Learning Classics is a bit like putting on a magic pair of 3-D glasses. Once you start delving into the language and the culture, you'll start to see it all around you. This blog is a record of the club's journey through the worlds and language of ancient Rome and Greece... and through modern times, too, searching for the influence of classics all around us. You'll also be able to find vocab, home tasks, links and generally enlightening info here, too.

03 December 2016

Lesson 4 - Stars in our eyes

Following the fascination we had last week in all things to do with stars, we had a special session today on celestial bodies and their links to both ancient mythology and modern science and belief.  
First of all, though, we tackled our language work, decoding the endings of Latin nouns to find out whether the noun was a subject (nominative) or an object (accusative). We then had a go at changing Latin words to show who was doing the action in a sentence, and who or what was having the action done to it.
Then onto things starry, and the VERY IMPORTANT distinction between astronomy (the branch of science which deals with celestial objects and space) and astrology (the study of the movements of stars and planets interpreted as having an influence on humans). Both contain the root 'astro-', which is Ancient Greek for 'star', but the class went on to discuss what the difference is between science and belief. Do you believe that all people born under the sign of Taurus are stubborn? Are all Virgos perfectionists? 

 No matter what you believe, there are some amazing myths behind the constellations we can see in the night sky.
If you go to https://www.wwu.edu/skywise/greekmyth.html you can also see an extensive list of the myths of constellations.