In the year 264 BCE, Rome sent a military force across the Straits of Messana to intervene in a dispute between Carthage and Syracuse. This military action, a prelude to Punic Wars, represented a fundamental change of direction in the course of Roman history and capped a crucial period of expansion. Five centuries earlier, Rome was nothing more than a collection of huts on a hill near the Tiber river and its salt beds. By the time the Romans sailed for Sicily, they had mastered the Italian peninsula and invented a system of political subjugation, population control, and military calculation that would eventually make them masters of the known world.
The year 264 also marks a shift in the security of our evidence and understanding of the course of Roman history. From that point onward, we have more and more valuable and trustworthy sources, but before that time our tradition is, as Mary Beard says in her recent history SPQR, “based on garbled hearsay and misunderstood myth—not to mention the propagandist fantasies of many of the later leading families at Rome, who regularly manipulated or invented the ‘history’ of the early city to give their ancestors a glorious role in it.” Our most important ancient source for the period is the Ab Urbe Condita of Livy, who composed his history during the principate of Augustus (27 BCE–17 CE). Originally, the work covered the history of Rome from its legendary beginnings, Aeneas’ flight from Troy, to his own era, the death of Drusus in 9 BCE. Of the original 142 books, only 35 have survived: books 1-10, which cover Roman history from its mythical beginnings to 293 BCE, and books 21-45, which cover 218-167 BCE. While Livy is a valuable resource for understanding the history of this time, and while the study of archaeology and the material record have supplemented our literary sources to a degree, there is still much we do not know or understand about the story of how Rome came to dominate the Italian peninsula by the middle of the third century BCE.

To understand the early history of Rome, then, we must closely scrutinize and creatively manipulate every precious piece of evidence we have, and this project was intended to do precisely that. We proposed to create a simulation of the expansion of Rome throughout the Italian peninsula using the game Civilization V. Grounded on thorough research into the primary literary sources, the material record, and recent scholarship, the finished simulation presents the gamer with a more historically accurate representation of the history of Rome.
Our team consisted of research intern Ian White, coding intern Catalina Ionescu, research advisor Scott Farrington, and coding advisor Todd Bryant.

We expect several concrete outcomes from the project. First, we hope that the general public and the Civilization gaming community enjoy the modified game and through gameplay gain a basic understanding of the history of the period. Furthermore, we intend to integrate the mod into the Introduction to Roman History course at Dickinson College. Furthermore, we hope to present the results at upcoming digital humanities conferences.

We hope that by developing an innovative and creative way to interact with early Roman history, we have opened new avenues of inquiry into a historical question that is current, by no means settled, and often overlooked.

Read the entire ReadMe file documenting the research – http://bit.ly/DickinsonRiseOfRome 

Download via Steam – http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1091032377

Screenshots:

DICKINSONIANS DIGITIZE LETTERS FROM THE FRONT AND HOMEFRONT TO OFFER A 360-DEGREE VIEW OF WORLD WAR II.

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

One of the claims that scholars make about vocabulary acquisition in Latin and Greek is that a relatively small number of high frequency lemmas (dictionary headwords) accounts for a high percentage of word forms in a typical text. John Muccigrosso and Wilfred Major, for example, estimate that the number of lemmas that will generate 80% of a typical text in Latin is 1500, in Greek, about 1100. (Muccigrosso, 2004, p. 416; Major, 2008, p. 7). Of course it stands to reason that this figure will differ between texts, and within texts, since some authors use relatively simple vocabulary (Nepos, Lysias), while some do not (Juvenal, Aeschylus), and some passages within an author have more unusual words than others. I and others have long wanted a way to calculate the “core percentage” in a given piece of text, that is the number of word forms in a section of a text that derive from high frequency lemmas. This would be both interesting from the point of view of literary criticism, and helpful pedagogically. Some data on that is now emerging in the case of Latin, thanks to the work of LASLA, of Bret Mulligan and his Bridge application, and the Excel skills of Derek Frymark (Dickinson ’12). If we take the 1000-word DCC core Latin vocabulary as the definition of high frequency lemmas, then 78% of Caesar’s Gallic War consists of core lemmas, excluding proper names. The core percentages by book in Caesar’s Gallic War look like this:

Book      Percentage

1             0.80

2             0.78

3             0.77

4             0.79

5             0.77

6             0.78

7             0.75

Individual chapters range from a high of 100% (7.61) to a low of 57% (7.72).

In the Aeneid (taking the chunks of the text as presented in Perseus) the average is 70% core, with a high of 88% (7.1–4), and a low of 46% (6.417–425).

Two Dickinson students, Seth Levin and Connor Ford, are working on visualizing the core percentage data for the Aeneid and the Gallic War as part of Dickinson’s Mellon-funded Digital Boot Camp, led by Patrick Belk, starting this week. I look forward to sharing the results in the next few weeks, and hearing what you think of them!

References

Major, Wilfred E. (2008). It’s Not the Size, It’s the Frequency: The Value of Using a Core Vocabulary in Beginning and Intermediate Greek. CPL Online, 4.1, 1-24.

Muccigrosso, John (2004). “Frequent Vocabulary in Latin Instruction.” Classical World, 97, 409-433.

[Reprinted from an article by Kristina Rodriguez ’19 (Staff Writer) in The Dickinsonian: The Dickinson College Student Newspaper, from October 15, 2015]

Over the summer months, a space in the Waidner-Spahr Library was reconfigured to serve as a new computer room. Known as the Willoughby Digital Scholarship Lab, this room was created in response to a request from Prof. Francese, on behalf of the Digital Humanities Initiative, that there be some dedicated space where faculty members and their student interns may work on digital projects of various types. The Library has received similar requests for workspace for such faculty/student collaborative work in the past, so there seemed a clear enough need, and the Library responded.

The computers in the Willoughby Lab have been outfitted with both Mac and PC desktop computers as well as a variety of software applications, but additional software may be added as necessary in support of the specific research needs of faculty and students. There is also a new book scanner – a Zeutschel Zeta – that makes relatively quick work of any scanning project.

The Lab includes lockers so that materials may be stored securely. There are also shelves and cubbies to store other materials that may not need to be locked up – basic reference books and things of that sort. There is a table for meetings and small group discussion, and a large whiteboard.

Our temporary Library Digital Projects Manager, Don Sailer, has oversight for the room and spends much of his time working in the Willoughby Lab. He is able to provide basic assistance to any faculty members or their interns who may be pursuing their work there.

For more information about how you and your student interns may make use of this space, please contact Don Sailer, Library Digital Projects Manager, or Jim Gerencser, College Archivist.

–Jim Gerencser, College Archivist

Well-known and well-bearded Higher Ed. consultant and futurist Bryan Alexander returned to Dickinson this week to deliver a stimulating talk about economic, cultural, and technological trends affecting higher education. The seminar was integrated into the week-long Willoughby Institute for Teaching with Technology. Alexander’s talk was opened to the broader community as well, and the lively audience included representatives from surrounding institutions such as the Bosler Free Library, Bucknell University, and Messiah College. While the event was not recorded, the material he presented is based on his Future Trends in Technology and Education report, which is available here.

DICKINSON ESTABLISHES COLLABORATION WITH CHINESE SCHOLARS OF THE GRECO-ROMAN CLASSICS

By Chris Francese

Marc Mastrangelo and I traveled to Shanghai in June, 2015 to meet some leading Chinese scholars of the Greek and Roman classics, with a view to exploring possibilities for collaboration on a Chinese version of the Dickinson College Commentaries websites. Our contacts in China were made via Jinyu Liu, who is Associate Professor and Classics Department Chair at DePauw University, and also Shanghai “1000 plan” Expert/Distinguished Guest Professor at Shanghai Normal University, where she resides in the summer months. The conference was jointly sponsored and funded by Dickinson College, thanks to Dean and Provost Neil Weissman, and by Shanghai Normal University, thanks to Chen Heng, Professor of Humanities and Communications there. Participants included Liu Chun (Peking University), Chen Wei and Bai Chunxiao (Zhejiang University), Zhang Wei and Huang Yang (Fudan University), Xu Xiaoxu (Renmin University of China), Xiong Ying (Nanjing University), Zhang Qiang and Wang Shaohui (Northeast Normal University), and a contingent from Shanghai Normal itself: Kang Kai, Li Shangjun, and Yi Zhaoyin. Unable to attend but interested in the project were Li Yongyi (Chongqing University), and Michele Ferrero (Beijing Foreign Studies University).

The meetings took place in a seminar room in the humanities building at Shanghai Normal University. We were assisted by a wonderful group of SHNU students.

Prior to the seminar itself Marc and I gave public lectures attended by students and faculty at SHNU. Marc spoke on June 9, on the topic of “Plato’s View of Poetry and the Early Christian Poets.” I spoke on June 10 on the topic of “Sebastian Brant: An Early Modern Editor of Vergil and Multimedia Text Annotation.”

The conference itself began on Friday, June 12. It started with a presentation from me on the topic “Digital Commentary on Classical Texts: Problems and Prospects,” which outlined the goals of the current DCC project within the context of unsolved problems of text annotation in a digital environment. I ended by emphasizing the collaborative nature of this kind of work, and urged the group to think about what kinds of resources are most needed for Chinese students and scholars. Throughout the seminar we talked with Chinese students as well, learned about their needs, and heard about current teaching practices and materials.

Friday afternoon we were treated to a field trip to see the Bibliotheca Zikawei (Xujiahui Library), a historic collection of western and Chinese books and manuscripts, including an impressive collection of Greek and Roman materials, gathered by the Jesuits and now maintained in their original setting by the Shanghai Library. Thanks to Prof. Chen we received rarely-given access to the sections closed to the public. (The library is the subject of an excellent article by Gail King, pdf)

On Saturday morning work began in earnest translating the Greek Core Vocabulary into Chinese, starting with the grammatical terms and categories. The Chinese scholars appreciated this exercise in particular, since the special terms to describe Greek and Latin grammar have yet to be fully standardized in Chinese. They repeatedly said that the opportunity to discuss such issues as a group was very valuable. Saturday afternoon, while work continued, Marc and I took the participants outside one by one and interviewed them on their hopes for the project, and on their views on the importance of the Greek and Roman classics in contemporary Chinese intellectual and cultural life. This video was captured by Eleanor Yan (Dickinson ’18). Her father, who works for a Chinese television station, provided the camera. We plan to edit this video into an introduction for the project on the website when it is developed.

Since the participants arrived having previously done translations of a subset of the Greek and Latin core lists, the editing work proceeded quickly once they got going. Part of Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday was devoted to the Latin list. The latter part of Sunday afternoon was spent on a discussion what direction they would like the project to go.

The most urgent immediate needs identified were:

• Reliable lexica
• Introductory readers based on good pedagogy, with accurate translations, and high quality audio recordings
• Intermediate readers that included key ancient passages dealing with particular themes, such as Athenian Democracy, Roman history, and Greek philosophy
• A glossary of unfamiliar terms from Greek and Roman culture

Greek and Latin grammars were also identified as an important project, though one that may take longer to complete. And it was agreed that the long term goal would be to produce reliable translations and commentaries on all the major of the works of the Greco-Roman classical canon, an undertaking that will take many years.

As will be apparent from the video, enthusiasm for the project was very high. The group worked together with splendid collegiality, humor, and good will, and with a sense that this is the beginning of something very important for the field. The climax of the event was the agreement on a new Chinese name for the Project and the formulation of a Chinese logo for the new “Dickinson Classics Online.”

The team that met in this seminar now constitutes our Editorial Board, the team of classicists who will oversee the development of essential infrastructure such as lexica and grammars, high quality language teaching tools for Latin and Greek, and expert commentaries and translations by Chinese scholars that make the classics fresh, relevant, and interesting to Chinese students. All resources will be provided free of charge on the internet, giving direct access to the words and ideas of the Greek and Romans to millions of people for the first time. A reasonably priced mobile application will allow serious students to learn on a convenient and portable platform.

This initial meeting included a concrete beginning, the production of a communally edited Chinese version of the DCC Greek and Latin Core Vocabularies, which is one of the most widely used features of the DCC site. We plan to have that up as a website this summer, and will work with computer science students to begin creating the mobile application.

In the meantime some prominent western scholars have signed on to be part of an Advisory Board: Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer (University of Chicago), Walter Scheidel (Stanford University), and Jeremy McInerney (University of Pennsylvania). With a distinguished team on both sides of the Pacific, we hope to be in a good position to raise substantial outside funds to make the ambitious project a reality. Our hope is that DCO can bring Chinese scholars to Dickinson to work alongside each other and with the scholarly and web development team that creates the DCC.

Left to right: Bai Chunxiao (Zhejiang University), Zhang Wei (Fudan University), Li Shangjun (Shanghai Normal University), Chen Wei (Zhejiang University), Chris Francese, Xiong Ying (Nanjing University), Jinyu Liu (DePauw University), Marc Mastrangelo, Xu Xiaoxu (Renmin University of China), Zhang Qiang (Northeast Normal University), Huang Yang (Fudan University), Liu Chun (Peking University), Wang Shaohui (Northeast Normal University)