why egyptology ownz:

because one of the letters of the egyptian hieroglyphabet is gardiner d53 described as, “phallus with liquid issuing from it.” this glyph shows up in words like “come apart”, “flow”, “twitch”, “wriggle”, “impure fluid”, and “spray”. can you imagine if this was the 27th letter of the roman alphabet?!? oh the fun that we would have…

also: the sumerians had some equally righteous ideograms. (eg. jaritz #919)

for wunderpantry: 3,000 year-old bog butter »

Bog butter is an ancient waxy substance found buried in peat bogs, particularly in the United Kingdom and in Ireland. Likely an old method of making and preserving butter.

and you thought that century eggs were the oldest delicacies in my cupboard—well you miscalculated by a factor of ten (and a multiple of three)!

for bestiary: the fastitocalon (a turtle-whale the size of a small island).

a 4th century description in the physiologus explains this beguiling leviathan like this:

“There is a monster in the sea which in Greek is called aspidochelone, in Latin “asp-turtle”; it is a great whale, that has what appear to be beaches on its hide, like those from the sea-shore. This creature raises its back above the waves of the sea, so that sailors believe that it is just an island, so that when they see it, it appears to them to be a sandy beach such as is common along the sea-shore. Believing it to be an island, they beach their ship alongside it, and disembarking, they plant stakes and tie up the ships. Then, in order to cook a meal after this work, they make fires on the sand as if on land. But when the monster feels the heat of these fires, it immediately submerges into the water, and pulls the ship into the depths of the sea.

unrelated: is not the colour palette used by this illumination drop-dead delightful? i am going to kuler this so hard, so extra hard.

image credit: from ms. ludwig xv 3, by an unknown franco-flemish illuminator (13th century).

a very crappy monster

perhaps there is no monster more foul than the bonnacon which was described by pliny as a beast with a head like a bull and mane of a horse. he goes on to say how when the bonnacon is pursued, it expels its dung which can eject as far as three furlongs (over a half kilometer), and scorches anything it touches. (pliny does not mention anything about the bonnacon’s knackish grin as seen in the above illustration.)

the picture above is from the bestiary of anne walsh (1633). you can find another (highly comical) depiciton of the monster in the aberdeen bestiary which dates to the 1500’s.

UPDATE: there is also this (ultra-modern) version by leif goldberg. thank you craig!

front matters
i love me a good old timey title page. perhaps this is because old timey title pages bring together three of the nineteen pillars that the ragbag is based upon: typography & design, esoteric knowledge, literature, and huffing glue. the foxy specimen above is from the english translation* of the manual of classical erotology (1884).

• revel in: the latin AND scholarly euphemisms for what basically means “a book about the greeks and romans boning eachother.”
• notice that: the book’s author, (scholar and philosopher) frederick charles forberg abbreviates BOTH his fore and middle names into four-letter chunks.
• and finally, savor: the fact that this book is only 1 of 100 private copies printed solely for the amusement of a pleasuremongering viscount (with a masters degree) and his rakish bros.

and you thought that taking the know your dvořák quiz was the maximum amount of mirth that you could have on the internet… well guess again, pipsqueak. i give you the know your odyssey translation quiz.

the following are seven famous translations of the epic’s opening line. can you match them to their translators? (note, for each answer that you get wrong, poor odysseus must wait an additional year before returning to his special lady friend (and to ratchet up the gravitas, he’s not allowed to engage in any autoerotic proclivities))

αʹ Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

βʹ Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.

γʹ Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers, and endured
Great suffering on the deep

δʹ The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d,
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall

εʹ Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.

ϝʹ The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way
Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;
That wander’d wondrous far, when he the town
Of sacred Troy had sackt and shiver’d down;

ζʹ The man, my Muse, resourceful, driven a long way
after he sacked the holy city of Trojans:
tell me all the men’s cities he saw and the men’s minds,

the translators: george chapman (1616), alexander pope (1713), william cullen bryant (1871),  robert fitzgerald (1961), richard lattimore (1965), robert fagles (1996), and edward mccrorie (2004).

answers can be found here. also: which translation do you think is the tops? (for my money, it’s fitzy-fitzgerald’s but maybe this is because this was the first interpretation that i read. related: doesn’t it always seem that the first version of a song that you hear is always the standard and all covers become inferior?)

the original little cæsar’s menu

suppose that (despite all odds) you have just been elected the chief priest of the roman state religion and you want to show your gratitude (and get a little publicity as well) by throwing a lavish dinner for the felyshyppynge of virgins that tend rome’s fire up at the atrium vestal. what are you gonna prepare?

for starters, they are virgins so you would not want to excite their libidos too much with phalliod sausages or erotic cakes. it might also be a smart political manœuver to keep the lavish menu on the frugal side as the roman economy is in a bear market right now and the last thing that you want to do is give your rascally opponents (catulus and publius) reason to slander you in their blogs.

you are perhaps the world’s greatest political and martial tactician yet your choice in matters culinary is now the most important decision of your life. it’s your move, hot shot.

[spoiler alert] this is the answer: i give you—the menu of dinner given by julius caesar to the vestal virgins after his election as pontifex maximus. rome 63 b.c.

i. service

prickly globe-fish, oysters of different kinds, thrushes, asparagus, fattened chicken, oyster-patties, black and white sea-acorns (a kind of mussels), sea-nettles, fig-packers (snipe), cotelettes of venison and wild boar, fattened wild game powdered with flour

ii. service

swine udders, wild boar’s head, swine-udder patties, ducks, potted teal ducks, roasted wild game, pudding, custard, pientinish sandwiches

wines

falerno, xérès, spanish médoc

image from the buttolph menu collection (this is a real thing) of the new york public library (1888).

all this for a dame

internet wunderkind (and brassy aviatrix), kyle bingman knows the perfect recipe for a ragbag post (1 part literature, 1 part chart, and 30 parts of head-smashing battle gore!). she says:

Attached a[re]… two charts, one showing the battle wounds/fatalities as described in the Iliad and another the wound lethality in the Iliad by area of body… In the text the authors cite the Iliad as one of the earliest detailed literary accounts of ancient warfare and the wounds suffered by the armies involved.

One item of particular interest is the high fatality rate from head wounds, a curious fact when one considers that the helmets worn by the Greeks were effective at reducing shock from blows and providing coverage from cutting actions. The authors posit that many of the lethal head wounds were caused by stones being dropped from the 40 foot walls of Troy. Another option includes soldiers being struck in the face by arrows, as while standing at the base of the wall the open area of the face would present an easy target to those above. Finally, it is also likely that many Greek soldiers either wore their helmets improperly or took the face plates off of them to reduce heat.

public service announcement: when you are laying seige to an enemy’s city and standing at the base of his wall, MAKE SURE that your helmet is on properly or you will get an ARROW through your face (statistics from bingman don’t lie). the more you know.

both charts can be found in, from sumer to rome: the military capabilities of ancient armies by richard a. gabriel and karen s. metz (greenwood: london, 1991).

the romans’ nomens

if this chart from wikipedia (which breaks down the different components of roman names) shows you anything, it’s that your often mispronounced first name and your awkwardly hyphenated last name aren’t so unwieldy after all »

Analysis of an example complete name: Marcus Aurelius Lucii f. Quinti n. tribu Galeria Antoninus Felix, domo Caesaraugusta.

y, claudius

when tiberius claudius drusu was just a wee one, his mother informed him that he had just as much chance of becoming emperor of rome as he would of changing the roman alphabet. and so, when he was crowned cæsar in 10 b.c., one of his first acts was to introduce some trippy new letters into the roman alphabet »

• a reversed C (antisigma) to replace /BS/ and /PS/, much like X stood in for /CS/ and /GS/.
• a turned F (digamma inversum) to represent consonantal U (W/V), possibly inspired by the Greek digamma.
• a half H to represent the so called sonus medius, a short vowel sound between U and I before labial consonants in Latin words.

after claudius was assasinated by poison (a toxin, not the metal band) the use of the state-mandated letters was abandoned entirely. many years later a Y (the letter, not the community gym) was used to represent the sound described by claudius’s half h.

in ancient greece

Independent prostitutes had sandals with marked soles…which left an imprint that stated ΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΙ / AKOLOUTHI (“Follow me”) on the ground.