Pfundblog

Blood libel has been in the news lately because of its unfortunate use by St. Sarah Palin, apostle to the Mama Grizzlies. The unexpected benefit from this has been an outburst of history in news outlets that don’t normally contemplate the existence of anything more ancient than Lady Gaga’s meat dress. One really interesting story was this one at Salon.com. My only complaint about it, and others, is that is doesn’t go far back enough. The blood libel predates the Middle Ages–predates Christianity, in fact.

The question came up in my myth class today: do all these werewolf and vampire stories go back to ancient Greece and Rome?

The short answer is: not all, but some. Blood-drinking ghosts are a feature of Greek myth from its earliest recorded period; that’s a good start on vampires. And werewolves are more unambiguous: there’s the story of Lycaon (which is why the topic came up today), and the famous werewolf from Petronius’ Satyricon, who pauses after he becomes a wolf and urinates in a ring around his clothing. According to strict scientific principles, this makes them change into stone (so that nobody can run off with them while he’s running around in lupine form).

As it happens, I was reading around in Pliny’s misnamed Natural History today, and he records some werewolf legends, too. He doesn’t seem to believe them, and he’ll believe almost anything, so maybe they weren’t in general circulation in Rome… but Pliny thinks they explain why versipellis (“skin-changer; werewolf”) is used as an insult in common speech (which it is as far back as Plautus, more than two centuries earlier).

I’ll put the Latin (because Everything is better with Latin!™), complete with ethnic slurs, a translation and some visual evidence after the jump.

Catullus carmen 2

It actually may not have been on August 24, 79AD–but at some point in 79AD Vesuvius erupted and destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, among others.

In celebration of this event (bad for those who suffered on that day, but a tremendous boon for those who study life in the ancient world), here’s a video of Vesuvius’ most recent, much less destructive eruption.

Here’s a bit from National Geographic about Pompeii’s less famous cousin, Herculaneum.

Have fun and watch out for pyroclastic flows. They sting a bit.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/italy_herculaneum

The campus is more crowded today for some reason.

This one goes out to my ex. Better luck next time, eh?

Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum
unus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,
quem dixere chaos.