Re: IACTA ALEA EST questions

Greetings,

Just to insert some CanCon in the ClassCon, I think it can be
semi-safely said that JC's yaktaliest was the inspiration behind
Rush's 'Roll the Bones':

Well, you can stake that claim
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don't take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Why are we here?
Because we're here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones

Faith is cold as ice
Why are little ones born only to suffer
For the want of immunity 
Or a bowl of rice?
Well, who would hold a price
On the heads of the innocent children
If there's some immortal power
To control the dice?

We come into the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Jack...relax
Get busy with the facts
No zodiacs or almanacs
No maniacs in polyester slacks
Just the facts
Gonna kick some gluteus max
It's a parallax...you dig?
You move around
The small gets big
It's a rig
It's action...reaction
Random interaction
So who's afraid 
Of a little abstraction?
Can't get no satisfaction
From the facts?
You better run, homeboy
A fact's a fact 
From Nome to Rome, boy

What's the deal?
Spin the wheel
If the dice are hot...take a shot
Play your cards. Show us what you got
What you're holding
If the cards are cold
Don't go folding
Lady Luck is golden
She favors the bold
That's cold
Stop throwing stones
The night has a thousand saxophones
So get out there and rock
And roll the bones
Get busy!

Roll the bones 

Why are we here?
Because we're here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones



regards,

dm

.................................................................
David Meadows                        dmeadows-AT-idirect-DOT-com
.................................................................
               rogueclassicism -- a Classics blog               
           http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassicism           
.................................................................





On Friday, April 30, 2004, multa scribuntur, inter alia:

JB> My curiosity got the better of me.

JB> Daniel Levine asked:
>>>A colleague in the Law School asks me:
>>>
>>>Why did Caesar (as reported by Suetonius *Caesar 32) use the singular
>>>in his famous aleatory remark?  Is there a significance to the sort of
>>>game that was played with one die, as opposed to more than one?

JB> Perhaps Plutarch is responsible for the impression that "iacta alea est" is
JB> all that Caesar said on this occasion, but the words do have a context.
JB> Appian (BC 2.35) has him say first (in Horace White's translation) "My
JB> friends, to leave this stream uncrossed will breed manifold distress for
JB> me; to cross it, for all mankind." Perhaps more plausibly, Suetonius (and,
JB> by the way, in both Plutarch's and Suetonius' biography the words are
JB> quoted in what modern editions number as section 32) has him say "Eatur quo
JB> deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas uocat. Iacta alea est" ("Let's go"
JB> -- an inadequate rendering, unfortunately, of eatur -- "where the portents
JB> of gods and the iniquity of enemies summons. IAE").

JB> And I previously replied
>>As far as I can see (haven't combed through the PHI results yet), *alea* is
>>never used at all in the plural, because it designates the game, not the
>>token used in it. A better question might be, why did he use *alea* at all
>>instead of *tali* or *tesserae*?

JB> The basic meaning of alea is clearly "gamble," "gambling," "risk,"
JB> "hazard," not "die," whatever one might think on the basis of the use of
JB> ku/bos by Greek writers.
>>
>>And it seems he might have said "Iacta alea esto" rather than *est*; at
>>least that's what Erasmus apparently thought, on the basis of the relevant
>>passages of Appian and Plutarch, which do involve an imperative.

JB> To which I now add:
JB> Plutarch has a)nerri/fqw ku/bos, Appian o( ku/bos a)nerri/fqw.  I don't
JB> know where Erasmus proposed his correction of Suetonius; could there be an
JB> illuminating discussion in the Adagia somewhere?


JB> And Prof. Levine also asked
>>>Plutarch's *Life of Caesar says that this is a proverbial expression.  Was
>>>it proverbial before Caesar, or did it become proverbial between the time
>>>of Caesar and Plutarch?\

JB> Appian refers to it as to\ koino\n, which is just "common(place)," while
JB> Plutarch has it as to\ koino\n "for those who embark upon helpless chance
JB> and daring." LSJ s.v. a)narri/ptw says that the phrase can be found in the
JB> Sententiae of Menander (which I gather doesn't guarantee that it appeared
JB> in Menander), and notes something similar in a fragment of Aristophanes,
JB> but there is no significant resemblance. In Latin, there is no example of
JB> it as a proverbial expression, though this doesn't necessarily establish
JB> that it was not a proverbial expression already (we don't have enough early
JB> Latin literature to say with certainty); however, it would be easier to
JB> defend the position that it became proverbial after Caesar than the
JB> position that it was already proverbial. The absence of any other
JB> occurrence of alea = talus, tessera is striking.

JB> Until, that is, we reach imperial literature. The OLD cites one other
JB> example of what they call Caesar's figurative use of alea, in Petronius'
JB> Satyricon (122, l. 174, iudice Fortuna cadat alea). And guess what?  These
JB> are words put into Caesar's mouth, as he surveys the plains of Italy from
JB> the Alps, just before crossing the Rubicon. Less obvious, Lucan twice uses
JB> alea [fati] in reference to events of the Civil War; in the second
JB> occurrence, Sex. Pompeius consults Erictho about "quo tanti praeponderet
JB> alea fati," which (despite referring primarily to weight) seems to be about
JB> how the dice will fall in this gamble. When Manilius, surveying the career
JB> of Octavian, refers to "repetitaque rerum / alea" (1.915f.), he surely has
JB> the Rubicon remark in mind (cf. 913 perque patris pater Augustus uestigia
JB> uicit), though I don't see Housman or Gould making this point; Caesar took
JB> the gamble once, Octavian many times.

JB> My guess is that JC deliberately used alea in the (apparently) unexampled
JB> sense of talus or tessera; the ordinary meaning of "gamble" doesn't seem
JB> possible with "iacta est" (or might someone in English say "The gamble has
JB> been rolled"?). That usage is paralleled only in Petronius' use of alea
JB> with "cadat" ("throw" and "fall" are words normally used of dicing) and, I
JB> suspect, Lucan's use of it with "praeponderet." The TLL turns up a single
JB> other use of figurative alea with the notion of throwing, perhaps the most
JB> explicit parallel with Caesar's words in fact, Sidonius Apollinaris, ep.
JB> 4.6.3, "intra iactum tantae aleae," "within the tossing of so great an
JB> alea" (where alea is being used figuratively of the risk involved in a
JB> journey). If Caesar did indeed mean to say that "The die is cast," it may
JB> be an original act of linguistic audacity matching his personal and
JB> political audacity at that moment. How this gesture is to be reconciled
JB> with Caesar the linguistic analogist, I do not know, but someone who urged
JB> avoiding rare or obsolete words ought also to have avoided such an odd
JB> iunctura.


JB> James L. P. Butrica
JB> St. John's NL  A1C 5S7
JB> (709) 753-5799 (home)
JB> (709) 737-7914 (office)