Written by Miriam Medina
Everytime I have to study,
I pray the Lord I don't go nutty,
A computer may help to learn this junk,
But will it help me not to flunk?
So much to do,
So much to Cram
Yikes! There's mom and dad glaring
You better pass that exam..
No sympathy or pity for me at all...
No where to turn, but the study hall...
So dear Lord, please help me to pass tomorrow's test,
So mom and dad can stop nagging and I can finally have some rest...... Amen!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Frazzled Mimi
Written by Miriam MedinaTo all the frazzled ladies, I dedicate this poem:
There was once a blogger named Mimi, who lived in a house far too narrow.
Where piles of history books and research papers filled rooms everywhere.....
Her two little dogs, buddy and T.J. both sweet and spoiled rotten, like a shadow, followed behind her as she walked about here and there.....
.
She griped and she grumbled, as she tripped and she stumbled, over more books left the night before by her chair.
She needed to write, looking for space on her desk, among the huge pile of mess, but there was as usual none to spare.....
.
Alas, she said, my dining room table, where I can write as much as I am able, a heavenly place for my soul to bare....."
On the counter there was still, the pile of unpaid bills, that made her so anxious to the point of despair...
.
She looked all around the apartment, and saw there was so much she needed and so much she hoped someday to repair....
The dogs began barking, as they heard someone knocking, the scowl on her face said "Beware."
.
Damn it! Its the landlord again, collecting this month's rent, giving him this time a check with a prayer......
This is the final straw, complaining as she closed the door, I've had more than my share to bare....
.
With her Pina Collada in hand, she decided to take a stand, smoothing tight rollers in her dark brown hair...
A doormat I'm not, As she threw down the pot, exclaiming : To hell with everyone, I am leaving all this and who cares.....
With her cocker spaniel and poodle, trailing behind her, she ran as fast as she could with bag in hand down the stairs...
Into her car, spinning wheels on the tar, she left never to be seen or heard of again anywhere....
Atta girl, Mimi.................
The End
To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net
The Italian Niche: Rome, Italy and the Provinces, First Century B.C. (7)
(Continued from Page:6)
In this respect a very different picture is presented by Italy during this period. A vigorous and independent civilization grew up there, a distinct branch of the Hellenistic tree. We have seen already how Greek culture inundated Rome in the third century B.C., and how the next century gave it a Latin aspect. In the first century Roman culture finally ceased to be a thing borrowed from foreigners, and became truly national. This is shown most clearly by the literature. The Latin literature of this age is fresher and more direct than contemporary Greek literature. Among the poets we find such mighty geniuses as Catullus the lyric poet, Lucilius the satirist, and lucretius the poet and philosopher. These men created the metre and rhythm of latin poetry, and the poetic vocabulary. They did not invent new forms of verse, but they poured into the traditional forms the brilliance of their youthful genius. The same is true of prose, which was created mainly by Cicero. His predecessors were the great political orators of the past hundred and fifty years, the jurists who had forged the exact terminology of the civil law, and the historians who had celebrated the Roman state and its victorious arms. What they had done Cicero made use of. He proved the capacity latent in the Latin tongue for expressing shades of meaning as abstruse and elusive as those in which Greek philosophy is so rich. it is remarkaable that at this time the chief authors belong to the higher class of Romans and italians, and that the south Italians of humble origin who laid the foundations of Latin literature have no successors. Among the prominent men at Rome there are few who are not authors. Sulla writes 'Memoirs'; Caesar has left to us 'Commentaries,' describing his campaigns in Gaul and during the Civil war; Cicero was at once a statesman, an advocate, and a man of letters. Special attention was paid to history, as a handy weapon for political strife and party propaganda. I have spoken already of Sallust's Jugurthine War; his other extant work is a narrative of Catiline's conspiracy, equally brilliant in style, and equally devoid of either h istorical impartiality or scientific method.
Science kept pace with literature. it is true that the Romans paid little attention to the exact and minute discoveries of Greece in mathematics, medicine, physiology, astronomy, geography, and the natural sciences. But grammar, rhetoric, archaeology, jurisprudence, philosophy, the history of religion and law__all these became favourite subjects of study with educated Romans. The works of M. Terentius Varro submitted to a careful scrutiny the development of the national literature, religion, and public institutions; Cicero wrote a number of popular works on philosophy and rhetoric; and Lucretius expounded the doctrine of Epicurus in a poetic form. But perhaps the chief monument of Latin genius is the steady growth of that juristic literature in which the living Roman law is interpreted.
In the domain of art less was accomplished. Greek sculpture, Greek paintings, and the products of Greek art generally, abounded in italy and Rome; and much work was turned out at Rome by Greek artists. But Roman art was still unborn: it was a child of the empire. The Romans may have contributed something to the development of realistic portraiture; but this can hardly be called an original disco very; it was rather an advance along the path already trodden by the Hellenistic sculptors and painters. Roman architecture, too, showed no originality but contented itself with reproducing Hellenistic models.
The general aspect of life in Italy, and especially at Rome, was almost entirely Greek. Thus Greek was the language of fashionable society; or, at any rate, a knowledge of Greek was indispensable for a gentleman. This external aspect of life is well known to us from Cicero's Letters. It was a full life that was lived by the grandees of Roman society. Every self-respecting member of that body owned a splendid palace in Rome with a horde of domestic slaves and hundreds of clients; and he had two or three or more luxurious country houses, with parks and gardens; and many of these houses were built on the seashore. A brilliant social life went on there in town and country; there were banquets with music and dancing; new literary works were recited; lectures were delivered by philosophers or orators from Greece; or, if the party was small, gossip and scandal enlivened it. Women were not excluded__indeed they played a chief part on that stage. The tattle of these great people turned on romantic actions and love affairs, on marriages and still more on divorces. Politics were very fashionable. From time to time the thundercloud of civil war fills the sky. But no sooner has it passed by than the old life begins again with all its interests and follows the familiar round. The provincial towns tried to follow the example set by Rome. Of the life led by the lower classes at this time we know nothing; but it is unlikely that it was specially attractive.
Source of Information: A History of the Ancient World by M. Rostovtzeff; Volume II Rome (Translated from the Russian by J.D. Duff. Oxford at the Clarendon Press Published: 1927 Great Britain.
To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net
.
In this respect a very different picture is presented by Italy during this period. A vigorous and independent civilization grew up there, a distinct branch of the Hellenistic tree. We have seen already how Greek culture inundated Rome in the third century B.C., and how the next century gave it a Latin aspect. In the first century Roman culture finally ceased to be a thing borrowed from foreigners, and became truly national. This is shown most clearly by the literature. The Latin literature of this age is fresher and more direct than contemporary Greek literature. Among the poets we find such mighty geniuses as Catullus the lyric poet, Lucilius the satirist, and lucretius the poet and philosopher. These men created the metre and rhythm of latin poetry, and the poetic vocabulary. They did not invent new forms of verse, but they poured into the traditional forms the brilliance of their youthful genius. The same is true of prose, which was created mainly by Cicero. His predecessors were the great political orators of the past hundred and fifty years, the jurists who had forged the exact terminology of the civil law, and the historians who had celebrated the Roman state and its victorious arms. What they had done Cicero made use of. He proved the capacity latent in the Latin tongue for expressing shades of meaning as abstruse and elusive as those in which Greek philosophy is so rich. it is remarkaable that at this time the chief authors belong to the higher class of Romans and italians, and that the south Italians of humble origin who laid the foundations of Latin literature have no successors. Among the prominent men at Rome there are few who are not authors. Sulla writes 'Memoirs'; Caesar has left to us 'Commentaries,' describing his campaigns in Gaul and during the Civil war; Cicero was at once a statesman, an advocate, and a man of letters. Special attention was paid to history, as a handy weapon for political strife and party propaganda. I have spoken already of Sallust's Jugurthine War; his other extant work is a narrative of Catiline's conspiracy, equally brilliant in style, and equally devoid of either h istorical impartiality or scientific method.
Science kept pace with literature. it is true that the Romans paid little attention to the exact and minute discoveries of Greece in mathematics, medicine, physiology, astronomy, geography, and the natural sciences. But grammar, rhetoric, archaeology, jurisprudence, philosophy, the history of religion and law__all these became favourite subjects of study with educated Romans. The works of M. Terentius Varro submitted to a careful scrutiny the development of the national literature, religion, and public institutions; Cicero wrote a number of popular works on philosophy and rhetoric; and Lucretius expounded the doctrine of Epicurus in a poetic form. But perhaps the chief monument of Latin genius is the steady growth of that juristic literature in which the living Roman law is interpreted.
In the domain of art less was accomplished. Greek sculpture, Greek paintings, and the products of Greek art generally, abounded in italy and Rome; and much work was turned out at Rome by Greek artists. But Roman art was still unborn: it was a child of the empire. The Romans may have contributed something to the development of realistic portraiture; but this can hardly be called an original disco very; it was rather an advance along the path already trodden by the Hellenistic sculptors and painters. Roman architecture, too, showed no originality but contented itself with reproducing Hellenistic models.
The general aspect of life in Italy, and especially at Rome, was almost entirely Greek. Thus Greek was the language of fashionable society; or, at any rate, a knowledge of Greek was indispensable for a gentleman. This external aspect of life is well known to us from Cicero's Letters. It was a full life that was lived by the grandees of Roman society. Every self-respecting member of that body owned a splendid palace in Rome with a horde of domestic slaves and hundreds of clients; and he had two or three or more luxurious country houses, with parks and gardens; and many of these houses were built on the seashore. A brilliant social life went on there in town and country; there were banquets with music and dancing; new literary works were recited; lectures were delivered by philosophers or orators from Greece; or, if the party was small, gossip and scandal enlivened it. Women were not excluded__indeed they played a chief part on that stage. The tattle of these great people turned on romantic actions and love affairs, on marriages and still more on divorces. Politics were very fashionable. From time to time the thundercloud of civil war fills the sky. But no sooner has it passed by than the old life begins again with all its interests and follows the familiar round. The provincial towns tried to follow the example set by Rome. Of the life led by the lower classes at this time we know nothing; but it is unlikely that it was specially attractive.
Source of Information: A History of the Ancient World by M. Rostovtzeff; Volume II Rome (Translated from the Russian by J.D. Duff. Oxford at the Clarendon Press Published: 1927 Great Britain.
To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net
.
The Italian Niche: Rome, Italy and the Provinces, First Century B.C. (6)
(Continue from Page: 5)
In the East the situation was far different. The war with Mithradates, the requisitions levied by Sulla and the democrats, the supremacy at sea of the Cilician and Cretan pirates, the domineering of the great tax-farming companies, the shameless finance of the Roman bankers, the presence in Greece of Pommpey's and Caesar's armies, the unconcealed pillage carried on b y Brutus and Cassius and then by Antony__all these causes had finally destroyed the prosperity of the richest districts in the East. The cities groaned under the burden of debt, and the debt rose steadily. The only country not utterly ruined was Egypt; and even Egypt had suffered severely from the continuous dynastic disputes of the first century, from the greed of her Roman patrons, who willingly advanced loans to the contending parties at exhoritant interest, and from the arbitrary rule of Antony and Cleopatra. It is no wonder that the East was enfeebled not only financially but morally as well. The best men had emigrated to Italy or to othe west. The temper of those who remained became more and more depressed; and men who despaired of the present and of any future on earth sought consolation in religion and in doctrines partly religious and partly philosophic, which hel out the possibility of a better life_beyond the grave.
This explains why interest in knowledge and scientific investigation, together with belief in the creative power of human reason, disappears almost entirely at this period. Men withdraw into themselves; they ponder over moral perfection and union with God; they try to lead a more intense inner life. Heading this movement with its motto of "Detachment from Life", the philosophic schools__Epicurean, Stoic, and Cynic__became more influential. They all taught the necessity of Self-concentration, of seeking satisfaction in oneself, of looking at the life of the world as something 'indifferent.' Their methods, indeed, were unlike. Epicureanism lays down a purely materialistic view of things; Stoicism connects the search for an inner life with religion: Cynicism devotes itself mainly to an unsparing criticism of mankind and society. The last great creative genius in science and literature whom the Greek world produced was Posidonius, a Syrian Greek from Apamea, who spent his whole life at Rhodes. A man of vast acquirements and keen intelligence, he was proficient in almost every department of knowledge. He was an excellent teacher of rhetoric; he was one of the best historians of his time and wrote on tides and volcanoes. As an ethnographer he was the first to study northern Europe, and our first scientific knowledge of the region is due to him. He was famous for his skill in mathematics and astronomy. With all this knowledge he combined a profound religious felling, and believed in spiritualism and astrology and the possibility of mystical apprehension. When one compares him with such a thoroughgoing rationalist as Polybius, one realizes the vast change that had passed over the East in the interval between them.
To be continued: Page: 7
Source of Information: A History of the Ancient World by M. Rostovtzeff; Volume II Rome (Translated from the Russian by J.D. Duff. Oxford at the Clarendon Press Published: 1927 Great Britain.
.
To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net
.
In the East the situation was far different. The war with Mithradates, the requisitions levied by Sulla and the democrats, the supremacy at sea of the Cilician and Cretan pirates, the domineering of the great tax-farming companies, the shameless finance of the Roman bankers, the presence in Greece of Pommpey's and Caesar's armies, the unconcealed pillage carried on b y Brutus and Cassius and then by Antony__all these causes had finally destroyed the prosperity of the richest districts in the East. The cities groaned under the burden of debt, and the debt rose steadily. The only country not utterly ruined was Egypt; and even Egypt had suffered severely from the continuous dynastic disputes of the first century, from the greed of her Roman patrons, who willingly advanced loans to the contending parties at exhoritant interest, and from the arbitrary rule of Antony and Cleopatra. It is no wonder that the East was enfeebled not only financially but morally as well. The best men had emigrated to Italy or to othe west. The temper of those who remained became more and more depressed; and men who despaired of the present and of any future on earth sought consolation in religion and in doctrines partly religious and partly philosophic, which hel out the possibility of a better life_beyond the grave.
This explains why interest in knowledge and scientific investigation, together with belief in the creative power of human reason, disappears almost entirely at this period. Men withdraw into themselves; they ponder over moral perfection and union with God; they try to lead a more intense inner life. Heading this movement with its motto of "Detachment from Life", the philosophic schools__Epicurean, Stoic, and Cynic__became more influential. They all taught the necessity of Self-concentration, of seeking satisfaction in oneself, of looking at the life of the world as something 'indifferent.' Their methods, indeed, were unlike. Epicureanism lays down a purely materialistic view of things; Stoicism connects the search for an inner life with religion: Cynicism devotes itself mainly to an unsparing criticism of mankind and society. The last great creative genius in science and literature whom the Greek world produced was Posidonius, a Syrian Greek from Apamea, who spent his whole life at Rhodes. A man of vast acquirements and keen intelligence, he was proficient in almost every department of knowledge. He was an excellent teacher of rhetoric; he was one of the best historians of his time and wrote on tides and volcanoes. As an ethnographer he was the first to study northern Europe, and our first scientific knowledge of the region is due to him. He was famous for his skill in mathematics and astronomy. With all this knowledge he combined a profound religious felling, and believed in spiritualism and astrology and the possibility of mystical apprehension. When one compares him with such a thoroughgoing rationalist as Polybius, one realizes the vast change that had passed over the East in the interval between them.
To be continued: Page: 7
Source of Information: A History of the Ancient World by M. Rostovtzeff; Volume II Rome (Translated from the Russian by J.D. Duff. Oxford at the Clarendon Press Published: 1927 Great Britain.
.
To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net
.
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