[lit-ideas] Eternal Greece

I have a "The Spartan Code" which I submitted before my "Socrates Wounded" and 
which may be distributed at a later stage.

---

Helm wisely writes and wonders re: the wise Thucydides:

"the war [of the Peloponnese and notably the Syracuse operation field] was 
badly planned, badly led and ultimately a military disaster
for Athens - one of the several major reasons Sparta was able to defeat
Athens. . . I hope it wasn't Thucydides who invented the expression "war
never solves anything."  Not only did Athens lose the war, but Syracuse was
so debilitated by the battle with Athens it was soon defeated, and Sparta's
victory exhausted them."

Indeed. Incidentally, I just got yesterday BENJAMIN JOWETT's translation of 
Thucydides. The edition is so cheap it does not give any sort of cultural 
background as to why the wise Jowett thought of translating this, which was 
obviously a good thing -- but his claim to fame rests on his boring translation 
of Plato's anti-officialese little diatribes said to be masterpieces of 
civilisation, called "The Socratic Dialogues" -- which I always have, qua 
Swimming Pool Librarian, anxiety when I accomodate on the shelves, as I want 
them to be below, on the S, but I know they have to go under P -- an author who 
hardly speaks his voice. Immoral!

Anyway, my recent consideration re: the War of the Pelopponese, which this 
little Thucydides-Jowett book blurbs as being,

           "the stirring chronicle of the holocaust
            that destroyed Greece's golden age."

has a rubbish for a blurb.

It should read:

            "the stirring chronicle of a few battles
             that had proud prostituted Athens go
             'down a peg'"

             and

             "the thing that provided classicist with
             the idea that there is something eternal
             about Greece."

--- I do have a book, silly one, but so big and nice that I have on top of the 
Greek side to the S. P. Library. It's called "Eternal Greece" -- hardback in a 
light blue cover that suits the ambience. We do have zillions on "Eterna Roma", 
Roma the Eternal City, but having been there, I would rather call it the 
Eternal Ruins. It's so dirty, polluted, and artificial! I only found peace 
there following the thread of the Tiber. The only bit of nature worth 
examining, and which the Romans did not totally destroyed, like paved or 
something. It has one bridge too many, but I'm glad they never considered Isola 
Tiberina an obstacle for their commercial things and the thing still stands 
there. Nothing eternal about Roma except their cloacae (drains).

But Greek is different, and by eternal, I mean what Boardman calls 'high 
classical' basically Perikles time, and basically as it applies to Athens, 
since the man was his major. Imagine having to read in a History of Gotham, 
"The Time of Giuliani" -- with contributions by E. Yost, "The decrease of rate 
crime and the hellenistic influence: or how to build a Greek ghetto if you find 
the right parking lot."

---- The Greeks and classicists NEEDED an idea of the eternal. By which I mean 
a 'historical' Golden Age. Not the golden age of the myth, but the Golden Age 
of History, and for some reason everybody has decided it's that period, the 
hundred years before the Pelopponese war.

This particularly apply to my current field, sculpture. Everything AFTER that 
is said to be corrupted, cheap, disproportionate, ugly, silly, unnecessary.

Ditto for Philosophy. Having had to pass a few philosophy courses -- after all 
I do have my PhD in Philosophy -- I remember EVERY tutor dismissing 
"Hellenistic philosophy" as if we were dealing with the Gypsies. Only one 
tutor, who was specialized, as we say, in that period, and that period alone -- 
which made him a bore to talk to -- had us read Loeb, Outlines of Phyrronism, 
in which essay I quoted and quoted Grice. Since Sextus Empiricus is concerned 
with things like,

             "the thing is sweet"
             "the thing tastes sweet"
             "the thing seems sweet"

-- etc. Enough to give you a headache.

So if it were not for the Spartans defeating the proud Athenians, we would have 
a 'golden age' (because they were 'oh so wise and talented -- look at the 
architecture!' kind of middle brow audiences who still make it to the Akropolis 
and know sh*t about things) lasting for we don't know how much longer.

I think a hundred years (cfr. Garcia Marquez, "A hundred years of solitude") is 
pretty enough a long time for me. Actually, when the Marquez book got the 
Nobel, Borges was said to opine to the question of what he thought about the 
book, "50 years too long", he said.

I particularly do find the "Golden Age" of "high classical" style boring and 
pretentious, but must admit that POLYKLEITUS (and his earlier MYRON) were 
geniuses. In particular DORYPHOROS by Polykleitus gave us the right KANON on 
which later sculptures could work.

He noted that men (he didn't do women) had

     1. One only forehead
     2. Two eyes, one to the left, one to the right. He measured the distance, 
and found that the nose comes pretty
         much in the middle.
     3. He then extended his athlete (who he was stupidly too reticent to name 
by Greek name, and called him,
         Spear-Bearer instead) and noted that the head of the ephebe (it's good 
he was not a paidophile, but perhaps
         a ephebophile, because the proportions would have been different) was

                      1/7

        of the rest of the body. (Eros, being younger, in most representations 
look like a veritable midget, as most
        children do before 'initiation' -- or before they become 'men'.
     4. He noted that the arms and the legs -- four in total, where symmetrical.
     5. He wasn't concerned with details on genitalia ("too difficult to mould" 
-- he worked on bronze), or more
         importantly, 'hair'. His doruphoros really looks like he would need a 
better hair do.
     6. He then made it in bronze, spoiling the fact that human skin is better 
than bronze, but at least he did not
         mould it, had he been an Asian, with boiled rice.
     
The canon is maintained today. Lusippos changed the size of the head, so his 
variation of the canon has 1/8 for the head. Which makes them look too brawny 
and little brainy for my taste. 

Vitruvius wrote about this years before, and he got everything fine. The only 
bit I disagree is when he notes that the center of the male body is the navel. 
Not being religious, I think the ARTICULATORY point is the annus, rather.

Cheers,
   JL 
    The Glyptotheca at the Swimming Pool

APPENDIX: Vitruvius (Loeb)

“Symmetry and
proportion (Gk. “analogia”) consists in taking a fixed module in each case both
for the part and for the whole. Without symmetry and proportion nothing can
have a plan; it must have an exact proportion worked out like the fashion of
the members of a finely-shaped male body. 
For Nature has so planned the male body that the face from the chin to
the top of the forehead is 1/10. The
palm of the hand from the wrist to the top of the middle finger is 1/0. The head
from the chin to the crown,1/8; from the top of the breast with the bottom of
the neck to the roots of the hair,1/6. From the middle of the breast to the
crown,1/4; 1/3 of the height of the face is from the bottom of the chin to the
bottom of the nostrils; the nose from the bottom of the nostrils to the line
between the brows, ditto; from that line to the roots of the hair, the forehead
is given as 1/3. The foot is 1/6 of the height of the body; the cubit 1/4, the
breast also 1/4. The other members also have their own proportionate
measurements. And by using these statue-makers have attained great and
unbounded distinction. The navel is
naturally the exact centre of the body. If a man lies on his back with
hands and feet outspread, the centre of a
circle is placed on his navel, his figure and toes will be touched by
the circumference. Also a square
will be described within the figure. If we measure from  the foot to the top of 
the head, and apply
the measure to the outstretched hands, the breadth will be found equal to the
height, just like sites which are squared by rule. Nature has planned the male
body so that the members correspond in their proportions to its complete
configuration. By using these, statue makers have attained great and unbounded
distinction.”



 
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