Full Text Of "The Classical Journal .." - Internet Archive: Fill & Download for Free

Animae dimidium meae (the other half of my soul): this is what the Roman poet Horace (Horatius) said about his bossom friend Virgil (Vergilius)See inter alia: Animae Dimidium Meae: Horace's Tribute to VergilJohn Scott CampbellThe Classical JournalVol. 82, No. 4 (Apr. - May, 1987), pp. 314-318

A lot of people have already answered that no, the Ottomans did not engage in the systematic destruction of Greek architectural legacy; the Ottomans were not Wahhabi iconoclasts, like the Saudis or ISIL, and they had no reason to do away with perfectly useful or beautiful buildings.No, if you want a villain that systematically destroyed Ancient Greek legacy, the Ottomans are not your man. Not even Lord Elgin is your man.Read the Wikipedia article, instead, on this piece of shit, and what he got up to in 1728–29.Michel Fourmont - WikipediaAnd I have good reason to call l’Abbé Fourmont un pièce de merde.Starting with:Fourmont confesses in a letter sent to Count Maurepas that he copied 1,500 ancient inscriptions (300 in Sparta) and brags about destroying them in order to avoid access to the information by any future travellers.and ending with:His claims about the discovery of inscriptions at Sparta were fraudulent, as was uncovered in 1791 and since he destroyed the original inscriptions. Fourmont's posthumous reputation then collapsed.Read the things in between, and let your blood seethe. It wasn’t just inscriptions that he destroyed.Later accounts doubt that he was as efficient a destroyer of antiquities as he claimed: The Classical Journal; see also ΓΑΛΛΟΙ ΠΕΡΙΗΓΗΤΕΣ - Abbé Michel Fourmont (Αββάς Μισέλ Φουρμόν): Επιγραφολόγος, ερευνητής ή καταστροφέας;, Land of Lost Gods: that he was much more a bullshitter (as a forger) than a vandal, that it’s questionable how much of Sparta he even saw. But Edward Dodwell in 1801 did find evidence of his handiwork in Sparta, 70 years on.A Classical and Topographical Tour Through Greece: After I had taken copies of some of these inscriptions, I observed Manusaki turning them over and concealing them under stones and bushes. When I inquired his motive for such unusual caution, he informed me that he did it in order to preserve them; because many years ago a French milordos, who visited Sparta, after having copied a great number of inscriptions, had the letters chiselled out and defaced. He actually pointed out to me some fine slabs of marble, from which the inscriptions had evidently been thus barbarously erased.Fourmont bragged of copying and destroying 1500 inscriptions (along with the buildings around them); even if he destroyed just a tenth of them, and forged the rest, he is still a figure of infamy.Don’t dare say anything about Ottomans destroying Greek heritage, don’t even dare say anything about Lord Elgin, if you have not already spat at the deeds, claimed or real, of this monster. This monster created not in the steppes of Asia, but in the philhellenic West.Abbé Michel Fourmont (1690–1746), Chair of Syriac at the Collège royal. Orientalist, antiquarian, priest, and scholar. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3309659Fuck that guy.

But of course you can write dactylic hexameter poetry in Latin!Here is a useful “How to Write Latin Verse” by Harry C. Schnur, The Classical Journal, 52 (1957), 353-357.And take a look at the videos linked here, if you’d like audio/video instruction:But the really interesting thing is that one can use the Heroic Meter (dactylic hexameter) in modern tongues, as well. Such as Longfellow’s Evangeline.This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring oceanSpeaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.Evangeline Form and Meter will explain the form.Evangeline A Tale of Acadie for the full poem.So you are free to explore Heroic Meter in any way that pleases you.One hint about Latin, or any foreign tongue; unless you are rather advanced in your studies, worry less about writing good poetry as you are learning the meter, and more about hearing the “longs” and “shorts” with ease. Once the meter comes more easily, then concern yourself about quality of content.Feliciter!