Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 June 8

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June 8

"people in Maine, who wear sneakers"

I was reading this article[1] and came across this weird stereotype (Apologies to the good people of Maine):

   It also removes a lot of [work] hours that could be done by people who live and work in the city vs. people in Maine, who wear sneakers.

What's the association between Mainer and sneakers? Mũeller (talk) 01:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

It reads like slang for something; however the definitive web resource for slang, the Urban Dictionary finds nothing on it. It probably meant something to the audience and the speaker, but only in the local dialect. --Jayron32 01:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

<guess> People living in the city presumably are wearing dress shoes because they have to go to work, while the Maine residents can wear sneakers because they're telecommuting.</guess> Nyttend (talk) 02:17, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Good call Nyttend, that's how I read it too. Alansplodge (talk) 12:36, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Or merely dress less formally. Years ago I was taking a short computer course (a seminar) and the instructor referred to the technicians in the company as "the tennis shoe people." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Carl Icahn, draft

Hi I was wondering if Carl Icahn would have been eligible to be drafted for the Vietnam Nam War, since he was in the Reserve. Thanks.144.35.20.70 (talk) 03:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Icahn would not have been eligible for the draft lottery regardless, since he was ten years too old at the start of it. But yes, as a former member of the Army Reserve, he would not have received any of the draft classifications that include "available for service". Both current and former members of the Army Reserve under the age of 60 can theoretically be mobilized for war, but this is extremely rare [2]. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:22, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

fist comment work

what was the fist commentary that comment on a literary work?--93.61.55.121 (talk) 15:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The oldest known fictional story is the "Epic of Gilgamesh";^[3] some long-forgotten ancient person might have written a commentary on it. For more clues, see: Ancient literature.

Certainly not the first, but John Tzetzes (c. 1110–1180) was known for his commentary on the Telemachy, etc. Before that, Plato & Aristotle wrote about literary works (notably Plato).^[4] —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 16:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Further information:

• Habib, Rafey (2005). History of Literary Criticism. Blackwell Pub. ISBN 9781280237379. —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 16:57, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

A claim has been made for Aristophanes' play The Frogs as the earliest known work of literary criticism since it satirizes Euripides and Aeschylus. --Antiquary (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Galley slavery as a legal punishment in Ancient Rome: a modern invention?

In the Ben Hur novel, play and films the protagonist is condemned to service on a war galley. According to Slavery in ancient Rome#Types of work people condemned to slavery as a form of legal punishment (servi poenae) were made to work in quarries and mines and Galley slave#Roman and Carthaginian navies specifically states that Romans preferred to rely on free men to row the galleys except in times of dire emergency, and even then there is no suggestion those slaves were actually servi poenae and that it wasn't for them simply a temporary measure while the emergency lasted. So is galley slavery as a legal punishment in Ancient Rome a modern myth? Was it actually invented by Wallace? Does anyone have an authoritative source besides this Guardian article? The article does not attribute the invention of this myth to Wallace. If Wallace did not invent it, where could he have gotten it? Thanks. Basemetal 16:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

According to the footnote in the Galley slave article: With the possible exception of a single instance in Ptolemaic Egypt (Casson, Lionel (1971). Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 325–326.) — See: Appendix § The Use of Slaves —2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC) . . . P.s.: I only skimmed that source, but Homer might have popularized the stereotypical "galley slave"; also, there were slaves on Roman galley ships, but tasked with duties other than rowing (but these were probably captive slaves rather than servi poenae). For additional sources, try sources cited therein. (c/e: 17:51, 8 June 2018 (UTC))

Note also: It is argued that the motif was constructed by projecting onto classical times knowledge of the historical galley slavery of the early modern Mediterranean. Source:

• James, Simon (January 2001). "The Roman galley slave: Ben-Hur and the birth of a factoid". Public Archaeology. 2 (1): 35–49. doi:10.1179/pua.2001.2.1.35. ISSN 1465-5187.

—2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782 (talk) 19:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you 2606:A000:1126:4CA:0:98F2:CFF6:1782. The last article deals exactly with my question. I don't have access to the full text but the abstract does already attribute the invention of the myth to Wallace himself. That answers my question. But it'd be interesting to see the whole argument as presented by that 14 page article. Basemetal 10:12, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

The technical reason is that classical ancient galleys, from penteconter to trireme were operated on the principle of one rower per oar. Even for later models like the quinquereme, most sources assume some oars were operated by a single rower, others by two. In all these cases, rowing is a very skilled profession, and a single non-cooperative rower can throw off the whole crew. Not something you want to happen in a naval battle. Later galleys moved to a model with fewer but larger oars operated by 3-7 rowers. In that case, rowing was less complicated, and individual rower had less of an influence on overall performance. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:28, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

This is again. The last time I checked, there was only one original source (Casson) stating that the slave rower is a mythe (while everybody else since is just citing this one) and the referenced original text I could not find. But from what could be inferred this source as well has no one single proof of the stated theory beside the personal opinion of the author: that for this or that reason, to employ slaves or prisoners as rowers would not have been rationally sound, economically defensible or, as you say, technically feasible. Unfortunately this is nothing but speculation, original research out of thin air, with no one single original Roman or Greek source from the 1th century stating that the rower were not slaves resp. prisoners but for example regular soldiers, mercenaries or hired professionals. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 12:25, 11 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

Do you have an example that does state that slaves were used? Morrison's The Athenian Triere cites ample original sources and states "The oarsmen fall into two categories, Athenian citizens and foreigners" (page 114 and on). In particular check page 118, where the exceptional use of slaves is discussed, sourced to a collection of ancient Greek inscriptions and Xenophon. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:41, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Excuse me but the Athenian triere falls in the Greek 5th and 4th century. With Ben Hur we are talking about the Roman firsth century (in an economy much more similar to Venice's or France's in the Renaissance). Anyway I don't have the impression that page long arguments like "rowing is a very skilled profession, and a single non-cooperative rower can throw off the whole crew" are based on some reliable source but sound like the personal opinion of the author. But maybe these statements are well sourced and only the phrasing is not encyclopedic. 194.174.76.21 (talk) 16:40, 12 June 2018 (UTC) Marco Pagliero Berlin

Well, I haven't written pages, so I assume you are referring to Morrison? Or should I say John Sinclair Morrison? Of course, he was not writing an encyclopaedia, but rather one of the most comprehensive books on the Triere, which is the prototype for most later large galleys of antiquity. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)