Quite by chance, as we are about to begin reading Bacchae, we find the god beneath the waters of Baiae, Italy:
A copy of a statue of Dionysus, commissioned by Emperor Claudius, in the Nymphaeum at Baiae. Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP
Fish flit around Enrico Gallochio as he gently brushes away a layer of sand to reveal an ornate mosaic floor on which Roman nobility would have hosted non-stop parties in Baiae, an ancient resort in the gulf of Pozzuoli, close to Naples. Four metres below the surface of the water, Gallochio passes more mosaic pavements and the remains of walls that once surrounded a spa.
The mosaics date from the third century and are just a small part of the remains uncovered since Baiae, now a vast undersea archaeological park, began to emerge from its watery grave. The site has become an unlikely tourism destination, even as work continues to uncover more ruins.
“It was incredible,” said archaeologist Gallochio, who manages the undersea park. “In this area alone, we have found 20 rooms. There is still so much to discover, but it is a job that will take years.”
Angela Giuffrida's story in The Guardian continues here.
Today's encore selection -- from The Pursuit of Italy by David Gilmour. In 1861, when the Italian peninsula was finally united into a single political entity, only 2.5 percent of "Italians" spoke the Italian language. In fact, the citizens of every major Italian city -- Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and others -- each spoke a different language. The situation was similar in the other countries of Europe:
"The posthumous role of Dante Alighieri in the development of Italian has long been treated with reverence and solemnity. The great Florentine poet was, according to one scholar, not only 'the father of the Italian language' but also 'the father of the nation and the symbol of national greatness through the centuries'. It is doubtful that Dante would have thought the second part of the description applicable to him, especially as he believed Italy should be part of the Holy Roman Empire and not a nation by itself. Yet he did write The Divine Comedy (or, as he himself called it, simply La Commedia) in Italian and extolled the virtues of the vernacular, the 'new sun' that would put Latin in the shade, in De vulgari eloquentia, a book he wrote in Latin. More . . .
Is there a continuity of behavior between the stories we tell and the way we live?
So begins an interesting piece by Tim Parks in the New York Review of Books about dialects, factionalism, communal life, and exile throughout Italy's history, and the relation of these to literary language in Italy.
It’s generally agreed that one of the most distinctive features of Italian public life is factionalism, in all its various manifestations: regionalism, familism, corporativism, campanilism, or simply groups of friends who remain in close contact from infancy through to old age, often marrying, separating and remarrying among each other. Essentially, we could say that for many Italians the most important personal value is belonging, being a respected member of a group they themselves respect; just that, unfortunately, this group rarely corresponds to the overall community and is often in fierce conflict with it, or with other similar groups. So allegiance to a city, or a trade union, or to a political party, or a faction within the party, trumps solidarity with the nation, often underwriting dubious moral behavior and patently self-defeating policies. Only when fifteenth-century Florence had a powerful external enemy, Machiavelli tells us in his Florentine Histories, did its people unite, and as soon as the enemy was beaten they divided again; then any issue that arose, however marginal, would feed the violent battle between the dominant factions. This would not be an unfair description of Italian society today.
A bit further on Parks notes,
One reason why so many Italian writers experienced exile, and still experience exclusion of milder kinds (one thinks of the Nobel winner Dario Fo’s frequent lament that he has been excluded from Italian public television), is because they were and are themselves intensely involved in public affairs.
A bit further on he adds:
Dante insisted on writing The Divine Comedy in vernacular Tuscan, thus taking primacy away from the narrow circle of those who read and wrote in Latin, a privileged elite he was not himself born into, and always worried about being excluded from. Later, in exile, he would be astonished to discover the range of different and mutually incomprehensible dialects that existed in Italy. The vernacular was not the unifying factor he had imagined.
Dante plays a significant, if not paradigmatic, role in the piece, which is titled "Writing to Belong."
[Note: A much better map of Italian dialects has been supplied by our friend Peter D'Epiro (thanks Pete!). A few minor changes to the text as well.]
Back when we were reading Ovid, we looked briefly at the amazing variety of tongues in pre-Roman Italy (6th century BC), and noted that Latin was one of the smallest linguistic regions of the peninsula, as shown in this image:
Pre-Roman languages of Italy
Long after Latin became the dominant tongue, it broke into the Romance Languages, and within Italy into many dialects. The complex and "completely chaotic" story of Italian linguistics is shaped by the political history of Italy as well as by its geography.
“One thing that I need to tell you, because this is something that is not clear even for linguists, let alone the layperson—the linguistic situation in Italy is quite complicated,” says Mariapaola D'Imperio, a professor in the linguistics department at Aix-Marseille University who was born in Naples and studied in Ohio before moving to France. The situation is so complicated that the terms used to describe pockets of language are not widely agreed upon; some use “language,” some use “dialect,” some use “accent,” and some use “variation.” Linguists like to argue about the terminology of this kind of thing.
The resulting mescolanza of dialects is shown in this map of dialects, some quite exotic sounding:*
A key role in the fashioning of more or less "Standard" Italian was played by our poet:
During unification, the northern Italian powers decided that having a country that speaks about a dozen different languages would pose a bit of a challenge to their efforts, so they picked one and called it “Standard Italian” and made everyone learn it. The one that they picked was Tuscan, and they probably picked it because it was the language of Dante, the most famous Italian writer.
Hieron I (Greek: Ἱέρων Α΄) was the son of Deinomenes, the brother of Gelon and tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily from 478 to 467 BC. In succeeding Gelon, he conspired against a third brother Polyzelos. During his reign, he greatly increased the power of Syracuse.
During his reign, he greatly increased the power of Syracuse. He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, peopled Catana (which he renamed Aetna) with Dorians, concluded an alliance with Acragas (Agrigentum) . . .
His most important military achievement was the defeat of the Etruscans and Carthaginians at the Battle of Cumae (474 BC), by which he saved the Greeks of Campania from Etruscan domination. A bronze helmet (now in the British Museum), with an inscription commemorating the event, was dedicated at Olympia.
Hieron's reign was marked by the creation of the first secret police in Greek history, but he was a liberal patron of literature and culture. The poets Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, Aeschylus, and Epicharmus were active at his court, as well the philosopher Xenophanes. He was an active participant in panhellenic athletic contests, winning several victories in the single horse race and also in the chariot race. He won the chariot race at Delphi in 470 (a victory celebrated in Pindar's first Pythian ode) and at Olympia in 468 (this, his greatest victory, was commemorated in Bacchylides' third victory ode). Other odes dedicated to him include Pindar's first Olympian Ode, his second and third Pythian odes, and Bacchylides' fourth and fifth victory odes.
Golden lyre, rightful joint possession of Apollo and the violet-haired Muses, to which the dance-step listens, the beginning of splendid festivity; and singers obey your notes, whenever, with your quivering strings, you prepare to strike up chorus-leading preludes. [5] You quench even the warlike thunderbolt of everlasting fire. And the eagle sleeps on the scepter of Zeus, relaxing his swift wings on either side, the king of birds; and you pour down a dark mist over his curved head, a sweet seal on his eyelids. Slumbering, he ripples his liquid back, [10] under the spell of your pulsing notes.
Even powerful Ares, setting aside the rough spear-point, warms his heart in repose; your shafts charm the minds even of the gods, by virtue of the skill of Leto's son and the deep-bosomed Muses. But those whom Zeus does not love are stunned with terror when they hear the cry of the Pierian Muses, on earth or on the irresistible sea; more...
In ancient Greece, tyrants were influential opportunists that came to power by securing the support of different factions of a deme. The word "tyrannos", possibly pre-Greek, Pelasgian or eastern in origin,[5] then carried no ethical censure; it simply referred to anyone, good or bad, who obtained executive power in a polis by unconventional means. Support for the tyrants came from the growing middle class and from the peasants who had no land or were in debt to the wealthy landowners. It is true that they had no legal right to rule, but the people preferred them over kings or the aristocracy. The Greek tyrants stayed in power by using mercenary soldiers from outside of their respective city-state. To mock tyranny, Thales wrote that the strangest thing to see is "an aged tyrant" meaning that tyrants do not have the public support to survive for long. More.
Gelo’s first major contribution to Greek, and more specifically Sicilian, history was the foundation of Syracuse as his capital, which he turned into “the greatest Greek city in the west.” The location of the city itself made it a prime spot for such a role. The city was located on an island, connected to the mainland by a peninsula constructed in the 6th century BC. The city faced east towards the Greek mainland and had its own harbour.
Gelo constructed a wall that ran from the fort of Achradina on the mainland to the sea, making Syracuse virtually impregnable. Also, by bringing in the wealthy citizens from conquered cities, a tactic never before used in Sicily, he greatly increased the prosperity of the city. He constructed a theatre which improved the city’s culture, and following the victory at Himera, he built an ornate temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.
The other great contribution of Gelo was the victory at Himera over the Carthaginians. More.
