Here are two fragments of the Roman poet Ennius (239 – 169 B.C.), from his Annales, an epic poem on the history of Rome. These come from the Loeb edition of Warmington (1935). The first fragment (#352):

et simul erubuit ceu lacte et purpura mixta

Warmington translates this as “and she blushed withal like milk and crimson mingled.” He tells us that this fragment comes from a speech by the Elder Cato and that Cato is speaking about the “one-time modesty of women.”

The second fragment (#353):

pendent peniculamenta unum ad quemque pediclum

Warmington translates this as “skirts hang low down to every little foot.” He says that this fragment comes from the same speech of Cato’s and that Cato here “contrasts the luxury of his own day.”

I wonder how Warmington came to the conclusion that these fragments are from a speech of Cato’s and that they refer to the modesty or luxury of women. There is nothing in the fragments themselves that tells us who is speaking or what is the context. These fragments survive because they were quoted by a 3rd-4th century A.D. grammarian named Nonius. He doesn’t tell us the context, either – just that the first fragment (483.1) is an example of lacte as the nominative form instead of the normal lac and that the second fragment (149.27) contains the unusual word peniculamentum.

The context seems to be uncertain, but even if Warmington is right, these lines nevertheless sound like a description of the Amanita mushroom.

The literal meaning of erubuit is “he/she/it turned red.” Milk and crimson is a poetic description of the deep-red cap with white spots characteristic of the Amanita mushroom (Google image search). What is the subject of the verb? If the mushroom, this is a description of the part of the life cycle of the mushroom when it turns crimson and white. If a person is being referred to, then erubuit means that the person’s face turns red and is flushed because of the mushroom intoxication. Flushed skin is a common physical side-effect of eating the mushroom. “Like milk and crimson mingled” is a poetic way of describing light skin that is flushed. It’s also poetic because it transfers a characteristic of an object (the color) to a person. Erubuit very often has the added idea of feeling shame: “to turn red with shame.” If that meaning is being used here, the person is full of shame after eating the entheogen because he/she recognizes the error of thinking that the ego-system was in charge of making decisions and is ashamed to have ever thought that the ego-system was in charge. We would have line dense with meaning, which simultaneously refers to the mystic feeling of shame at mistaking the ego for real, the physical flushed skin of the mushroom intoxication, and the mushroom itself described in a poetic way. This kind of dense piling on of meaning is characteristic of Classical poetry.

“skirts” refers to the white veil that hangs down the stalk of the mushroom. The single stalk of the mushroom seems to be a single little foot. This fragment either refers to a group of mushrooms or describes people as if they mushrooms. There isn’t much room here to speculate about additional meanings of the words.

It is tough to work with fragments because we have no idea what is the context. Warmington does not give any evidence that this is a speech by Cato about morality. A good case can be made that these lines refer to the Amanita mushroom. On recognizing physical descriptions of the Amanita mushroom in literature and art, see Heinrich’s Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy and Ruck et al. The Apples of Apollo.

Gender: Female
Origin: French/Celtic
Meaning: debated
Pronunciation French (pah-lah-TEEN); English (pal-uh-TINE)

The name is found in French folklore as the name of the daughter of Pressyne and Elynas, and the sister of Mélusine.

Palatine was cursed by her mother to be locked in the Aragonese mountains with her father’s treasures, accompanied by a bear and serpent. Only a knight could free her and save her, on the condition that he be of the same bloodline as her father’s.

Throughout the years, many knights did just that, but had failed. However, a knight of King Arthur’s court, and the relative of Tristan, decided to climb the mountain and free the princess. He had to scale a mountain covered in venemous snakes, and then face the bear that guarded the entrance to the cave, all of which he killed. Finally he was able to enter the cave, but within the first chamber was a large serpent with one eye. The snake swallowed him up, and the knight was defeated in his quest, because, as it turned out, he was not of the right lineage.

Years later, Geoffrey-with-the-great-tooth, the nephew of Palatyne, had spent his life saving time, money and energy to rescue his aunt. However, he grew old, and died before he was able to commence his quest, and it is said that till this day, Palatyne still awaits within her mountain top for the right knight of the right lineage to free her. www.encylopediamythica.com

This is also the name of one of the 7 hills of Rome, a location which has its own legends.

In Ancient Roman folklore, the Palatine is where the Lupercal cave is to be found, the cave where Romulus and Remus were rescued and milked by a wolf. Another legend holds that Hercules defeated the monster Cacus, on the same hill.

The etymology of the name is debated, whether the fairy Palatyne and the name of the hill are related is not proven, but very possible. The fact that both legends contain a mountain top or hill top as their focal point makes it plausible.

According to the Roman historian Livy (59 BC-Ad 17), the hill got its name from the Arcadian settlement of pallatium, which is derived from the Latin palatum meaning “palate.” According to another ancient source, Ennius, the name is derived from an Etruscan word meaning “sky” or “heavens.” The term palace gets its name from the Palatine hill.

Other sources point its etymology to a Breton source, it is suggested that Palatine, (or Palestine in some instances), is a medieval French corruption of the Breton Bac’h C’hesten, bac’h means “cell; unit” and c’hesten means “hive; beehive.” Hence “hive pupa.” This is supported by the fact that in the legend, Palatine is an enclosed in a cell in the mountains like a bee in a beehive.

The name was borne by an early Christian martyr, Saint Palatino, and its masculine form is still in usage in Italy today. There is also a more obscure feminine version of Palatina.

Another French form is Palestine (pah-le-STEEN), and a possible Breton form is Kestenn.

“Was Rome built in a day?”

How often do you awaken with that same nagging question—with its answering echoes:

“And what was it like?”

“Which day was it?”

“Why wasn’t I invited?”

As it turns out, Rome is going to be built: Today! At the New Museum!

In the spirit of Livy, Ennius, Pliny, Mommsen, Pauly-Wissowa, Platner and Ashby, Lanciani, and all of those other fine historiographers throughout the ages, this text will be the frame for the founding of Rome. Ab Urbe Condita, as Livy called it–”from the city having been founded.”

And the deconstructionists out there may ask, about our act of radical reconstruction,

“What’s the difference?”

The difference between the real building of Rome, and this virtual building, complete with an accompanying performance record?

The difference is these very words, of course.

When the City was founded, there was no text. There was no word, only fabula, story. The City was a monument which came to replace, with the existent and apparent, the ephemeral, the fluid, and the untraceably fabulaic.  The many fabula, the alernate versions and the glittering dusts in the air were consumed into the multifarious monolith known as Rome. This virtual document is an attempt to honor the voices that were there, all of them, heard and unheard, by performing the word, and thereby framing the event–inscribing around it and inside of it and also be in fact being part of the complex, multi-layered event known as Rome. 

Call this performance of writing not an event, but an invent. Written in day.

Ich zitiere immer Lawrence Lessig, der den Autor der Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitserklärung Thomas Jefferson zitiert. Jefferson wiederum zitiert – nicht explizit, glaub ich- den römischen Philosophen und Dichter Cicero. Und Cicero zitiert Ennius. De officiis heißt das Werk, in dem Cicero sich auf eine Aussage des römischen Poeten bezieht; darüber wie immaterielle Dinge geteilt werden sollten.

Ob Ennius nun der erste Mensch war, dem das eingefallen ist, wird sich für immer unserer Kenntnis entziehen. Seine Werke sind nur fragmentarisch erhalten. Ich wage es zu bezweifeln. Das Beispiel belegt die absurden Züge der Idee vom “intellektuellen Eigentum”.

Finde es deshalb ganz erstaunlich, wie viele und welche (!) Künstler sich in Sachen “Intellektuelles Eigentum” erst gestern wieder vor den Karren des Bundes der Musikindustrie spannen liesen. (Brief an Angela Merkel, die von Leuten wie Ochsenknecht und Lindenberg gebeten wird, sich höchstpersönlich um den Schutz des “geistigen Eigentums” zu kümmern/ Die begründungsfreien Aussagen auf den Kurzvideos der BDM Website sind bemerkenswert.)

Doch zurück zu Ennius: Der vielzitierte Gedanke gehört heute zum Standardrepertoire der Wissensallmendedebatte.

Hier in Variationen; Deutsche Fassung (nach Jefferson/wikiquote)

Es gibt kein geistiges Eigentum. Sobald eine Idee ausgesprochen ist, ist sie frei, denn: Wer eine Idee von mir empfängt, mehrt dadurch sein Wissen, ohne meines zu mindern, ebenso wie derjenige, der seine Kerze an meiner entzündet, dadurch Licht empfängt, ohne mich der Dunkelheit auszusetzen.

Englisch (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813. ):

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

oder:

When a man in a friendly fashion shows the way to someone who is lost, it is as if he lit that man’s lamp with his own: his light shines no less brightly for having lit the other man’s lamp. (weiß gerade nicht mehr, woher das ist)

Latein:

Homo, qui erranti comiter monstrat viam,
Quasi lumen de suo lumine accendat, facit.
Nihilo minus ipsi lucet, cum illi accenderit.

Das ist schlicht eine wunderbare Art, ein Wesensmerkmal der Wissensallmende auszudrücken.