November 11th

Ortona, Italy, December 1943. (National Archives of Canada, PA-136332)

The temptation, of course, is to try to say something meaningful, but I think instead I will simply let Lt. Col. McCrae take it from here:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Update: Also, go here and watch the video. You will probably want kleenex.

Serie A!

Photo by MJwho

Well, better late than never! Yes, Serie A is techinically 5 rounds into its season, but here we are with a preview nonetheless.

And what a bizarre 5 rounds they've been! If the season were to end today, Inter would win the title, which is not surprising at all, but they'd be joined in the Champions' League by Lazio, Chievo Verona, and Brescia. At the other end of the table, Lecce would be relegated, which may happen anyway, but AS Roma and Udinese would also take up residence in Serie B. Newly promoted Cesena, who haven't been in the top division in a couple of decades, have already drawn Roma and beaten AC Milan. Weirdness abounds.

The oddity that is this young season was perfectly encapsulated by the events that occurred late in the Brescia-Roma match on September 22nd. In the waning moments of the game, with Brescia leading 2-1, Roma goalkeeper Julio Sergio threw himself into a reckless sliding tackle on Brescia's Panagiotis Kone. The Roma player ended up with a yellow card, and, more seriously, a dislocated and generally torn up ankle. However, Roma were already down a man due to an earlier red card, and had used up all their substitutions. And so poor old Julio Sergio was hastily taped up, and then forced to remain in goal, though obviously in extreme distress, until the end of the match. It was all rather... well, awkward and uncomfortable, actually, although probably not as uncomfortable as it was for Julio Sergio, who's expected to miss a month or so of action. Here's the whole sordid affair, set to piano music for some reason:

Early season weirdness, however, does tend to sort itself out, as injuries pile up, slow starters get themselves settled, and talent, or lack thereof, begins to tell, and the final table will probably look at least moderately familiar. The big four look to be in pretty good shape to take the Champions' spots, but the wizened seers see the title moving across Milan to reside with Berlusconi's boys, with a lingering chance that this occurs for reasons other than on-field performance. As for the relegation question, Lecce and Cesena appear weak, despite the latter's early season feats, and I just have a bad feeling about Bologna. Between those two extremes it's a hard to say. Economic crisis and a new, more equitable, TV deal, are in the process of bringing more parity to Serie A, even as Italian clubs slip back a little bit in comparison with their Spanish and English counterparts (the German and Dutch leagues have undergone the same process in recent seasons). Although the big clubs still have their noses in front, it's likely that this season and those to come will see more competition and excitement than there's been in Serie A for some time! Anyway, here's your predicted final table:

1	AC Milan
2	Inter Milan
3	AS Roma
4	Juventus
5	Fiorentina
6	Napoli
7	Sampdoria
8	Palermo
9	Lazio
10	Bari
11	Genoa
12	Udinese
13	Cagliari
14	Catania
15	Chievo Verona
16	Brescia
17	Parma
18	Bologna
19	Cesena
20	Lecce

I've Ridden That Train...

The Circumvesuviana, the commuter train that makes its way around the Bay of Naples from Naples itself to Sorrento, has had a very bad day.

"Mai Così Brutta"*

Well, that went very poorly. My man Gattuso played the first half, and did what he could, but despite an exciting conclusion to the game, one never really got the feeling that Italy were going to pull it out. Big changes coming to the Italian national team, and not all of them are going to be voluntary.

Full congratulations, though, to Slovakia.

Anyway, to take all our minds off it, here's some vuvuzela-related hilarity:

*"Never [before] so ugly." - The headline in La Repubblica, referring to the overall performance of the Azzurri.

A Spot of Bother on Italian TV

In the videoclip below, you will see Beppe Bigazzi, a fairly well-known Italian chef and specialist in regional delicacies. You will see him get himself in trouble by discussing, with far too much approbation and enthusiasm, a dish apparently native to the Tuscan region of Valdarno, just east of Florence. A dish that is, I would further note, illegal-with-a-capital-I in Italy.

The best part of the video, for me, is the understandably horrified reaction of his co-host, Elisa Isoardi, who finally ends up seeking mortified shelter behind the salad greens. Here's the clip, and I've provided a translation below it:

Bigazzi: Tomorrow is Fat Thursday...

Isoardi: True

Bigazzi: ...which in Valdarno is called "Berlingaccio," because there's a [indecipherable] Berlingaccio. Furthermore, there's a proverb for Berlingaccio: "He who has no fat kills the cat." Because we're in February...

Isoardi: Excuse me...

Bigazzi: ..."Cat February," and one of the great dishes of Valdarno was braised cat.

Isoardi: Braised Otello - no! (Otello is Isoardi's cat - Trans.)

Bigazzi: (sarcastic) Because people don't eat rabbit, they don't eat chicken...

Isoardi: (also sarcastic) No! Let's eat cats, since there are so many of them!

Bigazzi: ...they don't eat pigeon, et cetera? A cat, kept for three days in the running water of a [indecipherable] stream, comes out with its meat white. I assure you - I've eaten it many times - I assure you that it's a delicacy. So now there are going to be letters and things... yes, letters from lovers of nature! Why don't they defend rabbits? For these animals they're racists! Ok, it's not important...

Isoardi: Let's talk about vegetables.

Bigazzi: Why should we talk about vegetables?

The response to Bigazzi's little expedition into cat recipes has been, shall we say, noisy and enraged, and rightly so. The eating of cats, of course, is not an unknown phenomenon, even in the West, where it's generally considered taboo. There's an interesting article on the practise here. However, in most places where cats are kept as pets, they are eaten only as a last resort, when instability or other factors have caused severe food shortages.

A cat- and dog- butcher in Paris during the Prussian siege of the city, 1870-71.

The Valdarnese proverb quoted by Bigazzi, "he who has no fat kills the cat," in fact speaks directly to this motive. Cats are to be eaten only by someone who is desperately starving. And it is worth pointing out at this point that the Valdarno has suffered periods of extreme privation during its history - during the upheavals of the Renaissance before the Florentines took over the area, for example, and more recently during Fascism and the Second World War. I would hazard that the use of cats for food in the area grew out of one of these periods.

There is also the question that Bigazzi hints at towards the end of the clip: why don't the people who are outraged at the thought of cat-eating get similarly worked up over the consumption of, for example, rabbits? It's a good question, but one with a simple answer: it is because cats are considered pets. This means, among other things, that we tend to view them individually rather than collectively, which is a good and humane impulse. As an example of such a view, take Isoardi's response to the first mention of braised cat. The mental image that obviously comes to her right away is that of the cooking and eating of a specific, individual, animal, and it's no wonder that she responds with horror.

Now, it is true that some animals, such as rabbits, ducks and chickens, do sometimes straddle the line between pets and livestock. However, I would be willing to wager that the people who do keep such animals as pets either do not eat them at all- either the pets themselves or other members of the species, or have a certain amount of difficulty with doing so. I am reminded here of one of James Herriot's anecdotes, about a pig-farmer of his acquaintance. This farmer was apparently a fairly typical example of the hardbitten, taciturn, Yorkshire dalesman. However, when it came time each year to slaughter the pigs, his wife had to do all the work, while he sat in the farmhouse kitchen and cried.

Anyway, Bigazzi's been suspended by the network, not to mention shouted at by a number of public figures, including the Undersecretary of Health. He's also now claiming that he was sort of joking: "Mind you, I wasn’t joking all that much. In the 1930s and 1940s, when I was a boy, people certainly did eat cat in the countryside around Arezzo." And so we come back to the idea of cat-eating as a symptom of very hard times - as mentioned above, that was not a happy era for Tuscany.

(A minor note about the Times article linked to here: I don't know where they got the "in-show" quotes that they attribute to Bigazzi, but he doesn't utter them in the clip that I've given you here)

To close, I would issue a reminder that Italy does have a specific law against the eating of cats (dogs, too). I think there's similar legislation in Canada, but if there isn't, there should be.

UPDATE: Chorus, in the comments, gives us a heads-up that Bigazzi has now in fact been fired. And indirectly reminds me to link to these people!

Yet Another Cavalcade Of Randomness!!

Because the first one was such a hit!

• Open House at the U this past Saturday, which is always good for my fitness, since the Department and the Open House booth are in opposite corners of the campus. The most encouraging sign, on a day that went really well anyway, was the number of high-school students who came up to our booth asking not "So what is History & Classics, anyway, and what kind of job can it get me?", but rather things like "this is where I come to learn about the ancient world, right?" Good stuff.
  
  
• On a related note, I had coffee this morning with the husband of the Director for the archaeological site in Tuscany upon which I have worked. We discussed many things, including which bits of the upcoming site publication I should expect to find myself writing, and the general state of the preservation/conservation business. It was extremely productive...
  
  
• On a completely unrelated note, I went, along with brother and nephew, to see the Major Junior team in action on Friday night. The local boys won 3-2, despite a hairy finish, and afterwards we got to and clamber around on the catwalks up above the arena. Fun!
  
  
• Speaking of hairy finishes, that was not how the Oilies wished to commence their season, I believe. Sigh. On the bright side, overall, the team looked pretty decent.
  
  
• I believe that I saw a beaver swimming in the river last week - spotted him, in fact, from the bus as we were crossing a bridge. Alternatively, might have been muskrat, but it was a little big for that, I think.
  
  
• And a neat little piece dealing with light pollution, accompanied by an absolutely stunning video, is located here. Go watch!

And that's it 'til next time!

In Which Chunklets Previews A Sporting Event Before It Actually Begins...

Ah yes, on to Serie A, which gets going this weekend! Here are some questions to ponder for the upcoming season, along with possibly true answers:

So, who's going to win it?

Inter Milan

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Um, you need to say a little bit more, I think.

Oh. Well, as the offseason transfer market got going, I not only had Inter down as champions, but thought they would probably have the title in the bag by about Christmas. Unlike, well, every other team in Serie A, they had actually succeeded in bringing in some major talent, in the person of Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o. Now... I still think they'll win it, but they may find themselves pushed by Juventus, who've very quietly made some good acquisitions this summer.

Ok, what about the other Champions' League spots?

This is where it gets exciting! Much though I don't want to, I've got to put AC Milan down for third place. Yes, they've lost their best player, as Kaka betook himself off to Real Madrid. Yes, Philippe Senderos went back to Arsenal. Yes, their owner is a lunatic who's prone to public criticism of his coaches. However, they've got too much talent, and too much money for reinforcements.

After that, though, things get really interesting, as a large handful of clubs will have their eyes on the last Champions' spot. Fiorentina, Roma, and Napoli probably have the best shot at it, but if those three stumble then Udinese, Sampdoria, Lazio, and maybe even Genoa and Palermo will all be looking to take advantage. I think, in the end, that it could be Roma's turn this season. They're still relying too much on Francesco Totti, but Fiorentina didn't do much in the transfer market, and Napoli, who did make some useful pickups, are involved in acrimonious wrangling with their top striker.

Passing lightly over the middle of the table then, who's going down?

Bari, for starters. The newly-promoted Puglians did nothing to strengthen their side, and just plain look over-matched. As for the other two... well, it saddens me, but I'm once again looking at Siena as relegation fodder (Note that I was wrong about them last time, though). And I've got a bad feeling about Bologna, who are experiencing some chaos behind the scenes, and who's centenary season may turn out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

And here's the prospective final table:

1	Inter Milan
2	Juventus
3	AC Milan
4	Roma
5	Fiorentina
6	Napoli
7	Sampdoria
8	Udinese
9	Genoa
10	Lazio
11	Palermo
12	Parma
13	Catania
14	Cagliari
15	Atalanta
16	Livorno
17	Chievo Verona
18	Bologna
19	Siena
20	Bari

So, How Did We Do?: Part 2

Back again, and looking at how we picked Serie A over the last season! Here's the chart:

	Ye Olde Scrying Cauldron		Reality
1	Inter	1	Inter
2	AC Milan	2	Juventus
3	Fiorentina	3	AC Milan
4	Roma	4	Fiorentina
5	Juventus	5	Genoa
6	Napoli	6	Roma
7	Sampdoria	7	Udinese
8	Udinese	8	Palermo
9	Bologna	9	Cagliari
10	Lazio	10	Lazio
11	Torino	11	Atalanta
12	Palermo	12	Napoli
13	Cagliari	13	Sampdoria
14	Genoa	14	Siena
15	Atalanta	15	Catania
16	Chievo Verona	16	Chievo Verona
17	Lecce	17	Bologna
18	Reggina	18	Torino
19	Catania	19	Reggina
20	Siena	20	Lecce

Well, then, kudos to the Seers for a) correctly picking the champion, and b) correctly picking one of the relegated teams (poor, poor, Reggina). And hey, we succesfully nailed the final positions of three teams (Inter, Lazio, and Chievo Verona), one better than we did in England! Beyond that, there were some real shocks, as a number of teams were well away from where we'd picked them.

Genoa versus Juventus back in April. Genoa (in red and blue) won 3-2.

First of all, the good. The big story of the season was Genoa, who amazingly came within a lick of overhauling Fiorentina for the last Champions' League spot. Tiny Siena, whom we'd picked to finish dead last, not only survived but for once did so comfortably. And, even though they finished only three spots above where we'd picked them, Juventus had a far better year than I foresaw.

And now, that bad. I would think that the season's biggest disappointment had to be Napoli, who started very brightly, and then basically stopped getting results around Christmas-time. Of their final 21 games, Napoli won 3, although one of them was a fine victory over Inter, and so a club that maybe had an outside shot at the Champions' League won't be playing in Europe next season at all. Bologna, as well, didn't live up to expections. We mentioned them in the prediction article, saying something like "keep an eye on Bologna," and keep an eye on them we did. We watched as they strolled into Milan on opening day and beat AC, and we felt very smart. And then we watched as they nearly got relegated, and we didn't feel so smart anymore! Torino somehow managed not to avoid relegation. And finally, Genoa fans had two reasons to celebrate, as their cross-city rivals Sampdoria had a dreadful season, and finished well in the bottom half.

Yeah, it was kind of like that for Napoli in 2009

It's going to be very interesting to watch Serie A in the next few seasons. At this point, for the first time in decades, the big talent is flowing out of Italian club soccer, not into it. This has also been happening in German soccer recently, and the result this year was that the Bundesliga had a first-time champion in VFB Wolfsburg. It's also been a feature of Dutch soccer for about the last ten years, and there too we are seeing lesser-known clubs (AZ Alkmaar, this year's champion, for example) mounting serious challenges to the big boys. So, it is just possible that we may see the big four in Italy coming back to the field a little bit, which would actually be rather fun!

Earthquake

Bad stuff in Abruzzo this morning. The early reports are that the death toll is about 150, and that the city of L'Aquila will be "uninhabitable for some time." A friend's sister reports that the quake was felt "very strongly" in Rome, but that everyone there is fine. Further bulletins as events warrant.

UPDATE (April 7th): There was a major aftershock today, which apparently brought down the dome of the cathedral in Pescara. The death toll is up over 200.

UPDATE (April 9th): One of my Latin students, who is of Italian extraction, reports that all her relatives are fine (they weren't too close to the action, being south of Rome), although they did feel the 'quake, and the overhead lights were set to swinging. My thesis advisor also reports that all is well in her part of Tuscany, although she and her husband were woken up by the shaking.

We Have Been Awarded

A Kreativ Blogger Award has come our way courtesy of Chorus! Thank you, thank you!

*waves to crowd, gives long tedious speech*

And so, down to business! First of all, I must list 7 things that I love:

• Most sports, but especially soccer, hockey, and baseball.
  
  
  View Larger Map
  
  
• Cats!
  
  
  
  
• Seafood!
  
  
  
  
• Like the song says, giant squids (this is possibly related to the item immediately above)!
  
  
  
  
• The poems of Catullus
  
  
  
  
• Italy, especially the South. And the food...
  
  
  
  
• Ancient Romans
  
  

By no means a complete list, but there you go! And now, to pass on the award to 7 other deserving blogs! Well, most of the blogs that I would normally pick have already been tagged with this, so I'm only going with two right now, with an option to add more later:

EvilElitest
Pack Animal Existance

Missing Something?

A graffito from Pompeii:

equa esiquei aberavit cum semuncis honerata a d
VII Kal Septembres Decembres
convenito Q Deciu Q l Hilarum aut L Decium L
l Amphionem citra pontem
Sarni
fundo
Mamiano

Translated (loosely):

"If somebody lost a horse loaded with saddlebags on the 25th of November, get in touch with Quintus Decius Hilarus (freedman of Quintus) or Lucius Decius Amphio (freedman of Lucius) at the estate of Mamius on this side of the bridge over the Sarno."

Nice to see people doing the right thing!

More Marine Mosaicing!

Here are a couple more pictures from the Womens' Baths at Herculaneum (note: yesterday's squid is visible in the octopus picture!





And, a story, related to edible marine life. My corner of The Warrens is a long, long, way from the Big Water, which is somewhat inconvenient given that I do like teh seafood! So, whenever I find myself in an area where such fare is plentiful and good (like, say, the Bay of Naples), I tend to indulge liberally. And so, one evening this past summer, I found myself in a little restaurant in Vico Equense, examining the menu and discovering that it included grilled calamari. This seemed to be just the thing, so I ordered it. The waiter made approving noises, took my order and went away. A little while later he returned, bearing a plate.

And on that plate, there was a squid.

And I do mean, here, an entire squid (grilled, at that). Well, the internal bits had been removed, but it was otherwise intact. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera at hand, or I'd show photographic proof. I am used to calamari being in the form of deep-fried rings and sort of tentacly pieces, and I had never seen it fully assembled like that.

So I ate the squid, and it was good.

Picture Of A Squid

Because why not, that's why!



Anyway, it's from the Womens' Baths at Herculaneum.

Serie A Time!

The first matches of the new Italian season are nearly upon us, and, without further ado, here's what's going to happen in the upcoming season:

The Big Four: I think it's fairly safe to say that the Scudetto will reside in Milan come next May. However, it has the potential to be a tight race between Inter and AC. Inter, of course, have won the title three times on the trot, but there are enormous asterisks beside this seemingly impressive feat. To begin with, three years ago they were awarded the title after the season, when Juventus got in trouble for match-fixing. They duly won the title the proper way the following season, but that was with Juventus in Serie B, and AC Milan suffering a point penalty that made it impossible for them to compete. Last season, Inter looked to have the whole thing wrapped up by February, only to collapse and need a last-day win to fend off Roma. They got said win, but it was relief rather than ecstasy at the end of the season, and the manager was duly fired... and replaced with Jose Mourinho, who's done nothing but win championships everywhere he's managed. They've not done much in terms of player acquisitions, with today's purchase of Portuguese midfielder Riccardo Quaresma probably the biggest move, but with Mourinho in charge they're probably pretty safe standing pat.

AC Milan, on the other hand, could do anything but maintain the status quo. Last season was flat-out embarassing for the Rossoneri. They were unceremoniously dumped out of Champions' League competition in front of their home fans by Arsenal, and compounded that by being overtaken in Serie A by Fiorentina late in the season and ending up in fifth place. So, they'll contest the UEFA Cup this season, a great achievement for many teams, but a humiliation for Mr. Berlusconi, who's gotten used to seeing his boys in the Champions' League every season. AC responded to last season's disaster in a fairly predictable way; they hurled money at the problem, bringing in Ronaldinho, Mathieu Flamini, and Philippe Senderos, among others (the latter two, interestingly, were acquired from Arsenal; if you can't beat 'em...). With Ronaldinho, Kaká, and Pato up front (and Andriy Shevchenko subbing in, presumably), they're going to score lots and lots of goals, but there remain questions about their ability to prevent the opposition doing likewise. The error-prone Dida has been replaced in goal by Christian Abbiati, and Senderos will help, but the Milan defence is slow, a bit on the old side, and as a result likely to be vulnerable. As a last note, I could not possibly write about AC Milan without mentioning my very favourite Italian player, Gennaro Gattuso. And how annoying is it that he plays for AC Milan? Very. I would dearly love to see him in a Napoli shirt, but it seems that he will finish his career at AC.



The other two members of the big group, Juventus and Roma, don't look likely to be able to mount a title challenge this season. Roma are probably the better of the two, and the acquisition of Brazilian striko Julio Baptista means that they won't have to rely on the aging and injury-prone Francesco Totti as much as in previous years. Juventus, on the other hand, haven't made any really significant changes to their lineup, and will charge forward with last year's group. This is a bad thing, if you're a Juventus supporter, since last year's group is almost to a man past the point where a being a year older is a good thing for a professional soccer player. Also, Gianluigi Buffon looked mortal at this year's Euro championship, and if he doesn't return to his previous best-goalkeeper-in-the-world form, it's going to be a long season for La Vecchia Signora.

The Challengers: The best of the group outside the Big Four is undoubtedly Fiorentina, and if the Tuscan club stays ambitious (there is every sign that they intend to do just that), we could very soon be talking about a Big Five. They've bought very intelligently over the summer, and will be expecting to match last season's 4th-place finish (and accompanying Champions' League qualification) and possibly even better it.

It will also be worth keeping an eye on Napoli this coming season. They finished a worthy 8th last season, their first season back in Serie A in some time, and have managed to work their way into the UEFA Cup for this season. Last season also saw them defeat Inter, Juventus, and Fiorentina, and lay an epic thrashing on AC Milan in a game that AC really needed to win (it ended 3-1 to Napoli, a scoreline which greatly flattered AC Milan). However, they're going to have to learn how to pick up victories on the road; last year they won only three times outside of Naples. They have been active in the transfer market, and have harkened back to the glory years of Diego Maradona by stocking their front line with Argentinians. Napoli are probably not yet at the point where challenging for a Champions' League berth is likely, but they should improve on last season's results.

As for the other challengers, Sampdoria and Udinese are likely to be sniffing about, come sempre. Neither team did anything particularly stunning in the transfer market, but they're both solid, well-established teams, fully capable of taking points off the big boys every once in awhile. And is there anyone else capable of crashing the top eight? Well, Torino and Lazio, possibly. However, keep an eye also on newly promoted Bologna. They fended off an ownership bid by an American company this summer, and apparently their current owners have opened the chequebooks to improve the team. The seem to have spent the summer plundering the South American leagues, and if those new signings work out, Bologna will be good.

Palermo, whom I would normally count amongst this group, will likely start the season with eight new players in the starting lineup. Even if they all turn out to be good (unlikely), it will take them awhile to gel as a team. I do not see Palermo going anywhere above a comfortable mid-table position.



The Rest: It's much of muchness from here on down the table; there isn't a lot of difference betweeen the various clubs down here, and they're all hoping merely to survive the Serie A season. And who, pray tell, is not going to make it? Well, Siena have managed to ward off relegation for a number of seasons now, but I think the clock is going to run out on them. It's always a bad sign when you're buying up other teams' backup players and sticking them into your starting lineup. Also in trouble are Catania, who failed to win even one game on the road last season, and just barely avoided a trip to Serie B. The third victim could be one of a number of clubs, but, sadly, the Kobold seers are looking at Reggina, mostly because the Calabrian club has had a rough time this summer in the transfer market.

All right then! Here's a reasonable facsimile of what the table should look like at the end of this season:

1	Inter
2	AC Milan
3	Fiorentina
4	Roma
5	Juventus
6	Napoli
7	Sampdoria
8	Udinese
9	Bologna
10	Lazio
11	Torino
12	Palermo
13	Cagliari
14	Genoa
15	Atalanta
16	Chievo Verona
17	Lecce
18	Reggina
19	Catania
20	Siena

Speaking of Italian Snails...

...Here's an interesting story from the BBC:

Snail hides from march of history
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

A colony of Mediterranean snails has been found at the UK's Cliveden House, where they have lived in marble-wrapped secrecy for a century.

The snails, never found before in the UK, apparently came from Italy in a balustrade bought by a Lord Astor, a former owner of the mansion.

A fitting way to end Bug Week here at De Koboldorum Rebus!

Bonus Lizard-Bug Picture!

Here you go (it's the same lizrard as below)!

UPDATE: And here's a lovely Australian lizard!

Bugs of Italy!

Editors' note: If you don't like creepy-crawlies, then you probably should read no further.

Anyhoo, this particular offering was made possible by the confluence of two circumstances this past May and June. These two circumstances were: a) I had a new digital camera, and b) there were bugs. Hence, pictures of bugs! Enjoy!

1. Ants:



Yes, it's blurry and fuzzy and out-of-focus (hooray for hendiatris!), but it was taken from a good 6 feet away. I really like my new camera...

2. Lizards:



Chunklets: I spotted this fine fellow... huh, what?

Kobold Minister of Accuracy: Uh, lizards aren't bugs. You do know that, right?

Chunklets: Of course they're bugs; they're like bats that way!

Kobold Minister of Accuracy: * Sighs *

Chunklets: Exactly. Now, I spotted this fine fellow sticking his nose out of a stone wall one evening, and for a wonder he hung around long enough to have his picture taken. I say "for a wonder" because this particular lizard was taking his life into his hands; he and his ilk were among the favourite prey of Agata, about whom we have written before.

3. Scorpions:



This is The Scorpion Who Lived Under The Window. It liked to relax in the cool damp space beneath one of the windows in the lab at Ossaia. This meant that throwing open said window first thing in the morning had the potential to be really, really, exciting if you forgot about the scorpion's presence. Note: One of these stung me once. It wasn't really all that bad.

4. Fred:



This is Fred, who was about the largest spider I have ever seen in the wild. She, too, dwelt in the lab at Ossaia, in a large and beautifully constructed web. She tended to sit, as shown above, at the entrance to the little funnel-y part of the web, presumably awaiting dinner (this was fine by me, since it meant that I knew where she was. The one time I went into the lab and discovered that she was "out and about" somewhere was a little bit nerve-wracking). Occasionally dinner would show up:



Yes, that is a moth. As I said, we are not dealing with a small spider here.

4. Snails:



* Sits on Kobold Minister of Accuracy *

They don't move so fast, as we all know, which is a bit of boon to the photographer. I also happen to think that they're pretty. I mean, is this not a thing of beauty?:



As always, click to see big pictures!

Lizards not bugs... what will they think of next? Sheesh...

And A Very Happy Dies Natalis To You!

So I was busy the other day attempting to come up with a bonus question for the exam I intended to inflict on my poor Latin students on Friday (Note: exam was duly inflicted). And since we had just week taken a look at some of the more interesting graffiti from Pompeii and Ostia, it seemed a good idea to give them their very own graffito to try to untangle. I should point out here that ancient Roman creators of graffiti were just as in touch with the idea of good spelling and grammar as their modern counterparts. Anyway, I think that the graffito I chose, in the end, is actually quite lovely. It's from Pompeii, and was/is located in Via della Fortuna, a street of shops and houses located North of the Forum.

Via della Fortuna

Unfortunately, very unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the actual graffito itself. However, it reads:

Iuen
illa nata
diie Satu
ora secu
v IIII Non Au

And what does it say? Well, the first line, "Iuen," is a shortened form of the name "Iuenilla," which is itself a variant spelling of "Iuvenilla," a common Roman girl's name. We know this because next to the graffito the name is spelled out in full, around a drawing of a baby. Why a baby? The next line of the graffito explains that. It translates as "that (girl) was born," with the form of the verb "to be" left out. We are dealing here with the announcement of a birth.

The third line, "diie Satu," contains a misspelling. "Diie" should, in fact, be "die," in the ablative case indicating time when, and thus meaning "on the day." "Satu" is short for "Saturni," meaning "of Saturn." Thus we end up with "on the day of Saturn" - in other words, "on Saturday." The Romans did have a seven-day week by this time, with the days named after celestial bodies, a practise that most Romance languages have followed, and that is preserved in English in the names "Saturday," "Sunday," and "Monday."

Break Time! Here's Mount Vesuvius, on a glowery sort of day.

On to the fourth line, then! "Ora" is again in the ablative case for time when. In "proper" written Latin, it would have been "hora," but the initial "h" very often drops out in more colloquial writings, and probably did so in speech as well. "Secu" is short for "secunda," also in the ablative case agreeing with "ora." Taken together, it means "at the second hour."

The last line is where it gets a bit tricky. At first glance, it would appear to translate as "nine (v IIII) days before the Nones (Non) of August (Au)," a Roman date written in the standard format. However, the problem here is that you cannot have a date written as "nine days before the Nones." The Roman month had three Named Days: the Kalends (the first day of the month, and from which we get the word "calendar"), the Nones (the 5th or the 7th, depending on the month), and the infamous Ides (the 13th or 15th). The actual date of a particular day was reckoned based on how many days it was until the next Named Day. Nine days before the Nones would be back before the Kalends, and thus the date would have been written "so many days before the Kalends of August." Therefore we must dispense for now with the "v," and read this as "four days before the Nones of August." The Nones fall on the 5th in August. However, just to be difficult, the Romans reckoned inclusively, so in counting backwards, we must count the 5th, not the 4th, as "1." And so we count off the days: 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd. Iuvenilla was born on Saturday, the 2nd of August.

*Pauses to check today's date*

Finally, we must do something with the "v" in the last line. It actually goes with "ora secu" in the line above, and stood for "vespertina," or "vesprae," or "vesperi," or "vesperis." It doesn't really matter which of them it is, as they all mean, roughly, "evening," so we are dealing with the second hour of the evening. Like us, the Romans had a 24-hour day. However, they achieved this by dividing the time between sunrise and sunset into 12 equal portions, and doing the same for the time between sunset and sunrise. This meant two things. First of all, except at the Equinoctes, the daytime hours were not the same length as the night hours. Secondly, the length of a Roman hour changed over the course of the year, ranging from about 44 minutes to about 76, with the day hours at their longest when the night hours were shortest, and vice versa. And so, after doing a bit of research on when the sun rises and sets in Italy in early August, we can say with some confidence that Iuvenilla was born at around 10:00 pm.

Artist's rendering of the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79

Ok, then, to put it all together, we end up with this:

Literal translation: "Iuvenilla. That girl was born on the Day of Saturn, at the second hour of evening, 4 days before the Nones of August."

Less literal translation: "Iuvenilla. The girl was born on Saturday, August 2, at about 10:00 pm."

Our anonymous graffito-writer has not given any indication of the year of Iuvenilla's birth. However, if we accept two completely unprovable premises, we can at least make an educated guess. First premise: that the calendar has not been distorted at any time, apart from the switch from the Julian version to the Gregorian (September 1752 for Britain and her North American colonies, incidentally), and that therefore we can actually compute accurately the days of the week for a particular ancient year. This is not, perhaps, as unlikely as it might seem. Second premise: That the graffito refers to the last August 2 to fall on a Saturday before the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. I am tentatively assuming this simply because I think it unlikely that the graffito would have survived in any legible state for very long. If I ever see a photo of it, I may revise this opinion. Assuming these two things, then, and having found an excellent day-of-the-week calculator that takes into account the change in calendar, I would submit A.D. 77 as the most likely candidate. I would repeat, however, that there are some very big "ifs" here.

Well, this has been a very long post. I would like to close it by returning to the title, and wishing a very Happy Birthday to Iuvenilla, whoever she was (and would mention, without going into detail, the there are reasons to be optimistic that she survived the eruption)!

More Pictures!

I am a sucker for small, narrow, windy, medieval alleyways, a thing we are sadly short of out here. It is not a thing, however, that Tuscan and Umbrian towns particularly lack! So... a couple of favourites here:

Vicolo della Notte (I think), on a rainy afternoon in Cortona.

The same, at a somewhat more appropriate time of day.

The sinister-sounding Via delle Streghe, in Perugia. Witches not included.

As always, click on the pictures to embiggen them!

A Picture Or Several

Working backwards in time, then, here are a few pictures from the second bit of digging we got up to this summer. First of all, behold the glory that is the dig van, early on before it got tired:

The Archeospeedwagon at rest.

Unlike most digs, the staff dwelling for this one was actually fairly luxurious:

However, I'm sad to report that our little apartment suffered from a faunal infestation. I opened the door the first morning we were there, and this wandered in and started sniffing things:

I'm pretty sure I didn't order one...

Sigh. The things we have to put up with on digs. Anyway, she was quite friendly, and entirely willing (sometimes) to be a lap-cat. Whe belongs to the owners of the residence, and pretty much had the run of the place while we were there.

A view from the outside:

Note hideous beast, contemplating storming the place and smelling everything. Her name is Agata.

Anyway, it was a lovely place to retreat to after work, especially as it was up on a hillside, and therefore breezy. This was especially nice in the last couple of weeks, when the temperature flirted with Very Hot.

Click on any of the pictures to make them bigger!