Did a Prayer to a Vestal Virgin "Save" Catullus's Naughty Bits?
 

The publication date is still unknown, but I expect my essay on the manuscript history of Catullus to appear in The London Magazine. The working title is similar to the Subject on this thread. Those who have UK "news agents" will find it "in your news agent" at some point. If your secret hero is Publius Clodius Pulcher, you should read it. Expect updates.

http://thelondonmagazine.org/

Good for you Allen. I hope you'll post it here later. Love to read it.

If I can, I'll give a link. Of course, the best thing would be to become a subscriber (like me) tomorrow to the physical thing! It comes often enough, and quite apart from me, it's gotten quite good again under its current editor, which is why I was startled when he wrote that he liked my suggested topic, and more startled when the draft was accepted.

This is the kind of title I can't resist. Do keep us updated!

Welcome back to Earth, Allen, from your other planet ;) :D

But seriously... many congratulations! I shall indeed get it when it appears on my newsagent's shelf; I look forward to reading your essay.

Jayne

Jayne, Gail, Tim, and all who might be interested,

you can get a running start by looking at the Wikipedia article [here] on Publius Clodius Pulcher, which at least as of 28 April 2012, exhibits the strong hand of Professor T P Wiseman at Exeter University, especially so in the sections following the heading entitled "Beginnings and Rise." Regardless of whether Publius Clodius was an "innovative urban politician" or not, almost everything we know about his actions (even the totally free wheat giveaway) indicates that he was at best a borderline madman who was consumed by jealousy and vicious besides. At times, Publius seems to have been completely nuts, retaining the one anchor to reality of keeping his corner of Roman mob democracy (that's what it was) attached to him by any method he could contrive. The gold standard for demagogue and thugmeister, and possibly poisoner. Of course, he was a protégé of the much smoother and far smarter and more stable demagogue Julius Caesar, who (along with Caesar's friends) used Publius like a throw-away attack dog. Eventually, Publius wound up as road-kill, and his muscle boys caused several days of serious rioting and general destruction across Rome after their capo, Publius, got whacked by another capo, Milo.

The Roman Republic lasted a long, long, long time, but at the end, overpopulation, a creaky legislature, the incredibly slow communication they had in those days, and a lack of historical perspective that could have been gained from studying how other more or less democratic oligarchies ruptured into dictatorships, these things led to urban mob wars (forget about the civil wars) like those of Germany in the twenties and early thirties, and Rome eventually got Octavian and his crew of Livia's descendants.

But that's largely beside the point here. Publius had a strange walk-on part to play in the history of the Catullus manuscripts, only one of which survived the Middle Ages intact.

The title is : The Legacy of Catullus:
Did a Prayer to a Vestal Virgin ‘Save’ his Naughty Bits?

Look in your news agent (what for is that an idiom?) starting August 2 for the August/September issue of The London Magazine.
No idea if it will be included online.

It's all about sex, lust, and Rock and Roll (early Julius Caesar style), more or less...

It's a good magazine.
The editor likes ballads. He published one of mine once.
I'll look forward to seeing your article, Allen.

Sounds fascinating. I look forward to it as well; presumably I can find it here at the Columbia library...

C

Excellent good news, Guvnor. Did you cater "the naughty bits" to the venue? That's the kind of stroke of brilliance we have come to expect.~,:^)

Congrats, Allen,
Rick

Rick, are you suggesting that I might title one of my pieces in a way to tickle John Bull's bullocks? Nevah! (Well, squire, hardly evah....)

Actually, if you can get to the Latin of Catullus 13, I could possibly have rephrased that earlier line above as : Sex, [something Potiphar's wife might have stocked], and Rock and Roll. But despite everything, the bracketed topic is inessential to the arc of this exact work.

Thanks, all, Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Gesundheit.

Inter-Library Loan
 

Chris (who surely knows) and others :
for US residents at least (my experience suggests that southern Canada is covered too), there is Inter-Library Loan available for true fanatics --- and also scholarly researchers. I used it to write this piece. A connection with a library is needed, public or otherwise. Mine is with NYPL in Manhattan. (The Columbia University Classics Department was courteous.) One source I used was fetched from the University of Toronto, which, as you know, is Canadian.

Surely I wouldn't need to resort to ILL to get a copy of London Magazine? I love the Columbia library. I asked them, and they made me a visiting scholar.

Chris, your chops are bigger than mine. Maybe at Columbia you could put in a good word for me, a poor, stumbling man without a Ph.D.

This link to the August/September 2012 issue shows the item's title, but £13.95 is needed to read it outside of the EU, unless, of course, you have a good library card or UK-friendly bookstore handy.

A pity it's not on-line, but the entire piece is debatable academic hot air after all, not very sexy really ... unless women having a reportedly loud private midnight religious party for ladies only at Julius Caesar's town house happen to turn you, in particular, on.

Raise your eyebrows and be counted! Some Romans of the day were definitely not turned on : the Vestals and those officials that prosecuted a certain drag-dressed gate crasher toff bent on lust ...