Roman in the GloamingflorilegiaMarch 16 2007, 20:06:25 UTC
Though India was never conquered by Rome, they traded with each other. Doubtful whether the Romans bought the idea that the culmination of everything can be found in the Brahman, but they might have had exposure to Indian mysticism.
BUT...
My comment was actually meant to imply that "equally within our grasp" means "not at all within our grasp"---nothing (not) and everything (all). Not completely, anyway.
The absence of zero perhaps made them optimistic in the sense that ignorance is bliss, but I would argue that the Romans were not humanists, political philosophy's true optimists.
Re: Roman in the GloamingfemfataleatronMarch 16 2007, 20:36:15 UTC
Some evidence exists that there were some Roman embassies in or near India...
But... even with your conception of zero, you are not an optimist, at least in terms of the infinite.
I think what dwimmerlaik was referring to (but giving no examples?) were the somewhat clumsy ordinals of latin i.e primus (1) undecimus(11), vicesimus secundus(21), ducentesimus primus (201) etc. ...or is that unducentesimus?
Re: Roman in the GloamingflorilegiaMarch 16 2007, 20:59:44 UTC
True, my own prejudices may be reflected here, but how is it possible--since I do not know all--to keep from succombing to my pessimistic urges? ;-)
Thanks for the clarification of her thought. Not ever having had a Latin class, my only acquaintance comes through dual-translations of classical writing. I never have seen any representation of numerical values in Latin except the letters, and was curious as to what examples may exist.
At first I thought that the NPR article was then incorrect, that they could have sung their Slaying Song without saying the letters, but the ordinals are something different entirely. You could possible say, "the first (undecimus) bottle of wine on the wall, taken down and passed around", but that might get clumsy when you approached higher numbers, particularly since Latin does not just use a simple ending like English.
But perhaps dwimmerlaik is right and ordinals were used to express verbal representations of numeric value as well. I was interested to know her sources, and it appears to be just a Latin textbook
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BUT...
My comment was actually meant to imply that "equally within our grasp" means "not at all within our grasp"---nothing (not) and everything (all). Not completely, anyway.
The absence of zero perhaps made them optimistic in the sense that ignorance is bliss, but I would argue that the Romans were not humanists, political philosophy's true optimists.
Reply
But...
even with your conception of zero, you are not an optimist, at least in terms of the infinite.
I think what dwimmerlaik was referring to (but giving no examples?) were the somewhat clumsy ordinals of latin i.e primus (1) undecimus(11), vicesimus secundus(21), ducentesimus primus (201) etc. ...or is that unducentesimus?
Reply
Thanks for the clarification of her thought. Not ever having had a Latin class, my only acquaintance comes through dual-translations of classical writing. I never have seen any representation of numerical values in Latin except the letters, and was curious as to what examples may exist.
At first I thought that the NPR article was then incorrect, that they could have sung their Slaying Song without saying the letters, but the ordinals are something different entirely. You could possible say, "the first (undecimus) bottle of wine on the wall, taken down and passed around", but that might get clumsy when you approached higher numbers, particularly since Latin does not just use a simple ending like English.
But perhaps dwimmerlaik is right and ordinals were used to express verbal representations of numeric value as well. I was interested to know her sources, and it appears to be just a Latin textbook ( ... )
Reply
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