tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post6519017841984390576..comments2023-06-08T07:32:39.725-05:00Comments on Aristotle's Feminist Subject: Home Training: Rhetorical (Hellenist-Roman-Afra) FeminismJ. K. Gaylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-85582253444512940212007-10-02T12:33:00.000-05:002007-10-02T12:33:00.000-05:00The Roman Empire rises again. Wikipedia goes Lati...The Roman Empire rises again. Wikipedia goes Latin: http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Latina. The Caesars would be proud. But where are the women speaking Hellenism, speaking as rhetors?J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-68069291483644932612007-10-01T06:27:00.000-05:002007-10-01T06:27:00.000-05:00Greek . . . was the language of the elite during t...<I>Greek . . . was the language of the elite during the time of the empire.</I><BR/><BR/>Exactly. It was the elite, especially the patricians, who pushed Latin as the official language. Government officers particularly were expected to use the language publicly. The public and the military even often resisted. <BR/><BR/>And some emperors after Julius Caesar did as well:<BR/><BR/>Claudius, for instance, wrote histories and biographies in Latin; and he even "invented three new letters and added them to the [Roman] alphabet, maintaining they were greatly needed." But he also "gave no less attention to Greek studies, taking every occasion to declare his regard for that language and it's superiority. To a foreigner who held forth both in Greek and in Latin he said: 'Since you are ready with both our tongues'; and in commending Achaia to the senators he declared that it was a province dear to him through association of kindred studies; while he often replied to Greek envoys in the senate in a set speech. Indeed he quoted many Homeric lines from the tribunal, and whenever he had punished an enemy or a conspirator. . . At last he even wrote historical works in Greek." <BR/><BR/>As late as Emperor Vespasian, we see the love for the Hellenist language despite the Roman Empire's push for Latin. Vespasian <BR/><BR/>"was the first to establish a regular salary of a hundred thousand sesterces for Latin and Greek teachers of rhetoric, paid from the privy purse. He also presented eminent poets with princely largess 35 and great rewards, and artists, too, such as the restorer of the Venus of Cos 36 and of the Colossus. 37 To a mechanical engineer, who promised to transport some heavy columns to the Capitol at small expense, he gave no mean reward for his invention, but refused to make use of it, saying: 'You must let me feed my poor commons.'"<BR/><BR/>(source: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html#18)<BR/><BR/>Another great source is <I>The Romans and the Greek Language</I> by Jorma Kaimio. Kaimio gives many details on the Roman elite as "bilaterally unilingual," of their armies speaking Greek, of Latin literature being sort of irrelevant, and of their being functionally diglotic, with Greek as ubiquitous.<BR/><BR/>So thanks for the comment, and the clarifications. <BR/><BR/>The thing that historians of rhetoric have not well accounted for is the Roman interest in rhetoric, despite their official hate for Greek. The word "rhetoric" was merely coopted into Latin as a transliteration. It was not translated into Roman culture the way the gods, goddesses, and mythology were, for example. So why the persistent love for some things purely Hellenistic? Could it be the Roman mothers, who were absolutely forbidden by Roman law to speak in public? (Greek women were given much more liberty this way). Could the Roman mothers, in private, be the ones who perpetuated the stories of Helen and the language and rhetoric of the Hellenists? Will our histories some day better account for the large role that women played in the Empire(s)?J. K. Gaylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07600312868663460988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931921496989071942.post-71203376177420079022007-10-01T04:45:00.000-05:002007-10-01T04:45:00.000-05:00Caesar would have spoken in Greek because it was t...Caesar would have spoken in Greek because it was the language of the elite during the time of the empire. Greek has a considerably larger vocabulary than Latin; many Romans received their educations in Greek, rhetoric being one of the most crucial subjects of the time. It wouldn't have been Caesar alone speaking Greek during his death; it would have been before, by everyone around him including himself, and after till the decline of the empire.The Emperor of the Moonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14255759494542873205noreply@blogger.com