Pantes anthropoi tou eidenai oregontai phusei. semeion d' he ton aistheseon agapesis: kai gar choris tes chreias agapontai d' hautas... ("Everyone by nature desires to have knowledge. A sign of this is our love of the senses; aside from their usefulness we love them for themselves..." --Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1) (Illustration: Athens in the nineteenth century, from an old engraving)

WELCOME TO MINERVA SYSTEMS

Welcome to Minerva Systems, an enterprise created by Dr. Cora Angier Sowa. It is a product of the author's longtime search for connections between the aesthetic and the technological. It is also devoted to examining the continuity of influence of Greek and Roman Classical civilization, and to exploring how ancient insights can be applied to today's world. This site presents a selection of writings and photography by the author on some interconnected topics: Classical literature, computers and humanities, railroads and engineering, architecture, music, and movies, and the aesthetic appreciation of the marvels of the built environment.

Dr. Cora Angier Sowa

Athena - the Roman Minerva - was goddess of both intellectual wisdom and technical crafts. Accompanied by her owl, she was also protector of the city of Athens.

FOR MY CLASSICAL READERS! A NEW ITEM! REPORT ON THE AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION'S 1969 SUMMER INSTITUTE IN COMPUTER APPLICATIONS TO CLASSICAL STUDIES Click to read the report: HTML: "Summer Institute 1969" PDF: "Summer Institute 1969 PDF" PDF (Searchable): "Summer Institute 1969 Searchable PDF" The final report to the National Endowment for the Humanities of the APA (now SCS) Summer Institute in Computer Applications to Classical Studies, held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1969, and in which I was a participant, has now been put on this web site. This was a seminal experience in the development of digital methods in the Classics, starting with simply putting as much Greek and Latin literature in digital form as we could (mostly on IBM punched cards! I personally punched the texts of the complete Homeric Hymns and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, all in capital letters and with no accents, because that's all the punched cards could record). The participants in the Summer Institute varied widely in experience and interests, and visiting lecturers were equally varied. Introduction was made to programming languages that were important at the time (FORTRAN, PL/I, SNOBOL), and to statistics, linguistics, and various concepts for deriving information from and about the digitized texts. And yes, we watched the moon landing on July 20, 1969, sitting with the rest of the university community on the floor of the UIUC gymnasium, watching on the big screen as the Eagle landed and Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. The report on the Summer Institute can be read THREE ways, either in .html or in two .pdf formats. The first PDF version is an actual image of the original report. The second is a cleaned-up version that is easier to read, and is also searchable. It was very kindly prepared by John Muccigrosso, Chair and Professor of Classics at Drew University, Madison, NJ. Click on one of the links below: HTML: "Summer Institute 1969" PDF: "Summer Institute 1969 PDF" PDF (Searchable): "Summer Institute 1969 Searchable PDF"

FOR MY RAILFAN READERS! CORA SOWA'S RIGHT-OF-WAY ("Railroad History of Cora Angier Sowa")

While my professional career is in Greek and Latin Classics and in computers (interests that I combine in the field of digital humanities), I am also a lifelong railfan. I grew up in a house above the old Los Angeles Subway tunnel and trainyards, my father was Head Cost Analyst for the Los Angeles Division of the Southern Pacific, and my grandfather and uncle were civil engineers specializing in railway and highway bridges. I now live in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, overlooking the Hudson River and the historic tracks of the former New York Central, now CSX, Metro North and Amtrak. On the series of Web pages called "Cora Sowa's Right-of-Way: Railroad History of Cora Angier Sowa,", I display some of my collection of rail photos, with commentary about them. Pages called "Engineers (Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical) in the Family," add more archival material about various family members' contributions to the history of railroads and engineering.

Click HERE for "Cora Sowa's Right-of-Way." Click HERE to read "Engineers in the Family."

THE RIGHT-OF-WAY The right-of-way, the stretch of land on which the tracks are laid, is the universe of the train. It is an alternative reality, intersecting but distinct from our usual world of streets and roads. You can go on it if you are on a train, or if you work there, or if you, unseen, trespass. Whether it is the narrow branch or spur disappearing mysteriously between buildings or merging into fields and forests, or the long, straight tangent of the main line, it speaks of something magical, just out of sight. It is the stage, on which an awaited drama will be acted out. It is a space warp, a pointer leading to a place of possibility. An invitation.

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The view from my window, with the Lakeshore Limited passing by.

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CLASSICAL QUOTATION OF THE MONTH Preserving the past, inspiring the future

Every month there will be a new classical quotation in this space, appropriate to the season or to current events. Usually the quotations are from ancient Greek or Latin, with occasional forays into other sources, such as mediaeval Latin or ancient Near Eastern literatures. Previous quotations (beginning in September, 2004) are archived in "Archived Quotations of the Month" for each separate year. An index to all quotations for all years is located in the first Archived Quotations page. Translations are my own, except where otherwise noted. Do you have a suggestion for a future Quotation of the Month? If so, send me your suggestions at casowa@aol.com.

Women chatting at the public fountain (Athens, 6th cent. B.C., from a hydria, or water jug) What is today's conversation about?

Quotation for May, 2021 o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Dolphins' Friendship With Other Species: Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysos

Above: Boy playing the flute while riding on a dolphin, detail of red-figure stamnos, 360-340 B.C. from Etruria. Grupo de Alcesti, National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, Spain. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, via Wikimedia.

Top: Dolphins cavorting in the indoor pool and amphitheater at the Shedd Aquarium, Chicago. The Adler Planetarium and Lake Michigan are visible in the background. Photo by C.A. Sowa, Nov. 20, 2017.

A dolphin adopts a young whale

On May 17, 2021, scientists at the Far Out Ocean Research Collective in New Zealand reported seeing a female bottlenose dolphin caring for a pilot whale calf as if it were her own offspring. Earlier in the day, the dolphin was seen hanging out with a mixed group that included bottlenose dolphins, false killer whales, and pilot whales. It is not known what happened to the baby whale's own mother. This is not the first time that a bottlenose dolphin has adopted a calf of another marine mammal species. In another recent sighting, in November, 2020, a mother bottlenose dolphin was seen off the coast of Rangiroa Atoll in French Polynesia caring for a baby melon-headed whale as well as her own calf. There are many stories of dolphins developing a relationship with other sea creatures.

Do dolphins ever care for humans? There is evidence that dolphins' caring relationship with other species even extends to humans.

Dolphins' friendship with humans

Stories of dolphins rescuing people and their special relationship with humans are as old as antiquity, and some modern anecdotal evidence seems to point in this direction. There are several reports of swimmers menaced by sharks who found themselves surrounded by a pod of dolphins who drove off the sharks. Another pod of dolphins guided a rescue boat to the location of a group of scuba divers adrift at sea. Many disabled divers claim to have been transported to safety by dolphins, who acted protectively as they would with a helpless member of their own species. The reasons for this behavior are not well understood, but a number of these incidents are discussed on the web site Dolphins-World.

Dolphins in antiquity: Arion, Apollo, Dionysos, and Cretan bathrooms

Dolphins are everywhere in in Cretan and Greek art and in Greek poetry. Dolphins decorate the bathroom of the Palace of Knossos. Dolphins interact with gods and men in a variety of ways. In Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, the god, having vanquished the she-dragon at Delphi, founds his temple on the slope of Mount Parnassus. Needing to staff his temple, he hijacks a Cretan ship by leaping on it in the form of a dolphin, forcing it to divert its course. He makes the sailors become his priests.

Herodotus, in Book I of his Histories, tells the story of Arion, lyric singer and poet bound for Corinth after winning a musical competition in Sicily, who was captured by pirates who wanted to steal his rich prize money. Given a choice of being killed or committing suicide by leaping into the sea, he requested permission to sing one last song. After doing so, he jumped overboard, where he was rescued by a dolphin, who carried him to land at Taenarum, at the far southern end of the Greek peninsula. He made his way to Corinth, where the pirates were going around claiming that he was still in Italy. A bronze figure of a man seated on a dolphin, now lost, was erected at a shrine in Taenarum.

Aelian (Claudius Aelianus, ca. 175-ca. 235 A.D.), a Roman teacher of rhetoric at the time of Septimius Severus, includes in his On the Nature of Animals (in Greek) a sadly sentimental tale of a dolphin who falls in love with a beautiful boy (Book 6.15). The two play together, and the dolphin lets the boy ride on his back. One day, exhausted after a vigorous day at the gymnasium, the boy flings himself on the dolphin's back, crashes into the sharp end of the animal's dorsal fin, and bleeds to death. The distraught dolphin carries the boy ashore and beaches itself, dying with his beloved. The two are buried in a common tomb, with a monument depicting a boy riding on a dolphin. In fact, dolphins (and whales) sometimes do die upon the beach, perhaps coming too close to shore and being stranded when the tide changes. Mass strandings occur, other dolphins perhaps trying to save an injured pack member, or simply following their leader. Could such occurrences have supplied the kernel of this sentimental story?

Oppian, a Greco-Roman poet writing in the 2nd century A.D., at the time of Marcus Aurelius, in his Halieutica ("On Fishing"), said that dolphins are beloved by Poseidon (Book 1.385) because they helped him find a wife, and in Book 5.415 he declared that "the hunting of Dolphins is immoral" and that "the gods abhor" the killing of dolphins "equally with human slaughter."

Sometimes men become dolphins. The pirates themselves become dolphins in the poem from which we take our Quotation of the Month, Homeric Hymn 7 to Dionysos.

The Homeric Hymn VII to Dionysos

In the Hymn to Dionysos, the god of wine and ecstasy appears as a handsome young man with wavy dark hair, wearing a purple robe, standing on a cliff overlooking the beach. Pirates seize him and drag him onto their ship, where they try to shackle him, hoping to steal not only his wealth but that of his obviously wealthy family. But the bonds fall from him, and he simply sits there smiling. Only the helmsman thinks this is a bad idea, and that the young man is probably some god, who should be released, lest he cause a storm and shipwreck. But the captain refuses, and gives the order to set up the mast and hoist the sail. At first the phenomena are benign. Wine flows across the deck, and vines bearing clusters of grapes grow up the mast and over the sail. Fruit-bearing vines and flowers cover the ship. At last the sailors request the helmsman put into port. But it is too late, and things get serious. A menacing bear and lion appear, and the lion attacks the captain. The sailors, in a state of shock, leap overboard, and are turned into dolphins. But Dionysos spares the prudent helmsman, and holds him back from jumping overboard. The Hymn ends with a common ending of a Homeric Hymn, a short invocation of the god (not included in the selection below).

Dionysos causes grape vines to grow on the ship's mast, and the pirates, who jumped overboard, are changed to dolphins. Cup by Exekias, ca. 540 B.C., Munich Staatlich Antikensammlung. Photo by R. Schoder, S.J., used in my Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns 1984, Chapter 9 "Epiphany of a God."

Quotation of the Month, from the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos

For our Classical Quotation of the Month, we bring you, in Greek and English, the final revelation of Dionysos to the pirates, with its scary manifestations. The text is from the Oxford Classical Text of 1912, corrected edition 1961.

Homeric Hymn VII to Dionysos, vv. 32-57

A smiling Dionysos spooks the pirates Speaking thus, [the captain] had the ship's mast and sail raised, the wind filled the center of the sail, and the crew tightened the sheets on either side. But soon amazing things appeared. First, wine gushed out all over the swift black ship, sweet to drink and fragrant, and an amborsial scent arose. Amazement seized the sailors as they saw it. At once a vine spread out along the top of the sail this way and that, with many grape clusters hanging down. A dark ivy plant wound itself around the mast, blossoming with flowers, and rich fruit sprang from it, and all the thole-pins wore garlands. Seeing this, the sailors called out to the helmsman to put in to land. But the god changed into a terrible lion there on the ship, upon the bow, and roared loudly. Amidships he created a shaggy-necked bear, in a demonstration of his wonders. It stood up, eager to pursue, while upon the highest deck the lion glared fiercely. The sailors fled in terror to the stern and stood around the level-headed helmsman in a state of shock. Suddenly the lion leaped up and seized the captain, and the men, when they saw this, escaped an evil fate by leaping together into the bright sea, where they became dolphins. But the god, having mercy on the helmsman, held him back, and made him altogether happy, saying to him: "Take courage, my good man, you have found favor in my heart. I am loud-shouting Dionysos, whom Cadmus' daughter Semele bore, uniting in love with Zeus."

Wooden panel representing a sea spirit cradling a dolphin in her arms, accompanied by two sister spirits while other dolphins cavort around. Wood carving by Christine Cooper Angier, my mother, 1930's.

Archived Quotations Earlier quotations, appropriate to the seasons or to current situations as indicated, are available in the pages of "Archived Quotations." The index of all archived quotations, formerly in this space, having grown very large, has now been moved to the head of the main Quotations page. The quotations themselves now occupy separate pages for each year, but all can be accessed from the index on the main Quotations page.

MINERVA participation in the Chicago Colloquia on Digital Humanities

The Chicago River, from the Michigan Avenue Bridge, January, 2008. (Photo by C.A. Sowa.)

CHICAGO COLLOQUIA ON DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

Since their inception in the fall of 2006, I have been attending the Chicago Colloquia on Digital Humanities and Computer Science (DHCS), held at a rotating group of universities around Chicago. These Colloquia now draw participants from all over the world, who present projects covering many fields, including such interests as visual arts, archaeological reconstruction, musical composition, literary criticism, social trends, popular culture, history, and many fields yet to be discovered. Of the projects I have submitted under the name of Minerva Systems, a couple have been presented as poster exhibits. Others I have informally circulated among the participants. But whether one is presenting a paper or simply taking part in discussions, the Colloquia offer an opportunity to exchange a wealth of ideas. Workshops and smaller discussion groups, too, are well worth while.

For information about the Colloquia, visit the DHCS Web site at "http://chicagocolloquium.org". Information about all previous Colloquia (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) can also be accessed from there.

Previous DHCS Colloquia and MINERVA offerings: Click on the buttons on the right to read the MINERVA presentations. 2006 The theme of the first Colloquium (2006)was "What to do with a Million books," posing the problem that, now that all the world's libraries have been put in digital form, what do we do with them? MINERVA Systems presented a demonstration showing the capabilities of MINERVA as a set of tools for carrying out a project to study a work of literature, using digital methods. The first Colloqium was held at the University of Chicago at its Hyde Park Campus. 2007 The emphasis of the second Colloquium (2007) was on using digital materials in a collaborative environment, and on discerning what studies are better undertaken by using digitized versions of materials such as images and text than by using the original non-digitized sources. The MINERVA demonstration for 2007 highlighted new additions to the Systems Analysis Tutorial/Project Planner, which aid the user in steps to planning and carrying out a project in an organized way. These techniques are adapted from the commercial and scientific fields, where teams of persons who may be working in distant locations must coordinate their efforts. The second Colloqium was held at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. 2008 The theme of the third Colloquium (2008) was "'Making Sense'- an exploration of how meaning is created and apprehended at the transition of the digital and the analog." "Sense-making" is a field concerned with finding meaning in vaguely defined material. As usual, this third Colloquium brought together a terrific group of diverse scholars and students working in different areas of computer applications. These included not only literary and sociological studies, but such inventive applications as a study of different musical genres (country, gospel, blues, hip hop, heavy metal, etc.) to see which body parts (head, heart, hand, etc.) are mentioned most often, and three-dimensional recreations of archaeological and historic sites, including a study of pedestrian traffic patterns in an ancient Turkish town destroyed by Cyrus the Great. Minerva Systems submitted a paper to the third Colloquium, "A Bridge Across the Culture Gap: Build Your Own Project Using the Minerva System for Study of Literary Texts", which was given as a handout to all who were interested. Additions to the MINERVA System emphasized the need to serve "the great unserved middle," between the Luddites and the Rocket Scientists, of scholars and students, who would like to be introduced to elements of logical analysis and computerized methods. The third Colloqium was held at the University of Chicago. 2009 The theme of the fourth Colloquium (2009) was "Critical Computing", seeking to explore how productive research collaborations between computer scientists and humanists can be most effective. How might computation provide new critical tools for humanists? How might humanists help us understand the real meaning and import of computational results? The fourth Colloquium was held at the Illinois Institute of Technology. 2010 The theme of the fifth Colloquium (2010) was "Working with Digital Data: Collaborate, Curate, Analyze, Annotate." Emphasized in particular were papers or poster sessions about annotation, scholarly crowdsourcing, and challenges of human/computer interaction. How to create better texts from OCR may be a problem in which new forms of human/computer interaction hold particular promise. Minerva Systems circulated a paper titled "BUILD-A-BEAR" RESEARCH PLANNING: CLARIFICATION OF DEFINITIONS AS THE KEY TO CHOOSING OR WRITING PROGRAMS, a discussion of analytical methods designed to help the scholar/user analyze his or her own research problems sufficiently to choose or design an appropriate computer solution. The fifth Colloquium was held at Northwestern University. 2011 The sixth Colloqium (2011) was held at Loyola University at its Water Tower Campus. Minerva Systems was again in attendance. 2012 The seventh DHCS Colloquium was held at the University of Chicago at its Hyde Park campus. Minerva attended. 2013 The eighth Colloquium, attended by Minerva, was held at De Paul University, near Lincoln Park.

Read the MINERVA demos and handouts from the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010 Colloquia. Click on the buttons below to see the complete MINERVA handouts.

The Reliance Building, at State and Washington Streets in Chicago, January, 2008. (Photo by C.A. Sowa.) The Reliance Building, like the MINERVA System, was built on principles of modularity and extensibility.

The Reliance Building, an incredible little jewel in the middle of Chicago's Loop, was not all built at once. When the developer acquired the site in 1882, it was occupied by a five-story building. The leases on the lower two floors expired in 1890, those on the top three in 1894. So, as the first leases expired, the architects Daniel H. Burnham and John Wellborn Root demolished the first two floors, and, jacking up the top three storeys, replaced the demolished floors with the first two floors of the new building. When the remaining leases expired, the top floors of the old building were demolished, and replaced with new floors, designed by Charles Atwood, Root having died. The number of floors eventually grew to fifteen, made of identical structural modules and clad in graceful terracotta, giving the building the perfect proportions that it has today, somewhat overwhelmed, unfortunately, by the gigantism of the surrounding modern buildings.

Today, the Reliance Building, after years of neglect (shabby but still showing her noble "bones"), has been reborn as a boutique hotel, called the Burnham, with an excellent restaurant, the Atwood, on its ground floor, the names being chosen as an homage to its architects.

THE MINERVA SYSTEM FOR STUDY OF LITERARY TEXTS, INTRODUCED A IN SELF-STUDY CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar

The Loom of Minerva is a self-study CD that introduces the Minerva System for Study of Literary Texts, which is a set of tools, some automated and some semi-automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. The Loom of Minerva contains both text chapters and a set of programs. The first chapter, "A Guide to the Labyrinth" (now much revised), can be read on this Web site, and images of two (earlier) demonstrations of the system from 2006 and 2007 can also be seen. More revisions are to come, including an on-line version. Illustrations: Statue of Minerva, Helsinki, Finland (photo by J.F. Sowa); "Palace of Minos," Knossos, Crete, the building that was perhaps the original Labyrinth (photo by C.A. Sowa).

Read about it!

My thanks to all those who have reviewed and used my self-study CD course on using computers and quantitative methods in the study of literature, The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, and my thanks to those who continue to give me comments.

You can read Chapter 1, "A Guide to the Labyrinth: The Problem and Its Solution" on this Web site. (Note: this chapter now describes a greater variety of ways to structure a project, e.g., top-down, bottom-up, etc. It will continue to be revised.) You can also see images from two demonstrations of the MINERVA System, from 2006 (emphasizing individual applications programs), given at the First Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the University of Chicago and 2007 (emphasizing new project planning programs) given at the Second Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities at the Northwestern University.

The MINERVA System

The MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts is a set of tools, some automated, some not automated, for planning and carrying out a project in literary study. Methods of Systems Analysis, borrowed from the scientific and commercial world, are adapted to the study of literature. This methodology emphasizes the use of diagramming techniques and modular design, offering a way to construct a project as a set of units or modules that can be worked on separately and moved around without disturbing the whole. A project is defined as an enterprise that has a goal and an organized way of achieving that goal.

The Loom of Minerva combines the methods of Systems Analysis with the insights of traditional belles-lettres literary criticism. All analysis takes as its point of departure the value of the piece of literature itself to the critic and the reader, as well as the historic, social, or aesthetic qualities attached to it. These alone confer significance on any work of scholarship. Examples grow directly from study of various works of literature, from Vergil to Coleridge to Baudelaire to Victor Hugo to Edna St. Vincent Millay and Gertrude Stein, and works of criticism from Sainte-Beuve to Swinburne to Gertrude Stein (criticizing her own work).

Emphasis is placed on analyzing the language of criticism itself, analyzing exactly what we mean by such terms as "beautiful," "ugly," "pompous," "like a spring garden," etc. By defining our terms with an exactness that can be quantified, we learn to give precision to our thoughts, whether using a computer or not.

What is in The Loom of Minerva

The CD contains both a set of narrative chapters and a set of programs, called the MINERVA System for Study of Literary Texts. The narrative chapters explain and amplify the programs, and the programs illustrate the chapters. The programs are provided in both executable form and source code, to satisfy both non-programmer scholars and programmers who want to play with the code.

• The programs.

  The programs are in two groups, The Tutorial in Systems Analysis and the MINERVA Program Suite. The Tutorial in Systems Analysis takes the student through the steps to plan and design a project, beginning with the Selection of a Topic, going through the activities of drawing hierarchical and flow charts, and continuing to the final Evaluation of Results. The screens are interactive, so that the student can practice designing his or her own project.

  The MINERVA Program Suite is an interactive suite of programs designed for use by scholars and critics of literature. These programs, which can be used with texts of English, Classical, or other literatures, currently contains sixteen programs: eight to perform different types of literary analysis, and eight "OwlData" programs that the scholar can use to create or adapt data for the analytical programs. Currently available are programs to make concordances, search for words and cooccurring words, do statistical studies, perform cluster analysis, and compose original paragraphs. Developed in modular fashion, MINERVA is intended to be expandable, so that in the future more modules can be added to do more things. The latest to be developed is a program to perform cluster analysis based on the program described in Sowa and Sowa "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry."

• The narrative chapters

  The narrative chapters can be read like a book, or they can be entered directly from the programs by clicking on links on the screens.

  The first four text chapters of The Loom of Minerva introduce the MINERVA System. They demonstrate the steps for planning and developing a project, and provide many literary examples for using the programs. Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva analyze projects past and present, that have used computers and other mechanical devices in the study of literature (including the Eureka Machine for composing Latin hexameters). Also described are works of literature that were inspired by machines, like the short story "Moxon's Master" by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), in which a chess-playing robot murders its inventor. Four final chapters of the book are for techies only: a programming manual of Visual Basic, using literary examples, for those gung-ho readers who want to understand the arcana behind the MINERVA programs included with the book.

MINERVA stands for Model INteractive Engine for Recognizing Verbal Artifice.

Advantages of the MINERVA System

The MINERVA programs do not require the use of data that is in a proprietary format. They use plain ASCII text, such as that downloaded from the Internet. The OwlData programs can be used to put downloaded or scanned text in the correct format for the MINERVA programs. The mathematics and statistics used are fairly elementary, such as can be understood as an introduction to basic concepts of what the computer and quantified methods can do. The programs are open-source, as they are intended to be extensible.

For more information:

If you are interested in finding out more about the Loom of Minerva or the MINERVA System, contact me at casowa@aol.com.

Historical chapters of The Loom of Minerva describe projects using the computer in the study of literature, including the author's Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (see below). One of the thematic elements analyzed is "Maidens Dancing and Picking Flowers." Illustration: the Untermyer Fountain, Central Park, New York City, sculpture by Walter Schott, ca. 1910 (photo by C.A. Sowa).

A VICTORIAN COMPUTER LIVES AGAIN! WATCH A REPLICA OF CHARLES BABBAGE'S ENGINE IN ACTION

Reconstruction of one of Babbage's engines at the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California. Click on the picture to watch it in action. (Photo by J.F. Sowa).

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical Engine

Charles Babbage, prolific Victorian inventor, is most famous for two of his inventions, the Difference Engine (1812) and the Analytical Engine (1833), which are perhaps the truest forerunners of the modern computer. The Difference Engine, a mechanical device of rotating gears, was designed to automatically generate mathemetical tables. It was called the Difference Engine because it was based on the principle of computing the differences between successive values of an expression, then the difference between the differences. Versions of the Difference Engine were eventually built and used, but Babbage himself dropped work on it to pursue his real dream, the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine was, or would have been, the first "real" computer, capable of performing any kind of mathematical operation, and able to be "programmed," that is, to perform a sequence of operations without human intervention, and to choose, when necessary, between alternative paths of action. It was to be powered by steam, and programs were to be entered into the machine by means of punched cards, an idea borrowed from the then-new Jacquard power looms. Babbage, sad to say, was never able to complete the Analytical Engine.

Ada, Lady Lovelace, "the world's first programmer"

Babbage's collaborator on his Engines was one of history's most remarkable women, Ada, Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron. These lines from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage are thought to be addressed to her:

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child, Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled And then we parted,--not as now we part, But with a hope...

A gifted mathematician in her own right, Ada worked with Babbage until her untimely death in 1852 at the age of 36. In 1842, the Italian engineer Luigi F. Menabrea published a description, in French, of Babbage's Analytical Engine. Lady Lovelace translated Menabrea's article into English, expanding it with commentary so extensive that her "Notes upon the Memoir" are virtually an original work. She provides detailed directions for using the machine to calculate answers to mathematical problems, leading modern writers to call her "the world's first programmer." Her words relate computing to other artistic endeavors:

We may say most aptly that [Babbage's] Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.

A Babbage Engine in London and California

In 1985, the Science Museum in London set out to build a working Difference Engine No. 2, based on Babbage's original designs. It was completed in 2002, and is on public display at the Science Museum. An identical Engine, completed in 2008, is presently on loan to the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, where it is on display until May, 2009. Read more about this recreated machine at the Computer History Museum Web site.

Click here or on the picture below to watch the Babbage engine in action, in a video taken by John F. Sowa.

Reconstruction of one of Babbage's engines, detail view. Click on the picture to watch it in action. (Photo by J.F. Sowa).

Read about the 1845 Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verse

Another Victorian machine which could be called an early special-purpose computer was the Eureka machine designed by John Clark in 1845 for automatically composing Latin hexameter poetry. It still survives, in a museum in Somerset, England. Click here to read about it.

TRADITIONAL THEMES AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS IS AGAIN IN PRINT. SELECTIONS AVAILABLE FOR FREE READING ON THIS SITE

One of the mythic themes analyzed in Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns is the Epiphany of a God. Illustration: Dionysos in a boat with grape vines and dolphins, cup by Exekias, about 540 B.C., Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlung, from a photo by R. Schoder, S.J. It is reproduced in Chapter 9, "Epiphany of a God and Institution of Rites."

Book: Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns

Cora Angier Sowa is the author of Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns published by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Mundelein, IL (1984).

The book, out of print for a while, is again available by "on-demand" production. Contact the publisher for information.

New selections are available on this Web site for free reading. You can read Chapters 1 ("Introduction") and 10 ("Conclusion: the Place of the Hymns in the Ancient Greek Oral Tradition"), Appendix I ("Outlines of Themes Identified in the Hymns"). You can also see diagrams of the themes as they appear in the Hymns.

Article: "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry"

An article, by Cora Angier Sowa and John Sowa, describes in detail the quantitative and mathematical methods used on the computer to identify thematic elements in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns. Material from this study was later integrated into into the more comprehensive Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Click on "Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry". A version of the CLUMP cluster analysis program used to identify thematic repetitions is now also being integrated into the MINERVA suite of programs in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva.

"Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony"

Reissued here is my article Verbal Patterns in Hesiod's Theogony, which explores the use of verbal repetition in Hesiod's tale of the origins of the gods.

The Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verses (1845)

We think of computers as being very modern, although calculating machines and computer-like devices have been around for a long time. In particular, we think of using such a machine to do such non-scientific tasks as composing poetry as a modern concept. But in 1845, John Clark built the Eureka Machine for Composing Hexameter Latin Verse. It still exists in a museum in England. Read about the Eureka Machine and read the original description of it from the Illustrated London News of July, 1845.

There is more about early computers and their mechanical ancestors in the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva: An Introduction to Computer Projects for the Literary Scholar, described above.

Ships named Minerva

Classically named ships have a long tradition. Illustration: "The PHOENIX and the ROSE, engaged by the ENEMY'S FIRE SHIPS & GALLEYS, on the 16th Augt 1776. Engraved from the Original Picture by D. Serres, from a Sketch of Sir James Wallace's." Lithograph by G. Hayward for D.T. Valentine's Manual 1776.

"Minerva" has long been a popular name for ships. There are cruise ships named "Minerva," including Greek vessels whose owners chose that name as a synonym for their own city patroness Athena. Warships named "Minerva" have graced the navies of Europe from the time of Nelson and Napoleon to the present, whether British "Minerva" or French "Minerve."

It is an interesting choice, considering that Athena, with her gift of the olive, defeated Poseidon, lord of the sea, with his gift of the horse, in the contest to be patron deity of Athens. (See the depiction of Athena and Poseidon below.)

The name "Minerva" for a British warship belongs in the splendid tradition of naming vessels after names from Classical history and mythology. Along with names like "Invincible," "Audacious," "Irresistible," "Insolent," "Victory," and "Dreadnought," we find "Gorgon," "Phoenix," "Achilles," "Apollo," "Dryad," "Endymion," "Hector," "Helicon," "Medusa," "Meleager," and, famously, "Arethusa." The most famous ship named for the Sicilian nymph Arethusa was known for her victory over the French "Belle Poulle" in 1778. Training ships for over a century inherited the name, one after the other.

A frigate "Minerva" participated in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent against the navy of Napoleon on February 14, 1797. The marine painter Thomas Buttersworth (the elder) painted a portrait of "Minerva" in 1810, and the "Minerva" Pub in Hull, England (built in 1831) uses the frigate's symbol, the owl, on its sign. Of course, some ships have been named "Athena" and "Poseidon," too; there was a movie about such a ship called The Poseidon Adventure.

There is a further connection between ships and this Minerva Systems site. In the self-study CD The Loom of Minerva (described above), an analysis of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is used as a case study to demonstrate methods of Systems Analysis and computer techniques.

A feminist note on the gender of ships: Because of the living qualities of ships, I like to refer to a ship as "she" rather than "it." While some may compare a vessel to a woman because of the supposedly capricious nature of both (although there seems nothing wrong with an occasional playful moment), I think that this view overlooks other qualities. Ships, like women, are beautiful, swift, intelligent, and powerful. I am glad to acclaim them as my sisters!

"Attack on Sidon by Commodore Charles Napier." The battle took place in September, 1840. Sir Charles Napier was a lineal descendant of John Napier, inventor of Napierian logarithms, whose mathematical insights led to the invention of the slide rule, itself an ancestor of the modern computer. The ships in the picture are identified along the bottom as H.M.S. "Gorgon" (flag), H.M.S. "Thunderer" (84 guns), Turkish Corvette (20 g.), Austrian frigate "Guerriera," H.M. Brig "Wasp" (16 g.), H.M.S.S. "Stromboli."

Signed vase painting by the Athenian potter/painter Amasis (6th cent. B.C.), depicting Athena and Poseidon. The two figures are labeled ATHENAIA and POSEIDON. The inscription down the middle reads AMASIS MEPOIESEN ("Amasis made me"). Amasis may well have been African. (Illustration from a lithograph by Kaeppelin et Cie., ca. 1840. The actual vase is in the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.)

Myths of landmarks: Pennsylvania Station and Times Square as centers of the universe, the World Trade Center as a Mythic Place

The World Trade Center was a sacred place long before it was blown up by terrorists. Lower Manhattan was the sacred land of the Lenape Indians, who made their community and buried their dead there. The modern World Trade Center, with its iconic double-towered shape (a nation's gateway, a cosmic tuning-fork?) was a symbol to the world of universal aspirations and longings. As a center of communications (with its towering antenna) and of transportation (as a hub of rail transportation) it had the mana or spiritual power of the crossroads, the traditional meeting place watched over by the gods of trade. The WTC is not sacred just because it, along with its inhabitants, was destroyed; it was destroyed because it was sacred. Today, Mercury returns, as the god of communication and of commerce, along with the spirits of all who have lived and died there.

Essays and reviews on building and architecture

Among the selections on this site is the previously published "Holy Places", a study of myths of landmarks. In addition, there is an epilogue to that essay, on "The World Trade Center as a Mythic Place". This piece continues the author's interest in relating ancient ideas to things that we care about in the modern world.

You can also read two of the author's previously published book reviews on architecture, on Alison Sky and Michelle Stone's Unbuilt America and Albert Mehrabian's Public Places and Private Spaces.

About the Author

The author is an aficionado of many kinds of transportation, including railroads, ships, and airplanes. Here I am "at the wheel" of the ferryboat Eureka (rebuilt in 1923 from the 1890 freight-car ferry Ukiah) at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

Cora Angier Sowa has combined humanities and technology for many years. She has a BA in Latin and an MA in Classics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University. She spent a year studying archaeology at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She taught Greek and Roman literature and history at Mt. Holyoke, Vassar, and Brooklyn Colleges. For a number of years, she was a programmer/analyst at Chemical (now Chase) Bank in New York. She has taught classes in computers and humanities at the College of Staten Island and at St. John's University in Queens, New York. She served twice on the Committee on Computer Activities of the American Philological Association, once as chairperson of the committee. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (for study in Greece) and of a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies (for work on computers and ancient Greek literature).

In addition to the book Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (described above), Dr. Sowa has published articles and reviews on Classics and on the mythology of architecture and motion pictures. A harp player, she is also on the board of trustees of the International Percy Grainger Society , an organization dedicated to preserving the home and archives in White Plains, New York of Percy Grainger -- composer, piano virtuoso, collector of folk songs, and inventor of an early mechanical music synthesizer. Dr. Sowa is Webmaster for the Grainger web site.

A lifelong railfan, Dr. Sowa is a member of the New York Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and is on its Board of Directors. She is National Representative for the New York Chapter and is on the Advisory Council of the national organization. She is also a member of the New York Railroad Enthusiasts.

Dr. Sowa lives in Croton-on-Hudson NY, and in New York City, with her husband, Dr. John F. Sowa, an expert in Artificial Intelligence and computer design, and several cats.

The author plays the harp for an appreciative audience (handsome cat-about-town Feliz Sowa).

All selections on this site, unless otherwise identified, are copyright by Cora Angier Sowa.

   Send e-mail to Cora Angier Sowa.

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