Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 88 as they recount the intense, five-day Colloquium Latinum Aestivum. Discover the joy of reading Cicero, the flat brilliance of Aquinas, and the exhausting fireworks of Erasmus. Then, plunge into the end of Aeneid Book III as Aeneas encounters a “pretend Troy,” a horrific curse, and the terrifying Cyclops. Plus, the truth about “fan service” and the ultimate tragedy of the “murse.”
Introduction: The Return to the Bunker and The Murse
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 88 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting from their new location deep in the bunker of Vomitorium South, your hosts, Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe, are thrilled to be back after a brief ten-day hiatus.
Dr. Winkle jokes that the audience has been waiting with “bated breath,” which sparks a brief semantic digression on why people say “bated” instead of “bait-like”.
The break was due to Dr. Noe’s hosting of the Colloquium Latinum Aestivum—a delightful, intense, five-day Latin language immersion camp (which Dr. Winkle affectionately and derisively refers to as a “Jamboree”). Before diving into the details, Dr. Noe insists Jeff explain his recurring “Big Shirtless Ron” joke, which originates from an old Simpsons parody of the variety show Hee Haw. Sadly, Big Shirtless Ron did not attend the Colloquium.
Dr. Noe shares the grueling but rewarding schedule of the Colloquium, featuring six hours of daily instruction with ten students from across the country.
- Monday (Cicero): They read Cicero’s letters and a portion of De Officiis concerning Themistocles and the Persians. (Hearing Cicero read with a charming North Carolina accent was a highlight!)
- Tuesday (Augustine): They read St. Augustine’s De Agone Christiano (The Christian Contest), notable for being deliberately written in accessible, easy Latin rather than high-flown rhetoric.
- Wednesday (Aquinas): They tackled Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. Dr. Noe explains that while Cicero always says things beautifully (even if they lack profundity), Aquinas always has something profound to say, but writes it in completely flat, workmanlike Latin with zero charm.
- Thursday (Erasmus): They read Erasmus’ De Copia, a text on developing an abundance of ideas and vocabulary. Dr. Noe notes that reading Erasmus is exhausting because he “can’t write a single sentence without showing off”. It is constant verbal fireworks. Dr. Winkle compares it to watching a virtuoso guitarist—impressive, but ultimately it makes you feel deeply deficient.
- Friday (Calvin): They finished with some of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, focusing on his ecumenical views of the Christian life.
While Dr. Noe was translating Aquinas, Dr. Winkle was performing an acoustic guitar gig in Holland, Michigan, successfully entertaining the crowd until they literally ran out of songs.
This prompts another hilarious digression about their travels in Italy. Dr. Noe recalls attempting to carry his belongings in a cheap “murse” (man-purse) that kept breaking, requiring constant stitching, and proving to be a true “murse-case scenario”.
The Opening Quote: The Trap of the Past
Finally transitioning to the main event, the hosts jump back into the second half of Vergil’s Aeneid Book III. Dr. Winkle provides the opening quote from David Quint’s 1982 Classical Journal article, Painful Memories: Aeneid 3 and the Problem of the Past.
Quint argues that the Trojans’ biggest obstacle is their inability to let go of Troy. Everywhere they go, they attempt to rebuild what they lost, rather than embracing the new destiny Fate demands. Dr. Winkle relates this to a classic grad school frustration: you think you have a brilliant, original thesis (like noticing the parallels between Andromache and Odyssey 11), only to discover that some scholar (usually some German from 1869) has already written a 400-page dissertation on it. Nil sub sole novum (Nothing new under the sun).
The Pretend Troy and The Uncanny Valley
Sailing past the island of Ithaca, the Trojans hurl curses at the homeland of their great enemy, Ulysses. They eventually arrive in Epirus, a breathtakingly beautiful region of Greece.
Here they encounter Andromache, the widow of the great Trojan hero Hector, who has survived and remarried the Trojan seer Helenus. But what Aeneas finds is deeply unsettling. Andromache has built a “little Troy” (parvam Troiam), complete with a “pretend Simois” river and a fake Scaean Gate. She is obsessively mourning Hector, trapped entirely in her past.
Why doesn’t Aeneas stay here and take over? Because, as Dr. Noe astutely observes, this place is fundamentally wrong. It is a “Potemkin village”.
Dr. Winkle compares it to the “Upside Down” from Stranger Things—a dark, stagnant mirror image of the real world. Dr. Noe suggests an aesthetic principle: people only enjoy miniatures or copies when they are obviously different from the original. When something tries too hard to mimic the real thing but falls slightly short, it becomes displeasing and falls into the “Uncanny Valley”.
Dr. Winkle then shares a perfect 1980s analogy: wanting the spectacular Yamaha DX7 synthesizer but receiving a cheap, miniature knock-off with mini-keys. It wasn’t the real thing, and it wasn’t different enough to be a fun toy; it was just a frustrating imitation. Aeneas realizes he cannot settle for a Yamaha DX100 version of Troy.
The Prophecy of the White Sow and the Hungry Tables
Aeneas asks Helenus for a prophecy. Helenus delivers a massive, highly specific set of instructions.
He tells Aeneas he will know he has found the site of his new city when he sees a giant white sow with a litter of thirty piglets lying beneath an oak tree near a hidden stream. (Dr. Noe notes that pigs are a crucial part of Roman religious iconography, notably appearing on the Ara Pacis).
Helenus also addresses the terrifying curse delivered earlier by the Harpy Celaeno, who claimed the Trojans wouldn’t found their city until hunger forced them to “eat their own tables”. Helenus waves this away, essentially saying, “Don’t worry about the tables; Fate will work it out.”
Crucially, Helenus commands Aeneas to worship the hostile goddess Juno, and to worship her first.
However, when the Trojans finally sight the shores of Italy, the first thing they see is a temple of Minerva. Being religiously correct, they stop and worship Minerva, and only afterward do they worship at the nearby temple of Juno. They followed the instructions, but not the order of the instructions—a mistake that will surely cost them.
The Cyclops and the Greek Suppliant
Sailing south to Sicily (which the Romans associated with the Cyclopes and the forge of Vulcan beneath Mount Etna), the Trojans encounter a horrific sight.
A ragged, starving Greek named Achaemenides runs down to the shore. He is one of Odysseus’s men, accidentally left behind in the Cyclops’s cave just weeks prior. Achaemenides begs the Trojans to either take him away or kill him, preferring to die by human hands than be eaten by the monster.
Dr. Winkle points out that this is Vergil delivering some epic “fan service,” intersecting directly with the timeline of Homer’s Odyssey. However, Dr. Noe notes a deeper patriotic theme: Vergil is demonstrating that Romans are morally superior to Greeks. While the crafty Odysseus abandoned his own man to save himself, the pious Aeneas takes in a sworn enemy, refusing to leave anyone behind.
Suddenly, the blinded monster Polyphemus himself appears, wading into the ocean to wash his oozing, infected eye socket with saltwater. The Trojans quickly row away, narrowly escaping the hulking beast.
The Death of Anchises
Book III concludes at the harbor of Drepanum in Sicily. It is here that Aeneas suffers his final, unexpected loss: the death of his father, Anchises.
After describing monsters, storms, and prophecies in vivid detail, Aeneas describes the death of his beloved father in just a few, stark words: amisi Anchisen (I lost Anchises).
The hosts theorize that this profound understatement reflects the depth of Aeneas’s grief; the true horrors of life are often too painful to describe.
Sponsors: Popcorn, Books, and Brews
To recover from the exhaustion of Erasmus and the grief of Aeneas, the hosts recommend supporting the sponsors that make the Ad Navseam bunker run:
- Pop City Popcorn: Based in Kalamazoo, this popcorn changed Dr. Winkle from a purist into a fanatic. Using real ingredients (like actual Parmesan cheese), flavors like Bacon Cheddar and Two-Way Drizzle are phenomenal. Go to popcitypopcorn.com and use code ANPOP20 for 20% off your first order.
- Ratio Coffee: Don’t settle for cheap appliances. Invest in the heirloom-quality Ratio 8 coffee maker. Dr. Noe went a week without his Ratio 8 at the Colloquium and suffered terrible withdrawals. Visit ratiocoffee.com and use code ANCO89 for 15% off before the end of the month.
- Hackett Publishing: Celebrating 50 years! Use code AN2022 at hackettpublishing.com for 20% off and free shipping on your order.
- The Moss Method & Latin Per Diem: Want to read Erasmus or Vergil yourself? Go from “neophyte to erudite” in ancient Greek at mossmethod.com, or join Dr. Noe’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata course at latinperdiem.com/llpsi.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
We end Episode 88 with a brilliant piece of modern observational comedy. Dr. Winkle delivers a Gustatory Parting Shot from an unnamed comedian who understands the sheer awkwardness of modern dining:
“If you are over the age of 18, it is impossible to eat alone in a food court and not look like a serial killer.”Aeneas managed to survive the Cyclops, but even he couldn’t survive Sbarro’s alone. Valete!
