[lit-ideas] Re: Morris's ruling in a Huntington Clash
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 15:52:37 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 8/22/2013 6:42:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx refers to:
"excerpts from what I take to be a Latin
dictionary or lexicon, and in such inscrutable form..."
Sorry you saw it that way.
L. Helm's point was a fascinating one.
What does Morris mean by 'rule' -- as in "The West rules -- _so far" (or
variants thereof).
You look up the etymology of 'rule' and it says it's from Latin, 'regulo'.
And 'regula' is related to 'rego' -- hence the profuse (if that's the word)
quotes.
For 'rego' is cognate with 'rect'. So, the Roman idea is that if you 'rule'
you have to 'rule' right -- no such thing as an inco-RRECT ruler.
I also mentioned (or implicated) that Morris is vague in more than one
respect. When the Brits sing,
"Britannia, rule the waves!"
they KNOW what they are talking about. They apply 'rule' as a transitive
verb asking for a direct object: the waves. Surely the waves cannot literally
be 'ruled', so the song must be understood metaphorically (or not at all).
Helm goes on to make a fascinating comparison between a Morris ruling and a
Huntington clash.
What we can add to L. Helm's analysis of the title to Morris's book is the
qualifying phrase:
"Why the West Rules – for Now"
_for now_. Surely the 'implicature' is cancellable. "for now" can be used,
very liberally, in various many contexts. There is a mere 'implication'
that the ruling is not what Grice would call 'timeless'.
Seeing that Morris is a classical scholar who loves the Romans (he did
archeological work in Southern Italy and adjacent islands* -- when the "Greeks"
ruled, as it were) I would be curious as to how he covers "Roman rule",
so-called (if not "Greek rule"). Or not.
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
*Monte Polizzo. The archeological Monte Polizzo site is located 6 km
northwest of the town of Salemi, in the Trapani province of western Sicily, on
an easily defended hilltop, from which a vast area of western Sicily can be
seen, and consists of an interconnected group of ridges, the highest point
of which is 725.9 m (2359 feet) above sea level. The settlement has been
dated to c. 9th - 4th centuries BC. The Monte Polizzo Project is a group of
international scholars who are interested in the ancient Elymians of western
Sicily, and their Early Iron Age origins, development and eventual
collapse. It also aims to investigate the process of Hellenisation and the
influence of Phoenician and Greek occupations of western Sicily during the
archaic
period.
The history of excavations at Monte Polizzo[edit source]
In 1970 Vincenzo Tusa, generally considered to be the father of the
archaeology of indigenous western Sicily, launched a campaign of trial
excavations in inland western Sicily, including the first organized dig at
Monte
Polizzo. He opened several trial trenches, uncovering Iron Age remains,
associated with 6th century BC Greek pottery.
In 1996, Vincenzo Tusa’s son Sebastiano (Superintendent of Prehistoric
Archaeology for the Trapani province and Professor of Archaeology at the
University of Naples) created an international project to further understanding
of the Elymians, with Monte Polizzo at its core. In 1998 the
Sicilian-Scandinavian Archaeological Project was launched, led by Sebastiano
Tusa and
Kristian Kristiansen (Professor of Archaeology at the Göteborg University in
Sweden).
From 1998 to 2001, Christopher Prescott of the University of Oslo directed
excavation of House 1, dated c. 550-525 BC, as well as the town dump and
areas on the north slope of the acropolis. Excavations were extended to the
west in 2002 by Christian Mühlenbock and Kristian Kristiansen from the
university of Gothenburg. The new area revealed additional house complexes
from
the mid 6th century BC. The excavations were drawn to a close in 2006 but
the results will soon been published in two major volumes.
In 1999 Stanford University joined the Monte Polizzo project, where a team
of students led by Michael Shanks and Emma Blake began analyzing finds from
the 1998 excavations.
---
--->
In 2000, Professor Ian Morris (Professor of Classics and Professor of
History at Stanford University) began excavating on the acropolis with students
and volunteers from around the world.
-----
By 2002 the acropolis excavation had become one of the largest
archaeological projects in the western Mediterranean.
Excavations on the acropolis were drawn to a close during the 2006 season,
although analysis of the backlog of artifacts continues. Annual preliminary
reports in English are published in Memoirs of the American Academy in
Rome, and in Italian in Sicilia Archaeologica.
References:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/mountpolizzo/historiography.htm
http://dig.anthro.niu.edu/sicily/sic_home.htm
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