CREPUNDIA: a child’s toy rattle, sometimes used for identification; infancy

Marble bust of a sleeping child wearing crepundia (amulets and charms) on a cord across his chest. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Ebony comes from India and Ethiopia, and when cut it becomes hard as stone . . . it is also attached to crepundia, so that the sight of the color black will not scare the infant. (Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 17.7.36)

All too transitory and fragile, like the crepundia of childhood, are the so-called power and wealth of human kind. (Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings 6.9 ext. 7)

From infancy [a crepundiis] he gave equal attention to courage and to eloquence. (From an inscription honoring Flavius Merobaudes, an imperial official and writer of poetry of the fifth century, CIL 6.1724.)

Now in here are the crepundia you had when that woman brought you to me years ago. She gave them to me so as to make it easier for your parents to recognize you. (The madam at a brothel, to one of her courtesans, in Plautus’s comedy Cistellaria 635–636.)

She had already given an indication that she was destined for heaven and not for the couch of marriage: she had rejected her very crepundia, a little girl who knew not how to play. No interest in amber, she wept at roses, disdained aureate bracelets, was sober of expression, modest of gate and, though of all-too-tender years, her character imitated that of gray-haired age. (Prudentius, on the twelve-year-old martyr Eulalia, killed in Merida, Spain in AD 304, Crowns of the Martyrs 3.16–25.)

Crepundia derives from the verb meaning “to rattle” (crepare) and refers in the first instance to the metal charms jingled to try and calm fussing babies. From there crepundia comes to stand in as a symbol for early childhood itself, as in the comment of Valerius Maximus and the inscription quoted above. Unlike today, when such things are generally mass-produced, a Roman tot’s crepundia were homemade and individualized. They might be inscribed with the name of the mother or father, or include some distinctive figurines. Archaeologists have found bells, clappers, letters of ivory, children’s utensils for eating and drinking, and many other objects that served this purpose.

Since they were individualized, crepundia could be used to identify babies who got misplaced. Special crepundia could be given to children by mothers who were compelled by poverty to expose them or give them away, in hope that, when they had grown up in someone else’s care, they might by some chance return and be recognized using the crepundia. Such improbable recognitions of lost or abandoned children, duly verified by crepundia, were a common plot device in Roman and Greek comedy, as in the line from Plautus quoted here.

But this does not mean it never happened in real life. The real rate of child abandonment in ancient Rome is unclear. By one estimate, impossible to verify, 20 to 40 percent of all urban children were abandoned in the third century AD. This is a very high figure, and probably not a normal situation, but it is well paralleled in pre-industrial Paris, Vienna, Milan, and Florence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The comparative evidence corroborates the impression we get from Roman sources, that the prototypical abandoner was an urban woman, perhaps from a peasant background in the city as a domestic servant, for whom taking care of an infant interfered with the necessity of urban employment. The modern evidence suggests that, unlike the happy endings of Roman comedy, however, abandonment was often tantamount to infanticide. Eighty percent mortality and higher in the first year was regular, even when foundling homes were in place (which they were not in ancient Rome).

Bronze Roman necklace fragment with crepundia from the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum

Just as crepundia were fragile and fleeting, childhood itself was seen as a time of immaturity and imperfection. Roman children were often praised by adults for not acting like children—that is, for being serious, responsible, and sober, like adults—the so-called senex puer or “old-man boy” phenomenon. Prudentius follows in this tradition when he praises the young martyr Eulalia for wanting to have nothing to do with her crepundia, and “not knowing how to play.”

Bibliography: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae 4.1174–1175. J. Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer (repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980) 1.120. Susan Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) 98–132; David Kertzer et al., “Child Abandonment in European History: A Symposium,” Journal of Family History 17 (1992) 1–23.

Adapted from the book Ancient Rome in So Many Words (New York: Hippocrene, 2007) by Christopher Francese.

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World App. Princeton University Press, 2013. iTunes $19.99 US.

Reviewed by Meagan Ayer, Dickinson College (ayerm@dickinson.edu)

iTunes preview

In December 2013 Princeton University Press launched the much anticipated app version of its Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. The original print version of the Atlas, overseen by Richard J. A. Talbert and published in 2000, was the first atlas to provide comprehensive maps of ancient Greek and Roman territories stretching from Britain to India and Africa. It immediately became the standard for maps of that part of the ancient world. The extent of territory and level of detail required that the atlas be large (13.25 x 18 in. unopened), and its high quality came at a fairly high price (currently $395 US), which meant that “the Barrington” was not always easily accessible to individuals. The application is, therefore, a welcome effort to make all the scholarship of the Barrington Atlas available to individuals anywhere at anytime.

The app itself is surprisingly small, weighing in at only 411 MB. In this compact package you have access to all 102 maps of the original Barrington which are stored locally, allowing the user to browse maps on an iPad without being connected to the internet. Upon opening the app, the Princeton University Press logo appears, followed by a cropped version of the dust cover from the print version. In order to access the application features from here, it is necessary to either tap the screen or swipe from left to right. Doing so reveals the navigation menu.

There are three different ways to view the content of the atlas. If you simply wish to browse the maps you can select the Maps tab. This will load a thumbnail gallery of all the maps in the atlas which you can flip through before tapping on a particular map to select it.

Alternatively, a navigational menu button in the upper right hand corner of the gallery allows for the selection of maps by region. Simply open the menu, choose your larger region and then select a specific map.

One can also use the Locator tab, which pulls up a map displaying the entire area covered by the atlas overlaid with boxes corresponding to individual maps. If you wanted to view a map of the Nile delta you could simply select box 74 to be taken to that map. If you are looking for maps of ancient sites within a modern country, a button is also provided in the upper right hand corner to turn on and off modern borders.

Finally, you might be searching for a specific site in the atlas. Selecting the Gazetteer tab opens a searchable alphabetical listing of all the sites included in the atlas. A pop-out drawer located in the upper right hand corner of the screen explains the organization of modern and ancient site names as well as country abbreviations. Searching for a site returns links to each map on which that site appears.

Unfortunately, search results are not saved, so that if you click through to one map, the search must be performed again to see the other maps. It is possible, though, to save individual maps to the Favorites section by tapping the star icon to the right of the map coordinates.

There are a few interesting features within the maps themselves. Tapping in the center of a map drops down a tool bar containing key and compass icons. Selecting the key icon slides out two drawers from the right which elucidate the symbols and coding of features and time periods on the map. This is a vast improvement over the print edition which required flipping back and forth within the atlas to read the key.

Tapping the compass icon in the tool bar reveals thumbnail maps of adjoining regions that can be used as short cuts to those maps. Additionally, a large compass icon appears in the center of the screen; touching this icon reorients maps so that true north appears at the top of the screen.

It also enlarges the map, which is less useful, forcing you to carefully zoom out again to see most of the map. It is extremely easy to accidentally zoom entirely out of a map and into the map browser; the creators might consider removing the feature allowing users to zoom out to the map gallery as it serves little purpose and can result in some frustration.

Version 1.1 has already begun to address some of the issues noted by early adopters. The app no longer cycles through the start-up sequence again after backgrounding; instead it picks up on the page or map last viewed. Stability has also been greatly increased. In version 1.0 the app was given to crashing during navigation, however, I have not experienced any crashing since upgrading to version 1.1. Also, smaller symbols and place names on maps that would often appear slightly blurry in version 1.0 when fully zoomed in, are crisp and easily read in version 1.1.

Still there are a few missteps, almost all of which appear to result from mimicking the print volume in digital format too closely. For example, the Introduction tab simply replicates the same material of the print edition, including table of contents and credits. While the introduction itself is worth reading, I am not certain how useful the table of contents from the print edition is within a digital app. It seems unlikely that someone searching for a map would backtrack to the introduction rather than simply use the browse or list features. Moreover, the short tutorial provided for the app is static and buried in the help section of the main menu. It would be beneficial to either pop-up the tutorial the first time the app is opened or run a short video illustrating how to navigate the app.

I could wish for more interactive features within the app, such as the ability to plot routes and otherwise manipulate the maps— similar to what is found in the Ancient World Mapping Center’s on-line tool Antiquity á la Carte— but that would, I suspect, require designing entirely new maps from the ground up. I might also wish that the app was available on more platforms. As of this moment it is limited to Apple’s iOS, preventing Android tablet owners from using this wonderful resource.

Overall, the app version of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman Worlds is an admirable effort. It provides all the information and resources of the original Barrington Atlas in an easily transportable format at a fraction of the cost. It is significantly more accessible to students and scholars at home or on the road and I suspect that, like its predecessor, it will become a standard tool for students of the ancient world.

This review of the Barrington Atlas App tested version 1.1 and was conducted on a 128GB iPad Air running iOS 7.0.4.

From the wonderful Sister Therese Marie Dougherty come these announcements, (borrowed from the latin-bestpractices listserv):

LLT511 Teaching Caesar and Vergil Spring 2014

This workshop-format course will cover the content of the new AP Latin syllabus, with a focus on teaching translation, grammar, scansion, essay writing and other components of the AP Latin exam. Classes will meet on six Saturdays from 8:30 to 3:00, beginning February 1 and ending May 10. An on-line option will be available for anyone who lives too far to commute. Meeting dates are February 1, 22, March 8, April 5, 26 and May 10. Students earn 3 graduate credits. Further information and registration forms may be obtained from Sister Therese Marie Dougherty at tdougherty@ndm.edu<mailto:tdougherty@ndm.edu>.

Tour of Roman Britain July 7-19, 2014

A ten-day program in England, July 8-18, plus two travel days. Most of the program will be based in London where we will examine artifacts from the Roman period in the British Museum and the Museum of London and visit some of the remains of Roman Londinium. Day trips will include Fishbourne Palace, Bath, Colchester, Cirencester and Verulamium. Our program will conclude with a tour of Roman Chester and the Roman fort at Vindolanda.
Register now to reserve a place. Information and registration forms are available from Sister Therese Marie Dougherty at tdougherty@ndm.edu<mailto:tdougherty@ndm.edu>.

Sister Therese Marie Dougherty, SSND, Ph.D.
Professor of Classics
School of Arts and Sciences
Notre Dame of Maryland University
4701 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
Phone: 410-532-5559
Fax: 410-532-5794

This is a talk I gave at the APA on Jan. 4, 2014, as part of a panel organized by the Society for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature. The full assignments, rubrics, and student projects are available here. The handout with a couple more links and Quintilian’s Guide to Dignified Gesturing, is below.

There are many ways to keep the sounds of Greek and Latin alive, and make them part of the classroom and the learning process. I want to share with you a podcasting assignment that helps me do this, and I hope that some aspects of or variant on it may be helpful to you as well. I use it in my fourth semester Latin and Greek classes, which are called “Introduction to Latin Poetry” and “Introduction to Greek Poetry.” The Latin course (typically 15 people) is based around Catullus and Ovid’s Amores, the Greek course (typically about 7) around the Odyssey. In addition to reading and transl
ating, the students do an assignment comparing different published translations of a particular poem or passage, to get them focused on close reading and different styles of translation. The podcast follows that, as a summative “final paper” substitute. The final product is a 6-8 minute audio recording with three parts:

• a discussion of a poem or section of a longer piece
• and translation written by the student
• a reading of the piece aloud in the original language

This assignment reinforces the point that Greek and Latin poetry was performance art, meant for the ear, not just the eye. But it also helps forward my central learning goals for the class:

• read Latin poets of moderate difficulty in Latin with appropriate assistance
• relate the Latin poetry to its historical and literary contexts
• identify and appreciate literary and stylistic features of Latin poetry

[See full assignments here: Latin, and Greek versions.]

Through the process of drafting the script and making the recording the students hit all these areas in ways that harness their creativity, help them fully master and “ownetize” a poem, contextualize and explain what they like about it to an audience of their peers, relating it to its historical context and its larger themes. The podcast medium, unlike a traditional research paper, is a piece of public scholarship, in which the students point out specific stylistic features, discuss its effect, and actually perform it for an audience, but without the pressure of a live audience. They attempt to explain, translate, and perform the poem as an authentic piece of verbal art.

Results vary, of course, but are often something to be proud of. Podcasts by my students are perennially at or near the top downloads on Dickinson’s iTunesU channel, and occasionally get a comment or two from the internet on the WordPress blog where I also post them. Of course, not all of them are perfect. For broadcast ideally we want not just good, correct writing, but something to grab the attention of the listener and hold it; not just competent recitation, but audible passion; not just research, but insight and application; not just accurate translation, but English that sings. In short we want not just excellence, but panache.

Now of course panache is exactly what you think about when you think about an academic research paper for a Latin class. Wait, no, it’s not. The reason I keep doing this assignment is not just because it fosters performance of Latin and Greek. It is also because of the way it transforms the writing process, wresting it from the Soviet tyranny of the five paragraph essay with its fulsome, stilted introduction, its formulaic paragraph structures and transitions, its smoke-blowing vaguery, its bottomless insincerity. The required style is more journalistic than academic. The main idea has to be up front, not languishing at the end of the first paragraph. You need to give the listener a reason to care. Since this writing has to be capable of being processed by actual human beings, not me, I am put in the position of a coach, rather than a judge and executioner. Students are thus much more willing to re-write and take advice, much less threatened when I criticize their work. The most common comments I make on the first drafts are

• don’t use technical terms (poetae novi, Enniamn, choliambic), or else explain them so ordinary people can understand them.
• find an angle a particular aspect of the poem that intrigues you; start with a grabber
• Say what you think, what you like or don’t like about the piece, help the listener to appreciate it
• Subordinate research to your own ideas.
• Don’t translate too literally.

An in-person meeting is essential to get the recitation up to snuff. Most students are petrified about the meter and the macrons. This meeting is opportunity to make the point that there is really no such thing as reading “in meter.” Pronounce it well, read it like you understand it, sell it, perform it, that’s what counts. Here again the presence of that external audience and the project-based nature of this make the students much more willing to take instruction, less like a class and more like a music lesson.

Passing out a rubric ahead of time is also helpful. 

[my rubric is here]

This to me is a good example of the use of technology that, far from distracting for the core values of the humanities, enacts them, while at the same time working on public speaking skills and technological competencies that will be useful far beyond the Latin classroom. This kind of thing is really in some ways a recuperation of Roman traditions of rhetorical education and public speaking. The advent of digital humanities and of social media (which are two different things) is an opportunity to revive the ancient art of rhetoric, a point stressed by the entirely classicist-free group of authors of the 2012 book Digital Humanities:

In the era of pervasive personal broadcasting, the art of oratory must be rediscovered. This is because digital networks and media have brought orality back into the mainstream of argumentation after a half-millennium in which it was mostly cast in a supporting role vis-à-vis print. You Tube lectures, podcasts, audio books, and the ubiquity of what is sometimes referred to as “demo culture” in the Digital Humanities all contribute to the resurgence of voice, of gesture, of extemporaneous speaking, of embodied performances of argument.

Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp, Digital Humanities (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012), p. 11, original emphasis.

In closing, I’ll offer you some advice from that great Roman professor of rhetoric Marcus Fabius Quintilianus on how to take this podcasting approach to Greek and Latin orality one step further into the realm of video podcasting. Quintilian discusses performance and gesture at length in his treatise on the education of the orator. For your enjoyment I abstracted the key points about gesture, essential stuff as we make the move to Latin and Greek on Youtube:

Podcasting Training outline (Brenda Landis, Dickinson Media Center): http://blogs.dickinson.edu/mediacenter/2011/07/27/podcast-training-outline/

Tutorials:

Audacity: http://lis.dickinson.edu/Technology/Training/Tutorials/other/audtut.pdf

Garageband: http://lis.dickinson.edu/Technology/Training/Tutorials/media/GB%20tutorial.pdf

iMovie: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/mediacenter/files/2010/10/imovie-09-tutorial.pdf

In preparation for a project to edit notes from older school editions of the Aeneid for a commentary on the AP Latin selections (similar to the existing one for the Caesar selections) I have been assembling a collection of scanned Aeneid editions on Google Books and Archive.org. It’s not exhaustive, and consists mainly of those with notes in English (I also included Conington and Norden, which hardy fit the bill for school editions but are of great scholarly value). Still, I wanted to share the gleanings so far, and would appreciate any additions or comments. Frieze is of particular interest to me because of his very full Vergilian dictionary. Thanks, and happy holidays!

Anthon, Charles. The Aeneid of Virgil, with English Notes, Critical and Explanatory. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843. Google Books.

Chase, Thomas. Six Books of the Aeneid of Virgil. Philadelphia: Eldredge and Brother, 1871. Google Books.

Storr, F. Books I and II of the Aeneid of Vergil. Oxford: Rivington’s, 1878) Storr is listed as “Chief master of moderns subjects in Merchant Taylor’s School, and late assistant master in Marlborough College.” Google Books.

Gossrau, God. Guil. Publii Vergilii Maronis Aeneis. 2^nd ed. Quedlinburgi: Godfredus Bassus, 1876. Archiv.org. Complete Aeneid with notes in Latin!!!

Howson, E.W. P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Libri II. et III. London: MacMillan and Co., 1881. Google Books.

Sidgwick, A. P. Vergili Aeneidos Liber II edited with English notes. Pitt Press Series. London: C.J. Clay, 1884. Google Books.

Frieze, Henry S. The Twelve Books of the Aeneid of Vergil with notes and a Vergilian Dictionary, 2^nd ed. (New York: American Book Co., 1883). Google Books Internet Archive

Robertson, Rev. J. Vergil’s Aeneid: Book I with Examination Papers, Notes and Vocabulary. London: Joseph Boulton, 1883. Google Books.

Conington, John. The Works of Virgil with a Commentary, vol. II, Containing the First Six Books of the Aeneid. 4^th ed., rev. by Henry Nettleship, London: Whittaker & Co., 1884. Google Books.

Wetherell, J.E. Vergil’s Aeneid: Book I. Toronto: Gage, 1884. Archive.org

Stephenson, H.M. P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Lib. IV. Edited for Schools. London: MacMillan & Co., 1888. Archive.org.

Papillon, T.L., and A.E. Haigh. Virgil, with an Introduction and Notes, vol. 2, notes (Oxford: Clarendon, 1892). Google Books.

Harper, William R. and Frank J. Miller, Six Books of the Aeneid of Vergil. New York: American Book Co., 1892. Archive.org (not a terribly good scan). Google Books with Eclogues

Walpole, Arthur S. P. rev. H.C. Johnson, Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber 1.New York: Macmillan, 1893. Google Books.

Comstock, David Y. Virgil’s Aeneid: Books I-VI, VIII, IX, and Selections from the Other Books. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1894. Comstock was Principal of St. Johnsbury Academy, Vermont. Google Books.

Greenough, J.B. and G.L. Kittredge. The Greater Poems of Virgil, vol. 1, The First Six Books of the Aeneid. Boston: Ginn and Co., 1895. Google Books.

Henderson, John, and E.E. Hagarty. Vergil’s Aeneid Book II. Toronto: The Copp, Clark Company, 1898. Archive.org.

Nettleship, Henry, and Wilhelm Wagner. Vergil’s Aeneid Books V. to XII. London: George Bell & Sons, 1898. With English Notes abridged from Conington. Google Books.

Warman, A.S. P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus. London: George Bell & Sons, 1899. Assistant Master at the Manchester Grammar School. He quotes frequently from Sidgwick, whose “notes have a clearness of power and stimulating interest,” but is pitched to “older boys.” Archive.org

Knapp, Charles. The Aeneid of Vergil. Books I-VI, Selections from VII-XII. Chicago: Scott, Foresman &Co., 1900. Google Books.

Page, T.E. The Aeneid of Vergil. Books I-VI. London: MacMillan & Co. 1902. Archive.org. 1967 reprint much better quality.

Henry S. Frieze, Vergil’s Aeneid Books I-VI, revised by Walter Dennison (New York: American Book Co. 1902) Google Books

Sidgwick, A.  P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904. Archive.org.

Bennet, Charles E. Virgil’s Aeneid: Books I-VI. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1905. Google Books.

Carter, Jesse Benedict. The First Six Books of Virgil’s Aeneid. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1906. Google Books.

Ladewig, Th., Karl Julius Heinrich Schaper,  P. Deuticke, and  Paul Jahn, Vergils Gedichte, Bd. 2, Buch I-VI der Äneis. 13^th ed. (Berlin : Weidmann, 1912).

Jerram, C.S. Virgil: Aeneid 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916. Archive.org. Good for breaking up text into chunks.

Carruthers, Adam, and J.C Robertson, Virgil, Aeneid: Book 1.1-510. Toronto: Gage & Co., 1917. Archive.org.

Carruthers, Adam, and J.C. Robertson, Virgil: Aeneid: Book 2.1-505. Toronto: Gage & Co., 1918. Archive.org.

Fairclough, H.R.  and Seldon L. Brown, Virgil’s Aeneid Books I-VI with introduction, notes and vocabulary. Chicago: Benj. H. Sanborn, 1919 (orig. 1908, reprinted with corrections 1912, 1919, 1920). Google Books

Norden, E. Aen. 6. Leipzig ³1926. 1903 edition at Archive.org