#Leontini

[deceiver-a-day]

Beuges Leontini’s Speed Bump

• [x] lays in a path

• [x] harms those who do not proceed slowly (and their vehicles)

• [x] forces deceleration

• [x] is preceded by a warning

• [x] does not wear down

• [x] sends delicate work flying

[therhetoricofmagic]

Gorgias and Language as Enchantment

For centuries, the Sophistic movement of ancient Greece was either ignored or marginalized, likely due to the negative portrayal they received at the hands of Plato. They were written off as charlatans and frauds who had little to offer of philosophical value.  Gorgias of Leontini Of all the Sophists, Gorgias even today remains the most recognized and well known. In contrast to his contemporary…

[whencyclopedia]

Hippocrates

Hippocrates was born on the Greek island of Kos in the 5th century BCE, and he became the most famous physician in antiquity. He established a medical school on the island, wrote many treatises on medical matters, and is, through his systematic and empirical investigation of diseases and remedies, credited with being the founder of modern medicine.

Biographical Details

Information regarding Hippocrates is patchy and unreliable. He was perhaps born c. 460 BCE, but details of his life were speculated upon even in ancient times. One of the oldest sources is the Life of Hippocrates credited to Soranus of Ephesus, himself a physician, who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Soranus' method of quoting from now lost earlier texts has been an invaluable source of information on ancient medicine. He states that Hippocrates knew several 5th-century sophists, notably Gorgias of Leontini, and was taught medicine by both his father and Herodicus of Selymbria, a gymnastic trainer. We also know that Hippocrates set up and ran a school of medicine on Kos.

Plato mentions Hippocrates in his Protagoras, suggesting that he worked for fees and believed the body should be treated as a whole (Phaedrus). The Roman scholar and medical writer Cornelius Celsus claims that Hippocrates was the first to separate medicine from philosophy, and other ancient sources also suggest that Hippocrates believed in the importance of diet and exercise for a healthy body. Soranus goes on to inform us that Hippocrates travelled throughout his life and died at Larissa in Thessaly, c. 370 BCE.

In antiquity, many legends arose of Hippocrates' great talents but most of these are likely pure invention. He reportedly discovered that King Perdiccas II of Macedon's health problems were down to lovesickness, he eliminated the plague that hit Athens in 430 BCE by burning fires everywhere, and he treated the philosopher Democritus whom everybody thought mad (not without some justification). Hippocrates had three sons who carried on his work - Thessalus, Dracon, and Polybus.

Continue reading...

[bearterritory]

Cal Comes Back To Win Sixth Straight

Golden Bears Defeat Saint Mary’s 2-1

BERKELEY– For the third time this season, the California women's soccer team came back from down a goal to win a match. After falling behind in the first half, the Golden Bears scored twice in the second to defeat Saint Mary's 2-1 in their final non-conference contest Thursday night at Edwards Stadium. Cal will enter its first week of ACC action on a six-match win streak and a seven-match unbeaten streak.   With its seventh win, Cal (7-1-1) has matched its win total from last season. The Gaels' drop to 2-4-1 after their second straight loss.   The Bears outshot the Gaels 7-5 in the first half but could not break through despite several passes at the goal. SMC goalkeeper Kate Plachy earned four of her six total saves in the first period to keep Cal off the board. Gaels forward Briana Salvetti gave her team a 1-0 half-time lead scoring a penalty kick in the 40th minute.   In the 64th minute Cal's offensive pressure finally paid off as the nation's leading goal scorer Karlie Lema wreaked havoc on the Saint Mary's back line and forced an own goal to tie the match at one apiece.   After having a goal called back from a video review in the first half, senior Noelle Bond-Flasza earned her first goal of the season in the 71st minute. Graduate-transfer Julia Leontini dribbled to the beginning of the penalty area and flicked a ball over the Gaels back line to Lema, who headed the ball directly to Bond-Flasza. The Bear's forward wasted no time and fired in the game-winner with her right foot.   Graduate-transfer Kelly McManus picked up the win and a pair of saves.   Cal has the rest of the week off to prepare for its first ACC contest next Thursday at NC State at 4 p.m. PT.

[sabakos]

Ancient historical figures will sometimes be described as living to some preposterous age that modern humans rarely live to, which is usually assumed to be a legend that's supposed to be proof of their magnificent transcendence. Most historians and classicists today obviously tend to be skeptical of such claims.

But this is why the longevity claims about the Ancient Greek philosopher Gorgias of Leontini are so baffling. Nobody could stand that guy. He wasn't even some mystical natural philosopher like Empedocles or Pythagoras, he was a goddamned traveling sophist, somebody who went around Ancient Greece charging absurd amounts of money to teach other people how to speak well in court.

In his surviving work, Gorgias brags about how his program would help his students deceive others. He also wrote a philosophical treatise arguing that nothing exists, nothing could be understood even if it did exist, and nothing could be communicated to others even if you understood it. His student, Isocrates, claimed he never paid taxes. And he may have also have had a solid gold statue of himself made to donate to the Oracle at Delphi, assuming that wasn't just a legend made up by someone trying to illustrate how vain he was. But nobody who wrote biographies of famous philosophers extolling their great virtues was likely to consider any of this behavior worth emulating, so they weren't about to invent any supernatural powers for him.

But despite all this, people still seem to agree that he lived to be one hundred and eight years old, which was remarkable enough at the time that many people seem to have written about it. Admittedly, he did have the advantage of living in one of the relatively more peaceful times in ancient history, but he was still born 15 years before Socrates and only died 20 years before Plato. Historians say it was probably because he mixed his drinking water with wine, which prevented him from getting sick from waterborne illnesses. So this traveling nihilistic lawyer who got rich teaching other people how to lie possibly got two lifetimes worth of professional philosophy in the middle of the Classical period because he was drunk all of the time. The good die young.

[iliosflower]

Demeter's Island

excerpt from "The Library of History" by Diodorus Siculus, 1st century CE.

"The Sikeloi [Sicilians] who dwell in the island [of Sicily] have received the tradition from their ancestors, the report ever having been handed down successively from the earliest time by one generation to the next, that the island is sacred to Demeter and Kore; although there are certain poets who recount the myth that at the marriage of Plouton and Persephone Zeus gave this island as a wedding present to his bride.

That the ancient inhabitants of Sikelia [Sicily], the Sikanoi, were indigenous, is stated by the best authorities among historians, and also that the goddesses who have mentioned their first appearance on this island, and that it was the first, because of the fertility of the soil, to bring forth the fruit of corn, facts to which the most renowned of poets also bears witness when he [Homer in the Odyssey describing the land of the Cyclopses] writes:

"But all these things grow there for them unsown, and even untilled, both wheat and barley, yea, even vines, which yields such wine as fine grapes give, and rain of Zeus gives increase unto them."

Indeed, in the plain of Leontini, we are told, and throughout many other parts of Sikelia, the what men call "wild" grows even to this day. And, [...] it is also to be observed the goddesses who made this discovery [Demeter and Persephone] are those who receive the highest honour among the Sikeloitai.

Again, the fact that the Abduction of Kore took place in Sikelia is, men say, proof most evident that the goddesses made this island their favourite retreat because it was cherished by them before all others. And the Abduction of Kore, the myth relates, took place in the meadows of the territory of Enna. The spot lies near the city, a place of striking beauty, for its violets and every other kind of flower and worthy of the goddess. And the story is told that, because of the sweet odour of the flowers growing there, trained hunting dogs are unable to hold their trail, because their natural sense of smell is balked. And the meadows we have mentioned is level in the centre and well-watered throughout, but on its periphery it rises high and falls off with precipitous cliffs on every side. And it is conceived of as lying in the very centre of the island, which is the reason why certain writers call it the navel of Sikelia.

Near to it are also sacred groves, surrounded by marshy flats, and a huge grotto which contains a chasm which leads down into the earth and opens up to the north, and through it, the myth relates, Plouton, coming out with his chariot, effected the Abduction of Kore. And the violets, we are told, and the rest of the flowers which supply the sweet odour continue to bloom, to one's amazement, throughout the entire year, and so the whole place is one of flowers and delight. [1]

Kore, we are told, received as her portion the meadows around Enna, but a great fountain was made sacred to her in the territory of Syrakousa [modern day Syracuse, Sicily] and given the name Kyane or "azure front." For the myth relates that it was near Syrakousa that Plouton effected the Abduction of Persephone and took her away in his chariot, and that after cleaving the earth asunder, he himself descended into Haides, taking along with him the bride whom he had seized, and that he caused the fountain named Kyane to gush forth [2], near which the Syrakousans each year hold a notable festival gathering and private individuals offer the lesser victims, but when the ceremony is on behalf of the community, bulls are plunged in the pool, this manner of sacrifice having been commanded by Herakles on the occasion when he made the circuit of all Sikelia, while driving off the cattle of Geryones.

After the Abduction of Kore, the myth goes on to recount, Demeter being unable to find her daughter, kindled torches in the craters of Mt Aitna [Mount Etna], and visited many parts of the inhabited world... the inhabitants of Sikelai, since by reason of the intimate relationship with Demeter and Kore with them they were the first to share in the corn after its discovery, instituted each one of the goddesses sacrifices and festive gatherings, which they named after them, and by the time chosen for these made acknowledgment of the gifts which had been conferred upon them. In the case of Kore, for example, they established the celebration of her return at about the time when the fruit of the corn was found to come to maturity, and they celebrate this sacrifice and festive gathering with such strictness of observance and zeal as we should reasonably expect those men to show who are returning thanks for having been selected before all mankind for the greatest possible gift...

That the Abduction of Kore took place in the manner we have described is attested by many ancient poets and historians. Karkinos the tragic poet, for instance, who often visited Syrakousa, and witnessed the zeal which the inhabitants displayed in the sacrifices and festive gatherings for both Demeter and Kore, has the following verses in his writings:

"Demeter's daughter, her whom none may name, by scheming secret Plouton, men say, stole, and then he dropped into earth's depths, whose light is darkness. Longing for the vanished girl her mother searched and visited all lands in turn. And Sikelia's land by Aitna's crags was filled with streams of fire which no man could approach, and groaned throughout its length, in grief over the maiden now the folk, beloved of Zeus, was perishing without the corn. Hence honour they these goddesses even now.""

[1] The lake in these meadows and reputed site of Persephone's abduction is now encircled by a racing track, the Autodroma di Pergusa. There is not much 'untouched' nature left. In the area of Lake Pergusa, you can find an archeological site known as Cozzo Matrice. This site houses the ruins of an old fortified village, walls constructed around the 9th millennium BC, a sacred citadel, a necropolis and the remains of an ancient temple dedicated to Demeter, dating back more than 2,000 years.

[2] More on Kyane here.

[gardenofkore]

Adranus is a town in Sicily, according to Nymphodorus, and in this town there is a temple to Adranus, a local divinity. And they say that he is there in very presence. And all that Nymphodorus tells of him besides, and how he shows himself and how kindly and favourable he is to his suppliants, we shall learn some other time. But now I shall give the following facts. There are sacred hounds and they are his servants and ministers; they surpass Molossians in beauty and in size as well, and there are not less than a thousand of them. Now in the daytime they welcome and fawn upon visitors to the shrine and the grove, whether they be strangers or natives. But at night they act as escorts and leaders, and with great kindness conduct those who are already drunk and staggering along the road, guiding each one to his own house, while those who indulge in tipsy frolics they punish as they deserve, for they leap upon them and rip their clothes to pieces and chasten them to that extent. But those who are bent on highway robbery they tear most savagely.

Aelian, On the nature of animals, book XI.19

Adranus or Adranos ('Αδρανός) was an ancient fire god worshipped by the Sicels, the ancient inhabitants of the island of Sicily ("a god highly honoured throughout all Sicily" Plutarch, Life of Timoleon, 12.2). He is sometimes identified as the father of the Palici.

In his honor "a certain famous temple" (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, XIV, 37.5) was built at the foot of Mount Etna, and because of this connection with the vulcan, he was later absorbed by Hephaestus (or in some versions literally driven out by his Greek colleague).

The temple became the protagonist of a prodigy mentioned by Plutarch in his Life of Timoleon. As the Corinthian general had come to Sicily in 344BC after answering the call of distress of the Syracusan people (Syracuse was a colony of Corinth). The city (weakened by the constant friction with Carthage) had been occupied by the forces of Hicetas, tyrant of Leontini, leaving only the heart of the city, the island of Ortygia in the hand of the legitimate ruler, the tyrant Dionysius II.

The decisive battle took place before the walls of Adranòn, the city built by Dionysius I near the temple of the god Adranus, on the slopes of Mount Etna. "the people of Adranum threw open their gates and joined Timoleon, reporting to him with terror and amazement that at the beginning of the battle the sacred portals of their temple flew open of their own accord, and the spear of the god was seen to be trembling to the tip of its point, while copious sweat ran down his face. " (Life of Timoleon, XII.9)

The city and the adjoining temple would be later sieged and occupied by the Roman army during the First Punic War in 263BC. In this occasion the god's simulacrum would disappear, it is unsure whether it was smuggled by some Roman soldier or, perhaps, hidden by the same people of Adranos to avoid it being taken away.

In fact, Adranum combined within himself the image of a warrior god (he was depicted on coins as a man wearing an helmet and carrying a spear) and of a fire god. More precisely it is his warrior side that made Adranus particularly loved by the infamous mercenaries Mamertines, who most likely associated him with their tutelary deity, the Oscan war god Māmers (Mamertines meant the sons of Māmers, who will later become the Latin Mars).

Perhaps though the most interesting aspect about Adranus' cult is his connection to dogs. As recorded by Aelian in his On the nature of animals (who, in turn, cites Nymphodorus of Syracuse), according to folklore, the temple of Adranus was guarded by more than a thousands of sacred dogs. These four legged priests tended on the pilgrims who came to visit the temple. As night fell, they made sure these people (especially those who had too much to drink) arrived home safely, but at the same time they punished those who misbehaved to the point of killing highway robbers. Apparently Adranus' dogs inspired one of most famous Sicilian curses “Chi ti pozzanu manciari li cani” (may the dogs eat you).

[conatus]

Górgias de Lontini: Tudo depende do discurso

Górgias de Leontini foi um influente sofista grego do século V a.C., conhecido por suas habilidades retóricas e sua visão cética sobre a possibilidade de alcançar a verdade objetiva. Originário de Leontini, na Sicília, Górgias foi aluno de Empédocles e mestre de Tisíades. Sua fama repousa principalmente em suas habilidades oratórias, que o tornaram um dos sofistas mais renomados de sua época.…

[kimsonvalon]

Écouter / acheter: AMLA EP de The Leontini Vernacular

[beatasticband]

Formed in late 2020 by Gregory Jameswood (previously of Lessens & Nossiennes), The Leontini Vernacular (TLV) began life with the release of Anthropause EP on Shore Dive Records - described as “Dystopian shoegaze at its finest” (BBC Introducing). Now, after only a handful of gigs in Bristol and with a new lineup including Finn Hodgson (Grandchild) and Giuseppe La Rezza (Borrowed Atlas), TLV are set to release new material recorded at Humm Studios capturing their raw power-trio sound encompassing elements of shogaze, indie, pop-rock and dream. Dealing with shadowy aspects of love and loss, the new AMLA EP will be out Jan 14th on Shore Dive Records.

[west4east]

Episodio 60 - Alianza con Cartago

Episodio 60 - Alianza con Cartago - Roma y Cartago firman tratados. Pirro se pasea por Sicilia, y finalmente falla en la conquista de una ciudad llamada Lilibeo. Luego, regresa a Italia.

Roma y Cartago firman tratados. Pirro se pasea por Sicilia, y finalmente falla en la conquista de una ciudad llamada Lilibeo. Luego, regresa a Italia.

[powerpress url=”http://media.blubrry.com/elcuentoderoma/content.blubrry.com/elcuentoderoma/Episodio_060-Alianza_con_Cartago.mp3″ channel=”podcast” image=”“]

Transcripción Parcial del Episodio

Hola, les habla Abel, desde Pekín, China.…

[cinearche]

Os encantos inspirados por meio de palavras se fazem indutores de prazer e de portadores da dor; porque a força do encanto, somada à opinião da alma, fascina e persuade, transformando as palavras em feitiço. A mesma razão tem a forçada palavra ante a disposição da alma como a dos remédios ante a disposição do corpo, pois assim como alguns remédios acalmam a doença e outros a vida, assim também as palavras. Umas afligem, outras espantam, outras alegram, outras transportam os ouvintes até à virtude [...] A linguagem é um poder sobre a alma

Górgias de Leontini. CHAUI, Marilena. Introdução a História da Filosofia.

[bearterritory]

California Routs USF 6-1

5 Different Bears Find the Net

SAN FRANCISCO – Five different Golden Bears scored in the California women's soccer team's 6-1 win over San Francisco Sunday night.   With its first road win of the season Cal improves to 2-1-1. They appear to to have shaken off a hard-fought 2-1 loss at #10 Santa Clara and a 1-1 grudge match tie at Gonzaga with two impressive victories. They will also be happy to head home for five games after four on the road.   It was an offensive showcase for the Bears, who after getting on the board via a USF own goal in the 8th minute, scored five more times. They finished the contest with 11 total shots, seven of which landed on frame for a .636 shot on goal percentage.   In the 21st minute, Noelle Bond-Flazsa played a beautiful ball into the box for Alex Klos who headed it in for her first goal as a Bear. Karlie Lema then made it a 3-0 contest in the 31st with her fourth goal of the season. Lema split a pair of Don defenders and found herself with open grass before firing it into the top right corner of the net.

 San Francisco got on the board to start the second half with an impressive free-kick goal from Olivia Lukrofka in the 53rd minute.   To close out the night the Bears scored three goals off of three different boots in a 14-minute span. Velize King was first, scoring for the first time this season with an assist from Lema in the 68th minute. Next was Julia Leontini in the 81st who scored her first goal as a Bear on a missile from way beyond the 18-yard box. Just 20 seconds later Alexis Wright scored for the second time in as many matches with an assist from King.

Kelly McManus had three saves in her second career win. She played the first 84 minutes before being replaced by Maddie Gambs who made her collegiate debut and closed out the match between the posts.  

[sabakos]

You there, Continental metaphysician about to have a groundbreaking epiphany on the nature of "un-being";

Unfortunately for you, Gorgias of Leontini scooped you 2452 years ago. He was even post-ironic about it, just like you were planning on (not-)being. Skip to the part where you drink a bunch of wine and live to a ripe old age that you don't deserve, which he also did. But don't even dream of having an original thought. You went into philosophy, after all!