Sphinx

This blog remains, if not in full hibernation, then certainly in a deep torpor; reducing all but essential functions until the warm weather returns, or the rains come and the valley is green again, or whatever other metaphor one chooses for the idea that, some day, I will once again have the sort of levels of energy and mental agility that will allow me to complete all my teaching, teaching prep and essential emails in less than the full working week, thus making space for research, writing and even blogging. Could be worse; there are lots of people having a much harder time of it, and this has actually freed me of the addiction to checking my viewing stats daily and getting depressed about them. Now I can get depressed about the decline of this blog without needing to look at the stats!

But essential functions do continue, and one of them is the way this blog has become a handy means of recording things that might become useful at some point in the future. (I also have some things in Notes, where I had at one pointed envisaged a lengthier post; maybe some day…). Firstly, a couple of new entries for the catalogue of war memorials with Pericles/Thucydides quotes, as someone posted on the Twitter that they’d visited the American Cemetery and Memorial at Margraten, near Maastricht, where they saw (on the west side of the tower of the chapel) an inscription described as “a free translation of Pericles’ oration as recorded by Thucydides”: “Each for his own memorial earned praise that will never die and with it the grandest of all sepulchres, not that in which his mortal bones are laid but a home in the minds of men.”

A quick google confirmed that it’s the version of the funeral oration by Alfred Zimmern, originally published in The Greek Commonwealth. Interesting, and maybe a little unfair, that it’s described as ‘free’ (including in the official guide, which presumably the Tweeter was simply quoting) – no more so than other versions, I would have said, so I almost wonder if someone wrote this just because it’s not the rendition in the Landmark Thucydides. Also interesting that this is a WWII memorial, whereas most Thucydides citations in this context date from the 1920s – but of course that’s partly because many WWII commemorations were simply added to existing memorials.

The same quick google pointed me towards another example of the Zimmern quote being used, on the wooden memorial board from Blackpool Grammar School (link to war memorials register), dedicated in 1924, and THAT introduced me to the search facility in the Imperial War Museum’s database of war memorials. Searching for ‘Thucydides’ doesn’t produce a very long list, but only one of them was already on my list; I can now add Prestwick St Nicholas Golf Club, Barry Memorial Hall (on the plaque erected in 1982 to commemorate its 50th anniversary) and the Airborne Forces Memorial in Aldershot, dedicated in 1990. And, rather wonderfully, a memorial (no date in the database; I’m going to have to visit…) to those who died on the royalist side, and only the royalist side, at the Battle of Newbury, which includes the Thucydides in Greek…

And, secondly, I need to make a note to write to Ole Gunnar Solskjær – once a suitable period has elapsed – to ask whether he was consciously channelling Thucydides when, having been asked if he could explain the persistent Groundhog Day tendencies of his team, he responded that “They’re only human.” Kata to anthropinon; present events tend to resemble those of the past, because of the human thing. This includes the belief that simply changing the manager will sort everything out – just like imagining that at some point I will suddenly have time and energy again…

Update: see rabbit hole, jump down rabbit hole… The Newbury memorial, generally known as the Falkland Memorial after Viscount Falkland, the most prominent casualty of the battle, is really odd and fascinating. It was erected in 1878 – so, the 235th anniversary of 1643, which isn’t the most obvious one to celebrate – after Newbury Council [update: no, more likely an ad hoc fund-raising committee, but I assume the Council would have been asked for permission] was persuaded to take on the project by one Walter Money, FSA, a local historian who later wrote various books about the history of Newbury and is commemorated himself by a blue plaque in the town, naming him as the Father of Newbury History. It was unveiled by Lord Carnavon, descendant of Viscount Falkland. What is remarkable is the main inscription, on the north side, besides Thucydides in Greek (described by one website as “illegible”, which I guess is just because it’s in Greek, but I will need to check) on the west side, Livy IX.1 in Latin on the east, and a rather gnomic remark by Burke about the valid reasons for shedding the blood of man:

IN MEMORY OF THOSE/ WHO, ON THE 20TH SEPTEMBER, 1643/ FELL FIGHTING IN THE ARMY OF KING CHARLES I,/ ON THE FIELD OF NEWBURY, AND ESPECIALLY/ LUCIUS CARY, VISCOUNT FALKLAND/ WHO DIED HERE IN THE 34TH YEAR OF HIS AGE./ THIS MONUMENT IS SET UP BY THOSE TO WHOM/ THE MAJESTY OF THE CROWN AND/ THE LIBERTIES OF THIER COUNTRY ARE DEAR.

That is… somewhat polemical. The dead on the Parliamentary side don’t merit any sort of commemoration at all? Presumably Burke’s list of acceptable grounds for bloodshed don’t include setting limits on arbitrary royal power. My knowledge of 19th-century British history is not such that I can immediately think of a reason why relitigating thr English Civil War would be a thing – assuming that there’s no direct connection to the premier of HMS Pinafore. Was this just Money’s personal obsession, and he was also one of those people who celebrate the feast of Charles King and Martyr? But how did he get the council to go along with it..?

Update: various websites offer snippets of information from other local historians, sources that I can’t easily check so will take on trust for the moment. This seems to have been very much Money’s pet project; not just that he’s credited with the idea, but also that he donated the land and got his brother appointed as architect. No indication of the arguments used; one source suggests that the project had become controversial by 1878 with the suggestion that all the dead should be commemorated – which didn’t stop the Mayor and Corporation and lots of others turning up to the grand unveiling:

The day’s programme included a procession of the Mayor and Corporation, Yeomanry, Volunteer’s, oddfellows, Forester, lodges of Freemasons, and others, which, headed by the band of the 49th Regiment, marched through the principal streets to the site of the memorial… [link]

But one might see Lord Carnavon’s speech as consciously conciliatory and/or a bit embarrassed by the whole situation:

On this field, as the Mayor has truly said, the battle of Newbury was once fought and Lord Falkland fell. And why do we now erect this monument? We erect it not to perpetuate the memory of by gone feuds we erect it not to exalt any one party or set of opinions but in order to commemorate great events in which we are all interested, and to do honour to the memory of a man of singular purity, unselfishness, and honour. Lord Falkland was a gentleman, a scholar, a statesman, a reformer of political abuses, and yet a lover of the Crown. Living in troubled and painful times, he reconciled, as far as was given man to reconcile, the complicated duties of his age, and, dying, he died without fear and without reproach. It only remains for me now to unveil this memorial, and make it public…