what does classical mean?
mark...@io.com
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> For starters, Classical usually refers to Classical Greek - 5th and 4th CE
> BCE. From 323 BCE it becomes the Hellenistic period. And Roman history is
> Republican, Principate, Dominate, Byzantine. Quite a mix here.
where does this definition come from? it's not the first time that i've
seen the term classical defined as greece alone.
however, it contradicts every other use of the term classical that i've
seen:
my merriam-webster has several definitions for classic, classical, etc.
all mention greece and rome, but not greece alone.
studies of many cultures designate a classical period specific to that
culture: classical egyptian, classical bablyonian, classical mayan. i
have yet to see a writer apologize for appropriating the term classical
from greek studies.
so i suppose what i'm looking for here is some kind of authoritative
statement from outside the realm of greek studies, that the term
classical refers only to greece.
Neville Lindsay
<mark...@io.com> wrote in message
news:261020032134085602%mark...@io.com...
Please show me the word 'only' other than by yourself.
Yes, we have classical poets, music, etc etc.
NL
Paul J Gans
No. In European history it generally runs from the start of
the classical period in Greece, about 500 BC up to the start
of the Middle Ages, where ever you want to put that.
And of course those are only approximate dates. But it
certainly includes Rome.
---- Paul J. Gans
Mekon
Neville,
Is your email fixed yet?
Mekon
Neville Lindsay
"Paul J Gans" <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:bni424$i02$1...@reader1.panix.com...
I'd be interested on your source for the 'classical period' extending to
'start of middle ages'. 500 BCE - 500 CE might be called 'Ancient' in
historical terminology. However calling it 'Classical' is a newie on me. How
come?
NL
Michael Siemon
The original "timeline" that was presented at the start of this
thread was extremely "Hellenocentric" -- e.g. with a use of "Archaic"
that matches its usual sense in ancient Greek history, but so far as
I am aware is never used (in that time frame or context) elsewhere.
Limiting "classical" to the glory days of Athens is conventional in
_that_ framework, but irrelevant to anyone else. :-)
Outside that framework, "classical" is a term of no fixed or definite
reference. Some cultures at some times have accumulated the adjective
as a kind of cruft [thread tie!], as in the case of Mayan history, but
I don't think that there is a general usage for European history, even
if there is occasional vague pointing to classical vs. post-classical
within the "Ancient" category of the usual Ancient/Medieval/Modern tri-
partite division.
Chris Camfield
wrote:
[snip]
>I'd be interested on your source for the 'classical period' extending to
>'start of middle ages'. 500 BCE - 500 CE might be called 'Ancient' in
>historical terminology. However calling it 'Classical' is a newie on me. How
>come?
"Classical history" refers to the history in that time frame (just as the phrase
"classical civilization" includes to both Greece and Rome) so by extension the
"classical period" can be used to refer to that time frame.
Using the term "ancient" would be inaccurate, since the period before it is
certainly also ancient. :-)
Chris
John Wilkins
In my self-flagellation^Hstudy of the late Graecoroman sources of a
particular philosophical debate (the categories of logic - don't ask), I
continually read people like Boethius, Porphyry, Plotinus, the Hermes
corpus, and so on, from the 2ndC CE to the 5thC CE being referred to as
"late classical". Boethius appears to be the terminus in the history of
ideas between late classical and medieval.
--
John Wilkins wilkins.id.au
For long you live and high you fly,
and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Neville Lindsay
"John Wilkins" <wil...@wehi.edu.au> wrote in message
news:1g3hy1o.9qjm9f2cox0xN%wil...@wehi.edu.au...
To be blunt about it, we have in history the divisions:
Prehistoric, Ancient, Mediaeval, Modern.
Within these divisions we have lots of potential sub-divisions like in
Prehistoric - Early Archaic, Middle Archaic, Late Archaic and so also
equivalent divisions within Ancient, Mediaeval, Modern.
We also have lots of other divisions for specialised topics, like pottery,
architecture, music etc. If we are talking about Classical in relation to
Greece, it is 480-323 or slight variants on those dates. If we are talking
about Classical in relation to Music, it is something like 1750-1820 - it
was preceded by Baroque and followed by Romantic. Each definition of period,
of Classical, or whatever, has to be allied to what you are talking about.
Now if we are talking about History - once again Pre-history, Ancient
History, Mediaeval History, Modern History are the basic divisions. And yes,
they tend to be Eurocentric, as the divisions (roughly pre-500 BCE, 500
BCE-500CE, 500CE-1500CE, 1500CE-present) refer to basically European
history. The rest of the world has different descriptors.
NL
Neville Lindsay
"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
news:q7appvkuusgsp4s8b...@4ax.com...
Rather unconvincing - do we want to fiddle with words, or take the usual
convention - Pre-history, Ancient History, Mediaeval History, Modern
History. You are welcome to start your own definition - how many converts do
you claim to date?
NL
Chris Camfield
wrote:
[snip]
>Rather unconvincing - do we want to fiddle with words, or take the usual
>convention - Pre-history, Ancient History, Mediaeval History, Modern
>History. You are welcome to start your own definition - how many converts do
>you claim to date?
Rather tiresome. Try typing '"classical history" program' into www.google.com
and see what turns up.
Chris
Neville Lindsay
"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
I see that the sites from various universities clearly discriminate in their
usage of Ancient History and Classics. Nothing seems to have changed since
when I did it. Do you believe that the historical divisions I gave above are
not mainstream?
NL
Neville Lindsay
"Mekon" <blank...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:WJ0nb.166638$bo1.1...@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> Neville,
>
> Is your email fixed yet?
>
> Mekon
It is in utter chaos. My inbox is perpetually full of Swen spam, open for a
brief window after I clear it, most in mail consequently bounces. My
newsgroups come and go - some I get in, some gets out, a lot doesn't either
way. Some leaks through after delays of several days. Mr Telstra just tells
me lies about it being fixed.
NL
Mekon
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:de6nb.167073$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
Well I put D's ad in as promised and it looks pretty good if I do say so
myself.
I will send you a hard copy when it is printed.
In the meantime you could resort to hotmail.:)
Mekon
>
>
>
mark...@io.com
"Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > > For starters, Classical usually refers to Classical Greek - 5th and 4th
> Please show me the word 'only' other than by yourself.
your word was usually. ok, sure, i rephrase my question:
so i suppose what i'm looking for here is some kind of authoritative
statement from outside the realm of greek studies, that the term
classical refers USUALLY to greece.
well?
Chris Camfield
wrote:
>
>"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
>news:ekgppv83of5n2n031...@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:16:09 GMT, "Neville Lindsay"
><nev...@bigpond.net.au>
>> wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >Rather unconvincing - do we want to fiddle with words, or take the usual
>> >convention - Pre-history, Ancient History, Mediaeval History, Modern
>> >History. You are welcome to start your own definition - how many converts
>do
>> >you claim to date?
>>
>> Rather tiresome. Try typing '"classical history" program' into
>www.google.com
>> and see what turns up.
>>
>> Chris
>
>I see that the sites from various universities clearly discriminate in their
>usage of Ancient History and Classics.
Which isn't the point. "Classical history" *can* be used as a phrase for the
collective study of ancient Greek and Roman history.
Based on my searches, I'll add this caveat: it may be far more commonly used in
North America than in the UK or Australia.
> Nothing seems to have changed since
>when I did it.
I guess you just see what you want to see, then. I saw lots of uses of the
phrase "classical history" to refer to a broader area of study than Classical
Greece alone.
e.g. Trent University, "The Emphasis in Classical History is available to
students majoring in any degree program, although it will clearly supplement the
programs of those majoring in Ancient Greek & Roman Studies. It is intended to
recognize an emphasis upon the study of Classical History and on the methods of
classical historians."
with such courses as:
"Classical History 100 — The history of Greece, to the decline of the
city-states.
Classical History 201 — Rome from the Republic to the Caesars, c. 150 B.C. -
A.D. 68
...
Classical History 352H — The Late Roman Empire, A.D. 305 to c. 600 "
e.g. Rutgers' PhD expectations:
"The qualifying examination covers the following areas, with a three-hour
examination in each: ...(2) a particular Greek *or Latin author* with relevance
for Classical History; (3) general knowledge of Classical History; (4) a special
field in Classical History or Cultural studies;" (emphasis mine)
> Do you believe that the historical divisions I gave above are
not mainstream?
No, I don't have particularly strong objections, but I presume it's a
distinction based solely on the availability of historical texts, and I don't
think that's as important as it used to be for the study of a period.
Also c. 900 BCE (or whatever date one cares to pick to mark the distinction
between the Mycenean and Archaic) is a far more important dividing point in
ancient Greek history than 500, in my opinion.
Chris
Paul J Gans
It is my own invention, a byproduct of my era-reduction plan (ERP).
Clearly we have too many eras. I've reduced them to four:
Prehistory: 1500 BC to 500 BC
Classical: 500 BC to 500 AD
Medieval 500 AD to 1500 AD
Modern 1500 AD to 2500 Ad
After 2500 AD you are on your own.
---- Paul J. Gans
John Wilkins
Calling something "modern" is like calling it "current". It doesn't work
for long :-)
How about dividing things into periods based on the technologies used?
Late neolithic: to 500BCE
Iron age: 500BCE to 500CE
Shit and muck age*: 500CE to 1500CE
Industry and trading age: 1500CE
*Kings were the ones that didn't have shit all over them.
Mekon
To describe my favorite period in such disparaging terms even in jest is not
good enough.
It was the beginning of English culture, the beginning of English literature
, the flourishing of terrific works in fine metals, the great shift
westwards in European power, the flourishing of the book.
Ater all the book of Kells was not made by kings, nor does it have any shit
on it.
Mekon
Neville Lindsay
While I agree with four divisions, I know of no reason to change Ancient to
Classical. That millennium was not. There were classical and classicising
periods within it, for certain aspects. But it was not 'classical. Classical
periods apply in different cultural aspects, as we use language (eg
Classical Music 1750-1820). Reinventing language requires support. How many
adherents have you garnered for Classical era 500-500?
I suspect you are on a loser. Language is about communication, and if we
individually redefine the meaning of words, we ensure we talk past each
other and don't communicate. I can use Ancient 500-500 and expect most
people who talk in such terms of historical eras to understand me. Your
using classical will result in misunderstandings and exactly what has being
going on here 'what do you mean'. Standard language is designed to obviate
this.
NL
Neville Lindsay
"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
Well, I don't hold NA common usage to be mandatory or definitive. Sorry.
However whatt I am looking for is whether you believe Ancient History or
Classical History is the most accepted term for the period between
Pre-History and Mediaeval History.
> > Nothing seems to have changed since
> >when I did it.
>
> I guess you just see what you want to see, then. I saw lots of uses of the
> phrase "classical history" to refer to a broader area of study than
Classical
> Greece alone.
>
> e.g. Trent University, "The Emphasis in Classical History is available to
> students majoring in any degree program, although it will clearly
supplement the
> programs of those majoring in Ancient Greek & Roman Studies. It is
intended to
> recognize an emphasis upon the study of Classical History and on the
methods of
> classical historians."
>
> with such courses as:
>
> "Classical History 100 - The history of Greece, to the decline of the
> city-states.
Thereafter it becomes Hellenistic History - atopic littl-taught, for better
or worse, becasie of a sparsity of historical records.(which is why
pre-history is pre-history for thje same reason - sparsity of historical
records).
> Classical History 201 - Rome from the Republic to the Caesars, c. 150
B.C. -
> A.D. 68
> ...
> Classical History 352H - The Late Roman Empire, A.D. 305 to c. 600 "
>
> e.g. Rutgers' PhD expectations:
>
> "The qualifying examination covers the following areas, with a three-hour
> examination in each: ...(2) a particular Greek *or Latin author* with
relevance
> for Classical History; (3) general knowledge of Classical History; (4) a
special
> field in Classical History or Cultural studies;" (emphasis mine)
> > Do you believe that the historical divisions I gave above are
> not mainstream?
> No, I don't have particularly strong objections, but I presume it's a
> distinction based solely on the availability of historical texts, and I
don't
> think that's as important as it used to be for the study of a period.
>
>(or whatever date one cares to pick to mark the distinction
> between the Mycenean and Archaic) is a far more important dividing point
in
> ancient Greek history than 500, in my opinion.
>
> Chris
Not sure why. The explosion from the sixth to fifth centuries seems to me to
be much more significant a marker rather than the earlier descent into the
Dark Ages backwater.
NL
Paul J Gans
It will last another 497 years. I doubt I'll care by then.
>How about dividing things into periods based on the technologies used?
>Late neolithic: to 500BCE
>Iron age: 500BCE to 500CE
>Shit and muck age*: 500CE to 1500CE
>Industry and trading age: 1500CE
>*Kings were the ones that didn't have shit all over them.
You noticed that too!
I'm not sure of the last one. It applies to the others
as well. Perhaps the "King of the Mountain Age"? It
has been marked by attempt after attempt to rule it all.
---- Paul J. Gans
Paul J Gans
Two. But the cat died.
>I suspect you are on a loser. Language is about communication, and if we
>individually redefine the meaning of words, we ensure we talk past each
>other and don't communicate. I can use Ancient 500-500 and expect most
>people who talk in such terms of historical eras to understand me. Your
>using classical will result in misunderstandings and exactly what has being
>going on here 'what do you mean'. Standard language is designed to obviate
>this.
Hmmm. Rome at the time of Augustus was "ancient". I'll
have to remember that.
Here at my university the Department of Classics deals with
both Greece and Rome, right up to the end.
But what do they know.
---- Paul J. Gans
John Wilkins
But, but, I'm influenced by the One True Authority on matters medieval
(Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Take it up with Professors Cleese,
Jones, Idle, Chapman and Gilliam. If you can't believe Oxford graduates,
who can you believe?
Mekon
Yes I got your reference, it was your extrapolation of their original
research I questioned.
Mekon
Neville Lindsay
If you wish to play dumb, do so. However it may have escaped your attention
that we are talking about the way we today classify periods in history. And
yes, that time ago from today is indeed ancient. If you have to try to
remember that, you indeed have a problem.
> Here at my university the Department of Classics deals with
> both Greece and Rome, right up to the end.
>
> But what do they know.
>
> ---- Paul J. Gans
They know what Classics means, and it is not what you are trying to tout.
But we were talking about a standard division of historical eras. Are you
maintaining that Ancient History is not one of the standard divisions, along
with Mediaeval and Modern?
NL
Matt Giwer
> It is in utter chaos. My inbox is perpetually full of Swen spam, open for a
> brief window after I clear it, most in mail consequently bounces. My
> newsgroups come and go - some I get in, some gets out, a lot doesn't either
> way. Some leaks through after delays of several days. Mr Telstra just tells
> me lies about it being fixed.
People with such problems should consider www.mozilla.org for an open source version of
Netscape. It has a spam filter that is easy to train and 95% effective. And it is free and
it will read your current file settings and use them. And I have no interest or gain in
making this recomendation.
--
The most important thing never said about Ghandi is he
chose non-violence because he decided he could not win
using violence. Non-violence is not peace. It is a
strategy for victory.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 2878
Matt Giwer
> where does this definition come from? it's not the first time that i've
> seen the term classical defined as greece alone.
The best explanation is from the history of modern universities. If it was taught in the
"Classics" department it came from the classical period sort of a mixture of literature
and history. These will be the oldest departments where the material was from written
material of the period surviving into modern times. So it naturally became the works of
philosophers and artists from Greek and Roman times. And those mostly come from Greece.
The rise of archaeology as a science department and its interation with history and its
disovery of literature such as Gilgamesh and the Egyptian Book of the Dead and its
interest in including science and math of ancient times has changed things a bit.
--
If the written record had not survived, archaeologists
would be forced to conclude the people of Jerusalem
worshipped Ishtar.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 2896
Inger E Johansson
"Matt Giwer" <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:wznnb.73109$ox6.1...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
Netscape isn't a solution. Anyhow there is a new virus announced here in
Sweden today that's related to Britney Spears photos. It opens / change to
sex-sites according to one paper.
Inger E
>
Renia
> Neville Lindsay wrote:
>
>> It is in utter chaos. My inbox is perpetually full of Swen spam, open
>> for a
>> brief window after I clear it, most in mail consequently bounces. My
>> newsgroups come and go - some I get in, some gets out, a lot doesn't
>> either
>> way. Some leaks through after delays of several days. Mr Telstra just
>> tells
>> me lies about it being fixed.
>
>
> People with such problems should consider www.mozilla.org for an
> open source version of Netscape. It has a spam filter that is easy to
> train and 95% effective. And it is free and it will read your current
> file settings and use them. And I have no interest or gain in making
> this recomendation.
I've always used Netscape (except at work on the Mac where we used IE
through Linux and still got viruses) and recently downloaded Netscape
7.1 with this facility, just before the Swen outbreak. While it could
take all day to download the Swen rubbish, this facility made it easy to
delete them all without even touching them. A quick scan through the
trash to make sure nothing "real" was there, and they were deleted. Same
applies to all the other rubbish out there. During Swen, I eventually
realised things would be much quicker if I reduced the load to be
downloaded to about 5kb, and they were all truncated.
Renia
Renia
Amen.
But Paul loves redefinitions of historican things. Doesn't realise there
have been historians before his era. Thinks they're all old hat and part
of history themselves.
Hi Brian!
Renia
Bernardz
nev...@bigpond.net.au says...
> > Here at my university the Department of Classics deals with
> > both Greece and Rome, right up to the end.
> >
> > But what do they know.
> >
> > ---- Paul J. Gans
>
> They know what Classics means, and it is not what you are trying to tout.
> But we were talking about a standard division of historical eras. Are you
> maintaining that Ancient History is not one of the standard divisions, along
> with Mediaeval and Modern?
>
I admit I really do like Paul's divisions. But I also would prefer
calling it Ancient not Classical. Partly as Greek and Roman civilization
although a large part of European civilization it was not all of it. It
seems unnecessarily restrictive to call it Classical. Also as it is
confusing as many cultures would call some part of their history
classical. Finally we are used of calling it Ancient and I think we
would need a good reason to change.
--
Changing computers is just as exasperating as moving house.
mark...@io.com
wil...@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> But, but, I'm influenced by the One True Authority on matters medieval
> (Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Take it up with Professors Cleese,
> Jones, Idle, Chapman and Gilliam. If you can't believe Oxford graduates,
> who can you believe?
i think cambridge u. would take issue with that statement. as would
professor palin. but more to the point:
someone earlier on this thread invoked boethius as the dividing line
between the late classical and middle ages.
boethius is the writer adored by ignatius in j.k. toole's A Confederacy
of Dunces. top that!
p.s. [to neville]: after about 50 posts on this thread, i am still
waiting for your reply: why would the term classical usually mean
greece alone?
Renia
Classical studies pertain to the arts of Rome and Greece as opposed to
politics or history per se.
Renia
erilar
<ga...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> Here at my university the Department of Classics deals with
> both Greece and Rome, right up to the end.
Your university is not alone 8-)
--
Mary Loomer Oliver(aka erilar)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
perspicuitas enim argumentatione elevator--Cicero
(The clearest subjects are often obscured by lengthened reasoning)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Erilar's Cave Annex:
http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo
John Wilkins
> In article <1g3jie1.3wpbq3f4h134N%wil...@wehi.edu.au>,
> wil...@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
>
> > But, but, I'm influenced by the One True Authority on matters medieval
> > (Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Take it up with Professors Cleese,
> > Jones, Idle, Chapman and Gilliam. If you can't believe Oxford graduates,
> > who can you believe?
>
>
> i think cambridge u. would take issue with that statement. as would
> professor palin. but more to the point:
Cambridge, Oxford, what's the difference. British university with a long
history of self-aggrandisement. You know... [ducks colonial noggin and
runs very quickly to a sheltered spot]
>
> someone earlier on this thread invoked boethius as the dividing line
> between the late classical and middle ages.
That was me. In philosophy, Boethius's Consolations and Second
Commentary on the Isagoge mark the beginnings of the medieval universals
debate.
>
> boethius is the writer adored by ignatius in j.k. toole's A Confederacy
> of Dunces. top that!
And "dunce" is derived from the latinised name of John the Scot.
>
> p.s. [to neville]: after about 50 posts on this thread, i am still
> waiting for your reply: why would the term classical usually mean
> greece alone?
Steve Hayes
>Neville Lindsay wrote:
>
>> It is in utter chaos. My inbox is perpetually full of Swen spam, open for a
>> brief window after I clear it, most in mail consequently bounces. My
>> newsgroups come and go - some I get in, some gets out, a lot doesn't either
>> way. Some leaks through after delays of several days. Mr Telstra just tells
>> me lies about it being fixed.
>
> People with such problems should consider www.mozilla.org for an open source version of
>Netscape. It has a spam filter that is easy to train and 95% effective. And it is free and
>it will read your current file settings and use them. And I have no interest or gain in
>making this recomendation.
That does not solve this particular problem.
But yuou can open a webmail account with Hotmail, and set it to delete junk
mail as it comes in.
Steve Hayes
haye...@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
Angelo Tulumello
> In article <1jImb.165557$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
> "Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>
>
>>For starters, Classical usually refers to Classical Greek - 5th and 4th CE
>>BCE. From 323 BCE it becomes the Hellenistic period. And Roman history is
>>Republican, Principate, Dominate, Byzantine. Quite a mix here.
>
>
>
> where does this definition come from? it's not the first time that i've
> seen the term classical defined as greece alone.
>
> however, it contradicts every other use of the term classical that i've
> seen:
>
> my merriam-webster has several definitions for classic, classical, etc.
> all mention greece and rome, but not greece alone.
>
> studies of many cultures designate a classical period specific to that
> culture: classical egyptian, classical bablyonian, classical mayan. i
> have yet to see a writer apologize for appropriating the term classical
> from greek studies.
>
> so i suppose what i'm looking for here is some kind of authoritative
> statement from outside the realm of greek studies, that the term
> classical refers only to greece.
I haven't read all the postings on this subject because I found them
tedious to say the least, so this may be a repetition
Things are classical by virtue of their survival of the test of time.
This is true of music ( Bethoven, Bach, Mozart etc.) it is true of art (
Michaelangelo, Monet, Piccasso etc). It is true of literature (Euclid's
elements, Plutarch's lives, The Bible etc) It is true of theater,
(Shakespere, Gone with the wind, Porgy and Bess, etc) The fundamental
test is the survival of these elements in time.
There are classics for every culture, Socrates Plato and Aristotle are
familiar. In China there would be (Confuscius, Mencius etc). They come
up with a wide variety of insights, that have meaning and influence in
their culture
These works are classics because they are repeated over and over by
individuals of many generations because of their value and in turn they
are vehicles for communicating these values to those who follow them.
Having recived these values they are repeated by their recievers for
many generations. They may include gross error, such as the Ptolomeic
astronomy theory and some of Aristotles insights. When that occurs they
can be an obstacle to progress that is formidable.
The classics are something that has been repeated so often that it
develops a life of its own by virtue of its repetition.
Angelo Tulumello
Paul J Gans
Neville, you are sitting on your brains. Here we call it
"Classical". Argue if you wish. Don't take my word for
it. Go to
htt:/www/nyu/edu
and navigate to the section on Arts and Science and look it up
for yourself.
Geez, you really do go on when you are going on.
--- Paul J. Gans
Paul J Gans
You may call it what you wish. Borshlag was my second
choice but I thought it a bit obscure.
There are two things going on here. One is what any individual
chooses to call things. They are (in most countries) free to
call a thing what they will.
The other is how things are generally known to a wide population.
That varies. Names come in and out of favor. In the US "classical"
(in the sense we are using the term) often means both Greek (post
interregnum) and Roman. Other places may well do it differently.
Some folks like to subdivide further. That's fine with me too.
Others like to lump things together. Then we get things like
"AD" and "BC".
While I can understand comparing notes on what things are
called -- and this started as a bit of a light-hearted thread
-- but to actually argue about it indicates a certain airyness
of brain and lack of other occupation. Take Neville, for example,
please.
---- Paul J. Gans
Neville Lindsay
<mark...@io.com> wrote in message
news:271020031005071504%mark...@io.com...
> In article <6m0nb.166615$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
> "Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> > > > For starters, Classical usually refers to Classical Greek - 5th and
4th
>
>
>
> your word was usually. ok, sure, i rephrase my question:
>
> so i suppose what i'm looking for here is some kind of authoritative
> statement from outside the realm of greek studies, that the term
>
> well?
Well no. Classical refers to different periods for different things. I have
already given as sample, such as Classical Music is usually 1750-1820,
preceded by Baroque and followed by Romantic. Classical Greek history is say
480-323 or similar, preceded by Archaic and followed by Hellenistic.
Architecture, sculpture, pottery and others have their own periods. Chasing
the word Classical is irrelevant anyway. It is a broad and catholic word
which means different things to different disciplines.
As I and others have said elsewhere, the usual (Eurocentric) classification
of historical periods is Pre-history (pre-500 BCE) Ancient (500 BCE-500 CE),
Mediaeval (500-1500 CE), Modern (post-1500 CE). Some will want to fiddle
with those broad year spans a bit, that the above is 'average'.
Other regions (China, Americas, Africa, etc) have their own historical and
other classifications for obvious reasons.
NL
Chris Camfield
wrote:
>"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
>news:o8bqpvc6jskp26qmr...@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 08:57:42 GMT, "Neville Lindsay"
><nev...@bigpond.net.au>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
>> >news:ekgppv83of5n2n031...@4ax.com...
>> >> On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:16:09 GMT, "Neville Lindsay"
>> ><nev...@bigpond.net.au>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> [snip]
>> >I see that the sites from various universities clearly discriminate in
>their
>> >usage of Ancient History and Classics.
>>
>> Which isn't the point. "Classical history" *can* be used as a phrase for
>the
>> collective study of ancient Greek and Roman history.
>>
>> Based on my searches, I'll add this caveat: it may be far more commonly
>used in
>> North America than in the UK or Australia.
>
>Well, I don't hold NA common usage to be mandatory or definitive. Sorry.
Look. You asked why someone might call the period of 500 BCE to 500 CE
"classical". I've explained it. You can disagree because it's not in common
currency where you are, and that's fine, but an explanation *has been provided*.
>However whatt I am looking for is whether you believe Ancient History or
>Classical History is the most accepted term for the period between
>Pre-History and Mediaeval History.
Ancient, but I have serious doubts about defining it as strictly 500 BCE to 500
CE.
You said in another branch of this thread, "I can use Ancient 500-500 and expect
most people who talk in such terms of historical eras to understand me."
Perhaps, but even the definition of ancient history used for the creation of
this newsgroup is broader than that.
>> "Classical History 100 - The history of Greece, to the decline of the
>> city-states.
>
>Thereafter it becomes Hellenistic History - atopic littl-taught, for better
>or worse, becasie of a sparsity of historical records.(which is why
>pre-history is pre-history for thje same reason - sparsity of historical
>records).
Well, that's an implication of the historical eras you've presented, but it
seems to me (from researching topics related to this discussion online) that the
very definition of "what is prehistory", and thus when history begins, is not
set in stone. Of course it varies from location to location, and there is also
the issue of whether history begins with writing or with historical writing.
[snip]
>> > Do you believe that the historical divisions I gave above are
>> not mainstream?
>
>> No, I don't have particularly strong objections, but I presume it's a
>> distinction based solely on the availability of historical texts, and I
>don't
>> think that's as important as it used to be for the study of a period.
>>
>>(or whatever date one cares to pick to mark the distinction
>> between the Mycenean and Archaic) is a far more important dividing point
>in
>> ancient Greek history than 500, in my opinion.
>
>Not sure why. The explosion from the sixth to fifth centuries seems to me to
>be much more significant a marker rather than the earlier descent into the
>Dark Ages backwater.
Well, the explosion *began* in the archaic period. Putting a dividing line
between the archaic and classical, to me, is very strange.
Chris
Neville Lindsay
"Steve Hayes" <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f9ec08e....@news.saix.net...
Thanks. Now how do I get the junk inflow to migrate to the new address - the
existing one is essential for business reasons.
Now if the spam is given impetus from my general postings - eg here on ngs,
and I use the hotmail address for that purpose, my business one will
hopefully get fewer and fewer spam messages because I don't make these
wide-open connections.
Would that be so?
NL
Neville Lindsay
I note you post three or four to my one, perpetually argumentive.
A massive airyness of brain and lack of other occupation?
NL
Neville Lindsay
You still don't know what Classics means do you? Well, I suppose from the
backwater of Alchemy, you are a bit out of mainstream.
> Geez, you really do go on when you are going on.
>
> --- Paul J. Gans
Dearie me. NYU is the centre and arbiter of the universe? And just who is
going on and on - pushing an ignorant perception of history matched only be
an ignorant perception of historical facts and interpretations, based on
mediaeval technology. Great stuff.
NL
Neville Lindsay
"Chris Camfield" <ccam...@DELETEMEemail.com> wrote in message
History is all about sources. We tend to regard coherent writing on
historical subjects as providing the basis for history, and when they are
almost without such sources, it tends to get called pre-history. It is then
the field of archaeology and a host of new-growing other subsidiary
disciplines. The mercantile accounts from Pylos tell us a bit about the
palace economy, but are not an historical account. They are evidence.
> [snip]
> >> > Do you believe that the historical divisions I gave above are
> >> not mainstream?
> >> No, I don't have particularly strong objections, but I presume it's a
> >> distinction based solely on the availability of historical texts, and I
don't
> >> think that's as important as it used to be for the study of a period.
> >>
> >>(or whatever date one cares to pick to mark the distinction
> >> between the Mycenean and Archaic) is a far more important dividing
point in
> >> ancient Greek history than 500, in my opinion.
> >Not sure why. The explosion from the sixth to fifth centuries seems to me
to
> >be much more significant a marker rather than the earlier descent into
the
> >Dark Ages backwater.
> Well, the explosion *began* in the archaic period. Putting a dividing
line
> between the archaic and classical, to me, is very strange.
>
> Chris
If we are talking history, I don't see any explosion in historical accounts.
In fact I see none. So we don't seem to have history in the literary sense
which we commonly call history. We can piece together a lot of facts from a
lot of sources, but there is little to give us the basis for a continuous
account. History is essentially about the changes in human affairs. To get
this we need fairly continuous accounts/evidence. So when someone like
Herodotos writes one, we have enough continuous and cohesive evidence to
move into history in the common meaning.
It is possible to fiddle the meaning of the word to suit anything, but
assuming that we want to stay in the area of honest communication (which is
what language is for), we have to stay with the common meaning of the word.
Herodotos' account is 5th C BCE, and we have nothing which meets a similar
standard before him.
NL
tiglath
.
> >
> > p.s. [to neville]: after about 50 posts on this thread, i am still
> > waiting for your reply: why would the term classical usually mean
> > greece alone?
>
Don't jump the queue, I am still waiting on a couple of crucial answers from
him. After knowing Neville in s.h.a. for a while and in view of the claim
you claim he made, I am darned sure that there is a large pod under
Neville's bed.
Bernardz
> chooses to call things. They are (in most countries) free to
> call a thing what they will.
A word should convey meaning to the listener. If you said to me
classical era, I get confused as I think of many different eras and
civilizations.
>
> The other is how things are generally known to a wide population.
> That varies. Names come in and out of favor. In the US "classical"
> (in the sense we are using the term) often means both Greek (post
> interregnum) and Roman. Other places may well do it differently.
Your system might have been invented with the US public in your
university although I doubt that you tested it out with Muslim or
Chinese Americans but this is the *Usenet*.
We have a forum
Soc.history.ancient
Soc.history.medieval
Works okay.
>
> Some folks like to subdivide further. That's fine with me too.
I don't think subdivisions work.
1) It took a few hundred years for an idea to go from China to England.
As such the technological level till about 1600 are the same everywhere
from China to England.
Since the technology is the same, many of the problems are the same this
simple system of divisions work. Make a smaller time period and the tech
levels vary from place to place.
2) There is a continuity of world views of the people in these eras.
--
A woman in a gender-neutral world is a woperson.
Neville Lindsay
<mark...@io.com> wrote in message
news:281020031037208155%mark...@io.com...
>
> p.s. [to neville]: after about 50 posts on this thread, i am still
> waiting for your reply: why would the term classical usually mean
> greece alone?
Go up the thread 11 posts and you will find it. What's with the 50?
NL
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>
>"Steve Hayes" <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3f9ec08e....@news.saix.net...
>> But yuou can open a webmail account with Hotmail, and set it to delete
>junk
>> mail as it comes in.
>>
>>
>> Steve Hayes
>
>Thanks. Now how do I get the junk inflow to migrate to the new address - the
>existing one is essential for business reasons.
>
>Now if the spam is given impetus from my general postings - eg here on ngs,
>and I use the hotmail address for that purpose, my business one will
>hopefully get fewer and fewer spam messages because I don't make these
>wide-open connections.
>
>Would that be so?
Not immediately. It would depend on how widely publicised your main address is
on the spammer networks.
I used a Yahoo account for newsgroups, which was OK until the Swen virus came
along. Yahoo traps most spam in a "Bulk mail folder", which you can delete
with a single click.
The Swen virus, however, generated enough junk mail to fill it to overflowing
in 15 minutes. There was no way I could afford to log on 4 times an hour, 96
times a day, to click the button to delete the folder, even if I could stay
awake to do it.
So I switched to Hotmail, which, though in many way inferior to Yahoo
technically, does at least have the option of automatically deleting incoming
junk mail.
I began using that address in the "reply to" for newsgroups, and the next time
I logged in, the mail box was full of spam (mainly Swen). I set it to delete,
and so far logging in one or twice a day has been OK.
The reduction in Yahoo has been gradual - I put this down to the fact that
some of the old mail is still on servers somewhere, but it's now about 4 hours
before the mail box fills up. But as long as I have to empty it manually, it
is still practically useless. I also used its blocking feature to block the
most common Swen domains - confidence.com, upgrades.com, bulleting.com,
confidence.msn.com, confidence_msn.com, and so on. But Yahoo only lets you
block 100 domains, and Swen has a randomiser.
I expect to find more spam in the Hotmail one. Swen seems to send itself
directly to addresses it finds on news servers, so that is immediate. Ordinary
spam will take a bit longer to arrive - harvesters will have to get the new
address, put it on a CD, and sell it to spammers. But the market for "fresh"
addreses is a big one. Nevertheless, because of the automatic deletion, I
don't think it will be such a problem as with the Yahoo address.
Eventually Yahoo might wake up, but by the time they do, most of their
customers will have migrated. Their strategy is to say "Pay for a bigger mail
box" - but if people are paying so that their mailbox overflows in 35 minutes
instead of 15, they'll soon think of better things to do with their money.
Algjor Bjani
> Anyhow there is a new virus announced here in
> Sweden today that's related to Britney Spears photos. It opens / change to
> sex-sites according to one paper.
Well, you should not belive eveything you read. There is no such
thing.
That is, this is either not a virus, not new or not related to Britney
Spears photos.
I thought you had learned your lesson, and stopped posting about
viruses, considering how often you have been shown to be wrong
recently in that area, but it does not seem so.
This time, perhaps you should either admit the paper is wrong, or tell
us what this "virus" is supposed to be named.
-Algjör Bjáni
Neville Lindsay
NL
"Steve Hayes" <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f9f837c...@news.saix.net...
Joe Bernstein
Neville Lindsay <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> History is all about sources. We tend to regard coherent writing on
> historical subjects as providing the basis for history, and when they are
> almost without such sources, it tends to get called pre-history. It is then
> the field of archaeology and a host of new-growing other subsidiary
> disciplines. The mercantile accounts from Pylos tell us a bit about the
> palace economy, but are not an historical account. They are evidence.
This reference to Pylos in the context of a period you've defined as
1500 to 500 B.C. suggests to me that you're not doing what you've
allowed everyone to think you're doing.
You're giving the impression that you're defining periods applicable
to the Western world in general. For this, a periodisation that
calls 1501 B.C. a date before prehistory is patently useless.
Anatolia is clearly Western at most times before the rise of Islam;
are the older Hittites really older than prehistory? If you allow
"Western" to include the ancient Near East in general, as is
customary in schoolbook treatments of the subject, the problem
gets much, much, much worse.
What I'm getting the impression you're doing, based partly on this
reference to Pylos as a random source from the late 2nd millennium
B.C., is talking specifically about Greco-Roman history's
periodisation. For which 1500-500 B.C. as prehistoric is arguably
OK, and the rest of the periodisation unexceptionable.
However, even here I have a quibble with you. In Indian archaeology
and history, the period before what modern historians have been able
to reconstruct with some confidence is called 'protohistory'. I'm
not sure how widespread this is in the ANE field, nor in Aegean
archaeology, but I think in general there's a reluctance to call
any period that left written sources of any kind "prehistoric". The
word summons up images of dinosaurs and cavemen, and is generally
taken as glaringly wrong for advanced societies.
[any periodisation with a cutoff of 500 B.C. between the Archaic,
here the prehistoric, and the Classical, here the ancient, is bad,
says a prior interlocutor, because the Archaic period witnessed an
"explosion" of developments that continued without interruption into
the Classical period.]
> If we are talking history, I don't see any explosion in historical
> accounts. In fact I see none. So we don't seem to have history in
> the literary sense which we commonly call history. We can piece together
> a lot of facts from a lot of sources, but there is little to give us the
> basis for a continuous account. History is essentially about the changes
> in human affairs. To get this we need fairly continuous accounts/
> evidence. So when someone like Herodotos writes one, we have enough
> continuous and cohesive evidence to move into history in the common
> meaning.
This suggests that periods for which we lack continuous accounts are
not part of history. For example, the Arsacid dynasty is by this
standard mostly prehistoric, the exceptions being when they did stuff
that got noticed by continuous-account writers of the West (not often).
We don't have continuous accounts of a lot of the subtopics ancient
historians work on. I know of no ancient source that tells us
consecutively about the changes in ancient methods of warfare, let
alone about the changes in economies between Archaic and Hellenistic
times. I know of no surviving continuous account of Sicily. So is
it that Sicily remains prehistoric, but is part of a larger whole, the
Greek world, that is historic? Or is Sicily prehistoric only for
particular periods, that the paragraphs about it in the continuous
historians don't happen to cover?
I have serious problems with this.
In general, ancient history just doesn't look like modern history,
and mediaeval history is somewhere in between. This may come as a
surprise to the average man on the street, but is not terribly
confusing to those who know anything about the topics. I've never
heard of someone being read out of a history department because
his current topic of study wasn't in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon,
the <Oxyrhynchia>, Diodorus, Polybius, ... It's perfectly clear that
the kind of travelogue that's so popular nowadays, "in the footsteps
of Alexander" or whatever, is drawing evidence from even more sources
than ancient historians normally do, and bookstores shelve this
stuff under "ancient history" with the expectation that customers
will be able to find it there, and that customers who follow that
section will want to buy it.
Those same "ancient history" sections usually include at least one
book about the cuneiform civilisations of Mesopotamia, and multiple
books about Pharaonic Egypt. For both of which Herodotus and his
successors are actively misleading. (It's true that we nowadays
have books purporting to be those of Manetho and Berosos to inform
us about Egypt and Mesopotamia, respectively. Berosos gets little
right before the Neo-Assyrians, however, and both "books" are in
fact reconstitutions from Josephus and other sources, just the
kind of evidence-from-various-places that you decry.)
> It is possible to fiddle the meaning of the word to suit anything,
> but assuming that we want to stay in the area of honest communication
> (which is what language is for), we have to stay with the common
> meaning of the word.
>
> Herodotos' account is 5th C BCE, and we have nothing which meets a
> similar standard before him.
I have no problem with calling Herodotus a watershed in history, and
the chapter of my book on the history of fantasy that ends with
475 B.C. is in fact called "Prehistoric Fantasies (?)", by way of
emphasising that watershed. (Please let's *not* get into an argument
about 475 vs. 500, or whatever. The reason Herodotus matters to my
subject is not his providing a continuous account of the war.)
So I also have no problem with some limited use of "prehistoric"
to mean "pre-Herodotus".
But I think it's basically daft to say that that's the word's usual
meaning. It just isn't. Some people consider "ancient history" to
begin with the first hominids; some people, with modern humans, or
with the end of the Ice Age. I'd like to think these groups are in
a minority. Some people consider it to begin with the first writing,
a moving target now back before 3000 B.C.; some, with the first
reconstructible politics, which takes us at least to 2400 or so.
As far as I know, these people all understand each other well enough,
despite these differences. I think if you told all of them that the
ordinary English term for the subjects they talk about was "prehistory",
they'd laugh in your face.
When we created this group, we got flak about two issues with our
cut-off dates. Some people objected to a beginning cut-off that
required written sources; they wanted earlier societies included.
Some people objected to the word "ancient" for anything later than,
I am not making this up, A.D. 200 or so. Not one objected on the
grounds that "ancient" history doesn't start until 500 B.C.
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer j...@sfbooks.com
<http://www.panix.com/~josephb/>
Chris Camfield
>In article <W4Knb.169541$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
>Neville Lindsay <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
>> History is all about sources. We tend to regard coherent writing on
>> historical subjects as providing the basis for history, and when they are
>> almost without such sources, it tends to get called pre-history. It is then
>> the field of archaeology and a host of new-growing other subsidiary
>> disciplines. The mercantile accounts from Pylos tell us a bit about the
>> palace economy, but are not an historical account. They are evidence.
>
>This reference to Pylos in the context of a period you've defined as
>1500 to 500 B.C. suggests to me that you're not doing what you've
>allowed everyone to think you're doing.
As usual, Joe, a very informed and interesting post. But to be fair to Neville,
here, it wasn't he who proposed "1500-500 BC" as prehistoric, but Paul, and
Neville disagreed with Paul's framework.
Relevant to this discussion, and my previous mention of the archaic period, let
me quote at a little length from a paper by Ian Morris, "Archaeology and Archaic
Greek History", which I read in _Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New
Evidence_ (edited by Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees). I suspect I know who
Neville will agree with :-) but it outlines two different approaches.
"What role for archaeology in the writing of archaic Greek history? How we
answer the question depends in large part on how we define its terms, and the
kind of definitions favored by historians and archaeologists have changed
significantly in the last twenty years. Nothing illustrates this better than
the brief methodological statements in two of the best-known English-language
studies of early Greece. In his magisterial account of _Geometric Greece_,
Nicolas Coldstream suggested that the methods appropriate to the study of the
Greek Dark Age... were totally diferent from those needed for analysis of the
archaic period...
"Coldstream's judgements rested on two assumptions. The first was that
archaeology was the history of art, subdivided into 'the local pottery style,
the local brial customs, the jewelry, bronzes, ivories, and seals' (Coldstream
1977, 19). The second was that archaic history meant political narrative:
'Although no systemic records were kept before the fifth century, the main
course of events in archaic Greece has been saved from oblivion in the central
narrative and long digressions of Herodotus, and in the more disjointed memories
recorded by other ancient historians' (197, 17). No proper history in this
sense can be written for the years before 700, so they should be studied by the
methods of archaeology (as he defined them). Some kind of narrative can be
reconstructed from written sources for the post-700 period, so archaeology, as
Coldstream puts it, 'performs only an ancillary function' for the archaic
historian.
"But just a few years later, Anthony Snodgrass offered very different
definitions of the key terms in his survey of _Archaic Greece_. He suggested
that classicists had started to define 'the field of archaelogy [as] the entire
material culture - so far as it is recoverable - of an ancient society' (1980,
12). He concluded that
'by enlarging their horizons in this way, ancient history and classical
archaeology have also become much closer. Once historians extend their
interests from political and military events to social and economic processes,
it is obvious that archaeological evidence can offer them far more; once
classical archaeologists turn from the outstanding works of art to the totality
of material products, then history (thus widely interpreted) will provide them
with a more serviceable framework, not least because Greek art is notoriously
deficient in historical reference. As a result of this rapprochement, it will
be difficult for a future researcher to embark on an historical subject in the
field of archaic Greece without becoming involved in archaeological questions,
and vice versa.' (Snodgrass 1980, 13).
"Given such radically different assumptions, expressed by leading scholars in
widely read books, we might expect that classical scholars would have rushed to
debate in print the merits and possibilities of each vision of the field. But
as is often the case in academia, this did not happen. Rather, a revolution in
thought has taken place in the quietest of ways. Little by little, one step at
a time, archaeologists and historians have been slipping away from the
entrenched positions fo the 1960s and '70s. There is no obvious way to quantify
such a shift, but my impression is that by the end of the 1980s Snodgrass' way
of defining the issues had won general acceptance in English-language
scholarship, showing how the systematic study of archaeology could illuminate
archaic history."
And the author goes on to describe "Yet how despite what seems to be
near-consensus on the theoretical level, the number of actual published studies
treating archaeology (broadly defined) as a basic source for archaic cultural
history remains small."
Chris
Neville Lindsay
"Joe Bernstein" <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in message
news:bou4co$oec$1...@reader2.panix.com...
[----]
>
> When we created this group, we got flak about two issues with our
> cut-off dates. Some people objected to a beginning cut-off that
> required written sources; they wanted earlier societies included.
> Some people objected to the word "ancient" for anything later than,
> I am not making this up, A.D. 200 or so. Not one objected on the
> grounds that "ancient" history doesn't start until 500 B.C.
>
> Joe Bernstein
>
> --
> Joe Bernstein
All this much-speaking is simply fiddling with words. Anyone can quibble
about anything. However in generalisations, we generalise. Allying history
to written records is rather well-entrenched. No one pretends nothing
happened before the written historical period. It is simply that common
usage puts the historical period when we had fairly continuous, coherent
descriptions of the changes in human affairs (which latter is history). The
fact that there is evidence does not make it history. Evidence is a
component of history, not history itself. Now you can go for a change in the
language, but until you get that change well accepted, you are into the
wind.
NL
Joe Bernstein
Neville Lindsay <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> "Joe Bernstein" <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in message
> news:bou4co$oec$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> > When we created this group, we got flak about two issues with our
> > cut-off dates. Some people objected to a beginning cut-off that
> > required written sources; they wanted earlier societies included.
> > Some people objected to the word "ancient" for anything later than,
> > I am not making this up, A.D. 200 or so. Not one objected on the
> > grounds that "ancient" history doesn't start until 500 B.C.
> All this much-speaking is simply fiddling with words. Anyone can
> quibble about anything. However in generalisations, we generalise.
> Allying history to written records is rather well-entrenched. No one
> pretends nothing happened before the written historical period.
Up to here I don't disagree with anything you say.
> It is simply that common usage puts the historical period when we had
> fairly continuous, coherent descriptions of the changes in human
> affairs (which latter is history). The fact that there is evidence
> does not make it history. Evidence is a component of history, not
> history itself. Now you can go for a change in the language, but until
> you get that change well accepted, you are into the wind.
Here we seem, however, to be living on different planets. Obviously
we can disagree about whether people who study, say, the Assyrian
Empire, or the Old Kingdom, are doing history or are prehistorians.
But I'm quite certain that on the planet where I live, *most* people
call them historians, and you clearly live on a planet where most
people call them prehistorians. I have no idea how to reconcile
this except to assume that Usenet has already gone interplanetary.
I will note that for the most heavily-studied parts of the ancient
near eastern past, there are written sources that can be taken as
"descriptions of the changes in human affairs", though not as
"continuous, coherent". The examples I named are covered by both
Babylonian chronicles and the books of Kings (the Assyrian Empire)
and by Manetho (the Old Kingdom); the Sumerian king-list reaches at
least as far back as Manetho. For the two biggest pre-Greek topics,
then, we should be OK by a loose interpretation of your formulation,
though your own interpretation, by privileging Herodotus, makes this
impossible. In any event, for other topics - the Hittites, Ebla and
Ugarit, South Arabia, and of course the Minoans and Mycenaeans -
even sources as discontinuous or incoherent or (in the case of Kings
and the Sumerian king-list) non-contemporary as these are lacking.
Neville Lindsay
Ho ho.
> I will note that for the most heavily-studied parts of the ancient
> near eastern past, there are written sources that can be taken as
> "descriptions of the changes in human affairs", though not as
> "continuous, coherent". The examples I named are covered by both
> Babylonian chronicles and the books of Kings (the Assyrian Empire)
> and by Manetho (the Old Kingdom); the Sumerian king-list reaches at
> least as far back as Manetho. For the two biggest pre-Greek topics,
> then, we should be OK by a loose interpretation of your formulation,
> though your own interpretation, by privileging Herodotus, makes this
> impossible. In any event, for other topics - the Hittites, Ebla and
> Ugarit, South Arabia, and of course the Minoans and Mycenaeans -
> even sources as discontinuous or incoherent or (in the case of Kings
> and the Sumerian king-list) non-contemporary as these are lacking.
>
> Joe Bernstein
Yes, people do construct 'histories' eg Georges Rou was early in the field
with *Ancient Iraq*. That doesn't alter the fact that it is a reconstructed
outline from a period of sparse records where he doesn't have much to say
precisely - basically generalities about peoples he knows almost nothing
about other than their detritus - Kassites, Elamites, etc. Even Egypt, about
which scores of shelf metres have been written, is sparse - we still can't
agree on who were the Hyksos and others, Manetho's king list is full of
holes, and so on. It is fragmentary stuff, built on fragments.
We can alter words as much as we please - some people talk of histories of
Locomotives, Dogs, Horses. They can and they do. But it is a matter of what
is history? Change in human affairs.
The other factor is convention, that is how words are usually interpreted.
So we get back to Pre-history, Ancient History, Mediaeval History and Modern
History, which was the topic. Anyone can call anything anything. But
language/words are for communication. If we give our own slant to words, we
talk past other people. Yes, the meaning of words changes, and one of these
days perhaps cats will have their own histories, and perhaps pre-history
will be banished as a term, however at the moment we can all understand each
other by using basic common terminology, as in the PH-AH-MH-MH model above.
It is great saver on having to go through twenty posts first to establish
what we are talking about, which is precisely what has happened here.
NL
Joe Bernstein
Neville Lindsay <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> "Joe Bernstein" <j...@sfbooks.com> wrote in message
> news:bov1mn$5ia$1...@reader2.panix.com...
[quoting Neville Lindsay again]
> > > It is simply that common usage puts the historical period when we had
> > > fairly continuous, coherent descriptions of the changes in human
> > > affairs (which latter is history). The fact that there is evidence
> > > does not make it history. Evidence is a component of history, not
> > > history itself. Now you can go for a change in the language, but until
> > > you get that change well accepted, you are into the wind.
> > Here we seem, however, to be living on different planets. Obviously
> > we can disagree about whether people who study, say, the Assyrian
> > Empire, or the Old Kingdom, are doing history or are prehistorians.
> > But I'm quite certain that on the planet where I live, *most* people
> > call them historians, and you clearly live on a planet where most
> > people call them prehistorians. I have no idea how to reconcile
> > this except to assume that Usenet has already gone interplanetary.
> > I will note that for the most heavily-studied parts of the ancient
> > near eastern past, there are written sources that can be taken as
> > "descriptions of the changes in human affairs", though not as
> > "continuous, coherent".
> Yes, people do construct 'histories' eg Georges Rou was early in the
> field with *Ancient Iraq*.
Early? The book came out after World War II, even in its original
form as articles in a magazine, as best I recall; there were already
histories of Mesopotamia in the 19th century, drawing on the then-
available cuneiform and on the Bible.
(I'm aware that you participate in flamewars on the side of those
who say the Bible cannot be used in any way whatsoever connected
with history, though I would imagine your own position is somewhat
saner. My point is only that in the 19th century, which is a
fairly recent part of the history of English, the word "history"
could comfortably be used for topics dealt with in the Bible and
for histories of Mesopotamia.
(No cites to back me up in this post; the logistics are too
complicated, since the books in question aren't in this library's
computer catalogue, and the subject part of the card catalogue
is on another floor of the building. I did find in the author/
title part a book by one James Baillie Frasier titled something
like <Mesopotamia from the earliest times to the present>, dated
in the earlier part of the 19th century, but the subject heading
for it was "natural history" not "history".)
> That doesn't alter the fact that it is a reconstructed outline from
> a period of sparse records where he doesn't have much to say
> precisely - basically generalities about peoples he knows almost
> nothing about other than their detritus - Kassites, Elamites, etc.
> Even Egypt, about which scores of shelf metres have been written, is
> sparse - we still can't agree on who were the Hyksos and others,
> Manetho's king list is full of holes, and so on. It is fragmentary
> stuff, built on fragments.
Except for the overly belabored point above, we again have a
situation here where I disagree with nothing in the first part of
your post, and then disagree with much of the second part.
I will note, though, that "Manetho's king list is full of holes" is
a wee bit unfair to Manetho. We don't have Manetho's king list;
we have various quotations from whatever exactly Manetho wrote,
compiled together by modern editors. It does seem well established
that Manetho was not invariably accurate, although as I understand
it *most* of his mistakes derive from ideology, not from
carelessness (it's said he couldn't deal with the idea of more than
one pharaoh at once, in different parts of the country or by co-
regency; I haven't studied the matter myself, and don't know if
there's any way this can be ascribed to his quoters and not to him).
> We can alter words as much as we please - some people talk of
> histories of Locomotives, Dogs, Horses. They can and they do. But it
> is a matter of what is history? Change in human affairs.
Are you here citing some common definition, or stating your own
position? I don't see anything even *close* to that among the
definitions offered me by <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=history>.
I don't normally care to play the "my dictionary can top your dictionary"
game, so I'm not familiar with what other sites might be out there
for me to consult - and again, I'm not going to go on a within-the-
library hike for the physical dictionaries. I'm prepared to believe
that every other dictionary in the world has this as their first
definition, but I'd prefer to see some cites.
Don't get me wrong. At some level I *like* this as *a* definition.
Considering that my principal historical concerns have often been
the sort of thing you'd deny the name - I recently posted a lot of
material on the history of Usenet 1987-1994, for example - I wouldn't
want it to be the *only* definition of "history", but it does point
usefully to something important in history as a concept, its focus
on change.
> The other factor is convention, that is how words are usually
> interpreted. So we get back to Pre-history, Ancient History, Mediaeval
> History and Modern History, which was the topic. Anyone can call
> anything anything. But language/words are for communication. If we give
> our own slant to words, we talk past other people. Yes, the meaning of
> words changes, and one of these days perhaps cats will have their own
> histories,
You are, alas, behind the times.
<The Cat in Ancient Egypt>. Jaromir Malek. London: British Museum,
c 1993. Catalogued by this library under "Cats--Egypt--History".
<Classical Cats: The Rise and Fall of the Sacred Cat>. Donald W.
Engels. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Catalogued by this
library under (draws deep breath) "Cats--History", "Cats--Religious
aspects--History", "Cats--Greece--History", "Cats--Rome--History",
"Cats--Rome--History", and "Cats--Greece--History". I have no idea
why they list the last two of these twice, but they do. Also
catalogued under "Cats in art", for what it's worth, as is Malek's
book (which additionally has "Art objects, Egyptian").
It would appear that in 2005 we can expect <Cats of the Medieval
World> or some such, or if we're going for finer periodisation,
<Black Cats in the Dark Ages>.
(Side note. The same search that gave me these two titles without
checking every subject heading beginning with "Cats" - a search
for both "Cats" and "History" *in* the subject headings - also
turned up a recent reprinting of William Baldwin's <Beware the Cat>,
whose subtitle claims it's <The First English Novel>. The library
catalogue doesn't give an original publication date; there are at
least three on various web sites, but the author seems to have died
by 1570, anyway. Googling on "the first English novel" turns
up references to Defoe's <Robinson Crusoe> and <Moll Flanders>,
Behn's <Oronoco> (title varies and there's a site that says
her <Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister> is the first
rather than Richardson's <Pamela>), Gascoigne's <The Adventures
of Master F.J.>, the Old English <Apollonius of Tyre>, and a
site which I'll cite below. For what it's worth, only the Old
English item among these is older than even the latest of the
dates I've seen for <Beware the Cat>.)
> and perhaps pre-history will be banished as a term, however
> at the moment we can all understand each other by using basic common
> terminology, as in the PH-AH-MH-MH model above. It is great saver on
> having to go through twenty posts first to establish what we are
> talking about, which is precisely what has happened here.
As I understand it, this thread's origin comes from someone encountering,
in a post of yours, the concept of "Classical" Greece as 479-323 B.C.
or some approximation thereof, for the first time, and being confused
by it. Clearly it is sometimes possible for even a thoroughly
conventional usage to engender confusion, then.
Further as I understand it, this thread has continued largely owing
to an argument over whether there's such a thing as a "Classical"
period stretching from ca. 500 B.C. to ca. A.D. 500. Since this
usage is also reasonably well established, albeit the dates it
covers seem to be different in the minds of every single one of its
users, I continue to think the saving you suggest is not happening.
Now this subthread comes from me mistaking Paul Gans's scheme for
your own, for which I apologise, but not very much, because I did
reply to a post of yours in which you vigorously defended the
particular aspect of it that boggles my mind, the claim that
prehistory began in 1500 B.C. and ended in 500 B.C. While I
concede that we've already demonstrated it's impossible for us
to agree on whether the majority of prehistorians *or* ordinary
people would accept this periodisation, I *hope* we are at least
on similar *enough* planets that you can agree with me we have
*yet again* an example of no saving of posts through this scheme.
So what this thread is bearing in upon me is that even among the
better-informed readers of soc.history.*, among whom I certainly
count both you and Paul Gans, it may not be possible to converse
coherently, for lack of a common understanding of the referents
of words. By this point, I have the awful suspicion that some
readers of this post think I'm talking about forms of cheese, while
others think I'm discussing the fate of a white dwarf recently
discovered by astronomers.
Back to the issue of "the first English novel". One Monty Ashley
keeps a journal out of which Google found me this excerpt at
<http://www.montykins.com/mkins/000175.html>:
"Conveniently, some critics have their own candidates for "first",
and they're frequently entirely hallucinatory. Maybe it's just
that literary critics are very poor at math, but I don't see how
<link>some people</link> can go around claiming that "Mark Twain's
Huck Finn is sometimes considered the first American novel." [The
linked-to page really does say that, by the way.] I mean, I've
done some research, and I'm prepared to say with a certain degree
of confidence that that's just stupid. I'm pretty sure that a
little digging would show novels from before 1885. Just to take
one example entirely at random, there's <Tom Sawyer>, of which
<Huckleberry Finn> is a sequel. People are dumb, is what the
problem is."
Since I agree with these sentiments, that seemed like a good place
to stop.
Ken Sisby
literature or whatever from past that truly peaked above most of the rest.
Classical Indian culture goes back over 6 thousand years. We talk about
reading the classics or listening to classical music.
Ken
<mark...@io.com> wrote in message
news:271020031005071504%mark...@io.com...
> In article <6m0nb.166615$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
> "Neville Lindsay" <nev...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> > > > For starters, Classical usually refers to Classical Greek - 5th and
4th
>
> > Please show me the word 'only' other than by yourself.
>
>
> your word was usually. ok, sure, i rephrase my question:
>
> so i suppose what i'm looking for here is some kind of authoritative
> statement from outside the realm of greek studies, that the term
> classical refers USUALLY to greece.
>
> well?