• Est. 2015 in Grand Rapids, MI, USA
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Warren Peas, Hot Tub Readers, and Hellenistic Secondary Schools (Ad Navseam Ep. 170)

Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 170 as they explore Hellenistic secondary schools, the canon of ten, and resources to master the Latin language.

Introduction: Capacious Climes and the Tolls Toy

Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 170 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting from Vomitorium Central—the subterranean bunker protecting them from the frigid Michigan winter—your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones.

The episode begins with Dave declaring that his middle initial “C” currently stands for “capacious,” reflecting his ongoing commitment to taking the classics in and keeping them down. Escaping the negative temperatures that plunged across the state, Dave recently traveled down south to Florida to deliver a talk on the character of Samuel Rutherford. Upon returning to the cold north, Dave engaged in a highly Greco-Roman activity by visiting the public baths at the local YMCA. While easing himself into the warm hot tub, he was shocked to discover a woman casually reading a fiction book directly in the steaming water. Astounded by her commitment and her willingness to risk dropping the book, Dave notes his ultimate goal as an author is to write something so compelling that a reader refuses to put it down even while soaking in a hot tub.

Taking a bizarre segue, Dave shares a complex, pun-filled anecdote from his youth. Attempting to grow a garden in a sandy patch of soil, his family planted tomatoes, beans, parsnips, potatoes, and peas. Unfortunately, the plot was quickly infested by a massive colony of rabbits that devoured the crop. To solve the problem, Dave erected a fence and built a toll booth, charging visitors a fee to come and witness the absolute devastation the rabbits had wrought. Utilizing the proceeds from the booth, he purchased little toys to successfully distract the animals. Delivering an agonizing, multi-layered punchline, Dave proudly declares that “the tolls toy” eventually led to “warren peas”. Jeff groans at the Tolstoy pun, concluding that a group of podcasters should officially be referred to as a “regrettable”.

Marrou and the Top-Heavy Syllabus

The primary academic focus of Episode 170 resumes the podcast’s journey through Henri-Irénée Marrou’s A History of Education in Antiquity, specifically turning to Part II, Chapter VII: “Literary Studies at Secondary School Standard”.

Jeff admits he found the opening pages to be a tough, repetitive slog, laying some of the blame on the somewhat opaque English translation by George Lamb. However, the hosts quickly warm up to the material as Marrou begins dropping his signature snarky asides.

Marrou outlines a general law of education: as culture progresses, syllabuses inevitably become increasingly top-heavy. Advanced subjects gradually sink down the timeline, ending up as ordinary or elementary requirements for younger students. Dave relates this to the modern educational landscape, where teachers are endlessly forced to refine syllabuses with bloated learning outcomes and distinctives. Recalling his days filling out SWOT charts (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) for university administrators, Dave notes that pushing advanced material down to the eighth-grade level doesn’t create younger prodigies; it simply results in advanced material being taught poorly.

The Canon of Ten and the Canto Zeta

Marrou defines a classical culture as a unified collection of great masterpieces that serves as the recognized basis for a society’s scale of values. During the Hellenistic era, scholars—likely associated with the university in Pergamum during the second century BC—officially codified this canon.

They created lists featuring the Ten Attic Orators, ten historians, ten painters, and ten sculptors. The hosts theorize that the number ten was chosen simply as an easy mnemonic device corresponding to the number of fingers on the human hand, ensuring the canon remained fixed and easily memorized.

At the absolute forefront of this canon stood Homer. Hellenistic Greeks viewed Homer not merely as a poet, but as a god. Marrou notes that Alexander the Great carried a piously guarded copy of the Iliad on all his military campaigns, and remote colonial towns fiercely protected their special editions of the text to prove their loyalty to the Greek heritage while surrounded by barbarians.

Mastering Homer was the ultimate flex for an ancient parent. Marrou shares an anecdote about a mother who felt a massive thrill of pride when a teacher informed her that her son was currently studying “Canto Zeta” (Book 6) of the Iliad. The hosts compare this to modern parents bragging at neighborhood parties that their ninth-grader is taking advanced calculus or acing the SATs. While other authors like Hesiod, Callimachus, Menander, Demosthenes, and Euripides rounded out the curriculum, Homer remained the undisputed king.

Bald Heracles and Stoic Bowdlerization

Hellenistic secondary education was overwhelmingly focused on the minute exegesis of these ancient texts. The grammatical treatment of an author proceeded through four distinct stages: criticism of the text (diorthosis), expressive reading (anagnonosis), explanation (exegesis), and literary judgment (chrysis).

The literal explanation required students to translate archaic Homeric words into their modern Hellenistic equivalents, essentially creating a two-column vocabulary list. For instance, a student had to know that the ancient word muria (myriad) simply meant polla (very many).

However, this literary exegesis quickly devolved into an obsession with bizarre trivia. Marrou laments that culture and education were being “invaded by scholarship on all sides”. To be considered truly educated, a student had to know highly obscure facts, such as the claim that Heracles went entirely bald after being temporarily swallowed by a sea monster while rescuing Hesione. The ancient skeptic Sextus Empiricus openly mocked this absurd “mania for learning”.

Furthermore, teachers engaged in heavy-handed moral bowdlerization. The Stoics, desperate to prove that Homer was a flawless, romantic wise man, utilized intense intellectual gymnastics to extract a highly articulated moral code from the ancient myths. According to Plutarch’s naive treatise, when Homer depicted the lewd adulterer Paris skipping a battle to go to bed with Helen in the middle of the day, the poet was obviously doing it to “pour scorn” on such behavior. The hosts laugh at this desperate special pleading, noting that sometimes a barbecue scene in the Iliad is just a nice barbecue scene, not a profound moral allegory.

The Marsupodcast and the Practical Composition

To cap off their educational training, Hellenistic students engaged in practical exercises in composition. Marrou shares a surviving 4th-century papyrus from the Fayum that perfectly illustrates this practice.

The student wrote a chaotic, action-packed story about a son who murdered his father and fled into the desert. While running over a mountain, the boy was chased by a lion, climbed a tree, encountered a leaping dragon, and tragically fell to the ground. At the bottom of the papyrus, the student appended a heavy-handed moral quote attributed to Menander: “Wicked people cannot escape from God. God will bring the wicked to judgment”. The hosts joke that this brutal, terrifying narrative feels like an ancient, hard-edged version of Lemony Snicket or Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Suddenly, the hosts are interrupted by loud banging on the bunker doors. It is the Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA). Furious over the podcast’s relentless jokes regarding plastic “Marsupods” and finding a “little Joey in every cup,” the ASCA has arrived to seize the vomitorium so they can record their own “Marsupodcast”. Yielding the studio to the angry baristas, the hosts share a few strange kangaroo facts—including their inability to walk backwards and their existence in family groups called “mobs”—before beating a hasty retreat.

Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance

Before escaping the bunker, the hosts extend their gratitude to the sponsors keeping the podcast operational.

The Gustatory Parting Shot

To officially close out Episode 170, the hosts extend their gratitude to Mishka the sound engineer for her rapid turnaround times, and to the generous musicians Ken Tamplin and Scott Van Zen for providing the ripping, bluesy guitar tracks and bumper music.

Dave then delivers the Gustatory Parting Shot, courtesy of the famous Californian labor organizer, Cesar Chavez.

Regarding the deep, unifying power of a shared meal, Chavez offers this beautiful observation:

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with them. The people who give you their food give you their heart.”

Jeff loves the sentiment, though he jokingly wonders if randomly knocking on a stranger’s door and demanding their food is truly the best way to kick off a friendship.Check out the “Lurch with Merch” section on the website to grab a QVAE NOCENT DOCENT t-shirt, beware of dropping your novel in the hot tub, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!

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