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The Edithorial

Saturday, 4 January 2014

What's In an Ancient Place-Name?

On the radio news this morning the place-

names of the two international tragedies

reported as headlines sent shock-waves round

my system. Near Sabratha, north-western

Libya, a British man and his friend from New

Zealand have been found dead. A horrible

thing to happen to people who may have been

visiting the ruined city there.

It was in Sabratha, in 158 AD, that Apuleius,

the author of the amazing Golden Ass, the

archetypal Latin novel about the man who

was turned by magic into an ass, was

himself tried for witchcraft. He was

accused of casting spells in order to

captivate a wealthy older woman. There islittle I would not give to time-travel andbe present at that trial. The

Sabratha theatre itself is a miracle of 3rd-century architecture, its

relief sculptures offering some of the best evidence for ancient ballet

dancingpantomimein existence.

Next up was yesterdays fall of Fallujah,

west of Baghdad, to Al-Qaeda, with at

least a hundred fatalities. This retrieves

bitter memories of the ferocious second

Apuleius, tried in a Sabratha court

Sculptures on the Sabratha Theatre

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7/27/2019 The Edithorial_ What's in an Ancient Place-Name

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battle of Fallujah in 2004, with heavy

losses on both US and Iraqi sides. But

Fallujah also reminds any classicist of the

bloody battle of nearby Cunaxa in 401,

when two Persian royal brothers

decimated each others armies, leavingXenophon and his fellow Ten Thousand

Greek mercenaries stranded, to march their way up-country

(theAnabasis) to freedom.

So what difference is made by knowing the vivid ancient history of

places today in the news? It is useful in that I can locate them quickly

on my internal mental map. But Im not at all sure it is useful

emotionally. On the one hand it reminds me that humans have been

vile to each other for all of documented history, and in some ways

little has changed. On the other hand, it reminds me that we are so

privileged in modernity at least to have the lost world of the ancient

pagan Mediterranean to enrich our thinking about the really long view,

the one that matters, into the future.

Meanwhile, I have just declined an invitation

to help make a film based on a Greek tragedy

in Iran, specifically at the ancient seat of the

Achaemenid monarchs in Persepolis. There is

no reason why I should not visit Iran, except

that I would last about three days in a

country without being rude to someone in

power because I could not drink a cold beer

or splash in a Speedo! swimming costume in a pool in public. Having to

say no to such a wonderful project really does make me slightly

ashamed and wish I was a better person.

Battle of Cunaxa, near modern Fallujah

What I have to miss because of my lager-and-f ront-craw l habit

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m2wiztlbsxs/Ushcq2KZIfI/AAAAAAAABqg/WB9wKIQMrfk/s1600/Persepolis_Iran.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0_GO48gmN2o/UshcbTiOHuI/AAAAAAAABqY/LxEE0iXUhdQ/s1600/cunaxa.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RxxMJEuJebE/UshdLqZzmAI/AAAAAAAABqo/FyFu6Pj5tEg/s1600/images.jpg