek later she wants to be a Classics major. Is she going to be living in my basement for the rest of her life?

Ok, nobody has ever phrased it just this way, but I can read it on your face when you visit me at my talks at homeschool conferences. What’s in store for a student who has become so passionate about Latin or Greek that she wants to major in it? Is this something you should encourage, or should you press hard to steer your student toward a nice reliable S.T.E.M. degree or maybe Communications? I often have students who eagerly desire to continue studying Classical languages but the "more knowledgeable adults" in their lives have told them they must concentrate on more “lucrative” college-prep choices. Is Classics really such a bad plan for college?

While, like all academic fields, a future in philology offers assurances of neither luxury nor lucre. Classical languages and a Classics degree will surely take your student down some amazing roads. Fortunately, I ignored my mother’s grumblings when I decided to be a Classical archaeologist and philologist. In these crucibles, I discovered a practical passion for teaching paired with hundreds of glorious adventures in Mediterranean archaeology. I needed both.

As we finish our thirteenth year of teaching live-online at The Lukeion Project, we now have students who already pursued in full or in part, continued college and graduate level education in philology. They are now professional writers, lawyers, professors, historians, archaeologists, lawyers, parents, police officers, videographers, and creative professionals, to name only a few. Since you don't personally know our students, you can find lists of notable people online who were Classics majors who went on to make significant contributions to the world. That's great, you say, but what do mere mortals “do” with a degree in Classics?

Lukeion students enjoy an advantage. They often know before college begins that they wish to either major or minor in Classics (sorry, not sorry). Most people won’t have the opportunity to even try Latin or Greek until college, normally as late as their junior year. Can you say 6-year undergraduate degree?

If you want to pursue Classics, you can earn a BA in Classics. Most of these are more interdisciplinary and include Latin, Greek, or both plus history, culture, art history, archaeology. If you earn a BA in Classical Languages (working toward proficiency in both Latin and Greek) you'll spend more time on just the languages. These undergraduate degrees equip students to teach at the pre-college level or to go on to graduate programs in religion (Greek), Medieval Studies (Late Latin), Archaeology, Philosophy, Ancient History, Art History, or Classics (both languages).

If you earn the BA in Classics, are you stuck with getting a graduate degree that specifically deals with Latin and or Greek or will the degree prepare you for other things? Classics has consistently been viewed as one of the strongest liberal arts degrees a student can earn. Classics majors are trained as skilled communicators in writing and speech plus they have been taught to think critically and express themselves analytically. Classics majors are naturally suited to graduate degrees in law, sciences, medicine, communications, journalism, and so much more. Ever heard of Jerry Brown, governor of CA? Raymond Teller of the famous magic team Penn and Teller? Ted Tuner? J.K. Rowling? All these famous communicators are Classics majors.

Want more? Go here.