tzikeh

Is the source a contemporary document? I'm not doubting you; I just really need concrete proof before I say "I was wrong; you were right; I blame Stephen Fry." :D

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rosawestphalen.livejournal.com

There's a book that argues that Xns were just suicidal -- Arthur Droge's Noble Death. He covers many of the persecutions and the imitatio christi movements of early xnty. He has PhD from Chicago div school and currently teaches at UCSD. I know there is another but it's in my office and I can't think of any meaningful information to tell you but I have to go in tomorrow and I'll email you.

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http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/

I have caught QI many times on errors e.g. regarding words in my own language or historic facts. Stephen is just too good at seeming like he really really knows things, but lately there were even take-backs live when he had misunderstood the autocue.

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I've seen him take things back on the show, but it's either a) because he didn't read the autocue correctly, or b) because one of the minions sends him a message on his tabletop computer screen that says "Um, no, we have found new info."

I'll twitter him, now that we're BFFs. :D (No, I won't, but still. And I need a QI icon.)

*hums "They Say Of the Acropolis Where The Parthenon Is"*

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twistedchick

FWIW, a recent (I think) History Channel or Discovery Channel show dealt with early Christianities within the Roman Empire (because there wasn't just one version of anything) and it quoted a contemporary martyrdom account of a young woman who was torn apart by wild animals in the coliseum. I think her name was Perpetua; if that wasn't her name, it was the name of her servant/companion, so looking for the one should find the other. I remember the names being mentioned during the offertory section of the old Tridentine Latin Mass, in a section that is more or less a roll call of the early saints.

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Perpetua was the lady, a noblewoman and a new mother. Felicitas was her slave. Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis is pretty popular in undergrad Medieval Latin classes and the like, because it's short and not enormously complicated. I think I read it three times as an undergrad, maybe four. Perpetua and Felicitas were killed by a wild cow, and the men that were martyred with them were killed by a bear, a wild boar and... I think a leopard? It's been years. But some sort of big cat, though not the stereotypical lion, if I remember rightly.

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Hm. Okay, was this in the Colosseum? Also, was it a contemporary accounting?

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It is a contemporary account- actually, the majority of the Perpetua section is supposedly written by the lady herself (another reason we read it so often, at my women's college *g*). A couple of the chapters are supposedly by one of the martyred men, and the rest may have been written by Tertullian (hissssss...). It wasn't Rome, though, sorry. I'm 98% sure it was Carthage.

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Right - this is about Rome, Colosseum, Christans, lions, entertainment.

Still, that's interesting.

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Well, it's still Rome, just not Rome D.F. So to speak. But I'm sure your prof is picturing the 50's Hollywood version, and nothing less than the Roman Colosseum would do for that.

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twistedchick

A wild cow might be an aurochs; think of a cross between a Spanish fighting bull and a western longhorn cow, and half the size of an elephant. I think you're right about the leopard.

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Heh. I remember one of my profs trying to explain that no, the wild cow wasn't just a really angry Holstein, and by chance several of us had grown up on dairy farms and hey, don't be fooled! Holsteins would totally kill us all! And the chickens would help! Too much time with the same people reading the same texts semester after semester made the Classicists and Medievalists... weird. ;)

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vickita.livejournal.com

(Trying again.)

I have no clue about the question(s) at hand, but at this moment I just need to say, "Thank God my physics profs all, without exception, managed to JUST TALK ABOUT PHYSICS in my physics classes."

tingler has all kinds of wacky stories about her various and sundry English profs and the tangents they've gotten off on in their classes.

The biggest detour I ever remember getting off on was in graduate-level Quantum Mechanics, when we stopped and calculated the cross-section for the tabletop cold fusion that was in the news that week. (We decided that it wasn't impossible, but wasn't very likely.)

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God, this man digresses FOREVER. We hear about his wife, his kids, him doing push-ups every morning, his three married daughters and their children, what they did last weekend...

*sigh*

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klia.livejournal.com

And you're paying good money for that? Fuck, I'd go to the Dean.

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Yeah, I'm really thinking about it. But there are problems, namely that complaints about professorial conduct have to go *to the professor first*, from the student (unless we're talking sexual harrassment), which is possibly the worst policy I've ever heard. In other words, if a student has a problem with how the professor is conducting his or her class, they have to talk to the professor about it before they go to anyone else, in hopes of resolving it without getting the Administration involved. Of course, that means that now the student is suspect in the prof's eyes, and OF COURSE the prof isn't going to change how he or she does things. Especially not this guy, who is retired and just does this one class a week "for fun".

Also I feel a bit guilty because, though my complaint above has that ARGH kind of tone, the guy is genuinely nice. He's a very pleasant, sweet old man who just thinks everyone should be Christian and likes to tell stories about whatever happens to come to his mind at that moment.

Sigh.

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klia.livejournal.com

Maybe you *should* talk to him, then, and explain very nicely and non-confrontationally that you're there to partake of his wisdom about the topic he's teaching, and while you're glad he's obviously happy and healthy and thinks his family is wonderful, from a student's perspective, it's not helping you learn?

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Yeah... I don't know. After saying "Look, there just isn't any proof of this", then going and saying "Also your teaching style sucks and I paid $650 to take this state-mandated class required for my certification", I think I'd just be harming myself in the long run.

This is *supposed* to be Educational Foundations 305: The History of American Public Education. What I've heard from students who have taken this class with other profs, this is *not* how the class is supposed to go. We've spent two weeks in Ancient Greece and up through the Middle Ages; everyone else who has taken it with several other profs is like "Um, whut?" The textbook starts with the Colonies. We don't open it for another three weeks, according to the syllabus.

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klia.livejournal.com

Bleh. And there's probably no dropping/re-taking with another prof, either?

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typo.livejournal.com

He wants you all to be Christians and he's using 2000 year old stories of Christians getting thrown to the lions in order to convince you? It's not just lame teaching it's lame proselytizing. "Join our faith! Get mauled by wild beasts!" Tell this guy he needs a better argument.

And if you're looking to score one on him, you can tell him that it wasn't just Christians thrown to the lions. Plenty of Jews got tossed in there as well.

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:) I'm not trying to score one; I just don't like it when false info is spread, and I was pretty certain this was false info, even if it's been around for ages and ages as "true". I'm glad some folks who responded have some answers, but as of yet I'm still not convinced.

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soobunny.livejournal.com

I can answer that not so serious question!

It seems that Blago has taken to calling himself a cowboy that's "been mistakenly" accused and now they want to hang him. It really must be seen to believed. (or laughed at hysterically) It's up at rachel.msnbc.com under rachel re - democracy of one.

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Oh God--my state is the total winner for political awesome, whether for serious or for hilarious.

*\o/*

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"Nero punished a race of men who were hated for their evil practices. These men were called Christians. He got a number of people to confess. On their evidence a number of Christians were convicted and put to death with dreadful cruelty. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and left to be eaten by dogs. Others were nailed to the cross. Many were burned alive and set on fire to serve as torches at night."

From Tacitus, a contemporary Roman

Of course, he was not a fan of Nero.

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AHA! Covered in animal skins and left to be eaten by dogs could probably have come down through the ages to mean "eaten by lions".

Since he's contemporary, as you say, and he lists tortures, you'd think "put into the Colosseum to be eaten by lions for entertainment" would have been mentioned.

Interesting.... I'll keep researching.

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Is it "Tass-ih-tuss" or "Tack-ih-tuss", or something else?

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ratcreature

The conventions for pronouncing classical Latin changed around 1900 or so. The scholars then decided that the c was pronounced as k by the old Romans during the classical period, even though in the later practice it had been said like an s.sound, so they switched how they taught Latin pronunciation, but in many well established and known Latin words, including people names the s-sound stuck because everyone recognized them that way. Hence the confusion, and most say Caesar not with a k, even though I for example learned in school that was how you should say his name in Latin. Similarly afaik with Tacitus it's more common to say it with an s. (Though I think by Tacitus' time the pronunciations already weren't quite classical anymore, but I'm not sure about that, I got rid of my Latin classes after only four years in high school and have forgotten most.)

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I have heard it pronounced Tass-i-tus.

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iamsab.livejournal.com

DUDE JUST GO ON TWITTER AND *ASK* STEPHEN FRY!!!?%!$!!?

/shakes head with slow incredulity

But yes, I believe everything he tells me on QI, because not only is he the smartest man in show business he is also, as you said, meticulous and committed to his research.

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Look up St. Ignatius of Antioch. I believe he was supposed to have been thrown to "wild beasts." Whether it was in the actual Coliseum or some other amphitheater, dunno.

There were definitely were exotic beasts brought into the coliseum --- for the gladitors and others to fight. It was part of the games.

My suspicion is that Christians who had been sentenced for treason may have been put in the arena with a sword to fight off the beats (Romans loved these sorts of hunting games). Probably the Christians refused to fight and there ya go.

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I looked more up:

Ignatius died around 68-71. He's the second successor of Peter. Apparently, he was arrested and taken to the Coliseum to be killed by wild beasts. He says so in his letter to the Romans, which is in the Acts of the Apostles.

The Acts are contemporary to the time period. They are a collection of letters from Paul, Peter and others to various groups of Christians.

What's probably a myth is that there were hundreds of Christians killed this way. Ignatius was the third pope, so it would have been a big deal, a special occasion.

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kynical.livejournal.com

Hope you don't mind if I jump in, I saw your post on a friend's-friend list. Two documents of interest would be the Letters of Pliny the Younger to Trajan on the "Christian problem."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pliny1.html

And a passage from Tacitus' the Annals

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/tacitus.html (just scroll down). Historically, there has been much debate around the authenticity of this passage. I'm not up on the current scholarship on the passage.

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