davidbanner99@ wrote:I figured out why I always found Latin hard. Writers tended to be vague. This had me bogged down all yesterday:
"Laetum ad mortem coegit misso a se veneno: ipse enim inter suasores Getae mortis primus fuerat, qui et primus interemptus est. Ipse mortem eius saepissime flevit."
"He forced death upon Laetus, sending him poison. He himself was first among the supporters of Geta's death, and the first to be killed. He himself frequently cried over his death."
The context is that Caracalla (emperor) had had Geta his own brother murdered so as to take power. Caracalla then set about killing all Geta's supporters and sympathisers. So, what baffled me was why did Caracalla want Laetus to take poison, when Laetus had been the first to plot Geta's murder?? The confusion arises due to the masses of "he", "his" "himself" where you have three individuals involved.
Here is how it should have been written:
Geta forced death upon Laetus, sending him poison. It was Laetus who had been the first to support Geta's death yet he himself was the first to be killed. The reason for that was his excessive grief over the murder.
It took me ages to work out the whole puzzle. Maybe the fact they wrote on scrolls led to vague accounts. Only ages later it struck me it was Laetus who had been crying so tears = regrets. However, being HFA causes me to require precise detail. I'm not that intuitive.
davidbanner99@ wrote:As Richard remarked, the impact of Latin on English is pretty strong. So, he's quite correct you would get a deeper understanding of how words were derived.
Other than that, Latin won't be valued as a priority field of knowledge today. Of course, if you followed the interest in a university, it could lead to an academic career.
davidbanner99@ wrote:One thing I learned just is to check the text you have against other versions. I found some tiny mistakes. I re-typed part of the text into Google and other versions showed up. These were better.
What happens is the actual source parchment may be tricky to reproduce due to age, or even copy errors by the copiers.There may be more than one version. Words might have to have been guessed if missing on a parchment.
With dead languages you have far less resources. I came across this, for example:
"Dei Luni" It seems to be an alternative word for the moon but there is so far no information online, apart from one very dusty pdf file, written by some unknown scholar. It probably means "of the god of the moon". Moon is typically "luna".
davidbanner99@ wrote:I knew the guy who is currently professor in Latin at Manchester. I also recall an academic who threw a party at a lovely house on campus. His main field was ancient Greece and he spoke about 13 languages.
"Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was far more than just a Hollywood superstar. The actor, who enjoyed a career spanning six decades, was an accomplished singer, an author and had enjoyed a distinguished career in the British Army. He was also a polyglot. Indeed, Lee spoke five languages fluently, plus he had an excellent understanding of three more. Such an ability undoubtedly came in useful during his time first as a special forces secret agent and then as a globe-trotting actor.
Born in London in 1922, Lee’s mother was an Italian countess. Naturally, then, he grew up bilingual. When young Christopher was still a young boy, his parents separated and he went with his mother to Switzerland. Here, he started his private schooling and picked up the French and German languages – as well as the acting bug after a starring role in a school production of Rumpelstiltskin. After a few years, he returned to England and studied the Classics, becoming adept in Greek and Latin. "
immense wrote:davidbanner99@ wrote:I knew the guy who is currently professor in Latin at Manchester. I also recall an academic who threw a party at a lovely house on campus. His main field was ancient Greece and he spoke about 13 languages.
"Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was far more than just a Hollywood superstar. The actor, who enjoyed a career spanning six decades, was an accomplished singer, an author and had enjoyed a distinguished career in the British Army. He was also a polyglot. Indeed, Lee spoke five languages fluently, plus he had an excellent understanding of three more. Such an ability undoubtedly came in useful during his time first as a special forces secret agent and then as a globe-trotting actor.
Born in London in 1922, Lee’s mother was an Italian countess. Naturally, then, he grew up bilingual. When young Christopher was still a young boy, his parents separated and he went with his mother to Switzerland. Here, he started his private schooling and picked up the French and German languages – as well as the acting bug after a starring role in a school production of Rumpelstiltskin. After a few years, he returned to England and studied the Classics, becoming adept in Greek and Latin. "
Extremely common for ex-army people from well-to-do families to enjoy stellar careers in acting, journalism, and academia "after leaving" the military.
davidbanner99@ wrote:
"Et in balneis factae caedes, occisique nonnulli etiam cenantes, inter quos etiam Sammonicus Serenus, cuis libri plurimi ad doctrinam extant."
"There was slaughter in the baths, several being killed at dinner...."
I suppose ancient Rome offers a lesson. Once the system of law was replaced by rulers and tyrants, the end drew gradually near. Struggles for power at the top and emperors killed by factions. The need to bribe the army. Caracalla died fairly young.
It's hard to find the kind of cultural excellence that existed in ancient Athens or Egypt. Life in ancient Rome was full of wars and famines and life pretty cheap perhaps.