Thursday 24 October 2019

The Golden Slave, Chapter VII

The Golden Slave, VII.

Eodan and Phryne enter Rome by the Esquiline Gate. Flavius' house is on Viminal Hill. The two escaped slaves are taken for Cisalpine Gauls. Roman coins include the sesterce and the as.

They approached Roman along the Latin Way. (See image.) Before that, they had killed the horses on which they escaped and sacrificed them to Hermes. See also Hermes Trismegitus and a recent post.

Eodan says:

"The night winds take you..." (p. 86)

- so he continues to regard the wind as an intervening force or "Power."

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I've been wondering how to PRONOUNCE Phryne's name. Should it be either "Prin" or "Preen"?

Ad astra! Sean

David Birr said...

Sean:
Well, according to Wikipedia (for whatever that's worth), it should rhyme with "tiny." And the "ph" acts as an "f."

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, DAVID!

I had not known you could find something so obscure as "Phryne" on Wikipedia! So, Phryne's name possibly sounds like "finy"? Got it!

Ad astra! Sean

David Birr said...

Sean:
Don't forget the "r." For another way to explain it, "Phry" sounding like the English word "fry"; "ne" sounding like "knee."

Incidentally, "Phryne" means "toad," and was a nickname of the famous one based on her somewhat yellowish complexion. Despite that nickname, she was renowned for her beauty. One story claims she was exonerated on a capital charge solely because the Athenian jury decided she was too beautiful to be executed.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, DAVID!

And I will look up the historical Phryne! Hmmm, so the name should be pronounced something like "friny"? Hope I got it right this time!

Ad astra! Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean and David!

I have not actually studied Ancient Greek, but my guess is that the Ph would be pronounced f, as in “philosophy” (Greek letter phi) and that the y is a Greek upsilon, and therefore pronounced like a French u or German u umlaut (u with two dots over it), which means, in English, about halfway between the i in “fifth” and the u in “fluff”. Then I presume that the e would be a Greek eta, and pronounced like an e in Italian or Spanish, or approximately like the vowel in the English word “way”. If we have any Anderson den who are also real classical scholars, I stand ready to be corrected.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

And your analysis of "Phryne" was more detailed than I ever thought of doing!(Smiles)

Regards! Sean