Author’s Notes on Herodotus, for Any Chapter
Herodotus (The Histories VII.1189) said that “The Greek cities that took on the billeting of the Persian troops during the Greek campaign of Xerxes fell into dire straits, the citizens even being deprived of their houses and property. The arrival of the troops would be announced beforehand and the order would be given to the effect that everyone should set about the procurement of reserves of foodstuffs. Over the course of many months they threshed the wheat and barley grain and fattened livestock and poultry. They also procured gold and silver goblets and other table utensils, which the Persians then carried off with them.”Verify CitationCan you help us verify the Herodotus citation details (within “1189” there may be a missing en dash to indicate a range, or a period to indicate a missing subsection level within a section) and add a link if possible to a similar translation? And help us verify the quotation is accurate to a source text.OpenSee All Queries The Persian garrison in Babylon forced grain and date prices substantially above those in Nippur.
Author’s Notes on Plutarch, for Chapter 6
“He took good care that none should be allowed to dine at home and then come to the common meal stuffed with other kinds of food and drink. The rest of the company used to berate the man who did not drink or eat with them, because they felt that he was lacking in self-control, and was too soft for the common way of living. (45d). Moreover, a fine was laid upon the man who was detected. A case in point is that of Agis, their king, who, returning from a long campaigning in which he had overcome the Athenians in war, wished to dine at home with his wife on this one day, and sent for his allowance of food; but the military commanders would not send it; and the following day, when the matter was disclosed to the Ephors, he was fined by them.” See Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, xii (46c).
Author’s Notes on Sparta From Hodkinson for Chapter 6
p. 22: TheyFact CheckShould “They” be changed to “The ancient Spartans”? Or is this an unmarked quotation from Hodkinson?OpenSee All Queries were moderate in their drinking.[1] KritiasSpelling of TermCheck spelling: Critias or Kritias?OpenSee All Queries wrote two treatises entitled Polity of the Lakedaimonians,Spelling of TermCheck spelling (repeats in next two paragraphs too): Lakedaimonians or Lacedaemonians?OpenSee All Queries one in verse and one in prose.
“Lakedaimonian youths drink only enough to direct the thinking of all towards cheery hopefulness and temperate laughter… The way of life of the Lakedaimonians is evenly ordered: to eat and drink the appropriate amount to render them capable of thought and labor. No day is set aside for soaking the body through immoderate draughts.”[2]Verify CitationCan someone with access to Hodkinson’s text check that that is the correct citation here (that this is on p. 22) or let us know if something else needs to be added as a citation here?OpenSee All QueriesTransition NoteTransition and context are needed for this quotation.OpenSee All Queries
In contrast to the Athenian practice of passing around a wine cup after giving toasts, “the Lakedaimonians drink each from his own cup and the wine-waiter pours only as much as each wants to drink.”[3]
Author’s Bibliographic Notes on William W. Hallo
p. xxv: Discussing the laws of purity in Leviticus, William Hallo[1] remarked that a major dimension of the Near Eastern and Egyptian cults involved what A. Leo Oppenheim[2] called “the care and feeding of the gods.” Real victuals were provided to the cult statue twice each day, with additional amounts on special ceremonial occasions—meat, fowl and fish, cereals, oils, and vegetables. “Each kind of food demanded its own ceremonial, such as sprinkling for cereals and libation for oils. It was most elaborate for meats. The living animal was slaughtered and its inedible portions carefully set aside for such uses as leather-making (from the skin). The entrails, which were not considered fit for consumption, were minutely inspected for their ominous significance, and a whole ‘science’ of divination (extispicy) developed around the interpretation of the precise configuration of lungs, intestines, and especially the liver (hepatoscopy).”[3]
Hallo added that “The edible portions were then offered to the divine statue at a table set behind drawn curtains.”[4] After a short while, whatever the statue refrained from eating was given to the king. “The balance of the enormous daily deliveries to the temples was then distributed to the clergy for their consumption,”[5] as they were to the lay population on special ceremonial days, highlighted by the New Year.
The Israelite laws of Leviticus were quite different. Hallo continued, “There is no statue or other physical image of the deity and no need to ‘feed’ it. Equally important, ‘there is no augury in Jacob, no divining in Israel’ (Num. 23:23; cf. Lev. 19:26), hence no need to inspect the entails of the slaughtered animal.”[6]
Hallo wrote that the priesthood for its part derived its livelihood from “tithes and other means and received a share of the regular offerings.”[7] (For an example of abuse, see I. Sam. 2:13–16.) And by this time, “the king was neither the principal ministrant nor the designated beneficiary of the cult.”[8]
Author’s Bibliographic Notes on Anthony J. Hall
p. 78: Speaking of the hope by Native Americans for a federal council of Indigenous people to assert its own sovereign jurisdiction in international law over at least a portion of the First Nations’ ancestral lands, Hall[1] noted that:
- “One of the… symbols that carried forward some of the central theories of that geopolitical hope was the image of a bowl with one spoon… It began to appear with particular regularity in the design of many Indian wampum belts in the years when the Indian Confederacy achieved its most formidable scope, especially through the articulated insights and organizational activities of Tecumseh. These shell-beaded wampums were often adorned with pictographic representations depicting the main contractual features of treaties that Indian groups made with one another and sometimes with non-Indian diplomats as well. The bowl with one spoon was a representation of the principle that certain hunting territories were to be shared in common. This concept of shared hunting territory became central to the sovereign strategy of the Indian Confederacy. The symbol conveyed the idea that, because territory was shared by different Indian groups, no one group could cede or sell land without the consent of the entire council of federated Indian nations. The object was to block the northwesterly expansion of the United States in the decades following the American Revolution and to obtain international recognition for the fixed borders and the sovereign geopolitical imperatives of the Indian Confederacy.”[2]Verify CitationCan someone with access to this text verify the quotation is accurately transcribed from the source material?OpenSee All Queries
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