2016-05-04

Feeling smug

This week I went looking for an island. Not to retire to, since I need to sell a lot more books first. Actually, I was looking for this island because it ought to have been there. When I found it, it turned out to be a peninsula, which from my point of view was just as good.

The location was ancient Chalcedon, which is sometimes called 'The City of the Blind' because the city's founders apparently overlooked the much more suitable site just over the Bosporus Strait - a site which went on to become the city of Byzantium, Constantinople and modern Istanbul. Let's assume, though, that the people who founded Chalcedon knew their stuff. Why did they pick the apparently less favourable site?

For different reasons I've recently looked at the foundation of two other ancient cities - Halicarnassus and Syracuse. Though far apart, these two places had something in common with Chalcedon. They were the first settlements on a foreign coast, far from their homeland. In each case the original settlement happened on an island just off the coast - Zephyria for Halicarnassus, Ortygia for Syracuse. On reflection, the reason was obvious - a base just off the coast allowed the settlers to get to know the locals and set up trade and diplomatic links before extending the settlement to the mainland. If things got really nasty with the natives, the island remained a fortress of last resort from which the settlers could be evacuated by sea.

Therefore, I decided, Chalcedon was settled where it was because there was an island just off the coast. So I went looking for an island just off Chalcedon. What I found was Kadikoy - a peninsula with a very narrow neck which could easily be walled off from the mainland to make a virtual island. In fact, because Ortygia is now a similar peninsula in Syracuse, I might check if Kadikoy actually was an island in the Archaic era.

Either way, it shows that the people who settled Chalcedon had good reason to act as they did. When Byzantium was settled later, it did not need an island bolt-hole off the coast - friendly Chalcedon was a few kilometers away. The Chalcedonian settlers were not 'blind' - they simply got there first.

2016-04-04

Things you didn't know you knew

Did you know that the Greeks have a word that translates as 'sharpdull'? If that seems to you like an oxymoron, you are precisely correct. 'Oxy' is Greek meaning 'sharp' and 'moron' means 'dull'. (Which is why 'moron' was once a technical term for the slow of thought, before it became a common insult.)

As those following my Facebook posts will note, I've been coming across a lot of Greek and Latin that people speak daily without realizing that they are doing so. I was doing translations when I realized that the girl's name 'Renata' means 'reborn', and because a shingles infection usually strikes around the waist, it gets its name from 'cingulum' meaning 'belt'.

In this part of the world, a second-year student is a sophomore. That's because after a year the student is partly educated, and partly ignorant. Thus the student is wise - 'sophos', but also not wise - which brings us to our old friend 'moron'. From here we can thank academic shorthand for getting us from 'sophosmoron' to 'sophomore'.

Incidentally, the 'oxy' part of 'oxygen' also has the 'sharp' meaning, though sharp in the sense of 'acrid'. It was once believed that the gas was essential for generating acid - thus it was an 'acrid stuff generator' or 'oxy-gene'.

And now for something completely different.

My thanks to those who've been buying my most recent books, and even more thanks to those who've taken the time to review them (especially as the reviews have all be favourable). For those who have not yet taken the plunge, my publishers are offering a special e-book deal on Amazon for 'The Servant of Aphrodite'.

The promotion is from April 8-11. On Friday the book is 60% off, and the price rises day by day till Tuesday when its back to the full price. (Which is still pretty reasonable, in my opinion!)

2016-03-03

'Magic' swords

Durandal, Harpe, Excalibur, Gan Jiang, Caladbolg, Quernbiter - you may know of these or similar legendary weapons. The interesting thing is how these mighty swords cross cultures. The above list contains swords from Greek myth (Harpe), Japanese, Celtic and Arthurian legend (Durandal, Gan Jiang and Excalibur respectively) and it is nowhere near comprehensive. Even Julius Caesar reputedly had a sword called Crocea Mors, 'the Yellow Death' which killed all who were struck with it. Quernbiter, in Nordic legend was so sharp it could cut through the stone querns used for grinding grain.

As ever with myth, it turns out there's more than a grain of truth behind the tales. I recently talked to someone who takes an interest in swordsmithery, and it was fascinating stuff. The point of a sword - and the edge, I suppose - is that it has no practical purpose other than to kill people. Since those on the receiving end tend to object to this, a sword can expect to meet resistance, be it armour or someone else's sword or shield.

So a sword has to keep a good edge even after being repeatedly banged against metal and it has to be flexible enough to spring back after impact rather than shattering or bending. Good, well-tempered steel can do this to an incredible degree. I once read of a Celtic sword dredged from deep river mud (which was anaerobic, so the sword did not rust much). The sword was bent almost into a circle by the jaws of the dredger, but when released the 2,000 year old blade sprang right back into shape.

Thing is, there is a very, very fine balance between carbon and iron in good steel. Just a smidgeon too much carbon makes a blade brittle. Too little makes it bend and stay bent. For the sword-makers of the ancient world the entire process was hit-and-miss, and that's even before we consider nickel, chromium manganese or other trace elements that complicated the mix. This is why warriors preferred ancestral swords. You never knew what a new one would do in battle.

Of course, sometimes and completely by chance, a sword-maker hit on exactly the right combination of minerals, mixed in just the right proportion for exactly the right time. The result was a sword that would shatter other swords, cut through armour and stay sharp even under trying circumstances. Such swords were highly sought after, and as we have seen, became legends in their own right.

2016-02-04

Deep Winter

Over the past week or so I have been anxiously looking upwards before getting into the Jeep and then closing the door gently once I'm inside. That's because just above there's a row of icicles on the side of the roof which hang down over the approach to the car.

We're talking serious ice here. The smallest of these frozen swords of Damocles is around a meter long, and I've stopped worrying about the longest falling and impaling me, because I now have walk around the thing. It goes from the roof two stories above almost to the ground. We should back the car out, take a shovel and knock the icicles off the roof, but I'm perversely interested in how long they'll get. (A stalaticicle?)

On the other side of the house we have the lawn, or rather a snowfield slightly deeper than I am tall. The icicles dropped from the roof on this side earlier this week and impaled themselves into the snow making a pretty picket fence across the dining room window. This will eventually happen on the parking apron side as well. The trick will consist of not being underneath when that happens.

Friends and family sometimes speculate on how deranged one has to be to live somewhere with temperatures below zero all winter, and which has five meters of snow fall in that time. Yet I'm writing this on my iPad beside a very warm wood-stove, with a glass of port beside me. Outside the window there's a view of mountains and snow-covered pines stretching to the horizon. Forrest's 'History of Sparta' is on my lap, and there's Bach on the stereo. I'm okay, thanks.

2016-01-04

The true meaning of Saturnalia

Over the holiday break I received an earnest missive in which the writer urged me to 'remember the true meaning of Christmas'. This was in response to an earlier online comment that every January involves my attempting to diet away several kilograms of festive excess which my waistline picks up over this period. My correspondent gently suggested that, instead of pushing food through my face, I could better use the time to contemplate the blessings of Providence in an atmosphere of 'peace and joy'.

There's a lot to be said for this, though one might argue that peace and joy are fully compatible with mince pies and brandy cream. It does though raise the question of the 'true meaning' of Christmas. If we are talking literally of 'Christ's Mass', then point taken. However, for most people 'Christmas' is a wider celebration, which often includes distinctly pagan elements.

Also, this holiday was celebrated centuries before the first Christmas day. It marks the winter solstice, after which the days will get longer and lighter. But also, the 21st marks the official start of winter. That was when ancient farmers cast an eye over their livestock and decided which animals the farmers could afford to feed over the winter, and which animals would feed them. Even with pickling, smoking and other ancient preservative techniques there's some parts of an animal that have to be eaten immediately. Add that the autumn grape harvest is producing its first brew of wine around now, and that work has finished in the fields for the year, and you have all the ingredients for a solstice festival.

So from that perspective, while there's the religious aspect to it, this holiday is also about drinking, partying and eating yourself sick, and always has been. It's about storing memories that get you through the tougher times ahead. Consider, for example, the true meaning of February. That's from the Latin 'Februa' - purging and purification through abstinence. It's coming.