Bill Parsons's Posts - eLatin eGreek eLearn2024-03-29T09:50:23ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsonshttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/352108064?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://eclassics.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1ahw1099zp7tv&xn_auth=noEpode 10tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-11-20:727885:BlogPost:291272008-11-20T10:00:00.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Horace<br />
Epode 10<br />
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<br />
The ship, loosed from its moorings, sets off under a bad omen, carrying that stinker Maevius. South Wind—may you remember to beat both sides of the ship with terrible waves; Black East Wind—scatter rigging and broken oars across the swirling sea; North Wind—rise up as powerfully as when you shatter great oaks on high mountains. May no friendly star appear in the black night where sad Orion sets. May he be carried on no quieter or more even sea than the hands of the victorious…
Horace<br />
Epode 10<br />
<br />
<br />
The ship, loosed from its moorings, sets off under a bad omen, carrying that stinker Maevius. South Wind—may you remember to beat both sides of the ship with terrible waves; Black East Wind—scatter rigging and broken oars across the swirling sea; North Wind—rise up as powerfully as when you shatter great oaks on high mountains. May no friendly star appear in the black night where sad Orion sets. May he be carried on no quieter or more even sea than the hands of the victorious Greeks, when Pallas turned her anger from burning Troy to the impious ship of Ajax.<br />
<br />
Oh, what sweat shall pour from your sailors! And what a sickly pallor shall come over your face, and what prayers and girly screams and shall pour from your mouth to absent Jove, when the Ionian Sea with the wintry Notus has burst open your ship.<br />
<br />
And if you, stretched out on the beach as a fat corpse, end up a tasty meal for the gulls, a randy goat and ewe will be sacrificed to the Gods of the Storm.Epode 9- Squeamish Allowedtag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-09-22:727885:BlogPost:274472008-09-22T09:28:29.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Blessed Maecenas, when will I, happy, by the grace of Jove, drink vintage Caecuban at the victory banquet with you, in your great house with victorious Caesar, the lyre playing a Dorian march with barbarian flutes mixed in? Just as we recently celebrated, when the retreating Neptunian leader, threatening chains on the city which he dragged from his friends-- perfidious slaves-- flew through the straits, his ships in flames.<br />
<br />
A Roman—God! (future generations will deny it)—made over to a woman,…
Blessed Maecenas, when will I, happy, by the grace of Jove, drink vintage Caecuban at the victory banquet with you, in your great house with victorious Caesar, the lyre playing a Dorian march with barbarian flutes mixed in? Just as we recently celebrated, when the retreating Neptunian leader, threatening chains on the city which he dragged from his friends-- perfidious slaves-- flew through the straits, his ships in flames.<br />
<br />
A Roman—God! (future generations will deny it)—made over to a woman, carrying palisade stakes and soldiers arms, allowing himself to serve withered eunuchs while the sun looks down upon the legionary standards posted around a disgraceful canopy bed. But then, twice 1,000 Galatians turned their roaring horses, shouting the name of Caesar, while the enemy’s ships, mustered to the left, turned tail into the port.<br />
<br />
Hail Triumph! Do you delay golden chariots and sacred bulls?<br />
<br />
Hail Triumph! Not after the Jurgurthine War did you return an equal general, nor did Africanus, whose manly virtue built a tomb upon Carthage. Victory on land and sea has turned the enemy’s cloak from purple to the color of mourning. Either he makes for Crete, renowned for its 100 cities, on winds not his own, or to Libya, troubled by the Notus, or is carried upon an uncertain sea.<br />
<br />
Boy! Bring out larger cups and some Chian or Lesbian wines; or rather give out fine Caecuban to ease my queasiness. It’s a pleasure to loosen fear and dread over Caesar’s affairs with sweet Bacchus.Epode 8- not for the squeamishtag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-09-14:727885:BlogPost:272932008-09-14T23:30:00.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Time to start in with my Horace translations again. Epode 8 is definately not for those easily offended.<br />
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Epode 8<br />
Horace<br />
Tr. William Parsons<br />
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You ask me, you pig, over and over again, what wilts my manhood, while you are the one with the one black tooth, with old age plowing your brow with wrinkles, and your filthy asshole, with shit still on it, gaping between boney ass cheeks like some cow's! But what <i>really</i> gets me is your chest and saggy tits-- like some mare’s teats--, your…
Time to start in with my Horace translations again. Epode 8 is definately not for those easily offended.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Epode 8<br />
Horace<br />
Tr. William Parsons<br />
<br />
<br />
You ask me, you pig, over and over again, what wilts my manhood, while you are the one with the one black tooth, with old age plowing your brow with wrinkles, and your filthy asshole, with shit still on it, gaping between boney ass cheeks like some cow's! But what <i>really</i> gets me is your chest and saggy tits-- like some mare’s teats--, your flabby belly, and chicken legs sitting on top of elephant ankles.<br />
<br />
You’ve been blest; may triumphal images lead your funeral procession and let there not be some wife out there who walks about laden with rounder pearls.<br />
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Who cares that there are little Stoic books that love to lie among your silken pillows? Do unread muscles stiffen less, or is the unlettered dick less soft? So listen, if you are going to call it out from my proud groin, you’ll have to work harder at it with your mouth.Julius Caesartag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-08-11:727885:BlogPost:264932008-08-11T14:50:52.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Julius Caesar has been making a comeback in the last decade. Michael Parenti’s <i>The Assassination of Julius Caesar</i> and Adrian Goldsworthy’s <i>Caesar; Life of a Colossus</i> are just two of the recent treatments of this larger than life figure, almost legendary in his own day, mythic in ours. Philip Freeman’s stated purpose was to parse out the myths from the facts and his <i>Julius Caesar</i> is a brilliant and compelling narrative which will help the general reader realize just how…
Julius Caesar has been making a comeback in the last decade. Michael Parenti’s <i>The Assassination of Julius Caesar</i> and Adrian Goldsworthy’s <i>Caesar; Life of a Colossus</i> are just two of the recent treatments of this larger than life figure, almost legendary in his own day, mythic in ours. Philip Freeman’s stated purpose was to parse out the myths from the facts and his <i>Julius Caesar</i> is a brilliant and compelling narrative which will help the general reader realize just how important Caesar was to the way western civilization evolved.<br />
<br />
While the current trend in historical studies is to minimize the role of the “great men,” it is hard to ignore the fact that at times some people do change their world, for the better or worse, and without them, that change would not come. Caesar was one of those men. But Caesar knew, as Freeman points out, that his power was not cut from the whole cloth of his charisma. Caesar was dependent on the Roman lower classes for his political and military successes. Bertolt Brecht asks the question in his <i>Questions from a Studious Worker</i>, “Caesar conquered Gaul- Did he not even have a cook with him?” As Freeman shows, Caesar knew his cooks and his men. Growing up in a gritty working class neighborhood, Caesar saw better than his richer contemporaries the problems of the lower classes in late Republican Rome.<br />
<br />
The inability of the Roman nobility and their “business leader” allies to deal with the social and political problems created by the rapid expansion of the state created an instability that was to prove as fatal to the Roman Republic as it did to Caesar himself. A century of civil war, of which Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon was but a small blip, left the state as little more than a resource to be exploited for the personal gain of the various contenders for power. The entrenched interests of the nobility left any notion of reform unacceptable and the increasing violence of the reaction left little room for compromise.<br />
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Freeman’s Caesar is neither a hero nor a villain, to use the author’s own definition of the extremes. But his treatment of his subject is sympathetic, and justifiably so. There is little doubt that Caesar’s motives were self serving, but that does not take away from the effect of what he tried to do. The land reform question, which claimed the lives of many reformers before Caesar, was not solved by the time of Caesar’s death, but one does have to ask the question of how Roman society would have evolved had he been successful. Much like how Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms were designed to ameliorate the worst problems of the working classes, Caesar’s land and debt reforms did not radically change the Roman system, but strengthened it. Caesar was a product of that Roman political system, a system in which he was just the most successful manifestation of what competence and charisma could accomplish. To destroy the system would have been to destroy his own place in his society.<br />
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Freeman’s <i>Julius Caesar</i> is a good read and well worth the effort of the general and specialized reader. I highly recommend it.Epode 7tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-06-15:727885:BlogPost:246852008-06-15T16:47:53.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Why, why have all of you hastened towards infamy? And why have unsheathed swords been fitted into your hands? Has not enough Latin blood poured upon the field and sea, not so the Roman might burn the proud citadels of envious Carthage, or send unconquered Britain down the Sacred Way in chains, but in answer to the prayers of the Parthians, that this city might kill itself with its own right hand?<br />
<br />
Wolves and lions do not exhibit this behavior, except upon other animals, wild though they…
Why, why have all of you hastened towards infamy? And why have unsheathed swords been fitted into your hands? Has not enough Latin blood poured upon the field and sea, not so the Roman might burn the proud citadels of envious Carthage, or send unconquered Britain down the Sacred Way in chains, but in answer to the prayers of the Parthians, that this city might kill itself with its own right hand?<br />
<br />
Wolves and lions do not exhibit this behavior, except upon other animals, wild though they are.<br />
<br />
Does blind madness or Fate or guilt seize us? Answer me!<br />
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They are silent; a deathly pallor colors their faces and their minds are struck dumb. It is this: bitter Fate insights the Romans, and the crime of a brother’s violent murder, as when the blood of innocent Remus flowed on the earth, a curse to future generations.Horace, Epode 6tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-05-18:727885:BlogPost:234882008-05-18T01:31:51.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Who are you to attack innocent strangers, you dog-- a coward against wolves? Why not turn these empty threats towards me, if you dare, one who will fight back? For like a Mollossian or tawny Laconian hound, a friendly force for the shepherd, I will drive through heavy snow, with ears picked up, whatever beast proceeds. You, once you have filled the woods with a timid howl, can sniff out the sop thrown down to you.<br />
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Beware! Beware! For I raise my ready horns harshly toward evil, as the spurned…
Who are you to attack innocent strangers, you dog-- a coward against wolves? Why not turn these empty threats towards me, if you dare, one who will fight back? For like a Mollossian or tawny Laconian hound, a friendly force for the shepherd, I will drive through heavy snow, with ears picked up, whatever beast proceeds. You, once you have filled the woods with a timid howl, can sniff out the sop thrown down to you.<br />
<br />
Beware! Beware! For I raise my ready horns harshly toward evil, as the spurned son-in-law towards the faithless Lycambes or the tireless enemy towards Bupolus. For, if you should attack with sharp tooth, shall I cry like an unavenged child?Epode 5tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-05-10:727885:BlogPost:232482008-05-10T00:24:06.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Here's my translation of Horace's Epode 5<br />
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“Oh, by whichever of the gods in heaven that rule the earth and human affairs-- what is the meaning of this cacophony of yours and why do you have a grim face only for me? By your children, if, when called upon, Lucina appeared at true birth, by this empty purple symbol, by Jove, who disapproving of all of this-- why are you staring at me like a stepmother or as a wild beast hounded by the spear?”<br />
<br />
Once he had said this with trembling lip, the boy with…
Here's my translation of Horace's Epode 5<br />
<br />
“Oh, by whichever of the gods in heaven that rule the earth and human affairs-- what is the meaning of this cacophony of yours and why do you have a grim face only for me? By your children, if, when called upon, Lucina appeared at true birth, by this empty purple symbol, by Jove, who disapproving of all of this-- why are you staring at me like a stepmother or as a wild beast hounded by the spear?”<br />
<br />
Once he had said this with trembling lip, the boy with his childish body as might soften the impious heart of a Thracian stood there, his toga and charm stripped away. Canidia, her hair tangled and head braided with tiny vipers, ordered wild figs torn up from graves; she called for funereal cypresses and eggs smeared with the blood of a foul toad and feathers of a nocturnal screech owl, and herbs that Iolcos and the land of Hiberes-- fertile in potions-- send, and she ordered the jawbone taken from a starving dog to be burned in Colchan flames.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sagana, skirt hitched up, sprinkling Avernine water throughout the whole house, bristles with hair like a sea urchin or a running boar.<br />
<br />
Nothing drives back Veia’s conscience as she removes soil with an iron hoe, groaning under her labors; digging so that the buried boy will be able to die at the spectacle of a meal changed two or three times a day, while he protrudes from the ground to his mouth as bodies in water float to the chin, so that his cut out marrow and dried liver will be a love potion once his eyes, fixed on the forbidden food, have withered away.<br />
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Not lacking in lust for men was Folia of Arinimum, who all the lazy Neapolitans and the yokels from neighboring towns believe could snatch down the moon and stars from the sky with a Thessalonian incantation.<br />
<br />
Then cruel Canidia gnawing her short thumb nail with her rotten tooth-- what did she say and to what did she remain silent? “Oh faithful witnesses of my affairs, Night and Diana, who rules the silence when sacred mysteries are preformed, now, now come, and now turn your wrath and divine will against my enemies.<br />
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‘In the dread forest while the gentle beasts lie hidden in sweet sleep, Suburan dogs bark at that laughable old letch, anointed with nard which my hands could not have more perfectly made. What happened? Why did the abominable love potion of the barbarian Medea not work? The potion which she, before she fled, took revenge on Jason’s proud mistress, the daughter of Creon, with a robe, a gift steeped in poison, which burned away the new bride? Despite the fact that neither herb nor secret root from the remotest places has escaped my notice, he sleeps on beds smeared with my potions in oblivion of all mistresses.<br />
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“Ah, Ah! He walks free through the spell of a more knowledgeable witch! Not by the usual potions, Oh Varus, creature of many sorrows, will your sanity return when called out by Marsian spells. I’ll get greater potions; I’ll give you a greater, more terrible, love philter, and sooner the heavens shall sit below the sea with the Earth stretched out above then you will not burn with love for me as bitumen in the black flame.”<br />
<br />
There upon the boy, while before trying to sooth the impious with gentle words, then doubtful how to shatter the silence, now cries out Thyestian curses: “Magic potions do not have the power to exchange good for evil, nor to divert humane revenge. I shall drive you with curses; my dire curses will not be appeased by any sacrifice. Once I, condemned to die, have breathed my last, I shall return at night as a Fury and as a shade I will attack your face with a curved nail while sitting on your troubled chest, the right of the spirits of the dead. I will drive away sleep with fear. A mob will break you obscene old women to pieces stoning you from neighborhood to neighborhood- from all over the city-and then wolves and Esquiline crows will carry off your limbs. Nor will my parents who will, alas, survive me, flee from the spectacle.”Epode 4tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-04-30:727885:BlogPost:229852008-04-30T00:47:58.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Just like the fate that binds together wolves and sheep, such is the difference between you and me-- you, with your sides burned by Spanish ropes and your shins by hard shackles. Although you can swagger about with your arrogant wealth, Fortune has not changed who you really are.<br />
<br />
Don’t you see as you strut along the Via Sacra in your outrageous toga that passersby turn their eyes away in absolute disgust? “Cut by the lashes of the triumvir capitals until the herald was disgusted, now he…
Just like the fate that binds together wolves and sheep, such is the difference between you and me-- you, with your sides burned by Spanish ropes and your shins by hard shackles. Although you can swagger about with your arrogant wealth, Fortune has not changed who you really are.<br />
<br />
Don’t you see as you strut along the Via Sacra in your outrageous toga that passersby turn their eyes away in absolute disgust? “Cut by the lashes of the triumvir capitals until the herald was disgusted, now he ploughs 1,000 iugera of Falerian farmland and wears out the Appian Way with fast gaulish ponies. Now a ‘great’ knight, he sits in the first seats of the theater in contempt of Otho’s laws. What is the point of having the heavy beaked ships led out against mercenaries and manual slaves if this— this-- is a military tribune?”Horace Epode 3tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-04-21:727885:BlogPost:222452008-04-21T16:35:40.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
If ever someone with an impious hand, has broken the aged neck of a parent, make them eat garlic-- it’s worse than hemlock! Oh, the tough guts of harvesters! What sort of poison rages in my stomach? Has the gore of a viper been boiled with these vegetables without my notice? Or has that witch Canidia handled this evil stew?<br />
<br />
When Medea gazed upon Jason, shining brighter than all the rest of the Argonaughts, she anointed him with this stuff when he was about to bind the bulls unused to yokes;…
If ever someone with an impious hand, has broken the aged neck of a parent, make them eat garlic-- it’s worse than hemlock! Oh, the tough guts of harvesters! What sort of poison rages in my stomach? Has the gore of a viper been boiled with these vegetables without my notice? Or has that witch Canidia handled this evil stew?<br />
<br />
When Medea gazed upon Jason, shining brighter than all the rest of the Argonaughts, she anointed him with this stuff when he was about to bind the bulls unused to yokes; with gifts steeped in this, she took revenge on his mistress and flew away on her dragon.<br />
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Neither the summer heat that settles on thirsty Apulia nor the hot gift that burned the shoulders of capable Hercules is so great.<br />
<br />
So, Merry Maecenas, if you ever decide to pull such a prank ever again, may your girl place her hand before your kiss and recline on the furthest couch.Epode 2tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-04-12:727885:BlogPost:211052008-04-12T19:07:51.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
Here goes Epode II<br />
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“Happy is he who avoids the rat race, like the ancient race of mortals, cultivates his ancestral lands with cows, who is free from debt, who’s neither a soldier, roused by the cruel trumpet, nor dreading the wrathful sea, nor living at the Forum and the haughty thresholds of more powerful men.<br />
<br />
“So, when the shoots of his vines mature, he weds them to tall poplars, or in a remote vale, he watches the wanderings of the bellowing flocks, and removing useless boughs with a…
Here goes Epode II<br />
<br />
<br />
“Happy is he who avoids the rat race, like the ancient race of mortals, cultivates his ancestral lands with cows, who is free from debt, who’s neither a soldier, roused by the cruel trumpet, nor dreading the wrathful sea, nor living at the Forum and the haughty thresholds of more powerful men.<br />
<br />
“So, when the shoots of his vines mature, he weds them to tall poplars, or in a remote vale, he watches the wanderings of the bellowing flocks, and removing useless boughs with a pruning hook, he replaces them with fruitful ones, or he pours pressed honey into clean amphoras, or he shears the timorous sheep; or maybe, as Autumnus rises from the field, his head garlanded with ripe fruit, how happy he is picking the grafted pear or the purple dyed grape, with which to honor you, Priapus, and you, Father Sylvanus, protector of boundaries.<br />
<br />
“Sometimes he likes to lie under the ancient holm oak, sometimes in the firm grass-- the waters gliding between the tall banks of the river, the birds making plaintive sounds in the woods, the waters of the stream making a noise that invites light slumber.<br />
<br />
“What’s more, as the Wintry season readies the rain and snow of Thundering Jove, he presses the brisling wild boar here and there into the hindering hunting nets with many hounds, or stretches out loose nets on smooth poles, a devise for greedy thrushes, and captures the trembling hare and the foreign crane with his snare, a great catch.<br />
<br />
“Amongst all this, who cannot forget the evil cares of love? So if a chaste woman helps with her share of the house and the sweet children (such as a Sabine, or a nimble, sunburned, Apulian wife), who builds up the sacred hearth fires with well-seasoned wood for her tired man’s return, who corrals the fat cattle in wicker fences, who drains their distended udders and pours this year’s sweet wine from the jar, who prepares the homemade sacrificial feast, neither Lucrinian mussels, turbot, nor parrotfish would please me more; if Winter, raging the eastern waves, turns them toward this sea, neither Numidian Guinea Fowl nor Ionian Grouse will descend into my guts.<br />
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“It’s better picking olives from the richest branches of the tree, or the meadow loving sorrel and the healthy mallows for a sick body, or the lamb killed for the Boundary Feast, or a kid saved from the wolf.<br />
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“Between holy days, it is pleasing to watch the pastured sheep hurry home and tired oxen drag the inverted plow by their languid necks, and to see the home-born slaves, proof of a prosperous home, gathered around the shining Lares.”<br />
<br />
This spoke Alfius the Moneylender, “now, now, I am about to be a farmer.”<br />
He called in his loans on the Ides and is trying to re-lend the money on the Kalends.Horace, Epode 1tag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-04-06:727885:BlogPost:196152008-04-06T14:51:25.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
I am currently working on a translation of Horace's Epodes. I thought it would be nice to post some here for comment. Keep in mind that these are a work in progress and any comments woudl be appreciated.<br />
<br />
Epode 1<br />
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Friend, you are going in a Liburtine galley among the ship’s tall ramparts, prepared, Maecenas, to undergo all of Caesar’s dangers yourself.<br />
<br />
What about us, whose life will be sweet if you survive and loathsome if you don’t?<br />
Should I pursue leisure, as you order, which is not pleasant…
I am currently working on a translation of Horace's Epodes. I thought it would be nice to post some here for comment. Keep in mind that these are a work in progress and any comments woudl be appreciated.<br />
<br />
Epode 1<br />
<br />
Friend, you are going in a Liburtine galley among the ship’s tall ramparts, prepared, Maecenas, to undergo all of Caesar’s dangers yourself.<br />
<br />
What about us, whose life will be sweet if you survive and loathsome if you don’t?<br />
Should I pursue leisure, as you order, which is not pleasant when I am not together with you, or should I be ready to suffer this ordeal which seems to be a job for real men with an iron will?<br />
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We will endure; I will follow you, whether through Alpine ridges and the inhospitable<br />
Caucasus Mountains or the farthest hole in the West, bound to you with a strong heart.<br />
<br />
What help would I be to your labors, you ask, with my unwarlike manner and weak constitution?<br />
<br />
If I am a fellow traveler, I will be in less fear, because those who are absent fear more, just as the mother hen fears the gliding of the serpent near her unfledged chicks more when they are not near, though she could bring no more help to them if they were.<br />
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I will willingly serve as a soldier in this or any war in the hope of your thanks, not for more gifts-- my ploughs are already strained by a line of bullocks.<br />
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I wish for neither a herd that moves from a Calabrian pasture to Lacana against the summer’s heat, nor for a glittering villa touching the Circaen walls of high lying Tusculum.<br />
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Your generosity enriches me, enough and more. I have no desire to gather riches, either to bury it in the ground like greedy Chremes or squander it like a prodigal son.Teaching Ancient History Onlinetag:eclassics.ning.com,2008-02-10:727885:BlogPost:167852008-02-10T15:35:06.000ZBill Parsonshttps://eclassics.ning.com/profile/BillParsons
<font face="Calibri"><br />
</font><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><span style="COLOR: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri">In response to Andrew’s challenge, here is something I have been working on.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">This term, for the first time, Franklin Pierce University is running “Ancient and Medieval Worlds” in the 100% online environment. As Franklin…</font></p>
<font face="Calibri"><br />
</font><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri"><span style="COLOR: black; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri">In response to Andrew’s challenge, here is something I have been working on.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">This term, for the first time, Franklin Pierce University is running “Ancient and Medieval Worlds” in the 100% online environment. As Franklin Pierce continues to expand their 100% online course offering, this was the one class that made people pause. Would the students “get” the Iliad without some handholding in a physical classroom? Is the subject too dense for the average non-specialist student? The answer is a big resounding “NO!”</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">One of the reasons that it has been working out so well is the great flexibility of the eCollege format in which we structure our online classes. The system is very “what you see is what you get” allowing students to deal more with the subject matter rather than navigating through the course. Because the system is also very graphics friendly, maps and illustrations can be easily embedded into online lectures to allow students to contextualize the information.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">Probably the most important feature is the pedagogy Franklin Pierce uses in the online environment. Meaningful instructor contact and interaction allow me, as instructor to impart my love for the subject and help students with difficult conceptual issues.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">I am not sure if language acquisition is something that will be effective in an online environment. I am convinced that, under the right circumstances, history and culture can be meaningfully discussed in this format.</font></p>